Peterson’s Ex-Lover Testifies

Amber Frey, the blond massage therapist who has admitted to an affair with Scott Peterson, described to a rapt courtroom Tuesday how she fell for the clean-cut fertilizer salesman who showered her with roses and planned a life together as hundreds of volunteers searched for his missing wife.

Prosecutors allege that Frey, their star witness, so bedazzled Peterson that he decided to kill his pregnant wife, Laci, at least in part to be with her. He never wore a wedding ring, he indicated they would share “many more corks ... many more bottles” together, and he told her Dec. 9 that he had “lost his wife,” Frey testified.

“He was easygoing,” she said. “He was easy to talk to.”

In court, there was little eye contact between the two. Asked to point out Peterson for the jury, Frey leveled an index finger in his direction, then quickly looked away. Dressed in a black suit with a simple gold chain and pendant around her neck, she appeared nervous but determined. Superior Court Judge Alfred A. Delucchi had to frequently remind her to speak up.

Frey, who said she had “trust issues” with men, nonetheless described being immediately impressed with the sensitivity and intelligence of Peterson after a friend set them up on a date in late November 2002. He was also apparently a determined suitor. On their first date, she said, he brought champagne and strawberries, got them a private room in a Japanese restaurant, then danced with her for hours before taking her back to his hotel, where they slept together. She later confessed to feeling guilty about moving so fast romantically, but he gallantly assured her she had nothing to be ashamed of.

All the while, Peterson was claiming he’d never been married. He altered that story midway through their whirlwind romance after a friend of Frey’s told her she’d heard he was married. He explained that by saying his wife had died and it hurt too much to talk about it, so he claimed to be single.

Prophetically, he said the Christmas season of 2002 would be his first without his wife. Almost exactly one month after their first date, on Dec. 24, he would report Laci Peterson missing. In April, the remains of Laci and her fetus washed up on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Scott Peterson was arrested and charged with two counts of murder after Frey went to the police and began recording his phone calls to her.

While denigrating Peterson’s character -- pictures were shown of him and Frey snuggling at a Christmas party on the same day Laci attended her own party alone -- one thing Frey’s testimony didn’t do, at least during the first of what are expected to be several days on the witness stand, was provide any firsthand evidence that Peterson was a killer. Although she recorded hundreds of phone calls with him, on none of them, apparently, did he reveal any incriminating information.

Some courtroom observers said the prosecution was presenting its case in a plodding manner. “They brought some good information before the jury,” said Michael Cardoza, a former Alameda County prosecutor who is now a defense attorney. “But it should have taken them a half-hour.”

Dean Johnson, a former San Mateo County prosecutor who has been more sympathetic to the prosecution case, said Frey did a good job tarnishing Peterson’s character. “She comes across as really credible,” he said. “She paints a bad picture of Scott Peterson.” A circumstantial evidence case, he said, is a process of building on one piece of evidence after another. No one thing is conclusive, but as a whole it all becomes persuasive.

Frey’s attorney, Gloria Allred, was dismissive of Peterson as a swain. “Very touching, very romantic,” she said sarcastically about his presenting Frey with one of her favorite treats, a pink lady caramel apple. The lawyer called her client a “very courageous young woman who’s done the right thing.”

Prosecutors hope several passages in the taped calls will be regarded by jurors as revealing Peterson’s moods and thinking. At one point, during a call Dec. 31, 2002 -- a week after Laci disappeared -- Frey asked him if he felt “very adamant” about not wanting any more children. She already had a daughter. “Oh, I wouldn’t say adamant, but it’s not in my thoughts ... currently,” he said.

He claimed to have been in New York City and Paris in some calls to her; prosecutors believe that he was in California. He made sound effects on the line and even indicated that the New Year’s celebration in Paris was “unreal.”

On another occasion, he talked about reading works by Beat author Jack Kerouac. He was impressed by the freewheeling author who bummed his way across the country as a youth, mainly because “I never had a prolonged period of freedom like that from responsibility.”

Although prosecutors at first appeared to be making the case that the motive for the murder was to be with Frey, of late they’ve raised other issues, including money troubles. It was a lifestyle of freedom he wanted, they seem to be saying, rather than a woman who came with a mortgage and a baby.

In fact, during the Dec. 31 conversation, when Frey pressed him for a commitment to her, he tried to change the subject, arguing that he just wanted their relationship to flow. On the other hand, he said he could see them together for a long time.

Frey will resume testimony today. Legal observers said they expected defense attorney Mark Geragos to try to undermine Frey’s story, but they also said he must be careful not to be too aggressive with her for fear of alienating the jury.

Geragos tried to take some of the sting out of her testimony in his opening statement, when he told jurors he would not argue with anyone who wanted to call his client a cad. That still doesn’t prove Peterson’s a murderer, he said.