September 20, 2006

Attorney General Bill Lockyer
Attorney General's Office
California Department of Justice
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

 
Dear Attorney General Lockyer:

 
            Recently a friend of mine handed me a book written by Attorney Matt Dalton entitled “Presumed Guilty.”  Mr. Dalton was at one time a member of the defense team which defended Scott Peterson who was charged with and convicted of first degree murder for the death of his wife, Laci Peterson and second degree murder for the death of their unborn son, Conner.  Mr. Dalton wrote the book because of concerns he expressed on page three:

 
            What had happened to the information I’d uncovered about the van that was sitting across from Laci’s house the morning of the twenty-fourth and was later seen speeding away from the area where she  was last seen walking?  The pregnant woman who was being terrorized in the neighborhood?  The numerous other pregnant women who’d disappeared in the area?  The crime spree in Laci’s neighborhood that started hours before she disappeared?  The screaming coming from that park bathroom where Laci was seen walking the morning of December 24, 2002?  Why was there no testimony from the witnesses the morning of December 24^th I’d interviewed who’d seen Laci with her dog that day?  What about the felons who were breaking into the house across the street.

 
            You are the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the State of California, or one of the District attorneys or Sheriffs of one of the fifty-eight counties in the State of California, or the Chief of Police in one of the four hundred and seventy-eight incorporated cities in the State of California, and each of you is charged with the responsibility to take whatever action is necessary to protect and defend the people of this State from the criminal element where ever it is found.

             The elected District attorneys of the fifty-eight California counties administer the criminal justice system but in a real sense these men and women are subject to your supervision and leadership, hence this letter is addressed to you.

            My knowledge of the tragic death of Laci and Conner Peterson has been gleaned primarily from the book written by Mr. Dalton.  No member of the Peterson family has asked me to read Mr. Dalton’s book nor has any person retained me as a practicing member of the State Bar of California to concern myself with the Peterson family or with Scott Peterson.

             I believe a grave injustice has been done.  An innocent man is in prison and condemned to die for a crime that he did not commit.

             Don’t blame the trail jury which convicted Scott Peterson.  Trial jurors can only reach a verdict on the evidence presented in the courtroom and the instructions by the trial judge.

             Three factors contributed to the jury verdict:

 (1)              Sensational journalistic accounts constantly unjustly pointed the finger at Scott Peterson preventing him from getting a fair trial.  Statistical information available on the internet reveals that each year about 1,400 husbands kill their wives.  What prompted the super market tabloids to wrongfully and repeatedly over many months depict Scott Peterson as the killer even before it was known that Laci Peterson might have been a homicide victim?

(2)              From the outset the Modesto police department concluded that Scott Peterson killed his wife and unborn child and they refused to pursue other evidence and leads that came to their attention.  This would have implicated the satanic cult members who actually killed Laci and Conner Peterson.

(3)              Relevant exculpatory evidence developed by Mr. Dalton was not investigated and presented to the jury which would clearly establish that members of a satanic cult very active in the Modesto area were responsible for the death of Laci and Conner Peterson.

             When the California State Supreme Court reviews the death penalty conviction of Scott Peterson, each of these factors will have to be considered on the issue of whether Scott Peterson received a fair trial.

             This letter is not designed to attempt to describe the detailed information which Mr. Dalton disclosed in his book but some of the highlights are deserving of mention for your consideration:

             Pages 50-51, LEADS NOT PURSUED BECAUSE OF LACK OF FUNDS.

             The earlier excitement and optimism I had felt on the plane ride from Modesto was turning into an overwhelming sense of frustration.  We had information regarding a rape and abduction two weeks before Laci’s disappearance, and a boast that there was to be a Christmas Day death.  The victim claimed all of this took place in a brown van.  The police had been told where the group in the van was staying.  A witness had described a brown van in Laci’s neighborhood the night before her disappearance and another witness had described a brown van involved in a burglary at 11:30 A.M. on December 24, the morning of Laci’s disappearance, literally across the street from the Peterson residence.

            A gold watch that we believed could have belonged to Laci had been pawned within a week following her disappearance.  The last name signed by the person pawning the watch was almost the same as the people in the brown van staying at the Woodward Reservoir.

            Just six months earlier, as a deputy district attorney, I could have quickly and easily pursued these seemingly incriminating circumstances.  However, things were different now.  Nobody is required to talk to the lawyer or investigator for an accused murderer.

            The defense had limited funds, no subpoena power for investigations, no way to offer benefits or immunity for cooperating witnesses, no unlimited access to documents, and very little, if any, cooperation from public agencies and prosecution witnesses.

            I was feeling a sense of helplessness and frustration that I had never experienced when I was a deputy district attorney.

            Pages 69-70, CRIMINAL ACTIVITY AND PREGNANT WOMEN TERRORIZED ON DECEMBER 24, 2002, IN NEIGHBORHOOD OF LACI PETERSON.

             Picture the Peterson neighborhood around the time of Laci’s disappearance.  Six possible felonies were all occurring there between the evening of December 23 and afternoon of December 24.  We have questionable people from the airport district going door to door posing as neighbors and asking for money.

            We have the burglary at the Medina home, a burglary resulting in generous plea bargains for Steven Todd and Donald Glen Pearce, both of the airport district as well.

            A brown van was described in a possible attempted abduction the night of the twenty-third, a daytime burglary the morning of the twenty-fourth, and possibly the satanic rape and abduction days before Laci disappeared.  The group in the van at the Woodward Reservoir was from the airport district of Modesto.

            On the afternoon of December 24, a woman eight months pregnant was terrorized by two men in a car, five blocks from where Laci was last seen alive.  She told me that she thought they were trying to “get” her. She got the license plate number of the vehicle, and it was registered to a residence in the airport district – a few blocks from where the other criminals lived.

             That day was not calm.  It was not peaceful and certainly not your typical day before Christmas in Modesto, California.  However, none of what I discovered was apparently pursued as the case continued to build against Scott Peterson.

Pages 71-72, WTINESSES NOT PRODUCED AT TRIAL – MODESTO POLICE IGNORED LEADS WHICH WOULD IMPLICATE OTHER KILLERS.

             Six eyewitnesses I interviewed were convinced that they saw Laci Peterson alive and well after she was supposed to have disappeared.  None of these witnesses testified at trial.

             Geragos cross-examined the police about their knowledge of these witnesses and what they reported, but the court correctly instructed the jury that they could not consider this for the truth of what the witnesses said because it constituted hearsay.  That meant that in their deliberations the jury was precluded from considering that six witnesses claimed to have seen Laci walking her dog on the morning of December 24.  If even one witness had convinced the jury of this fact, Scott should have been exonerated, since it would have established that Laci was alive and well after Scott had left home.

            Police testified that these sightings of Laci were not a priority for the investigation.  They had, however, issued a press release asking for witnesses who may have seen Scott the day Laci disappeared, and they used the media to publicize pictures of his boat and truck.  Clearly, it was not a priority to investigate any evidence that did not support their theory of the crime.

             Geragos said in his opening statement that the witnesses would be called.  I do not know why they were not.  These are decisions that can be made only by the trial lawyer.  In his final argument, the prosecutor argued that the failure to produce the witnesses was not the responsibility of the prosecution but rather that of the defense.

Pages 103-104  FOUR WOMEN HAVE DISAPPEARED – NO TRACE FOUND – TWO BODIES OF WOMEN HAVE BEEN FOUND, ALL WITHIN 80 MILES OF MODESTO.

             Dena Raley McCluskey, thirty –six, disappeared from Modesto on October 10, 1999.

            Also October 1999, Michelle Chan of Fremont disappeared.

            Alice Sin, twenty-one, of Pinole, west of Sacramento, was reported missing on November 21, 1999.  Her body was found in January 2000 in the Nevada desert.

            Angelina Joy Evans of Sacramento was last seen May 21, 2001, getting into a truck in Sacramento.

             In August 2002, the body of twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Evelyn Hernandez washed up in San Francisco Bay.  Neither the child Hernandez was carrying not her six-year-old son, Alex, has been found.

            Rebekah Rachel Miller, thirty-three, disappeared October 15, 2002, from Modesto, twelve blocks from the Peterson home.

            I was shocked by these numbers, and I was especially struck by the parallels between the Evelyn Hernandez case and that of Laci Peterson.  Here we had an abduction, with the victims personal belongings, her wallet, found in the street.  A witness in the Peterson case said that he found a pair of women’s sandals on the street and pointed them out to a Modesto police officer, who apparently did nothing about it.  The description given by the witness matched a pair Laci owned, and Laci’s pair could not be located.

            Both Laci and Evelyn disappeared on satanic holy days, according to the satanic calendar, and they both ended up in the San Francisco Bay with their hands, feet, and heads missing.  I began to read everything I could about Satanism, satanic cults, and ritual abuse.

 
            With this mountain of evidence not used at the trial, evidence that would have cleared Scott Peterson, why was it not used?  Why did Mark Geragos not present it at trial?

             As an attorney and as a former Deputy District Attorney, and former Congressman, I am appalled and astonished that this could happen in America.

             What is the motivation for an attorney to withhold evidence that could clear his client of a 1^st degree murder charge?

             Laci Peterson’s body washed up on shore with her head, both hands and both feet missing.  The press reports conjectured that the fish did it.  It is absurd to believe that fish would remove a body’s appendages symmetrically and then eat off the head.  In addition, the baby’s body washed up on shore the very next day, reportedly in the same spot – and reportedly had no loss of limbs or head.  Why would the fish attack an adult’s body and not a baby?

             Dismemberment in this fashion is the hallmark of Satanic cult killings, a style of a killing that is not foreign to California or many other parts of the U.S.  A number of law enforcement leaders in major U.S. cities have set up special task forces to investigate Satanic cult killings, specifically of which Laci Peterson’s murder fits the picture perfectly.

             The evidence of Satanic cult involvement in the Laci Peterson case is stunning and yet it was not even mentioned during the trial.

             Could it be that high level political and or civic leaders in California are involved in practices as has been found in other states in the U.S?  Could it be that they are using as their agents people like those in the brown van known to be involved in the other numerous crimes occurring around the same time and in the same location as Laci Peterson’s disappearance and subsequent murder?  Could it be that California law enforcement personnel are involved in the cover-up?  Could it be that a high profile attorney such as Mark Geragos could also be shielding the involvement of prominent people by withholding evidence at trial and assuring the conviction of Scott Peterson?

             Reasonable men, and thinking attorneys like myself and others who now know something is clearly amiss, believe that something must be done to restore the faith of the people in their law enforcement officers as well as the justice system.

             Because you are the chief law enforcement officer in the State of California, I am asking you to investigate this terrible miscarriage of justice.

             This same request is made to the District Attorneys and Sheriffs of the fifty-eight counties in the State of California and also to the Chiefs of Police of the four hundred and seventy-eight incorporated cities in the State of California.

                                                                                  Very truly yours,

                                                                                  William E. Dannemeyer

                                                                                                                                        (end of letter)

            This letter was mailed to the District Attorneys and Sheriffs in the fifty-eight counties of the State of California.  In addition, it was also mailed to the Chiefs of Police of the four hundred and seventy-eight incorporated cities in the State of California.

             Former Congressman Dannemeyer is a lawyer and a member of the State Bar of California.  He served as a Deputy District Attorney in Santa Barbara County.  He has had extensive jury trial experience in the courts of California.  He served as a Judge Pro Tem in Orange County, California.