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KING:
Thank you. And—

VOICE OF SIMPSON:
Thank you.

Getting that call was a terrific coup for us, but now all the networks were vying for the “money interview”—the first live
television interview with OJ following the verdict. After much wheeling and dealing, Larry and I lost the big interview to
Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw at NBC. It was a huge disappointment, but I called Katie to congratulate her. Larry and I both
got on the phone and I told Katie how proud I was of her. Larry congratulated her as well, since this truly was a great “get.”
Katie would be flying from New York to LA for the interview.

But overnight, everything changed. Much of the television viewing audience were incensed that any network would carry this
interview. People wanted to know how NBC could dare to put this man on their network, a pariah who they thought had gotten
away with double murder. The protests got so loud, NBC canceled the show altogether. In essence, this interview
that we had all fought so hard to get, disappeared in a couple of hours. The only positive outcome was that Katie had all
of her congratulatory flowers sent to my hotel room since her trip was canceled!

In pondering how anyone could do what OJ did, I can only turn to the definition of a sociopath. Sociopaths, a psychological
title under which this man clearly falls, have selective memories and believe only what they want to believe. OJ must have
believed that he was justified in what he did, or perhaps he has no memory of it at all. I would tend to go with the justification
explanation.

Either way, though, OJ sits in jail right now, not for the murders of his wife and her friend, but rather for an armed kidnapping
in Las Vegas in October 2008. It seems that however much we try to be who we are not, or as much as we try to “get away with
murder,” we eventually seek our own level.

I guess OJ was destined to go to jail, for one reason or another. I can think of two really good reasons, offhand. Today,
he is sentenced to thirty-three years behind bars, with eligibility for parole after less than a third of that term. This
is one of those times in life that can only be described by one word: “karma.” And OJ is living his.

THE LOVE YOU TAKE IS EQUAL TO THE LOVE YOU MAKE

More and more people are looking within these days to find a mind/body/spirit kind of spirituality. This means living a life
in which you feel good about yourself, and the logical way to do this is to put into life what you
would like to get from it. This is karma as I understand it, or the Golden Rule, where you do unto others as you would have
them do unto you.

When someone hurts you, it’s a normal human reaction to think,
I want them to feel the same pain I’m feeling. They don’t deserve happiness
. But contrary to how you might feel, the best thing you can do for yourself is to forgive that person. If you don’t, the
anger festers inside of you and permeates your life. On the other hand, when you release it, it leaves your system and you
can heal your heart and walk away from the misery. In this way, forgiveness is for
you
, not for the person you are trying to forgive. Doesn’t that make forgiving seem a little more palatable?

When you have been disappointed by someone and wish them harm, if you take a good look at that person, you will see that they
are already suffering with no help from you. Look at the person who has upset you and ask yourself the following questions:

•   Is she happy?

•   Would you like to be him?

•   Do you think she’s living a good life?

•   Do you think your life is healthier than his?

If you really look at someone who hurt you, you probably don’t want to be connected to him. The more you can put yourself
in a bright light and feel good about yourself and let your anger go, the more you release negative connections. In fact,
if you can’t or won’t forgive someone, no matter what they did, it’s like taking poison and wishing the other person would
die. Not too smart.

I have developed a habit of forgiving people first thing in the morning when I wake up. It would be beneficial for you to
make a list of those whom you need to forgive because forgiveness is not a one-time thing. It is not something you aspire
to, reach, and then consider it done. Forgiveness, just like faith, needs to be renewed each and every day.

It’s like a 12-step program. You take it one day at a time. You need to forgive that person today and then do it again tomorrow.
Someone once told me that the word “forgive” means thank you “for giving” me this experience. It’s all about learning who
you are and how you want to live your life. When I found a way to forgive, something I do every day, people asked me why I
looked so well. It was because I was learning to forgive, gradually and consistently.

When you hold a grudge, you are actually holding on to a memory. It is no longer a tangible thing, but rather a thought that
keeps repeating itself over and over in your mind. It is not a book or a tree or any other object. It is a memory, and each
time you go there, you will feel the sadness all over again. You have to get strong enough to remind yourself, “I’m feeling
the effects of a memory. It isn’t real. I don’t have to go here again. It’s time to move on.”

My dear friend JZ Knight (who channels an entity called Ramtha) says we become addicted to our emotions. If the emotions are
sadness and pain, we go there for comfort and we feel all of our sadness and pain. But if we are addicted to feeling calm
and happy, well, that’s a much better place to be.

So don’t be concerned if you feel forgiveness one day and have trouble with it the next. There will be times when you fall
back into the negativity, but you can keep reminding yourself to forgive, not for the other person but for yourself. It may
take prayer, meditation, or a one-on-one meeting. Whatever it takes, it’s worth it to clear your own heart and soul.

O
n December 24, 2002, a twenty-seven-year-old woman named Laci Peterson went missing from her home in Modesto, California.
The fact that she was eight months pregnant only added to the urgency of finding her. On the day after Christmas, police searched
the home that she shared with her husband, Scott, who had supposedly been out on his boat on Christmas Eve, fishing. The story
unfolded over the next several months and on April 13, 2003, the remains of a male infant were discovered on the shoreline
of the San Francisco Bay.

The next day, all hopes of finding Laci alive were dashed when a decapitated female body washed up on the shore. Soon afterward,
the remains of both mother and child were positively identified as Laci Peterson and Conner, her unborn son. When Scott Peterson
was arrested in San Diego as the prime suspect for what they were calling a double murder, the case was splashed all over
the media. Scott’s disinterest in helping the police and his flat emotional affect following the discoveries of the bodies
contributed to a heavy pall of suspicion hanging over him.

The fact that, after the murders, he was found with multiple credit cards belonging to family members and enough cash and
supplies for a long getaway only added to the suspicion, as did dyeing his hair and goatee blond. Then, with the discovery
of a major extramarital affair, Scott seemed to be displaying the behavior of a sociopath and the media erupted into a feeding
frenzy.

At
Larry King Live
, we were the first to grab the story and run with what I thought was the most gripping murder case since the OJ Simpson double
murder trial about eight years prior. But as compelling as the ins and outs of the OJ trial were, in many ways, I found the
Scott Peterson case even more peculiar and confounding.

There were several reasons for that. While OJ Simpson was an aggressive sports jock, a football star with a powerful attitude
and body to match, Scott Peterson was a soft-spoken, unassuming gentleman, a cute guy, a fertilizer salesman who liked fishing
and was everybody’s darling. While OJ boasted winning the Heisman Trophy and being touted around the world as a champion,
Scott Peterson was a regular kid who went to a public school in a small town in California, the same school my kids attended,
where he smiled pleasantly and opened doors for older women. In fact, when he and Laci wed, she was considered to have married
up in the social world. They had a nice life, they were pregnant, the grandparents all around were happy, and Scott could
not have appeared more clean-cut and polite. Too bad no one guessed what evil was brewing under all that grooming, manners,
and courteous behavior.

The Peterson case made compelling television for many of the reasons listed above, but something else was driving me in a
personal way toward this case at this particular time. I was in
the painful process of a divorce and I needed a diversion that was compelling enough to hold my attention. I turned to the
weirdness of the Scott Peterson case, initially relieved to have something dramatic in which to bury myself. But as time went
on and more of the facts came to light in this odd case, it took on a life of its own, and I was not the only one who couldn’t
get enough. The one thing that everyone agreed upon was that Scott Peterson looked like the most clean-cut, well-groomed murder
suspect anyone had ever seen.

We did many shows during this time, discussing Scott Peterson’s affair with massage therapist Amber Frey, and who on earth
could have killed lovely, smiling Laci, who was nearly nine months pregnant? People thought Scott had acted strangely after
the killings, they became aware of his comings and goings, and everyone wanted to put in their two cents. The panel discussions
on our show were thoughtful and informative as we turned to experts in the field of criminal law. I booked a number of experts
who weighed in on the mystery, which was how attorney Mark Geragos ended up being on our show a number of times before he
became Scott Peterson’s defense attorney.

The consensus opinion among our experts and callers was that Scott Peterson was probably guilty, no matter how handsome he
looked. At that time, even Mark didn’t have anything substantial to say in Scott Peterson’s favor. This is an excerpt from
a conversation on our show on April 18, 2003, between Larry and Mark.

KING:
Mark Geragos, is this case kind of plea-bargainable, or will they not go for that?

GERAGOS:
I can’t imagine… unless something comes up that I’m not aware of, that any prosecutor’s going to plea bargain this. This case,
from a prosecution’s standpoint…

KING:
Is it a slam dunk?

GERAGOS:
… even though it’s a circumstantial evidence case, the most damning piece of circumstantial evidence comes out of his own
mouth and his own hands, when he hands the police that receipt from the very location where two miles away, she’s found. I
mean, that is just a devastating thing. If you believe that he’s the one who, for whatever reason, got into it with her, killed
her, put her in a tarp, put her in the boat, did all of that… they’ll try him [for first degree murder] with special circumstances.
I’ll be shocked if they don’t.

… as I’ve said, it’s a damning, circumstantial case—the man is a sociopath if he did this crime. I mean, there’s no other
way to put it. This is his wife, his unborn baby boy. If he’s the one who took the two of them up there and put concrete around
them and threw them into the ocean and concocted this story and went out onto Diane Sawyer and gave that impassioned plea
with the tears—I mean, that’s not somebody that generally you’re going to want to give a manslaughter [charge]… There’s apparently
information on the tides and currents on his computer when they did the search, that is some pretty compelling evidence.

Mark’s statements on our show that night apparently angered Scott’s parents so much, they called him afterward to say they
basically believed their innocent son was being convicted and sentenced on the air before he even went to trial. They asked
Mark how he dared do such a thing, adding that it was people like him who got innocent and good people like their son wrongly
arrested and convicted.

The upshot of the phone call was that Mark paid a visit to the Petersons’ home at their request. “I was completely taken
by Jackie, Scott’s mom,” Mark told me. “She’s really an incredible woman. I remember when she came in, she was wearing an
oxygen tank. When I asked her what was the matter, she said, ‘I’ve had this lung condition that they say is terminal.’ ”

“How long do they give you?” he had asked, genuinely concerned.

“The doctors give me two years,” she had answered, “so every two years, I change doctors.”

“With an attitude like that,” Mark added, “how could I not love her?”

The next thing we knew, Mark had agreed to visit Scott in jail, with the intention of possibly representing him. “I just felt
like it was the right thing to do,” Mark said. “When you become a defense attorney, you take an oath, just like a doctor takes
the Hippocratic Oath, to help your clients. We are not supposed to refuse a client because public opinion has denigrated him.
I had to at least meet him and see who he was.”