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Modesto Mystery

Aired February 19, 2003 - 13:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The police are back today at the Modesto, California home of Laci Peterson, the pregnant woman who vanished Christmas Eve.
CNN's Rusty Dornin live on the scene there to tell us what's happening -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, there's definitely some new developments. This morning, investigators arrived a little less than an hour ago, and the first thing they began doing was putting up a police line tape around the police cars and completely surrounding the house. This is what you see often around crime scenes. It says "police line, do not cross." When we asked one of the policeman who was putting up the tape, we said, is this a crime scene. He responded, yes.

But we've not received confirmation from anyone from the Modesto Police Department. He has not arrived yet. Meantime, you can see some of the police detectives standing in the driveway, they're standing next to Scott Peterson's truck, which was confiscated yesterday afternoon. They took it away for a few hours, and then brought it back later, or early last evening.

Now they spent about 10 hours at Scott Peterson's house yesterday, carting out grocery bags full of material from the house, about 40 or 50 bags. We couldn't see what was inside, but we could see, there were some labels on the outside, saying photo albums, phone books, even commonplace things like that.

Police were there, as I said, for 10 hours, but they said, they just weren't quite finished.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DET. DOUG RIDENOUR, MODESTO POLICE: You never know when you get into a search warrant, so you just have to go into the search warrant, depending on what you find, and how fast thing goes during the search. All those are factors on how quick a completion of a search warrant occurs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: Now, of course, all along they're still saying Peterson is not a suspect, but that he's not been eliminated from the investigation. That's the line they've been saying for months now.

Meantime, here in front of Scott Peterson's house, there's a literal army of broadcasters and print journalists, who've been waiting for investigators to arrive. Many have been here since 3:00 this morning, including us.

But we don't know how long investigators will be here today. They did not give any indication. They said the Modesto Police Department has not yet arrived to talk to reporters -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So, Rusty, yesterday, when we found out about the second search going on for about two hours, I had to talk about this. And I remember seeing the video of Scott Peterson. He left the house on his own. He was not taken down into police custody, like other people were reporting, so I want to make that clear. But there was a family member that was inside the house with detectives, right?

DORNIN: That's right. About noon, Kyra, they brought in Amy Rocha. That's the sister of Laci Peterson. She was in the house for about two hours. Police wouldn't say exactly why she was there, other than she was going to help detectives in the investigation.

What we do know is that Amy Rocha is one of the last people to see Laci Peterson before she disappeared, because Scott and Laci Peterson came into her hair salon, and she cut Scott's hair the day before. Also, a family member might know a lot of members in the house, perhaps her clothing, those sorts of things that will be familiar, might be able to give police more information.

PHILLIPS: All right, our Rusty Dornin, there live in Modesto, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 19, 2003 - 13:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The police are back today at the Modesto, California home of Laci Peterson, the pregnant woman who vanished Christmas Eve.
CNN's Rusty Dornin live on the scene there to tell us what's happening -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, there's definitely some new developments. This morning, investigators arrived a little less than an hour ago, and the first thing they began doing was putting up a police line tape around the police cars and completely surrounding the house. This is what you see often around crime scenes. It says "police line, do not cross." When we asked one of the policeman who was putting up the tape, we said, is this a crime scene. He responded, yes.

But we've not received confirmation from anyone from the Modesto Police Department. He has not arrived yet. Meantime, you can see some of the police detectives standing in the driveway, they're standing next to Scott Peterson's truck, which was confiscated yesterday afternoon. They took it away for a few hours, and then brought it back later, or early last evening.

Now they spent about 10 hours at Scott Peterson's house yesterday, carting out grocery bags full of material from the house, about 40 or 50 bags. We couldn't see what was inside, but we could see, there were some labels on the outside, saying photo albums, phone books, even commonplace things like that.

Police were there, as I said, for 10 hours, but they said, they just weren't quite finished.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DET. DOUG RIDENOUR, MODESTO POLICE: You never know when you get into a search warrant, so you just have to go into the search warrant, depending on what you find, and how fast thing goes during the search. All those are factors on how quick a completion of a search warrant occurs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: Now, of course, all along they're still saying Peterson is not a suspect, but that he's not been eliminated from the investigation. That's the line they've been saying for months now.

Meantime, here in front of Scott Peterson's house, there's a literal army of broadcasters and print journalists, who've been waiting for investigators to arrive. Many have been here since 3:00 this morning, including us.

But we don't know how long investigators will be here today. They did not give any indication. They said the Modesto Police Department has not yet arrived to talk to reporters -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So, Rusty, yesterday, when we found out about the second search going on for about two hours, I had to talk about this. And I remember seeing the video of Scott Peterson. He left the house on his own. He was not taken down into police custody, like other people were reporting, so I want to make that clear. But there was a family member that was inside the house with detectives, right?

DORNIN: That's right. About noon, Kyra, they brought in Amy Rocha. That's the sister of Laci Peterson. She was in the house for about two hours. Police wouldn't say exactly why she was there, other than she was going to help detectives in the investigation.

What we do know is that Amy Rocha is one of the last people to see Laci Peterson before she disappeared, because Scott and Laci Peterson came into her hair salon, and she cut Scott's hair the day before. Also, a family member might know a lot of members in the house, perhaps her clothing, those sorts of things that will be familiar, might be able to give police more information.

PHILLIPS: All right, our Rusty Dornin, there live in Modesto, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com