The Prosecutor's Case .. continued

Let's talk about the defendant and his fishing. This defendant rarely goes fishing, contrary to what I suppose Mr. Peterson would want you to believe. The fishing licenses that were found, a couple of two-day, I think there's three two-day licenses, including the one that he bought for this particular trip, as well as a year-long license from 1994. So what was that, eight years prior. The equipment that he had, when he does go fishing, it's freshwater fishing. You saw the last time he had been prior to this, August 2002, you saw him fishing in a lake with his dad. He goes maybe once or twice a year.

He has owned four boats during his life. That implies some interest in boating and fishing.

Remember Ron Grantski testified he asked him, I can't remember exactly how many times, but he asked him numerous times to go, and he said that he, he said that he went one time with him in 2001. He said he turned him down every other time. He never asked Ron to go fishing with him even though Ron is, like, that's his main thing. He carries a fishing pole with him wherever he goes.

After that one trip in 2001, remember what Ron Grantski testified to? He testified that Scott Peterson left his fishing pole, which is a very nice, expensive fishing pole in his garage where it sat there for 18 months, and never wanted it back. If I was an avid fisherman and had an expensive pole and went fishing with somebody, I think I'd want it back. There's no evidence the defendant had ever recently gone saltwater fishing, which is what is at issue here. The best that the defense could come up with is that Lee Peterson testified, I think the quote is that it appeared that he enjoyed it. That's what he said.

If you get that section of testimony read back where he's talking about the defendant going out on, as a boy on, I call them party boats, but I think he called them cattle boats, on the Bay, where you go out for a day of fishing, he did that as a boy. We're not talking about 2002 here.

Once again Distaso is relying on his ‘Any imperfection = evidence of guilt’ theory. Applying this theory would make almost every human guilty of anything.

We go back to the defendant's story on 12/24. He leaves his warehouse sometime, sometime after 11:00 a.m., drives to the Berkeley Marina. Which is about 86 miles away. He gets there at 12:54 p.m. Almost 1:00 o'clock. You have to buy this ticket, you have to back your boat down and launch it, and put your, put your truck away. You got to go do what you're doing, come back. We know he's back on his phone checking his voice mail at 2:12. So he drove an hour and a half, minimum, probably closer to, probably left right around 11:00, probably took him about until right when he got there, because he's driving with a boat on the back, and you can bet anything on the fact that he didn't exceed the speed limit that day.

Scott is a very law abiding citizen who has never received a traffic ticket. This is proof of guilt?

He didn't want anybody to stop him on that day.

He is a very law abiding man who has never committed a crime – has never even had a parking ticket. He does not get stopped ANY day.

So he gets to the Berkeley Marina. He, it took him longer to drive to the Berkeley Marina than he actually spent fishing. He goes, on Christmas Eve, all the way out to the Bay to fish for, what, 35, 40 minutes, alone. Nobody does that.

Once again a totally evidence free statement. Where is the proof? This is all invented by Distaso.

That just did not happen here. Now, he does that, he decides to go fishing, even though he has told Amy Rocha that he can pick up that gift basket at Vella Farms. Remember that? So he knows he's got to be back, but he's still going to leave to go fishing on Christmas Eve, when he has to be back, number one, to pick up that gift basket, and number two, get to dinner at Ron and Sharon's house, six p.m.

Which is a more than compelling argument that Scott never had the slightest intention of harming Laci – on that day or any other.

When he comes back, you know, we heard what happened. He makes a phone call, he looks around, he talks to the neighbors. And the first people he contacts are Amie Krigbaum and Terra Venable across the street. Remember that? They have no stake in this either. They just live across the street. They probably kind of wish they didn't live across the street.

Slander in place of evidence?

But the defendant goes up to their house and, you know, he's kind of frantic, or as I prefer to put it, pretending to be frantic, because this guy can turn it on and off in an instant.

Where is the evidence of this? None was offered.

And we will see some examples of that. But he goes up there, he says: Hey, have you seen Laci? No, I haven't seen her. Okay, he turns around to go. They ask him: Where have you been all day? Oh, I've been out golfing.

EVERY police officer without exception testified that Scott said he was at the bay, fishing/boating. What a couple of people may have misheard is evidence of nothing.

Nobody, I don't care how upset you are, nobody forgets that they just got home from fishing at the Berkeley Marina. That didn't happen. So why did he tell them golfing?

He didn’t. They misheard him, possibly because they knew him as a golfer. However it was much later when they came up with this statement. Why would he tell them one thing, and tell all of the police officers the truth? For what purpose?

That's a much more important question, because that's where the defendant was originally going to go. He was going to get out there, dump Laci, get back, go hang out at the club, maybe have a drink at the bar, you know, screw around a little bit. It just took him longer than he planned. He was going to say: Yeah, I was at work checking my computer; yeah, I was there, see?

Where is the evidence? This is all supposition, without a shred of evidence to back it up.

And I went to the club and, you know, you'll have some people that saw him, and that was it. He just screwed up. He screwed up his alibi. That's all that was.

Where is the evidence? This is all supposition, without a shred of evidence to back it up.

Now, why did he change his alibi? That's a good question, because I know a lot of you are sitting here thinking Well, shoot, if I had just dumped my wife in the San Francisco Bay, that's the last place I'm going to tell the police I was.

Precisely. What other person has ever done this?

It's a legitimate question. And, you know why he did that? He tells us on, on tape.

He said nothing of the sort. Everything he said checked out, all down the line.

Go watch Brocchini's interview again, or read the transcript. You can have that back there. He told Detective Mansfield this also. He said he bumped, when he was picking up the boat, coming home, so he's got the boat down there, tied up to the dock, Laci's long gone, she's under the waters of the San Francisco Bay, he says he bumped his boat up against, up against a piling, or something. He said there was a maintenance man there who saw him who was laughing. He said a couple guys saw him there at the marina.

Once that happened he knew: I got to go with fishing; I have to go with fishing, because if I say anything other than I was here at the Berkeley Marina, and people saw me and can recognize me, I'm toast. It's a big bay. You saw those pictures. The Bay is huge. He thought he got her into deep water. You heard what the experts say, you get her into the deep water channel, she's going out under the Golden Gate. You heard how difficult it was to search the Bay.

Where is the evidence? This is all supposition, without a shred of evidence to back it up.

We're going to talk about that. It's no big deal to tell them: I was out fishing in the San Francisco Bay; how are they ever going to find her.

And they never did – even after spending $1 million trying. They never found the slightest trace of evidence. However dog walkers found the bodies within hours of them being dumped, months later.

... To be continued.