Laci Peterson’s family helps lead charge against California prison policy that could free serial killers

The family of Laci Peterson is leading the charge against a new California parole board policy that could open the door for resentencing or clemency for serial killers, mass murderers and others.

Public safety advocates and victims’ families filed a lawsuit last month looking to block the changes to California’s parole system, which they say could allow for some people serving life sentences without parole to eventually be released. The new policy creates a guideline where prisioners with long sentences could be granted resentencing hearings. If they lose their life without parole sentences, it could make it easier to free them on parole or for completed sentences.

The change could allow for Scott Peterson, who was convicted in the 2004 killing of 27-year-old Laci Peterson and their unborn son, Conner, to walk free.

Now, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a nonprofit group behind the lawsuit, is working with victims’ families to try to stop the board’s new policy before it goes into effect in October.

“My daughter, Laci, was eight months pregnant when she and my unborn grandson, Conner, were murdered,” Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Scott Peterson was initially sentenced to death. After his death sentence was overturned, he was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole.”

“Our family believed that sentence would finally bring some measure of certainty. Victims should not have to spend the rest of their lives wondering whether the person responsible will receive another opportunity for release. Justice demands finality,” Rocha said.

Peterson has maintained his innocence and is still fighting his conviction in court. The California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence and reduced his sentencing to life without parole in 2021. However, prosecutors have insisted that the amount of evidence against him is “overwhelming.’

Laci’s friend, Kim Juarez, said she accepted the change in Peterson’s sentencing because she believed it still meant that he would never be released.

“The only certainty that we had when Scott was put away was that he wasn’t ever going to get out,” she told Fox News Digital. “That’s what, to me, is aggravating.”

Victims, including Laci’s loved ones, argue that the change in policy would force families grieving loved ones to repeatedly relive their trauma.

“In a world where nothing is guaranteed and in something so big, we are guaranteed to never see Laci and Conner again. That’s never going to happen,” Juarez said. “The person that took her away — we just want to stick to what was handed down to him. This isn’t about punishing him further. It’s about sticking to what was handed down to him.”

Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she disappeared from her Modesto, California, home on Christmas Eve in 2002.

Prosecutors say Scott Peterson dumped his wife’s body in the Berkeley Marina on December 24, 2002, before reporting her missing. He was arrested when the bodies of Laci and their unborn child washed ashore in San Francisco several months later.

Scott Peterson’s 2005 death sentence was overturned in 2020, and he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2021.