Laci Peterson, 27, was married to Scott for five years and was murdered while she was eight-months pregnant with their son, who they planned to name Connor.
A judge ruled Tuesday that convicted murderer Scott Peterson has been denied a new trial in the 2002 death of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson.
The ruling comes nearly 20 years after Peterson was charged with dumping the bodies of his pregnant wife and their unborn child into San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve 2002.
Peterson and his lawyers alleged that the initial trial was tainted by a juror who was untruthful about her own history of abuse to get on the panel that initially sent him to death row, NBC News reported.
However, California Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo found there was no evidence to support the defense claim that the alleged rogue juror, known as Juror No. 7, Richelle Nice, committed misconduct during jury selection, NBC News reported.
“The Court concludes that Juror No. 7’s responses were not motivated by pre-existing or improper bias against [Peterson], but instead were the result of a combination of good faith misunderstanding of the questions and sloppiness in answering,” the judge wrote in court documents.
Peterson, 50, can appeal the ruling.
Nice, who gained media attention during the trial for having bright red hair and wearing colorful outfits, told reporters after the verdict, “We wanted to see it all the way through to the end.”
But in a shocking twist, Nice became pen pals with the convicted killer in prison. She spoke to Inside Edition in 2006 about the puzzling relationship.
“I know it all sounds crazy, because I'm one of the ones who put him away. He wanted to know how I was doing and how the trial affected me,” Nice said.
In one of those letters, Peterson said Nice claimed she had once been the victim of domestic violence while pregnant. Peterson's attorney says Nice failed to disclose this before the trial and claims it proved she had bias in the case — an allegation Nice denies.
In 2004, Scott Peterson was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2005. The California Supreme Court overturned his sentence in 2020.
In 2021, he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Laci Peterson, 27, was married to Scott for five years and was murdered while she was eight-months pregnant with their son, who they planned to name Connor.
Prosecutors said Peterson dumped his wife’s body in Berkeley Marina on Christmas Eve and tried to cover up the crime by making it appear as if she was missing, according to court records. Her body washed ashore later. Peterson's attorneys have argued that she was killed after she stumbled upon a burglary.
