BURGLAR MAY TESTIFY vs. LACI HUBBY

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January 6, 2004 -- MODESTO, Calif. - A convicted burglar who targeted neighbors of Scott and Laci Peterson around the time Laci disappeared may testify at Scott's murder trial to try to refute testimony from a potentially key defense witness.

Prosecutors filed documents yesterday seeking to allow Steven Wayne Todd, 37, to testify in the sensational case. Last February, Todd was sentenced to more than eight years for burglaries in December 2002.

Prosecutors may try to use Todd to undermine the defense's assertions that detectives zeroed in on Scott Peterson as a suspect early in the case, effectively rejecting other leads that could have led to Laci's true killer.

Possible defense witness Diane Jackson told police she was driving home at 11:40 a.m. Dec. 24. - two hours after Scott says he left Laci to go on a fishing trip - when she spotted something suspicious.

She said she saw three men, presumably Todd and accomplices, standing near a tan van across the street from the Petersons' home, making them potential suspects in the case.

Police insist that Jackson was wrong about the date and that the burglaries actually occurred Dec. 26, two days after Laci vanished.

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Declaration and Order for Production of Inmate/Witness from Deuel Vocational Institute

Opposition to Motion for Change of Venue; Declaration of Dr. Ebbe Ebbesen, Mark Smith, Caitriona Goss; Points and Authorities in Opposition to Change of Venue

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A new poll contradicts an earlier finding that Stanislaus County residents weren't unduly influenced by media reports of the Laci Peterson case.

According to a report in The Modesto Bee, a survey authorized by defense attorneys found that citizens of Stanislaus County are more likely to have formed conclusions about the guilt or innocence of Scott Peterson than Bay Area and Southern California residents.

The survey was conducted by Stephen Schoenthaler, a criminal justice professor at California State University, Stanislaus. It questioned 1,175 prospective jurors in ten California counties about their attitudes on the case.

The poll found a wide disparity in results from Laci Peterson's home county and those elsewhere in California. The survey results indicate that nearly 70 percent of Stanislaus residents have formed a strong opinion in the case, compared to less than 50 percent of those living in the Bay Area and Southern California.

The defense is expected to use the results from the latest poll in a change of venue hearing scheduled for January 8.

On Friday, prosecutors with the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office filed a motion to keep the trial in Modesto. Based on the results of a survey conducted by a U.C. .......

What kind of defense is Mark Geragos putting together for Michael Jackson? How about: absentee molester?

The word is coming down that Geragos will use the specific dates mentioned in the charges filed against Jackson to exonerate the singer. Those dates — Feb. 7 to March 10, 2003 — will work in Jackson's favor, I am told.

The defense will reconstruct a timeline of Jackson's travels, primarily to Miami, to show that he was rarely in town or at Neverland when the D.A.'s office says he allegedly molested a 13-year-old boy suffering from cancer.

What is known already is that Jackson was in Miami on Jan. 16 last year for the funeral of Bee Gees singer Maurice Gibb. Further, according to sources, he was also there on Feb. 6, the night ABC aired the Martin Bashir documentary "Living with Michael Jackson." He was then a guest of Miami lawyer Alvin Malnik.

The defense, I am told, will sketch out Jackson's trips through the six weeks in the police complaint, showing that Jackson was either in Miami or away and didn't have much access to the boy or his family.

Prosecutors will counter that the boy made a trip to Disney World in Orlando, Fla., during that time, and that Jackson saw him there. But even if that turns out to be true, all nine charges against Jackson specify that they took place in Santa Barbara County, Calif., and not anywhere else.

One source close to Jackson suggested to me that possibly he'd been in the Miami recording studio The Hit Factory in early February. But a Hit Factory source went through the facility's 2003 schedule book and concluded for me that Jackson .....

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Geragos Asks 'Young Lady' To Come Forward 10:05 a.m. PDT May 9, 2003

MODESTO, Calif. -- Scott Peterson's attorney Mark Geragos told a judge Friday he would produce several witnesses if a grand jury was held that would point the finger at another suspect in the killing of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Connor.

Attorney Mark Geragos Friday Press Conference At the end of a hearing in which Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami ordered the arrest and search warrants to remain sealed, Geragos stood and asked the judge to also rule that the Modesto County District Attorney's Office not be allowed to convene a grand jury in the case.

Instead, Geragos wants a more public preliminary hearing. The judge refused to grant Geragos' request and the defense attorney then pledged in open court to bring several witnesses to the grand jury that would point the blame at another suspect.

Outside the courthouse, Geragos went even further.

"We know there are people out there and specifically there is one particular young lady out there who we believe has some very important information," he said. "We are asking, and we will protect her anonymity, that she contact my office. We will do everything possible to keep you (the woman) out of this. Please provide us with the information we need."

The defense attorney said he could not go any further because he "did not want to be gagged in this case." Geragos was referring to a warning issued by Girolami that he would issue a gag order if the rhetoric outside the courtroom got too intense.

Geragos did thank the judge for keeping the documents sealed.

"Obviously, we are gratified today that the judge has conditionally sealed the warrants and not for the reasons you would normally expect," he said. "If you read the court of appeals decision that came down, the court of appeals -- which has reviewed the search warrants affidavits -- states in unequivocal language that releasing or unwinding any of this information now could compromise not only the investigation, but also whoever the actual perpetrator might be."

Geragos said he was building his defense on an initial investigation done by Kirk McAllister -- Peterson's original attorney in the case and now part of the defense team.

"We have a number of private detectives out there working in addition (to) lawyers in my office who have been living in Modesto," Geragos said of his team.

Meanwhile, the Modesto Bee reported in its Friday editions that a search warrant for strands of hair had been executed on Scott Peterson on April 25 while he was being held in jail. A source also told the paper that a full body picture was taken of Peterson to show the natural color of his body hair.

When Peterson was pulled over in a Mercedes-Benz and arrested in La Jolla, police noticed that he had lightened his hair.

Laci Peterson had been missing since Christmas Eve -- and the subject of a massive search -- until her badly decomposed body washed up on shore near Point Richmond on April 14. The 27-year-old Peterson was eight months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

The day before Peterson's body was found, the fetus of her unborn son Conner washed up on shore about a mile north. Scott Peterson had told investigators he was on a day fishing trip to the nearby Berkeley Marina on Christmas Eve when Laci allegedly disappeared from the couple's Modesto home.

On April 18 police arrested Peterson in San Diego for the murders just hours before being alerted that the bodies of Laci and her unborn son had been positively identified through DNA analysis.

Modesto District Attorney Jim Brazelton has said he will seek the death penalty in the case.

Scott Peterson's lawyer argues for L.A. County trial

Wednesday, January 7, 2004 Posted: 4:16 AM EST (0916 GMT)

(CNN) -- In the latest exchange of legal arguments in the Scott Peterson case, defense attorney Mark Geragos argued that the best place for his client to obtain a fair trial is in Los Angeles County.

Using the 1970 murder trial of Charles Manson as a precedent, Geragos stated that "in a case of massive publicity Los Angeles County will necessarily always be the venue of choice since the adversities of publicity are offset by a trial being conducted in a populous metropolitan area."

More than 9 million people -- one-fourth of the state's population -- reside in Los Angeles County. Stanislaus County, where the case is currently centered, has a population of 500,000.

Peterson is charged with the murders of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son in December 2002. Their bodies washed up from the San Francisco Bay in April 2003.

Last week, the prosecution cited the same People v. Manson case as a reason not to move the trial out of Stanislaus County. Because Charles Manson did not receive a change of venue out of Los Angeles in spite of massive pretrial publicity, District Attorney James Brazelton argued, then Scott Peterson could also receive a fair trial in the county where his crime was allegedly committed.

Manson and five of his followers were convicted in 1971 of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the brutal killings of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

In his rebuttal argument filed in Modesto, California, on Tuesday, Geragos repeated his contention that Stanislaus County is too small and the citizens too involved in the case for the defendant to obtain a fair trial.

"Potential jurors in Los Angeles County or otherwise remote from Stanislaus County are far less likely to have had such an intimate involvement with this matter," Geragos wrote.............

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A recap story: Questions still haunt Laci Peterson case
Pregnant Modesto woman vanished one year ago.

Questions still haunt Laci Peterson case
Pregnant Modesto woman vanished one year ago.

The Modesto Bee
(Published Wednesday, December 24, 2003, 5:45 AM)

MODESTO -- The details of what happened a year ago today could determine whether Scott Peterson lives or dies. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 31-year-old fertilizer salesman, who they contend murdered his wife, Laci, and unborn son sometime late Dec. 23 or early Dec. 24 last year.

Peterson told Modesto police he decided that morning to go fishing in the San Francisco Bay rather than play golf. He last saw his wife mopping the floor as he left, and she planned to walk the dog that morning, he told police.

Detailed testimony from neighbors, police and family members during Peterson's 12-day preliminary hearing appear to corroborate parts of his alibi while also raising questions. Those include:

The fishing story: Peterson "couldn't say" what type of fish he was trying to catch when an officer asked him later that evening, a different officer testified. Neighbor Amie Krigbaum testified that Peterson "said that he was golfing all day" when he knocked on her door looking for his wife.

When Laci's stepfather asked him whether he was able to golf that day, Peterson said he decided to go fishing because it was too cold, the officer said.

The 10-minute window: The time span between a 10:08 a.m. call from Scott Peterson's cell phone and when a neighbor said she found the Petersons' dog in the street dragging its leash. The call was initiated through the cell tower that serves the Petersons' Covena Avenue home and then transferred to a second tower in downtown Modesto, indicating the caller was moving west.

The call could mark when Peterson left his home driving to his warehouse, which he told police he did about 9:30 that morning. If he left at 10:08 a.m., that would give his wife 10 minutes to finish mopping the floor, take the dog outside for a walk and be abducted before the dog is found at 10:18 a.m. But the call could have come from anywhere within a 11/2-mile radius that encompasses the Peterson home........

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