Peterson Case Has Lingering Question

Why Scott and Laci?

That’s what I wondered more than once as the drama of the Peterson murder trial played on and on and on and on, reducing death to a prime-time cliche and propping up the careers of countless gasbag pundits, attorneys and other carnies.

Even Scott Peterson seemed bored by it all. Either that or he’s a true sociopath, incapable of any human expression.

The morning after the death penalty verdict came in, I called the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office with a question: How many men have killed their wives around here lately?

As I write this, they’re still counting the number of cases filed in the last two years.

“We have at least 50 cases in which men have been charged with killing their wives or significant others,” says Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

So why do we know virtually nothing about any of those, and more than we ever wanted to know about the Peterson case?

“I had the same question,” says Pamela Booth, head deputy of the D.A.’s family violence division.

Part of it, of course, is that Laci Peterson was pregnant, and Scott Peterson was convicted of killing both his wife and his unborn son.

But by coincidence, the next case on the docket in L.A. County involves a man charged with the stabbing death of his live-in, pregnant girlfriend, as well as the murder of their unborn baby.

Anyone ever hear the names Roger Marquez or Noelle Chagolla?

Of course not. And you may never hear them again.

“I was wondering the same thing about why the Peterson case got a lot of notoriety,” says L.A. County Sheriff’s Det. Rich Ramirez.

He’s the veteran investigator who took the call on the Chagolla slaying on April 14, 2002, drove out to the 21-year-old woman’s East L.A. home and found her body wrapped in bloody blankets. Marquez, now 25, claimed he had come home and discovered his girlfriend’s body, but he later was arrested.

“In all the years I’ve been doing this, it was probably one of the more gruesome cases I’ve handled,” says Ramirez, a homicide detective for six years.

Ramirez gets a new domestic homicide case every four or five months. He says he didn’t want to sound cynical, but he has an opinion about why some murders get press and others don’t.

“We weigh the value of the victim and the defendant, in my estimation,” he says. “And that’s a sad commentary.”

To put it even more bluntly, certain segments of society are expected to kill their loved ones now and again, so when it happens, it’s no big deal.

But Scott Peterson didn’t fit the stereotype. He was white, handsome in a way that still is referred to as “all-American,” and although he might not have had a dream job, the fertilizer salesman seemed to be a reasonably successful suburbanite and golf nut.

Laci Peterson was young, happy, attractive, pregnant and middle class. In one photo that was shown a million times, she was in front of a Christmas tree, the picture of cheer.

“Laci was so charming in that picture, and Scott appeared to be anything but a monster,” Booth says.

If the Petersons were black or Latino, would the case have been on Larry King so often?

Probably not. But Booth thinks class, rather than race, was a bigger factor in feeding the frenzy.

“You don’t want to believe that the person living next door, who acts and looks like everybody else and seems like a good guy, would do such a thing to his pregnant wife,” she says.

In fact, Booth notes, domestic violence cuts across all races, age groups and income levels.

One factor that turned the trial into a soap opera was the media’s insatiable appetite for cheap and lurid drama, no matter how inconsequential and stupefying. I speak particularly of television, which has the rare ability to both magnify and diminish everything it addresses, desensitizing all of us in the process.

The great irony of the Peterson case is that defense attorney Mark Geragos, whose career arc rose with the frequency of his appearances on cable TV gab-fests, was cut down to size in part by a bizarre, media-fueled public outcry for a guilty verdict.

I’m not saying the Peterson case didn’t have its newsworthy aspects, up to and including the death penalty verdict in a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence. And one good thing about the outcome is the message that even if you’re white and have enough money to hire a celebrity attorney, you’re not in the clear.

But subjected to overkill coverage, with nightly quarterbacking by the same old squawk boxes and self-promoting shills, the criminal trial played more like a football game.

At least in the O.J. Simpson case, Booth says, the coverage spun into the realm of public service.

“There was more realization of the domestic violence situation, and a lot of money poured into many different domestic violence prevention agencies,” she says. “With the Peterson case, I didn’t see any of that.”

This is not likely to change with the next domestic murder trial/media circus, coming soon to a TV near you.

So long, Scott Peterson. Hello, Robert Blake.

Steve Lopez writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at steve.lopez@ latimes.com.