SAN FRANCISCO, CA, APRIL 21, 2025 – After more than a year of investigation, the Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) has presented new scientific evidence and witness statements that undermine the prosecution’s case against Scott Peterson. The new evidence is the basis for a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the California Court of Appeal for the First District, filed late Friday, seeking to overturn Mr. Peterson’s conviction. The filing includes substantial new evidence supporting Mr. Peterson’s claim of innocence and demonstrating he was denied his statutory and constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial when the prosecution suppressed and destroyed critical exculpatory evidence prior to trial.  

“This … Writ of Habeas Corpus presents new evidence that was not available at the time of trial, supports Petitioner’s claim of innocence, and shows he was wrongfully convicted,” the petition states. “This new evidence undermines the prosecution's entire circumstantial case against Petitioner, and shows that the jury relied on false evidence, including false scientific evidence, to convict him.”

The petition includes a 126-page declaration by Scott Peterson detailing his recollection of the events around the death of his wife and unborn child and refuting the version of events presented by police and prosecutors to obtain a conviction.

Peterson was convicted in November 2004 of the murders of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn child, whom they had planned to name Conner. He was sentenced to death in March 2005. In August 2020, the California Supreme Court vacated his death sentence, and in December 2021 he was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

“The case against (Peterson) was entirely circumstantial,” the petition states. Despite 11 search warrants, wiretaps, GPS tracking devices, pole cameras outside the home, steady surveillance and forensic examination of several hundred items collected during the execution of search warrants, “no direct, physical or forensic evidence was found supporting any part of the prosecution’s theory, or otherwise implicating Petitioner.” 

Individually and cumulatively, the new evidence presented in this petition “eviscerates” the prosecution's original case and “exonerates” the Petitioner, the petition states. Had the jury heard this evidence, it is highly likely they would not have reached a guilty verdict.

The evidence supporting Scott Peterson’s claim of innocence set forth in the petition includes:

• New evidence showing the Medina home across the street from the Petersons’ was burglarized on December 24, the same day Laci was reported missing, and not two days later on December 26, as the police claimed and as the jury was told.  

• New evidence showing others were involved in the burglary besides the two men who ultimately pleaded guilty to that crime.

• New evidence showing a witness overheard a conversation among the burglars about Laci seeing and confronting them. This evidence exonerates Scott Peterson because it shows Laci was alive when he left home on December 24, since the burglary took place sometime after the Medinas went out of town at 10:30 a.m.

• New evidence the jury did not hear showing there were three crimes committed within a 24 hour period, all in close proximity to the Petersons’ home:  Laci’s disappearance, the Medina burglary, and an intentionally set van fire in Modesto’s Airport District that was called in just hours after Laci was reported missing.  

• The evidence shows the detective leading the Laci Peterson missing person investigation did not investigate the three crimes as possibly being related.

• New evidence directly linking the Medina burglars and their associates to the van that was intentionally set on fire not far from the Petersons’ home the morning of December 25.  

• New evidence the jury did not hear showing a mattress was found in the back of the van that had apparent bloodstains on it and which tested presumptively positive for the presence of blood.  New evidence showing the prosecution suppressed evidence of the police investigation into that van fire at the time of trial.  

• New evidence showing that DNA was found on that mattress–evidence the prosecution has strenuously refused to subject to more precise DNA testing to determine if there is a link to the crimes in this case.

• New scientific and medical research developed after Scott Peterson was convicted showing that the jury based its guilty verdict on scientifically unsound testimony by the prosecution’s fetal growth expert.  The prosecution’s expert based his opinion on a formula from a study published in 1984 and calculated that Conner and Laci died on December 23, 2002, the night before Laci was reported missing.  

• New scientific and medical research conducted since Peterson was convicted showing that the science the prosecution's expert relied on is no longer valid.  An analysis conducted by the Vice Chair of the Radiology Department at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston that is based on more recent scientific and medical research and contemporary methods of determining fetal growth refutes the prosecution’s expert and places the actual date of death days later, between December 28, 2002 and January 5, 2003, clearly indicating that Laci and Conner were killed well after the prosecution claimed, and on a date Scott Peterson could not possibly have committed the crimes.

• Notes from an interview conducted by LAIP in December 2024 with the prosecution’s fetal growth expert, during which he admitted had he based his opinion on the more recent 2022 study published by the National Institute for Childhood Health and Development it would have shown Conner’s fetal growth was consistent with a date of death on January 2, 2003, also clearly indicating that the prosecution’s timeline of this case is incorrect.

• A new expert analysis based on hydrodynamic modeling of actual historical wind, tide and freshwater inflow discharge data from the San Francisco Bay in April 2003, showing that the jury also relied on scientifically unsound testimony by the prosecution’s expert, who testified that Conner’s body was put in the Bay at the precise location where Scott went fishing on December 24. 

• The new modeling shows that the bodies of Laci and Conner could not have migrated from the area where Scott went fishing to where they were recovered. Rather, their bodies were most likely placed in the waters off the Albany Bulb, a peninsula that is accessible by car and foot.

• New sworn statements by eyewitnesses who reported seeing Laci walking the dog in the neighborhood after Scott left their home on December 24–witnesses the police refused to interview–whose reports are consistent with other eyewitnesses who also reported seeing Laci walking the dog in the neighborhood and nearby park that morning, reports police also ignored.

• An expert analysis of 11 eyewitness reports in this case, all of which the police refused to investigate, showing that the sheer number of consistent eyewitness reports, all within the same timeframe and all within a ⅓ square mile area around the Petersons’ home, provides substantially probative evidence that Laci was seen walking the dog that morning, as Scott told police she was planning to do, further exonerating him of any involvement in the crimes.

• An analysis by a certified forensic document examiner who analyzed handwritten notes from the Petersons’ home with information from two marine supply stores about the cost of anchors that appear to be consistent with Laci’s handwriting, confirming that Laci and Scott bought the boat together and refuting the prosecution’s theory at trial that Scott had secretly purchased the boat as part of his plan to kill Laci and dispose of her body in the Bay.

• New evidence by a retired Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant, now a police practices expert, explaining that after reviewing the police reports in this case, it is his opinion that the Modesto Police Department’s investigation was disorganized, failed to follow basic police procedures that were standard at the time, and was driven by “confirmation bias.” Police systematically ignored, destroyed and suppressed exculpatory evidence that had the jury heard, it would not have reached a guilty verdict. This newly discovered evidence includes:

  • Modesto Police intentionally destroyed critical exculpatory physical evidence related to the burglary, including videotaped interviews police conducted with two of the Medina burglars the night of their arrest. 

  • The evidence shows the videotaped interviews included details surrounding when and how the burglary occurred. The videotaped interviews were destroyed just two weeks after Scott was arraigned on capital murder charges, before the defense could request and review them.  

  • The prosecution’s own records show that on May 6, key investigators and supervisors on the Laci Peterson case met with the lead investigator on the Medina burglary case, for the express purpose of discussing the discovery of audio and videotape evidence that would be provided to the defense. The very next day, police destroyed the videotaped interviews with the burglars. The Medinas’ safe–collected during the arrest of the burglars–was also destroyed in May 2003, before the safe was examined for fingerprints and before the defense could request it and have it forensically examined. 

  • False testimony by Modesto Police detectives that there were no credible eyewitness accounts that Laci was seen walking the Petersons’ dog after she was supposedly killed, leaving the jury with the impression that no credible information had been presented to police regarding the sightings.

  • False testimony that police were unable to locate a Croton watch that belonged to Laci. New evidence by a pawn shop owner shows he was contacted by the police about a Croton watch pawned at his shop by an associate of one of the Medina burglars on December 31, just 7 days after Laci was reported missing.

“Every aspect of the prosecution’s theory as to how the crimes in this case were committed has now been shown to be false,” the petition concludes. “The new evidence set forth in this Amended Petition shows that the prosecution’s entire theory of the case was wrong...In some cases, no one individual error is prejudicial enough to warrant relief, but when there are a number of constitutional or statutory violations, the court will conclude that the errors, cumulatively, undermine confidence in the conviction and warrant relief. That is certainly the case here…All of this new evidence is more than sufficient to state a prima facie showing of Petitioner’s innocence.”

The LAIP assumed lead counsel in this case in November 2023.  

“The Los Angeles Innocence Project advocates for truth and justice, no matter who the defendant may be or how controversial the case,” said John Sonego, LAIP’s Board President. “Our organization has a team of professionals and experts who follow extensive screening protocols prior to choosing a client. LAIP partners and collaborates with the California Forensic Science Institute (CFSI) and Cal State LA’s School of Criminal Justice & Criminalistics, within the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. Together, we test the viability, reliability, and accuracy of evidence that had been used to convict LAIP clients.” 

Sonego added: “We decided that this case deserved a second look, because of issues related to ‘confirmation bias’ and potential Brady violations committed by the Modesto Police and Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office that we believe led to Peterson’s wrongful conviction. Any injustice must be made right. The evidence in this case has been - and will continue to be - our guide.”