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By Associated PressThe jury, convinced by the weight of circumstantial evidence, will return Nov. 22 to decide if he deserves the death penalty.
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - In a case that became a real-life soap opera for millions of Americans, Scott Peterson was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the death of his wife, Laci, who was eight months pregnant with their first child when she vanished on Christmas Eve 2002 from her home in Modesto.
Peterson, 32, also was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of his unborn son, whom the couple had named Conner. The first-degree murder verdict makes him eligible to receive the death penalty, which will be determined in a separate phase of the trial.
Prosecutors portrayed a cold-blooded plot to escape marriage and fatherhood for the freewheeling single life.
The five-month trial proved irresistible to the tabloids, People magazine and the cable networks with its story of an attractive, radiant young couple awaiting the birth of their first child, a cheating husband, and a slaying for which prosecutors had no eyewitnesses, no weapon, not even a cause of death.
Laci Peterson's mother sobbed as the verdicts were read, and her son wrapped his arm tightly around her. The victim's friends in the gallery, arms around each other, cried. Scott Peterson looked straight ahead with no show of emotion as the verdict was read, then stared down each of the jurors as they were polled to confirm their decisions. The jurors had serious looks on their faces and did not appear to look back.
Cheers broke out among the hundreds of onlookers who gathered outside the courthouse - some of them pumping their fists in celebration upon hearing the news on the radio. They cheered Laci Peterson's family and booed Scott's as they left court.
"I wasn't this nervous for my first grandchild," one courthouse employee said.
In the Petersons' hometown of Modesto, horns honked as the news reached car radios.
"He's a sicko. He needs to fry," Bob Johnston said outside court.
The predominantly female crowd clapped its approval as the jury emerged from the courthouse. A mob of 70 or more trailed prosecutors down the sidewalk, shouting "Thank you!"
As Scott Peterson's family was rushed away by police, someone in the crowd outside court booed his mother. Someone else shouted "She didn't kill her!"
The verdict capped a tumultuous seven days of deliberations in which two jurors were removed for unspecified reasons and the judge twice told the panel to start over. The final jury deliberated for about seven hours Wednesday and Friday before reaching their verdict, which the judge prohibited from being carried on television.
The same jury of six men and six women will return Nov. 22 to begin hearing testimony on whether Peterson should die by lethal injection or get life in prison without parole. The former fertilizer salesman faces the death penalty because he was convicted of multiple murders.
Prosecutors, defense lawyers and close family members remain under a gag order that prevents them from commenting.
Legal analysts say jurors were swayed by circumstantial evidence even though prosecutors did not prove where, how or exactly when Laci was killed.
The jury did so because of the cumulative weight of all the circumstantial factors that pointed to Peterson - not least his alibi about going fishing in San Francisco Bay the day Laci disappeared from her home, more than 85 miles away.
When her body and that of her fetus turned up four months later not far from the marina where Peterson launched his new boat, that alibi became some of the strongest evidence against him.
"Just the fact that her body was found in a place where he put himself - that alone is overwhelming evidence," said Pete Kossoris, a retired lawyer who prosecuted murder cases for 27 years.
Kossoris said the defense didn't present a "reasonable alternative" to the prosecution's theory.
At trial, prosecutors presented 174 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence, from wiretapped phone calls to videotaped police interrogations, depicting Peterson as a liar and a cheat who was sweet-talking his girlfriend, massage therapist Amber Frey, at the same time he was trying to show the world he was pining for his missing wife.
Women and men who followed every twist and turn explained the same fascination: She was pregnant and so pretty, and he went out and had an affair. Why not just divorce her and pay child support?
Prosecutor Rick Distaso told the jury that Peterson could not stand the thought of being trapped in a "dull, boring, married life with kids," and either strangled or smothered his wife and dumped her weighted-down body overboard from his fishing boat.
The jury heard how Peterson had bought a two-day ocean-fishing license days before his wife disappeared, yet claimed his fishing trip was a last-minute substitution for golf because of blustery weather. Prosecutors also offered evidence suggesting he made concrete anchors to sink his wife's body into the bay.
Frey testified that Peterson told her before Laci vanished that he had "lost" his wife and that the coming holidays would be the first he would spend alone.
The many tape recordings of conversations between Frey and Peterson proved to be a turning point in the case, which had begun with numerous missteps by prosecutors, observers said.
"When the jury got to hear about the lying of Scott Peterson - it was devastating to the defense," said Stan Goldman, professor law at Loyola Law School.
Lying may not add up to murder, but it may have persuaded jurors to connect the dots between all the other circumstantial evidence prosecutors pounded home.
"The prosecution made this puzzle make sense," said LaDoris Cordell, a former Santa Clara County judge.
In Modesto, many residents feel close to Laci even though they never knew the family. Expectant mothers talk of their bond with Laci. Others measure their connection by proximity, counting out how many blocks they live from the couple's home.
Modesto residents cheered, clapped and honked their car horns as they got word of the conviction. More than 30 people pressed into a television van downtown to listen for the verdict. A woman inside recited a word-by-word replay to those who couldn't hear the broadcast.
When word reached Mary Putrus, she phoned her mother.
"It's about time. He's finally going to face something he deserves," Putrus said.
Monique Padron, 14, went to the Peterson house after school at Laci's alma mater. She said students who had followed the ordeal since the beginning were in tears when the verdict was announced.
Bertha Garcia took a vase of white flowers to the front door of the Peterson house.
"Justice has been served," Garcia said. "She can rest now."
Information from the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.