George Putnam
Friday, Jan. 31, 2003

At the moment, the search goes on for such evidence in the Laci Peterson case. Due to deliver a baby boy in February, she disappeared the day before Christmas. Her husband, Scott Peterson, told the police he had gone sturgeon fishing in a marina 85 miles away from their home in Modesto, Calif.

It now comes to light that her husband was having an affair with a young woman, the mother of a 2-year-old girl, who had been told by Scott that he was single. One lie follows another to the point where serious doubts surround him, and he has now become the No. 1 suspect in her disappearance, at least in the eyes of the public. Only time will tell whether he, in fact, is responsible for her disappearance.

Years ago I covered the L. Ewing Scott case, which had many similarities to the Peterson case. Scott was a smooth conman, a fortune hunter, who sought out wealthy widows in the Los Angeles area.

He wormed his way into the fashionable Jonathan Club, which was a perfect operation base to find just the right, most vulnerable, wealthy widow. He danced superbly, was meticulously groomed and indeed found just the right widow: Evelyn Throsby Murper of the affluent Brewer family.

Her family warned her not to, but she married Scott anyway. They set up a beautiful home in West Los Angeles, and Scott had the perfect arrangement.

Posing as an investor businessman in the community, he manipulated her vast financial holdings, and soon there were rumors of his physical abuse of his wealthy wife. Finally she had had enough and told him she was going to divorce him.

That's when she suddenly disappeared. When he finally reported her absence, his story was that he had gone on an errand to buy some toothpaste and when he'd returned, she was gone.

The district attorney finally pinned him on a pool of evidence, but Evelyn Scott's body was never found. My contact to the underworld, Mickey Cohen, suggested the widow's body might be found in the freshly poured concrete of the San Diego Freeway.

Another story had it that when Scott went to an automobile dealership to look for a late-model car, he pulled out a tape measure and made a point of measuring the trunk. The press, following his every move, concluded that he was measuring the trunk to see if it could accommodate a body.

Scott played a frustrating cat-and-mouse game. When I asked to interview him, he said, "on one condition: that we conduct the interview at your home," which I did.

I later received a call from a top detective with the LAPD who said he wanted to meet me at the Scotts' home in Westwood. We conducted a search of the property concluding at the backyard incinerator. In the ashes, we made an amazing discovery - a garter belt and a set of false teeth. It was key evidence, and because of it, L. Ewing Scott spent the rest of his life in jail.

I've had many interesting moments covering crime stories over the years - the Manson case, O.J. Simpson, Barbara Graham, the freeway stranglers - but I've never ever forgotten the L. Ewing Scott case, and with reason. A woman might leave town without her garter belt, but she damn well isn't going anywhere without her false teeth. No, it isn't necessary to rely upon a corpus delicti to gain a murder conviction.

The two cases parallel each other, but the personalities and behavior of the two men, L. Ewing Scott and Scott Peterson, are vastly different. L. Ewing was much shrewder, much sharper than Peterson; he could charm the hell out of you! His case went on for years before they could finally get a conviction.

Peterson couldn't shine L. Ewing Scott's shoes! He appears to be a bumbling idiot, unlike the conman who charmed the widow and took over her finances; her own family wouldn't even listen once he got done with them!

However, Peterson's family IS listening; he hasn't charmed them. Every day he digs a deeper hole; one day he's going to slip and fall in. The other woman is the chapter of this story that turned the whole thing upside down, but I believe many shocking truths are yet to be revealed about Peterson.

For more information or to offer tips on the disappearance of Laci Peterson, log on to: http://www.lacipeterson.com/ [or] http://www.lacipeterson.org/

"Corpus Delicti" by Diane Wagner available at: http://www.fictionalpursuits.com/nonfiction-true%20crime.htm

The legendary George Putnam is 88 years young and a veteran of 68 years as a reporter, broadcaster and commentator ... and is still going strong. George is part of the all-star line-up of Southern California's KPLS Radio - Hot Talk AM 830. Click here for George's complete bio ... and check out a new feature article in "Insight" magazine on George: http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=264887

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