스캇 피터슨 사건은 결국 유죄로 결말이 났군요. 임신 중인 아내를 죽인 혐의에 대해서는 1급 살인, 태어나지 않은 아기를 죽인 혐의에 대해서는 2급 살인으로. AP 네트워크 뉴스에서 들으니 사람들이 환호성을 지르더군요. 이번 팔루자 작전에서 미군 사상자 수를 알려주는 뉴스가 스캇 피터슨 뉴스 다음에 나왔던 것 같은데, 그만큼 이목이 집중된 사건이었다는 얘기겠죠.


Calif. Jury Finds Peterson Guilty of Double Murder

2 hours, 13 minutes ago   Top Stories - Reuters
By Michael Kahn

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (Reuters) - California fertilizer salesman Scott Peterson (news - web sites), 32, was convicted on Friday of the Christmas Eve 2002 murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, in a case that riveted Americans caught up in the tragic story of a seemingly perfect couple.

The jury, which must still decide whether to impose the death penalty, found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder for killing his wife and second-degree murder for the death of their unborn child.

Peterson, 32, was charged with killing his eight-months pregnant wife in a crime prosecutors said was motivated in part by a desire to carry on an affair with his massage therapist mistress.

The decaying bodies of his wife and unborn son washed ashore in April 2003 along an area of the San Francisco Bay where Peterson said he was fishing the day Laci disappeared from their home in Modesto, California.

Peterson showed little reaction as the verdict was read but his mother, Jackie, appeared numb with shock. Laci's mother wept while some of the hundreds of people gathered outside the court cheered upon hearing the decision.

"It is shocking that a family that can look so normal can have something like this happen to them," said retired flight attendant Bobbi Barrett, 56, explaining why she was so gripped by the case that she attended much of the trial.

Prosecutors said Peterson pretended to be concerned about his missing wife when he was instead more interested in his mistress, Amber Frey, and living a bachelor lifestyle free from family obligations.

Defense attorney Mark Geragos, who was not present in court, had argued that Peterson was framed and that prosecutors provided no evidence or motive to connect him with the murders.

Neither the prosecution nor defense commented on the decision because of a gag order that remains in effect until the jury decides whether to impose the death penalty or life without parole. That phase of the case begins on Nov. 22.


MAJOR MEDIA FOCUS


Yet even if he receives the death penalty, Peterson could be alive for a long time as California executions occur on average more than 20 years after sentencing.

The guilty verdicts came after two jurors were unexpectedly removed from the sequestered jury in recent days and then replaced by alternates, forcing the second resumption of deliberations on Wednesday afternoon.

The case attracted wide media coverage, as many were engrossed by the story of a good-looking, white, all-American couple struck by tragedy. Photographs of a smiling Laci made the saga natural fodder for cable television.

All San Francisco-area stations interrupted regular coverage -- many of them preempting soap operas -- more than an hour before the verdict was actually announced.

"Their demographic profile, the fact that they are good-looking, the fact that they are from the suburbs and the notion that that this kind of egregious or heinous act can occur in that set of circumstances becomes all the more germane and threatening to the average American citizen," Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, said about the interest in the trial.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (news - web sites), about a third of female murder victims in recent years have been killed by their spouses or others with whom they are intimate. According to the FBI (news - web sites), spouses killed their partners on 804 occasions in 2002 -- the year of Laci Peterson (news - web sites)'s death.

Some observers say however the media portrayal of the case distorted how the American justice system really works.

"The result is that, for no valid reason, the public loses confidence in our courts as serious places that do justice," Peter Keane, a professor at Golden Gate Law School wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. "Take away the hoopla and the Scott Peterson case is a fairly garden-variety domestic homicide."

The Peterson saga marks the second time in recent years that Modesto, at the heart of one of the world's richest agricultural regions, has figured in a high-profile tragedy. The city was also the hometown of murdered Washington, D.C. intern Chandra Levy, who was linked to former U.S. Congressman Gary Condit.