Kaelyn Moore
Appearances
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He was found with nearly $15,000 in cash. He was found with a lot of Viagra on him. About 100 sleeping pills. He had camping and survival equipment, several changes of clothes, four cell phones, and two driver's licenses. Put all these items in a bag. It's a go bag. He had 10 hardcore porn channels installed on his TV. The type that you pay extra for. I have no words.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So join us as we uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Seeing an image of his almost fully formed son. Weird. Thinking about a vasectomy and calling his affair partner. Weird. Where what? The timelines.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And it's at this point, too, that his behavior becomes even more appalling and bizarre because around this time, too, the police are calling Scott with tips saying that, you know, someone 90 miles away said they thought they saw Lacey at a record store. You should call them and you should see what's going on.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And even his friends were calling him saying, like, I was listening to the radio this morning and someone on the radio said that they saw a pregnant woman who looked like Lacey around this area. You should call this police precinct and see if they got that tip, too. And every time he would get these phone calls, he would tell them, yeah, yeah, I'll check in on it. Or he'd say, I looked into it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I called them. They said it was nothing. But at that point in the investigation, the police were tapping Scott's phone and they knew that he was not following up on any of these leads, even when he was telling people that he was looking into it. And to me. That's kind of because he knew that there was nothing that would come from any of those leads.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's so bizarre. And I was also reading actually how before this whole thing really became like a big national case. Right when Lacey and Connor disappeared, Scott tried to sell his house. He wanted to sell the home. And when they asked, when can you move out? He was like, no, fully furnished. Like they can just have everything in the house.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So he clearly wanted to get out of the house really quickly. And people at that time, too, like his friends and family were saying, Scott, your wife is missing. Like, what if she comes back? What if she's being held hostage and she comes back or she hit her head and she's disoriented and she wanders back? The first place she's going to go is your home.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And you want to sell the whole thing and move away.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, wasn't it? Like, it was full of junk. I saw pictures of it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Wastebasket. Garbage can. Discarded it. You don't want that? I mean, interesting. It doesn't really sound like someone who thinks that their family's coming back. And I will say, I think maybe the weirdest one for me is that after Lacey went missing within two weeks about... One thing that Scott did was he had 10 hardcore porn channels installed on his TV, the type that you pay extra for.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And according to reports, they were added around January 8th of 2003. So not even a month later, he's having his cable package upgraded so that he can get those 10 channels. No, not even a month. Wait. It's like two weeks.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So you've probably heard of the Lacey Peterson case. It's one of the most infamous criminal trials in recent history. A pregnant Lacey vanished without a trace in 2002. But what you might not know is how a few key pieces of evidence shifted the investigation and ultimately led to a conviction, one that some people think they got wrong.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And it's all these things adding up together. If that were the only weird thing, you might be given a pass because of grief. But it's just when you add all these things up together, it starts looking like a really weird picture. Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Definitely. And throughout this entire time, while his pregnant wife and unborn child are missing, he's still actively talking to Amber. And we know a lot about this because his phone was being tapped by police. And it's somewhere in here, too, that Amber actually becomes aware of Lacey's disappearance because a friend of hers tells her about it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And apparently Scott didn't mention that Lacey was missing until early January of 2003.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's a weird thing to say when your wife isn't dead. Totally. And part of the reason, too, that Amber was having those conversations with Scott is because she was actively working with law enforcement. She was letting them tap her phone. She wanted to basically get a confession from Scott so she could help the police.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And later that month, Amber goes ahead and she gives a press conference where she shares details about her affair with Scott. And that just takes so much bravery because think about it. This has now become this big national circus. She has a small child at home. She's putting her whole reputation on the line.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Coming forward saying she had an affair with a married man all because she's putting Lacey's disappearance ahead of her reputation. And I just I think that's so brave of her to do. But she is clearly in this press conference very devastated by Lacey's disappearance. And she said that she just wanted to help the investigation any way she could. And
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Also around this time, Lacey's family gives a press conference, their own press conference, and that's where they publicly revoke their support of Scott. His behavior was too suspicious for them. Why wasn't he following up on leads? Why wasn't he helping the investigation? Why was his unborn son's room now a storage unit?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It just seemed too strange and they could no longer rule him out as a suspect.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
That's so devastating for a mom to have to ask her son-in-law that. So in late January, Scott decides that he wants to try to save his image. He knows that this is becoming a big spectacle. He knows everyone's turning against him. So he has the bright idea to do an interview with Diane Sawyer for Good Morning America. And I don't know if you've seen this interview. It is a unmitigated disaster.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I've seen some of the clips, but why like why was it such a disaster? Like what? It's just so clear he's lying the whole time. Diane Sawyer is asking him these questions and he's saying things that directly conflict other with other things he said. And she calls him out on it, too. She's like.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Asking him about the affair and he says, you know, Lacey knew about my affair with Amber and she was actually okay with it. And Dianthor is like, your eight-month pregnant wife was fine with the fact that you were having an affair with another woman. That doesn't make any sense to me. And he's like, he said something stupid like, well, no one knows our relationship but us. And...
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. Sir! Oh, was that supposed to be me? It's clearly you. Yeah. And after this, after that horrible interview, Amber completely cuts off contact with Scott. And then in mid-April of 2003, this is almost four months after Lacey went missing, the bodies of Lacey and her unborn son Connor were discovered washed ashore.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And that kind of leads us to our first clue, which Morgan, do you want to get into that?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Well, this is a little outside of your domain, because two hot takes is so different from this kind of show. We cover a lot of stuff like this on Hearts, Hearts, Pounding. This isn't your first rodeo. It's not my first rodeo, and I think... Yeah. But I think both of our audiences are probably very interested in true crime.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Puts him at the scene of the crime.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Wow. Well, on April 18th, just a few days after their bodies were discovered, Scott Peterson was arrested at Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, California, where he was meeting his dad and brother. He had dyed his hair and his beard blonde. I don't know if you've seen photos of this. He did a bad job. It's not good, you guys. No, it's like bright orange.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It looks like he just did it in his bathroom at like two in the morning, like we all did in middle school. Yep. And so he tried to say that, you know, my hair is orange because I didn't want the press to recognize me. I want to be able to do things with my family and not show up on the tabloids. But there were some things found in his car that really don't make a lot of sense.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He was found with nearly $15,000 in cash. He was found with... a lot of Viagra on him, about 100 sleeping pills. He had camping and survival equipment, several changes of clothes, four cell phones, and two driver's licenses, his brother's and his. And he claimed that his brother's license was being used to get a resident discount at the golf course.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But it's not really clear how he tried to explain away the other items.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, that's what everyone was trying to say, right? Because he's like an hour basically from Mexico. He had already been talking about leaving the country when he called the cable. Camping equipment. Camping equipment. A hundred sleeping pills.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yes. It's important to know a little bit more about this boat, actually. So Scott bought it on December 9th, 2002. About two weeks prior to Lacey's disappearance, and if you've been paying attention to the timeline here, December 9th is also when he told Amber Frye, his mistress, that he had a wife who had passed away previously. Just so we're all on the same page with that.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Absolutely. And so, first of all, just thank you to everyone from our shows, Two Hot Takes and Hearts Rise Pounding, that is here listening to us right now. Everyone that came over from our shows to listen to this new one. Thank you so much for your support. It does not go unnoticed. We see you guys. We love you guys. Very, very appreciated.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He also bought this boat in cash, which, when you also add in the fact that he was keeping it in a warehouse away from his family, no one knew about this boat. There was no paper trail leading him to this boat. Feels pretty secretive. According to Scott, on December 24th, the day Lacey went missing...
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
That was the first time he had ever taken this boat out in general, even though he had bought it on December 9th. He had never taken it out before, but he thought that the day Lacey went missing also was like the perfect time to take it out. Christmas Eve. Why not? Yeah, right. Five hours round trip. Can't get over that. Scott himself even said that Lacey had never been on this boat before.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But one of the biggest clues in this case was found on the boat.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And eventually the prosecution for this case argued that because Lacey's hair was found on the boat, it meant that she had been on the boat. If not when she was alive, then when she was dead. Because hair wasn't just found on clothing. It wasn't just found strewn about in the boat. Like maybe it had gotten on Scott's shirt and fell off, whatever. It was wrapped up in pliers.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Which is a very strange spot for the hair to be.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And again, too, it makes me think about how maybe there was a chance that he hugged her goodbye in the morning. Hair got on his shirt. It got onto the boat. But we're never going to know that because Scott washed his clothes the second he got home. So all of that evidence is gone now. But there's also another major clue in this case that's tied to this boat.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And I was actually thinking because a new show like this, ratings and reviews really help these shows grow. So if you're listening and you can comment wherever you're listening, leave a little THT or HSP in the comments so that we know where you're coming from.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Right. Just buying the cement or making an anchor is not really the thing that makes him look weird here. It's about what Scott did with that concrete or says he didn't do with the concrete that makes him look suspicious.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So it's not that they had seen the anchors is that they saw where they thought the anchors were made. Yeah. Assumed that there were four other anchors made.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's a little difficult. Yeah, I know some people were describing it kind of like a Rorschach test. Which one is that? That's where you see the blots. And they're like, what do you see in this? It maybe describes your childhood or whatever. But so some people, when they see this photo, they see the indents. They see exactly where the anchors were.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And some people are like, what are you talking about? There's definitely not indentations for anchors there. I've seen it. I think it looks like there were anchors that were made there. But some people, especially people who think Scott's innocent, like really don't see those indentations.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Our little blended unit over here. Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to come up. Maybe you guys will come up with a title.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. So what are they? What's the reason they say he would have made these anchors?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Oh, because, yeah, obviously you would use rope when making anchors because you have to pull them back up. You don't just leave the anchors there.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, one eight-pound anchor isn't going to keep... I know his boat wasn't that big, but it's not going to keep the boat in place. But still, we do have the fact that the others were never found. Right, right. But maybe if he had five in total... Yeah. So there was actually something interesting I found about the anchors. And it comes from this guy named Jeffrey Bear.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So he helped lead more than 15 diving expeditions off the Berkeley Marina to search for Lacey. And one of the defense's points was that... These anchors were never found, so how do we even know they existed? Sure, there was concrete missing and the imprints in the dust, but still.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
We'll think of something. We'll definitely have something by the end. Okay.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So Jeffrey testifies during the trial and he says that there's thick mud, there's strong currents, there's dark waters and strong surges in the marina. And that can make it virtually impossible to find equipment like anchors, even when you know what you're looking for. So basically there's a ton of muck down there and Scott's anchors were small.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Some reports say that all together they were 30 pounds, each of these like little eight pound things. So to this diver, it made sense that the anchors were just never found. It's totally reasonable to say that they just got lost down there, but they still existed.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And to emphasize his point, he actually told a story on the stand about when his crew accidentally dropped their underwater sonar device in the water during the search for Lacey. And it took four different diving trips to find it, even though they knew exactly where they had dropped it and where it had landed. And that's crazy to me.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Right. So you're not just like disposing of them in the marina and then making more.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. Another thing that was brought up a lot during the trial is that Scott had owned boats his whole life. It wasn't weird for him to be out on the Berkeley Marina, they say, because he did love to go out on boats. We have all this recorded history of him loving going out on boats. Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Even though, you know, his family didn't know about this specific boat, whatever, it was like common for him to own boats. But another interesting thing that the prosecution brought up during the trial was that Scott researched the tides in the San Francisco Bay the day before Lacey went missing.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
They try to say that this was weird because Scott was probably looking for the perfect place to drop her, knowing that the tides would carry her out instead of washing her back ashore. But I will say it's not that strange to look up the tides before you go fishing, before you go out on your boat.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Also, there's like the argument to I read about this on Scott Peterson appeal.org, which is like the whole layout of the he is innocent case if people want to look that up. But they really say that, you know, on these websites he was on, it wasn't really the tides. There were websites for other things and the tides happen to be on the websites.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's like when you go on a website and there's an ad for something else. You're not really searching for that thing. It just happens to be on that website. So there's the argument that he wasn't even really looking for the tides.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And you were saying, too, he also was looking up specific types of fish.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. Right. Which he would have known because he was researching. Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. And I've been fishing twice in my life. And both times were like 10 hour endeavors. It's a really it's an activity you do for a really long period of time. But we have already talked about the fact that he was probably on the water for what, 30 minutes? Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Are you happy like in hindsight? Are you happy with the one that you got? I'm looking for a second dress. Yeah. Honestly, some of the prettiest dresses I've seen come from like Lulu's and like $60 dresses from online.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I didn't read anything anywhere that he had caught a fish.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. Earlier, I briefly mentioned that the police were pretty much immediately suspicious of Scott after Lacey disappeared. And they ended up placing a GPS tracker on his car. And I know that this is something you've done a whole deep dive into.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Oh, wow. Weird. I didn't read about that.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And he was only going for like 10 minutes at a time too, right?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Right. Yeah. I remember reading about how GPS wasn't even used on planes at the time. So they're like, if it's not safe enough for pilots, how do we know it's really tracking Scott appropriately? So they had to fight to get this admitted into evidence.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. And prosecutors really looked at this as evidence that Scott was returning to the marina to check on the bodies and make sure that they hadn't been found.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Packing up my house to move back to LA full time. Woohoo! everything's in boxes it will be my second cross-country move in in a year in 12 months 365 days two moves no thank you yeah it's a lot it's like right when we unpacked the last box in the house we packed it all back up and we're coming back but
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
from being close to the investigation i mean to me it doesn't really sound like he would be doing that last one because he was not interested in talking to the police that much and he did not really want to be part of the investigation no it kind of feels like someone who's panicked that their cover is about to be blown so he's maybe going back to check and make sure everything's okay that nothing's washing ashore that's what it feels like to me at least
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. You're in the wrong spot. Which then why is he going there so much?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. So Scott's trial began on June 1st, 2004. The trial lasted for over five months, and despite the defense claiming that the evidence was circumstantial, the jury still found Scott guilty on November 12th. He was charged with first-degree murder for Lacey and second-degree murder for Connor. On December 13th, 2004, almost two years after Lacey went missing, Scott was sentenced to death.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And in August of 2020, the California Supreme Court actually overturned the death sentence in Scott's case, but they upheld his conviction. I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole on this one because I actually didn't think California even had the death penalty in 2020. And it turns out it's a little complicated. So. There was a moratorium placed on executions in California in 2019.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Gavin Newsom did that. And the last person who was executed on death row was that occurred in 2006. So it's been a long time since California has executed someone. And you can still seek the death penalty here, but there's a moratorium on executions. Interesting. Which is, yeah, it's interesting.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So the key reason they actually overturned Scott's death penalty sentence was that they found that the judge had improperly dismissed potential jurors who opposed capital punishment as if they were trying to build a jury of people who were really pro death penalty. And maybe they had like a specific outcome in mind.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And in September of 2021, Scott was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yes. No, I'm glad you brought that up. So actually, when the L.A.I.P. took on this case, the Innocence Project basically tweeted saying, that is not us. We are not affiliated with this. Keep my name out your mouth. No, literally, they were like, we are not.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
taking on the case of scott peterson and that's because the la innocence project or laip is wholly independent from the innocence project and according to an article i found when i was researching this episode scott reached out to laip the summer of 2023 requesting that they reinvestigate his case The LAIP apparently thought he did have a very good case for his innocence.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
They filed motions in January of 2024 seeking DNA testing and post-conviction discovery for Scott Peterson.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, so there's a few key pieces of evidence that LEIP is focusing on for this. The first one is eyewitnesses who may have seen Lacey walking her dog the day she disappeared, supposedly after Scott had already left for the day and went to the marina. They claim that the day Lacey went missing, Multiple people reported seeing her.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Two people claimed that they saw a pregnant woman that day around where Lacey and Scott lived. One witness said that the pregnant woman was with a dog and was arguing with a man. And another witness said that the pregnant woman was being shoved into a van.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Also, it's worth mentioning here that multiple people, some who knew Lacey, some who didn't, reported that they saw her outside walking her dog in the outfit that Scott said she was in when he left for the day. But I will say that that is not the outfit that her body was found in.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
The outfit that she was found in was confirmed to be the outfit she was in the day before, and that's because her sister, Amy, saw her in that outfit.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Absolutely. Maybe they were mistaken in what they thought they saw.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So the next thing that LAIP is looking into is the Medina family. And they lived right across the street from the Petersons. And they reported a burglary right around the time of Lacey's disappearance. The Medinas were out of town between December 24th and December 26th. And when they got home, they saw that they had been robbed. Now, police ended up finding the burglars who did it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And they said that they broke into the home on December 26th. Didn't make a ton of sense to the cops because on December 26th, there were vans and reporters and journalists and cops and everything outside of Lacey's home. So why would someone break into the house across the street if there's cops right there?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
yeah but it was everywhere and you know when they talked to the burglars they did say that they remembered seeing the whole like circus that was happening outside of lacy's home and thinking oh that's weird and then still robbing the house so it seems like it could have been that day still also i guess like there's something to be said about maybe like it's so crazy over here but
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
No, I said earlier, I watch videos on people who pickpocket other people. And there is something about like if you're a street robber, distraction is your best friend. Like if someone's looking over here, then you're robbing them over there. So there is something to be said about like, hey, all the cops in the area are looking over here.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
We're going to go commit a crime in one of the other houses because like no one's going to be thinking to check. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. So the next thing that LAIP is looking at is on Christmas Day of 2002, the day after Lacey went missing, there was a suspicious van fire less than a mile away from their home.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's presumed that this van was ignited intentionally in order to cover up a crime. So inside the van, once they go over and they kind of inspect it, they notice that there's a mattress and it's covered in this dark crimson stuff, like this big, deep iron red stain. And when they test it, they find out that, yes, it is blood. It is blood. The police don't really look into it that much, though.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's not DNA tested and they don't know whose blood it is.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Right, right. And it does feel like a stretch when we kind of take into consideration everything else that was going on in this case. Yeah. I will say the last major piece of evidence here that we know LAIP is looking into is a piece of jewelry. I know you've looked into this a lot. I've looked into it a lot. There is a whole rabbit hole that we could do on this.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
There's a whole other episode, essentially. But basically, Lacey and her family members inherited jewelry from Lacey's grandmother in November of 2002. A month before she goes missing. And one LA Times article that I found talks about how a jewelry store owner testified saying that Lacey and Scott came into her store together to have that jewelry appraised.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Along with some other personal jewelry they had, like her wedding ring. The jewelry ended up coming out to over $100,000. Wow. And as a side note, a jeweler also testified that Lacey, quote, wore a diamond pendant and told her she never took it off even when she slept because she was so afraid of losing it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But the same pendant was found sitting on a dresser in the Petersons' home after Lacey disappeared. So if she truly never did take this pendant off, then wouldn't it have been on her clothing when she died? And so Scott and Lacey actually pawned off some things on December 10th and December 14th.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Lacey's watch during the investigation was also found to be missing, and we know that she had tried to sell a watch on eBay while she was still alive. The item in question was a diamond-encrusted Crodon watch that Lacey had inherited from her grandmother's estate.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
An identical watch was brought to a pawn shop that was less than three miles from the Petersons' home, but the watch in question was pawned on December 31st. So the LAIP is arguing that whoever sold the watch must have been the true perpetrator of Lacey's murder. And again, there's a lot of information here. Maybe we'll do a deeper dive on Instagram or something.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But the person who pawned that watch was not Scott. And LAIP is basically saying that they found a similar watch in a different shop nearby and they couldn't possibly know which one was Lacey's.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, this is the one that he points to when he's saying he's innocent. Okay.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So basically in this video, the boat just sinks. And they're just trying to prove that you can't dump a body off this boat without the whole thing tipping over. Yes.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, Scott couldn't have done it because everything would have tipped over. Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And let me guess, they said, no, we don't want to do that.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And one thing that I was thinking of actually when you were talking about Scott's debt is if he was in so much debt, you know, it's weird that he bought the boat in cash. He was having his wife pawn her jewelry. She disappears. He wants to sell the house. Maybe that's to make good on some of the debt. He wants to sell the car. Maybe that's also because he needs to cover some of the debt.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But he is choosing to spend money on things. He's not choosing to spend it on a watch. He's not choosing to spend it on a car. The thing that he spends his money on is the boat, which... is the tool he used to dispose of his wife, in theory. So it's just interesting that that's what his priority was. Yeah. If that's what he wanted to buy.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, we had talked about that, how when we were first getting into the research, both of us hit moments where we were like,
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
man maybe he didn't do it you know there's no forced entry there's no blood there's no murder weapon it's really hard to say exactly what happened there's no evidence on Lacey's body what happened to her so both of us did kind of hit these points where maybe there is a version of this story where he didn't do it but I think the further we got into the research the more we felt like he had definitely done it was there is there one piece of evidence for you that is undisputable you're like that's what I point to as proof that he did it
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
For me, I think it's turning Connor's room into a storage unit. Like, that just, to me, comes across as someone who not only knows that his family's not coming back, but doesn't want them to come back. Yeah. And I am curious for all of those who are listening and watching, if you can comment, let us know what it is for you.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Like, what's the one piece of evidence that you point to that you cannot explain away? Because I'm just always curious what it is for people. Either way, too, if you're... one of those people that doesn't, you don't think Scott did it. What is the one thing you point to where you're like, it couldn't have been him because of this. Like, I'm so curious.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And justice isn't always as clear cut as we would like it to be. But what remains undeniable is the profound loss felt by Lacey's family, her friends, and everyone who continues to seek and fight to uphold justice in her name.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And at Crime House, we value your support. So share your thoughts on social media. Remember to rate, review, and follow Clues so others can discover the show. And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Okay, Morgan. We'll be back next week with another episode of Clues.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. And before we dig into the timeline of this case, I just want to make a note that if you're watching on YouTube, you will see some photos pop up that'll help you visualize a few different elements of this case. And if you're listening, don't worry. We want you to feel included as well. You can find those same photos on our social media, which is at Clues Podcast on Instagram.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But OK, so now we know a little bit more about who Lacey was. Let's talk about what was going on in her life in December of 2002. So on December 14th, Lacey and Scott were invited to a Christmas party. Lacey attended. Scott did not. Scott allegedly had told Lacey that he couldn't make it because he was on a business trip. On December 23rd, Lacey spent that day running errands.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
She and Scott went to a doctor's appointment. And she also visited her sister, Amy Rocha, so Scott could go get his haircut. And that evening, she called her mom, Sharon Rocha, to talk about their plans for the next day, which was Christmas Eve. And that's when Lacey confirmed that she would be having dinner with her. At some point on December 24th, 2002, Lacey disappeared.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And these aren't just ordinary cases. They're complex puzzles where forensic science, investigative techniques, and sheer grit collide to uncover the truth and deliver justice. I'm Kaelin Moore, and I'll be piecing together the timelines and bringing the history to break down the hard facts of these cases.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
According to Scott, this is how the day went down. He left the house at 930 a.m. And when he left, he said that Lacey was watching Martha Stewart, a special on TV. And he said that there was something about Lemon Meringue on the TV. He remembered like that specific detail about what she was watching. And initially, he said that he had gone and played golf that day when he left.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. So while even Scott's family thought that he was going and playing golf that day, it turned out that he had actually gone to take a boat out on the marina. And there's a few reasons why... This is suspicious to me off the bat. So Scott wasn't going to just take any boat out on the marina. He was going to take his boat out on the marina.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And according to Scott, his family, including Lacey, didn't even know that he had this boat. So it's safe to assume that none of them had ever been on this boat. Right. Right. And that's something that I want us to remember as we keep digging into this. So Scott left his home at 930, he said, and he went to his warehouse to pick up his boat and to check some emails.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He left that warehouse at 11 a.m. and he headed to the marina. Now, we know that Scott purchased a boat launch ticket at Berkeley Marina at 1254 p.m. And we're not really sure how long he spent on the water. But later, he left a voicemail for Lacey. And that said, quote, Hey, beautiful. I just left you a message at home. It's 215. I'm leaving for Berkeley.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I won't be able to get to Vela Farms to get the basket for Papa. I was hoping you would get this message and go out there. I'll see you in a bit, sweetie. Love you. Bye. End quote.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So it could have been longer. And he pulled the ticket for parking at 1254. But it takes a minute to get into the water. It takes some time to do that. And then he called her at 215. So in theory, he pulled his boat out of the water. So it seems like he was in the water for, what, 30 to 45 minutes?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Right, adds to the time it takes. So he made a five hour round trip journey to be on the water for about 30 minutes. Yeah. On Christmas Eve. So we're not sure at exactly what time, but at some point in the morning, a neighbor found the Peterson's dog, Mackenzie, wandering around with its leash on. But there was no sign of Lacey anywhere. Then Scott gets back to his warehouse around 415.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He drops off the boat there and he heads home. He gets home at around 4.45 p.m. and he notices that Lacey is not there. But her car is in the driveway. Her purse is hanging up. And upon arriving home, he immediately showers. He washes his clothes and he has some food. And then at 5.15 p.m., he calls his mother-in-law, Sharon, and he asks if Lacey's with her. But of course, Lacey isn't.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And from Sharon's account, actually, on that call, Scott said, quote, Lacey is missing. And that was enough for Lacey's stepfather to call the police just after 5.45 p.m.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Each week on Clues, we'll explore how the smallest pieces of evidence, like a microscopic fiber, a partial fingerprint, even a small strand of hair, can lead to groundbreaking discoveries and may even bring long-awaited justice. These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting sometimes for decades to finally be heard.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Lacey's eight months, eight and a half months pregnant at that point. He gets home, her car's there, her purse is there, so she hasn't left the house. I don't leave the house without my purse.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And the first thing he does is washes his clothes. He doesn't even think to check on where she might be.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. Very strange. And it was strange enough that when Lacey's friends and family hear about this, they start panicking immediately. She's pregnant. She could be hurt. She's missing. What if she fell somewhere? So many things are running through their minds. And Scott during this time seems unusually calm. He's described as being detached and nonchalant about it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And also, as a quick note here, after Lacey was reported missing, the police start becoming a little suspicious of him because of this strange behavior. And so days go by and there's no sign of Lacey. On December 31st, they actually ended up having a candlelight vigil for her.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
was calling Amber a lot, like while everyone was out there searching for Lacey. He even called her during that candlelight vigil that happened on December 31st. And I remember reading somewhere that he told her he was in Paris when she asked where he was, but he had just taken the call off to the side at the vigil, which...
Two Hot Takes
Let Me "Clue" You In :)
Hello, friends. I am so excited to introduce you to Miss Caitlin Moore over here.
Two Hot Takes
Let Me "Clue" You In :)
I'm so excited for this show. We took on a pretty big case to start, the case of Lacey Peterson.
Two Hot Takes
Let Me "Clue" You In :)
And we get into some crazy ones. We just got done recording episode four. So get ready, buckle up. We're going to really break down all the clues in some of the most intriguing, notorious cases. But we've got some clips for you. So here we go. Dive in.
Two Hot Takes
Let Me "Clue" You In :)
Our new podcast, Clues, drops today. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Today, very first episode. Very first episode.
Two Hot Takes
Let Me "Clue" You In :)
Thank you guys so much for listening to catch the rest of the episode.
Two Hot Takes
Let Me "Clue" You In :)
and so much more search for clues wherever you get your podcasts and just check out the show description the link for the show the episode it'll all be in there all of our social pages because we got a lot of pictures we have a lot of pictures that people need to look at absolutely get the full picture of the case yeah receipts proof timelines everything everything you're not going to want to miss it head on over check it out open these cases with us bye thanks guys