Scott Peterson Biography

Born Oct. 24, 1972, at San Diego's Sharp Hospital, Scott was the youngest of Lee and Jacqueline Peterson's seven children -- a happy, healthy child who got plenty of attention.

The new baby became the youngest darling in a large brood the Petersons lovingly describe as "like the Brady Bunch."

Scott Peterson's half-brother John, Jackie Peterson's son from a previous relationship, was 6 when Scott was born and shared a bedroom with his younger sibling in the family's two-bedroom apartment in La Jolla.

Lee Peterson also had three children from his first marriage -- Susan, 12, Mark, 10, and Joe, 9 -- who lived with their mother in San Diego during the week but spent most weekends with their father.

Perhaps in part because his mother had such an unhappy childhood -- Jackie Peterson's father was murdered when she was a toddler, and she was mostly raised by Catholic nuns -- Scott Peterson's parents worked hard to create a sunny life for their five children. And that was doubly true for their youngest son, the only child Lee and Jackie Peterson had together.

It would soon become a family joke that the cherished baby's feet hardly touched the ground, Jackie Peterson recalled with a smile.

"He didn't walk before he was 1," she said, "because someone was always carrying him."

When Scott Peterson was about 4, his family bought a home in Scripps Ranch, a friendly suburb ringed by eucalyptus trees in northeast San Diego. It was around that time that his father started a shipping and packing business, and he would bring Scott along as he made rounds picking up packages for delivery.

"It sounds funny, but he gave me confidence," Lee Peterson said. "I had someone with me."

His father, an avid hunter and fisherman, also loved to golf, and introduced his five sons to his cherished hobbies. Lee Peterson took his sons on fishing trips to the mountains. Scott eventually convinced his father to buy a fishing boat, and fishing -- more so then -- became his passion. Family photos show Scott, as a blond toddler, holding up a fish he caught at San Diego's Miramar Reservoir and grinning in a room of blue shag carpet holding a golf club and a ball. By age 14, he was besting his father on the golf course. By the end of high school, he was one of the top junior golfers in San Diego.

Joan Pernicano, whose youngest son, Andrew, was in the Cub Scout troop led by Scott Peterson's mother, remembers the youngster as a homebody who was "close to both parents equally."

"He was a little bit reticent, stoic maybe. My son bounced off the walls, but Scott wasn't that way. He was quiet and polite," Pernicano said. "He's a smiler, and when he smiles, his whole face lights up."

When Scott Peterson was a fifth-grader, the family moved to a new home in Poway that had a swimming pool and a yard that bordered a creek. He attended Painted Rock Middle School.

There, Jackie Peterson recalled, Scott was picked by teachers to work before and after school as a school crossing guard, wearing a bright orange vest and carrying a stop sign and whistle to usher younger students across the street.

"He was very serious about his responsibility," she laughed, describing how one driver got frustrated when Scott kept children from crossing when a car was still a block away. "I remember this mother said, 'Oh, come on, he never lets anyone go.' "

"It was so much fun to sit and watch him," added Lee Peterson, who sometimes detoured on his rounds to stop and observe Scott from a distance. "There's my little kid directing traffic."

Scott, said his mother, Jacqueline, showed compassion for others at a young age, befriending an elderly woman and visiting her after church on Sundays. He was a good student and tutored the homeless all through high school.

"The school he went to encouraged community service," she said. "One day, he told us he was bringing his grandmother to Grandparents Day at the school. I asked where he got a grandmother. He told me he'd had one for a while.

"I went and met her the following Sunday. She just kept saying what a great kid he was, and how nice it was that he visited an old lady and brightened her day."

While Scott was in high school, his parents twice received letters from people whose cars had broken down. He helped them.

And he was the kind of kid who stayed out of trouble. "We'd tell him, 'You're a lucky man.' He never got in a scrape," Lee Peterson, Scott's father, said ... "He was like Mr. Perfect."

By the time he was a teenager, Scott Peterson was working part time at a country club in Rancho Santa Fe, picking up golf balls and filling carts with gas in exchange for lessons and time on the course. He attended the University of San Diego High School, a Catholic college preparatory school and made the golf team, where future PGA star Phil Mickelson was a teammate.

He played on his school's varsity golf team from 1987 to 1990. He earned the team's most valuable player award twice and was named to the San Diego Union-Tribune's All-Academic Team three of his four years in high school.

Former teammate Tasto said a few of Scott's peers considered him arrogant. But Tasto simply remembers Scott as a nice guy who wore white polo shirts and a red and gold varsity letterman's jacket, and didn't have a steady girlfriend. Scott Peterson, Tasto said, gave him rides home from practice and helped lead his team to an undefeated season during his senior year.

David Thoennes, who coached varsity golf at the high school for 33 years before retiring in June, said that Scott Peterson was not just a consistently good golfer.

"He was very respectful. I don't think I ever heard Scott use foul language," Thoennes said. "Some kids will hit a bad shot and go into all kinds of antics. Scott would hit a bad shot and go to the next one. I don't think I ever saw him get out of control."

He went on to play golf briefly at Arizona State University, but left school and moved back home after his parents bought a house in Morro Bay, near San Luis Obispo.

"In my mind," David Thoennes, Scott Peterson's onetime golf coach, said flatly, "I cannot fathom Scott doing this [the murder of Laci]."

Scott returned to school: first at Cuesta College and then at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. From the spring of 1992 to the spring of 1993, Scott Peterson attended Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. He played on the golf team for two years, said Pete Schuler, Cuesta's sports information director. The 1992-93 yearbook mentions that Scott Peterson had "an outstanding season" his sophomore year and just missed qualifying for the state meet, Schuler said.

That year, Jackie Peterson said, her 20-year-old son abruptly announced he was going to move out of the house and support himself, telling them, "I've had the greatest parents. You don't owe me anything."

"I said, 'Give it a go.' I used to tell him old war stories, about how I left home at 17 and joined the Navy," Lee Peterson said.

"That's the way we were brought up. You take responsibility for yourself," Susan Caudillo said. "That was Scott's mentality then. He could have taken the free ride, but he didn't."

Scott Peterson moved into an apartment his father compares now to "Animal House," a bachelor pad he shared with friends from the golf team. The garage had a flat roof that the roommates covered with green artificial grass, and they would stand up top and drive golf balls into a nearby cow pasture.

He also juggled three jobs -- one as a waiter and two at local golf courses, his parents said.

In the spring of 1994, Scott Peterson transferred to California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. Originally, he planned to major in international business, but changed his major to agricultural business.

"He said, 'Instead of driving a beamer and drinking martinis, I'll be driving a pickup and drinking beers,' " Lee Peterson said.

Professors who taught Scott Peterson describe him as a model student.

"He seemed more mature than most. He was pleasant to deal with," recalled Jim Ahern, a Cal Poly agribusiness professor. "I wouldn't mind having a class full of Scott Petersons."

He met Laci Rocha one day while he waited on tables at the Pacific Cafe, and they gradually became friends.

One day, Laci wrote her phone number on a piece of paper, handing it to her neighbor to give to Scott. Thinking his friend was playing a mean trick on him, Scott crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage. After being convinced it was no joke, he retrieved the number from the trash and called her.

They quickly fell in love, and a few weeks later, Scott brought Laci to San Diego to meet his brothers and sisters. They noticed how their brother could not stop smiling.

"The moment he was with Laci, they just beamed at each other," Jacqueline said. "No one else ever made my son smile like that. They did everything right."

Within months, Susan Caudillo said, Scott Peterson had introduced Laci Rocha to his siblings, saying "something to the effect of, 'I hope this is the future Mrs. Peterson.'"

They opened a restaurant together in San Luis Obispo called The Shack, which became a hit with college students. The couple sold it two years later after deciding to move to Modesto to start a family and be closer to Laci's parents.

He remodeled their home on Covena Avenue in the La Loma neighborhood, taking great pains to get the nursery just right as they prepared for the birth of their first child, a son due Feb. 10.

(Sources: Modbee and SFGate)