More than two decades after Laci Peterson disappeared, the name Amber Frey remains closely connected to one of the most closely watched murder cases in modern California history.
Frey was not a suspect in the case. She was the woman who had been romantically involved with Laci’s husband, Scott Peterson, without initially knowing that he was married.
When Laci disappeared in December 2002, Frey soon learned that the man she had been seeing had not been truthful with her about his life. She eventually contacted investigators and became one of the most important witnesses in the prosecution’s case.
Today, Amber Frey has largely stepped away from the intense public attention that surrounded her during the investigation and trial. But with renewed interest in the Peterson case in 2026, questions about what happened to Frey and where her life took her afterward have resurfaced.
How Amber Frey met Scott Peterson
Frey met Peterson in November 2002, only weeks before Laci disappeared.
At the time, Frey was a single mother living in California and working as a massage therapist. She had been introduced to Peterson through her friend Shawn Sibley, who had met him at a convention.
Frey believed Peterson was single and looking for a serious relationship.
According to Frey’s account, she met him for the first time on November 20, 2002, at the Elephant Bar in Fresno. Their relationship developed quickly.
What Frey did not know was that Peterson was married to Laci Peterson, who was pregnant with their first child.
That fact would become one of the most important revelations in the case.
The phone call that changed everything
On December 9, 2002, Peterson told Frey something that immediately changed her understanding of their relationship.
According to Frey’s later account, Peterson admitted that he had lied about being married. He also told her that he had “lost” his wife and that it would be his first Christmas without her.
At the time, Laci was still alive and had not yet disappeared.
Laci was reported missing on December 24, 2002, after she could not be located. Her disappearance quickly became a major national news story.
As Frey watched the reports, she recognized the name of the missing woman’s husband.
She realized that the man she had been dating was Scott Peterson.
That discovery changed Frey’s role completely.
She was no longer simply a woman who had unknowingly dated a married man. She potentially had information that investigators needed.
Frey contacted authorities
Frey went to investigators and explained her relationship with Peterson.
She told police about the conversations they had shared and about what Peterson had told her before Laci’s disappearance.
Investigators then asked Frey to cooperate with them.
Unbeknownst to Peterson, Frey recorded a series of phone conversations between them while working with authorities. Investigators hoped that continued contact might lead Peterson to reveal information about Laci or his involvement in her disappearance.
The recordings eventually became important evidence presented during Peterson’s trial.
Frey later testified in court and described her relationship with Peterson, including what she had been told before and after Laci disappeared.
Her testimony became one of the most closely watched parts of the trial.
Why Amber Frey’s testimony mattered
The prosecution’s case against Peterson relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, but Frey’s testimony helped prosecutors establish a timeline and demonstrate that Peterson had been maintaining a secret relationship while married to Laci.
Her account also showed that Peterson had told her he was single even though he was married.
Frey did not witness Laci’s disappearance or her death.
She could not tell jurors what happened to Laci inside the Peterson home or what happened afterward.
Her importance to the case came from what she knew about Peterson’s behavior and statements surrounding the period immediately before Laci disappeared.
That distinction remains important when discussing Frey’s role.
She was a witness who provided information to investigators and prosecutors, not an eyewitness to the murder.
The trial and Peterson’s conviction
Scott Peterson was arrested in April 2003 after Laci and the couple’s unborn son, Conner, were found in the San Francisco Bay area.
In 2004, Peterson was convicted of murdering Laci and their unborn son.
He was initially sentenced to death.
Frey’s testimony was part of the prosecution’s presentation during the highly publicized trial, and her appearance in court attracted enormous media attention.
For Frey, the experience meant that details of her private life suddenly became public.
She had gone from being an unknown single mother to a nationally recognized witness in one of the country’s biggest murder cases.
What happened to Amber Frey after the trial?
After Peterson’s conviction, Frey largely moved away from the center of the public spotlight.
She later wrote a memoir, Witness: For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson, published in 2005. The book detailed her relationship with Peterson and her experience cooperating with investigators and testifying at trial.
She also continued her professional life as a massage therapist.
Over the years, Frey has occasionally spoken about the case, but she has generally maintained a much lower public profile than she had during the investigation and trial.
Her story resurfaced again in 2024 when she appeared in the Netflix documentary American Murder: Laci Peterson, which revisited the disappearance and murder case more than 20 years later.
In the documentary, Frey reflected on the circumstances surrounding her first meeting with Peterson and described what she believed she was looking for at the time: a genuine relationship with someone who wanted to settle down.
The documentary gave viewers another opportunity to hear her perspective directly rather than only through old trial coverage.
Where is Amber Frey now?
Frey has continued to keep much of her personal life private.
She has remained associated with Fresno, California, and has continued her work as a massage therapist. Her life today is considerably removed from the media frenzy that surrounded her more than 20 years ago.
Rather than remaining a constant presence in true-crime coverage, Frey has largely allowed the case to remain in the past while occasionally participating in documentaries or interviews that revisit what happened.
Her decision to cooperate with investigators ultimately became one of the defining chapters of her life, but it was not the only part of her story.
For years, Frey has had to live with the fact that her name became permanently associated with a case that began with a missing pregnant woman and ended with a double-murder conviction.
The Peterson case is back in the spotlight in 2026
The renewed interest in Frey comes at a time when Scott Peterson’s case itself is receiving fresh attention.
Peterson remains convicted of murdering Laci and their unborn son. His death sentence was overturned in 2020, and he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He continues to maintain his innocence.
In 2026, Peterson’s legal team and supporters have again pointed to evidence they say deserves further examination.
A&E’s documentary Scott Peterson: The New Evidence has brought renewed attention to those claims, including arguments from Peterson’s defense that certain evidence and investigative leads deserve closer scrutiny.
Those claims should not be confused with a finding that Peterson was wrongly convicted.
Peterson remains legally convicted of the murders, and renewed discussion about evidence does not by itself overturn that conviction.
The development does, however, explain why people are once again searching for information about the people who played major roles in the original investigation — including Amber Frey.
Frey’s role remains part of the historical record
More than 20 years later, Amber Frey’s role in the case remains relatively straightforward despite the enormous attention surrounding it.
She met Scott Peterson believing he was an unmarried man.
She later learned that he was married and that his wife was missing.
She contacted authorities.
She cooperated with investigators.
She recorded conversations with Peterson at their request.
And she testified during the murder trial.
None of that makes Frey responsible for what happened to Laci Peterson.
Instead, her story illustrates how a person who initially had no connection to a criminal investigation can suddenly become an important witness when previously hidden information comes to light.
Her decision to approach authorities also meant sacrificing much of her privacy.
The relationship that she thought might become part of her future instead became something remembered almost entirely through the lens of a murder investigation.
More than two decades later
The disappearance of Laci Peterson occurred on Christmas Eve 2002.
Her death and the death of her unborn son, Conner, shocked the country and generated years of intense media coverage.
Scott Peterson was eventually convicted, and he remains imprisoned.
But the story has never completely disappeared.
Documentaries continue to revisit the case. New claims about evidence continue to attract attention. And people who followed the investigation from the beginning still remember the name Amber Frey.
Today, however, Frey’s life is far removed from the courtroom where she once faced days of intense questioning.
She is remembered as the woman whose relationship with Scott Peterson unexpectedly placed her inside the investigation, but her life did not end with the Peterson trial.
She testified, told investigators what she knew, published her account of the experience and gradually stepped away from the spotlight.
And now, as renewed interest surrounds the Peterson case in 2026, the question of where Amber Frey is today offers a different perspective on an old case.
The murder investigation may have permanently changed her life, but it did not define everything that came afterward.
More than 20 years later, Amber Frey remains largely out of the spotlight — while the case that made her name famous continues to generate questions, documentaries and renewed legal scrutiny.