It's all speculation, according to Juror No. 9

American Justice has a video of a portion of an interview by Julia Zanartu, Juror No. 9.  It does not provide any information about who conducted the interview or when.  If this link doesn't take you directly to the interview, then click here and scroll down to the bottom where it says to Click here to view the videos, which includes Zanartu's interview.

In this interview, Zanartu does not sound at all confident in the verdict.  She starts off by admitting there "was a lack of a crime scene, there wasn't any physical evidence."  She goes on to say that "

I guess people, some people thought there could have been scenarios why he would have had a fishing license ahead of time and maybe it was something that just sort of happened, spur of the moment type of thing, you know, and it could have been a coincidence that he had bought the boat, and told Amber he lost his wife, bought a fishing license, you know things like that, because it's, you know, each thing in itself was, you know, speculation or whatever, but we just had to make sure everybody put everything in perspective and put it all together and made sense.

There you have it, Scott Peterson was convicted on speculation.

Speculation that he bought the boat specifically to dispose of Laci, when a boat not only was not necessary, given the many opportunities in the area to dispose of her body without a boat, it created an additional crime scene to clean up and an unnecessary attention-getter.

Speculation that he bought a fishing license -- for what reason?  You can't kill someone with a fishing license, and you certainly don't need a fishing license to use a boat in the Bay.

Speculation that he told Amber he had lost his wife because he intended to kill Laci.  How ridiculous to think he would announce such plans to Amber.

Some detectives (and other people) just can't see the obvious

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, and after finishing their dinner they retire for the night, and go to sleep. 


Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." 


"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes" exclaims Watson. 


"And what do you deduce from that?" 


Watson ponders for a minute. "Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?" 


"Watson, you idiot!" he exclaims, "Somebody's stolen our tent!"

The circles on the trailer - the ah-hah moment that fizzled PART 2

On December 7, 2010, my blog article with the above title included some pictures of the trailer with the concrete dust BEFORE the detectives put down the evidence markers to mark the alleged circles.  The article also included pictures taken by John & Robyn Ungari of how much mess the concrete bags make even before they're opened.

What I didn't include in that article was this excerpt from Detective Grogan's testimony, wherein he is reminded that someone not at all favorable to Scott reported that he saw Scott's trailer in September 2002 loaded with fence posts and bags of concrete mix.  Geragos also presented evidence that Scott returned some bags of concrete on November 1, 2002.

GERAGOS: When you seized, when you seized such a search warrant from Scott Peterson, didn't you pick up this Lowe's receipt? It's the one that we copied last Friday, you and I, or last Thursday, you and I, and I wrote on the back of it so we'd know where it came from. Evidence Item 109 1 of 2? 

GROGAN: It does look like something I've seen in the reports here. 

GERAGOS: Okay. Now this would appear to be a Lowe's receipt, and I'm going to mark this as defense next in order for fence post QuikRete when Scott Peterson is at Lowe's on November 1st with; isn't that correct? 

GROGAN: The date is November 1st. It is Lowe's. 

GERAGOS: So it would appear that our lengthy petographer is wrong when he says you have to back up the truck because Scott Peterson was apparently able to buy – 

JUDGE: Argumentative.

FLADAGER: Yes. 

GERAGOS: Thank you. 

JUDGE: For the record it's Defendant's 6Y. 

GERAGOS: 6Y. I said 109, it was 108 1 of 2. 

JUDGE: What is the date on that receipt again? 

GERAGOS: November 1st. 

JUDGE: November 1st. 

GERAGOS: And this shows Scott Peterson had actually gone in there and returned some fence QuikRete post mix and it looks like getting some kind of credit, correct? Did you ever tell the petographer that in fact Scott Peterson had purchased at some point in November QuikRete post mix or before November? 

GROGAN: No, I didn't tell him that and – 

GERAGOS: Could I ask you one other question? 

GROGAN: Yes. 

GERAGOS: Do you remember a gentleman by the name of Doug Phelps? Doug Phelps called into the tip line and said he was a competitor of Scott Peterson. And Doug Phelps said he had been in the shop, Scott Peterson's shop. And Doug Phelps said that he noticed that there were four-by-four fence posts and bags of what I would assume is concrete on this trailer back in the month of September? Did you ever, did you ever let the petographer know that maybe one of the reasons that there was a mess there or that the reason he's find fence post concrete is because Scott Peterson's doing fence post concrete work? 

GROGAN: No.

Grogan said he didn't know about Doug Phelps calling into the tip line.  That's either because:  1) the tip was never passed on to the detectives,  2) someone such as Brocchini handled the tip and didn't pass the information on to Grogan, or 3) Grogan is just playing dumb and did in fact know about it.  After all, Scott had told him on early on that he used a paint bucket to make the concrete anchor in the boat, but Grogan failed to remember that detail.  How many other exonerating details did Grogan et al fail to remember?

Defense 6Y, the Lowe's receipt, shows 3 bags of concrete returned on November 1, 2002.