Netflix and Peacock are both revisiting Scott Peterson‘s conviction for pregnant wife Laci Peterson‘s murder in two different documentaries.
In July 2024, Peacock announced its three-part docuseries, Face to Face With Scott Peterson, which featured Scott breaking his silence two decades after he was found guilty for the murder of Laci and their unborn child. One week later, Netflix followed suit with the news that American Murder: Laci Peterson would be covering the same true crime case — and be released days before Peacock’s show.
Scott was arrested and charged with two counts of murder in 2003 after his wife disappeared. Laci, who was eight months pregnant at the time, was later found dead at age 27.
After a high-profile trial, Scott, who denied any involvement, was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Laci and the second-degree murder of their infant son, Conner. He was originally given a death sentence, but the ruling was overturned in 2020. One year later, Scott was re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His case made headlines again in January 2024 when the Los Angeles Innocence Project announced they were trying to help overturn Scott’s murder conviction.
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While Scott is featured in Peacock’s series, he is not involved in Netflix’s American Murder: Laci Peterson docuseries — despite director Skye Borgman’s efforts.
“We did reach out to Scott and we had a couple of conversations with him in prison. He ultimately decided not to participate in our documentary,” she shared with Us in August. “It is fine. Especially because I feel like we did get the perspective from his family and that we did want it to be very, very Laci forward.”
Borgman made it clear that she didn’t mind having multiple perspectives on the situation.
“I always like hearing from all different sides. Honestly, I think it’s part of our responsibility as documentary makers to get all sides of the story,” she explained. “It makes for a much more layered, complicated and truthful documentary to be able to hear from Scott’s side and to be able to hear from Laci’s side. So that’s important to me.”
Despite knowing there was a dual docuseries in the works, Borgman didn’t let it influence her approach, adding, “I didn’t know what their perspective was. I still don’t know. I’ve watched the trailer as well. It seems like you said that it skews more towards Scott’s innocence. But the fact that that project was going on didn’t really impact the making or the decisions of our project at all.”
The filmmaker continued: “We were committed to our story. And when you get involved in a story like this, it’s almost like it’s all you can think about. You’re not thinking about all this stuff that’s happening outside of it. We were very focused on this. We knew it was happening, but we had no idea what it’s about or what kind of access they had.”
Keep scrolling to see how American Murder: Laci Peterson and Face to Face With Scott Peterson are similar — and how they differ:
Who Participated in Each Docuseries
Both docs featured interviews with authorities who were part of the original investigation, including former Modesto Police Department detectives Al Brocchini and Jon Buehler, and several jurors who served on Scott’s trial. Some of Scott’s family members, including his sister Susan Caudillo and sister-in-law Janey Peterson, appeared to advocate for Scott’s perspective in Netflix’s American Murder and Peacock’s Face to Face.
Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, declined to participate with Peacock’s doc and neither did Laci’s close friends Lori Heintz, Stacey Boyers and Rene Tomlinson, who were all interviewed for the Netflix film.
One person the Netflix doc did tap, however, was Scott’s girlfriend Amber Frey, whom he secretly dated before Laci’s disappearance.
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Scott’s Side of the Story
Netflix’s doc didn’t mention Scott’s current perspective, and instead they relied on footage from the 2002 interrogation, his trial and interviews with his family. Director Shareen Anderson spoke with Scott many times to help shape her version in Face to Face With Scott Peterson.
“If I have a chance to get the reality out there, I have a chance to show people what the truth is and if they are willing to accept it, maybe that takes a little hurt off my family,” Scott said about his motivation for speaking out. “That would be the biggest thing that I can accomplish right now.”
Scott pointed out that he doesn’t think the public should “trust” him as much as they should look at the evidence he felt wasn’t addressed properly during his trial.
“I would not waive time on my trial. I look back at that now and I wonder if that was the right decision. I have the evidence in my innocence and it was a nightmare being stuck in county jail. I just wanted to show it as soon as possible,” he added about his regrets. “Now I look back at some of the things we’ve learned, some of the things we were still learning during trial. I wonder if I had been more prudent or patient, maybe things would have been different.”
Taking Different But Obvious Sides
American Murder: Laci Peterson highlighted the voices of Laci’s family and friends two decades after her death. The intention was to shine a light on Laci since most of the coverage over the years has been about Scott and his conviction.
“For Laci and Conner and the ones who left in time,” read the dedication at the end of Netflix’s docuseries. “And the ones who didn’t.”
Borgman recalled making an effort to feature Laci’s voice in the doc as best she could, telling Us, “Laci’s mother wrote a book after Laci passed away. In her book, she included some journal entries that Laci had made in her baby diary. So we did implement the baby diary and Laci talking to Conner.”
Borgman noted that the show is “more Laci forward,” explaining: “We were able to get a lot of archive [footage] that nobody has ever seen before from friends and family of hers. Those kind of elements really bring Laci to life as well.”
Meanwhile, Face to Face With Scott Peterson prioritized presenting the perspective that Scott was innocent. The director of the doc mentioned in the first episode that after looking into his case, she had doubts about his guilt and that motivated her to get in touch with Scott.
“I had people spit on me at gas stations. I received death threats on the phone,” Scott recalled in Peacock’s doc about the backlash he faced before being arrested. “I had someone in the front yard claiming they were a witch and burying things. I wish I could say I was stronger but all that stuff did take a toll on me.”
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Incorporating Amber Frey Into the Narrative
The Netflix doc explores Frey meeting Scott in November 2002. After Scott told Frey he was single, they started dating, and weeks later, she found out that his wife, Laci, went missing while eight months pregnant.
“I was called a mistress. But that was so absolutely far from what I was,” Frey said in the doc before reflecting on her decision to take the stand at Scott’s trial. “When I first sat on the stand, I wasn’t just sitting there alone. But I was sitting there for Laci and her unborn child. For the first time there was clarity as far as who I was and my relationship with Scott.”
The Netflix docuseries featured voice recordings from Frey of her conversations with Scott after she realized he lied to her. Scott’s affair with Frey led investigators to a potential motive once Laci’s remains were found in January 2003.
Peacock also included some of the voice recordings but Scott largely walked back his connection with Amber.
“That’s so offensive and so disgusting. I just don’t get that argument and it’s absolutely not true. I certainly regret cheating on Laci,” Scott shared in Peacock’s special. “It is about [being] childish and lacking self esteem and selfishness. It was me traveling somewhere and being lonely because I wasn’t at home. Then someone makes you feel good because they want to have sex with you. That’s what it was to me.”
He denied being serious about Frey and claimed he only remained in contact with her so she wouldn’t go public with their romance.
“The search for Laci would stop as soon as the public and police know I was having sex with another woman,” he claimed. “It simply wasn’t [a relationship]. That’s a misconception and I was absolutely wrong. It is a horrible truth. There are thoughts that haunt me. It’s devastating. I feel such shame and guilt that me having sex with Amber Frey did all that. That they didn’t look for [Laci] alive.”
Bringing Up the Next Door Burglary
While Scott’s family insisted in the Peacock doc that a robbery across the street from the couple played a part in Laci’s disappearance, the Netflix doc claimed there was no connection.
“You know, there was a burglary across the street from our home. There were a lot of people in that burglary,” Scott mentioned during the final part of Peacock’s docuseries. “And I believe that Laci went over there to see what was going on. And that’s when she was taken.”
Scott and his family members remain convinced that Laci’s murder and the burglaries were connected.
“At the volunteer center, people were coming in and some wanted to go search while some came in with tips,” Scott claimed. ”I passed it on to the police because I wanted them to follow up and I thought they were following up on it. I found out later that they weren’t following up on anything.”
Police enforcement said in Netflix’s version that there wasn’t any evidence that made them think the two cases had any overlap. Since some of the testimony from the convicted robbers went back and forth on which days they were at the neighbors’ home, it didn’t seem possible they could have crossed paths with Laci who might have been missing by the time they were actually there.
The Alleged Additional Witnesses
Face to Face With Scott Peterson featured interviews with several people from the neighborhood who all claimed they saw Laci walking her dog the morning she went missing. This put into question the timeline created by the police about how Laci never left the house to walk her dog because Scott allegedly killed her and drove off with her body by then.
“I wasn’t the last one to see Laci that day. There are so many credible witnesses who saw her walking in our neighborhood,” Scott claimed. “I recently learned that in one of the reports, a person came down to talk to the police and they were told, ‘No, you are wrong. You didn’t see her.’ They just dismissed him without looking into it. That’s devastating to learn that kind of stuff.”
Netflix didn’t include interviews with the alleged witnesses who corroborated Scott’s story and claimed the police never followed up to get their official statements.
The Innocence Project’s Involvement
American Murder: Laci Peterson ended with an update on how Scott’s sentence was overturned in 2020 and he was re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It also highlighted how Janey has “obtained a law degree in an effort to fight for her brother-in-law’s freedom.”
Face to Face With Scott Peterson followed new developments in Scott’s case after the Los Angeles Innocence Project got involved. The nonprofit organization, which works to vindicate wrongly convicted inmates, filed four motions in January, including one for DNA testing.
According to documents obtained by NBC, the Los Angeles Innocence Project alleged that “new evidence now supports Mr. Peterson’s longstanding claim of innocence.”
Scott’s attorney Pat Harris spoke out about the Innocence Project’s involvement, saying in a statement, “I will confirm that we are thrilled to have the incredibly skilled attorneys at the L.A. Innocence Project and their expertise becoming involved in the efforts to prove Scott’s innocence.”
Scott’s defense team tried to get DNA testing on a variety of objects but the judge denied everything except the tape found on Laci’s body.
