Innocence Project Takes on Notorious Wife-Killer Case

Scott Peterson, the California man convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son in December 2002, is now being represented by the Los Angeles Innocence Project. Peterson was originally sentenced to death, but he was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole after his death sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 2020. "The Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) represents Scott Peterson and is investigating his claim of actual innocence," a spokesperson for the organization says in a statement cited by NBC News.

Laci Peterson, 27, was eight months pregnant with a boy the couple planned to name Conner when she vanished on Christmas Eve. Her body was found months later in the San Francisco Bay. Her husband, now 51, says new evidence will support his claims of innocence, and the LAIP says in court filings that it is seeking dozens of items, including evidence from investigations into a burglary that took place across the street from the couple's Modesto home the same month Laci vanished, ABC News reports. Peterson's attorneys have long argued that Laci stumbled upon a burglary and was murdered.

"New evidence now supports Mr. Peterson's longstanding claim of innocence and raises many questions into who abducted and killed Laci and Conner Peterson," the LAIP's court filing states. (More Innocence Project stories.)