Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody. Welcome to the latest episode, this episode
Speaker 1: of Amy and TJ. I want to start by asking
Speaker 1: a question of you, Robot, of something you just said.
Speaker 1: Maybe other parents out there can possibly answer this. What
Speaker 1: does it mean when you say I raised my child
Speaker 1: well enough? You just say you say you raised her right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You raised you didn't say you raised or right. You
Speaker 1: were talking about something complimentary. You're complimenting your seventeen year
Speaker 1: old an Elyse said I raised her right enough?
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 4: It means that I don't want to take credit for
Speaker 4: what she does well, and I also don't want to
Speaker 4: take credit for what she doesn't do well. No, I
Speaker 4: joke a little bit, but I do believe that what
Speaker 4: I wanted to do as a mom was to give
Speaker 4: them a foundation, give them an example, but then expect
Speaker 4: them to figure it out a little bit on their own.
Speaker 4: So when they start to figure it out, I'm proud,
Speaker 4: But I don't take credit because I know that there
Speaker 4: are really take credit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I think you should take credit. But I've
Speaker 1: never heard that before. People say, oh, you were raised right,
Speaker 1: somebody raised you right.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes your own parents will say I raised you right
Speaker 1: because they're proud of something that you just did. You
Speaker 1: did have to lay a foundation, but that foundation, again,
Speaker 1: it's foundation so for them to build on. So when
Speaker 1: you say it, right enough, I was laughing. But now
Speaker 1: I didn't know. You didn't know I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you this question, but I didn't know you were
Speaker 1: going to get so heavy.
Speaker 2: On me there.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what I think, what I have tried
Speaker 4: to do is not take ownership of my children. They're
Speaker 4: not mine. They're their own, beautiful, free souls who I
Speaker 4: get to guide. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: what they choose is what they choose. And so that's
Speaker 4: kind of where the disconnect was, where I.
Speaker 2: Kind of.
Speaker 1: A buffer cover when they I know.
Speaker 4: Look, actually, you know the funny thing is when they
Speaker 4: do fuck up, I probably will take ownership of that
Speaker 4: and say what did I do wrong? And I'll probably
Speaker 4: feel guilty about it, And hilariously, I think I'd be
Speaker 4: more willing to take that on and say I should
Speaker 4: have done better here, there or wherever.
Speaker 3: But when they do well, I want them to own it.
Speaker 3: So anyway, it's silly. It was just a little thing.
Speaker 4: She thanked you for something without my prompting, which I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, that's so good to hear I raised
Speaker 4: her well enough or right enough, like okay, good like
Speaker 4: I wasn't expecting that. And then it made me really
Speaker 4: happy that she did it. But I didn't want to
Speaker 4: take credit for it. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 1: I don't know if my child would have done so,
Speaker 1: I said, Man, I feel good even though I say
Speaker 1: it to myself. Man, I raised it right, she was
Speaker 1: raised right. Man, I did a good job. I did
Speaker 1: something right. I would never think well, I did right enough.
Speaker 3: I think I know that I've messed up enough. But
Speaker 3: we were Actually I actually just took her.
Speaker 4: To the airport. She's going on and break again. Here's
Speaker 4: another story of me having a child go off on
Speaker 4: their own. So she's you know, she's at an age
Speaker 4: where I did this to my senior year. But this
Speaker 4: is for me, the first time she's going anywhere without
Speaker 4: any sort of supervision. So eventually, even when she gets there,
Speaker 4: she's still with her other friends. So we had some
Speaker 4: amazing conversations in the car on the way to the airport.
Speaker 4: And of course it's a very long ride to JFK
Speaker 4: on a busy commuting commuting money Monday. Sorry, I can't
Speaker 4: talk on a very busy commuter day, work weekday. It's
Speaker 4: not Monday. Yes, well I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 4: I'm right enough. Yes, I hope everyone can commiserate. If
Speaker 4: you two get tongue talk. Oh my god, Okay, maybe
Speaker 4: I should let you keep talking. No, So, anyway, we
Speaker 4: had a good conversation about just all the different twists
Speaker 4: and turns of life and how I'm just proud of
Speaker 4: how she's made certain choices, and I'm proud of the
Speaker 4: fact that her resilience has shown through some very difficult times.
Speaker 4: And so I hope I was just talking to her
Speaker 4: about carrying that with her throughout her life and taking
Speaker 4: all these moments when things don't go the way you
Speaker 4: want them to or things get messy, that you find
Speaker 4: a way not to point to other people and say
Speaker 4: why did you do this to me? Why did this
Speaker 4: happen to me, but instead to say I learned something,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to I'm going to be able to
Speaker 4: take what I learned and make this something that I
Speaker 4: can own. I can say what can I do better?
Speaker 4: What can I do differently? Anyway, we just have this
Speaker 4: great insightful conversation. Yeah, maybe that prompted to thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't know the great way to store spring break
Speaker 1: want as you would say, No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Your kids are really really impressive. They are really really impressive.
Speaker 1: They're so different. But yes, I didn't plan on asking
Speaker 1: me about that when we started here, but that just
Speaker 1: came up. You said, I raised her right enough, and
Speaker 1: that was funny to me. I planned on starting the
Speaker 1: episode by talking about something that seven episodes ago, seven
Speaker 1: episodes ago. I don't expect you to remember exactly, but
Speaker 1: it was the episode that we had doctor Elizabeth Coleman on. Okay,
Speaker 1: now do you remember, and again this is not a
Speaker 1: trick question, but you might remember what I said to
Speaker 1: you when we started. There was a particular way. Do
Speaker 1: you remember what I said at the beginning of that.
Speaker 4: Episode, the beginning of the Doctor Coman episode. No, you're
Speaker 4: gonna have to refresh my mind. I came in hot,
Speaker 4: you came in hot. The first thing on my mouth
Speaker 4: was I got a bone to pick with you.
Speaker 3: I still don't remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's okay. But doctor Coleman was on
Speaker 1: because doctor Coleman has a book talking about women's health
Speaker 1: that she was in the studio with us at the
Speaker 1: time we were starting, and I told you I got
Speaker 1: a bone to pick. I see, it had been a
Speaker 1: year and a half since you had had your recommended
Speaker 1: blood work as a breast cancer survivor for them to
Speaker 1: come back in and check you out. Okay, am I
Speaker 1: sending this up right? You remember?
Speaker 2: Now? Yes?
Speaker 4: I absolutely do, and so yes, up until that point
Speaker 4: it had been recommended to me, and I had followed
Speaker 4: very religiously, going in every six months for blood work.
Speaker 1: And we want to keep and again, so we want
Speaker 1: to start here, folks with a little bit of news
Speaker 1: because we have had you all along for this journey.
Speaker 1: So move forward a few episodes after that one, and
Speaker 1: you gave an update that you had in fact madeor appointment.
Speaker 1: Now we won't get into why you may. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get into why you made the appointment.
Speaker 1: I was actually having some health issues and I have
Speaker 1: some unexplained or had some unexplained weight loss, and you
Speaker 1: were telling me to get into the doctor, and you
Speaker 1: were on me pretty good about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I said, maybe you needed some blood work.
Speaker 1: Yes you did, which was hilrinous coming from a moment
Speaker 1: who was a year and a half passed. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to shame you, but you know you
Speaker 1: should have gotten in. There were reasons for fine, whatelse
Speaker 1: it worked. But you told us on that episode that
Speaker 1: you had in fact made an appointment.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and I surprised you with it.
Speaker 4: I didn't even realize that I was going to drop
Speaker 4: that bomb, but it was a good one, and so
Speaker 4: yes I did, and we went in together and I
Speaker 4: got the blood work. It actually was remarkably quick and easy.
Speaker 4: It's so funny what you worry about and what you
Speaker 4: think about, and then when it actually happens and you
Speaker 4: do it, it's so much easier than you were anticipating,
Speaker 4: isn't it Always the anticipation that's the toughest part. And
Speaker 4: so we went in, got the blood work. It was
Speaker 4: awesome to have you by my side. Thank you, because
Speaker 4: I always have a little bit of a tough time
Speaker 4: emotionally going back into that building where I first got diagnosed,
Speaker 4: and I think that is part of the reason why
Speaker 4: I dragged my feet a little bit. Not only am
Speaker 4: I worried about potentially what the results could be, but
Speaker 4: it's just going back into that building is tough. For me,
Speaker 4: so to have you there with me was huge, So
Speaker 4: thank you. And got the results back just a little
Speaker 4: while ago, and I am all clear, all clear, And
Speaker 4: I think when I sent you the text, I sent
Speaker 4: a little champagne glasses clinking like cheers, because thank you
Speaker 4: for pushing me a little bit to get into that
Speaker 4: office and to be able to say, Okay, I got
Speaker 4: the blood work, and now I haven't all clear for
Speaker 4: a while, and now she told me I can come
Speaker 4: back once a year now, so I've graduated to once
Speaker 4: a year. But the thread is always there and I'll
Speaker 4: probably always drag my feet a little bit because it's
Speaker 4: always scary, what's this test going to show? What's this
Speaker 4: blood we're going to do? But when you do do it,
Speaker 4: and you do if you are lucky enough to get
Speaker 4: a good result, wow, is that a huge, huge relief.
Speaker 1: And I am I don't want to be crass or
Speaker 1: have this sound like I'm not being sensitive to it,
Speaker 1: but I have been learning. I've known you obviously for
Speaker 1: ten years, but been in a relationship with you like
Speaker 1: this only for the past year and a half, two
Speaker 1: years coming up on potentially here this year. But I
Speaker 1: am learning about what this means too, and why you
Speaker 1: did drag your feet because when you go in again,
Speaker 1: I'll put this in the shortest way, this is how
Speaker 1: you all explained to me. Breast cancer survivor, you go
Speaker 1: in and get this blood work, if there is a
Speaker 1: recurrence or has come back, is it essentially a death sentence.
Speaker 1: You're essentially being told that this cancer now is metastatic
Speaker 1: and there's no cure for that. So you go in
Speaker 1: and sitting in that office with you with doctor Ratzo,
Speaker 1: you obviously know well, but I've had a chance to
Speaker 1: get to know here lately. Did I have more questions
Speaker 1: than you?
Speaker 4: You did? You asked a lot of questions. Actually, well,
Speaker 4: it was such a loving thing to do because yes,
Speaker 4: you're a journalist, but you're curious because you love me
Speaker 4: and you haven't been along in an intimate way on
Speaker 4: this journey, and so you had questions about being a
Speaker 4: breast cancer survivor and what that means. And most people
Speaker 4: don't know unless they've walked down that road. And especially
Speaker 4: you know there are different kinds of breast cancers, but
Speaker 4: she pointed out to you when you have a estrogen
Speaker 4: positive cancer, some of the other cancers are more aggressive.
Speaker 4: And scarier at first, and if you can make it
Speaker 4: five years or ten years, there's a bigger relief of whoo,
Speaker 4: it's probably not going to come back when you have
Speaker 4: a estrogen positive cancer. I also had a positive lymph node.
Speaker 4: My uncle score was higher than they expected, So there's
Speaker 4: a lot of things that factor into it. But she
Speaker 4: basically explained to you that I can never have that
Speaker 4: sigh of relief.
Speaker 1: Ever in life. She explained percentages and how do they
Speaker 1: go up? How do you get them down? And I
Speaker 1: understand it a little better now, but even listening to
Speaker 1: you now, this is where I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people in society don't get unless you have somebody right
Speaker 1: next to it. But when you say a lymph node this,
Speaker 1: or an ANCA score or that, it gets into the
Speaker 1: weeds to where I don't get it. I'm learning a
Speaker 1: little more. But bottom line, when you go in and
Speaker 1: you get this blood work, you are essentially waiting for
Speaker 1: them to tell you whether or not you have gotten
Speaker 1: a death sentence. And that is the simplest and shortest way.
Speaker 1: And I didn't want you to see me, but I
Speaker 1: wiped tears out of my eye sitting in that office,
Speaker 1: and you didn't see that.
Speaker 3: I didn't say that.
Speaker 1: How she's explaining things and I'm trying to be the
Speaker 1: strong and a crack a joke here and do this
Speaker 1: and keep everything warm, and she said a few things
Speaker 1: that fuck just fucks me up to think about the
Speaker 1: road ahead, and it makes you want to We are
Speaker 1: not wasting a day. We are we just cannot. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you might never have to do with breast cancer again
Speaker 1: or rest your life. Hopefully that's the case. But I
Speaker 1: thought it was important to share with the audience. Yes,
Speaker 1: in fact, it is done. We got the all clear.
Speaker 1: Now we wait.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know what I want to point out too.
Speaker 4: It is a death sentence right now, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: But there are new advances being made every year, and
Speaker 4: there is an incredibly advanced quality of life. But it
Speaker 4: is a completely different way of life, and you've seen
Speaker 4: it through our dear beautiful friend Morgan, where you now
Speaker 4: have a life of treatment always every two weeks, every
Speaker 4: three weeks you are getting chemo infusions or you're getting
Speaker 4: some sort of immunotherapy and your body is weakened and
Speaker 4: you have a different standard of life. And so it
Speaker 4: is a complete about face from the way a lot
Speaker 4: of us, and most of us live and so there
Speaker 4: is there is an intention behind every moment that you
Speaker 4: don't necessarily have until you've walked this path, and I
Speaker 4: hope no one has to, but there is a beauty
Speaker 4: in it.
Speaker 3: There is a joint.
Speaker 4: I'm about to go on a trip with Morgan here
Speaker 4: in a couple of weeks because that girl is seeing
Speaker 4: the world. And you know, that's what I have taken
Speaker 4: from this is that all of us aren't guaranteed tomorrow.
Speaker 4: So if all of us can live differently and better
Speaker 4: because of it. But a light bulb went off for you,
Speaker 4: I could tell yesterday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it did. And look they will continue to
Speaker 1: do so and I'll continue to learn and then west.
Speaker 1: Being with you has been one of the great joys
Speaker 1: of my life. You never know what direction life is
Speaker 1: going to take me, but here we are in the
Speaker 1: universe has here and to your point there about you
Speaker 1: never know. You never know what day is going to
Speaker 1: be your last, or what moment. And we certainly thought
Speaker 1: about that and talked about that when we were watching
Speaker 1: the bridge collapse in Baltimore. Just to think the people
Speaker 1: who were just going about their day or working or whatever,
Speaker 1: and something like that in a moment, a split second.
Speaker 1: And you kept pointing out as we were watching the
Speaker 1: video of the cars that were going by, I mean,
Speaker 1: think about the people who just missed it by seconds
Speaker 1: or a minute or whatever going across that bridge and
Speaker 1: they got home to their families or whatever, because you
Speaker 1: just never know you were in a moment where something
Speaker 1: like that happened. So we wanted to certainly acknowledge that's
Speaker 1: going to be a story for a long time, a
Speaker 1: lot of healing in that community and rebuilding in that community.
Speaker 1: And as we were talking here, I believe it's six
Speaker 1: people who are on accounted for and they've called off
Speaker 1: the search. But that was a it was an awful,
Speaker 1: awful thing to say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we woke up to it, and watching that video
Speaker 4: just makes your heart wrench and your your stomach just
Speaker 4: tightened because you just think, oh, my goodness, probably those
Speaker 4: folks for either I don't know, coming back from the airport,
Speaker 4: are getting off of a long night shift. You know
Speaker 4: who's driving at those hours, and you're probably just wanting
Speaker 4: to get home or maybe you're going to work, but
Speaker 4: not thinking about the unthinkable.
Speaker 1: Righting.
Speaker 4: Thank god, it was one thirty in the morning, but
Speaker 4: I just yes, I was looking at those cars like
Speaker 4: just seconds before, thinking what are those people thinking now?
Speaker 4: And you know what, I bet every one of those
Speaker 4: people who were on that bridge moments before, and there
Speaker 4: were a lot of them, will never live the same.
Speaker 4: They will never look at each day the way they
Speaker 4: did before. They will hug they. I mean when I start,
Speaker 4: honestly this week and when I know I'm about to
Speaker 4: get a blood test, and it's silly to have it
Speaker 4: only be in these moments, but I'm reminded again, call
Speaker 4: your friends, call your family, tell them you love them
Speaker 4: like you just don't know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and that other part of that. And you
Speaker 1: and I have been to scenes of low our career.
Speaker 1: Many times we get that call, head to this town,
Speaker 1: head to that town, And it was so much of
Speaker 1: what we did for so long, and we got into
Speaker 1: the business to it because we did enjoy the reporting.
Speaker 1: We did enjoy being on the big stories and watching
Speaker 1: this and thinking being on those scenes and that emotion
Speaker 1: and the toll it takes on you over ten twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years, nothing compared to what those families are going through.
Speaker 1: But it was to sit back and watch it from
Speaker 1: a distance it kind of struck me a little different
Speaker 1: to watch it this way and didn't miss, didn't have
Speaker 1: a desire to want to rush out there and be
Speaker 1: on the scene and do the reporting, is how I
Speaker 1: felt in that moment, because it's just so draining and emotional,
Speaker 1: and just I had that thought I was watching something.
Speaker 3: Well, we didn't talk about that.
Speaker 4: I just said, oh God, you get transported to what
Speaker 4: we did, as you said, for all those years, adding
Speaker 4: the calls in the middle of the night and jumping
Speaker 4: on planes and racing to these scenes of just awful tragedy,
Speaker 4: whether it was whether it was a school shooting or
Speaker 4: it was an act of terrorism, or just a horrific
Speaker 4: natural disaster or an unexplained accident. But yeah, we've rushed
Speaker 4: to those scenes for the majority of our adult lives
Speaker 4: and talk to the people most directly affected. But yes,
Speaker 4: when you're sitting back and watching it, and I will say, yes,
Speaker 4: our hearts go out to all of the people impacted
Speaker 4: and affected. And yet I don't miss, don't I don't
Speaker 4: miss putting myself in the middle of it all. It's
Speaker 4: a lot, it's a lot, but it was. Yeah, that
Speaker 4: was probably one of the first big news stories where
Speaker 4: there were casualties that we weren't called to report on.
Speaker 1: But look, we applaud there are plenty of journalists out there,
Speaker 1: reporter are doing great work. And to be on that scene,
Speaker 1: it's not just a matter of the hours and getting
Speaker 1: in front of a case and all of that being
Speaker 1: away from your family. It does. It takes a toll
Speaker 1: on those journalists we know to be there and talking
Speaker 1: to families or dealing with communities that are having such
Speaker 1: a difficult time, so our hearts go out to them,
Speaker 1: and that this was a big story, and we both
Speaker 1: think back to another big story that we covered years
Speaker 1: and years ago that we didn't think we'd be covering
Speaker 1: again because this was twenty plus years ago now. And
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here is the Lacy Peterson in
Speaker 1: Scott Peterson his murder trial. He's been in prison for
Speaker 1: twenty plus years now, convicted of her murder. I don't
Speaker 1: have to go into the backstory about Lacy Peterson, Scott Peterson,
Speaker 1: you know it. But to sit here now with you,
Speaker 1: robok and to think that story's not over, to think
Speaker 1: that there is now someone legit I say someone, an entity,
Speaker 1: the La Innocence Project, the Innocence Project over this in
Speaker 1: this country has a hell of a reputation. They are
Speaker 1: getting involved to possibly look at new evidence that they
Speaker 1: say could possibly exonerate Scott Peterson.
Speaker 4: That's right, And you and I have talked about this
Speaker 4: because when you cover these stories the way we have,
Speaker 4: Yes there is the trial, Yes there's the jury and
Speaker 4: the conviction, and there's some interest in all of that.
Speaker 4: People love crime shows. But what we know is when
Speaker 4: you cover these stories, it's the victims' families that are
Speaker 4: obviously the most impacted that get lost in so many
Speaker 4: ways when we're all covering this. And so I just
Speaker 4: as we talk about this, I do want to acknowledge
Speaker 4: and I know you do too, TJ. Lacy Peterson's family.
Speaker 4: They have been through something that none of us would
Speaker 4: ever want for anyone we love, to lose their daughter
Speaker 4: and their grandson, Connor. She was eight months pregnant. Both
Speaker 4: of their bodies washed up four months after she went missing.
Speaker 4: I think that was April of two thousand and three.
Speaker 4: And what they've been through so finally to get through
Speaker 4: the trial, to feel like there's some justice. Of course
Speaker 4: their pain never ends, but to at least feel like
Speaker 4: they've had justice served, gives two decades removed.
Speaker 1: Yes, they kind I don't want to say they ever
Speaker 1: would completely move on. But for twenty years, you think
Speaker 1: that the person responsible for killing these two people you
Speaker 1: love is going away. Now this is done, and you're
Speaker 1: trying to move on and rebuild in your life. And
Speaker 1: now can you imagine them being told, wait a second,
Speaker 1: wait a second, this guy might be this guy might
Speaker 1: be innocent. So what happened? Can you imagine what's going
Speaker 1: on in there?
Speaker 4: Hends now and so all of this has obviously been
Speaker 4: happening for quite some time, because remember in twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: he actually had He wasn't initially originally convicted to death.
Speaker 4: I mean he was sentenced to death. He was on
Speaker 4: death row, and a few years ago he was taken
Speaker 4: off death row. His sentence was commuted to a life
Speaker 4: sentence without parole. That's one thing. But now the La
Speaker 4: Innocence Project is involved. As you pointed out, they have
Speaker 4: some new DNA evidence that they would like to be tested.
Speaker 4: They say they have other evidence that they say will
Speaker 4: set him free, that will exonerate him. Scott Peterson has
Speaker 4: maintained his innocence throughout this entire I mean, from the beginning,
Speaker 4: he's always said he didn't do this, and they've always
Speaker 4: pointed the finger at this other potential these other potential suspects.
Speaker 4: There was a burglary across the street. And so now
Speaker 4: I do feel for Lacy's family that they now have
Speaker 4: to go through this all again. And we haven't heard
Speaker 4: from them, by the way, but we did want to
Speaker 4: talk to Scott Peterson's attorney, Mark Garrigosi, represented him from
Speaker 4: the beginning. He's a I'm sure many of you know
Speaker 4: his name. He is a very famous defense attorney, and
Speaker 4: he has always said that this case for him was
Speaker 4: his greatest not just professional defeat, but personal defeat, because
Speaker 4: he has always believed in Scott's innocence. And so as
Speaker 4: this case now comes back into the limelight, just a
Speaker 4: few weeks ago, we saw Scott Peterson in court via
Speaker 4: zoom and now he will have another court date in
Speaker 4: just a few weeks. So this is just the beginning,
Speaker 4: and this is going to be going on for several
Speaker 4: months into the summer, and we'll see what happens if
Speaker 4: he gets a new trial, of course that's what he wants.
Speaker 4: But we were able to sit down with Mark Garrigos
Speaker 4: just a few days ago to talk about the trial
Speaker 4: that happened, what his feelings are, and what he thinks
Speaker 4: may happen next. And Mark, tell us what is going
Speaker 4: on with the Scott Peterson case. I know you and
Speaker 4: I talked about this a decade ago, and you've always
Speaker 4: said Scott Peterson is innocent. You didn't say he was
Speaker 4: not guilty, you said he was innocent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I've taken a lot of heat for it,
Speaker 2: and I get it. I mean, he's not the first
Speaker 2: or probably last, most hated man in America that I'll
Speaker 2: represent in my career. But I have said for almost
Speaker 2: twenty years, I don't think anybody knew the evidence in
Speaker 2: real time better than I did. And I saw nothing
Speaker 2: over the course of that year to fifteen months that
Speaker 2: we were kind of intensely immersed in it that led
Speaker 2: me to believe that he did it. In fact, everything
Speaker 2: that I saw, all the evidence I saw, I was
Speaker 2: always fairly confident no matter who they put up there,
Speaker 2: no matter what document they had, no matter what document
Speaker 2: dump they did, that it was always going to exonerate him.
Speaker 2: And it certainly did in terms of what I saw,
Speaker 2: and part of the problem with that case was that
Speaker 2: where the body was recovered was the thing that people
Speaker 2: could not get passed. And what I always point out
Speaker 2: in response to that is, look, between the time Lacey
Speaker 2: went missing with Connor and the time she was found
Speaker 2: was over four months. Where she was found was widely
Speaker 2: known within a week, So you had a four month
Speaker 2: period of time where everybody knew where his alibi was.
Speaker 2: Number one, Number two. That may have been the most
Speaker 2: searched area in America. They brought in the US Navy,
Speaker 2: they brought in sonar, they brought in submarines, they brought
Speaker 2: in by the way that bay used to recede to
Speaker 2: a height of about six to twelve inches. Nobody found
Speaker 2: a thing for four months until a large storm came
Speaker 2: along and then all of a sudden, the remains washed ashore.
Speaker 1: Mark, Are you more certain now since the trial? Have
Speaker 1: you seen things that make you even more sure of
Speaker 1: his innocence?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's And I'd like to say, at my recommendation,
Speaker 2: Cliff Gardner, who handled his appeal and the initial stages
Speaker 2: of his habeas who successfully argued to the California Supreme
Speaker 2: Court to unanimously reverse the death penaltygue conviction, he did
Speaker 2: a wonderful job post conviction of investigating some of the
Speaker 2: things that were turning up after the conviction. Thing that's
Speaker 2: turned up after the conviction has pointed to the fact
Speaker 2: that he's that he should have been exonerated of this thing.
Speaker 2: Not the least of which is the day that he
Speaker 2: was convicted, the prosecution handed me, Mind you, jury was
Speaker 2: out for nine days. They removed, you know, several jurors
Speaker 2: who were voting not guilty because they they you know,
Speaker 2: the judge had told me, you know, confidentially, and he's
Speaker 2: now passed away that the California then California Supreme Court
Speaker 2: Chief Justice had told him, there's no way this thing
Speaker 2: is going to be a hung jury. You cannot let
Speaker 2: this be a hung jury. And so while the jurors
Speaker 2: were deliberating over the course of that week and a half,
Speaker 2: they were removing the jurors who were not voting guilty, basically,
Speaker 2: and when they finally got the verdict, the prosecution that
Speaker 2: they handed me a call sheet. And it turns out
Speaker 2: there was a lieutenant at the Gino State Prison who
Speaker 2: had overheard a call of an inmate talking to one
Speaker 2: of the burglars about confronting Lacy and so if you're
Speaker 2: not in the weeds on this case, there was a
Speaker 2: burglary across the street at the time. Back in the
Speaker 2: that we tried this case, Modesto PD took the position
Speaker 2: that burglary had occurred on the twenty sixth of December. Well,
Speaker 2: if you believe that, you would believe that the throng
Speaker 2: of media that was already out there on that street,
Speaker 2: on a very narrow street and camped out with satellite trucks,
Speaker 2: that there was a burglary happening thirty feet away and
Speaker 2: they never saw it or saw anything about it. So
Speaker 2: part of the innocence project now is a van that
Speaker 2: had been burned out with a mattress and that we
Speaker 2: think may relate to the burglary.
Speaker 4: So right now, from what I understand, the La Innocence
Speaker 4: Project is asking that some blood that was found on
Speaker 4: that mattress be tested. I I believe it's already been
Speaker 4: confirmed that it's human. But what are they looking for
Speaker 4: and what do you think they may find?
Speaker 2: Well, this is an interesting another little twist here. So
Speaker 2: twenty years ago during the case mitochondrial DNA. Mind you
Speaker 2: just going back to two thousand and four was not
Speaker 2: admissible in California. We actually had a one week caring
Speaker 2: to get mitochondrial DNA and admit it. So you think
Speaker 2: about that, it's kind of crazy because now we assume
Speaker 2: DNA is always admissible. Blah blah blah. Hopefully there is
Speaker 2: enough remnants. Hopefully there is still a sample that the
Speaker 2: California Department of Justice still has that they can then
Speaker 2: test the DNA. Mind you, they do have or did
Speaker 2: have samples. One of the ways that they confirmed that
Speaker 2: it was Lacy and Connor at the time was they
Speaker 2: had had samples of DNA and when their remains washed up,
Speaker 2: they were able to use the DNA samples that the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice had in order to confirm it was them.
Speaker 2: I would hope that there still is a sample maintained,
Speaker 2: it hasn't degraded, that they can figure out whether or
Speaker 2: not there is a connection.
Speaker 1: Here is everything in your opinion writing on that blood sample,
Speaker 1: that DNA sample, And what if it turns out it's
Speaker 1: not connected to Lacy Peterson? Then what?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: I think?
Speaker 2: Look, would it be fortuitous if it was absolutely? Is
Speaker 2: everything riding on it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I mean, if you were to look at the Habeas
Speaker 2: corpus that has been filed in this case the California
Speaker 2: Supreme Court when they issued the order reversing the death penalty,
Speaker 2: they said the judge used the wrong standard for and
Speaker 2: we were complaining about it in real time. Anybody who
Speaker 2: said I don't to death penalty, the judge would dismiss them.
Speaker 2: What you ended up getting as a jury where people
Speaker 2: who were pro death penalty. If you've been around the courts,
Speaker 2: you know, or if you have anecdotal experience, you know,
Speaker 2: pro death penalty, tilt's prolog and order tilt's pro prosecution.
Speaker 2: So there was a whole demographic that we lost of
Speaker 2: people who they didn't ask the next question, if you're
Speaker 2: anti death penalty, can you set that aside and follow
Speaker 2: the law. The judge didn't do that, so they reversed that.
Speaker 2: I always took the position, if you reversed the penalty phase,
Speaker 2: then you should have reversed the guilt phase. Verdict. There's
Speaker 2: that in the habeas, which has not gone to the
Speaker 2: federal have been decided federally. There's also a series of
Speaker 2: other errors that were committed that has not been decided federally.
Speaker 2: This is just one of probably one hundred different issues
Speaker 2: that has now percolated up to the point where somebody
Speaker 2: has said, by the way, this was all sparked by
Speaker 2: Scott himself filing a rit a habeas corpus Innocence project
Speaker 2: got involved once the Court of Appeal said, hey, there
Speaker 2: is something here, and that's why this judge within the
Speaker 2: last two weeks has basically told the prosecution you have
Speaker 2: to answer, and you have to answer this in the
Speaker 2: next thirty days.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think his next hearing is April sixteenth. How
Speaker 4: often do you talk to Scott if at all? I
Speaker 4: know you were close obviously when this trial is going on.
Speaker 4: You've believed in him all of these years. Do you
Speaker 4: speak to him?
Speaker 2: I haven't spoken to him recently. He does write to me.
Speaker 2: He writes letters, which is better than I do. I've
Speaker 2: I've been ruined by email. But the letters are informative
Speaker 2: and heartfelt and I appre siate them. And I speak
Speaker 2: more often with his sister in law, and she's doing
Speaker 2: that wonderful job kind of being the engine for driving
Speaker 2: the fact and the getting the exoneration for him.
Speaker 1: And getting to this point knowing that again, believing as
Speaker 1: strong as you do that he is innocent. So he's
Speaker 1: been sitting in prison wrongfully for decades now, now this
Speaker 1: has come up, what does a stir up in you even?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you're a professional and everybody knows
Speaker 1: your hard nos and damn good at your job. But
Speaker 1: how does this stir you up? Knowing that a guy
Speaker 1: that you represented and worked with has been sitting somewhere
Speaker 1: that you don't think he should have been for the
Speaker 1: past twenty years.
Speaker 2: Look, I said, it was one of the worst professional
Speaker 2: setbacks I've ever had. I'm jokingly not so jokingly engaged.
Speaker 2: It's required a lot of alcohol therapy in the interim,
Speaker 2: But I, you know, have this kind of maybe childlike
Speaker 2: naivete that eventually he will be exonerated and eventually they'll
Speaker 2: figure out what really happened. Because, as I've said, and
Speaker 2: I will continue to say, anybody who spent as much
Speaker 2: time with the evidence and spent as much time with
Speaker 2: Scott as I have, I'm just convinced he didn't do it.
Speaker 2: I will tell you I probably, as a private practitioner,
Speaker 2: have represented more people accused of murder than anybody walking around.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason. I've just I've handled over forty years,
Speaker 2: countless murder cases, I know when somebody is good for it.
Speaker 2: And having said that, you know anticipated question. Just because
Speaker 2: you did the deed does not mean the inquiry ends there.
Speaker 2: Is it a first? Is it a second? Is there
Speaker 2: a murder? Is it a manslaughter? I have another case
Speaker 2: right now, the Benendez brothers, which were on habeas and
Speaker 2: it's my position there they did it, but they did
Speaker 2: not deserve to be convicted of murder. They should it
Speaker 2: should have been a manslaughter. I'm not naive enough to
Speaker 2: not understand who can do this, Who has the capability
Speaker 2: to do this? Scott does not in my experience, based
Speaker 2: on what I've seen and based on the evidence, this
Speaker 2: is not somebody who could have committed this or red design.
Speaker 3: Mark.
Speaker 4: You said the evidence wasn't there that no one knows
Speaker 4: it better than you. Obviously you know what the prosecution
Speaker 4: laid out. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence. There
Speaker 4: was the Amber fry where he was having an affair
Speaker 4: a few months prior. Lacey was eight months pregnant. He
Speaker 4: told Amber that he was a widower. But if you
Speaker 4: believe so strongly that the evidence doesn't support the conviction,
Speaker 4: why do you think those jurors voted to convict.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think it's clear that when Pat Harris, who
Speaker 2: I tried the case with, and Pat has done a
Speaker 2: yeoman's job over the years, continuing to representative Pat after
Speaker 2: he listened to the Amber Fright tapes, said that's a
Speaker 2: you know, it's a tough tough thing to get over.
Speaker 2: I was not as convinced that it was that tough.
Speaker 2: But you have to understand Scott intuitively knew and I
Speaker 2: will tell you why I wasn't as affected. I had
Speaker 2: represented Gary Condit, who was, for those who don't remember,
Speaker 2: was a congressman in California in approximate before the nine
Speaker 2: to eleven was kind of the scandal DuJour that was
Speaker 2: covered by the what I call the access of evil
Speaker 2: back then for a criminal defendant, that was cable news
Speaker 2: at night, the morning shows, and People magazine. So that
Speaker 2: was the accident access of evil and Gary Kanda and
Speaker 2: Chandra Levy and her disappearance was the scandal Djoure. I
Speaker 2: remember at the time thinking, just because somebody is accused
Speaker 2: of having an affair, I understand that you can just
Speaker 2: get blinded to that. Mind you in that case, I
Speaker 2: kept saying at the time there's another guy who's sitting
Speaker 2: in prison in Gary Connan's case, who was jumping women
Speaker 2: in the park where Chandra next door. Chandra used to run.
Speaker 2: I said to me, it's obvious, that's the logical suspect.
Speaker 2: Nobody wanted to hear that, because they were convinced Allah
Speaker 2: Dominic Dunn that it had to be the guy who
Speaker 2: was having the affair. That is, I get it, that's
Speaker 2: human nature. I saw the same thing happening here. Frankly,
Speaker 2: the idea that Scott Peterson because he's having an affair
Speaker 2: with Amber Fry and I don't want to integrate her.
Speaker 2: But you know, this was not Helen of Troy that
Speaker 2: he was going to murder his unborn son and his
Speaker 2: wife because he had fallen for this massage therapist out
Speaker 2: of Fresno. I mean, you know, I realize it's probably
Speaker 2: not politically correct, but just because your wife is pregnant
Speaker 2: in her eighth month and your big bag bonding with
Speaker 2: some woman you know who admitted on the stand she's
Speaker 2: never he never said I love you or anything else.
Speaker 2: To me, that is ludicrous. It makes absolutely no sense
Speaker 2: that a guy, mind you, we put a nun on
Speaker 2: in the mitigation penalty phase. A nun who had known
Speaker 2: Scott virtually her whole life as a character witness. The
Speaker 2: idea that that kid, Scott Peterson, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: because of Amber Fry, decided to off his wife and
Speaker 2: his unborn son was as ludicrous to me as anything
Speaker 2: you could ever imagine. So it's a long way of
Speaker 2: saying I don't buy it. I think the jury had
Speaker 2: this problem when we selected that jury. I'll never forget
Speaker 2: there was a radio station had hired a truck to
Speaker 2: encircle the courthouse. We had shifted. I'd won the change
Speaker 2: of venue, but be careful what you wish for. We
Speaker 2: got sent from Modesta or Stanislaus County to San Mateo,
Speaker 2: which was not exactly an upgrade. I was bitterly fighting
Speaker 2: for Orange County because I said, if there's ever a
Speaker 2: constituency for Scott, it would be adulterous golfers, and where
Speaker 2: are you going to find those? At Orange County, California.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't get Orange County to the point amy
Speaker 2: where I kept saying the da who's now a judge?
Speaker 2: Rick Destaso, I said, your parents live in Orange County.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Orange County. But we got San Mateo.
Speaker 2: But the truck that's running around the courthouse as sixteen
Speaker 2: hundred Jersey Company and has got Scott in his orange
Speaker 2: jumpsuit ban or Monster for people to vote during jury selection,
Speaker 2: and Monster won like ninety seven percent to three percent.
Speaker 2: There was just no way he was going to get
Speaker 2: acquitted in that carnival like atmosphere. Take a look google
Speaker 2: the pictures of the celebration around the courthouse when he
Speaker 2: was convicted. It was like nothing anybody has ever seen.
Speaker 2: There's a picture on the front page of the local
Speaker 2: paper a woman holding her child saying, this is better
Speaker 2: than the day my son was born. So you have
Speaker 2: to understand what it was like. That was why I
Speaker 2: was attracted to the case in the first place, because
Speaker 2: I don't like bullies. I don't like when the kind
Speaker 2: of you're swept up in this mouthstrom. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, that's what we were up against.
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff you describe as a procedural and
Speaker 1: mistakes made and why he shouldn't have been convicted. Can
Speaker 1: you point to something Maybe we have seen it, maybe
Speaker 1: we haven't. Maybe this will be a part of this
Speaker 1: proceeding now, Like one piece of evidence that you think
Speaker 1: exonerates him.
Speaker 2: A couple of things that I think were just ridiculous
Speaker 2: that I'll never get over. One was we had done
Speaker 2: a demonstration. I gone out and I bought the same boat.
Speaker 2: I put one of the kids. He's not a kid anymore.
Speaker 2: He's been a lawyer for seventeen years now, but back
Speaker 2: then he was an aspiring lawyer. I put him in
Speaker 2: the boat with a dummy same weight as Lacey. I
Speaker 2: tried to have him and we filmed it. Throw the
Speaker 2: dummy overboard without capsizing the boat because it made zero sense,
Speaker 2: and he tried it three times and he almost drowned. Frankly,
Speaker 2: it just could not do it. The judge would not
Speaker 2: allow that in However, during deliberations they asked to see
Speaker 2: the boat. And what's the first thing they did when
Speaker 2: they asked to see the boat. The jurors and I
Speaker 2: and the judge and the prosecutors all went into the
Speaker 2: parking lot where they had pulled the boat in, and
Speaker 2: the jurors got in the boat and started rocking the boat,
Speaker 2: because that was one of the first things they wanted
Speaker 2: to say, is how could you have done what you
Speaker 2: said you did? The prosecution theory was is the night
Speaker 2: before she had gone missing, he had killed her, put
Speaker 2: her in the boat, had made anchors, and had thrown
Speaker 2: her overboard. It couldn't happen. And the jurors were struggling
Speaker 2: with that, and sure enough got in the boat started
Speaker 2: rocking around. I went crazy with the judge saying, this
Speaker 2: is an experiment. How can you? How can you allow this?
Speaker 2: And that's one that's to give you. There was another
Speaker 2: where they let in dogs scent evidence. This may be
Speaker 2: the greatest definition of junk science I've ever seen. They
Speaker 2: had one dog that I got somehow got a hold
Speaker 2: of the training videos for this dog. This dog was
Speaker 2: going in every different direction during the training videos. It
Speaker 2: was a complete disaster. Yet somehow the dog handler was
Speaker 2: allowed to testify as to what the dog was thinking.
Speaker 2: So that's the kind of quality of evidence that we
Speaker 2: had here. And it was just anything goes to get
Speaker 2: a conviction because he was, as I may have mentioned,
Speaker 2: the most hated man in America.
Speaker 4: And I know you you're out of time almost But
Speaker 4: why did he run and how much did that hurt him?
Speaker 2: That's another and Amy I will repeat this another one
Speaker 2: of my favorite stories. People will often say why did
Speaker 2: he do this? Why did you do that? And I
Speaker 2: will say, let me give you an example. Every morning
Speaker 2: I would go to the gym and there would be
Speaker 2: a and it was always white professional women, so you
Speaker 2: fit the profile. So whitrofessional women would always say well,
Speaker 2: why did he run? And I would say, he didn't
Speaker 2: run unless you think he was running to Canada because
Speaker 2: he was arrested going north on the five Freeway. So
Speaker 2: they'd say, well, he dyed his hair and I'd say, well,
Speaker 2: he did that because he was still working as a
Speaker 2: fertilizer salesperson and the media kept following him to every appointment,
Speaker 2: and it was extremely difficult for him to make a
Speaker 2: sale to support himself with a throng of media. And
Speaker 2: they'd say, well, ha, he had cash. I said yes,
Speaker 2: his brother would give him cash because he didn't want
Speaker 2: to go to ATM machines. Okay. Then they'd say, well,
Speaker 2: what about the fact that he had told that he
Speaker 2: had told the Lacey's stepfather he'd gone fishing. I said, well,
Speaker 2: did you know that? Up until the trial? When I
Speaker 2: asked Ron, the late Ron Granski, where were you on
Speaker 2: Christmas Eve, mister Gramski, And he said, I was fishing,
Speaker 2: and so then inevitably, the white professional woman would say, well,
Speaker 2: I don't care about the evidence. I used to have
Speaker 2: a boyfriend just like him, and I could see him
Speaker 2: doing the exact same thing. Well, how do you get it?
Speaker 2: How do you get past that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear you.
Speaker 4: You know this is going to be so fascinating to
Speaker 4: see what happens over the next few months. And I
Speaker 4: know you'll be on top of it all. And Mark,
Speaker 4: I hope you will come back and talk about this
Speaker 4: with us, because you have perspective like no one else.
Speaker 4: So we thank you so much for your time and
Speaker 4: for all of those details that most people will never
Speaker 4: get to hear unless they hurt him right here.
Speaker 2: Okay, when I come back, Amy, we can do on
Speaker 2: your podcast a description of the last time you and
Speaker 2: I went bar hopping like that dog that was hitting
Speaker 2: more spots than Amy. Yeah, let's talk.
Speaker 3: Let's let's do that first, and then we'll do the podcast.
Speaker 3: It'll be a hoot.
Speaker 2: Okay, the two things