Laci Peterson's Mom Reveals What She Thought About Scott When Daughter First Told Her About Him

Mar. 15, 2025

Scott and Laci Peterson are the focus of the Netflix docu-series, “American Murder: Laci Peterson”.Photo:Courtesy of Netflix

Courtesy of Netflix

Scott Petersonsat in an interrogation room with his hands in his jacket pockets as he answered questions about his wifeLaci Peterson, who vanished on the morning before Christmas in 2002.

“Everything’s good?” a detective, who was shown on surveillance video, asked Scott. The detective was referencing Scott’s marriage to Laci, 27, who was eight months pregnant with their first child, Conner, when she disappeared from their Modesto, Calif., home.

“Uh huh,” Scott, then 30, answered.

Laci Peterson in 2002.ZUMA Press/ZUMAPRESS.com

ZUMA Press/ZUMAPRESS.com

Now, a new Netflix docuseries,American Murder: Laci Peterson, goes in-depth on the case, providing “the definitive examination” of the murder of the “bubbly and beloved” young mother-to-be, Netflix says in a release.

Debuting Wed., Aug. 14, the three-part series features a rare interview with Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, who talks about how she felt when her daughter first started dating Scott and before she had met him herself.

“Laci was telling me all these things about Scott,” Rocha recalls in a trailer for the docu-series. “And I remember saying, as her mother, ‘I hope he’s not filling her with crap.'"

Now, she says, “I have learned to go with my gut feeling.”

The docuseries also features an interview with Amber Frey, who dated Scott beginning when Laci was still alive. Scott had told Frey he was a widower before having an affair with her.

When she learned he was married — and that his wife had vanished — she agreed to work with police on the case and, unbeknownst to Scott, tape intimate phone calls with him.

“So what do you want to be together with me?” Frey can be heard asking in one call in the docuseries trailer.

“For the rest of our lives I think we could care for each other,” Scott replies.

Tragic Ending

Scott was arrested four days later. Though he has maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty and claiming he was fishing when Laci vanished, he was convicted in 2004of two counts of first-degree murder.

Scott was sentenced to death row in 2005. Thedeath sentence was overturned in 2020, but he remains in prison for life.

He sought the help of the L.A. Innocence project, which took on his case in Jan. 2024, saying in legal filings that “new evidence now supports Mr. Peterson’s long-standing claim of innocence.”

The docu-series features news clips and interrogation footage as well as interviews with Laci’s childhood friends, detectives, reporters, lawyers and the jurors who decided Scott’s fate.

Rocha and Laci’s childhood friends “speak candidly about their memories of Laci, the impact this shocking crime had on their lives, and their hopes that, in coming forward to tell Laci’s story for a new generation, they might empower other women experiencing intimate partner violence to escape a similarly tragic fate,” Netflix says in a release.

source: people.com