Circumstantial evidence convicted Peterson

When her body and that of her fetus turned up four months later not far from the marina where Peterson launched his brand new boat, that alibi became some of the strongest evidence against him.

"Just the fact that her body was found in a place where he put himself - that alone is overwhelming evidence," said Pete Kossoris, a retired attorney who prosecuted murder cases for 27 years.

Kossoris said the defense didn't present a "reasonable alternative" to the prosecution's theory of the case.

"They had no possible other suspect, no other reasonable explanation that her body was found so many miles from home," Kossoris said. "You could postulate that he was framed, but there's no evidence of that — and who the heck would want to frame him?"

Jurors, like all the parties in the case, remain under the judge's gag order until the sentencing phase is complete. But legal experts say they must have concluded that Peterson premeditated the murder to find him guilty of a capital crime. They returned a second-degree murder verdict in connection with the fetus' death.

Although Peterson did not testify, the prosecution successfully characterized him as a liar and schemer — a professional salesman who plotted to rid himself of his pregnant wife to return to the bachelor life. Along with a boat, Peterson bought a fishing license, and cement that prosecutors said was used to weight the body underneath the bay.

Given all that evidence, some wondered why jurors didn't decide that both killings were first-degree murder. Instead, they convicted him of second-degree murder in the death of the fetus Laci was carrying.

"If he's guilty at all, he's guilty not only of run of the mill premeditated murder but of really extreme premeditated murder. The cement, the anchor, the alibi, the boat, the transport ... he must have been planning this for a long time," said Michael Mello, a professor at Vermont Law School and an expert on the psychology of convicted murderers.

Peterson also had a torrid affair with a massage therapist, Amber Frey, in the weeks before the murder. Frey testified that Peterson told her before Laci vanished that he had "lost" his wife and the coming holidays would be the first he would spend alone — a foreshadowing of the murder.

The many tape recordings of conversations between Frey and Peterson proved to be a turning point in the case, which had begun with numerous missteps by prosecutors, observers said.

Lying may not add up to murder, but it may have persuaded jurors to connect the dots between all the other bits of circumstantial evidence prosecutors pounded home in this case.