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"We Will Have Our Boy": Scott Peterson's Most Chilling Statements and Lies Over the Years
Scott Peterson continues to protest his innocence in pregnant wife Laci Peterson's disappearance and murder, even as he was caught in lies about his mistress.
In January 2003, Scott Peterson’s wife, Laci, was missing, after disappearing on Christmas Eve. She was more than eight months pregnant with their son, Conner — and Scott Peterson admitted to having an affair on national television. So, when ABC’s Diane Sawyer asked him to describe the state of his marriage, his answer was shocking.
“The first word that comes to mind is ‘glorious,’” Scott Peterson said in the interview with ABC. “I mean, we took care of each other very well. She was amazing — is amazing.”
Scott Peterson is now set to give his first on-camera comments in more than 20 years in a new Peacock docuseries, Face to Face with Scott Peterson. But what did he originally say all those years ago? Take a look back at what he said to the media after his wife’s disappearance, leading up to his conviction for Laci’s murder in 2004.
Scott Peterson claimed his innocence after his pregnant wife went missing on Christmas Eve
After Laci Peterson vanished, Scott Peterson denied his involvement from the beginning.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance,” he said during his January 2003 interview with ABC. “You used the word ‘murder’ and yeah, that is a possibility. It’s not one we’re ready to accept. And it creeps in my mind late at night and early in the morning. And during the day all we can think about is the right resolutions to find her.”
He added that he was not afraid of being arrested by the police.
“I know there is no basis and I had nothing to do with her disappearance,” he said on ABC. “So, there’s no possible evidence for anything like that.”
In January 2003, in the weeks after his wife was missing, Scott also spoke to CBS News Sacramento reporter Gloria Gomez.
“It’s been absolutely terrible, as it is for everyone … we go through a range of emotions from anger to frustration. Grief. For me, it comes at different times during the day,” he said in the CBS 13 interview.
Scott described to Gomez how he developed a routine of opening the communications center set up for Laci’s disappearance and working with the volunteers.
“Laci is hurting worse than any of us,” he said on CBS 13. “She’s the one that’s not with our family. She’s the one that we need to find and bring home.”
In an interview filmed on Dec. 26, 2002 at the Modesto Police Station, Scott was asked if Laci was a happy pregnant woman.
“We spent hours preparing for the child, the nursery, everything,” he said. “And we will have our boy.”
He told ABC that he was unable to go into his son’s nursery while he and Laci were missing.
“Can’t go in there,” Scott said. “That door is closed until there’s someone to put in there. But it’s ready.”
Scott also described his final day with his wife on ABC, saying they’d prepared for Christmas and he’d gotten her a Louis Vuitton wallet as a gift. But he was pressured to explain why he decided to leave his pregnant wife to go fishing on a holiday.
“Her plan for the day was to prepare gingerbread cookies,” he said on ABC. “My day was open to play golf or to go fishing, and I chose fishing that day, which was a choice I made, and I obviously regret now. I could just decide to stay home, and this wouldn’t have happened.”
He explained the choice as normal for their marriage.
“It’s not uncommon for us to, simply — we have separate pursuits,” Scott said to CBS News Sacramento. “She does not play golf as I do, which was my other option for that day. And being seven and a half months pregnant, she’s not going to want to go out in a boat. But it’s simply a leisure activity to pursue that day … it may not be everyone’s choice to do things like that but it’s the way our relationship works."
Scott Peterson caught up in lies while speaking to the media about Laci's disappearance
Scott Peterson’s admitted affair with a woman named Amber Frey was a bombshell when it became public. Frey claimed Scott never told her he was married — an allegation Scott admitted was true. He explained to ABC News in January 2003 how Frey found out about Laci.
“When Laci disappeared, I called her, and admittedly it wasn’t immediately,” Scott said. “It was a couple days after Laci’s disappearance. I telephoned her and told her the truth. That I was married, that Laci had disappeared. She didn’t know about it at that point. And then she contacted the police.”
But Amber Frey said that was a lie, and alleged she found out about it when a friend showed her a news article about Laci’s disappearance. Scott was also pressed by ABC News on when he told police about his affair.
“I told police immediately,” he said. “That was the first night we were together that I spent with police … from December 24 on.”
This was also a lie. Scott called ABC News after his interview with Diane Sawyer and admitted he never personally told police about the affair, but claimed he did tell Laci.
“I told my wife,” he said. “In early December … it was not a positive, obviously. Inappropriate. But it was not something we weren’t dealing with.”
Scott also insisted his wife, in her third trimester of pregnancy, wasn’t very angry about the affair, and there wasn’t a lot of arguing in their marriage.
“I can’t say that even she was OK with the idea, but it wasn’t anything that would break us apart,” Scott said to ABC News.
Gloria Gomez from CBS News Sacramento also pressed Scott on discrepancies Frey had brought to light and told him that Frey said he’d called her on Dec. 24, 2002, the day his wife vanished, and said he was with his parents in Maine and then he was going to Brussels.
“Gloria, I’m not going to waste what little media time we have … by defending myself talking about irrelevant things,” Scott responded. “I want people looking for Laci. Because they’re not doing that right now.”
Scott was defiant about the public perception of him.
“She’s out there missing, and she needs to be home with her families,” he said to CBS13. “I don’t care to defend myself. I don’t care what people think of me.”
Watch the three-part docuseries Face to Face with Scott Peterson when it drops on Peacock on August 20. The series will also air on Oxygen on Monday, November 25 at 8/7c.
