Cases from 2002 include criminal investigations, trials, and notable events that occurred during the year. Whether they involved new charges, breakthroughs in cold cases, high-profile trials, or tragic incidents that captured national attention, the cases documented here reflect the state of the criminal justice system in 2002. CaseSleuth provides detailed, chronological coverage of each case with timelines, evidence breakdowns, profiles of key people involved, and links to primary sources and media coverage.
4 cases found
Laci Peterson, 27 and eight months pregnant, disappeared from Modesto, California on Christmas Eve 2002. Her husband Scott Peterson was convicted of her murder in 2004 and sentenced to death, later reduced to life without parole.
Scott Lee Peterson was convicted in November 2004 of the first-degree murder of his pregnant wife, Laci Denise Peterson, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner, after Laci disappeared from their Modesto, California home on December 24, 2002. Originally sentenced to death in March 2005, his death sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 2020, and he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December 2021. The Los Angeles Innocence Project took up his case in 2024, filing motions for DNA testing and a nearly 400-page habeas petition in April 2025, which was denied by the appeals court in June 2025.
Ariel Castro kidnapped three young women — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight — between 2002 and 2004 and held them captive in his Cleveland, Ohio home for approximately a decade. The women escaped on May 6, 2013. Castro was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years and died by suicide in prison.
On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City home by Brian David Mitchell, a self-proclaimed prophet who had previously worked as a handyman for the Smart family. Smart was held captive for approximately nine months by Mitchell and his wife Wanda Barzee before being rescued on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah. Mitchell was convicted of federal kidnapping charges and sentenced to life in prison, while Barzee received a 15-year sentence; Smart has since become a prominent national advocate for missing children and sexual assault survivors.