REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Scott Peterson's parents testified Monday that they were to blame for some of his strange behavior leading up to his arrest for the murders of his pregnant wife and unborn son.

Taking the stand in the final days of their youngest child's capital trial, Jacqueline and Lee Peterson offered the jury explanations for his suspicious conduct — including posing as his mother to buy a Mercedes, carrying his brother's driver's license and traveling with almost $15,000 in cash.

The Petersons, who have attended almost every day of testimony in their son's five-month trial, were called as witnesses to combat prosecutors' claim that the fertilizer salesman was about to turn fugitive when police arrested him on April 18, 2003, four months after his wife, Laci, disappeared.

Lee Peterson said he directed his son to get the license from his brother, John, that morning because he wanted to get a $40 discount for local residents at a public golf course where the three men had scheduled a game.

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"Because I'm cheap, I just told him to call John and ask if he could borrow his driver's license," Lee Peterson testified.

According to a tape of a phone call played in court Monday, the defendant opted out of that game at the last minute, saying he did not want to appear in media photos golfing and was concerned about surveillance teams trailing him.

Lee Peterson, however, defended the decision to play the game during the days when the state crime lab was working overtime to positively identify the bodies of his wife and unborn son.

The elder Peterson said he had scheduled the 8 a.m. tee time on Good Friday weeks in advance.

"I was going to get three of my boys together and play golf and just look for some normalcy in our lives and just be together," Peterson told jurors.

Name of the mother

The defendant's mother testified that she instructed her son to give her name when he bought a used car the week before his arrest.

Peterson, according to previous testimony, identified himself as "Jacqueline Peterson" on the bill of sale, telling the perplexed car salesman that it was a "boy named Sue thing."

"I told him to buy it in my name," Jacqueline Peterson said.

Prosecutor Rick Distaso pressed her for an explanation.

"We kept losing cars," she said. Detectives had impounded Peterson's truck for a year and kept a replacement truck and his wife's SUV for several days before returning them.

"We couldn't afford to lose another one," she testified.

Jacqueline Peterson also implied that her own banking error was responsible for much of the cash her son had stashed in the Mercedes when he was arrested.

She testified that she withdrew $10,000 from a bank account on April 8 to help her son, John, buy Peterson's truck from him. She said she gave between $6,000 and $8,000 of the money to Peterson, but quickly realized that she had withdrawn the funds not from her own account, but a joint account she held with Scott and Laci.

She said she then withdrew another $10,000 from her account and gave it to her son as a replacement.

Peterson spent $3,600 on the Mercedes, leaving him with between $12,000 and $14,000 from his mother just before his arrest.

Eager supporters

Lee Peterson was called to the stand earlier in the trial by prosecutors, who elicited only very limited testimony from him.

Under questioning from defense attorney Mark Geragos, both Lee Peterson and his wife seemed eager to underscore their belief in their son's innocence.

When the defense lawyer asked if the defendant was her son, Jacqueline Peterson replied, "Proudly so, yes."

Because the defense contends Laci Peterson was abducted while walking her dog, the ease with which she could walk late in her pregnancy is hotly disputed in the case.

Jacqueline Peterson recalled shopping in Carmel with her daughter-in-law six days before her disappearance.

"We made a day of it," she said. "She was slower, but she walked."

Jacqueline Peterson has lung problems and carries a canister that delivers oxygen through a tube to her nose. Distaso pressed her about whether she was wearing the device in Carmel.

She acknowledged she was, but insisted she and Laci walked much of the day.

She also told jurors that her daughter-in-law informed her on June 9 that she was pregnant based on a home test.

That testimony is important because it implies that the couple's son was conceived at a later date, lending support to the defense claim that baby's remains were older than the infant would have been on the day Laci went missing.

Fishing story

Lee Peterson came to court with snapshots of the freshwater lake where he said his son learned to fish when he was 3 years old.

He noted that boats on the lake all carried a single cement anchor. Peterson told police he made a single anchor to use on a fishing trip to the bay, but a fishing expert testified that such an anchor would never hold a boat still in the bay.

Peterson watched his parents' testimony intently from the defense table.

In the jury box, a few panelists took notes, but three men did not open their notebooks at all while the Petersons testified, and several did not look toward the witness stand.

Judge Alfred Delucchi told jurors to expect closing arguments and the start of deliberations next week.

Peterson, who turned 32 on Sunday, faces the death penalty if convicted of two counts of murder.