"The Other Woman"
Amber Frey's 'Witness' arrives with fanfare
For anyone who has forgotten, Frey is the massage therapist whose affair with Peterson made her a star witness at his trial. On Dec. 13, the jury recommended the death sentence for the murder of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son.
With the case closed, Frey is everywhere this week promoting a book that is aimed squarely at the duped demographic: women who have been lied to by seductive, if not deadly, men.
That must be a sizable audience, because the media are tripping over themselves to get to Frey, who has declined new interview requests until after today's Oprah appearance.
NBC's Today trumpeted the book by broadcasting excerpts of Lauer's Dateline interview, and CBS' The Early Show was left to interview a reporter from People magazine, which ran excerpts from her book.
"Amber put her inner strength to the test, and that's something Oprah likes," says Carly Ubersox, spokeswoman for Harpo Productions.
Frey's tale also lured Judith Regan, president of HarperCollins' ReganBooks. Regan says Frey's 210-page tell-all — the product of interviews with an anonymous ghostwriter — came together in just the past few weeks.
"I thought Amber had a compelling story to tell that would last beyond this moment," says Regan, who used her friendship with Frey attorney Gloria Allred to sign the deal shortly after the verdict.
Sales on Amazon.com were brisk Tuesday, the book's on-sale date; Witness ranked as high as No. 2 for the day, behind the next yet-to-be-published Harry Potter installment. The several dozen reviews posted by readers were split between praise and disdain.
Such interest aside, industry experts doubt that the healthy run of 250,000 copies of Witness will disappear.
"Media attention will help it sell for the next week or two, but I don't think it'll have a sustained interest beyond that, unless it's packed with new information," says Daisy Maryles of Publishers Weekly. But "they won't have to sell all of them for this to be a financial success."
The chapter headings hint at the diary-like confessionals within, from Chapter 2, "Please God, tell me it's not the same Scott Peterson," to Chapter 8, "The day you went to the police, you became Laci's voice," which is what Allred told Frey to bolster her confidence.
"Amber got a lot of e-mail during the trial from ordinary people who also had been lied to," she says. "She connected."
And from here? "I don't know what the future will bring for her," Allred says. "For now, she still wants to be a massage therapist."
Amber Frey and her attorney, Gloria Allred
DOC TO MAKE HONEST GAL OF AMBER
By HOWARD BREUER and HEATHER GILMORE
After jurors in the Scott Peterson trial have heard the whole story about Amber Frey's nightmarish relationship with the alleged killer, she and her current beau are expected to announce their engagement, dads on both sides of the aisle told The Post.
Dr. David Markovich, a 44-year-old Fresno chiropractor and the father of Amber's 4-month-old son, Justin Dean, has confided in his own father and potential father-in-law about his interest in marrying Frey.
"After the trial, he has said he will make some announcement," Frey's father, Ron Frey, told The Post. "I hope it's what I think. When the time is right, he will propose . . . and when they get married, it will be forever."
The beau's father, Frank Markovich, a retired scientist, confirmed that his son intends to marry Frey.
"It's been discussed," Markovich said. "There are other things to contend with right now, such as the trial."
David Markovich and Frey, 29, share a Fresno condo with their son and Amber's 3-year-old daughter, Ayionna, from a previous relationship.
They met long before Amber's now-infamous blind date with Peterson in November 2002. But it wasn't until later — when Markovich started comforting Frey as she coped with the stress of pretending to still be interested in Peterson while recording their conversations for police — that they became intimate.
"He's a very knowledgeable, articulate guy, and he has given Amber a great deal of support in the months since this all broke," Frank Markovich told The Post.
"That's when they really became friends, and it developed into a relationship."
David Markovich's former business partner, Gary Mann, told The Post he introduced Frey to his buddy while they shared a practice because "she massaged some of my clients and he needed a masseuse — it was strictly professional."
After working at the practice for almost two years, Frey left her job with Markovich over work-related disagreements — something she discusses on tapes heard by the jury, saying he was "a can of worms."
But in early 2003 — after Peterson showed himself to be a worm who lied about being married and about the disappearance of his pregnant wife, Laci — Frey found herself crying on Markovich's shoulder.
By Valentine's Day 2003, when Peterson called Frey late at night begging to come over, family members began speculating that Frey may have been looking more at Markovich as her true valentine.
The couple are keeping mum about such details of their private life.
Frank Markovich said his son David was raised in Santa Barbara. He and his older brother and two younger sisters attended Santa Barbara public schools, and David attended Santa Barbara City College before training to become a chiropractor.
Although Markovich has been involved in other long-term relationships, he's never been married or had a child, his dad said.
He and others say David has a solid, 6-foot frame and is a "big sports fan." He runs and lifts weights every day and, for a few years, he was the trainer for a semi-professional ice-hockey team in Fresno.
"He's an avid physical-fitness buff," said the dad, who lives in Santa Barbara. "He works out frequently. He's very conscious of his diet. And he's pretty much an alternative-medicine kind of person."
Amber, a few years back...trying her hand at modeling
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