Volunteers Halt Flier Campaign to Find Woman

Plans for a massive effort to blanket Southern California with fliers about a missing Modesto woman were canceled abruptly Friday because of questions about whether her husband had been having an affair.

“The volunteers would be bombarded with media asking questions, and the focus would shift from finding Laci,” said Brad Saltzman, coordinator of the volunteer effort.

The volunteer center in Modesto also shut its doors this week.

Laci Peterson, 27, who was eight months pregnant, disappeared Christmas Eve while walking her dog.

Two weeks ago, her stepfather asked her husband, Scott Peterson, if he was having an affair, a spokeswoman for her family said Friday, and the husband said he was not.

“Now, however, they believe he has lied to them about this and possibly about other things,” said spokeswoman Kim Petersen, who is not related.

“If Scott has nothing to hide, [relatives] ask him to prove that,” she said. “The family is asking Scott ... to fully cooperate with the Modesto police.”

The Police Department refused to comment, releasing a statement saying it would not respond to “speculation.” Scott Peterson has not been named as a suspect.

Authorities said Friday that they are continuing to search areas surrounding Stanislaus County, where Modesto is.

The husband told police he was on a fishing trip in the Bay Area when his wife disappeared. He reported her missing that night.

Her purse was in the house, and the golden retriever, still wearing its leash, had been put in the backyard by a neighbor who found it wandering.

Within days, hundreds of friends, neighbors and strangers in the agricultural community had joined in the search, and more than 10,000 fliers had been distributed.

Dairy farmers left their cows and combed fields on horseback. Strangers came with toddlers in strollers to canvass neighborhoods.

More than 150 high-risk parolees and sex offenders in the area were questioned. The reward for information leading to the woman’s safe return climbed to $500,000, and more than 2,200 volunteers joined the campaign.

Police also dredged the marina where Scott Peterson said he had gone fishing. They found only an old anchor.

This week police went to the missing woman’s family and told them a tabloid newspaper would be reporting that her husband was having an affair.

The news sent volunteer search efforts into a tailspin. Plans to saturate Southern California with fliers, water bottles and buttons bearing Laci Peterson’s picture were dropped.

Meanwhile, Peterson’s husband told KNTV in San Jose that he doesn’t care that he has been subjected to scrutiny as part of the investigation, if it helps bring his wife back home.

“Make me the biggest villain in the world if you want to. As long as it keeps her photograph in the press,” Peterson said. “I really don’t care what people think of me as long as it continues to keep Laci’s picture, description, tip line in the media.”

Kim Petersen, executive director of the Carole Sund-Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, asked volunteers to keep searching for Laci. She asked real estate agents to search empty homes, farmers to search barns and fields, and hunters and fishermen to keep eyes peeled for the missing woman.

Saltzman, general manager of the Red Lion Hotel in Modesto, said the “search effort will not stop. We will continue to search for Laci and her baby boy.”