Laci & Levi: Tragic Endings of Modesto Women

so you have probably heard the saying that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place but in a figurative sense Modesto California is a place where lightning did strike twice in the sense that there was uh two high-profile cases of missing women many years ago at least 20 years ago both women ended up tragically murdered the first case involved a missing intern from Modesta California named shadra Levy that basically sned the career of a US congressman a short time later a young pretty 27-year-old Medesto girl who was pregnant disappeared Christmas Eve and ultimately her husband was charged with her murder hi welcome to this episode of History Hunters I'm here at the Burwood Cemetery in Escalon California and I'm certainly not the first YouTuber to come out here but I'm going to show you the grave of lacy Peterson at Conor Peterson The Unborn Child that was murdered by Dad I'm also going to take you to Lakewood Cemetery for the first time ever we're going to show you the marker marking the grave of Shandra Le this is really a beautiful and peaceful Cemetery other than the morning traffic the morning Community is on and uh there a lot of traffic Going Down River Road beautiful spot and uh wanted to highlight Lacy Peterson and her life story she's born in 1975 she died on December 24th 2002 she was in the news quite a bit she was murdered with her un Bor child Connor and her husband Scott Peterson was charged with murder and uh he's still appealing that and the grave is right here Lacy Denise roacha now the reason that Peterson wasn't put on the grave is because their parents obviously didn't want any mention of the name Peterson says our brown-eyed girl Denise roacha May 4th 1975 to December 24th 2002 and then there's the grave of Connor our precious baby Connor your beautiful smile contagious laughter laughing heart and free spirit will forever be with us we love you so much and hold you close within our hearts until we are together again our angels in heaven and there's a bunch of Christmas decorations out here Christmas tree po cyia little toys very tragic now sadly not all of the remains of lacy are here in this grave um don't want to get too graphic they've never found various parts of her body she was found of course in the San Francisco Bay where Scott Peterson had said he was had been fishing that day it's believed that he had made some concrete anchors to anchor down the body however with the decomposition her body ended up floating to the surface and then washing up on the shore there on the East Bay in November 2004 Scott Peterson was found guilty of first-degree murder of lacy Peterson and second degree murder of their infant son now Lacy grew up in St County and sanen County and she worked on a dairy farm west of here at a young age her parents divorced and Lacy and her brother Sharon the mom the children moved to Modesto and they she eventually married Ron graty who helped raise Lacy and Brent from the time that Lacy was 2 years old Lacy was a cheerleader in junior high school and high school and after graduating from Downey High School she attended calply State University in San Louis abiso majoring in ornamental Horticulture in 1994 Scott and Lacy Peterson met in Marrow Bay where he was working at the Pacific Cafe while attending school there they began dating and Scott put aside his dreams of being a professional golfer to the side to focus on a business career that moved in together after 2 years of dating after she graduate from calply in 1997 they were married and Scott finished his senior year and Lacy took a job in nearby prundale it's believed that Scott was unfaithful to Lacy at that time Scott then graduated in June of 1998 and then they opened a sports bar in San Louisa bispo called the shack but then they sold it moved to Modesto to start a family where tragedy would take place in their lives unnecessary tragedy in October 2000 the Petersons purchased a three-bedroom two- bath house on cavina Avenue for 177,000 Lacy took a part-time job as a substitute teacher and Scott took a job with a fertilizer company Lacy found out that she was pregnant in 2002 and she had a due date of February 10th 2003 she was excited about about being a mother she loved being a homemaker she loved watching Martha Stewart loved to cook and uh she was preparing for the beautiful child that was going to be coming into their lives unfortunately Scott Peterson was fooling around quite a bit uh I understand he had a numerous Affairs and he met this woman named amder fry and after the well let me tell you about that Scott Peterson was telling her that uh first that he wasn't married and then he said he was a widower and this would be the first Christmas without her this was in November uh keep in mind he hadn't killed lcy yet and uh so he was already planting in her mind that the the wife had died well Amber fry heard about this report on the news about the Lacy beers and disappearance everybody knew about it at the time so he was actually calling her from the memorial service it's they had a vigil for Lacy and Scott was calling his his lover down in Fresno at that time and uh so finally Abra probably had enough of this and she came to Medesto place I met Scott Peterson November 20th 2002 I was introduced to him I was told he was unmarried you came to me after Sean had found out that you were married and you came and told me this elaborate lie about her missing and this tragedy and that no and that that this will be the first holidays without her to me I never said Amber yes I I God I don't want to fight with you um you know that I I never said tragedy or missing oh yes you said you've lost your wife no said obious obviously without me saying much but we will I said that I lost my wife yes you did I did and yes how did you lose her then before she was lost explain that they're different kind of loss Amber then explain your loss I I can't to you now when can you I can my has been smeared all over tabloids and everything else because I'm the the the the lover I'm the girlfriend when you had the when you've been married to this woman you don't deserve that no I don't deserve this from that point on everybody thought sweet old Scott Peterson was an innocent guy up to that point and uh he got his jurors must decide more than Scott Peterson's innocence or guilt they may also determine whether he deserves the death penalty he was actually sentenced to death in that death penalty of course nobody dies in California because of our our governor and um so now he's behind bars for Life he's trying to appeal his case saying it was all circumstantial evidence so a little bit of trivia that nobody else probably has reported on or knows about is if you come back this way we have this woman here her name was Mary Jean presnell Montgomery 1924 to 1999 beloved wife mother grandmother married to Eugene Montgomery Well turns out that Mary prno is the aunt of movie star har presnell rain is test the fire Jo and they call the windage [Music] part of President a Modesto native and uh he's very famous around here his whole family lived in the north Modesto Area off alad road who was in the uh musical Annie and it was also in the famous Saving Private Ryan film with Tom Hanks a little bit of trivia that probably nobody has told you about on YouTube I think if you're like me you probably have been really troubled by this Story I mean you've got a good-looking guy married to a beautiful wife by all indications she was just a sweet young girl she was 27 years old and they were looking forward to their first child I mean why why are you out fulling around and then to have the most Sinister idea to kill your wife and your baby so you wouldn't have to pay child support so you could go mess around with somebody else I don't get like what the hell so I think what I'm going to do now is take you over to cavina Avenue in Modesto show you the house where Scott and Lacy Peterson lived likely the place where he snuffed out her life police believe that he suffocated her taking her life and that of their unborn [Music] baby so this is the house up here the green house that's the uh Peterson house the one that they lived in and likely where Lacy was murdered Before Christmas of 2002 so at one time this was probably the most talked about house in the country because of the tremendous media frenzy that was occurring over the case Scott claimed that he left this house on the morning of December 24th to go fishing at the Berkeley Marina on the San Francisco Bay but medesa police believed that he killed her here and that the fishing trip was merely a cover while he dumped her body in the bay used concrete anchors to keep her from floating now when he left here he claimed that Lacy was watching a Martha steart show about mering and uh said she was preparing to mop the floor bake cookies and walk the family dog to a nearby park now the prosecution said part of his cover for the crime would be to make it appear that Lacy was kidnapped while walking the dog so he had to free it from the yard and neighbors found the Peterson's golden retriever McKenzie out in front so when Peterson gets done dumping the body he returns home and he puts on this act asking neighbors if they'd seen Lacy and uh probably as a ruse to throw off the detectives he called Lacy's cell phone I left a message that said hey beautiful it's 2:15 I'm leaving Berkeley he then called his mother-in-law Sharon to ask if Lacy was with her and that's when they decided to report her as missing at about 600 p.m. on Christmas Eve now detectives were pretty suspicious of Peterson from the start saying that he seemed arrogant distant irritable and uh a guy that didn't seem like he was too disturbed by his wife's disappearance now there was absolutely no evidence in this house that Lac was killed now the driveway was a focus for the murder trial because the concrete anchor anchors that Scott made in his Warehouse prosecutors believe that he used cement to make five anchors one of which they found in the boat the others they suspect were used to keep his wife's body down in the water in the bay but they've never been recovered but Peterson Peterson claimed that he made only one anchor and used the rest of the 90 lb bag of cement to repair this driveway but a witness testified in court that the concrete samples taken by police from his driveway did not match the concrete in the anchor discovered on the boat and of course when the body's washed ashore in April of 2003 Scott Peterson was arrested in charge with two counts of murder you're feeding not guilty is two charges of uh murder that's correct young I'm innocent did you murder your wife no no violence towards women is unapproachable it is the most disgusting act to me did your wife find out about it I told my wife when and um early December did it cause a rupture in the marriage uh it wasn't anything that would break us apart there wasn't a lot of anger no do you really expect people to believe that an 8 and a half month pregnant woman learns her husband has had an affair and is saintly and accommodating makes a peace with it yeah you don't know no one knows our relationship but us her husband Scott has been all but tried and convicted by many nobody ever run into believes any part of your story she and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner when she told me that she's going to stop taking birth control pills in December well that surprised me because it had only been a month ago that Scott didn't want to have children so we had a conversation about that and I said are you sure are both of you absolutely sure because you can't put the baby back once he's here and she said yes that they had talked about it and they were ready that Scott was ready also [Music] so I've come over here to a different cemetery and if you look over here by the stos county Peace Officers Association Memorial off to the left you will see the grave of Jim brazzleton who was the district attorney who prosecuted the Scott Peterson case started over in stanos county and it moved over to Redwood City because most of the people around here thought Scott Peters was guilty so they thought that uh he couldn't get a fair trial here in this County but uh turns out that the Redwood City jury as well considered him guilty as Sin and the marker for Brazelton is here says BRZ fought hard and strong for all victims of violent crimes he was the voice of those silence forever and over on the front side you see that there's a picture on his grave James CLA brazzleton 1941 to 2007 Patriot steadfast loving husband and father loyal friend I Will Always Love You So I actually knew Jim brazzleton uh there were many times I would come out here to the Peace Officers Memorial and being a local reporter here in St County he would come around uh election time wanting some ink as you know how politicians are they want their campaign message out there so he was a politician District Attorneys are elected by the people I am now in Lakewood Memorial Park it's a massive Cemetery outside of Modesto it's closer to Houston California but it's one of the largest cemeteries in staw County a couple years ago I came out here if you remember I did a video on the graves of actor Dean shagger and the woman who is known as the migrant mother and uh stopped by here to see if I could find the grave of Shandra leevi now at that time there was no marker that I'm aware of I checked online found out that there is now a marker for her now it's not very hard to find you just look for this Jewish symbol up here and we're in the Jewish portion of the cemetery that's devoted to the Jewish people and her grave is right here shra and Levy April 14th 1977 she was born actually in Cleveland Ohio she was the daughter of a doctor here in Modesto Dr Robert Levy and his wife Susan she grew up in Modesto however she attended San Francisco State University obtaining a degree in journalism and then began attending the University of Southern California to ear her master's degree in public administration as part of her studies she moved to Washington DC where she interned with the Federal Bureau of Prisons when she completed her degree requirements and her internship ended she prepared to return to California while in DC she became friends with Congressman Gary Condit who represented Modesto in Congress so I apologize for the noise but uh this grave is pretty close to the Santa Fe Avenue over here it's a busy road there a train track so there could be a train coming through here but want talk about the fact that Sher Levy was last seen April 30th of 2001 the next day was May 1st she decided to go jogging she was living in the area of Rock Creek Park there in the suburb of DC she actually had um Googled online how to find this Mansion where a lot of joggers would go jogging it's a historic Mansion her parents reported her missing when she didn't show up in California the local newspaper was tipped off that Shandra was having a relationship with Congressman Gary Condit and what's the story broke oh hell broke Lo it was a media frenzy like never before seen in St County it was the biggest news story of 2001 until September 11th terrorist attacks took place which completely preempted that whole uh media frenzy it was never proven that Gary coted had anything to do with The Disappearance of this young lady but it had to be the dumbest luck of any politician alive to be messing around with a young intern from your District who turns up missing because obviously it's going to come back to you they're going to find out you had something going on with her and you were going to be a person of interest but it completely destroyed his credibility in his district for somebody who was always a people person and always accessible to his constituents he became elusive he became combative sometimes with the Press at one time he was swatting at a photographer and that that picture just kind of went uh went crazy now public opinion kind of basically said Gary KH is not the person that we thought he was destroyed his reputation the following March 2002 there was a primary election for congress he was running for re-election he lost the election to his U underling Dennis Cardoza and approximately two months later charer ley's body turns up in the park now they had searched Rod Creek Park a number of times with dogs they never did find any evidence of charge of leaving then one day somebody found the skeletal remains of shra Ley so it's right here in this grave the remains that were found in Rock Creek Park you know for such a a huge story um I'm wondering 100 years from now people will walk through here while they even know the name of Shandra leevy now her murderer has never been identified police pretty much ruled out conduit as I explained but in March 2009 police had arrested an illegal aliens from El Salvador named ingbar gandaki and charged him with the murder he had been convicted of assaulting two other women Rock Creek Park in 2015 he was convicted of Levy's murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison but the case was overturned questioning the credibility of a jail house witness so really somebody got away with murder so far hopefully someday we'll find out who did this to this young lady stuffed out her life it's just tremendously sad I do want to thank you for helping us honor the memory of these two young ladies from Modesto California that died uh very close together died in some ways that no young woman should die when I think of lacy Peterson you know we need to guys we need to think about think about impact of our decisions I think of Scott Peterson I'm sure when he decided to mess around on his wife he probably had no idea that end up the way he did would you please give us a a comment and would you please give us a thumbs up we always appreciate you participating in the audience of History Hunters thank you so much

Channel: History Hunters

Views: 55,138

Keywords: History Hunters, Laci Peterson, Scott Peterson, Chandra Levy, Famous graves, Modesto crimes, Stanislaus County

Id: Z5SmP-v1lwE

Length: 21min 47sec (1307 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 21 2024