Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson

Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson is forensic psychiatrist Keith Ablow's account of the case that gripped the country: the 2002 disappearance of Laci Peterson, pregnant with the couple's first child, and the conviction of her husband Scott for her murder and that of their unborn son. Drawing on FBI contacts, private investigators, and his own clinical background, Ablow traces a "bloodline" of childhood loss and abandonment across three generations of the Peterson family, and argues that an undiagnosed pattern of infidelity and detachment left Scott capable of the crime. The book examines Peterson's affair with Amber Frey while Laci was pregnant, his televised interviews with Gloria Gomez and Diane Sawyer, and his demeanor throughout the trial, in an attempt to answer how an outwardly unremarkable man became a convicted killer.