REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Jurors got a first-hand look Tuesday morning at the boat prosecutors say Scott Peterson used to dump his pregnant wife's body in the San Francisco Bay.

The panelists left court for about 40 minutes to view the 14-foot aluminum boat at an unspecified location — believed to be a parking garage — within the court complex. Peterson, lawyers and the judge accompanied the group.

Judge Alfred Delucchi, who is presiding over Peterson's murder trial, denied a request by members of the media to attend the jury view.

Before sending the jurors out of the courtroom, the judge warned them not to talk to each other or anyone else, or to take notes.

Story continues

advertisement

"All you are going to do is look," Delucchi said.

The judge told jurors, who have seen numerous photos of the 1991 Sears & Roebuck Gamefisher, the boat would look somewhat different since items found in the boat Dec. 24, 2002, the day Laci Peterson vanished, were removed for forensic testing and used as court exhibits.

"We could not exactly duplicate the boat the way it was seized at the warehouse," the judge said.

Among the items the jurors have already reviewed in court are a homemade anchor, a fishing rod and a tackle box, and two hairs genetically linked to Laci Peterson.

Scott Peterson was transported on a brief field trip when jurors were escorted to see his boat.

Prosecutors contend Peterson used a Christmas Eve fishing trip in the boat as a cover story to dispose of his 27-year-old wife's remains. Her body and that of the son the couple planned to name Conner washed ashore four months later.

Following the field trip, an engineer from Lowe Boats, which manufacturers the Gamefisher, testified. David Weber told jurors the boat was "very safe" and had passed U.S. Coast Guard "worst case scenario" performance tests at least 17 times in three decades on the market.

Peterson's defense has said the prosecution's theory is impossible because the boat would have capsized if Peterson had attempted to toss his 153-pound wife overboard. Weber said the standard tests included one in which 142-pound weights were placed evenly along one side of the boat. In that test, he told jurors, the boat tilted so that the lower portion of the weighted side was 1 1/3 inches under water. It did not, however, "turn turtle" — Weber's term for capsizing.

On cross-examination by defense lawyer Mark Geragos, Weber acknowledged that the tests did not include placing 400-pounds — apparently the defense's estimate of the couple's combined weights — on the side of the boat.

"Would you expect the boat to capsize?" Geragos asked.

"I can't honestly answer that," Weber said.

Weber also conceded that he had never examined Peterson's specific boat and was only speaking of general tests on similar boats.

Under further questioning by prosecutors, he said that, in his experience, the boat is not easy to capsize.

Weber was the only witness to take the stand Tuesday. Delucchi told jurors Monday that an "administrative problem" prevented five scheduled witnesses from testifying.

Interview aired

After jurors were sent home, the judge screened the raw footage of a television interview Peterson gave a Sacramento reporter about a month after his wife went missing. Prosecutors plan to show three interviews to the jury at a later date and Delucchi must decide how to edit them.

In the interview with KOVR reporter Gloria Gomez, Peterson is by turns emotional and testy. He cries as he describes his wife, but appears angry and disconcerted when Gomez is persistent in questioning him about his mistress, his unwillingness to take a polygraph exam and other parts of the police investigation.

"I am not going to waste what little time we have ... by defending myself about irrelevant things," he snaps, chiding the reporter that they are "better served by talking about what happened and where is Laci."

As the interview played, Peterson paged through papers at the defense table and whispered to his lawyers. Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, stared at the projection screen from her seat in the front row. Several times, she shook her head in response to Peterson's comments.

Rocha's husband, Ron Grantski, stood up as the video began playing and left court shaking his head. Peterson's mother, Jackie, appeared to cry as she watched her son choke up on screen.

Testimony will resume Monday to enable Geragos to attend an appellate hearing in another case. The judge has scheduled Thursday for several motions, including a defense motion for a mistrial.

The 31-year-old faces the death penalty if convicted.

The trial, now in its third month, is expected to last about three more months.