Source: Warrant for Peterson hair
Investigators used a search warrant to take a sample of Scott Peterson's hair and to take a full-body photograph a week after he was arrested, a source close to the investigation said Thursday. Photographs also were taken of his body hair.
The search warrant was executed April 25 in the Stanislaus County Jail, the source said.
Court documents show a search warrant was issued in the case April 24.
Peterson's hair and goatee were a lighter color when agents arrested him April 18 after pulling him over in a Mercedes-Benz he was driving in La Jolla, north of San Diego.
In addition to an altered appearance, he was carrying more than $10,000 cash, a law enforcement source said.
Information provided from the hair sample and inspection could counter Peterson's reported claim that his hair lightened naturally or as the result of pool chemicals.
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show last month, Mike Richardson, a friend of Peterson's, said he had noticed the color change in the days before Peterson's arrest last month.
"I asked him if he dyed his hair or something," Richardson said. "And he said that he was swimming in a friend's pool, and it got bleached."
If Peterson dyed his hair, prosecutors could try to prove he was trying to conceal his identity and was preparing to flee the country after two bodies -- a woman's and a male baby's -- were found about a mile apart on the eastern shoreline of San Francisco Bay.
Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she was reported missing Christmas Eve. Within a week of the discoveries, DNA testing revealed the bodies were those of Laci Peterson and her unborn son. Police arrested Scott Peterson on two charges of murder the day those test results were made public.
Prosecution and defense attorneys are asking Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami to seal documents related to the post-arrest search warrant and Peterson's arrest warrant. A hearing is set today for Girolami to consider the request.
If he accepts it, the documents will be sealed pending a hearing scheduled for May 27.
The Bee has sought to have the warrants unsealed. Thursday, several papers, including The Bee, filed a motion to have the hearings about all the warrants consolidated, before one judge.
The district attorney also filed a request late Wednesday asking Girolami to seal "two additional warrant extensions."
Those documents were stamped as being recorded at 4:43 p.m., after the clerks' office is closed to the public. The documents indicate that there were two search warrant "addendums," one dated Feb. 27, the other dated April 21.
It was unclear Thursday what the warrant addendums were for, but they could have been time-limit extensions on warrants that allowed police to install a tracking device on Peterson's car and to tap his phone, sources said.
A written statement by Detective Craig Grogan, the lead investigator in the Peterson case, and a sealing request by the district attorney's office both refer to "returns" from the addendums.
A return is a list of items taken during a search.
Eight search warrants have been sealed in the investigation, according to records filed in Stanislaus County Superior Court.
The two most recent of those warrants were ordered sealed Feb. 27.
Those two warrants covered a search of the Petersons' Covena Avenue home, Scott Peterson's new Dodge pickup, a storage unit and an envelope addressed to attorney Kirk McAllister found in one of Peterson's vehicles.
The Feb. 18 search marked the second time police scoured the Peterson home. During the search, investigators took the Dodge pickup and returned it about four hours later.
After Peterson was arrested, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said police had attached a tracking device to Peterson's pickup.
Investigators employed "wiretaps on phones, tracking vehicles, all of the technology available," Lockyer said.
This story was originally published May 9, 2003 at 8:40 AM with the headline "Source: Warrant for Peterson hair."