Scott Peterson is GUILTY!!!

[Nubian]

Man charged with killing pregnant wife

JACQUI GODDARD IN MIAMI


ONE of America’s most gripping crime investigations appeared to be at an end yesterday after the husband of Laci Peterson, a young mother-to-be who vanished on Christmas Eve, faced charges in the murder of his wife and their unborn child.

Scott Peterson, 30, was arrested by police five days after the headless body of a woman and a male foetus were found washed up in San Francisco Bay. DNA tests late on Friday established them as those of Mrs Peterson, 27, and her baby, whom she had planned to name Connor.

Peterson, 30, is expected to be arraigned on double homicide charges today . Prosecutors are likely to push for the death penalty, saying the case against Peterson is compelling.

"It has truly been a difficult four months, not just for our community but for our nation as we watched, hoped for, prayed for, a different outcome than this one," said Roy Wasden, police chief in Mrs Peterson’s home town of Modesto, California.

Married for two years, the Petersons had seemed a perfect couple looking forward to their first child when Mrs Peterson went missing.

But then came reports that Peterson was not co-operating with police, that he had sold his wife’s car weeks after her disappearance and that he had taken out a $250,000 (£160,000) life insurance policy on her a few months earlier. It also emerged he had been having an affair.

The two bodies were washed up 90 miles from the couple’s home, but just three miles from where Peterson went fishing on the day his wife disappeared.

"There is a very strong case in this instance ... there’ll be compelling information for the district attorney to take forward into the prosecution," Mr Wasden said.

When forensic experts examined Peterson’s car after his wife’s disappearance, they secretly fitted it with a satellite tracking device before returning it to him and tapped his telephones, allowing them to keep tabs on his movements, it emerged yesterday.

"You look to eliminate possibilities and that’s what we kept doing and Scott could just never be eliminated," Mr Wasden said.

When arrested, Peterson had been staying with his parents but appeared to be preparing to flee the country. He had dyed his hair blond, grown a beard and was reportedly carrying $10,000 cash.

He could be charged under a controversial California law that makes it a crime to kill a foetus and that has become deeply entangled in abortion politics.

Mavra Stark, head of the Morris County, California, chapter of the National Organisation for Women, complained that such a charge in the Peterson case could provide ammunition to the pro-life lobby.

"If this is murder, then any time a late-term foetus is aborted, they could call it murder," she said.

A stream of residents passed by the Peterson home over the weekend, some lighting candles in memory of Mrs Peterson and her son. Children brought Easter toys and stood with their families and prayed.

A makeshift wooden cross covered with aluminium foil on the lawn read: "We prayed everyday that Laci and Baby Connor would come home. Now, Laci and Baby Connor are home with the Lord."