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Scott Peterson

spooky24 said:
That may be the case however the fetus exited the uterus within just a few hours of it being washed up. There were no indications of feeding from other marine scavengers. That is very very odd.

Biological material the proceeded the coffin birth would have attracted dozens of scavengers of all shapes and sizes and the fact that it even made it to the shore were 100-to 1 or a thousand to one.

Dr Henry Lee speculated that garbage might have covered the fetus on it's way to the shore, however, he also noted that was a thousand to one as well.

I don't know anything about the marine life in the bay however it would have been consumed quickly in any fresh water lake in the south.

Nothing about the skeletal remains were noted as far as the bone sizes by either report so I would guess that was rumor.

It is also problematic that all of the searchers down with penetrating radar did not pick up the body masses until after they washed up.
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What is your source for the highlighted statement?
 
It certainly is very hard to find things in water. I had a friend who died by falling into a river drunk one night, and the police couldn't find him despite days of searching in a small river enclosed by locks, even though they knew approximately where he must have fallen in. His body was accidentally found about a week later by some rowers.
 
The second autopsy report signed by both Dr. Wecht and Dr. Lee was done by the defense team of Mark Geragos.

I have it in one of Dr. Wecth books and it is also part of the defense exhibits. I'm quite sure it is archived at websleuths however finding it might require a membership and they are quite picky about such things. I have a hard copy of it somewhere amongst all the thousands of files stored in the fire room.

Catherine Crier did not publish it in her first book on the case-well I don't think she did as it has been years since I read it.

I was highly critical of her work "Deadly Game" for the ridiculous portrayal of Amber Frey, her not so well concealed bias, and the horrible editing of the project that was a result of it being rushed in to publication before any of the dozens of other works that were already released could 'cash in'

Her insistence that somehow Sharon Rocha's loss of her daughter was 'different' and 'more important' than anyone else who ever lost a child to violence was sickening and done with the intention of 'cashing in while it's hot'

It brings into question just how she could not have noticed that Scott-who had a long, long reputation as a player-was the devious idiot in which he turned out to be.

I have plenty of experience with the publishing business to know that all books are done for 'profit at any cost' however this one still angers me after all these years.

However, that is a personal opinion and should not be taken as a general review of the project. The book is well researched and written in her infamous casual style-or in other words it's easy to read. It is still the best overview of the case.
 
My suggestion for you is to use your cell phone and simply take pictures of those pages. If they are the object being discussed, it is considered pair use to post them because they are the subject of the discussion.
 
I found Dr. Wecht report on the second autopsy in his book 'Tales from the morgue'

I also have a proof sheet of the autopsy that came with it. I had circled things that I didn't understand at the time.

First thing is a statement by Dr. Wetch that in his examination of the infant he said "the soft tissue is macerated"

This is explained with the pickle analogy. If you put a bland, somewhat tasteless, cucumber into a brine at boiling temperature then seal it airtight the difference in temperature will cause the cucumber to absorb the brine as it cools. However, if the brine is cold and heavily salted it simply dehydrates the pickle.

All the soft tissue was dehydrated giving a dull gray/white color and a sunken appearance to the skin.

"The remains are that of a full term male however, the fact that the mother was just beginning the 8th month is puzzling".

This was never answered as no physical evidence-of any kind- was used in the prosecutions case so that puzzling fact was not allowed in court.

That was wrong from the start except that California has many down right silly enacted laws. In other words it was a California only rule. In the end it made little difference as the media sensationalism convicted Scott, not the evidence-which of course, there wasn't any.

There is more to this however that is all I have time for at the moment.
 
If you read the literature, there is wide variety in the size of fetus at birth. They can be anywhere from 4 pounds to around 9 pounds. There is a cone of age vs fetus size. His femur size was within that cone of probability. If Connor had actually made it to full term, he probably would have been a largish baby.

Pregnancy is also not timed from when the sperm actually hit the egg but from the last period. It is from the last period the mother had. We do not know how regular she was so the timing might be off. Finally, the examination vs ultrasound is not always perfect so they are often off on fetus size.

The autopsy sure does seem to be the description of a fetus who has been in the water for months, against any idea of the corpse being planted after the fact.

The case is a circumstantial one where he was fishing right in the area where the storm the day before would have brought his corpse ashore around where it was found. If you do not believe that, you basically have to believe that somebody planted the body to frame him.
 
Dr. Wecht, who has autopsied more than a 300 infants, stated that the infant was 'full term' and his expertise is all I need to make that judgment.

He used a measurement system in which he explained that there is no shrinkage of bone structure and the top to bottom measurement was just over 19 inches-well with in the technical meaning of full term.

"In the end the trial of the people vs Scott Peterson was missing two key elements: No direct evidence linking Peterson to his wife's murder and a courageous jury willing to put aside immense pressure from the media to convict him without the defendant being judged by the evidence".

This statement was signed by both Dr Wecth and Dr. Lee their opinion was Scott did not get a fair trial. I concur and always have.
 
So being direct, you believe that somebody else put Laci and Connor's body in the water where Scott Peterson fished on the exact same day when Laci disappeared?

I would be real cautious using Dr. Wecht to be honest because if you look at his cases, he seems to thrive on "Going Rogue." Case include the Kennedy case.
 
Desert Fox said:
So being direct, you believe that somebody else put Laci and Connor's body in the water where Scott Peterson fished on the exact same day when Laci disappeared?

I would be real cautious using Dr. Wecht to be honest because if you look at his cases, he seems to thrive on "Going Rogue." Case include the Kennedy case.
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Why does it have to be the exact same day? There's no way anyone could be that precise about how long they were in the water.

ETA: and it's pretty obvious spooky24 doesn't believe it was the exact same day, because of the age of the foetus.
 
lonepinealex said:
Why does it have to be the exact same day? There's no way anyone could be that precise about how long they were in the water.

ETA: and it's pretty obvious spooky24 doesn't believe it was the exact same day, because of the age of the foetus.
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Well, the exact day Laci disappeared is the day when Scott when fishing where he body was later found. Nobody is known to have seen her after that date (alive or dead) before her corpse was found on the shoreline.
 
Right, but that doesn't mean someone hypothetically framing Scott would have had to do it the same day.
 
lonepinealex said:
Right, but that doesn't mean someone hypothetically framing Scott would have had to do it the same day.
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Err, well. . . . .When I start thinking of the pro innocent argument things getting really weird quick. Almost actually having trouble wording them.

If the argument is that Laci was kept alive for a month to give birth to Connor, his odds of survival would be pretty damn high. Actually, his odds of survival if cut from the womb at eight months I believe are pretty good already.

If we go with death soon after death, you are still probably discussing two separate water burials. If Connor was inside Laci when she was buried, maybe they were wrapped in plastic and it released them at the same time because they were found on the shore within a day of each other.

I think if they would have been separate, they likely would have been wrapped separately and how I suspect a baby might be wrapped would likely mean he would either come up still wrapped or be much less likely to be disturbed.

The position with the fewest assumptions seems to be that they got an imperfect reading with the ultrasound and he was a relatively big baby for his age and they got the age a bit wrong.

If you assume that Laci was killed immediately and Connor lived a month more or less. I am not sure if an examination would reveal that but you still have that both bodies were found around the same time.

If you assume they were placed after the storm to be found, things get really weird. They were kept in water for several months and then planted on the shore.
 
There ware 193 sightings of Laci in 26 states after she disappeared. An elderly couple about a block and a half from the Peterson home were absolutely certain they saw Laci walking her golden retriever hours after Scott had left for the Bay.


The prosecution rebutted that a woman who looked just like Laci was walking a golden retriever who also had the name of McKenzie in the very same park at the very same time.

At this point it was all ready conceded that Scott would be found guilty because of the media over saturation with their collective opinion that he was guilty from day one.

Something else happened that was so bizarre and to my knowledge it has never happened before or since. The jury was not sequestered and on the second day of deliberations the jury foreman ask to be removed from the jury because of media harassment. Of course, no one really what he told the judge, however every single jury member said that the media follow them every where they went. They waited out side their homes and the minute they were on public ground mobbed them. Question like: Is there any reason to continue because we all know he did it?

Only in California.

Remember, there was not one single bit of evidence that tied Scott to the disappearance of his wife at all. Nothing.

There was a billboard erected by a local radio station that asked people to call in either with a guilty or not guilty verdict-they claimed it would be shown to the jury to 'help them decide' that Scott was guilty.

Dr Keith Ablow- a celebrity psychiatrist-wrote a long work on the case and tried to profile Scott and try to make some sense out of his plan that was impossible from day one. I'm going to hunt that up because I remember it was just as bizarre as the case was.
 
Do I have to use the word "credible" with regards to sighting?

Media hype or not, I don't think there would be a not guilty in any case. Sure the media hype was an issue but I don't see anything changing if it was not the case.

Circumstantial cases are tough, I will grant you but this seems to be a pretty solid one.
 
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spooky24 said:
There ware 193 sightings of Laci in 26 states after she disappeared. An elderly couple about a block and a half from the Peterson home were absolutely certain they saw Laci walking her golden retriever hours after Scott had left for the Bay.
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Do you believe that Laci traveled to 26 states after her disappearance before being murdered and dumped in the bay? And that her captors allowed her to be seen 193 times? If not, then think about what you're really saying here... that there were a large number of sightings of Laci that were not credible. I'm sure many of them were "absolutely certain" about what they saw.
 
spooky24 said:
Dr. Wecht, who has autopsied more than a 300 infants, stated that the infant was 'full term' and his expertise is all I need to make that judgment.

He used a measurement system in which he explained that there is no shrinkage of bone structure and the top to bottom measurement was just over 19 inches-well with in the technical meaning of full term.

"In the end the trial of the people vs Scott Peterson was missing two key elements: No direct evidence linking Peterson to his wife's murder and a courageous jury willing to put aside immense pressure from the media to convict him without the defendant being judged by the evidence".

This statement was signed by both Dr Wecth and Dr. Lee their opinion was Scott did not get a fair trial. I concur and always have.
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Except Cyril and Henry are expert witness whores, as is Biden at this point. They might be good at what they do, but if the money is right, they'll spin it any way you want.
 
I never said Laci was anywhere I'm just quoting from the case file. All I'm saying is that Scott didn't get a fair trial and was convicted by the media that put pressure on the jury.

Not sequestering the jury and allowing the media to harass them night and day was not fair to the defendant.
 
Desert Fox said:
I will actually address your last point first. Let us say that we had Guede's bloody hand print but the body was found in Fano Italy, being that Guede does not have a car, I might consider him the murderer but somebody helped dispose of the body. If it just happened that Amanda and Raffaele drove to Fano, I would consider them most likely to be involved.

You might find it worth your time to look at some maps of the San Francisco Bay. I did this when I tried to address to see if there are any good arguments for innocence. I really want to give a fair shake.

I did not look at his report until later but looked up on weather underground and found out that there was a storm the day before Connor's body was found. Many of the conclusions that he came up with, I came up with on my own even if less precise.

If you look at the chart, the bodies were found in the Pt Isabel area.
http://www.sfbama.org/charts/Central_NorthBay.gif

Edit: I don't know if you watch Mythbusters but in the first season they did an escape from Alcatraz episode. There is a model of the San Fransisco bay which actually can be used to model tides and currents in the bay. As such, it is one of the best modeled bodies of waters in teh world. Scientists never like to talk in certainties so part of what the defense caught was the caution that scientists always throw into their statements.
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One query I had after looking at the map (apologies for the late reply, just catching up on the thread) is where would be the most likely place to dispose of a body at sea if you started in Modesto. From the map it looks like you have two options, to go north or west, which are about the same distance; and if you go west the area where the body was found is more or less the first marina you hit, right? In other words anyone who wanted to get rid of a body by dumping it at sea and happened to go west would end up in that area. Wouldn't that reduce the coincidence aspect a bit?

A lot's been said about Peterson driving an hour or more to go fishing, as if that in itself were suspicious, but at least from the map it doesn't look as if there's anywhere significantly closer.
 
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katy_did said:
One query I had after looking at the map (apologies for the late reply, just catching up on the thread) is where would be the most likely place to dispose of a body at sea if you started in Modesto. From the map it looks like you have two options, to go north or west, which are about the same distance; and if you go west the area where the body was found is more or less the first marina you hit, right? In other words anyone who wanted to get rid of a body by dumping it at sea and happened to go west would end up in that area. Wouldn't that reduce the coincidence aspect a bit?

A lot's been said about Peterson driving an hour or more to go fishing, as if that in itself were suspicious, but at least from the map it doesn't look as if there's anywhere significantly closer.
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There is a little closer to the northwest actually for fishing in the San Francisco Bay.

If you are somebody else just trying to dispose of a body, there are plenty of other options as well such as the mountains to either side. There are several good sized parks as well not too far away. I believe a significant effort to bury a body far from home is usually evidence that somebody with a close relationship is involved.

He was a bit dumb actually . . . .He should have gone much further out into the deep water and dumped her body in deep water at high tide. Odds are very good that if the body came loose, it would be swept out to sea.
 
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Desert Fox said:
There is a little closer to the northwest actually for fishing in the San Francisco Bay.

If you are somebody else just trying to dispose of a body, there are plenty of other options as well such as the mountains to either side. There are several good sized parks as well not too far away. I believe a significant effort to bury a body far from home is usually evidence that somebody with a close relationship is involved.

He was a bit dumb actually . . . .He should have gone much further out into the deep water and dumped her body in deep water at high tide. Odds are very good that if the body came loose, it would be swept out to sea.
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Perhaps slightly closer, but it's not as if he had somewhere he could fish five minutes away. It seems like the "he drove 90 minutes just to go fishing" talking point is moot if there wasn't anywhere significantly closer to go anyway.

I think the location of the body evidence is also a bit weaker if where it was found is where anyone wanting to dispose of a body at sea would've left it. It's not as if you're going to drive around looking for the prettiest marina, you're just going to choose the most convenient one, so the closest. That's probably what Peterson did, but it's likely what anyone would've done if they wanted dump a body at sea. Seems like it's more the method of disposal that's significant (at sea) rather than the location.

Agreed that disposing of a body far away might indicate someone close to the victim, but there again it could just indicate someone who had a boat, probably not all that rare in the San Francisco area.
 
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