LOS ANGELES, April 21 -- A week after the badly decomposed bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son washed ashore near San Francisco Bay, her husband, Scott Peterson, pleaded not guilty today to killing the pregnant Modesto woman and their son.
In court papers filed today, prosecutors said Peterson acted "intentionally, deliberately and with premeditation" in killing the substitute teacher, 27, and their unborn son at their Modesto home sometime between Dec. 23 and 24.
Peterson appeared clean shaven and dressed in a red jail jumpsuit in Stanislaus County Superior Court as he entered the not-guilty pleas and denied the special circumstances of multiple murder. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty, a possibility under the special circumstances allegations.
Peterson was assigned a public defender after indicating he could not afford a lawyer. A bail hearing was set for May 6.
Peterson, 30, was arrested Friday in La Jolla, sporting bleached blond hair, goatee and eyebrows and carrying $10,000 in cash along with his brother's ID. Modesto police sought an arrest warrant for Peterson the day before the bodies were identified because they feared he might flee to Mexico, which does not extradite suspects eligible for the death penalty.
Scott Peterson spent the weekend in a 6-by-9-foot maximum-security cell in the Stanislaus County jail, away from the general jail population. He talked to a lawyer and made phone calls, but did not receive any visitors, a sheriff's department spokesman said.
Police had not named Scott Peterson as a suspect, but intensified their investigation of him in January after a massage therapist revealed she was having an affair with Peterson, who told her he was not married. Peterson also raised eyebrows when he traded in his wife's Land Rover for a pickup truck and put the couple's house on the market after she disappeared.
Police tapped phones and used radio transponders on vehicles to keep track of Peterson and moved in to arrest him after he indicated he knew he was being watched.
"He's an innocent man. All they have is some circumstantial evidence. I'm 100 percent sure of that, or he would have been arrested before," said Lee Peterson, his father.
Scott Peterson told police that he last saw his wife the morning of Christmas Eve as she left to walk their dog and he went fishing in the Berkeley Marina, about three miles from where Laci Peterson's body was found April 14.
People walking their dog the previous day , found the infant's body, with the umbilical cord still attached, lying in the grass near the water at the Richmond Marina, about a mile from where Laci Peterson's body was discovered.
At a tearful news conference, Laci Peterson's family spoke out for the first time since Scott Peterson's arrest, thanking volunteers as they resolved to seek justice for her death.
"No parent should ever have to think about the way their child is murdered," said a sobbing Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother. "I can only hope the sound of Laci's voice begging for her life and the life of her unborn child is heard over and over and over again by the person who is responsible for this for the rest of that person's life."
"Laci and Conner did not deserve this. They certainly didn't deserve to be dumped in the bay and sent to a watery grave as though their lives were meaningless," she said. "Now we can move forward. Now justice can be done," said Dennis Rocha, Laci's father.
