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Police reclassify Laci Peterson's disappearance as homicide
Thursday March 06, 2003
By JIM WASSERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO (AP) Modesto Police said Wednesday their
investigation into the Christmas Eve disappearance of missing
pregnant woman Laci Peterson, 27, has become a homicide case.
Police, reversing more than two months of treating the woman's
disappearance as a missing person investigation, declined to
provide reasons for the change.
``As the investigation has progressed we have increasingly come
to believe that Laci Peterson is the victim of a violent crime,''
said a statement released Wednesday by Craig Grogan, the
department's lead homicide investigator.
Although the investigation started as a missing person case,
Grogan said, ``We have come to consider this a homicide case.''
Grogan's said that belief has prompted a new $50,000 reward for
``information that leads to her location and recovery.''
Previously, the Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation had
offered a $500,000 reward for information leading to Peterson's
safe return home to her family.
The police announcement comes two weeks after police conducted a
two-day search of Peterson's home. As reporters and hundreds of
townspeople watched on Feb. 18-19, police seized 95 items from the
modest single-story Covena Avenue house and took them to the
department's crime laboratory.
Peterson's husband, Scott, 30, a specialty fertilizer salesman,
was not present during the search. Police have also searched two of
his pickup trucks, seized two family computers and a boat that
Peterson bought shortly before his wife disappeared.
Scott Peterson says he last saw her the morning of Christmas Eve
as he left to go fishing at Berkeley Marina. Police continue to say
they neither consider him a suspect and not have ruled him out.
Laci Peterson's family released a statement today urging anyone
with knowledge of her whereabouts to contact authorities.
The statement read, in part: ``Our family desperately needs to
know where she is and what has happened to her. We realize that
with every day that passes the possibility of finding her alive
diminishes.
``Until we find Laci our lives are in turmoil. We feel as though
we can't go on. We can't look beyond today.''
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On the Net: http://www.lacipeterson.com
http://www.modestopolice.com
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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