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Frey describes a romantic, deceitful Peterson

By Harriet Ryan
Court TV

vert.amber.frey.jpg
Amber Frey

REDWOOD CITY, California (Court TV) -- Scott Peterson's former mistress, Amber Frey, took the stand at his capital murder trial Tuesday and portrayed the fertilizer salesman as an attentive, but deceitful lover who wooed her with over-the-top romantic gestures while concealing his marriage from her.

Frey said Peterson bought her gifts, made her dinner, doted on her daughter and even caressed her face with rose petals and soft kisses, but never once mentioned his pregnant wife, Laci -- even after she mysteriously vanished.

"At any time did the defendant ever tell you that he was married?" prosecutor Dave Harris asked.

"Ever tell you that he lived in Modesto?" Harris asked.

"No," she said.

"Ever tell you he had a child on the way?" the prosecutor asked.

"No," she said.

The massage therapist turned star prosecution witness clicked across the packed courtroom in two-inch black stiletto heels at 9:28 a.m. and spent about four hours detailing her six-week whirlwind relationship with Peterson.

Her highly anticipated testimony will continue Wednesday morning and could stretch two weeks.

Among the most damaging evidence she offered Tuesday were surreptitious recordings of phone conversations with Peterson after his wife disappeared. On the tapes played for jurors, Peterson pretends he is calling from France, even faking bad international connections and complaining about the time difference. In reality, he was in Modesto, where police and hundreds of volunteers were scouring parks and lakes for the mother-to-be.

Her remains and those of the son she was carrying ultimately washed up on the San Francisco Bay shore.

In one call made minutes before the start of a December 31, 2002, candlelight vigil for the missing woman, an upbeat-sounding Peterson informs Frey that he is ringing in the New Year at a Paris bar with his friends "Pasqual" and "Francois."

"It's pretty awesome. Fireworks there at the Eiffel Tower. A mass of people all playing American pop songs," Peterson said.

In another call, he told her the Parisian celebration was so festive it was "unreal."

She also testified that on December 23, 2002, the day police believe Peterson murdered his wife, he told her that he wanted them to meet with a doctor to discuss having a vasectomy.

Prosecutors have suggested Peterson killed the 27-year-old, who was eight months' pregnant, because he secretly dreaded the demands of fatherhood and wanted to pursue a relationship with Frey.

Wearing a fitted black suit, cream blouse and silver cross necklace, Frey made eye contact with her former paramour only once: when Harris asked her to point him out in the courtroom.

Frey turned her bleached blond head slightly and pointed across the courtroom to the defense table where Peterson, wearing a gray suit, powder blue shirt and navy striped tie, sat between his lawyers. He returned her gaze for a moment and then looked down at the table.

Frey began her testimony by describing how her best friend, Shawn Sibley, set her up with Peterson in November 2002, about six weeks before Laci Peterson vanished.

"What was your understanding about whether he was married?" Harris asked.

"That he was not," Frey said.

Frey said that in their first phone conversation Peterson asked her if she was intelligent. Harris asked her how she answered.

Frey bit her lip and then said, "I thought I was intelligent and ..." Her voice trailed off.

Their first date, on Nov. 20, included pre-dinner champagne in Peterson's hotel room. She recalled that he brought a container of strawberries and plunked one in her flute.

"I remember eating one, and they were a little bit sour," she said.

Frey said Peterson was "cheerful" and attentive and they talked about "everything."

"He was easy-going. He was easy to talk to. He made me feel comfortable," Frey said.

"Was he behaving as a gentleman at this point in time?" Harris asked.

"Yes," Frey said.

She said he was exceptionally romantic from the start. She said he secured them a private dining room at a Japanese restaurant, and they talked until the establishment closed.

They then went to a nearby karaoke bar, where he convinced her to sing a duet with him. She did not say what the song was.

At the karaoke bar, she said, they slow-danced and kissed. They returned to Peterson's hotel room and were intimate. The next morning, she said, she told him she was concerned they had slept together too soon, but he assured her it was fine.

Peterson told her that he was going on a fishing trip in Alaska over Thanksgiving and would phone her from the road.

Stargazing, roses, candy apples

On their second date, December 2, they went hiking with Frey's 20-month-old daughter, Ayianna, and stayed out until sunset.

"Did you have some kind of competition at that time?" Harris asked.

"Who could find the star," she replied. Peterson won, she added.

A few weeks later, Peterson shipped Frey a home planetarium as a Christmas gift with a note in Spanish about how his two angels could find the first star.

On this second date, they saved the cork from the wine. When Frey lamented they had not kept the champagne cork from their first date, Peterson told her not to worry.

"He made a comment that there would be many more to come," she testified.

"More corks?" Harris asked.

"Many more bottles to share," she replied.

Frey said it was Peterson's idea to include the toddler on the outing. The next day, he agreed to pick her up at school while she tended to a late massage-parlor customer.

"He said he would be honored," she recalled.

When she returned to her home, she found Ayianna in her highchair, Peterson warming leftovers and a glass of wine waiting for her.

Peterson left the next morning but returned later and took Frey and her daughter Christmas tree shopping. She said that in bed that night she raised the issue of trust and asked him if he had ever been married or had children. He said no to both, she recalled.

On December 9, she said, Peterson came to her house and said he needed to tell her something that would upset her.

"I could hear his stomach churning a little bit," she said. He began crying and told her that he had lied to her when he said he had never been married.

He said "that he had lost his wife," Frey said.

She testified that "he said it was entirely too painful for him to talk about" and she did not press him about what he meant by "lost."

When she asked him if it was a recent loss, "he stated that this would be the first holidays he would be spending without her," he said.

Because Laci Peterson disappeared two weeks later, on Dec. 24, prosecutors have pointed to these comments as some of the most incriminating against Peterson.

Frey's friend Sibley previously testified that she learned Peterson was married and threatened to expose him unless he went to Frey on his own. Prosecutors have hinted that the brush with losing Frey led him to begin plotting his wife's murder.

Frey said she did not know Sibley was behind the confession and accepted his explanation.

"I asked him if he was ready for a relationship with me," she said.

"What did he say?" Harris asked.

"He said, 'Absolutely,'" Frey said.

On December 14, Peterson accompanied Frey to a formal Christmas party. She said he arrived bearing three dozen roses and one single red rose. She said he told her to dim the lights and light a candle and proceeded to rub the rose on her face and chest while "kissing me softly."

A few moments later, when she went to her bedroom to dress, Peterson stayed in the kitchen, saying he was going to prepare a surprise for her.

Frey smiled as she recalled the surprise: a homemade "pink lady caramel apple."

She explained that she had previously told Peterson that the small candy apples were the first food she wanted to eat when she had her braces removed the year before.

Quiet in the court

During most of Frey's testimony, Peterson stared toward the witness stand with his head tilted slightly to the side.

His father, Lee, sat behind him, taking constant notes in a spiral ring notebook. Across the aisle, Laci Peterson's stepfather wrote in his own notebook.

Some jurors appeared to be fascinated by Frey's testimony, leaning forward in the jury box and scribbling notes. Others, however, wrote nothing and one male alternate frequently looked away from the witness stand and around the crowded courtroom.

More than 250 people stood in line for one of 28 public seats in the gallery. On a normal trial day, about 60 people participate in that lottery.

Defense lawyer Mark Geragos told the panel in his opening statement that Peterson was guilty only of being a cad, not a murderer. Geragos was uncharacteristically quiet at the defense table during Frey's testimony. He made only a handful of objections throughout the day.

Frey testified that before they went to the December 14 formal, she raised the issue of how she should introduce Peterson to her friends and clients. He suggested they identify each other as "lover," but she quickly told him she thought that "did not seem appropriate." She said he then suggested the title "my love." She said she asked if she could refer to him as her boyfriend and he agreed, telling her that he was monogamous with her.

"Did it appear to you as though your relationship was blossoming at that point?" Harris asked.

"At that point, I would say so," Frey replied.

She identified about a half dozen snapshots taken the night of the formal. Frey wore a form-fitting scarlet dress and Peterson a tuxedo. The same night, Laci Peterson went alone to a friend's holiday party. She told people her husband had to work.

Reluctant father

Frey said later that night they had sex, and for the first time did not use birth control. Frey testified that in pillow talk afterward, Peterson said he regretted that because he did not want to have any children.

He told her that he would be willing to raise her daughter "as his own," but was considering getting a vasectomy so Frey "wouldn't have the burden of taking birth control pills."

Frey said she found the discussion "disturbing" because she wanted more children and the permanency of the procedure seemed inappropriate for such a young man.

Peterson told her that he would not be able to see her until the end of January because he was going to visit his parents in Kennebunkport, Maine, and then on to Europe to visit friends and meet with some business associates about reducing the amount of travel he had to do for work.

"Did he tell you how this would affect your relationship," Harris asked.

"It would allow us to spend more time together," Frey answered.

When he left her home December 15, she did not see him in person again until Tuesday morning when she walked into court.

Frey said they talked often by phone and during a December 23, 2002 call, she told him she had a doctor's appointment to obtain a birth control prescription. It was then, she testified, that he raised the idea of a vasectomy for a second time and said he wanted to take the step of meeting with a doctor.

That same day, Peterson escorted his wife to her obstetrician's office for a check-up.

Laci disappears

Frey said that over the next week, she had sporadic phone contact with Peterson, but received no calls from him on Christmas Eve, the day he reported his wife missing. She said that in some calls, he claimed to be duck hunting with his father. His parents live in San Diego and he did not leave the Modesto area that week.

On December 29, her friend Richard Byrd, a Fresno homicide detective, told her the man she was dating was married and that his wife was missing.

Frey testified that she immediately contacted police and agreed to start taping her phone calls. According to the tapes played in court, the first calls were brief because Peterson told her he was not getting good reception.

"I'll be in Paris tomorrow. I'm flying to Normandy right now and hopefully the phone will be better," he told her in a December 30 call.

On Wednesday, Frey is expected to continue testifying about the phone calls, including a lengthy call just after midnight January 1.

On January 6, Peterson finally told her that he was married and that his wife was missing. She continued taping calls until February 19.

Frey is the 103rd witness called by prosecutors, but the 102nd jurors will consider. The testimony of one witness was stricken by the judge because of an evidence violation by prosecutors.

Peterson is charged with two counts of murder.


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