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Scott Peterson's sister speaks out
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Anne Bird is already noticing that something doesn't quite add up in the life of her brother Scott Peterson. He's married to Laci — a funny, beautiful young woman whom Anne adores. And now Laci is pregnant. Fortune is smiling on Scott Peterson, so why isn't he smiling?
Anne Bird: The phone call I got was from my husband saying that Laci had been abducted. And I jokingly said, "Abducted by who, aliens?" You know, I just didn't quite grasp what was happening.
Just a few years before in 1997, Anne Bird, adopted at birth, had been reunited with her brother, Scott Peterson and met his lovely bride, Laci. They had bonded immediately, celebrated together, traded pregnancy tips and maternity clothes. Now, at Christmas, 2002, Laci was missing. Anne called her biological mom, Scott's mom, Jackie Peterson.
Bird: And she said that it was horrific. That there were police looking everywhere for her. That somebody took her. And I asked how Scott was doing and she said he's hanging in there.
Matt Lauer: Did you, Anne, ever think at that moment, "Did my brother, Scott, have anything to do with this?"
Bird: It never entered my mind.
In fact, Anne soon had a chance to help defend her brother. Police seemed to doubt Scott's story that he'd gone fishing on Christmas Eve, the day Laci disappeared. He said he'd launched his boat from the Berkeley Marina. It was 85 miles from his home, but just a couple of miles from Anne's home where he'd visited before. Jackie called Anne and asked her to help verify Scott's story.
Bird: She wanted to establish his alibi. And she wanted me to go--
Lauer: So, this is--
Bird: --there.
Lauer: --a couple of days after Laci is missing. And she's now concentrating on Scott's alibi?
Bird: Yes.
Anne immediately drove to the marina and quickly found four people who remembered Scott launching his boat on Christmas Eve.
Bird: The entire time I'm thinking about Laci. And I was worried sick about her. So I thought anything, if anything could come together on this.
She soon talked to Scott to report her findings and offer any other help she could.
Lauer: Emotionally how was he doing? How did he sound to you?
Bird: You know, he sounded vacant, disconnected, you know? Completely unemotional.
Lauer: You had to be thinking maybe he's just in shock?
Bird: Right, I did. I thought he was in shock or completely traumatized.
Police and the media were already calling Scott a "person of interest" in the case.
Lauer: How did Jackie respond to hearing that Scott, the golden child, might be a person of interest?
Bird: She was really upset. She criticized the Modesto Police Department over and over again. She called the town Mayberry. She said Barney Fife was in charge.
Over the next few days and weeks, the story of Laci Peterson became a national obsession -- a lovely young woman, eight months pregnant, disappearing on Christmas Eve. There were massive searches, candlelight vigils, and a husband who seemed emotionally detached. Anne was glued to every detail of the case and kept in close touch with Scott and Jackie Peterson.
Lauer: Let me fast forward a couple of weeks, OK? It’s January 12, it's the day of the christening of your younger son, Tommy. You invited Scott to come to that christening?
Bird: Right.
Lauer: What do you remember about that day?
Bird: We all went into the church. And Scott sat sideways in the pew and looked towards the back of the church almost the entire service. And there was definitely a man behind me that I think was possibly an undercover policeman. He was staring at Scott.
Anne trusted Scott completely. She even asked him to hold her baby during the service. Afterward Anne felt the family, in crisis, needed help. She arranged for a private meeting with the rector of the church. But something about that meeting bothered Anne.
Bird: I looked over at Scott. And Scott was crying. And I — he may have glanced up once, maybe twice at the most. But he was holding Tommy. And he just kept staring down. And I don't know why. But that locked in my mind as something that was not quite right.
Scott had seemed so emotionally detached before, so were the tears for the rector's benefit?
Lauer: When you saw Scott crying, holding Tommy, did you think those tears were sincere?
Bird: You know, I'm not sure what I thought at that time. I just kind of logged, you know, what was going on in my mind. In hindsight, I think they were crocodile tears.
In hindsight, we know much more than that.
Lauer: We now know that on that very same day, Scott Peterson called Amber Frey. And we know something else. On that very same day Scott Peterson called his local cable company and requested two porn channels to be added to his home service.
Bird: Right. It was amazing.
Lauer: It's bizarre.
Bird: It's very bizarre. It especially to think that we were in a church, you know, at a christening. You know, we had this special prayer. And then for him to go home and upgrade his porno channels is just--
Lauer: And call his girlfriend.
Bird: -- and call his girlfriend is just beyond description.
But of course, Anne Bird knew none of this at the time. She was still loyal to her brother, who needed her help.
Bird: Jackie said that he had been basically driven out of Modesto. He was living out of his car. They had impounded his computers. He wasn't able to work. And I felt badly. I thought, "Well, we have a loft in the upstairs." And so I offered.
And so Anne's brother, Scott Peterson, "person of interest" in one of the biggest cases in the country, came to live with her, staying in a small loft bedroom that overlooked the San Francisco Bay -- the same bay where, three months later, the bodies of Laci, and her baby, would wash ashore.
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