Scott Peterson's Parents: What to Know About Lee and Jackie Peterson

On Christmas Eve 2002, a 27-year-old expectant mom named Laci Peterson went missing from her home in Modesto, Calif.

What happened next gripped the nation for years, and is still discussed to this day.

Following an investigation and a widely publicized murder trial — which dominated the cable news cycle — Laci's husband Scott Peterson was convicted in the brutal murder of Laci and their unborn son, Conner.

Throughout the case, Scott's parents remained in his corner.

Scott Peterson was born on Oct. 24, 1974, to Lee and Jackie Peterson.

Lee owned a packaging and shipping company. According to what he said on the stand at Scott's trial (via SFGate), Lee grew up poor in Minnesota before finding success as an entrepreneur. He'd been married once before, but said he was unable to provide a life of privilege to the three kids he shared with his first wife. He was able to give that to Scott, whom he and Jackie raised in a wealthy part of San Diego, but he said that Scott worked hard and never took his life for granted.

After Laci went missing and Scott was arrested, Scott's parents didn't speak publicly until July 2004 — a month after their son's murder trial started — when they both sat down with Barbara Walters. Jackie had an oxygen tank and tubes in her nose during the interview, as she had been suffering from chronic bronchitis and hoping for a lung transplant.

Both Lee and Jackie reiterated to Barbara that they believed their son was innocent.

They said Scott was a "very affectionate" boy while growing up, and that he didn't have a temper at all. Jackie noted, "He's got my temperament; I don't get angry, I get hurt or sad." They marveled at how they never had to discipline him as a kid, and how he never got into any trouble. He was "too good to believe, almost," Lee said. They said they never saw Scott get mad, and that the only thing he might get "mad" about was if he missed a golf shot, but then he was just mad at himself.

They also said that Scott was "very excited" to be a dad, and that he and Laci — who were "totally dedicated to each other," they said — had tried for three years to conceive.

When asked about how they might respond to folks who accused Scott of showing no emotion throughout the case, they said that "he cried privately," and that because he knew his parents were breaking down too, he "tried to be brave for us."

As for the revelation that Scott had been having an affair, Lee and Jackie said they were surprised and disappointed, but that it's a "reality of life" that people cheat, and that it "certainly doesn't give motive for murder."

As previously mentioned, Lee appeared on the stand at Scott's murder trial — and Jackie did too. During part of his testimony, Lee talked about Scott's childhood, and how he once rescued a baby bunny from a pool and spent days nursing it back to health with formula from an eye dropper.

In her plea with the jury to spare her son from the death penalty, Jackie said on the stand: "We feel like we’re just shells in front of you. Coming here every day; nothing left inside of us." She added, "I really feel if you were to take Scott away from us ... they were like family, Laci, Conner, and Scott. It would be a whole family wiped off the face of the Earth." (Scott received the death penalty, though it was later changed to a life sentence without parole in 2021.)

Jackie died at age 70 in 2013 after battling cancer. According to Radar, Lee had taken her out of the hospital to let his wife live out her last days at their home, where he could care for her.

In 2018, Janey Peterson, the wife of Scott’s half-brother Joe, spoke with The Modesto Bee about how Lee had been doing in the years since Scott's trial.

When asked how Lee was holding up, she paused for 35 seconds before composing herself and responding, "I don’t know if you can understand how Lee is holding up unless you understand the [gravity] of this injustice. As much as us kids feel it, I don’t know if I can put myself in Lee’s shoes as a parent, or in Jackie’s shoes. Or in [Laci’s mother] Sharon’s shoes. I just can’t even comprehend it."

Janey, who has been outspoken out about her belief that Scott is innocent, gave her interview from the family’s crate-building shop in Poway, Calif., which Lee founded in 1975, and where she and Joe both worked. She said the office had a legal strategy room where they maintained documents in support of their case for Scott’s innocence. To this day, Janey is still fighting for Scott to be released.