Knife Found in Scott Peterson Home Not Used to Kill Laci, Conner 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 11, 2005
Modesto, CA (LifeNews.com) — Forensics tests conducted on a ten-inch knife found the home of Scott and Laci Peterson reveal no blood or tissue from Laci’s body. Officials still don’t know how Scott killed his wife and unborn child Conner before dumping their bodies into San Francisco Bay.
The new owner of the Peterson home, real estate agent Gerry Roberts, says he and two friends found the red-stained knife July 7 in a cabinet in the backyard and they turned it over to police after the discovery.
One of the prosecutors in the Peterson case told the Associated Press he is not surprised by the forensics test results. Birgit Fladager said the results were "exactly what we expected."
Police spokesman Rick Applegate said the knife had slipped into a cavity under the patio counter told the Modesto Bee newspaper it was probably used for outdoor cooking. He said detectives only asked for a test on human blood and tissue and did not know whether food or something else caused the stains.
The disclosure of the knife last month caused controversy because police never proved the cause of the deaths.
Police say the knife wasn’t planted and affirmed that witnesses saw it several months before Roberts turned it in.
Laci, a 27 year-old substitute teacher disappeared Christmas Eve 2002. Four months later, detectives found her and Conner’s bodies washed up on the shores of San Francisco Bay.
Peterson was found guilty by a jury in November and sentenced to the death penalty in March.
The Peterson case has prompted a number of states to enact unborn victims laws protecting pregnant women and authorizing prosecutors to charge criminals who attack them and kill or injure their unborn children with two crimes.
Abortion advocates oppose laws protecting pregnant women because they oppose making the unborn child a second victim in statute and claim that such laws will curtail legal abortion.
President Bush signed a federal unborn victims law last year.
