Scott Peterson, Serving a Life Sentence for Murdering His Wife, Is ‘Optimistic and Confident’ He’ll Go Free (Exclusive)

In 'Face to Face With Scott Peterson,' a new three-part docuseries premiering on Peacock on Aug. 20, Peterson maintains his innocence from behind bars

For the first time in more than two decades, Scott Peterson is speaking out in a new documentary amid an effort to prove he’s innocent of the murders of his wife Laci and unborn son Conner.

In Face to Face With Scott Peterson, a new three-part docuseries premiering on Peacock on Aug. 20, the 51-year-old Peterson — who is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole — continues to maintain his innocence from behind bars at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Calif., as detailed in this week's PEOPLE cover story.

Today, as the Los Angeles Innocence Project’s appeal of Scott’s 2004 conviction makes its way through California courts, Face to Face director Shareen Anderson — who spent a year interviewing Scott via video from prison — says the inmate is “optimistic and confident” that ongoing efforts to free him will be successful.

On May 29, a judge approved his attorneys’ request to conduct a DNA test on duct tape found attached to Laci’s body but refused testing on 16 other pieces of evidence. Scott, however, is patient.

“People want the answer they believed in to continue to be the answer,” he says with a cool smile. “We’re all slow to admit when we’re wrong.”

Related: Scott Peterson Breaks His Silence: ‘I Was an A-Hole’ to Laci—But 'I Didn’t Kill My Wife’ (Exclusive)

On Dec. 24, 2002, shortly after 6 p.m., Scott called the Modesto Police Department to report his wife missing. Laci was eight months pregnant at the time.

By the time detectives arrived at the couple’s home, nearly three dozen friends, family members and neighbors had already frantically fanned out in the quiet suburban neighborhood looking for Laci.

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Scott left home at about 9:30 a.m. that day, he told police, to take his new boat out on the San Francisco Bay.

On Dec. 30, 2002, the investigation took a dramatic twist when detectives learned that Scott had been engaged in an extramarital affair with a Fresno, Calif., massage therapist named Amber Frey.

On April 18 — days after Laci’s and Conner’s decomposed bodies washed up on a shoreline roughly two miles from where Scott claimed to have been fishing — he was arrested in La Jolla, Calif. He had $15,000 in cash and bleached hair, and prosecutors believed he was fleeing to Mexico. However, Scott claims he was “never running from the police.”

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Scott's supporters believe that on the morning Laci disappeared in Modesto, Calif., the house across the street from the Petersons’ home was burglarized. They say Laci witnessed the crime in progress and was abducted—and killed—by members of a network of criminals active in the neighborhood.

Neighbors told police a van was parked outside the house, and the next day a burned-out van was found less than a mile from the couple’s house. Scott’s lawyers filed a motion for DNA tests on a mattress found in the back of the van, but a judge turned down the request. According to this theory, the burglars disposed of Laci’s body in the San Francisco Bay.

Prosecutors described Scott during his 2004 murder trial as a man who regretted that he was soon to become a father and committed murder to get out of his marriage without having to pay spousal and child support.

Scott admits today that he made a terrible mistake, referring to his affair with Frey. “It’s horrible,” he says. “I was a total a-hole to be having sex outside our marriage." But he insists he withheld the information from police in order to focus on finding Laci.

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