This photo shows an interior wall of a concrete structure that has paintings on all sides. This and other artwork, below, are near where the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn child were found by the bay.
DEBBIE NODA/THE BEE

By JOHN COTÉ
and GARTH STAPLEY

Published: August 13, 2003, 07:16:22 AM PDT

Scott Peterson's defense team Tuesday briefed two forensic experts on a statanic cult theory, including paintings and artwork near San Francisco Bay and an experiment showing that the pregnant Laci Peterson's body could have been placed in the water at the art site.
Attorney Matt Dalton, using a laptop computer, showed artwork that he said depicted ritualistic killings and occult practices, and said the artwork could be found near the end of a peninsula in the bay.

Dalton also said that the defense team placed weighted flotation devices in the water at the end of the peninsula, and they ended up in the Richmond Inner Harbor, not far from where Laci Peterson's body and that of her unborn son, Conner, came ashore in mid-April.

Scott Peterson is in Stanislaus County Jail, charged with both their murders.

Dalton gave the briefing to criminalist Dr. Henry Lee and forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht while the three waited to review prosecution evidence held at the state crime labora- tory in Ripon.

Tuesday afternoon, the bayside presented evidence of its own: more than a dozen paintings on plywood and scrap lumber mounted on wooden frames at what East Bay residents call The Bulb, the rounded point at the end of the peninsula that holds the Albany Waterfront Trail, an area popular with dog owners.

Some of the artwork features decapitation and devil figures. Many of the paintings portray sexual activity, and several show pregnant women.

But, if the defense is trying to link the painters to Peterson's death, "that's utterly ridiculous," said Bruce Rayburn, a member of an artist collective known as Sniff. "That's reaching for straws."

He said he and three friends painted much of The Bulb artwork over the past five years.

Rayburn, a 50-year-old general contractor, said Tuesday from his El Sobrante home: "We're regular guys with full-time jobs who go down there once a week on Saturday mornings with our families."

Rayburn said neither law enforcement nor defense investigators had contacted him about the paintings.

One shows a man with an ax beheading a man in a rowboat on a body of water; a topless woman kneels next to the beheaded man.

Another shows a devil figure beheading a well-dressed couple in a theater balcony. And another portrays three children, their umbilical cords attached, in a body of water as a giant octopus wraps its tentacles around a naked woman.

"This is all done in fun and games," Rayburn said. "We've had a lot of criticism by certain groups of people who are offended by some of the paintings. There's a lot of good themes going on, but if you're looking for something to criticize, you can find it."

On the inside of a concrete structure on the peninsula, Rayburn's group painted a goat-headed figure spearing a caged man as a demonic image lurks.

"We called the inside of that place hell, because that's what it was to paint," he said. "You had to lay on a board in a foot of water to paint it."

The Bulb for years was a landfill at the edge of the city of Al-bany. The dump closed, and the land evolved into an encampment for homeless people before becoming part of a plan for a waterfront park between Richmond and Emeryville.

Albany police Sgt. John Geissberger said he was not aware of any ritualistic activity at The Bulb -- but that does not mean that it has not occurred, he quickly added.

"There are things that happen that we never hear about," Geissberger said.

Karla LaVey, founder of the San Francisco-based First Sa-tanic Church, said the Peterson defense team was using the satanic tactic as an attempt to deflect blame on a misunderstood and unfairly vilified group.

"Satanism does not involve any type of sacrifice or ritualistic killing," LaVey said. "Satanism obviously is a subject people are ignorant of, and so they tend to be biased and prejudicial."

The experiment

Dalton, in his briefing with Lee and Wecht, said defense investigators experimented with flotation devices -- putting them in the water at the end of The Bulb, between Berkeley Marina and Point Isabel. The current then carried them away.

Laci Peterson's body was found at Point Isabel, and her son's body was found about a mile away in south Richmond.

Scott Peterson has told police that he launched his 14-foot aluminum boat from Berkeley Marina on Christmas Eve, then went fishing for sturgeon off Brooks Island.

He said his wife was gone when he returned home. Family members reported her missing at about 6 p.m.

Dalton, an attorney with lead defense counsel Mark Geragos' Los Angeles law firm, hinted at another possible defense strat-egy -- telling Lee and Wecht about a man accused of killing and dismembering a woman in Las Vegas.

Geragos said little as he and his team left the Ripon lab less than an hour after arriving, apparently without viewing prosecution evidence.

Geragos entered the lab carrying a manila envelope labeled "evidence" and accompanied by Lee. He declined to comment on what took place inside other than to say, "We accomplished something."

Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold said a gag order in the case prevented him from talking about what specifically occurred in the lab but said no arrangements had been confirmed for the defense to view prosecution evidence Tuesday.

"If they're going to look at the evidence, I imagine we're going to be present," Goold said. "Nobody (from the prosecution) was out there today."

Bee staff writer John Coté can be reached at 578-2394 or jcote@modbee.com.

Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at 578-2390 or gstapley@modbee.com.

AT A GLANCE *** I don't know how to post pics, but there is a VERY interesting one on the www.modbee.com website that is what these 3 points refer to.***

1. The route Scott Peterson said he took while fishing on Christmas Eve day.

2. Artwork found painted on boards and walls. Defense attorneys contend the artwork has satanic meanings.

3. Defense team members dropped buoys from the point and tracked their movement. They washed ashore in the Richmond Inner Harbor near where the bodies of Laci and Conner Peterson were found.

Published: August 14, 2003, 06:17:37 AM PDT

Bizarre, violent paintings found near where the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son were recovered do not appear to be the work of Satan worshippers, a law enforcement expert in ritualistic crimes said Wednesday.
An attorney for the woman's husband, Scott Peterson, had said that the defense team was seriously studying the artwork in connection with the double-murder case.

But Fresno police Sgt. Bill Grove, who has studied ritualistic crimes for two decades, scoffed at the notion after reviewing several photographs.

"I see no imagery that would remotely indicate that these are associated with the occult, self-styled devil worship or satanists," Grove said of the graffiti-type paintings.

They are displayed at a remote tip of The Bulb, a peninsula jutting into eastern San Francisco Bay near where Scott Peterson said he fished on the day his wife was reported missing.

Men who claim to have had a hand in the art denied any cult influence. "I'm sorry for the defense if this is all they got," said Osha Neumann, a Berkeley civil rights attorney and sculptor who created some of the art. "This is like aliens doing the crop circles."

Neumann and Bruce Rayburn, who are members of a five-man artist collective known as Sniff, acknowledged the art is edgy, but rebuffed any link to the Peterson case. "There is no relationship to anything," Neumann said. "This is just sort of wild outsider art."

Grove said satanic art typically would include pentagrams, inverted crosses and desecration of Christian emblems. He didn't see any of those in the bayside paintings.

Grove acknowledged that goat-headed figures, devilish caricatures and scenes of beheadings and mutilations -- such as those in the bayside paintings -- often appear in art of the occult.

"But unfortunately, a lot of artists would depict that," Grove said. "You could look at some van Gogh paintings and other name-brand artists and you would find morbid scenes and headless bodies."

The bayside paintings include infants in water with umbilical cords attached and a man with an ax beheading a man in a boat and a woman with severed hands nearby.

Grove said, "I would assume that somebody could look at these and try to interpret them in ways they want to. But I see absolutely nothing in any of the drawings that would be characteristic of someone dabbling in this stuff." He said the paintings had no satanic symbols and lacked the abundance of sharp-edged weapons and active violence typical of satanic drawings.

Grove, a former president of the now- defunct California Ritualistic Crime Investigators Association, worked with prosecutors on a case involving three teen devil worshipers in San Luis Obispo who were convicted of killing and raping a 15-year-old girl in 1995. Grove helped link the crime to graffiti scrawled by the trio.

Bettina Warner, a Berkeley resident who has walked her neighbor's dog Spotty along the peninsula for four years, said the artwork has been aggressive but is simply a reflection of society.

"When Picasso started abstract painting everyone thought he was going too far," Warner said. "(The paintings) are a sign of society, and this is a violent society."

Court's gag order violated?

By JOHN COTÉ
BEE STAFF WRITER

Published: August 14, 2003, 11:20:43 AM PDT

Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami called for an inquiry into a possible gag order violation in the Scott Peterson case, one day after The Bee ran a story detailing elements of the defense team's investigation.
The inquiry is listed on the agenda for a court hearing scheduled for today. The hearing is likely to be dominated by arguments about closing Peterson's preliminary hearing, slated for Sept. 9, to the public.

Peterson, 30, is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife, Laci, 27, and the couple's unborn son, Conner. He has pleaded not guilty.

The hearing agenda, issued Wednesday, does not specify why the judge is looking into a possible defense violation of the gag order.

Wednesday's Bee carried a story indicating that the defense had conducted an experiment which purportedly showed that Laci Peterson's body could have been dropped into San Francisco Bay from a peninsula that features artwork described by a defense attorney as satanic.

This information came to light as Matt Dalton, an attorney with lead defense counsel Mark Geragos' law firm, briefed forensic experts in the presence of a Bee reporter and photographer on Tuesday.

Dalton spoke with Drs. Henry Lee and Cyril Wecht in the lobby at the state Department of Justice lab in Ripon as members of Peterson's defense team waited to get access to prosecution evidence.

The briefing moved outside after defense investigator Bill Pavelic entered the lobby and suggested that Dalton relocate because members of the media were present.

The gag order forbids attorneys and others involved in the case from making "any statement for public dissemination" regarding evidence and other key matters.

Girolami already has indicated that he will conduct a hearing after the trial to determine whether District Attorney James Brazelton violated the gag order for telling The Bee in June that he favors a preliminary hearing over a grand jury indictment to counter misinformation and present evidence "that might open some eyes."

Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold said prosecutors are waiting to see how the judge approaches the latest gag order issue before considering asking for sanctions against the defense.

"I think we're going to have to see what the court wants to talk about tomorrow and deal with it then," Goold said.

The defense contends that police mistakenly targeted Peterson, and it is floating theories that the perpetrator of the slayings is involved in a satanic cult or is a serial killer.

Peterson has said he returned from a daylong fishing trip Christmas Eve and found his wife missing from their Modesto home.

Peterson has told police that he launched his 14-foot aluminum boat from the Berkeley Marina, then went fishing for sturgeon off Brooks Island.

The peninsula with the artwork is between the marina and Point Isabel, where Laci Peterson's body was found in April. Her son's body was found about a mile away in south Richmond.

Defense attorneys have cited the massive media attention around the case in asking Girolami to close Peterson's preliminary hearing, when prosecutors are expected to lay out closely guarded evidence.

The defense maintains that the inevitable media attention would taint jurors and jeopardize Peterson's right to a fair trial.

Prosecutors are in favor of an open hearing, but have joined Laci Peterson's family in asking the judge to bar cameras from the courtroom.

Cameras would "thrust nervous and unwilling victims, witnesses and others into the glaring media spotlight" and turn the trial into "entertainment for the masses," according to prosecution court filings.

Media attorneys have noted that open court proceedings are an integral part of the legal system and guard against potential abuse by judges or prosecutors.

Attorneys representing a group of TV networks also contend that cameras have had a negligible impact on trials where they were allowed.

Girolami also will consider a prosecution request to survey Stanislaus County residents called in for jury duty in an attempt to gauge whether it is necessary to move Peterson's trial. Prosecutors are asking to conduct the surveys in two other California counties.

Prosecutors also filed documents Wednesday saying they strictly followed state and fed- eral law when administering two wiretaps on Peterson's phones.

The documents counter defense contentions that the law police relied on is unconstitutional and take issue with "inflamma-tory and personal" attacks in defense filings.

"(The prosecution) will not respond in kind to such provocation," Senior Deputy District Attorney Rick Distaso wrote.

....got a little worried after I hit "post".....

You know I love ya, Sam!

Those paintings are weird in my opinion.

Being at that location is really weird (IMO).

They have successfully planted the seed of doubt in my mind, guess I will have to wait and see the rest of the evidence.

Those paintings are weird - and to be in that location ?

Fool me once shame on you, fool me TWICE, shame on me.

Weird art I must say. They can say what they want but this art is by a group of cult nutz !

I agree, weird and gruesome, and I think someone has extremely bad taste in doing such paintings (especially that one guy saying they bring their FAMILIES down there to do the paintings- very strange!).

But does it necessarily mean someone else was responsible for Laci's death? I don't really think so....

I think the defense is grasping at straws as far as the cult theory goes. I am not ruling out other possibilities though, but I firmly do NOT believe that any kind of cult was involved.

DON'T THINK FOR ONE MINUTE I THINK THEIR IS ANY THING FUNNY ABOUT THIS CASE.
BUT I DO THINK IT'S FUNNY WHEN PEOPLE TAKE EVERYTHING THE DEFENSE SAYS AS FACTUAL.

I have never thought for one second there is anything funny about this case but I do think it strange that people take everything the prosecution leaks and statements as factual for instance 'slam-dunk'.

In many ways this investigation reminds me of Boulder, Colorado. The BPD had a slam-dunk up their sleeves identical with focus only on the Ramsey's, and they let the killer(s) go free and remain out there somewhere, in our neighborhoods, on our streets and breathing our air.

I think I will wait for evidence - rather than believe its a slam dunk.

I am only judging SP by his own actions and words. Judging in my own opinion. Like you say, maybe he is just one strange "dude".

If the prosecution comes forward with only circumstantial evidence, and a theory, there will be room for doubt, IMO. Now if they have good forensic evidence, he's a goner.

We will have far more to say when we hear the evidence. Thank Goodness the Judge had enough sense to keep the proceedings OPEN!!!

I am merely going on Scott's actions so far, and his lies.

I ran across similar artwork when I was studying "Posession" which was in the Ramsey case ransom note; "Posession" is the name of this art, top painting similar in style to that in Albany (bottom photo):

Mikie, thanks these large pictures show the ugliness and details I was unable to capture. There must be many more ...

Keep cranking out those press releases: you're bound to get some juror who believes in any one of those.

By GARTH STAPLEY
BEE STAFF WRITER

Before Scott and Laci Peterson, Stanislaus County had the Salida massacre.

Both cases have been colored with questions of ritualistic murder by Satan worshippers. Some are debating if the current high-profile proceeding could have a connection to the 1990 slaughter of four people in Salida.

Scott Peterson's legal team six weeks ago laid out a strategy relying on the theory that his wife, Laci Peterson, may have been kidnapped in Modesto and slain by Satan worshippers. She was eight months pregnant with a son, Conner, when she disappeared at Christmastime.

Sources close to the case say that in June, Peterson's defense team acquired a coat worn by a Modesto resident allegedly affiliated with an occult group. The man bragged about being involved in Laci Peterson's death, a source said

The defense submitted the trenchcoat-type jacket for forensic analysis. The jacket bore an Oakland Raiders logo, had a downward rip from one side pocket, and had been torn and sewn in other places.

Also, authorities are consulting with Randy Cerny, a local expert on ritualistic crimes whom they directed not to speak to the media because he may testify in Peterson's proceedings, he said. Cerny had testified in the Salida killers' cases.

TV personalities such as talk show host Larry King and NBC reporter Dan Abrams have discussed a seeming similarity between the Peterson case and the one that shined regional attention on Salida in the early 1990s. The Salida case ended with three defendants on death row and two others with life sentences.

One survivor and two former cult members not involved in that massacre -- all three admittedly scarred by the butchery -- aren't willing to rule out a possible connection.

Some lawyers involved in the Salida case, however, and other experts scoff at the notion. They chalk it up to a trial balloon floated by Peterson's defense camp.

Observers may find out next month whether his attorneys will raise the issue in court. A preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin Oct. 20.

However, such proceedings typically focus on the prosecution's evidence. Defense strategy often doesn't become apparent until the actual trial, which might be a year or more away.

Peterson has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and unborn son. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Deaths in Salida

Locals were horrified 13 years ago at the gruesome details of the Salida murders, committed by a paramilitary cult whose charismatic and sadistic leader had a deep interest in the occult.

"It was very serious, not just dabbled in," said former group member Angela Young of their unconventional worship. She broke away from the group before the murders, but her younger brother, Ricky Vieira, stayed and was sentenced to death.

Leader Gerald Cruz manipulated group members through bizarre activities that included indoctrination into various forms of the occult, sleep deprivation and brainwashing. At his direction, witnesses said, some members beat, raped and tortured each other.

Cruz eventually led his followers from their living compound in Salida to a nearby duplex where they bashed and slashed the occupants to death with baseball bats and knives. At least some of the victims were disassociated members of Cruz's circle.

Killed were Darlene Paris, 23, Frank Raper, 51, Dennis Colwell, 35, and Richard T. Ritchey, 25.

Brazelton, a deputy district attorney at the time, steered the prosecution. A few years later, he became district attorney and now oversees the Peterson case, although his senior prosecutors are handling courtroom proceedings.

Sentenced to death in the Salida case were Cruz, now 41; his "enforcer," David Beck, 47; and Vieira, 34. Jason LaMarsh, 36, and Ronald Willey, 37, received prison sentences of 64 years to life. All remain under appeal.

]b]A cult or just bizarre?

Their trials were sprinkled with testimony on the occult, including blood-letting rituals and black magic.

But many details were excluded from parts of the proceedings, sometimes because Brazelton protested, sometimes at the request of Cruz's lawyer.

In a recent interview, Brazelton said, "There was no evidence of any cult or rituals, though the defense tried to make it seem that way."

Cruz's Van Nuys lawyer, Seymour Amster, agreed, saying, "It didn't come out (in court) because it wasn't a cult murder in any sense, in my opinion."

for Cruz's followers recalled things differently.

Ramon Magana of Modesto, who represented LaMarsh, remembers stories of rituals under the full moon at midnight along the Stanislaus River. Diaries and letters by group members made reference to desecrating graves, forced sodomy and beatings for disobedience, and even murder, Magana said, calling the writings "chilling."

"My recollection is that Brazelton wanted to focus only on the (Salida slayings) themselves," Magana said. "If the case got cluttered up with anything else, it might hurt his case."

Amster fought to exclude evidence of the occult from much of the proceedings, arguing that the group's worship was irrelevant to the quadruple murder.

Rituals, writings and sacrifice

Modesto attorney William Arthur Miller, who represented Willey, recalled many of the same things as Magana, plus allegations of animal sacrifice. He said group members listened to heavy metal music just before the murders, and remembered talk of group members dancing at one point, as if in a ritual.

Miller said crime scene photos revealed a scrap of paper scrawled with a ritual prayer or chant. A length of hair from one of the victims was affixed by a magnet to a refrigerator door, he said, noting that Satanists are said to use "parts of a victim's physical being to cast spells."

"A lot looked like satanic worship," Miller said of the writings. He recalled a member saying that the " sacrifice of a newborn baby was the 'cleaningest' thing you could do. I took that to mean to 'most cleansing,'" Miller said.