Laci's family seeking belongings
Snip it
Scott Peterson's parents and his attorney have prevented his wife's family from entering the couple's Covena Avenue home and retrieving personal items, according to the statement from attorneys Adam J. Stewart and Albert G. Clark.
"The statement that you have is the absolute truth," said Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother. "I'm not going to comment beyond that."
The statement came with a 22-point list of items that family members want, including Laci's diplomas and journals, and a watering can that says "Laci's Garden."
But family members said that being inside the home that Laci decorated and lived in was more important than retrieving personal items.
Her family members need to "sit in Conner's room in the rocking chair Laci had purchased to rock him in, and just to have the opportunity to feel her presence," the statement reads.
According to the statement, lead defense attorney Mark Geragos wrote a letter in response to the request for access. The Laci Peterson family attorneys, in their statement, say that Geragos said it would be "unthinkable to allow anything to be moved or disposed of" until his team had completed its investigation.
Jackie Peterson, Scott's mother, confirmed that members of her family had been in the house. She said nothing had been disturbed.
"We keep it clean," she said from her San Diego County home. "It was sitting there for four months getting overrun, and people were taking things from the grounds."
Missing are two glass hurricane lanterns, loose bricks from a pile near the patio, and a patio chess and checkers board that had marble frog figurines for the playing pieces, she said.
Geragos said in an interview: "It's an awful situation, and we're going to work our way through it with as much dignity as we can. There are two families here who have lost a grandson."
Geragos said he had been working with the Stanislaus County district attorney's office and police investigators to log evidence and anticipated reaching an "ami-cable solution" about the personal items within 10 days.
Geragos also said that he and prosecutors had agreed on an "accelerated process" to release Laci and Conner's remains to her family.
The bodies were found last month about a mile apart along the eastern shoreline of San Francisco Bay. A judge has ordered them held in the Contra Costa County coroner's office until further notice.
According to the statement from the Laci Peterson family attorneys, Jackie Peterson informed Rocha on Sunday that the locks and the alarm code on the house had been changed.
The statement further says that Rocha previously had a key to the house, and requested a new alarm code and a key from Peterson on Sunday, but had yet to receive a response.
Peterson said she previously had left phone messages for Rocha that went unreturned. "She has a lot going on, I can imagine," Peterson said, lamenting that attorneys were involved.
"Since they initiated going through a lawyer, we were advised to go through a lawyer," Peterson said. "We hadn't done that before. We had always talked."
The Laci Peterson family attorneys, in their statement, say Rocha had been watering the lawn and backyard potted plants for several weeks at the Covena Avenue home.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scaughty divorcing from the Rocha's! That is what I call the latest bunch of crap from the Petersons!
I missed Jackie calling Greta last night; the rest of the show was sooo boring, I didn't watch til the end; that'll teach me!