The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday that California wife killer Scott Peterson’s murder conviction will not be overturned.
The decision came after an April 27 ruling by San Mateo County Superior Court judge Elizabeth M. Hill. The judge rejected “all 14 claims in a 116-page ruling,” ABC 10 reports.
It was 53-year-old Peterson’s third petition.
“Judge Hill recognized the most recent attempt to undo the jury’s verdict for what it was – nothing more than recycled, repackaged and rebranded arguments,” Stanislaus County District Attorney Jeff Laugero said.
“I found the real bombshell to be the unsealing of a transcript that contradicted the claims Peterson has made for years attempting to discredit law enforcement, the investigation and the prosecution.”
Police arrested Peterson in 2023 after passers-by found 27-year-old Laci Peterson’s body along the San Francisco Bay shoreline. A couple walking their dog found the body of her infant, Connor Peterson, at the Point Isabel Regional Shoreline in Richmond.
Their bodies were found within three miles of the Berkeley Marina, an area Peterson claimed to have been fishing at on Decemner 24, 2022, when Laci, eight months pregnant, disappeared.
In 2005, a jury found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder. He received a death sentence which was turned over in 2020. He’s currently serving life without parole at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione.
In 2024, the Los Angeles Innocence Project took on the case, citing new evidence, a flawed timeline, suppressed witnesses, and a burglary theory that supposedly was not explored thoroughly by investigators.
In the order, however, Hill stated that the new evidence “merely repeats and elaborates upon the same contested theories that existed at the time of trial,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
LAIP plans to appeal the ruling.
Check back for updates.
[Feature Photo: Scott and Laci Peterson/Modesto PD]
