Decades after her daughter’s murder, Sharon Rocha blasted claims that new evidence could free California wife killer Scott Peterson.
“It is never ending, and it’s like ripping the scab off a wound every time. All they’re looking for right now is to throw everything against the wall and hope that something sticks,” Rocha said, according to People magazine.
Rocha’s comments precede the premiere of the A&E documentary, “Scott Peterson: The New Evidence,” hosted by Atlanta-based attorney and ABC News legal consultant Chris Pixley.
As Criminal Enterprise reported, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office said in May that 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.”
It was 53-year-old Peterson’s third petition.
Police arrested Peterson in 2003 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, Conner 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 on December 24, 2002, when Laci, eight months pregnant, disappeared.
In 2005, a jury found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder. He received a death sentence which was overturned in 2020. He’s currently serving life without parole at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione.
Now, the documentary explores new claims that investigators ignored evidence and witnesses that could have possibly identified other suspects, including “new science and new evidence,” Pixley stated.
Additional evidence and theories include, in part:
- The Medina Burglary: a robbery that occurred at a neighbor’s home on the day Laci vanished.
- Charred Van: a mysterious white van left at the site of the crime that was later found burned out nearby.
- Eye-Witnesses: local neighbors who claimed to have seen Laci walking her dog after Scott Peterson had already left home on the day she vanished.
- Flawed Tidal Mapping: advanced tidal analysis demonstrating that the bodies could not have drifted from Scott’s open-water fishing coordinates, but, instead, from a bay at a land-based location.
- Fetal Biometric Science: modern fetal development tracking that claims the state’s time-of-death timeline was scientifically impossible, suggesting the deaths occurred after Peterson had been placed under 24-hour police surveillance.
For Rocha, however, it’s the same song and dance that she has heard for decades. She maintained that the real killer is behind bars. She’s grown weary of the endless appeals and legal cycles.
“He is guilty, and that’s it,” Rocha added.
“Maybe I shouldn’t sound so harsh, but I’m tired. I’m very, very, very tired.”
“Scott Peterson: The New Evidence” is a two-part special airing July 16 at 9 p.m. ET and July 17 at 8 p.m. ET.
[Featured image: Laci and Scott Peterson/Modesto PD]







