Everything You Need To Know About Netflix’s New Laci Peterson Documentary

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American Murder: Laci Peterson is the latest true crime documentary to hit Netflix, released last Wednesday. The documentary follows the story of Laci Peterson, a 27 year old woman who was eight months pregnant when she was murdered by her husband, Scott Peterson. 

On Christmas Eve of 2002, Laci was reported missing from her home in Modesto, California, by her husband, Scott. Scott claimed that he had been fishing in the Berkeley Marina that day, and when he returned home Laci was gone.

A few months later, the body of the couple’s unborn son, Conner, was found near the marina, and Laci’s body was found just a couple miles away the next day. Peterson was convicted of the murder of his wife and unborn son, and was originally sentenced to death, however his sentence was later reduced to life without parole. 

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American Murder: Laci Peterson, directed by Skye Borgman, explores the timeline and evidence surrounding the harrowing case. The docuseries includes interviews with relatives and loved ones of both Laci and Scott. Among these are rare interviews from Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, as well as Laci’s childhood friends. 

Amber Frey, who was Scott’s mistress around the time that Laci went missing, also shares her side of the story in this documentary. Borgman has since said she wanted to make sure her documentary was nuanced and explored different sides of the story, and so gave Amber the opportunity to clear her name after being slammed by the media for years.

Amber explains in the documentary that she thought Scott was single when they started seeing each other in November 2002.

According to Amber, Scott told her that he had lost his wife and was bracing himself for the first holiday season without her. As soon as Amber found out that Scott did in fact have a wife, and that she was now missing, she rang the police and shared with them everything she could. Amber went on to testify against Scott at his trial in 2004. 

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To this day, Scott Peterson claims he is innocent and is working with relatives and his legal team to get a new trial. The documentary speaks to Scott’s sister, Susan Caudillo, and his sister-in-law, Janey Peterson, the latter who studied law and earned her degree in order to help prove his innocence. 

Borgman has explains that her goal regarding her American Murder docuseries was to spread more awareness about the dangers women face, particularly around intimate partner violence.

Speaking about her work with Tudum, the director mentions that homicide is the number one cause of death for pregnant women in the US, “Intimate partner violence is something that is really overwhelming. I want people to walk away from this thinking about that in a deeper way.”

You can watch American Murder: Laci Peterson now on Netflix.

• Netflix