Legal consultant Chris Pixley “stress tested” new evidence uncovered by Scott Peterson’s attorneys and insists it “deserves examination”

The decades have taken a toll on Scott Peterson.

The 53-year-old former fertilizer salesman, who was convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, in 2002, steadfastly maintains his innocence yet has now spent half his life behind bars.

His perpetual faint smile has given way to a tired, drained expression typical of a man used to looking over his shoulder — he was savagely attacked by another inmate at California’s Mule Creek State Prison last year — and trying desperately to convince a judge that he doesn’t belong in prison.

“I have always hoped, believed and expected that at some point justice will be done,” says Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, who represented Peterson in his murder trial, “because I don’t think what happened to Scott is justice.”

Plenty of people would disagree.

In April, San Mateo County Superior Court judge Elizabeth Hill denied Peterson’s latest petition, filed on his behalf by the Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP), to overturn his conviction. It introduced 14 new evidentiary claims, including sworn statements, eyewitness accounts, scientific research and alternative theories about what happened in the murders of Laci and the couple’s unborn son on Christmas Eve in 2002.

It was a case that riveted the nation after it was discovered that Scott was having an affair with a woman whom he had told he was a widower celebrating his first holiday season on his own.

The judge described Peterson’s claims as “neither new, admissible nor material,” writing: “The court remains unpersuaded that petitioner has a claim for relief based on actual innocence.”

Now, as his lawyers draft an appeal to a higher California court, a new documentary, Scott Peterson: The New Evidence, premiering July 16 and 17 on A&E, disputes the judge’s finding.

“This documentary is built around the idea of stress-testing the Los Angeles Innocence Project’s findings,” says host Chris Pixley, an Atlanta-based defense attorney and ABC News legal analyst.

The nearly three-hour project, which was produced independently of the LAIP, features interviews with witnesses and experts and pursues unexplored tips that Pixley claims police and prosecutors ignored in their rush to convict Peterson.

These new evidentiary claims run the gamut from testimony from Modesto locals who maintain that they saw Laci walking her dog after police believe she was already dead to a theory that she was abducted and killed by a group of men burglarizing a neighbor’s home.

“This is new science and new evidence, and every time you drill down, you find more. It deserves an examination,” says Pixley.

By all accounts, police arriving at the Peterson home after Scott reported Laci missing on the evening of Dec. 24, 2002, quickly grew suspicious due to her husband’s calm, detached demeanor.

Scott told police he had last seen Laci watching Martha Stewart Living at about 9:30 a.m. before leaving to go fishing at the Berkeley Marina, 90 miles away on San Francisco Bay.

Over the next two years, millions followed the twists and turns of the investigation and Scott’s ensuing trial.

He was convicted on two counts of murder in 2004 after prosecutors convinced jurors that he killed pregnant Laci as well as their unborn son, whose bodies washed ashore about a mile apart.

Scott’s attorneys filed numerous appeals, culminating in the LAIP’s current petition.

“Judge Hill recognized the most recent attempt to undo the jury’s verdict for what it was,” said Stanislaus County District Attorney Jeff Laugero after Hill’s 2026 ruling.

Ninette Toosbuy, a retired LAPD detective who appears in the new documentary, acknowledges that many people believe Scott is guilty: “In many ways Scott is his own worst enemy based on some of the things he did, like having an affair.” But that doesn’t make him a killer, she insists.

Pixley is convinced by the new evidence seen in the documentary that Scott deserves a new trial.

“He will not go free unless the narrative related to the case changes, and this deep dive that the LAIP has done and that we have now stress-tested is part of that,” he says.

But for Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, nothing will shake her belief in Scott’s guilt.

“We constantly hear that they have new evidence, but there is no new evidence,” Rocha — who declined to comment on the new documentary — told PEOPLE in 2024. “Twelve people found him guilty of murder, but he doesn’t admit to that.”

Source: https://people.com/new-scott-peterson-documentary-claims-new-evidence-could-lead-to-freedom-exclusive-12014812