Amber, On Her Side Of Scott's Case

The guilty verdict in the Scott Peterson trial might not have been reached without the compelling testimony of his former lover, Amber Frey.

Her tell-all book, "Witness For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson," details their affair, and her role in helping police catch a killer.

"People" magazine has exclusive excerpts from the book in its latest issue.

The magazine's senior writer, Michelle Green, tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler she thinks Frey penned the book because Frey "felt very victimized. I think she felt as though the press had turned her into something that she really wasn't. I think she was a stereotype to them -- a massage therapist, …a bit of a joke, and this is her answer to all of that."

Frey's lawyer, Gloria Allred, has maintained from the beginning that Frey was used by Scott Peterson just like everyone else. Green says Allred "probably advised Amber this (the book) would be a really good opportunity to have (Amber's) side of the story told. I think there was nothing of Amber's subjective experience that came through during all of the trial coverage, and there was a lot to say in terms of the way that she was affected by Scott, just the incredible emotional rollercoaster that she went through."

In fact, Green says the book will probably help give Frey closure, because I think it's a good kind of closure because, "She has a lot to say in terms of, you know, how she was taken in by Scott and how she really turned that around and helped use it, you know, to help find Laci and to really put him away. So I think it really did give her a sense of having power."

Syler notes that Frey writes in the book that that Scott Peterson had been thinking about having a vasectomy. And Frey quotes Scott Peterson as saying, "I don't really feel I need a biological child."

Syler wondered whether Gren thinks it was Frey's testimony to that effect that led the jury to believe that Scott Peterson could, in fact, have killed his own son. "I think that it had to be," Green responded. "I think that was so incredibly telling. He talked about, in later conversations with her, that he had never had a prolonged period of not having responsibility. You know, it was clear that he wanted to be free and easy and to have this whole other fantasy life that he had with Amber. It was interesting that he became close to her child very quickly and really made a point with Amber of, you know, 'I would like to father this child.' Which was just what (Frey) wanted to hear. So I think that was very telling."

How did Frey feel when Peterson was convicted? "She felt justice had been served," Green answered. "I think, by then, she was so far distanced from the Scott Peterson who had wooed her and with whom she had fallen love that she felt vindicated and felt glad she had come forward and taken that very difficult step. And I think it was a good day for her in a perverse way, because it was also very hard emotionally."

Syler notes that Frey writes in the book, quote, "It sickened me to see Laci's family on the news. I knew the truth about him, that he was a world-class liar, but they didn't know it and I wasn't at liberty to tell them."

Green's article outlines a relationship that has developed between Frey and Laci Peterson's friends and family. "I think that was very healthy for all of them," Green tells Syler. "I think that it first developed because Amber felt that her friends had sold her out. There were some of her friends who had sold her story, sold pictures, that kind of thing. She felt very alone. And in Laci's family, she found a group who she could really serve, and I think she wants to feel like a good person. And that gave her a real opportunity to feel as though, you know, she had helped find Laci, as though she was an amateur sleuth or something. And I think that they really embraced her."

Green speculates that Frey is still in touch with Laci Peterson's family, though not on a daily basis.