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Peterson Jurors Shown Murder Scene Photos

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Jurors cringed Wednesday as prosecutors in Scott Peterson's double-murder trial displayed photographs of bone and tissue from the badly decomposed bodies of his wife and fetus.

As the case settled into its sixth week, prosecutors persisted in their new direction - instead of dissecting Peterson's allegedly incriminating behavior after his wife vanished, they focused on graphic images that reminded jurors why they were there.

"The most powerful way to bring the jury back to what the case is about are the images of a dead fetus and the mother," said former San Francisco prosecutor Jim Hammer, who has watched much of the case from inside the courtroom. "The whole tone of the trial has changed."

Last week, prosecutors spent much of their time repeatedly questioning witnesses about Peterson's affair with a Fresno massage therapist - his motive, they say, for the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci.

Defense attorneys never denied Peterson had an affair. But, they point out, that doesn't make him a killer.

On Wednesday, prosecutors spent the morning guiding two sheriff's deputies through graphic testimony about the poor condition of the remains and where they were discovered - testimony that drove Laci Peterson's mother and stepfather from the courtroom.

After that testimony, however, prosecutors returned to repetitious details. This time the subject was the Berkeley marina, where Peterson claims to have launched a solo fishing trip on Dec. 24, 2002, the day his wife vanished.

A string of marina workers testified the skies were cloudy over San Francisco Bay that Christmas Eve day and activity was light.

Alonzo Chess, a marina landscape supervisor, said "it wasn't busy at all" and the weather was "cold, maybe a little windy."

Under cross-examination, he acknowledged there was "maybe a drizzle."

Peterson told police he returned home that afternoon and immediately washed his clothes because they were wet from rain. Police have testified they found that suspicious and said it didn't rain that day.

According to logs archived by the Western Regional Climate Center, at noon that Dec. 24 it was 52 degrees under cloudy skies, but no drizzle was recorded at the Oakland airport, less than 10 miles south of the marina.

Sylvester Goosby, a marina maintenance worker, described the day as "drizzly" and said he saw no one at the boat launch ramp.

On cross-examination, however, Goosby said "people drive in and out of the marina all the time," adding that some people live on their boats.

Prosecutors claim Peterson drove his pregnant wife's body from their Modesto home and dumped it into the Bay from his 14-foot aluminum boat. They appeared to try to show it was possible Peterson could have loaded his wife's body into the boat and ferried it out on the bay without being seen.

But defense attorneys pointed out that this is the busiest marina in the Northern California - an odd place to choose to dump his wife's body, they suggested.

"Is it fair to say that there are people who come from all over California to fish in the bay?" defense lawyer Pat Harris asked marina manager Cliff Marchetti.

"During various seasons, yes," Marchetti replied.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys questioned the evidence collection process in the areas around where the two sets of remains were found.

"Fair to say that there was nobody going around collecting evidence?" defense attorney Mark Geragos asked Deputy Chris Martinez of the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department, who collected the fetus from the marshy shoreline along the bay in April 2003.

"When I was there, no," Martinez responded.

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