this is "nightline". tonight, body of evidence. the picture perfect couple expecting a baby. >> scott and lacey peterson, it's right out of a romance novel. >> her sudden disappearance, then untangling a seemingly loving husband's web of lies. >> he has camping equipment, ropes, knives. >> i went to the other room and called the modesto police department. >> now after nearly two decades, the death sentence overturned, scott peterson in his own words. >> i was expecting to go home that day. >> plus, a sister-in-law's resolve. >> this crime isn't solved. >> will he get another trial?

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see you volvo retailer for details. . ♪ good evening. thank you for joining us. the fateful story of scott and lacey peterson. a mother and her unborn child

killed by someone who vowed to love and to cherish them. peterson has always maintained his mention and is now seeking a new trial. but will he be given another chance? ♪ >> lacy went missing christmas eve. she's 27 years old and she is 8 months pregnant. >> i knew he had killed her. >> our family has known since the beginning that scott is innocent. >> we have someone who goes missing in this window of time and you have a felony occurring in this window of time. to think that they're not related is a difficult thing to ignore. >> it's been 18 years and there should be answers to questions. look at the evidence in this nd- case, they're going to see this crime isn't solved. >> i'm ready to go back to court. let's do it again. i'd be ready to testify. he deserves to be where he is.

♪ >> can i help you? >> yes. my daughter has been missing since this monthinrning. >> the story of lacy peterson's disappearance made news soon after she disagreed. it was christmas eve 2002. it became national news pretty quickly. >> she is carrying their first child. she's just weeks out from birth. >> scott and lacy peterson, i mean, it's right out of a romance novel. they were college sweethearts. >> describe your son. >> he was a very affectionate, just a really kind, sweet little guy. >> never in trouble of any kind. >> lacy by all accounts was just a bundle of energy and was always concerned about helping over people. >> they had been married not

very long. they had bought the house a couple of years earlier. lacy was a homemaker. >> how did scott feel about the fact that he was going to be a father? >> very excited. >> seems that when she got pregnant with connor, things started going sideways. ♪ >> the first person you focus on in a homicide investigation is the person close toast to the vm and the last person to see the victim. boom, boom. we got both of those with scott. >> he claims they woke up and he and lacy had breakfast together. he thought he would play golf, but because it was rainy and cold he decided not play golf but to go fishing. scott finished fishing that day at some point in the afternoon and made a phone call to lacy. >> hey beautiful. i won't be able to get that basket for papa. i was hoping you'd get this message and go on out there.

i'll see you in a bit, sweetie, bye. >> he says when i get home, her car is in the driveway. >> i enter in the back gate. mckenzie came running up to me. >> i knew that lacy was missing when scott called that evening and asked if she was at our house. immediately he came back saying she was missing. i remember feeling just a little agitated about that word, the word that he used "missing." how can you be missing? she's not missing. >> there was no evidence of a struggle or tampering or forced entry. there was nothing missing from the house. >> so of course the police start looking at him. >> so he was questioned for over 7 hours the first night that lacy went missing. >> he just doesn't seem like the guy whose wife is missing. his demeanor was suspicious. >> we begin an immediate seshlg

search of the park and river areas. >> i always blame the husband and i am almost always right. i start with the presumption that the husband did it, but there were alternative theories. >> one was kidnapped by a satanic cult, another one was there was a burglary across the street. they needed to stay on scott. they needed to do what they did. >> there's absolutely no physical evidence at all that scott committed in crime. >> we pretty much dealt with all of the satanic cults, the dog walkers. the only thing we couldn't eliminate was scott. >> earlier this week the modesto police department was made aware of an article that was to appear in the "national enquirer" revealing new information regarding lacy's case. the family members were shown very recent pictures of scott and a girlfriend. >> first of all, i met scott peterson november 20th, 2002.

scott told me he was not married. we did have a romantic relationship. >> amber probably met with detectives and gave information about the relationship with scott peterson. amber frye has been eliminated as a suspect in the lacy peterson disappearance. >> i was just starting my career in massage therapy. my daughter was very small. single mother. he was good looking, he was nice, he was funny and attentive to me. >> she really thought she had mr. right. >> scott new amber for 16 days when he got caught being married. >> he was very emotional and said that this would be the first holidays without her and he was crying at that point. i took it as she died, didn't know how, if an accident or cancer. i had no idea.

i didn't pry. >> she didn't know about scott and lacy missing until her friend told her. hey, that guy you brought to the christmas party, he's on tv every day. >> and so i went to the other room and called the modesto police department hotline. >> amber frye started cooperating the police. >> i buy her a tape recorder with some cassette tapes and a wire that can look onto her phone. i told her, okay, if he ever calls, just push these two buttons and just talk normally. phone rings and it's scott peterson. i'm like, that's him. show time, girl. >> amber. >> hey, happy new year. >> happy new year. >> i'm glad i caught you. >> thank you. >> what they heard on december 31st, 2002, was a scott peterson, who while a candle light vigil is being held for his wife and he's attending it

is also on the phone with amber frye being recorded, unbeknownst to him, telling her that he's in europe. >> i'm near the eiffel tower. it's unreal. >> this guy's wife is missing. the entire country is looking for her and he's not only keeping his girlfriend at bay, he's enter trataining her with e o outlandish lies. >> to commit a crime like this, you have to have a screw loose at the very least. those amber frye tapes made it seem like scott peterson has a screw loose. >> he now is enemy number one. everybody hates scott peterson. >> did you murder your wife? ♪ ♪ i'll be right back. with moderate to severe crohn's disease,

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all of a sudden amber frye lays out her story to the world. >> i am a single mother with a 23-month-old child. >> once amber frye came out, suddenly scott peterson had a lot of explaining to do. >> did you murder your wife? >> no, no. i did not. i had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance. i know that suspicion has turned to me because of the inappropriate romantic, uh, that

i had with amber frye. >> did your wife find out about it? >> i told my wife. >> when? >> early december. >> a lot of arguing? >> that would break us apart. >> there wasn't a lot of anger? >> no. >> do you really expect people to believe that an 8 1/2 month pregnant woman has learned her husband has had an affair and is casual about it? >> well, i -- you don't know -- no one knows our relationship but us. >> we make no excuse for scott's behavior in that sense, but unfortunately a lot of that is being used to convict him of murder. and really what all of that is, is evidence of adultery. >> in the second week of april there was a big thunderstorm in san francisco. >> a badly decomposed adult torso was found in a marina. a mile away, another grisly

discovery. the body of an unborn baby boy. >> the unidentified female is lacy peterson. the unidentified fetus is the biological child of lacy and scott peterson. >> i just thought we got to find scott right now. >> scott peterson has been arrested. there are no other suspects in this case. >> i went out when the vehicl was there to do the inventory search on it. there's just a whole bunch of stuff in the car. $15,000 cash, he had his brother's id. >> ropes, knives. >> scott peterson couldn't have done anything to make himself seem more guilty than to dye his hair, have some disguises and a ton of cash anywhere near the mexican border. >> at the point of the arrest, your hair color had changed. what was your objective in coloring your hair? >> oh, i wanted anonymity.

i was fearful. >> you will be booked into the jail. when he arrives, he'll be charged with capital murder. >> suddenly, a sleepy, sluggish little town like modesto is transformed into a media circus. >> the trial began on june 1st, 2004, with opening statements. this was a big day. >> there were reporters crawling all over each other. this was a huge story. >> people forget that the preliminary hearing in this case was televised, but the case itself, no cameras. >> there were hundreds of people there every day. in fact, they had to have a lottery for the public seats to see who could get in to watch the trial. >> they announced the numbers like a bingo game. people were like, yes, i'm in. >> mark gerragos is as

flamboyant a lawyer as you could imagine. >> it was a big deal that a celebrity lawyer was now defending scott peterson. >> i think everybody counselled me not to take the case because it's a no-win situation. if you win the case, you're a pariah. if you lose the case, your career is over. >> that's correct, your honor, i'm innocent. >> when you got to see scott peterson in person in court, there's no way this guy was guilty of this heinous crime, handsome, charming. it just did not jive with the concept of the brutal nature of the double killing in this case. >> the most likely thing that happened is that she was abducted and she was abducted by someone other than my client. >> so the defense in this case was that scott peterson didn't do it. basically the wrong guy is on trial. >> when it came time for the defense case to start, everyone

was expecting all this evidence to come forward and very little of it did. >> i thought basically innocent for a long time. and then it started shifting the other way. >> amber frye and those tapes totally turned the case upside down and it sunk scott peterson. the jury was absolutely taken aback by those tapes. you could feel the entire trial shift during that four or five-day period. >> i lost my wife. >> yes, you did. >> you did. >> how did you lose her then before she was lost? explain that. >> there are different kinds of lost, amber. >> that's a tough piece of testimony to overcome. >> he's guilty. >> if there was a conviction in this case, at this point the whole world decided scott peterson was guilty. >> none of us expected a verdict that friday. they put me in a holding cell at

the courthouse. it was like a huge relief that there was a verdict. >> the state of california versus scott peterson. >> as the verdict was being read, there was dead silence. >> we the jury in the above-entitled cause find the defendant scott lee peterson guilty of the crime of murder of lacy peterson. >> that comes with death penalty or life without parole. guilty of second degree murder with regard to his unborn child, baby connor. 15 years to life. >> it was like i has been holding my breath for two years. when i heard the verdict, all the emotions come out. >> we were completely shocked. numb, just numb. >> outside it was like the roman coliseum. it was obscene. this is a tragedy all the way around. what are we celebrating here? >> it didn't matter what the

evidence was. it's hard to convey to somebody who wasn't there at the time the hatred and vistriol toward scott peterson. >> this case is driven by headline narratives. to have a case that's this highly publicized, to have ppeople have such a small understanding of what happened on this day, it's profoundly frustrating. >> right now with the peterson case, there are essentially two different tracks. the first track is the death penalty part of the trial. that has been overturned. there is a second track, however, to determine whether or not the entire case gets retried. >> scott peterson is up for appeal. probably his strongest, most compelling arguments to get this conviction overturned is jury misconduct. >> turns out one of the jurors did not disclose that she'd actually had to get a restraining order against someone in connection with her being pregnant and being

concerned about her baby. >> when i was filling out that application, my situation never came to my mind. >> peterson appealed his case to the california supreme court, citing a variety of reasons that the conviction should be overturned. the high court ordered the trial court to reconsider just one issue, that question about potential jury misconduct. >> as difficult as it is to think about sitting through another trial, we're prepared for another trial. >> what i want the public to know in this coming trial is just look at the evidence. don't go on emotion on this. give us a shot. i'm ready to go back to court. let's do it again. i'd be ready to testify. he deserves to be where he is. >> to have to go through a trial again, of course, would be excruciating. but if that's what it takes, i'll be there.

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♪ there are two hearings scheduled next month. the next steps in scott peterson's continuing quest for a new trial. that's "nightline" for this evening. catch our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you same time next week. thanks for the company, america. have a great weekend. good night.