The Scott Peterson Case: All the New Evidence

More than 20 years ago, a jury found Scott Peterson guilty of killing his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner. Now, the Los Angeles Innocence Project believes new evidence could bring a different outcome for Peterson, who remains in prison serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

In A&E’s upcoming two-part documentary Scott Peterson: The New Evidence, former defense attorney Chris Pixley explores the case alongside retired Los Angeles Police Department Detective Ninette Toosbuy, Scott’s former defense attorney Mark Geragos, witnesses, key experts from the prosecution and additional experts.

Toosbuy tells A&E Crime + Investigation that some of the new evidence comes thanks to new developments in technology and forensic testing. “Other evidence is actually not new,” she says. “It was always there. It's just that the prosecution and the police department decided to not make it known.”

Peterson told police that he went fishing on Christmas Eve 2002 in the San Francisco Bay, and when he returned to his Modesto, Calif., home Laci, who was eight months pregnant, had vanished. Toosbuy believes investigators at the time did not examine every lead, such as witnesses “in the park and in the neighborhood who claim to have seen Laci walk the dog” on the morning of her disappearance.

Toosbury and Pixley also suggest invetsigators should look further into a robbery that took place across the street from the Petersons on the day of Laci’s disappearance, a white van left at the crime site and a January 2003 jail call between Shawn and Adam Tenbrink, associates of Steven Todd, in which Adam stated Laci had seen Todd and another person committing a burglary in the neighborhood, per court documents. The Modesto Police Department deemed the robbery unrelated to Laci’s murder at the time.

Laci and Conner’s bodies were found in April 2003. Pixley tells A&E Crime + Investigation that a maternal health expert who testified on behalf of the prosecution during Scott’s trial identified the time period in which Laci and Conner died based on technology that did not and still does not exist, meaning the two might not have died on Christmas Eve 2002.

Pixley also says the expert who testified about the placement of Laci’s body based on where her body and Conner's bodies were found put her “exactly where Scott Peterson placed himself on the day of her disappearance fishing in his boat.” However, the hydrologist, Dr. Ralph Cheng, testified based on a wind model when his expertise fell under hydrology.

“The jury heard from at least two expert witnesses who either didn't testify on the basis of their expertise or gave testimony that was not possible to arrive at using the then current technology,” Pixley says. “Whether or not you believe that Scott Peterson is innocent or guilty from a constitutional standpoint, the verdict's not reliable if the testimony that the jury received from expert witnesses wasn't reliable.” According to court docs, the trial court accepted Cheng “as an expert hydrologist qualified to testify about the movement of water in the bay and related topics.”

Scott’s motion for a new trial, direct appeal, four requests for post-conviction DNA testing and two motions for post-conviction discovery have all been denied. Scott’s third petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was turned down in April 2026. He withdrew a third motion for post-conviction discovery at that time.

In the April 2026 decision, a judge rejected all 14 claims in the Writ of Habeas Corpus, including the defense’s accusations of suppressed evidence and claims of innocence, describing them as procedurally barred, lacking merit or both. The Los Angeles Innocence Project says it will appeal the judge's recent decision.

Pixley and Toosbury break down what they hope happens next.

How much of the evidence is new because technology has advanced, and how much is new because of discovery?

CHRIS PIXLEY: There are two leading pieces of new evidence. One has to do with the time of Laci Peterson's death. The way that the prosecution set about determining Laci Peterson's date of death was by virtue of the unborn fetus using femur length measurements to try to determine what the time of death was. The problem with the determination that the prosecution made is that they brought forward a maternal health expert who said he could narrow the date of death down to a 48-hour period between December 23. 2002—the last day that Laci was seen alive—and December 24, the day that she went missing. That fit perfectly with the prosecution's theory that Scott Peterson was responsible. The problem is that the technology at the time did not allow you to make that kind of determination. In fact, the best that we can do with current technology, which is lightyears ahead, is to narrow it down to somewhere between a 10- and 12-day period.

There's a similar piece of new science that was not available in 2002 or 2004, at the time of trial, that's only become available in the last 10 years. And that has to do with the tidal science. There is new technology that's come along and says that, when applied to the locations that the two bodies were found on Richmond Shoreline, that they could not have been placed in the bay south of Brooks Island where Scott Peterson placed himself, but in fact that they had to have been placed in the bay from a land-based location, likely only a few hundred yards from where they washed up. And the fact that a expert was assigned by the prosecution to determine where this location was and said it was where Scott Peterson was, is problematic because the science at the time didn't allow him to do that. The hydrologist, Dr. Cheng, knew better than to abandon his area of expertise to sort of put his finger to the wind and put the spot on the map that the state needed for the trial.

How can witness testimony from 2002 be revisited today?

NINETTE TOOSBURY: Unfortunately, that is potentially exculpatory evidence that has been lost. So much has been contaminated. Had the investigators simply done their due diligence, done best practices, investigatively speaking, and identified merely one or two witnesses, where they could have said, “Yes, this is reliable testimony or statement that Laci Peterson was in the park or in the neighborhood at the time,” that would've instantly, within 48 hours of the initiation of this investigation, basically eliminated Scott Peterson as a suspect. You don't cut those kinds of corners when somebody's looking at the death penalty.

Everything points to the fact that they already believed that Scott Peterson was the suspect, and therefore, any information that went contrary to their working theory. Not only is it that they were dismissive, they thought, even if on a subconscious level, there's no way those witnesses could be right, so whatever these witnesses are saying must be erroneous, therefore we should not bother talking to them because it's a waste of time. That is the essence of confirmation bias.

What can be done with all this new evidence after the judge denied to hear it?

PIXLEY: The challenge that's being made right now is a collateral attack on the verdict itself. It's not saying that Scott Peterson is innocent. It's not arguing his innocence. It's arguing that the verdict is unreliable because the testimony that the jury heard is unreliable from an objective standpoint. This is a strong habeas case in particular because of the false testimony that the jury heard from two state's experts who testified on critical questions. This is something right now that is at the Superior Court state court level, and they do not deal with habeas corpus. The likelihood is that you're going to get closer to a fair hearing as you move forward toward federal habeas relief.

While the courts do not guarantee a perfect trial, they do guarantee a fair trial. And I think again, objectively, this was not a fair trial.

Do you think Scott Peterson could receive a fair trial given all the commentary that has surrounded the case for more than 20 years?

TOOSBURY: I do think that this would be the kind of case, if it were retried, picking a jury that is not completely contaminated. Unless they lived somewhere where they had no electricity, no television, no internet, no phones, all the media frenzy about Scott Peterson ... the reality is that you would really need an exceptional jury who have been exposed to all this information. That's going to be a real challenging process, but not impossible.

PIXLEY: We have, as a society, forgotten the concept of innocent until proven guilty, and it has everything to do with media and with a crime culture and with the consumption of crime and what the courts call the "CSI effect." The modern thought process is that this person wouldn't be charged with this crime if they weren't guilty, and that is the opposite of the way that every juror has to approach a case. This case has all kinds of reasonable doubt because it's all based on demeanor and perception and proximity.

TOOSBURY: There's no direct evidence.

PIXLEY: This is a classic case for an acquittal, and I think in a different time it would arrive at that, but it will always be an uphill battle. I mean, the man who cheats on his pregnant wife is not going to get the benefit of the doubt.

TOOSBURY: This is a huge problem in our society today, is that a lot of people will enter that courtroom as jurors feeling that they are experts and they're not. Just because you have a keen interest in the crime genre, because you've been following podcasts and watching YouTube videos, doesn't mean that you're an expert. This is a big problem that goes beyond Scott Peterson.

Who are the other suspects in the case?

PIXLEY: If Scott Peterson were to receive a new trial, he will benefit from the fact that much of the evidence related to the Medina burglary across the street was not evidence that made its way to the jury because it was not evidence that made its way ultimately to defense counsel.

They didn't hear any evidence on it. They also didn't hear any evidence about a van that matches that description of the van across the street matches this van that was on fire in the airport district found on fire in the morning of December 25, the morning after she goes missing. There is a lot more exculpatory evidence that would come out in a new trial. There's absolutely no doubt about that. Yes, a third of all of these crimes are committed by intimate partners. But as Ninette pointed out in the series, that leaves two-thirds of the cases being committed by someone else.

Scott Peterson: The New Evidence premieres July 16 at 9 p.m. ET on A&E.