More than 20 years after Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, Conner, a new documentary is promising to put fresh evidence at the center of one of America’s most notorious true crime cases.
Peterson’s former defense attorney, Mark Geragos, appeared at CrimeCon 2026 alongside retired LAPD detective Ninette Toosbuy and legal analyst Chris Pixley to discuss the case and the evidence he says could help prove Peterson’s innocence.
“It’s amazing to me that almost 25 years later, there’s this kind of interest in the case,” Geragos said.
Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she vanished from Modesto, California, on Christmas Eve 2002. Her body and the body of her unborn son were found months later, in April 2003.
Peterson was later convicted, but the case has continued to generate debate for decades. Now, the new documentary is raising a major question for viewers: what if the public never got the full story?
“What if everything we know, or believe we know, about the Peterson case is incomplete?” the documentary asks. “What if everything we know about the Peterson case is wrong?”
Geragos told the CrimeCon audience that he still believes his former client is innocent.
“I don’t believe there’s anyone who, in real time, knew the evidence better than I did,” Geragos said. “I moved to Modesto, I then moved to San Mateo and I will tell you that I knew then and I know now and I’ve never for a moment wavered… Scott is innocent.”
He added, “Scott is not good for this crime. Scott doesn’t have the ability or the makeup to do this.”
The biggest focus now appears to be evidence tied to a burglary across the street from the Peterson home.
Geragos said that on the day Peterson was convicted, he was handed additional discovery about taped jail conversations between two brothers accused of burglarizing a home across from the Petersons. In those calls, Geragos said, one suspect allegedly told the other to “shut up” when the conversation turned to Laci.
Geragos also said he later learned about a stolen van that was found in the airport district of Modesto two days after Laci disappeared. According to Geragos, the van had been set on fire, and investigators recovered a mattress from the back.
He claimed that evidence from the van and mattress was collected and tested, but then buried for decades.
That potential DNA evidence is now a key focus for the Los Angeles Innocence Project, which has filed petitions seeking to overturn Peterson’s conviction and life sentence.
Geragos said prosecutors have opposed additional DNA testing, even though he has offered to pay for it himself.
“Wouldn’t you want to justify your investigation?” he asked. “What are you afraid of?”
The new push also questions the science used during Peterson’s trial.
According to Geragos, the prosecution relied on what he called “junk science” to argue when Laci and Conner died and where their bodies were dumped.
One major point of dispute is testimony from prosecution expert Dr. Greggory DeVore, who used ultrasound-related analysis to support the claim that Laci was killed on Dec. 23.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project is now arguing that newer technology points to a different timeline. According to the group’s experts, Laci’s date of death may have been sometime between Dec. 28 and Jan. 3.
If true, that could be significant because prosecutors argued Peterson killed Laci before reporting her missing on Christmas Eve.
Geragos also criticized how the original jury process unfolded.
Because the case had received massive pretrial publicity, 1,600 potential jurors were reportedly brought in for individual questioning. Geragos said one potential juror allegedly posted on social media that she planned to “lie” her way onto the jury. When confronted, he said, she broke down and left.
He also pointed to what happened during jury deliberations.
The jury had been deliberating for seven days when the foreperson reportedly told the judge and attorneys he could not continue because another juror was threatening him. Over Geragos’ objections, the foreperson was dismissed and an alternate was brought in.
About an hour and a half later, the new jury panel returned a guilty verdict.
For Geragos and Peterson’s supporters, those issues, combined with the disputed DNA evidence and questions about the death timeline, are central to the renewed effort to challenge the conviction.
For many others, Peterson remains the man convicted by a jury in one of the most closely watched murder trials in modern American history.
But the upcoming documentary is clearly betting that there is still more to uncover.
More than two decades after Laci and Conner’s deaths, the case remains one of the country’s most haunting true crime stories. Now, with claims of untested evidence, disputed science and a possible new timeline, Peterson’s legal fight is once again back in the spotlight.
