Scott Peterson, the California salesman who murdered his wife and unborn son, says he was an “a–hole” for having an affair in the weeks leading up to the killing but maintained his innocence as he spoke out for the first time since his 2004 conviction.
Peterson, 49, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the death of his wife Laci Peterson who had disappeared while eight months pregnant with their son Connor from their Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2002.
While locked up at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Calif. Peterson recalled that the extramarital affair he had with single mom and massage therapist Amber Frey weeks before the murder was a “terrible mistake.”
“It’s horrible. I was a total a–hole to be having sex outside our marriage,” Peterson said, according to People, a week before a three-part Peacock docuseries is set to launch on the infamous case.
In “Face to Face with Scott Peterson,” the 49-year-old convicted killer is seeking to appeal to the public to call out the “so-called investigation” that put him in prison.
Peterson claimed police and prosecutors ignored leads and used circumstantial evidence during his double murder trial in 2004.
Laci vanished in Dec. 2002 and her body washed up in the San Francisco Bay four months later, not far from the body of her unborn son, Conner, who was discovered days later.
Two strands of Laci’s hair collected from a pair of pliers on Peterson’s boat were a key piece of evidence used to convict him of her murder.
Prosecutors allege that Peterson dumped Laci’s body into the San Francisco Bay and used concrete anchors to weigh her down, according to SF Gate.
Peterson had claimed that he was fishing in the bay on the day Laci went missing.
Peterson says he regrets not testifying during his trial but is willing 20 years later.
“But if I have a chance to show people what the truth is, and if they are willing to accept it, it would be the biggest thing that I can accomplish right now—because I didn’t kill my family,” Peterson said.
During the five-month trial, Prosecutors characterized Peterson as a man who regretted becoming a father and killed his wife to get out of his marriage while not having to pay child support.
“He didn’t want to be a dad, didn’t want to pay child support, didn’t want to pay his spousal, and this is the way he thought about getting out of it,” former Modesto Police Detective Jon Buehler said in a trailer for the docu-series.
“That is so offensive and so disgusting,” Peterson said according to People “I certainly regret cheating on Laci, absolutely. It was about a childish lack of self-esteem, selfish me traveling somewhere, lonely that night because I wasn’t at home. Someone makes you feel good because they want have sex with you.”
His sister-in-law Janey Peterson alleges that Laci had a fatal run-in with burglars after she witnessed their crime across the street and confronted them.
“Scott lied about cheating and that was upsetting,” Janey Peterson told the outlet. “But he wasn’t charged with infidelity. He was charged with murder.”
The Los Angeles Innocence Project took on Peterson’s case in January, arguing that new evidence would show he did not commit the murders.
Peterson appeared on a grainy video call wearing a white hat while in the prison’s dayroom.
He was sentenced to death by lethal injection, but California’s Supreme Court overruled the sentencing in 2020.
