MODESTO, Calif. -- One of the men who burglarized a home in Scott Peterson's neighborhood hours after Laci Peterson's Christmas Eve disappearance will be called as a witness by the prosecution in the upcoming double murder trial, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Prosecutors filed a request and it was granted to have Steven Wayne Todd moved from the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy to the Stanislaus County jail for the duration of the Peterson trial. In its filing, prosecutors called Todd a 'necessary and material witness' in its case against Peterson.

Todd, 36, was arrested along with Donald Glenn Pearce, 44, on Jan. 2, 2003, after police received a tip. The men admitted to breaking into a home in the Peterson's neighborhood the morning after Christmas. Todd told authorities the men broke into the home about 4 a.m.

Pearce pleaded no contest in February to a reduced charge of receiving stolen property and was sentenced to 180 days in jail. Meanwhile, Todd pleaded guilty to one burglary count in February and was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for the Covina burglary and several others.

Detective George Stough told the Modesto Bee in January that Todd and Pearce were far more cooperative than suspects usually are with police. But it has not been disclosed if the men were casing the neighborhood on Christmas Eve -- the day Laci Peterson disappeared from her home.

"It was bad luck on their part," Stough said. "(Steven Todd) said he was scared that he was going to be associated with Laci's disappearance."

Laci Peterson disappeared from the couple's Modesto home on Christmas Eve when Scott Peterson claims he was on a fishing trip to the Berkeley Marina on the San Francisco Bay. In April, Laci Peterson's partial remains and those of her unborn son washed up on the shore of a waterfront park in Richmond -- just miles north of where her husband said he was fishing.

Scott Peterson is currently being held without bail in the Stanislaus County jail and has been ordered to stand trial on two counts of capital murder on Jan. 26. A hearing on a change of venue motion was scheduled for Thursday.