The Laci Peterson murder is back in the news due to two new documentaries, Netflix’s American Murder: Laci Peterson and Peacock’s upcoming Face to Face with Scott Peterson, 22 years after the case gripped America.
In the new Netflix docuseries, Laci’s mom, Sharon Rocha, speaks about her daughter and the events surrounding her murder. Laci vanished on Christmas Eve 2002 while eight months pregnant, and her body was found four months later in the San Francisco Bay. Peterson’s husband, Scott, was convicted, though he still maintains his innocence.
Sharon testified in the original trial against Scott and appeared at his resentencing in December 2021, when his death sentence was overturned and reduced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
“You betrayed her, your son, and everyone else,” Sharon told Scott directly as she faced him at the hearing, per People. “You ended two beautiful souls.”
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Innocence Project picked up Scott’s case, though Sharon still believes in his guilt.
Sharon and her then-husband Dennis Rocha welcomed Laci on May, 1975, as the youngest of two children. Laci’s older brother, Brent, was born in 1971, and she also had a half-sister, Amy Rocha, whom Dennis welcomed in a separate relationship.
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As reported by People, Sharon and Dennis were high school sweethearts and owned a dairy farm together in Escalon, California. However, they divorced when Laci was a baby. Sharon moved with Laci and Brent to Modesto, where she met her longtime partner, Ron Grantski, when Lacy was two years old.
Laci maintained a close relationship with her father, but Grantski also provided a paternal role and accompanied Sharon to the 2004 trial. According to The Modesto Bee, Grantski passed away in 2018 and is buried next to Laci and her unborn son, Conner.
Sharon had suspicions about Scott early on in his relationship with her daughter. “Laci was telling me all these things about Scott,” Sharon said in the American Murder trailer. “And I remember saying, as her mother, ‘I hope he’s not filling her with crap.’ I’ve learned to go with my gut feeling.”
As detailed in the Netflix doc, Sharon said she last spoke to Laci on the phone on Christmas Eve, hours before she went missing. After Scott called her the next day to say Laci had vanished, Sharon immediately joined the search for her daughter.
Dennis tried to stay out of the spotlight, telling The Modesto Bee that he was worried he’d say something that would affect the case. He also threw suspicion on Scott after news of his affair came out.
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“He was questioned early on, and he said ‘no,’” Dennis told the outlet, referring to Scott’s original denial of the affair. “Then it came out he had one. It showed he lied.”
Even though Sharon had her suspicions about Scott, she told ABC’s Truth and Lies in 2017 that it was “very hard” to believe Scott could murder Laci and their unborn child.
“I mean, it’s not like this is a total stranger that you might be suspecting,” she said, per People. “This is somebody that’s been a member of your family for several years now, and it’s really, you know, the back and forth and the guilt about feeling this way, and how it may have an effect on the relationship with my daughter if I’m wrong.”
Netflix
Dennis died on December 8, 2018, at 72 years old, the same year Grantski passed away. Dennis had a good relationship with Sharon and Grantski, even speaking highly of the latter at his April 2018 funeral service.
“Laci loved her dad, and now they will be together again,” Sharon told The Modesto Bee.
At Scott’s 2021 resentencing, Sharon gave Scott a piece of her mind, recalling the last time she saw her daughter when Laci apparently said that Scott had no interest in feeling her pregnant belly when the baby kicked.
RelatedScott Peterson Speaks Out About Wife Laci’s Death & Amber Frey Affair in Bombshell Interview
“All the while we were there that evening you were already planning her murder,” Sharon said to Scott, per People. “That evening was the last time I saw my daughter alive. Two things will never change. Laci and Conner will always be dead and you will always be their murderer.”
Sharon, who makes her first docuseries appearance in Netflix’s American Murder, told People in a recent interview that she still believes Scott is guilty.
“He is guilty, and that’s it. Bottom line,” she stated. “Something I’ve never said publicly was how Scott — who would never take a polygraph test — never actually denied killing Laci to me. The one statement he said to me was, ‘I didn’t hurt Laci.’ When he was convicted, it was a relief. It wasn’t joyful or a celebration. He was going to prison as he should be.”
Face to Face with Scott Peterson, Tuesday, August 20, PeacockAmerican Murder: Laci Peterson, Premieres, Wednesday, August 14, Netflix
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