6 more defense witnesses testify

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1:08 p.m.: REDWOOD CITY -- Scott Peterson’s neighbor, crying on the witness stand this morning, said her father was never the same after witnessing the electrocution executions of the men who kidnapped, shot and decapitated her grandfather in the Philippines.

“The people who were executed haunt me,” Susan Medina said during the penalty phase of the Modesto man’s double-murder trial.

Medina was the sixth and last witness today. Judge Alfred Delucchi said he needs the afternoon to referee disputes between attorneys about jury instructions, which he is scheduled to present Thursday.

Jurors then will begin deliberating and will be sequestered until arriving at a decision on Peterson’s fate. If they recommend death, Delucchi could reduce it to life in prison at sentencing set for Feb. 25, but he doesn’t have power to increase a sentence.

Peterson, 32, was convicted Nov. 12 of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner.

Most of today’s witnesses knew Scott and Laci Peterson, including a professor they came to know socially after taking his agriculture economics class; a friend who lived in a separate home near theirs on a ranch near San Luis Obispo; and the owner of a restaurant where Scott Peterson waited tables during the time he met his future wife.

Abbas Imani said Scott Peterson asked him to cook a special appetizer because he was about to meet Sharon Rocha, Laci’s mother, at the Morro Bay restaurant. Rocha quietly cried in her courtroom seat this morning as Imani described her son-in-law eagerly “prancing” about a table he had carefully arranged with roses.

“There’s no word for it, sir. I’m sorry,” Imani said when asked how executing Peterson would affect him. Overcome with emotion, he stood on the witness stand to retrieve a handkerchief from a hip pocket and dabbed at his face.

“I just can’t believe this could happen,” Imani said.

Defense attorneys are expected to call “four, maybe five” final witnesses Wednesday, Delucchi said. The last, his lawyers have said, will be his mother, Jackie Peterson.