Talk:Scott Peterson

Chris Couch incident
According to everything I have seen Couch spent his entire college career in Florida, a long way from Arizona. 70.172.197.180 (talk) 02:36, 26 February 2022 (UTC)


 * The passage is supported by this article in The Modesto Bee. Maybe you could contact them to challenge its claims. Nightscream (talk) 05:00, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The source says that Couch went to Arizona on a recruiting trip but ended up going to college in Florida instead. Cullen328 (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

"Direct connection"
I removed the phrase "direct connection to the homicide" from the paragraph on the hair sample. First, the source provided did not use the term "direct" to describe the hair evidence, and, while I'm not sure what "direct connection" was precisely meant to indicate, it seemed, to me, to be too close to "direct evidence". The hair sample, of course, was not direct evidence of homicide—it was potentially evidence that Laci was on the boat, and the defense and prosecution disagreed about the meaning of that evidence given the circumstances—the protection argued that Laci had never been on the boat; the defense said that she had. I added sources and some text explaining that debate.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 14:46, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Evidence and motive section
I'm not sure about separating the trial section into subheadings on evidence and motive.

As to the evidence section: First, the evidence section omits a lot of evidence! For example, the prosecution clearly relied on Peterson's deceptive acts after his wife's death—evidence of those acts were absolutely admitted as evidence. Second, it's not clear to me what the "evidence" section is meant to do as distinct from the text directly under the "Trial" section—which, not for nothing, mentions evidence that isn't discussed in the evidence section.

As to the motive section, I'd just point out that the motive section is extremely brief, and it could absolutely be merged into the general trial text.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 14:50, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Hello! I've worked on this article a bit, but I think it should be merged with Murder of Laci Peterson.

I'm not sure Scott is independently notable outside of the murder of his wife, and, further, a significant amount of the information in this article not only could but should be in the Murder of Laci Peterson article. For example, this article's discussion of the legal aftermath of the murder is, for some reason, significantly longer than the discussion of the trial on the Murder of Laci Peterson article. In fact, with the possible exception of the early life section, I would say all off this article should be on the Murder of Laci Peterson page, and the early life section could very easily be included on that page.

I saw on the Murder of Laci Peterson page that someone had previously suggested (though seemingly not officially proposed) merging that content with this page, but I think the reverse makes far more sense, as, again, I don't think Scott is independently notable outside of the context of the crime—in other words, Scott Peterson is notable because of the crime he was convicted for; the crime isn't notable because Scott Peterson was convicted for it. --Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 19:21, 10 April 2023 (UTC)


 * There was consensus to merge in 2011: Talk:Murder of Laci Peterson/Archive 1. I would just go for it. Also merger discussions usually happen at the target destination's talk page (i.e., not this one). czar  22:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah sorry—I saw on the Murder of Laci Peterson page that someone had suggested merging that page to this  page, so I went with that, but I will keep that in mind for the future!--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 12:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, as the editor responsible for 58% of the edits on the Scott Peterson article, and 71% of the edits on the Murder of Laci Peterson article, I'm for keeping the two articles separate. Nightscream (talk) 13:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Absolutely understand you'd have a connection to both articles then, but can I ask why you think they should be separate in terms of policy? Is Scott Peterson notable outside of the murder case? I mean, certainly the vast, vast majority of this article is devoted to that case. Having begun a draft version of a merged article, I've also realized that there are many identical sentences (and many identical sources) used in each article. --Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 13:28, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Having further reviewed the 2011 merge discussion (in which virtually every editor supported merger) and the articles as they exist today in order to draft a merged version, I think this isn't a close case. I haven't seen any argument that Scot is notable outside of the murder case. Aside from the early-life section, which absolutely could be in the murder article, every section in this article that isn't currently in the murder article objectively should be—why is the trial discussed here and not there? (And, as to the early-life section, only portions of that section aren't currently in the murder article.) There are many completely identical sentences and many, many completely identical sources. I'll be working on a merged version for a bit, but given that no arguments relying on WP policy have been made in support of keeping the articles separate, my plan, barring new arguments on this talk page, is to is to effect the merger once that draft is completed.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 14:04, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * On second thought, I think maybe the merge was the right thing to do. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 21:24, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal: Scott Petersen (disambiguation) to here
Scott Petersen (disambiguation) only has 2 entries, so merging here is a good WP:ATD. Boleyn (talk) 11:39, 29 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Support merge per nom. Scott Petersen (disambiguation) is not a valid DAB as it stands and I believe it is standard practice to combine people with the same first name and very similar surnames into one dab. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 02:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)