|
San
Diego private investigator gets cool reception,
then finds something potentially significant
POSTED: Thursday, March 6, 2003 at 11:46 PM PST
UPDATED: Friday, March 7, 2003 at 9:20 PM PST
by
Gregg L. DesElms
MODESTO, CA -- A San Diego-area private investigator traveled to Modesto to lend a hand in the search for Laci
Peterson, no charge, and was greeted with something less than a warm and enthusiastic welcome. Despite that, he
and his associate hit the ground running and made an immediate find that local police found interesting enough
to take a serious look at.
On Monday, March 3, 2003, San Diego private investigator Bill Garcia, of Bill Garcia Investigative Services, came to Modesto for the second
time since Laci's disappearance to try his hand at finding her -- dead or alive -- using his unique and creative
tools and methodology. Garcia, a former employee of the US Forest Service and the Bureau and Land Management, is
something of an expert in topology and mapping. In last year's well-known case of missing southern California grade-schooler
Danielle Van Dam, Garcia combined his knowlege of terrain with a little common sense and a remarkable intuitive
skill to come-up with a list of areas in which Van Dam's body would most likely be found, given what he knew about
where her alleged abductor either said he'd been or police ultimately learned or believed he'd been. It was one
of Garcia's teams that first searched the off-the-beaten-path area near El Cajon, California where Van Dam's body
was later found.
Garcia and his field associate, Wayne (who prefers, because of his undercover work, not to be photographed by or
to give out his last name to the press), said they first came to Modesto during one of Laci's family's organized
searches in early February,
but lamented that they were not welcomed with the sort of opened arms to which they've become accustomed from their
experiences with other missing person cases. Though they said they did
manage to steal a precious moment with Brent and Amy Rocha (Laci's older brother and younger half-sister, respectively),
they said they were quickly shood away from family members by those surrounding and protecting them and were never
really taken seriously. Garcia added that despite a long and impressive list of southern California police department
detectives and FBI agents who can attest to his firm's effectiveness, they were unable to get the attention of
or any cooperation or information from Modesto police at that time.
He added that it is much easier for him to be successful in his searches when police and the family of the missing
person are able to give him information and clues, in strictest confidence, of course, which can help him determine
the best places to look.
"Clearly, we don't have that in this case," Garcia said. "But one of our virtues is tenacity,"
he added, explaining that he felt they might still be able to get the job done with or without the family's or
the police department's help."
Garcia and his associate drove their Champaign-colored, equipment-laden SUV back to Modesto from San Diego on Sunday,
March 2, 2003. With Wayne's little Chihuahua mix, Peanut, in tow, they came on their own, hired or remunerated
by no one, at a cost to themselves of from $250 to $350 per day, just because they felt they had something special
to offer that might actually help. And for as long as their finances allow, Garcia added, they're here "for
the longhaul."
"Before we left," Wayne said, "we printed-out the Laci Peterson web site's entire What's
Happening
article and we took turns driving and reading it aloud to one another on our way here so we would be fully briefed
in everything that's happened so far."
The duo prepared a press release, dated March 2nd, which they began distributing to reporters upon their arrival.
It stated:
Bill Garcia
Investigative Services will begin an intensive private search for Laci Rocha-Peterson today. Our goals are to assist
the Rocha family and authorities in a comprehensive search for information or evidence that will lead to her recovery.
It is our belief that Mrs. Rocha-Peterson did not leave of her own accord and was the victim of abduction. At this
time our firm believes that Mr. Scott Peterson has not been forthright with the Rocha family or authorities and
may be involved in his wife's disappearance.
Our firm will utilize an initial three-member search team using proven search techniques and the latest technology
available to search areas around Stanislaus County and the surrounding area for leads in Mrs. Rocha-Peterson's
disappearance. All information will be confidential and provided to the appropriate authorities. |
Right
out of the gate, a find
On Monday evening, March 3, 2003, Gloria Gomez, a reporter for KOVR-TV, the Sacramento CBS affiliate,
did a story on Garcia's return to Modesto that was picked-up by the network and also ran on San Diego's KFMB
Channel 8,
the CBS affiliate there. San Francisco's KPIX-TV, that city's CBS affiliate, also ran the story.
San Diego
private investigator Bill Garcia talks to KVOR's Gloria Gomez in a piece that also ran on San Diego's KFMB TV (Channel
8). Click here to view the piece from Channel 8's web site using your Windows Media Player.
KVOR/KFMB
video stillshot |
Gomez reported
that Garcia made what he characterized as an unusual discovery right next to the Delta Mendota Canal at a specific
location he did not wish publicly disclosed but which he said he had reported to Modesto police on Monday, March
3rd. It was an irregularly-shaped cement mix spill that was about three feet wide at its widest and perhaps three
to four feet across. He guessed it to be no more than a few inches thick at its thickest point.
He said it looked to him like someone had parked a vehicle next to the canal and was then handling or removing
from it some cement mix that was then accidentally spilled it onto the ground. He said he could not be certain
if the mix was in dry powder form when it spilled and was then subsequently rained upon and then hardened, or if
it was already mixed with water and was spilled in that form. But in either case, there was a distinct tire track
through it that looked to him like that of a smaller tire such as what might be found on a boat or some other kind
of trailer. Garcia admitted he had no way of determining it with any degree of certainty, but it looked to him
like the concrete patch had not been there very long -- perhaps two or three months, at the most.
It was interesting, Garcia said, because it was the only irregular patch or spill of concrete of any kind that
he and his associate had seen in their nearly 30 miles of searching in both directions along the canal. He added
that it was his understanding that that area of the canal had been a popular spot for disposal of bodies in the
past. The concrete patch, he said, was very near the canal's edge and just a few feet off the road in a very remote
area with virtually no nearby traffic, no houses or buildings within a reasonable distance, and where it is very
dark at night.
Patrick Giblin, staff writer from the Modesto Bee, also interviewed Garcia for his story that ran on Wednesday morning,
March 5, 2003. Giblin contacted police for their reaction to Garcia's find and he reported that Det. Doug Ridenour,
spokesman for the Modesto Police Department regarding the Laci Peterson case, said he could not comment
about any aspect of the investigation. He said police did not seek Garcia's help and became aware he was in the
area only through calls from reporters.
But Garcia told reporters on Tuesday, March 4, 2003, that he had finally heard from Modesto police that day and
they told him they would, indeed, check-out the sight and try to determine if the concrete patch Garcia found there
is in any way related to the Laci Peterson case.
"I was contacted by investigators today (Tuesday) and they said they are going to take a closer look at it,"
Garcia said.
Garcia said he had no idea if the concrete patch was related to Laci's case and he cautioned that he never said
that he necessarily thought it was. He said he simply found something that seemed worthy of police consideration
and so he reported it to appropriate authorities, as he promised in his press release he would do.
Building
a reputation
Garcia's firm, Bill
Garcia Investigative Services,
mainly deals with a very narrow aspect of family law cases.
"We deal with primal abductions, child custody cases, child endangerment and abuse cases and pretty much any
other types of family law cases where a child's safety and welfare is the issue," Garcia said. He added, however,
that his firm has also been involved in several high-profile missing persons cases in the past few years.
For example, he is currently
doing pro bono work
for Tramane Sampson of Frederick, MD, the biological father of San Diego toddler Jahi Turner, 2, who disappeared
from a park on April 25, 2002 while his step-father, Tieray Jones, stepped away to purchase a soda from a nearby
machine.
"If you talk to anyone from the step-father's family, or from the mother's," Garcia warned, "you'll
probably hear some pretty negative things about me. But that stands to reason since I've made no secret of my suspicion
that the step-father is a logical suspect in that child's disappearance. But Jahi's biological father and paternal
grandmother are my clients... for whom I'm doing my work for free, I might add."
Garcia also talked about issues that arose between him and the non-profit Laura
Recovery Center,
headquartered in Fiendswood, Texas. Garcia had worked with them at the Jahi Turner volunteer center that had been
set up in San Diego. But there were eventually allegations of mismanagement and possibly even misallocation of
funds.
"Well, that's just ridiculous," Garcia said. "No one misallocated anything, though it's probably
true that the whole thing wasn't managed well. But it was much more complicated than that."
"I am a person of color," Garcia continued. "Jahi Turner's family and the people in his neighborhood
are people of color. You can't take a bunch of upper-middle-class, white, do-gooders from some little town in Texas
and plop them down in a neighborhood like that to organize a search effort and expect things to go smoothly. The
Laura Recovery people are good people. I believe I'm a good person. But they clearly didn't like my way of doing
things. I believe they felt things there were just out of control on a whole bunch of different levels. And they
definitely seemed to have a problem trusting me from the outset. It was a bad situation that only got worse. And
it can't be explained in a few sentences in your article. It would take an entire article of its own to help your
readers understand. So let's just not get too deeply into that story right now," he concluded.
Garcia added that, in his opinion, the side of Jahi Turner's family with which he is
aligned likes him just fine.
"The bottom line," he said, "is that the people from among those who knew and loved Jahi Turner,
and who are also completely above reproach in this case, are the ones who have hired me. That should say it all."
Another case Garcia was deeply involved in was in January, when he located 23-year-old Loomis Fargo armored car
driver Philip Salcedo Jr., accused of stealing money from his company and fleeing to Mexico.
The armored car Salcedo had been driving was found abandoned in downtown San Diego on January 23, 2003, with its
engine running and door open. Moments earlier Salcedo had dropped off a fellow security guard at a city administration
building for the car's final pickup of the day, police said.
The next day, January 24, 2003, FBI agents found money and deposit bags from the armored car in Rosarito, Mexico.
Though Police had initially treated the case as a possible kidnapping and robbery, the find and circumstances surrounding
it caused them to consider Salcedo the "prime suspect" from that moment forward. Garcia said he soon
found out why.
The day after the disappearance, Garcia was hired by Salcedo's father, Philip Salcedo Sr., who worried that his
son, who was married and the father of two children, had been kidnapped from the armored car.
"I went down to Rosarito (Mexico) after being retained by the father," Garcia said. "I learned that
the owners of a Sushi establishment and a cigar store had seen a kid (later determined to be Salcedo Jr.) get out
of a taxi cab with a backpack on his back and a paper sack in each hand. The kid walked straight to a trash can
near the entrance of the Festivale Hotel and tossed the paper sacks in, then walked away. The Sushi bar owner found
the guy's demeanor odd and went over to the can and looked in the sacks. Inside were bank deposit bags and other
items from the armored car that Salcedo had been driving in San Diego."
Garcia said that Mexican Police and U.S. FBI agents later determined that the young man with the backpack was Philip
Salcedo Jr., and he was then named the primary suspect in the theft case.
Salcedo Jr. had taken a trolley from where he left the armored car to the Mexican border, Garcia said. He took
a taxi from there to Rosarito, and then another taxi to Encinada. There he bought a Jeep which he drove to Loretto,
Mexico, where the Jeep broke down. He then took a small plane to La Paz and from there took a bus to Cabo San Lucas.
Garcia said he tracked Salcedo Jr. to Encinada, where he learned that he had met with two other men and a woman
and, together, they had headed further south along the Mexican coast. Garcia said he then told the Salcedo Sr.
that he felt his son was headed for Cabo San Lucas, Baja California. The elder Salcedo directed Garcia to fly there
and intercept his son if he could. As it turned out, he actually arrived in Cabo San Lucas a few days before Salcedo
Jr. did.
After three days of searching, Garcia finally spotted Salcedo Jr., who was staying at the Melia San Lucas hotel.
He said he had seen several men who looked a bit like Salcedo, but the Hostess® TwinkieTM-sized birthmark on the back of the neck of the man he ultimately
saw at a popular bar called the Giggling Marlin told Garcia that he'd finally found the young fugitive.
He notified San Diego police who, in turn, contacted the FBI. Garcia said he was asked to keep Salcedo under surveillance
until agents could arrive -- bringing with them representatives from the Mexican Policia Judicial Procuraduria.
Garcia said he approached Salceda and his new companions and befriended them. Together they "hung out"
in the hotel's bar and in other nearby places while authorities were enroute.
Mexican police connected with Garcia the next morning and kept Salcedo and his companions under surveillance while
waiting for FBI agents to arrive. Garcia said he was walking with an undercover Mexican police officer when one
of Salcedo's companions noticed him and waved him over to their table. Garcia said the officer pretended he didn't
even know Garcia and kept on walking as Garcia joined Salcedo and his friends.
After chatting with them for a while, Garcia said he excused himself and went outside the hotel to use a pay phone.
There, he said he was approached by agents from the Policia Judicial Procuraduria who asked for an update on the
situation. While talking with them, Garcia said, Salcedo happened to come out of the hotel's front entrance and
Garcia noticed that Salcedo saw him talking with the agents who were in plain clothes but whom anyone would have
recognized as police authorities.
"So I pretended like the agents had stopped me and were interrogating me," Garcia said.
He said he yelled at the agent and complained that he was harassing him and told him that he had left his wallet
and identification in his room and asked the agent to just leave him alone.
Garcia said Salcedo, upon noticing that his new-found acquaintance had been stopped by authorities, turned around
and walked down the driveway and away from the hotel. Fearing that Salcedo was fleeing before FBI agents could
arrive, Mexican authorities pondered the matter for a moment and made the decision to apprehend the fugitive about
two blocks away.
Salcedo had in his possession a small paper sack containing $11,000 in cash which he later said he intended to
use to purchase a ring for a woman he'd met in Mexico. Garcia said Salcedo talked about plans to travel with her
to Minnesota and to live there under an assumed name.
Garcia said he then accompanied Mexican authorities as they took Salcedo back to his hotel room, where they found
all but about $40,000 of the roughly half million dollars worth of money and checks that were missing from the
armored car.
Then, according to Garcia, Salcedo turned to him and asked if his name was really "Bill." He answered
that it was and explained that he was not a police officer; that he was a private investigator from San Diego hired
by Salcedo's father because he was so worried about his son. Garcia said he then pulled from beneath his shirt
a gold cross on a chain around his neck that the senior Salcedo had given to him to show to his son if he found
him so the junior Salcedo would know that Garcia really was sent by his father. Garcia said Salcedo Jr. immediately
recognized his father's gold jewelry and began to weep.
FBI agents arrived and placed Salcedo Jr. under arrest for theft and transported him back to San Diego for arraignment.
Garcia said he returned to his San Diego office feeling "pretty good" about the engagement and how it
turned out.
| "I've always been
clear about (the Van Dam case)," Garcia said, "but invariably the misinformation floating around out
there somehow ends-up haunting me anyway." |
One of the highest-profile cases Garcia has been involved in was the Danielle Van Dam case. Last year a team of
volunteers that Garcia had put together were first to search the area where Van Dam's body was found. Garcia is
quick to clarify that it was not actually his team that found the little
girl's body but, rather, it was a second team not under his direction that went back for a second look and made
the grisly discovery.
One of the people in that second group, a woman named Shawna Miller had earlier been on Garcia's logistical team
that had searched that spot but had somehow overlooked Van Dam's remains.
Miller, Garcia said, is something of a missing person's activist in her own right, having lost her sister to an
unexplained disappearance some 17 years earlier. Six months later, Garcia said, her sister's roommate also disappeared.
Though Miller's sister was never found, the roommate's body was later discovered. She had been beheaded. No suspects
have ever been named in either case, but the events gave Miller a unique, experiential perspective on the subject
of missing persons. She remains actively involved in Garcia's searches to this day, he said.
Miller was one of only three people on the Van Dam search team that circled back and checked for a second time
the area where the little girl's body was ultimately found. Miller and one of the two men in the group had begun
to search further down the hill when the third member of the group (the other man) called out to them that he had
found something. They came back up the hill and approached him as he stood near the heavy foliage by a trail and
scattered rocks just off Dehesa Road near Willow Glen Drive. He had finally found the child's remains hidden there.
Garcia's contribution to the Van Dam case, he said, was limited to helping police determine where to search and
providing teams of people who helped in the search effort. Garcia quipped that it is not up to him whether he gets
any credit for the fact that one of his people was, nevertheless, in the group that actually did find Van Dam, though admittedly not while under his direction.
He lamented that history has not been kind to him in that regard.
"The press often mangles the complex details of my involvement in the Van Dam case," Garcia said. "So
I end-up being misquoted as having taken credit for the find even though I've never said such a thing in my life.
I mean, nothing could be further from the truth, so there's just no reason for me to have ever said it. I've always
been clear about my involvement. But it's so detailed that reporters, or, perhaps, copy desk editors, just shorten
it to make it easy on themselves, I suppose. I try to be detailed and clear about it when I'm interviewed, but
invariably the misinformation floating around out there somehow ends-up haunting me anyway."
On to
Modesto
Garcia said that while he had spoken very briefly to members of both the families of Scott and Laci Peterson, neither
had hired him to come to Modesto and conduct a search. Instead he said he's in the area voluntarily to see if he
can make a dent in the case because he simply believes it's the right thing to do and that it's the best possible
stewardship of his time and skills.
"We're doing this because we can," Garcia said. "We have the skill, the patience, the know-how,
the tenacity and the commitment to at least be of some kind of help, somehow. Yes,
police can get a conviction without a
body, but having one would certainly make the prosecutor's job a lot easier. And Laci's family needs to know what
happened to her -- whatever it was. Whether we help bring her home alive or we merely find a clue that ultimately
leads police to the location of her remains, in either case we're here to help. Simple as that."
Garcia has no hesitation to add that he also needs to eat and if his investigation does help solve the case, he said, and if there is some kind of financial reward or remuneration that could
subsequently come his way, he'd certainly not turn it down. But he stressed that that is not his motivation, and
pointed out that the $500,000 reward associated with the Laci Peterson case is clearly for her "safe return,"
and not for information about where her body is.
"Personally, I don't believe there's going to be any 'safe return' at this point," Garcia said. "So
we're obviously not here for the money, are we?"
In an ironic twist, and not in any way related to Garcia's presence or his comments about the reward, Modesto Police
began letting the media know late on Tuesday, March 4th, that there would be a press conference on Wednesday, March
5th at 2:30 PM PST and that the subject would be a revision in the conditions under which a reward would be given.
Local media talked about rumors that the conditions would be changed from "for information leading to a safe
return" to "for information leading to an arrest and conviction" or something similar.
San Francisco's KTVU-TV's Ted Rowlands talked about the change during his
daily update
on the Peterson case during the FOX affiliate's "Mornings on 2" program. He said that there was a possibility
that, along with a change in the reward conditions, there might come a reduction in the reward amount.
"As it stands now, the $500,000 reward is contingent on Laci's safe return," Rowlands told viewers. "It
is expected that the conditions for the reward payoff will be changed to accommodate information which will lead
to an arrest. It's not clear if the reward amount will remain at $500,000. There's a chance it will be lowered
because more than $300,000 of that is from a private donor who may or may not want to pay out for just an arrest."
Rowlands then reported to viewers that, according to an article in that morning's Modesto Bee newspaper, investigators
would be out at the Delta Mendota Canal area today (Wednesday, March 5, 2003) to look into a report that concrete
or cement residue was found along the water's edge.
"This was an area that was searched a few weeks ago, independently, by Laci's family," Rowlands said.
"This residue, apparently, was found by a private investigator and, according to the Modesto Bee, investigators
are taking it seriously enough to go out and take a look."
| "...if something
(such as a reward) came my way I'd certainly not hesitate to take it," Garcia said. "But I first arrived
weeks before today's reward was announced, so that's clearly not why I'm here." |
On Wednesday, March 5, 2003, police investigators converged on the area where Garcia found the cement spill near
the Delta Mendota Canal and began their attempts to determine if it is in any way related to Laci's disappearance.
Meanwhile, police officials and Laci's family held the 2:30 PM PST press conference, as planned, at the Modesto
police station.
Kim Peterson, Executive Director of the Sund/Carrington Foundation and spokesperson for Laci's family read a prepared statement
in which the Foundation announced that donors of the $500,000 reward for Laci's safe return had authorized $50,000
of it to be used as a reward for information leading to her location and recovery.
At that same press conference, Modesto police announced that they now believe Laci to be the victim of a homicide.
"As the investigation has progressed, we have increasingly come to believe that Laci Peterson is the victim
of a violent crime," said Detective Craig Grogan, lead investigator.
"This investigation began as a missing person case, and we all were hopeful that Laci would return home safely,"
Grogan said. "However, we have come to consider this a homicide case."
At one point during the press conference reporters asked police spokesperson Det. Doug Ridenour about Garcia and
the concrete spill he had found. Ridenour did not address the spill but did talk about Garcia.
"We did not ask him to come into the case," Ridenour said, continuing, "nor, to my knowledge, he
never did call and ask for permission to be involved in it."
But police investigators later told San Francisco's KPIX TV that Garcia's discovery was
not being discounted and that they (police) were looking at it to assess its credibility.
After Ridenour's remarks about Garcia, Kim Petersen stepped back up to the microphone and attempted to distance
both the Sund/Carrington Foundation and Laci's family from the San Diego investigator and his search efforts. She
told reporters that she had heard from sources close to Danielle Van Dam's family that Garcia had not been the
person who found Danielle Van Dam's body and that he had nothing to do with her case.
"Well, it's just not true that I had nothing to do with the Van Dam case," Garcia said when contacted
by phone later Wednesday evening. "Anyone can certainly verify that with police down there (in the San Diego
area)."
"But it is true," he continued, "that
I'm not the one who found Danielle Van Dam's body, and I've never said I did. I say again, the circumstances surrounding
my involvement in that case were complex, and so the press often mangles it. Here we have a situation where Kim
Petersen believes she's discredited me as a liar in the eyes of the reporters who were at that press conference
today. But the alleged claim of mine, which she says I lied about, I never claimed in the first place."
"But I don't believe Kim said it to be mean," Garcia added. "I believe she wants to protect Laci's
family from opportunists and others who don't have their best interests at heart. It's too bad she didn't take
the time to understand what we're about before speaking out against us. But I certainly am not upset with her or
angry about it. We've seen this sort of thing before. She's just doing her job as she sees it."
When asked why anyone close to the Van Dam family would reach out to Petersen and try to discredit him, Garcia
acknowledged that he is not on good terms with the Van Dams.
"They tried to control everyone and everything associated with that case," Garcia said. "I told
them that that just wasn't going to work with me. I told them I wasn't there for them; that I was there for Danielle.
They didn't seem to like that very much."
"Also, and this, I think, is a big one," Garcia added, "I've always wondered to what degree their
lifestyle may have contributed, at least in part, to what ultimately happened to their daughter. Now, don't get
me wrong, I'm not saying it actually was a contributory factor. I'm
just telling you that I had openly wondered about it at the time, and I was later told that my remarks had gotten
back to the Van Dams. Well, I'm sure you can imagine how angry that must have made them. Now, it seems, they go out of their
way to discredit me. But I don't mind, really. They're still in a lot of horrible emotional pain and will be for
a long, long time. Who knows, maybe it helps them to have someone to lash out at. What the heck, if it makes 'em
feel better, they can use me for that if they want to."
Perhaps
vindication
On Friday, March 7, 2003, a detective sergeant with the San Diego Police Department's Homicide Division, who spoke
on condition that he not be named in this story, verified the essential elements of Garcia's version of his involvement
in all three cases (i.e., Jahi Turner, Philip Salcedo Jr., and Danielle Van Dam). The detective said he had been
directly involved in the Van Dam case, had close knowledge of the Salcedo case, and said that the Jahi Turner case
was one to which he was currently assigned.
And in May of 2002, San Diego police spokesman David Cohen praised Garcia and the volunteers for their work in
the Jahi Turner case. He also made mention of Garcia's contribution to the Danielle Van Dam investigation.
"We've been absolutely thrilled with Bill Garcia's efforts and that of the volunteers," he said. "To
my knowledge, it hasn't turned up anything critical to the (Jahi Turner) case, but it does provide us with extra
eyes and ears out there, and you never know when they're going to come across something. Obviously that was borne
out during the Van Dam investigation."
When told that police had confirmed his version of events with regard to those cases, Garcia was pleased... and
a little vexed.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that," Garcia said late on Friday. "It's too bad Kim Petersen didn't do
that kind of homework before attacking me in front of the press."
Now, perhaps because of Petersen's public revelation of the call from the Van Dam camp, it appears there's no hope
of Laci's family ever being in Garcia's fan club. But he wishes it weren't so and he just shakes his head in disbelief
when talking about it.
| "In many ways, this
is really about Laci's unborn child, Connor. There are really two missing persons here, and Connor is the true innocent. He had no voice.
He was never even permitted to gasp his first breath. That's what's at the root of my
resolve." |
"I came here on my own and asked them for nothing," Garcia said on Wednesday, March 5th. "Of course,
it would have been nice to speak with (the family) or the police. It makes my job easier when I can. Yes, I have been perfectly candid about
the fact that if we were successful and if something (such as a reward) came my way I'd certainly not hesitate
to take it. But I first arrived weeks before today's reward was announced, so that's clearly not why I'm here."
In explaining why he is here, Garcia called attention
to something Brent Rocha read to reporters during his family's press conference on February 5, 2003.
"The family invited independent searches," Garcia said. "All we're doing here is a little independent
searching. We just want to help, mostly because we think we can. If I hadn't seen it so many times before, I'd
be wondering why no one seems to want to understand that that's really our ... motivation, here."
"We're not just searching for Laci," Garcia said. "In fact, if just Laci was missing, we might not
have even come here. If you'll notice, most of the cases we get involved with have something to do with the safety
and welfare of children. That's one of the things my firm focuses on: Giving children some kind of voice. In many
ways, this is really about Laci's unborn child, Connor. There are really two
missing persons here, and Connor is the true innocent. He had no voice.
He was never even permitted to gasp his first breath. That's what's at the root of my
resolve. If I can somehow help give this family some peace of mind, then so be it. But when it comes right down
to it, I think I'm mostly here for that unborn child."
Garcia was also candid about the fact that he hoped some of the publicity might help get some attention for his
private investigation firm and drive a few new clients his way.
"Of course that's true," he exclaimed unabashedly. "And just exactly what's wrong with that? Does
that somehow make our work here any less valid? Does that make what I'm doing here less valuable in the end?"
"Ninety minutes after that press conference," Garcia continued, "I was right back to work, standing
up to my knees in pond water checking out what we thought might be another piece of potential evidence. So I'm
doing the work, right? No matter what others think actually motivates me, I'm still out here doing the actual work.
So where's the harm in my privately hoping that the resulting media coverage might earn me a little new business?
Why do some people find the notion of that so repugnant? I just don't get it."
But the mediocre or even negative press surrounding Garcia's arrival in Modesto has not cast a pall over the whole
situation for him. He is undeterred.
"It doesn't really faze me," he shrugged. "If we find (Laci), everyone's opinion will suddenly change,
won't it? And if we don't, well, at least we tried. And I'll know the value of that, even
if no one else seems to."
Garcia spent Wednesday night, March 5, 2003 with friends in Sacramento. The next morning he met two of his volunteers
at the airport and handed them the keys to his Champaign-colored, equipment-laden SUV. And then he and Wayne and
Peanut boarded a plane home to San Diego, leaving the others behind to continue searching the fields, ponds, lakes,
ditches, canals and many of the Modesto-area's other nooks and crannies.
Garcia said that three more of this volunteers drove up from San Diego to Modesto on Thursday, March 7, 2003.
"So, now, I have five people in two vehicles searching up there," Garcia said, Thursday, from his San
Diego office. "But I've asked them to just be low-key and not say anything to anyone and just get the job
done. We've got some very specific areas that we want to eliminate. We're going to do that and then once that's
done we're leaving."
And Garcia has some fairly specific areas he said he wants to search.
"We're of the belief that if Scott Peterson hid his wife, he didn't drive her body more than an hour or so
away from Modesto to do it," he said. "So, I believe we're basically dealing with a roughly one hour
target area around that city."
Garcia said the specific areas he wanted to eliminate included parts of the land and waters west of Modesto all
the way to the I-5 corridor; areas east of Modesto near La Grange; and, finally, certain areas south near the San
Luis Reservoir. He said there were also some other, secondary spots he wanted to check out, such as the Chowchilla
area and a few places surrounding it. And he said there were a handful of places which he didn't specify but which
he said he hoped his teams would still have time to search before heading back to San Diego.
"I, myself, will be back... probably tomorrow
(Saturday, March 8, 2003)," Garcia said from his office on Friday. "I just came back here (to San Diego)
to check-in at my office and take care of some business, get a little sleep, and then I'll be heading back (to
Modesto). I said it once, and I'll say it again: We're here for the longhaul."
And, though he didn't actually say it, he can now add, perhaps proudly, "...whether we're welcome or not."
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