I type too slow.
The almighty news media. That’s all you have. What they want you to know, whether it’s right or wrong information. Does anyone personally know the Petersons? Lived with them? Worked with them? Involved with them day and night? So what’s the basis for the conviction? It will be solved one day, and we’ll probably all be very surprised at the outcome.
DrDeth, good posts. But:
Seen by someone other than the “twit cashier” belladonna mentioned, who turned out to be full of it? Just curious.
I think too much is being made of his affair.
If my ex-wife had vanished into thin air a few years ago, and I was being questioned and had to admit to sleeping with a select few girls on the side (open marrige) her family would have shit themselves.
While it’s easy to say “He did it! He did it!!” and I feel personally that it may be true, he’s still innocent. At least the cops are decent enough to mention that he’s co-operating.
[hijack]
Hey, Governor Quinn, I’m putting together a Dopefest in Sac sometime soon… look for the thread about it in MPSIMS…
[/hijack]
I didn’t know he hadn’t gotten his old truck back yet from the police.
Is he still working now?
Another thought that flies through my mind, is that if he is a fertilizer salesman, what would it be for him to take a bag of fertilizer and use it as an accelerant to dispose of the body faster by lighting it up?
I believed him right until the minute it was discovered he had been having an affair.
Now they have no body. And if he strangled her there will be no blood to find. Hair in the vehicle can be explained away because he was married to her and one would expect to find her hair in his vehicle.
It would have been the perfect crime except for the fact that now his reputation is ruined by the cloud of suspicion and his lover has hightailed it.
wring & belladonna: Y’all left out that Peterson also says now he’d told his wife about the affair and that she wasn’t freaked out about it.
I gave a summation. There was also some stuff about the fact that Scott had insurance on his wife. However, from what’s been publicized, what gets him under suspicion are things like:
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the affair and fact he lied to cops (and her family - though how likely would that have been??) at first (until the other woman came out in public)
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the insurance (though that all by itself isn’t unusual).
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he sold her car (after a month wherein he’d been renting a vehicle since the cops had impounded his and he needed a truck for his work, given that her income wasn’t there anymore, he’s having trouble keeping up on financial obligations).
and of course, the fact that she’s missing.
However, many people have extra marital affairs w/o killing their spouses, the ‘affair’ in question had been of a recent nature. It’s pretty standard to add life insurance when circumstances change (as in her pregnancy); and financial problems are pretty understandable in a case where suddenly one of a dual income drops off.
Much has been made of the fact he lied to the cops and her family. I would have been astounded had he told her family about it. and, as stupid as it is to lie about an illicit affair to the cops, I also understand it. From the standpoint of a totally innocent person, if I know I had nothing to do with the death/disappearance, why would I give them additional info that would make me appear suspicious. He probably hoped she’d be found quickly and thus the info wouldn’t have to become known (if he’s innocent).
My stance is that I have no idea if he’s guilty or innocent. But from what’s been made public, I think the ‘assumption’ made by the OP (“what did he do with the body”) are unsupported.
wring:
Thanks. BTW, it’s funny how a missing dash can change the meaning of something–“extra marital” as opposed to “extra-marital” kind of made me smile.
I’ve wondered also why he didn’t tell the police all his dirty laundry. After all, we’re not talking about hurt feelings here, this is someone being alive or dead. Your point, though, does make sense.
The whole case has made me question whether giving a guy a wood chipper as a wedding gift is a good idea.
The fact that Scott Peterson was having an affair is not, in itself, significant, nor is the life insurance policy, the selling of the car, the fact his wife was 8 months preganant, the fishing trip on Christmas Eve, the fact he said she left on foot when tracking dogs indicate she left in a car, all that significant in itself.
Neither was the cut on OJ Simpson’s hand he could not explain, the blood on the Bronco, the person Kato heard banging outside, etc…but when you put it all together it adds up to more than the sum of its parts. When any incident becomes part of a string of coincidences, that adds up to astronomical improbability, it begins to smell.
Scott Peterson isn’t quite there yet. But he’s close. When you add up all his details it becomes, in police parlance, “hinkey”. Something is not right and, whats more, no one else is that wrong, especially when it comes to means, motive and opportunity.
Sure, he’s innocent until proven guilty. Everyone is, but he is very, very suspicious. Not only because of the lies, the cheating, the strange incongruities, but because we instinctively know the range of behavior innocent people display, whether hysteria, indignation or stony stoicism. Somewhere in there doing things such as selling your wife’s car before the body is even found or trying to put your house up for sale, just doesn’t quite fit.
Ok, The only thing I have to add to this is that NO BODY, NO MONEY! If they can’t find the body, he can’t get any money from insurance.
Also, living local to the drama, I can honestly say this is media-driven bullshit. I think public opinion has swayed, and even if they can cobble together some bullshit circumstantial case against him, he’ll be convicted by public opinion rather than data.
He acts like a guilty man, but I’m starting to get the feeling that he’s not guilty. He’d have to be one psycho sonofabitch To kill his wife, a deranged lunatic to kill his wife and unborn child, and the criminal mastermind of the new century to have done it and pulled it off thus far.
Last year the media blew the Chandra Levy thing up enough to be covered worldwide. They had Condit convicted by the press, and public opinion was that he had done it, hands-down. Of course, when it turned out she’d been killed in the park, you didn’t hear too much about it.
Sam
What don’t you get? He went “fishing” in a marina on Christman Eve. A comment made by a fisherman interviewed on America’s Most Wanted was tlling. In effect, you’d have to be crazy to go fishing this time of year at that Marina. The current is so strong anything that fell in would be pulled out to sea very quickly.
Dumping the body, anyone?
Oh yeah, and I know America’s Most Wanted and its host are SO unbiased an authority on the matter. Definitely much better a judge of the case than the local police. :rolleyes:
You proved my point…this is a crime being tried in the media before any kind of case has even been put together by local cops.
Sam
GaWD After reading you first and second post, I thought of that song “Vincent” – “They’re not listening, they’re not listening still, perhaps they never will”
At least somebody is paying attention!
I have to admit, on Christmas day, when they announced she was missing, and the hubby took off on a fishing boat, Etc, I told my Fiancee- “It’s the Husband.” Now, almost 3 months later, I feel otherwise. Husbands are notoriously bad when it comes to killing their wives off, and covering it up. Too many emotions are involved.
Add to that an 8 month old fetus and I’d say unless this guy is the sickest fuck on the planet, he couldn’t do it. JMHO.
Perhaps they never will listen, kevja. Perhaps they’ll tie a case together with shoestrings and the man will get the needle. Perhaps there will be a big break in the case and he’s guilty as sin. NOBODY KNOWS. Nobody on the SDMB, Nobody in Modesto, NOBODY, and I mean fucking NOBODY in the media knows and until then, they should shut their fucking pie-holes and stop publishing bunk info like finding the body under the house, Etc.
Christ.
Sam
…and that’s, ladys and gentleman, are my thoughts in a nutshell. GaWd, I’ll add you to the list of posters who can drag my jumbled thoughts from my mind, make them coherent, and then put them to poetry on these boards.
In New Zealand, there is a surprising amount of coverage of this case, especially on CNN. To think that the United States will probably be going to war in the next month or so, and Larry King dedicates two shows in a week to this case-tragic as it is-just goes to show how messed up the media’s priorities are at the moment…
…we don’t have the facts. As I stated in the last thread about this case-in NZ the media aren’t even allowed to comment on cases(reporting is allowed, speculation is not) until they have made their way through the courts. So to say reading this thread, as well as the media coverage, is, to be honest, quite bizzare…
Thanks for compliment, Banquet! 
I wish we’d adopt a law like you have there in New Zealand. I get tired as hell listening to speculation in EVERY SINGLE case that hits the news! Happens all the time. The media either don’t care, or don’t know how far-reaching their opinions, commentaries, editorials, and speculations go in influencing people.
People are sheep, and most will eat up whatever is spoon-fed to them on the radio or TV. All is taken at face value, and most people won’t bother to do any independent thinking.
Whatever…makes me pretty sick.
Sam
one would have thought that the media had learned some things from, oh, say, the Olympic Bomber case, or Sam Shepard?? but naaaaa, Condit lied about an extra marital affair, therefore he must have ‘known something’.
It’s a good thing I don’t have Extra-marital affairs then…I might eventually be a murder suspect :rolleyes:
Sam
in one of these threads on the subject, I posted something to the effect of “my ex husband cheated on me lots of times and never once murdered me”