Scott Peterson planned to golf the day he was arrested

By JOHN COTE and GARTH STAPLEY
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1:46 p.m.: REDWOOD CITY - Scott Peterson had planned to golf the day he was arrested, according to a wiretapped phone call in which Peterson also says he’s being followed by private investigators and is sure unidentified remains found earlier that week are not his pregnant wife.

“They know that’s not her,” Peterson told his brother on the April 18, 2003, call that the defense played for jurors this morning in Peterson’s murder trial.

Peterson was arrested later that day after leading undercover agents on a 176-mile loop through Southern California, hours before authorities announced DNA tests indicated the remains were Peterson's wife, Laci, and their son, Conner.

The remains had been found separately along the San Francisco Bay Shoreline, less than two miles from were Peterson said he fished alone the day his wife disappeared.

Prosecutors contend Peterson didn’t act like a concerned husband, was ready to flee to Mexico and knew authorities - not private investigators or journalists - were following him. The defense contends he was a hounded man who still hoped to find his wife alive.

At least two undercover agents earlier testified Peterson had confronted them, asking: "What agency are you with, state or local?"

On the wiretapped call, made at 7:08 a.m., Peterson’s brother Joe appears more persistent in raising the issue of identifying the bodies, with Peterson often giving brief answers.

“Yeah, it’s pretty sad,” Peterson said at one point.

Robert Talbot, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, said the tape "cuts both ways" because it demonstrated that Scott Peterson had no intention of fleeing, but also is "a pretty cold person." "His brother," Talbot said, "seemed more concerned and more emotional" that Scott Peterson about the discovery of the bodies. Peterson’s defense, expected to wrap up their case by the end of the week, began the day in chambers with the judge and prosecutors. It is unclear what was discussed, although part of it appeared to involve the wiretapped call and another conversation connected to Modesto police Detective Jon Buehler.

Defense attorney Mark Geragos, in what some legal observers called an anticlimactic morning of questioning, didn’t ask Buehler about the conversation.

Buehler did testify that witnesses at a hair salon where Laci Peterson went the night before she was reported missing gave different versions of the clothes she wore.

Prosecutors contend Scott Peterson murdered his wife either that night, Dec. 23, 2002, or early the next morning and then dumped her body in the bay from a newly purchased fishing boat.

Peterson contends his wife was mopping when he left the morning of Dec. 24 to fish. She planned to walk the dog and prepare for a Christmas morning brunch.

Police searching the Peterson home shortly after she disappeared photographed recipes for Crème Brulee French Toast and Eggs Benedict, Modesto police Detective Craig Grogan testified this morning.

Grogan also acknowledged it was only after it was revealed Peterson was having an affair that Laci Peterson’s mother told police about her son-in-law using the word “missing” when he called her home on Christmas Eve looking for his wife and she thought it suspicious.

The detective talked to Sharon Rocha at least 10 times before she remembered that comment, which she relayed only after police asked family and friends after the affair broke to recall anything odd Peterson might have done.

Geragos pointed to two interviews with Rocha, including one with Dateline NBC that aired Jan. 14, that didn’t mention her son-in-law saying his wife was “missing” when he called.

“I just immediately, I--I--I knew she was missing,” Rocha said, according to a Dateline transcript. But the word “missing” came up when Rocha’s longtime companion, Ron Grantski, phoned 911 with the initial missing person’s report. Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Peterson’s former girlfriend, Amber Frey, a key witness against him, blasted Geragos’ suggestion that family members only came up with incriminating information after news of the affair surfaced

"This is really pathetic and desperate, when you have to try to undermine the mother of the murder victim," Allred said outside court. Allred, seated behind Rocha in court this morning, said Rocha "looked upset to me."

Several legal analysts said today's testimony was anticlimactic.

"Geragos raised expectations because of his personality and what he said in his opening," Talbot said, citing Geragos's promise to prove that Conner Peterson had been born alive. "I expected to see a lot more dramatic testimony, a stronger suggestion of innocence."

"I did expect more of a grandiose-type presentation," former San Mateo County prosecutor Paula Canny said. "We all want a homerun, but the best cases are single, single, single, single." The defense case is set to resume this afternoon with jurors hearing another wiretapped phone call.