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Scott Peterson Defends Calls to His Mistress While Pregnant Wife Was Missing: She "Was a Time Bomb”
In the new Peacock series Face to Face with Scott Peterson, he also denied the allegations that he was trying to flee to Mexico when he was arrested for his wife’s murder.
In a case that was closely watched by media and most of America more than two decades ago, Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn child, Conner. He fell under harsh scrutiny after his mistress, Amber Frey, came forward to reveal more about their affair while Laci and Conner were missing. And after the bodies of his wife and son were found washed up in the San Francisco Bay in April 2003, the suspicion of him only heightened when he was arrested with dyed hair and $10,000 in cash, with many under the belief he was attempting to flee to Mexico to evade arrest.
Now, Scott Peterson is giving his first on-camera comments in more than 20 years in Peacock’s Face to Face With Scott Peterson and explaining his side of the story. Here's what he had to say from behind bars about his behavior during the murder investigation.
What did Scott Peterson tell his ex-girlfriend Amber Frey?
On December 30, 2002, six days after Laci Peterson disappeared while eight months pregnant with her son, Conner, Amber Frey called police to disclose she was having an affair with Laci’s husband, Scott. Scott was unaware she was contacting police, so detectives asked her to keep it from him and continue to take his calls. They also got her a tape recorder in order to record their communication.
“You know, I tell you how special you are, and very unique and everything,” Scott said in a call on Dec. 30, 2002, as heard on Face to Face with Scott Peterson. “And you know how much I mean that, right? And you need to know how true that is, how wonderful you are.”
With his heavily pregnant wife missing, Scott added, “I’ve got my picture of you here … I think about you, and I can feel you in my arms, and feel your lips.”
Police revealed in Face to Face with Scott Peterson they recorded more than 29 hours of phone calls between Frey and Scott.
What the calls showed was that Scott frequently lied to Frey about his whereabouts, including where he was for the New Year’s holiday.
“Amber? It’s 2 o’clock here, a.m.,” Scott said on a recorded call. “Hey, I’ll be in Paris tomorrow. I’m outside of Normandy right now.”
But actually, he was in the midst of the investigation into his missing wife in California.
Frey also shared an important detail to police when she first disclosed their affair.
“Scott had told her in December, the same day that he bought the boat, that he had actually lost his wife, and this was going to be his first Christmas without her,” said Jon Buehler, a former detective with the Modesto police department, on Face to Face with Scott Peterson.
Police asked Frey to press Scott on this detail in their recorded conversations. Scott admitted that he had said he “lost his wife.”
“How did you lose her then, before she was lost? Explain that,” Frey said to Scott, and he replied, “There are different kinds of lost, Amber.”
Scott added, “So, you think I had something to do with [Laci’s] disappearance? I am not evil like that.”
What does Scott Peterson say about his ex-girlfriend Amber Frey today?
Twenty years later, Scott said from prison that he regrets cheating on his wife. He also answered why he continued to talk to Frey after Laci went missing.
“I was searching for my family,” he said in a jailhouse interview on Face to Face With Scott Peterson. “I wanted the search to continue. Stay in contact with Amber, I thought, and she wouldn’t get into the picture, and complicate and ruin the search.”
But when Frey went to police, Scott's fears came true, he claimed.
“The search for Laci is gonna stop as soon as the police officers or public know that I was having sex with another woman,” he said in prison. “The knowledge of her was a time bomb.”
Was Scott Peterson trying to flee to Mexico to avoid arrest for his wife's murder?
A popular theory amongst police and the public was that Scott Peterson was trying to flee the country when he was arrested for murder — adding to the perception of his guilt. Scott denied that was his intent.
“I don’t understand that at all. I just want to be clear: I was never running from police,” Scott said from prison in Face to Face with Scott Peterson.
In April 2003, after the bodies of Laci and Conner Peterson washed ashore, changing the case from missing persons to murder, police started to keep closer watch on Scott Peterson. They arrested him outside of Torrey Pines Golf Course on April 19, 2003, where he alleged he was meeting his family to play a round.
“When Scott got out of the car, he was Scott,” Buehler said on Face to Face with Scott Peterson. “There was no protest — ‘You got the wrong guy. Why am I in cuffs? What are you guys doing? Why aren’t you looking for the killer?’ He’d dyed his hair to a different color. Grown a goatee. Which disguised him slightly, so, maybe he wouldn’t be noticed.”
Scott’s car was searched after the arrest.
“He had cell phones. He had Viagra,” Al Brocchini, former Modesto police department detective, said on Face to Face with Scott Peterson. “He had everything you need from going to a gala to a camping trip.”
Police suspected Scott Peterson was preparing to flee the country.
"Most people don’t drive around with $10,000 cash and their brother’s driver’s license,” Brocchini said. “He could easily go anywhere he wanted and fit in.”
But Scott defended his decision to change his appearance.
“The reason I dyed my hair was because of the harassment and death threats I was getting,” he claimed from prison.
He also had an explanation for why he had his brother’s driver’s license.
"I got my brother’s driver’s license to get a discount,” Scott alleged during his interview in prison. “Yeah, I was fraudulently getting a discount to play golf. It’s quite expensive for someone out of county. Much cheaper for someone who lives in the county. I guess I was going to scam the golf course a little bit.”
Watch more of Scott Peterson’s new interviews in the three-part series Face to Face with Scott Peterson, streaming now on Peacock. The series will also air on Oxygen on Monday, November 25 at 8/7c.
