The docuseries American Murder: Laci Peterson is streaming now on Netflix, but where is Scott Lee Peterson now?
The three-episode season explores the real-life, high-profile case of the murder of Peterson, who had gone missing from her home in Modesto, California on Christmas Eve in 2002 while eight months pregnant with her first child.
Peterson’s remains were later found, alongside those of her unborn son, on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Her husband Scott, who had reported her missing, was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of murder.
The case dominated headlines in the media for months at the time, and now, 20 years after Scott’s original prosecution, Netflix’s new series makes use of interviews with the detectives, lawyers and jurors involved in Peterson’s trial.
Laci’s mother Sharon Rocha gives her first in-depth interview on the topic in the show too, as does Amber Frey, the woman Laci was living with at the time of her disappearance.
All three episodes of American Murder: Laci Peterson are streaming on Netflix now.
Where is Scott Lee Peterson now?
After the discovery of Laci’s remains, Scott was arrested in April 2003, at a time that he had reportedly been living out of his car, with police believing he was planning on fleeing to Mexico.
His trail took place in 2004, and he was convicted of two counts of murder: first-degree murder with special circumstances for killing Laci and second-degree murder for killing the foetus she carried.
He was sentenced to death via lethal injection, which he appealed. At an eventual hearing in 2020, the Supreme Court of California upheld the conviction but overturned the death sentence, with a 2021 ruling stating that Scott would receive life in prison without the possibility of parole.
What have the show’s creators said about making the documentary?
Director Skye Borgman has spoken about the challenge of making the series and treating the real-life victims and those connected to the case with sensitivity and respect.
“Sharon did press when Laci went missing, but she’s never sat down to do an interview for a documentary,” Borgman told Netflix. “It’s not easy, after 20 years, to sit down in front of a camera. But we wanted this to be about Laci, to bring her back to people’s consciousness. Sharon wanted to talk about Laci’s spirit, and about the dragonflies that Laci loved. How Laci is still with them, and how Conner — Laci’s unborn son — is still with them.”
Speaking about her decision to get involved in a documentary on the subject, Borgman added: “There’s this statistic that is shocking to me every time I hear it—homicide is the number one cause of death for pregnant women. Every time I say that to people, they tell me absolutely that can’t be true, but it is.”
“Intimate partner violence is something that’s really overwhelming. I want people to walk away from this thinking about that in a deeper way.”
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