Laci Peterson slaying theories involve devil, Nazis, art
Patty
HEARING OCT. 20 IN CASE OF MODESTO HOMEMAKER
By Julia Prodis Sulek
San Jose Mercury News
October 6, 2003
MODESTO - Nazi Low Riders named Dirty and Skeeter, an old Satanic cult
called the Order of Lion, and bizarre paintings of decapitated women
and floating fetuses. These are the latest surreal elements in the
Laci Peterson murder case.
Who could have guessed that the death of this pregnant homemaker who
watched ``Martha Stewart Living'' each morning and had a
wine-of-the-month club membership would be intertwined with such seamy
images?
But no theory, it seems, is too far-fetched for a case that feeds
tabloid headlines and talk show debates. Two especially macabre
scenarios have arisen as the Oct. 20 preliminary hearing approaches.
One centers on a jailhouse informant who passed a lie-detector test
after claiming two gang thugs were hired to kill Peterson's wife. The
other resurrects a decade-old quadruple homicide outside Modesto by
devil worshipers who believed the purest sacrifice is the killing of a
newborn baby.
One scenario could send Peterson to the death chamber. The other could
set him free. Could either be true? Or has a thirst for the
sensational spawned titillating tales when the reality may be
something far simpler: a cheating husband killing his wife to be with
his mistress?
The prosecution is expected to push that more simple theory when it
lays out its case for the first time at Peterson's preliminary hearing
in Modesto. But until then the focus has shifted to bald, tattooed
gangsters and robe-clad Satanists.
The Nazi Low Riders
It was only two weeks ago that Cory Carroll, a Fresno jail inmate,
issued a startling statement: Scott Peterson used him to set up a
murder-for-hire.
According to Carroll's lawyer, Frank Muna, it started in early
November last year at a Fresno strip club called City Lights. After
seeing Carroll's prison identification card when he paid for a drink,
Peterson struck up a conversation. They spent the next several hours
together watching the dancers, shooting pool and bar hopping.
``Scott mentioned he would like to buy his wife a new car for
Christmas,'' but if he sold the old one he didn't think he would get
much money for it, said Muna, who grew up in East San Jose. ``He asked
my client if he knew anyone willing to steal the car so he could claim
it on his insurance.''
Peterson offered him $300 to make an introduction, Muna said. A couple
of weeks later, on Nov. 29, Carroll brought Peterson together with
Dirty and Skeeter, members of the Nazi Low Riders, a notorious prison
gang known for murder, extortion and drug running.
The foursome gathered at Best Budget motel, where Carroll lived and
worked as a maintenance man, Muna said. There, Peterson made a far
more sinister proposal.
``He solicited the two guys, Dirty and Skeeter, to get rid of his wife
-- first to kidnap his wife, then to get rid of her,'' Muna said. ``My
client didn't want any part of that so he left. He ran into Dirty and
Skeeter a half-hour later, and they told my client they were going to
take care of what Scott wanted.''
Carroll didn't hear from any of them again.
Carroll was back in jail by late December on a parole violation and
says he didn't watch much TV and didn't know about Laci's killing. He
came forward late last month when he worried that he could somehow be
implicated if the investigation turned to the Nazi Low Riders.
``I have no reason to disbelieve my client. Everything he has told me
has checked out,'' said Muna. ``The polygraph examiner is one of the
best in the business. He's convinced my client is telling the truth.''
Peterson's family says, however, that Scott couldn't have met with the
hoodlums because he was traveling with Laci from Southern California
back to Modesto on Nov. 29 after Thanksgiving weekend.
The Order of Lion
In 1990, members of a Satanic cult, the Order of the Lion, killed four
people in the Modesto suburb of Salida. Five members of the ragtag
group were convicted and sent to prison. Three, including the
``master,'' Gerald Cruz, are on death row, and two are serving life
sentences. The victims, some of whom were formerly involved with the
cult, had had a running feud with the group.
Could it be possible that remnants of such a Satanic cult kidnapped
and murdered Laci Peterson? It's a theory floated by Peterson's
defense team but downplayed by Modesto authorities. Some who were
involved with the Salida case, however, aren't willing to rule it out.
``I don't think it's far-fetched given the history of this county with
regard to these kinds of groups,'' said Ramon Magana, who defended one
of the murderers. ``There were 20 to 30 members of this cult. We can
only account for roughly five that are in prison. The rest are on the
outside. Whether they continued in this direction or not, I can't
answer that.''
The 1990 case brought to light chilling initiation and punishment
rituals among the members, who lived in a compound of trailers behind
an old house in Salida, and kept daily diaries. In them, the members
detailed torture and called the sacrifice of newborns the ``most pure
thing you can do,'' said Magana, who read the diaries.
Fresno police Sgt. Bill Grove, an expert in occult crimes, said groups
like this are often disorganized. ``After you remove the hierarchy,''
he said, ``the group just dissolves.''
If there was Satanic activity in the Modesto area, he and the Modesto
police would know about it, Grove said. ``This is something the
defense is floating out there to see if it sticks.''
Sniff collective
Grove said that also goes for another element drawing the defense's
interest -- huge paintings along the eastern edge of the San Francisco
Bay, not far from where the bodies of Laci and her unborn son washed
up.
The paintings, on sheets of plywood on a small peninsula called the
Albany Bulb, depict scenes of fire-breathing devils and ax-wielding
grim reapers. One painting shows a man and woman in a canoe, with what
appears to be three floating babies nearby, intertwined with an
umbilical cord.
One of Peterson's defense team told a reporter from the Modesto Bee
that he considered the paintings Satanic and they might have been the
backdrop to the crime. The defense team cast off flotation devices
from the Albany Bulb as an experiment to see if they washed up near
where the bodies were found.
The artists, who call their collective Sniff, were shocked to hear
that their paintings were caught up in the Peterson case.
``There are some devilish images out there, but it's all in good
fun,'' said Bruce Rayburn, who has his own construction business in El
Sobrante and paints with four buddies at the bulb each Saturday
morning. ``The local people who walk their dogs have come to know us
and like the paintings. Then this crazy story came out and put a
different light on what we were doing. There's no message in the
paintings. It's lots of meaningless things.''