Laci and Scott Peterson.Photo:Modesto Police Dept/ZUMAPRESS.com
Modesto Police Dept/ZUMAPRESS.com
Anne Birdhad recently reconnected with her birth mother when her half-brother,Scott Peterson, wasaccusedofmurdering his eight-months pregnant wifeand their unborn son.
And as the 2002 homicides broiled into one of the most high-profile murder cases of its time, Bird soon found herself once again on the other side of her birth family.
Her bookBlood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson is Guiltycame out in 2005, the same year Scott was placed on death row.
Anne Bird’s book.William Morrow
William Morrow
Bird declined to comment on her brother’s case through Allred in an email Monday afternoon.
Laci and Scott Peterson.ZUMA Press/ZUMAPRESS.com
ZUMA Press/ZUMAPRESS.com
In an email to PEOPLE, Allred says Scott’s new representation doesn’t in “any way alter” his 2004 conviction, adding that he has “exhausted all of his appeals in an effort to overturn the convictions and he has lost those appeals.”
“I think that Scott Peterson has a right to exhaust every available avenue to attempt to prove his actual innocence,” Allred’s statement says, noting that “he should have the right to any new DNA testing or new lab tests that he thinks might prove that he was not the murderer.”
Scott had reported his pregnant wife missing Christmas Eve 2002, claiming he was on a solo fishing trip at the time. In the weeks that followed, he disseminated missing person posters and attended candlelight vigils.
Laci Peterson.
But, in April 2003, the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn fetus were found on the San Francisco Bay shore, and Scott became the focus of law enforcement’s double-homicide investigation.
He was convicted of the murders of his wife and unborn son in 2004 and placed on death row the following year.
However, in 2020 Peterson was granted the right to a new death penalty trial as well as the chance for a lower court to review the original case and potentially overturn his guilty verdict.
Scott Peterson at a hearing at the San Mateo County Superior Court in 2022.Jeff Chiu/AP
Jeff Chiu/AP
The following year, Scott’s death penalty sentence was vacated and he was resentenced to life in prison. In 2022 a judge denied his request for a new trial.
Allred says Scott’s new legal representation is just another attempt to combat a decades-old guilty verdict and does not equate to his innocence.
“The Los Angeles Innocence Project’s decision to get involved does not in any way alter the 20-year judicial history of this case,” she says.
Noting that Scott has been removed from death row, Allred adds: “Mr. Peterson’s life has been spared while the lives of his wife and unborn child were taken.”
source: people.com
