More than two decades after Laci Peterson vanished from her Modesto, California, home, the murder case that captivated the nation continues to draw legal challenges, public debate and renewed attention.

As the year comes to a close, Scott Peterson, convicted in 2004 of murdering his pregnant wife and their unborn son Conner, remains behind bars, serving life without the possibility of parole. His wife disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002, and a few months later, the remains of Laci and Conner were found in the San Francisco Bay.

While Peterson’s conviction has stood for years, the case continues to generate headlines, as his lawyers filed a petition last April seeking to overturn his conviction.

“Scott Peterson is spending the rest of his life in California state prison,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, a California-based attorney, told Fox News Digital. “He was originally sentenced to death, but on appeal, the California Supreme Court said that excluding certain jurors based on their views of the death penalty was a legal error.”

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That ruling overturned Peterson’s death sentence, though not his conviction. Prosecutors later declined to retry the penalty phase after Laci Peterson’s family chose not to pursue it, citing California’s death penalty moratorium. As a result, Peterson’s sentence was reduced to life without parole.

It was after that resentencing that the Los Angeles Innocence Project took up Peterson’s case, arguing he did not kill his wife or their unborn son.

“When the Innocence Project takes up your case, people start to notice,” Rahmani said. “There are a lot of high-profile celebrities and lawyers who are still litigating this case more than 20 years later.”

The defense and the Innocence Project have pushed an alternative theory, suggesting Laci Peterson was abducted by burglars and later killed, and that her body was dumped in the San Francisco Bay to frame Scott Peterson once it became public that he had been fishing in the area.

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“That’s really the alternate theory right now that the defense and the Innocence Project is pushing,” Rahmani said.

Despite the continued litigation, Rahmani said the original case against Peterson remains strong.

“It’s a circumstantial case, but there was plenty of evidence implicating Scott Peterson in his wife’s murder and their unborn son,” he said.

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Rahmani pointed to several factors that prosecutors argued showed Peterson’s guilt, including his extramarital affair, the proximity of Laci Peterson’s body to the location where he had been fishing and his behavior after she went missing.

“Her body ended up just miles away from where he was fishing that day,” Rahmani said. “He had bought concrete. Her body was anchored with concrete. He dyed his hair, had cash, someone else’s ID, and camping gear — behavior consistent with someone trying to flee.”

The case has also remained in the spotlight due in part to documentaries and true-crime series that continue to revisit Peterson’s conviction. Rahmani said media attention can play a powerful role in shaping public perception and sometimes legal outcomes.

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“The practical reality is that media coverage can affect a case,” Rahmani said. “Public and political pressure can change outcomes, even though every case should be decided on its legal and factual merits.”

As 2025 draws to a close, Rahmani says one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the case is that Scott Peterson is on the verge of being released.

“There’s still some legal challenges, but they’re narrow,” he said. “On the factual side, it’s really this alternate theory the defense is pushing.”

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While Rahmani acknowledges there is still a legal path forward for Peterson, he believes the odds remain slim.

“I don’t think it’s a particularly good shot,” Rahmani said. “And I do expect Scott Peterson to die in California State Prison.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Los Angeles Innocence Project.

Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.

San Francisco’s upzoning plan has passed. On Jan. 12, 2026, the day it goes into effect,  developers will be able to build taller, denser buildings on thousands of sites in the western and northern parts of the city. As the debate over how and where to upzone raged in City Hall, flyers taped to utility poles across the city signaled the launch of a much more DIY campaign to reignite a plan that took shape — and fell through — over five years ago.

“Mayor Lurie has the chance to fund social housing,” the simple, black-on-white flyers read. 

The posters refer to Proposition I, a ballot measure that passed in 2020 with 57 percent of the vote. Prop. I doubled the real estate transfer tax rate on buildings valued at $10 million or more. Proponents expected the new city revenue to be earmarked for new housing projects.

But the city’s mayors, who hold most of the power over the city’s budget, have so far declined to do so. Instead, it goes to the general fund.

Enter Honest Charley Bodkin and Dylan Hirsch-Shell, the duo behind San Franciscans for Social Housing. They call themselves SHIMBYs, or “Social Housing in My Back Yard.” An offshoot of the YIMBY movement, they think that, with enough public pressure, Lurie could be persuaded to change tack and start funding social housing in San Francisco. Their signs urge readers to sign an online petition pushing the mayor to establish a fund for “housing that is municipally-owned (or non-profit owned), permanently affordable, and available to a wider mix of income than traditional public housing.” Some 650 signatures have been collected so far in what appears to be a modest launch.

Hirsch-Shell is a former Tesla engineer who self-funded his mayoral campaign last year to the tune of $160,000; Bodkin was his campaign manager.

“I wasn’t so much convinced that I would win necessarily, but my interest was in promoting policy ideas that I thought were important,” Hirsch-Shell said. His platform included support for universal social housing and a universal basic income.

Bodkin was also a mayoral candidate before he met Hirsch-Shell on the campaign trail and joined his team. Shortly after getting into local politics, he was perhaps best known for being 86’ed from bars across his Haight Street neighborhood for alleged antics like inciting customers and striking a bartender in the head with a chair, according to a short documentary by Vincent Woo.

Bodkin says he’s six months sober now, and is focused on affirming local programs such as social housing and the public bank. He’s joined forces with Hirsch-Shell on the SHIMBY line, and they are plastering flyers in English, Spanish and Chinese across the city. They’re starting with Prop. I as a fund for social housing because “the will of the voters has been spoken.”

“I put my struggle, my efforts not into arguing with people at bars,” Bodkin said, “but with those that actually matter, those at City Hall.”

Former Supervisor Dean Preston, who authored Prop. I, is not formally allied with the SHIMBYs. Neither are the Democratic Socialists of America — arguably the most politically powerful socialist organization at the moment.

Still, Preston agrees with the SHIMBY thrust — he has been fighting for at least a portion of Prop. I funds to be spent on social housing for years. “The transfer tax is the one opportunity you have to tax these huge real estate speculators buying and selling mega-mansions and skyscrapers downtown to raise funds,” Preston said.

The plan, he said, was to utilize the Prop. I funds towards rent relief and social housing. The latter would be open to a variety of income levels, and owned or financed by the city, as opposed to traditional affordable housing which typically depends on subsidies and non-profit developers.

But no such funding mechanism was written into the proposition. Special taxes — taxes that go into dedicated funds — generally require a two-thirds vote, and a special tax of this nature would have been, according to the city attorney’s office, unconstitutional in California.

Instead, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution saying the city should use Prop. I funds for affordable housing programs, including social housing. Because resolutions aren’t legally binding, the money went into the city’s general fund, where it has been flowing ever since. A report published in June of 2024 found that some $200 million were spent on a mix of housing related issues.

In 2024, Preston requested a report from the city that found a social housing program based on Prop. I revenue was feasible. The report indicated that cumulative revenue from the increase could total upwards of $400 million by 2026.

Although Preston, a democratic socialist, and the hundreds-strong DSA have long been vocal in the cause of social housing, San Franciscans for Social Housing is an organization of two (and “hundreds of other people that call themselves San Franciscans for social housing,” Bodkin said, referring to petition signers).

Without formal alliances, the pair may continue to address the Board of Supervisors during the minutes allotted for public comment during meetings at City Hall, or approach individual supes in public (as Bodkin has done to Mayor Lurie a couple of times before).

Even then, options are limited: Supervisors could pass another non-binding resolution asking for the money to be rerouted, but Lurie has given no indication that he would do so. 

Bodkin and Hirsch-Shell are not the first to try to carve a third way through the YIMBY vs. NIMBY divide. In 2018, the short-lived PHIMBY (“Public Housing in My Back Yard”) acronym was rolled out by the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA, which saw it as a way to mitigate the risk of gentrification posed by SB 827, a bill championed by state Sen. Scott Wiener that would have exempted most new construction near public transit from local zoning laws.

The SHIMBYs are trying to pitch a wider tent. Bodkin said he has “paid dues” to SF YIMBY and lobbied in Sacramento with Wiener and California YIMBY. More recently, he said, he also joined the San Francisco DSA.

That hasn’t stopped Jane Natoli, the organizing director for YIMBY Action, from taking to Bluesky to refute the strategy of the nascent SHIMBY movement.

“San Franciscans didn’t pass a property transfer tax that funds social housing. They passed a tax that goes to the general fund,” Natoli wrote. “You can’t just wish funds for things.”

Preston is not surprised that YIMBY leaders like Natoli aren’t lining up to rally around the cause of social housing.

YIMBYs and socialists might look like allies “on paper,” Preston said. But as far as the YIMBY organizations are concerned, he continued, “There’s a consistent pro-industry theme that is very much at odds with developing social housing in San Francisco.” 

On top of all that, Prop. I may be on the chopping block next year — local and state officials are looking for ways to repeal it, or mitigate its effects. 

The flyers keep going up, for now. Bodkin and Hirsch-Shell say they’re trying to build a movement. Hirsch-Shell says it’s a lesson from the campaign trail:

“Retail politics is not dead.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With a little nod, a little flick of the eyebrows, Alex Forsyth acknowledged fate.

He is a believer, he affirmed in a dingy locker room in Kansas City, the place that could’ve broken him. A believer in what, he didn’t say. He simply believes things happen for a reason. And that meant Thursday night on Christmas must’ve happened for a reason, 411 days since the special-teams rep that made him infamous.

“It was just a special, special day,” Forsyth said. “Special night.”

The cards fell. On Monday, three days before a return to Arrowhead Stadium, reserve offensive lineman Forsyth found out he’d be starting at center for the Broncos. And starting for a while, in the most critical juncture of the season for Denver. Incumbent Luke Wattenberg had a shoulder injury, bad enough to land him on injured reserve. Forsyth would need to stare down the Chiefs, and with All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones.

Forsyth, too, would need to stare down the memory of a play he acknowledged he could “never forget.”

On Nov. 14, 2024, a younger Broncos team was poised to shatter a streak of eight straight losses to the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. Kicker Wil Lutz set up for a 35-yard field goal with Denver down 16-14 and a second left to play. Ex-punter Riley Dixon set up a hold, and Lutz swung. But on the snap, Chiefs outside linebacker Leo Chenal bowled Forsyth over.

Chenal swatted Lutz’s try away. Ballgame. Broncos tight end Lucas Krull stood on the sideline, head on hands. Denver had its most painful loss of the season, and one of its most painful losses to the Chiefs in a recent franchise history of painful Chiefs losses, and Forsyth was the goat.

“It’s always tough to come back from that — kinda get your mind off it, as much as you want to say focus on the next game and stuff,” Forsyth reflected on Thursday. “After a game like last year’s, it’s always tough to bounce back.”

That being said?

“Can’t let a bad play,” Forsyth noted, “ruin a career.”

And the story of Forsyth bloomed Thursday night, in a 20-13 win that served as some vindication for the entire franchise after a decade of misery at Arrowhead — and vindication for Forsyth. The Broncos’ offensive front surrendered just one sack and six hits on quarterback Bo Nix in a grind-it-out affair, and Forsyth, Nix’s teammate back at Oregon in 2022, was at the center. Jones did not beat him. Chenal was hurt. Forsyth opened up holes in the run game, with the Broncos totaling 128 yards on the ground.

He earned a game ball in the process, as the Broncos’ front didn’t skip a beat without Wattenberg.

“It was a tough trip home last year,” head coach Sean Payton said postgame, on Forsyth. “And it’s a little life lesson for someone like him to come back. And starting role, that was pretty cool.”

Payton dismissed Denver’s decade-long struggles at Arrowhead as “someone else’s demons.” Not the demons of this particular Broncos team. But in a way, those demons only piled on Forsyth’s shoulders after surrendering that field-goal block in 2024. Enough criticism floated Forsyth’s way that Nix and guard Quinn Meinerz came to their teammate’s very vocal defense.

Facing those demons again, Meinerz knows, is hard. The Broncos’ last time playing on Christmas came in Meinerz’ second season in 2022, when Denver got blitzed by the Rams 51-14. Even the prospect of playing again on such a holiday three years later, Meinerz told The Post, brought anxiety.

“Everybody gets scars a couple times here and there throughout their career,” Meinerz reflected.

Forsyth has scars deeper than most. Still, his Instagram and Twitter bios read “RIP Dad,” the man who’s served an inspiration in his journey. In general, the center is “extremely mentally tough,” as Meinerz said. And in warm-ups, as the memory of 2024 could’ve descended along with twisting tendrils of fog at Arrowhead, Forsyth didn’t pay much mind to the past.

“I gotta flush it, and move on,” he said postgame.

Since he was drafted in the seventh round in 2023, that sheer professionalism has endeared Forsyth to those in his room and beyond. Take Meinerz.

“Alex was ready for this moment,” the All-Pro guard told The Denver Post, on Thursday night.

Or take right tackle Mike McGlinchey.

“He works as hard as anybody in the (expletive) building,” McGlinchey said. “He’s been waiting for his opportunity to come in and do what he needed to do and there was never a doubt from us that that was how it was going to go today.”

Or take Nix himself, who gushed over Forsyth at the podium Thursday, after the Broncos’ second-year quarterback finished 26-of-38 for 182 yards, a touchdown and an interception in the Chiefs win.

“Nobody prepares more in this league than he does,” Nix said. “I would say that he’s one of the most in-depth preparers I’ve ever seen. And it’s awesome to play behind him.