Stream It Or Skip It?

In 2002, Scott Peterson quickly went from being a traumatized and grieving husband after his wife, Laci, went missing, to being suspect number one in her death. It’s a story that has riveted people for two decades, in part because Peterson has always maintained his innocence despite being sentenced to life in prison for the crime. Netflix’s American Murder: Laci Peterson explores the facts of the case and features interviews with many people close to it, including Laci’s mother and Scott’s sister (who still claims his innocence) in this new three-part docu-series.

Opening Shot: A drone shot shows the Peterson’s neighborhood in Modesto, California and the screen reads, “In 2004, Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, Conner. He maintains his innocence to this day.”

The Gist: Laci Peterson’s name has become a touchstone, immediately recognizable as one of the first huge media stories of a woman who, it would eventually be revealed, was killed by her husband. Though Scott Peterson maintains his innocence, his behavior after Laci’s disappearance and all of the evidence that was ultimately uncovered indicate otherwise.

Laci Peterson was 27 years old and eight months pregnant when she disappeared on December 24, 2002. American Murder looks back on the case more than 20 years later with the input and perspective of people who were closest to both Laci and her husband Scott, who was ultimately convicted of murdering her. Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, is one of the people who speaks on the record in the series, as does one of Scott’s sisters, Sand many of their friends. Amber Frey, the woman who was in a relationship with Scott at the time of Laci’s death, and whose existence changed the course of the entire investigation, is also on hand to offer her own side of the story, and comes out as one of the more heroic characters in the story.

While the show offers plenty of tangible evidence against Scott, the nagging issue is that he still claims his own innocence. Despite his conviction, this is the one thing that remains frustrating for so many people; though we might have made up our own minds and justice has been served, as long as Peterson still denied the murder, there may never be a true sense of closure.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? True crime docu-series like this one are everywhere, from Hulu’s Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini to Lifetime’s The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. But as you’re watching this one diagram the Peterson’s life together and pieces together all of the details of Laci’s disappearance, it’s hard not to think of the (fictional) Gone Girl – author Gillian Flynn has said that while that book and movie were not based on the Peterson’s, one could draw a “parallel” between the stories.

Our Take: One of the things that’s so fascinating about the Laci Peterson case is how some people – including many (but not all) members of Scott’s side of the Peterson family – have latched on to the details of the case that offer reasonable doubt into his guilt. The series goes into lengthy detail about the fact that one of the Petersons’ neighbor’s homes was burglarized on roughly the same day that Laci disappeared, and this has become an “OJ’s glove” detail for the Petersons, who feel that this burglary must have had something to do with Laci going missing. Never mind the fact that it simply seems like Scott was never who he claimed to be and he very likely fooled everyone in his life – from Laci, to his girlfriend Amber, to his own siblings – into thinking he was a good guy.

The series jumps back and forth between the most important days of the investigation in 2002 and 2003, and Scott and Laci’s early history, both as kids and later as college sweethearts, and while they appeared to have led a picture-perfect existence, there always seems to be a tinge of darkness clouding Scott. This is obviously hindsight doing us a favor by making sense of some of his behavior, but as we hear Laci’s mom explain how Scott said he never wanted kids, and then we hear an excerpt from Laci’s pregnancy diary where she describes Scott seeming unexcited during a sonogram appointment (all spliced together with the double life he led as Amber Frey’s boyfriend), his behavior starts to seem psychopathic.

The docu-series does a good job offering several perspectives, from Laci’s side of the family and her close childhood friends who are convinced of Scott’s guilt, to Scott’s family members who continue to defend him. All of the law enforcement officials investigating the case at the time also seem to have wanted to give this so-called nice guy the benefit of the doubt, attempting to clear him as a suspect early on, until too much evidence mounted against him.

As with so many shows like this one, it’s clear that the 24-hour news cycle doesn’t do anyone any favors, because the onslaught of media coverage lead to speculation and gossip at the time, and sensationalized headlines especially at the expense of Amber Frey who not only cooperated but proved essential to building a case against Scott, but over the course of these three episodes, we see all of the key players in the story for who they really are. While Peterson may still have his supporters, as this show is presented, the facts are clear that he is undeniably responsible for the brutal deaths of his wife and unborn child.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: In the final moments of the first episode of the docu-series, we’re introduced to Amber Frey, Scott Peterson’s girlfriend at the time of Laci’s death. And then we hear Scott’s voice on a recorded call telling her, “I could care for you in every way. For the rest of our lives I think we could care for each other.”

Performance Worth Watching: So often on true crime shows like this one, the most interesting opinions are delivered by the investigators working the case. Here, Detective Al Brocchini, one of the first people to have interviewed Scott and searched the Peterson home after Laci’s disappearance, provides not just an important timeline to the story, but his perspective is one of a man who initially hoped to clear Scott’s name of suspicion, until the facts started to prove otherwise.

Memorable Dialogue: “He didn’t know I knew,” Amber Frey explains, saying that after she told police about her relationship with Scott, she began working for them, recording her phone calls with Scott and relaying information back to them. Far from being a complicit mistress, Amber was another of Scott’s victims, and someone he thought he was successfully duping, even as the search for Laci was making global headlines.

Our Call: STREAM IT! At the time, news about Scott and Laci Peterson was inescapable. Over 20 years later, this series does a good job of stripping away the excess and offering the essentials of the case and the evidence against Scott.Most of all though, the series provides the narrative that, despite his best attempts to seem like a man in mourning, Scott Peterson knew what he was doing all along and was pretty bad at concealing it.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.