July 22, 2004

Just wondering ....
Posted by McQ

OK, other than hearing that its still going on, I haven't followed the Scott Peterson trial at all. But for whatever reason, this headline, "Peterson got private mailbox before wife vanished" caught my eye.

"Really", I thought. So I looked at the first paragraph:

On the day before he reported his wife missing, Scott Peterson rented a post office box where he later received private correspondence from his mistress, an investigator testified Tuesday.

OK, I know this may come off as completely unfounded. I know I've no reason to look at this one bit of information and come to any conclusion, especially when I have acknowledged being mostly ignorant about the case.

But I've got to tell you, its hard to believe someone who's going to kill his wife is going to worry about renting a PO box to hide love letters from his sweetie so his wife won't find out.

Or am I missing something here?

UPDATE (Dale):

Since I live out here in California, I have to follow the case whether I want to or not.

So far, what it seems the prosecution is doing is playing defense. Nearly everything they've presented to date seem to be stuff they think the defense counsel, Mark Geragos is going to bring up. So they're trying to defuse a whole raft of stuff before even presenting the case.

A lot of court observers are wondering why they just don't get on with it. Sooner or later, they are going to have to present a compelling narrative to the jury. They have to tell the story of how Mr. Peterson killed his wife. To date, though, they haven't even begun to do that.

The word is that this stuff is really all preliminary. Once they feel they have brought all this stuff up first, and forced Geragos to address it in cross-examination, they are hoping that they will have defused it. They can then present the narrative of the actual crime.

Later, if Geragos wants to address it again in the defense's case, they are probably hoping that the jury will find it all bit yawn-inducing to cover the same ground again.

I think it's a moderately high-risk strategy, though, because it has the danger of irritating the jury. The jury wants to hear the narrative, too, and all this stuff seems so unrelated, that by the time the prosecutors begin the narrative, the jury may feel a bit sullen and resentful at having so much of their time wasted.

So far, though, you're right. They haven't made much of case for Mr. Peterson's guilt.

Having said that, the general rule is, when you find your defendant a few hundred yards from the Mexican border with a passport, $25k in cash, and dyed blond hair and beard, he's pretty much guilty as hell.

It also explains why Mr. Peterson is being held on remand, instead of being out on bail.

Now, as far as the PO Box goes, perhaps Mr. Peterson was hoping his relationship with Ms. Frye would remain a secret during the investigation. That way, hge could still receive correspondence from her without letting the police know he was doing so.

Unfortunately for Mr. Peterson, Ms. Frye preferred to sing to the police like Barbra Streisand as soon as she learned the truth about Mr. Peterson's marital status. Somehow, I don't think he expected her to walk into MPD and start volunteering info.

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Comments

Maybe he was worried that more folk than his wife may very soon be interested in his incriminating affair.

CBK

Posted by: cbk at July 22, 2004 06:39 PM

Except, CBK, it's pretty easy to trace financial records. And the affair was discovered within days of Lacy's disappearance, through Scott's cell phone records.

I don't know who killed Lacy, but I don't think it was Scott. He just doesn't strike me as bright enough to have killed someone and left so little evidence.

Posted by: Steverino at July 22, 2004 07:14 PM

What has been the topic of conversation around my way about this case is the question of why he is on trial for killing his wife and the baby inside her, yet abortion is legal. Did I miss something about the trial maybe?

Posted by: Isaiah at July 22, 2004 11:28 PM

California law generally restricts abortions in the third trimester. Moreover, killing a fetus during commission of a crime is murder in California if the fetus is over 28 weeks.

Lacy Peterson was more than 8 months pregnant.

Posted by: Dale Franks at July 23, 2004 12:01 AM

Having said that, the general rule is, when you find your defendant a few hundred yards from the Mexican border with a passport, $25k in cash, and dyed blond hair and beard, he's pretty much guilty as hell.

Well, some of that is mitigated. His father lives in San Diego, and Scott was staying there; it's not at all unreasonable to go stay with your parents at a time like that. He had dyed his hair blond in the past, and also worn a beard. Having lots of money and a passport with him isn't explainable, though. Still, that's not hard evidence of guilt (it suggests he might have wanted to flee, but until he actually did flee it's not evidence of guilt), nor is motive necessarily evidence of guilt.

What has been the topic of conversation around my way about this case is the question of why he is on trial for killing his wife and the baby inside her, yet abortion is legal.

California law for a long time has had what could be called a double standard in this regard. Killing a fetus without the mother's consent is considered murder.

Back around 1980, an LAPD officer shot a pregnant woman; I don't remember whether it was an accidental shooting or mistaken identity. In any case, her fetus died, and the city settled a wrongful death suit against it coming from the woman.

Posted by: Steverino at July 23, 2004 12:07 AM

For some reason, I really don't want the guy to be guilty. I guess I just hate to think that a guy could kill his wife and child like that. I know it happens, but I hate to think of it.

Having said that, the timeline of that day is pretty strong circumstantial evidence against him. Even per his version of events, he would have had to drive about 3 hours for slightly more than 1 hour of fishing, then call the police within 1 hour of arriving home.

Would you fish for only 1 hour, if you had to drive 90 minutes each way to get there? And would you really call police if your wife was gone for one hour?

Seems strange...

Posted by: Jon Henke at July 23, 2004 05:19 AM

Hey, I'm not saying he's guilty or not. I'm just putting forth a possible rationale/motivation for the POBox.

CBK

Posted by: cbk at July 23, 2004 08:00 AM

I think it's pretty conventional to refuse bail for someone accused of multiple murders.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at July 23, 2004 11:28 AM