REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Amber Frey, the one-time mistress of Scott Peterson who has cooperated in the murder case against him, testified Tuesday that Peterson romanced her with champagne, flowers, surprise gifts and a tearful moment of contrition in the weeks leading up to the disappearance of his wife, Laci.
Frey, a massage therapist who is considered one of the prosecution's most important witnesses, said Peterson had told her that he was unmarried when they first met for dinner and dancing on Nov. 20, 2002. Less than three weeks later, she said, he confided that he had recently "lost his wife" and would be spending his first Christmas alone.
"After he stated it was the first holidays without her, I asked if he was ready for a relationship with me," Frey said of a conversation on Dec. 9, 2002, in which she said Peterson cried at her kitchen table in her home in Fresno. "He said absolutely."
Laci Peterson, who was eight months pregnant, disappeared on Dec. 24, 2002, from the couple's home in Modesto, a farming town about 70 miles east of here. Her decomposed body and that of her fetus were found washed ashore in San Francisco Bay in April 2003.
Peterson, a former fertilizer salesman, has been charged with two counts of murder in a trial now entering its eleventh week. The prosecution, which asserts that Peterson committed the murders so that he could be with Frey, spent most of Tuesday asking about his seduction and romance of her.
Peterson's lawyers have acknowledged the affair, and one even told the jury that they might consider him a "cad" for cheating on his pregnant wife. But they said he had nothing to do with her killing.
Peterson became so friendly with Frey and her young daughter that they bought and decorated a Christmas tree together and Peterson picked the toddler up from preschool and made her dinner while Frey worked, Frey testified.
During a telephone conversation on Dec. 25, when unbeknownst to Frey, Peterson was involved in a citywide search in Modesto for his wife — not on a family vacation in Maine as he told her.
"I asked him if I could trust him with my heart," Frey said of one conversation. "He said I had the answer to that."