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POSTED:
Monday, January 20, 2003 at 4:15 PM PST
UPDATED: Sunday, April 20th, 2003 at 7:30 PM PST
MODESTO,
CA -- Laci Denise Peterson, an attractive 27-year-old Modesto woman, has been missing since Christmas eve 2002.
Her husband, 30-year-old Scott Peterson, told family members and police that he went to his office/warehouse at
around 9:30 AM PST that morning. He said his wife, Laci, planned to shop for dinner and then walk their aging golden
retriever, McKenzie, in nearby East La Loma Park.
Laci Peterson |
Before 9:00 AM PST on Christmas Eve, a neighbor would later tell police that she had seen Scott loading something
large, wrapped in a blue tarp, into the back of his pickup truck. Scott would later say that what he loaded into
the truck that morning were a couple of what he called "market umbrellas" -- large, 8-foot diameter umbrellas
that he used in his work, somehow, as a specialty fertilizer salesperson.
"In the back of my truck, I put a couple big umbrellas," Scott would later tell Oakland's KTVU TV reporter
Ted Rowlands. "It had started to rain, I took them to storage."
Scott kept a 14-foot aluminum boat stored at his office/warehouse over on Emerald Avenue. He said that after stopping
there for a short time that morning he decided to hook the boat to his truck and take a short fishing trip to the
San Francisco Bay. He says he headed out toward the Berkeley Marina, some 85 miles away in the mid-morning. He
said he tried to call Laci from his cell phone during the day but could not reach her.
Scott said that upon his return at around 4:30 PM PST to the modest La Loma neighborhood home that he had shared
with Laci for the past two years, she was nowhere to be found.
A message was on Scott's and Laci's answering machine from Laci's stepfather, Ron Grantski, who had called at around
4:00 PM PST asking the couple to remember to bring whipping cream to her parents home that evening. They were planning
on going there for a Christmas Eve dinner and a family celebration.
When Scott arrived home from his alleged fishing trip, the dog, he said, had returned to the neighborhood on its
own, dragging its mud-soaked leash still attached to its collar. A neighbor, Karen Servas, had spotted the dog
at around 10:30 AM PST that morning and had put it in the couple's back yard... not stopping to think that something
might be amiss.
Scott said Laci's 1996 Range Rover sport utility vehicle was in the driveway; and her purse, keys and cell phone
were on the table in the house. By some accounts, Scott then took a shower and did some cleaning of the kitchen
floor before beginning to inquire with anyone as to Laci's whereabouts.
At around 5:20 PM PST he called Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha, and asked if Laci was there at her home. Sharon told
him that she was not there, and suggested he call around to neighbors' houses and to the homes of some of Laci's
friends.
At around 6:00 PM PST Scott called Sharon back and told her that no one had seen Laci.
"I asked Ron (Grantski) to call police at that time," Sharon would later recount.
An immediate search of East La Loma Park and surrounding areas was launched by police and, within hours, many others.
They utilized foot searchers, all-terrain vehicles, patrol cars, sport utility vehicles, helicopters with search
lights and heat sensors, water rescue units, canines and equestrian teams.
Nothing. Not a sign of Laci anywhere.
Everyone went home that evening to begin what would be the first of many sleepless nights. Looking back almost
two months later, Laci's older brother, Brent Rocha, would recall something Scott kept sayng at the time that had
bothered him: It was his use of the word "missing" over and over and over again, Rocha would say. He
couldn't escape the uneasy feeling that Scott was using the term far too early in the game.
At the time of her disappearance Laci was about 7½ months pregnant and was due to deliver a baby boy on
or about February 10, 2003.
The couple had even picked out a name for their their unborn son: Connor.
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