Thousands Flock to Modesto Memorial for Laci Peterson on Her 28th Birthday

The machinery of justice paused Sunday for the ceremonies of grief as several thousand people, some driving hundreds of miles, attended a public memorial for Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner on what would have been her 28th birthday.

More than 2,000 mourners, many openly sobbing throughout the service, crowded into the First Baptist Church to pay their respects. Hundreds more watched on a closed-circuit feed in two adjacent buildings on the church’s downtown campus.

“Today is a good day; it’s Laci’s birthday,” said her brother, Brent Rocha. Although the family was grateful for the public support, Rocha said, his sister would not have been able to accept that so many would be touched by her. “Laci is probably saying, ‘Nuh-uh.’ She would not believe all this is happening.”

The 70-minute-long service featured two choirs, three ministers and a dozen friends and relatives remembering the vivacious, chatty young woman whose flair in the kitchen was matched by her organizing skills at planning and throwing parties -- including her own birthday parties.

Noting that her hometown drew closer in its anxieties over the fate of the substitute teacher, friend Heather Sutton mused, “What an incredible hostess she turned out to be.”

Peterson, eight months pregnant at the time, disappeared last Dec. 24.

Her husband, Scott Peterson, said he was fishing at the Berkeley Marina at the time.

The bodies of Laci and Conner Peterson washed up on the shores of San Francisco Bay, not far from where the husband said he had gone fishing, on April 13 and 14. Five days later, Scott Peterson was arrested.

Since the bodies washed up, the attention has been on Scott Peterson and the evidence against him. But Sunday, after a court refused to allow him to attend the memorial, the focus was solely on Laci Peterson. His image was noticeably missing from a moving video retrospective of her life.

“I felt like I got to know more about her and the kind of person she was,” said Renee Dunne, 30, who drove from the Bay Area with her husband and 8-month-old son, Brandon. “The excitement of having her own family was ripped away from her.”

Onlookers in yellow and blue commemorative ribbons had various reasons for being here. Some were mothers who felt kinship with the young woman with the winning smile. Others had a more political agenda: to call attention to crimes against women. Others couldn’t explain it. They just had to be there.

Pam English and her friend Michelle Walker left Sacramento at 3 a.m. for the 90-minute drive to Modesto. So worried were they that they wouldn’t get in that they slept overnight in their truck.

“We need to be in there,” said English, 40, a mother of five who was touched by the plight of Laci Peterson’s parents. “Being a mother, I can only imagine the pain” of losing a daughter, she said. “We can’t hug them, but we can be here.”

The First Baptist Church was chosen for the memorial because it had room for hundreds of mourners. Scott Peterson’s parents did not attend, saying they wanted the focus to remain on Laci Peterson.

The service ended with the playing of a favorite song, “Brown-Eyed Girl,” by Van Morrison. As Laci’s friends swayed in the front pews, the crowd stood and clapped along.