Latest / The conspiracy / The STRANGE Murder Case Of Kathleen Peterson

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The STRANGE Murder Case Of Kathleen Peterson · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: There's a large house in Durham, North Carolina, with a
0:03
Speaker 1: staircase like none other nearby, and it was home to
0:06
Speaker 1: five children from three different families, and the couple who
0:10
Speaker 1: held them all together were deeply in love. But on
0:13
Speaker 1: a quiet Saturday night in December of two thousand and one,
0:17
Speaker 1: something happened on that staircase that no one has been
0:20
Speaker 1: able to fully explain since, and more than two decades later,
0:24
Speaker 1: it still doesn't have an ending. Everyone accepts fry, conspiracy, colps,
0:29
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume,
0:32
Speaker 1: and I know you do too. You sit twisted, beautiful,
0:36
Speaker 1: intellectually minded freak. And today we're diving into quite an
0:41
Speaker 1: infamous case. There's been documentaries about it, shows about it.
0:44
Speaker 1: You might be familiar with it, but we're diving deep
0:48
Speaker 1: into the weeds with this case. So, without further newlandsunbegglar
0:50
Speaker 1: seatbelt to go back round of the highway.
0:52
Speaker 2: Slam of the rights, and mustle the windshield into this
0:54
Speaker 2: case together, Let's take a quick pause to talk about.
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2:19
Speaker 1: to it. Michael Peterson was born on October twenty third,
2:23
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, just outside Nashville, Tennessee to Eugene Ivor
2:27
Speaker 1: and Eleanor Peterson, and the family later moved to Durham,
2:31
Speaker 1: North Carolina, where Michael grew up. Now Durham, home to
2:34
Speaker 1: Duke University, remained his base for most of his adult life.
2:38
Speaker 1: And he was raised Catholic, and by his own account,
2:41
Speaker 1: the religion shaped him more through fear than actually through bay,
2:45
Speaker 1: and he once described it in an interview quote, I
2:48
Speaker 1: was raised Catholic. You know you're going to hell for
2:50
Speaker 1: this or that it was constant fear. I don't believe
2:53
Speaker 1: that unquote. And even as a young man, Michael was
2:56
Speaker 1: restless and ambitious, and he wanted to witness real combat
3:01
Speaker 1: with his own eyes, and he'd set his sights on
3:04
Speaker 1: writing the Great American War novel. So he would attend
3:07
Speaker 1: Duke University, and after graduating, he joined the Marine Corps,
3:10
Speaker 1: where he served in the Vietnam War. And in nineteen
3:13
Speaker 1: sixty nine, North Vietnamese Army soldiers hit a remote outpost
3:17
Speaker 1: and Michael rallied his Marines and held the position through
3:20
Speaker 1: the entire night. And that action earned him a Silver
3:23
Speaker 1: Star for bravery and a Bronze Star for valor. It's
3:27
Speaker 1: very impressive and he also told people he'd received two
3:30
Speaker 1: purple Hearts for a permanent injury to his right leg
3:34
Speaker 1: sustained in battle. The leg injury was real, but the
3:37
Speaker 1: story behind it wasn't, and the real cause was a
3:40
Speaker 1: car wreck in Japan, nowhere near a battlefield, So for
3:44
Speaker 1: the purple heart specifically, it was kind of allbe it.
3:47
Speaker 1: But still he'd earned enough real honors that the fabricated
3:50
Speaker 1: ones kind of blended in without scrutiny. Now after Vietnam,
3:54
Speaker 1: Michael came home and chased the writing dream he'd carried overseas,
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Speaker 1: and his first novel, A Time of War, hit shelves
4:00
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety and it covered the Vietnam War from
4:03
Speaker 1: both sides of the fight, with chapters built around American
4:06
Speaker 1: and Vietnamese soldiers alike. And A Bitter Piece came next
4:10
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, picking up where the first book
4:13
Speaker 1: left off, and this time it was set around an
4:15
Speaker 1: American diplomat set to broker a peace deal that everyone
4:18
Speaker 1: already knew was hopeless. And in nineteen ninety eight, he
4:22
Speaker 1: and a co author, David Pearlmont, published Charlie Tuoshoes and
4:26
Speaker 1: the Marines of Love Company and the book was about
4:29
Speaker 1: a young Chinese boy who grew up alongside US marines
4:32
Speaker 1: stationed in China after World War II. Now outside of fiction,
4:37
Speaker 1: Peterson carved out a second identity as a public voice
4:40
Speaker 1: in Durham, and he picked up a freelance column at
4:43
Speaker 1: the Durham Harold Son and used it to sound off
4:46
Speaker 1: on local politics. The police department was a regular target,
4:51
Speaker 1: and so was the Durham County District Attorney's office, and
4:54
Speaker 1: his columns had a combative edge that made him well
4:57
Speaker 1: known around Durham and depending on who you asked, either
5:00
Speaker 1: respected or resented them. And he also stepped into politics directly,
5:06
Speaker 1: running for both city Council and city mayor. So between
5:09
Speaker 1: the novels, the columns and the campaigns, he'd become one
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Speaker 1: of Durham's more recognizable public figures, and his first marriage
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Speaker 1: to a woman named Patricia, wouldn't last. They lived in
5:20
Speaker 1: Germany in the nineteen eighties for a time with the
5:23
Speaker 1: family they started together, and in an interview with Let's
5:26
Speaker 1: Talk Durham magazine, Michael reflected saying quote I was young
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Speaker 1: and often not kind. I wish I'd never said anything
5:32
Speaker 1: rude or mean to her or to my children who
5:35
Speaker 1: keep telling me, Dad, you weren't a good parent after all. Now,
5:39
Speaker 1: Peterson built his life around storytelling. Kathleen Peterson's second wife,
5:44
Speaker 1: who will introduce in depth shortly read his novels and
5:47
Speaker 1: saw something in the people he used in his stories, saying, quote,
5:51
Speaker 1: my god, you are all the characters. You are the
5:54
Speaker 1: CIA agent, the ambassador, the priest, the nun unquote. A
5:58
Speaker 1: reporter once asked Peterson to name the fictional character he
6:01
Speaker 1: related to most, and he said there wasn't one, and
6:04
Speaker 1: instead he circled back to what Kathleen had told him, because,
6:07
Speaker 1: after all, I mean, most people just write what they
6:10
Speaker 1: know most, and what you know most is yourself, so
6:13
Speaker 1: don't blame. And the Indie Week once called him a
6:16
Speaker 1: gifted storyteller. So he basically spent his life turning experience
6:20
Speaker 1: into narrative through novels, newspapers, columns, and the stories he
6:25
Speaker 1: told about his own past. Now. Kathleen Hunt was born
6:28
Speaker 1: on February twenty first, nineteen fifty three, in Greensboro, North Carolina,
6:33
Speaker 1: and Kathleen grew up on East Clay Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
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Speaker 1: in the sort of neighborhood where summer meant ballgames in
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Speaker 1: the road and board games on porch, and her mother, Veronica,
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Speaker 1: raised Kathleen alongside her sister's Canvas and Laurie and Kathleen
6:49
Speaker 1: stood out pretty early, and at J. P. McCaskey High School,
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Speaker 1: she finished first in her class, edited the school magazine,
6:55
Speaker 1: and received the Girl of the Year award, and she
6:58
Speaker 1: became the first high school student to take college level
7:02
Speaker 1: Latin at nearby Franklin and Marshall College, and then she
7:05
Speaker 1: headed south to Duke University, and Kitlyn later recalled her
7:09
Speaker 1: mother calling the whole decision to go to Durham an adventure,
7:13
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy one, according to various sources, she
7:16
Speaker 1: became the first female student admitted to Duke's engineering school.
7:20
Speaker 1: It's in critically impressive and she earned both a Bachelor
7:23
Speaker 1: of Science and master's degree in mechanical engineering, graduating in
7:28
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five. And at Duke she met a physicist
7:31
Speaker 1: named Fred Atwater and they would marry in nineteen seventy
7:35
Speaker 1: seven and move to Maryland, where Kathleen took a position
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Speaker 1: at Baltimore Air Coil and started climbing the corporate ladder,
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Speaker 1: and they would have one child together, a daughter named Kitlin,
7:45
Speaker 1: and when Kathleen found out Fred was cheating, the marriage
7:49
Speaker 1: was over. She and Kitlyn moved back to Durham, settling
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Speaker 1: into a house on Hermitage Court in the Forest Hills neighborhood,
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Speaker 1: and Kathleen just threw herself into rebuilding. Now otherhood came
8:01
Speaker 1: really naturally to her, And when Kaitlyn turned five or six,
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Speaker 1: Kathleen put together an entire tea party using her grandmother's
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Speaker 1: old nineteen forties dresses, clip on earrings, bracelets, oversized high heels,
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Speaker 1: and necklaces draped over the ears of a rocking horse
8:15
Speaker 1: so the girls could play dress up, and every child
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Speaker 1: went home with a handmade picture frame. Kathleen's way of
8:21
Speaker 1: making sure nobody forgot the day. Just like really sweet stuff.
8:25
Speaker 1: She went above and beyond for her family, and the
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Speaker 1: spring of two thousand brought a trip to Paris for Kathleen, Caitlin,
8:31
Speaker 1: and Kathleen's mother Veronica, marking two birthdays at once, Caitlin's
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Speaker 1: eighteenth and Veronica's eightieth, and Kitlyn would hang on to
8:39
Speaker 1: this trip for the rest of her life and say
8:41
Speaker 1: it was a very special time. And at the same time,
8:43
Speaker 1: Kathleen's career kept rising, and by the time she landed
8:47
Speaker 1: at telecommunications giant Nortel Networks, Kathleen had risen to Director
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Speaker 1: of Information Services and was pulling in around one hundred
8:54
Speaker 1: and fifty grand a year. And outside the office, she
8:57
Speaker 1: poured energy into Durham's art scenes. And she was a
9:00
Speaker 1: board member of the Durham Art Council and threw her
9:03
Speaker 1: weight behind the American Dance Festival and the Carolina Ballet.
9:07
Speaker 1: And she was part of fundraisers and put real effort
9:10
Speaker 1: into making each party feel like something people wanted to attend,
9:14
Speaker 1: not just you know, like another obligation. Then quote she
9:17
Speaker 1: was the Martha Stewart of Durham. She actually prepared the
9:20
Speaker 1: food for her parties. Unquote, Jimmy Gibbs, the columnist, told
9:25
Speaker 1: the Durham Harold Son and cooking was where Kathleen unwound,
9:30
Speaker 1: and her annual tradition was a round of shortbread cookies,
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Speaker 1: each one finished with a layer of powdered sugar. Oh
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Speaker 1: I love shortbreads so much, it makes me hungry. And
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Speaker 1: she had a signature past a salad she brought to
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Speaker 1: dance festival events. She was just described as spontaneous and
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Speaker 1: fine and had a tremendous sense of humor. And Caitlin
9:49
Speaker 1: also said of her mother, quote, it was really easy
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Speaker 1: to just kind of fall into amazement of this person
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Speaker 1: who could just keep you entertained and laughing unquote. And
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Speaker 1: by the time Kathleen landed back and Durham after her divorce,
10:01
Speaker 1: she had a career on an upward arc, a daughter
10:04
Speaker 1: she adored in a life she was actively rebuilding. Now.
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Speaker 1: The two families found each other by accident, and Michael
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Speaker 1: split from his first wife, Patricia in nineteen eighty seven
10:14
Speaker 1: and brought two young girls he'd been raising, Margaret and
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Speaker 1: Martha Ratliffe from a late family friend, with him to
10:20
Speaker 1: Durham and Clayton and Todd, his biological sons, were still
10:24
Speaker 1: living with their mother, Patricia in Germany at the time
10:26
Speaker 1: and would eventually follow him to the States. So at
10:29
Speaker 1: around this time, Kathleen and Katelyn landed on the same street.
10:33
Speaker 1: After Kathleen's divorce from Fred, and Caitlyn first bonded with
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Speaker 1: the Ratliffe girls, and their friendship is what pulled Kathleen
10:40
Speaker 1: and Michael into each other's orbit. But Caitlyn remembered the
10:43
Speaker 1: moments the adults made it official, the family gathered her
10:46
Speaker 1: and asked what she thought about Martha and Margaret moving
10:50
Speaker 1: in with them, and to Caitlin, it sounded like a
10:53
Speaker 1: permanent sleepover. And Kathleen had a one on one conversation
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Speaker 1: with Caitlyn and told her this was their family now.
11:00
Speaker 1: So the two household merged within a couple of years,
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Speaker 1: and by nineteen ninety seven, both divorces were behind them,
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Speaker 1: and Kathleen and Michael got married and they actually purchased
11:09
Speaker 1: their house together years earlier. So in August of nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety two, Michael and Kathleen bought the property at eighteen
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Speaker 1: ten Cedar Street in Durham's Forest Hills neighborhood, and it
11:19
Speaker 1: was a eleven thousand plus square foot Colonial Revival mansion,
11:23
Speaker 1: Oh my God, originally built in nineteen forty on a
11:27
Speaker 1: four acre parcel. On the front hall was anchored by
11:31
Speaker 1: a staircase that hung from above in a sweeping arc
11:35
Speaker 1: a designed locals said to be unmatched anywhere in the region.
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Speaker 1: Five children from three different families lived under that roof,
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Speaker 1: and the house was naturally always busy, so the picture
11:47
Speaker 1: was just admirable. A big house in a respected neighborhood,
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Speaker 1: a blended family that just worked, and two really accomplished
11:54
Speaker 1: adults who were deeply in love, and everyone around them
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Speaker 1: just echoed it. And once the kids left for college,
12:00
Speaker 1: Michael and Kathleen filled the house in other ways. They
12:03
Speaker 1: threw parties, showed up at fundraisers, and built a social
12:07
Speaker 1: life around the people they loved spending time with. And
12:09
Speaker 1: Michael had what the New York Times called a theatrical personality,
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Speaker 1: and the Cedar Street mansion gave him a stage that
12:17
Speaker 1: matched it. Kathleen's energy matched his from a different angle,
12:21
Speaker 1: and her sister, Candace Zamparini, remembered how effortlessly she managed
12:25
Speaker 1: it all, saying, quote, not only did she raise these
12:28
Speaker 1: children and have quite an accomplished corporate career, oh, dinner
12:32
Speaker 1: for fifty, she'd do it unquote, So she's basically a superhero.
12:36
Speaker 1: So friends saw a couple that genuinely enjoyed each other's company,
12:40
Speaker 1: two people whose warmth together seemed easy and so unforced.
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Speaker 1: But naturally, as every picture perfect family has their flaws,
12:49
Speaker 1: there were some seams. And in nineteen ninety nine, Michael
12:53
Speaker 1: ran for mayor in Durham, and during the campaign, the
12:56
Speaker 1: truth about his purple heart surfaced publicly, and his claim
12:59
Speaker 1: of being wounded in combat fell apart, and he lost
13:03
Speaker 1: the race and with it a piece of the public
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Speaker 1: credibility he'd spent years building through his columns and civic presence.
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Speaker 1: And Kathleen carried pressure of her own work with her
13:13
Speaker 1: and Nortel Networks was shedding staff due to the declining economy,
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Speaker 1: and she worried she'd be next. And the finances kind
13:20
Speaker 1: of told their own story. The Petersons had accumulated around
13:23
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty thousand dollars in credit card debt,
13:26
Speaker 1: and Michael hadn't earned a dollar from writing in three years,
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Speaker 1: so the family's finances ran through Kathleen's paycheck, and three
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Speaker 1: of the five kids were in college now, so it
13:37
Speaker 1: was getting expensive, not to mention six rental properties the
13:40
Speaker 1: couple owned were bringing in less than expected, and Kathleen
13:43
Speaker 1: held Nortel stock options that had peaked above two million
13:47
Speaker 1: dollars but had dropped to less than fifty thousand dollars,
13:50
Speaker 1: which is scary. So they were described as living above
13:55
Speaker 1: their means, and other financial records painted a less dire
13:59
Speaker 1: picture because they reportedly had cars, furniture, antiques, and other
14:03
Speaker 1: assets that brought the couple's total worth to roughly one
14:06
Speaker 1: point five million dollars, so it's not like the couple
14:09
Speaker 1: were completely broke. They had one point five million dollars
14:12
Speaker 1: in assets, but obviously there was some financial strain. So
14:16
Speaker 1: on December eighth, two thousand and one, Michael and Kathleen
14:19
Speaker 1: settled in to watch a movie together, America's Sweethearts, and
14:22
Speaker 1: they'd been in a good mood all day. Earlier that day,
14:25
Speaker 1: Michael had gotten word about a possible movie deal involving
14:28
Speaker 1: one of his books, and the two of them treated
14:31
Speaker 1: it like a reason to celebrate, because it may have
14:33
Speaker 1: been a long shot, but the possibility alone was enough.
14:36
Speaker 1: So after the movie, the two of them took their
14:39
Speaker 1: wine outside and sat by the pool, and at some
14:41
Speaker 1: point Kathleen decided to head inside. She had a conference
14:45
Speaker 1: call scheduled early the next morning and wanted to get
14:48
Speaker 1: some sleep, and Michael didn't follow her in, and instead
14:51
Speaker 1: he sat by the pool with his pipe, and he
14:53
Speaker 1: wouldn't come back inside until around two forty in the morning,
14:56
Speaker 1: and by his account, he spent a few hours alone
14:59
Speaker 1: in the yard. After Leen went to bed, and by
15:01
Speaker 1: the time he came back inside, Kathleen was on the
15:04
Speaker 1: floor at the bottom of the back staircase, and she
15:08
Speaker 1: was injured and unresponsive. And he would tell a neighbor
15:11
Speaker 1: afterward that it must have been an accident, that Kathleen
15:14
Speaker 1: had been drinking wine and had taken valium, and that
15:17
Speaker 1: she must have slipped and fallen, and he told the
15:19
Speaker 1: same thing to police. She'd mixed alcohol with medication, lost
15:23
Speaker 1: her footing on the stairs, and had gone down hard.
15:26
Speaker 1: And at two forty am on December ninth, Michael dialed
15:29
Speaker 1: nine one one and he told the dispatcher that his
15:31
Speaker 1: forty eight year old wife had had an accident. My
15:34
Speaker 1: wife's had an act of how many fairs down? I
15:46
Speaker 1: meany for fair? How many stairs com nail? Sir combil so?
15:55
Speaker 1: I don't know, And the dispatcher would ask several follow
15:58
Speaker 1: up questions, and at a two forty five am, just
16:01
Speaker 1: minutes after the first call, Michael called nine one one
16:04
Speaker 1: a second time, and this time he reported that Kathleen
16:07
Speaker 1: had stopped breathing, and in the span of roughly five minutes,
16:11
Speaker 1: the situation had gone from breathing injured wife to something
16:15
Speaker 1: far worse. And emergency responders arrived at the Peterson home
16:18
Speaker 1: on Cedar Street shortly after, and blood on the front
16:21
Speaker 1: walkway caught the retention before they even made it to
16:24
Speaker 1: the door, and Kathleen was on the floor at the
16:26
Speaker 1: foot of the staircase, face up, and she was wearing
16:29
Speaker 1: a sweatsuit, and she was surrounded by blood, and Michael
16:33
Speaker 1: was there beside her, covered in blood himself, and Kathleen
16:37
Speaker 1: was unfortunately pronouncing dead shortly after, and the cause was
16:41
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Speaker 1: to it. So Michael was on the floor with Kathleen,
18:07
Speaker 1: holding her body and rying. He later described the moment
18:11
Speaker 1: found her quote that was the worst. I mean, that
18:14
Speaker 1: was worse than anything in war unquote. But the blood
18:17
Speaker 1: was kind of telling a different story than the one
18:19
Speaker 1: he'd given on the phone. I mean, he was panicked
18:22
Speaker 1: in that moment, So you can, you know, excuse some
18:25
Speaker 1: mistakes in what he's saying, but what it looked like
18:29
Speaker 1: was that the blood on the staircase and walls had
18:31
Speaker 1: already dried, suggesting it had been there for much longer
18:34
Speaker 1: than a few minutes between Michael's nine to one one
18:37
Speaker 1: calls and their arrival. And Durham Police detective Art Holland
18:41
Speaker 1: looked at the scene and knew something was off, and
18:44
Speaker 1: he told investigators, quote, I've seen falls, I've had family
18:47
Speaker 1: members fall, and to me, it didn't look anywhere like fall.
18:51
Speaker 1: And Kathleen's sister Candas eventually got inside the house and
18:54
Speaker 1: saw it for herself and said, quote, my sister's blood
18:57
Speaker 1: is washed in pools up against the wall. I mean,
19:00
Speaker 1: her blood was everywhere. And there was also a swhite
19:04
Speaker 1: mark on the wall, one that looked like somebody had
19:07
Speaker 1: attempted to clean up blood and hadn't quite finished the job.
19:10
Speaker 1: And blood was also found on the soles of Kathleen's feet,
19:13
Speaker 1: and additionally, investigators collected two large drops of blood from
19:17
Speaker 1: the back patio, a spot completely removed from the staircase
19:21
Speaker 1: and from where Kathleen's body lay, and the side door
19:24
Speaker 1: that opened onto the patio had a blood stain on
19:26
Speaker 1: it as well, and the kitchen sink held a few
19:29
Speaker 1: drops of blood as well, and Michael's shoeprint was found
19:33
Speaker 1: on the back of Kathleen's cap, and fingerprint expert Joyce
19:37
Speaker 1: Petska examined the impression and confirmed it matched his shoe
19:40
Speaker 1: design and wear pattern, and Petska described the impression as
19:44
Speaker 1: consistent with someone pressing straight down, not sliding or shifting sideways.
19:49
Speaker 1: And his shoes and socks sat on the floor right
19:52
Speaker 1: next to where Kathleen lay, and in the kitchen, an
19:54
Speaker 1: open wine bottle and two glasses were sitting out on
19:57
Speaker 1: the counter, and Michael's fingerprints were on both glasses and
20:01
Speaker 1: the bottle, and Kathleen's fingerprints weren't on either that they
20:04
Speaker 1: could find, and Michael had blood on his clothes and
20:08
Speaker 1: his skin, and at one point he went to wash
20:10
Speaker 1: his hands, but officers pulled him back, and responders were
20:13
Speaker 1: no longer sure they were actually looking at an accident.
20:17
Speaker 1: So at the house, the unseen medical examiner looked at
20:19
Speaker 1: the gashes on the back of Kathleen's head and initially
20:22
Speaker 1: thought a fall could explain them, but the sheer volume
20:25
Speaker 1: of blood gave everyone pause, and medical examiner Deborah Radish
20:29
Speaker 1: performed the full autopsy and found seven deep lacerations across
20:33
Speaker 1: the top and back of Kathleen's scalp, and the autopsy
20:36
Speaker 1: also revealed that Kathleen's body had been deprived of oxygen
20:40
Speaker 1: in the time before death, and the report documented bruises
20:43
Speaker 1: on her face and arms, along with contusions across her
20:47
Speaker 1: back and the back of her arms. Her legs, knees, feet,
20:50
Speaker 1: and ribs showed no signs of bruising at all, though,
20:53
Speaker 1: and the thyroid pritilage in her throat sustained a fracture,
20:56
Speaker 1: and Kathleen's fists were gripping clumps of hair and there
21:00
Speaker 1: was blood lodged under fingernails. So forensic pathologist doctor Tom
21:05
Speaker 1: Sporne explained the severity of those lacerations, saying, quote, scalp
21:09
Speaker 1: lacerations can bleed very, very profusely, so it is possible
21:13
Speaker 1: she could have had some of her death hastened by
21:16
Speaker 1: blood loss from these scalp wounds. In other words, she
21:19
Speaker 1: did not die instantly as a result of having received
21:22
Speaker 1: these injuries, unquote. And he was blunt about what the
21:25
Speaker 1: wounds looked like to him, saying, quote this type of
21:28
Speaker 1: complex lacerations and evulsions I have not seen with falls.
21:33
Speaker 1: So despite the lacerations in her scalp, Kathleen's skull was intact,
21:37
Speaker 1: with no fracture, no brain injury, no swelling, and in
21:41
Speaker 1: most blunt force cases, those injuries go hand in hand.
21:44
Speaker 1: And the toxicology report put Kathleen's blood alcohol at zero
21:48
Speaker 1: point zero seven, barely below the legal limit for driving,
21:51
Speaker 1: and showed valium in her blood at a standard therapeutic dose.
21:55
Speaker 1: And as mentioned, Michael had told the neighbor that she'd
21:57
Speaker 1: been drinking wine and had taken a valium. The toxicology
22:00
Speaker 1: report confirmed that much, and once the autopsy was complete,
22:04
Speaker 1: the medical examiner conclusion was direct and it said what
22:07
Speaker 1: happened to Kathleen did not match a staircase fall, and
22:11
Speaker 1: Radish ruled the cause of death as blunt force trauma.
22:14
Speaker 1: And for Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, the autopsy report changed everything,
22:19
Speaker 1: which she later said, quote, you need to read this.
22:21
Speaker 1: You need to understand that mom, she did not die
22:24
Speaker 1: from falling down the stairs. She was beaten to death unquote,
22:29
Speaker 1: And investigators and the medical examiner now agreed this was
22:32
Speaker 1: not an accident. So as the investigation widened detectives pulled
22:36
Speaker 1: on every thread they could find, and the first thread
22:39
Speaker 1: involved a fireplace tool called a blow pope, which, if
22:43
Speaker 1: you're not familiar, is a tool you blow through a
22:46
Speaker 1: long metal tube to feed oxygen to the fire with
22:49
Speaker 1: a hook on the end for repositioning logs. Now, the
22:53
Speaker 1: Peterson's owned one, a gift from Kathleen's sister. Actually, between
22:57
Speaker 1: the several cuts on Kathleen's scalp and the sheer amount
23:01
Speaker 1: of blood in the stairwell, it was believed she'd been
23:04
Speaker 1: hit with something, so investigators considered the blowpoke the most
23:08
Speaker 1: likely candidate, but there was one problem, and that was
23:12
Speaker 1: that it couldn't be found anywhere in the house. And
23:15
Speaker 1: the second thread came from Michael's computer because when investigators
23:19
Speaker 1: pulled the data, it was a massive haul, with eleven
23:22
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five email fragments and records showing visits
23:25
Speaker 1: to roughly eighty seven hundred websites, and among those were
23:29
Speaker 1: homosexual bography sites and correspondence with a male escort who
23:33
Speaker 1: went by Brad and the most recent exchanges went back
23:37
Speaker 1: to September of two thousand and one, putting them just
23:40
Speaker 1: three months ahead of the night Kathleen died and Michael
23:43
Speaker 1: and Brad had never actually met in person, and one
23:47
Speaker 1: of the emails conveyed the scenario. Michael told Escort he
23:50
Speaker 1: was very by and went into specific detail about what
23:53
Speaker 1: he was looking for, and in another he insisted his
23:56
Speaker 1: marriage was solid quote I've got a dynamite wife who
23:59
Speaker 1: I love. I'm sorry, I like men and women unquote.
24:03
Speaker 1: And there was no evidence that Kathleen knew about any
24:06
Speaker 1: of it, and even without proof that she knew, the
24:09
Speaker 1: emails could be used to challenge claims that the Peterson
24:12
Speaker 1: had a storybook marriage. Investigators had a theory about what
24:16
Speaker 1: might have happened that night, and Kathleen's coworker's Helen Prislinger,
24:20
Speaker 1: had sent an email to Michael's address at Kathleen's request
24:23
Speaker 1: earlier that evening, and Kathleen opens Michael's computer to pull
24:27
Speaker 1: up that email and stumbles across the escort messages or theography,
24:32
Speaker 1: and a fight breaks out. And the third thread ran
24:35
Speaker 1: through the couple's finances, and like we spoke about before,
24:38
Speaker 1: the financial strain had already been documented, the credit card
24:41
Speaker 1: debt and dwindling income, Kathleen carrying the household on her
24:45
Speaker 1: Nortel salary. Kathleen carried a one point four million dollar
24:49
Speaker 1: life insurance policy also, and she'd originally named her first husband,
24:54
Speaker 1: Fred Atwater as the beneficiary, but after marrying Michael, she
24:58
Speaker 1: changed it to him time. Top of that, around three
25:01
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty four thousand dollars in additional Nortel payouts
25:04
Speaker 1: hung in the balance, deferred compensation, pension funds and four
25:07
Speaker 1: oh one K savings, et cetera. Investigators believed Michael might
25:11
Speaker 1: have killed Kathleen to collect on the policy, and with
25:15
Speaker 1: eleven days left before Kathleen's death, Michael sent an email
25:18
Speaker 1: to Patricia in Germany about Clayton and Todd's spiraling credit debt,
25:22
Speaker 1: urging her to look into a thirty thousand dollars home
25:24
Speaker 1: equity loan to bail them out, and they told Patricia
25:27
Speaker 1: he was worried sick about the boys, then wrote, quote,
25:31
Speaker 1: it is simply not possible for me to discuss this
25:33
Speaker 1: with Kathleen unquote. Michael sent an email to a family
25:37
Speaker 1: friend on December third, just six days out from Kathleen's death,
25:40
Speaker 1: venting about the Mortel situation, saying, quote, poor Kathleen is
25:44
Speaker 1: undergoing the tortures of the damned at Nortel. They've laid
25:48
Speaker 1: off forty five thousand people. She's a survivor and in
25:51
Speaker 1: no trouble, but the stress is monumental there unquote. So
25:55
Speaker 1: if Kathleen lost her position, the household had almost no
25:58
Speaker 1: other income. And the fourth thread reached sixteen years into
26:03
Speaker 1: the past and when Michael and Patricia were still married
26:06
Speaker 1: and living in Germany, one of their closest friends was
26:09
Speaker 1: a woman named Elizabeth Ratliffe, and she worked as a
26:12
Speaker 1: second grade teacher at a US Department of Defense school,
26:15
Speaker 1: and her husband, George Ratliffe, had died in nineteen eighty
26:18
Speaker 1: three during a secret military operation overseas, and leaving Elizabeth
26:22
Speaker 1: a widow at a young age. And after George's death,
26:25
Speaker 1: Michael fell into a routine with Elizabeth. He started showing
26:29
Speaker 1: up at Elizabeth's house almost every night once dinner was over,
26:32
Speaker 1: washing dishes, reading bedtime stories to her two little girls,
26:36
Speaker 1: and then heading back, and he was the last person
26:39
Speaker 1: to see her alive. Now. One morning in nineteen eighty five,
26:42
Speaker 1: someone found Elizabeth Ratliffe dead inside her home at age
26:45
Speaker 1: forty three, her body crumpled against the lowest steps of
26:49
Speaker 1: a wooden staircase, and the German investigation ruled it a
26:52
Speaker 1: natural death. A cerebral hemorrhage had struck and she collapsed downstairs,
26:57
Speaker 1: and she had cuts across her scalp, the same type
27:00
Speaker 1: of lacerations found on Kathleen, and German authorities blamed them
27:04
Speaker 1: on the tumble down the stairs and the staircase was
27:06
Speaker 1: streaked with blood from bottom to top. And in the
27:09
Speaker 1: days leading up to her death, Elizabeth told people she'd
27:12
Speaker 1: been suffering from intense headaches and had a doctor's appointment
27:15
Speaker 1: lined up for the next week. And her daughters, Margaret
27:17
Speaker 1: and Martha were two and one years old when their
27:21
Speaker 1: mother died, and the Petersons were Elizabeth's next door neighbors,
27:24
Speaker 1: and after her death, Michael and Patricia brought Margaret and
27:27
Speaker 1: Martha into their home and raised them so for nearly
27:30
Speaker 1: two decades, Elizabeth's death remained a closed case in Germany,
27:34
Speaker 1: and then Kathleen Peterson died at the bottom of a
27:37
Speaker 1: staircase in durham An. Investigators started looking backward, and in
27:41
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, authorities exhumed Elizabeth's body in Texas.
27:44
Speaker 1: The medical examiner from North Carolina performed a new autopsy
27:48
Speaker 1: and reached a conclusion that overturned the original German finding.
27:52
Speaker 1: Elizabeth had not died from a cerebral hemorrhage. She had
27:56
Speaker 1: died from blunt force injuries, and the ruling was hama.
28:00
Speaker 1: So two women connected to the same man found at
28:04
Speaker 1: the bottom of staircases years apart, both with lacerations to
28:08
Speaker 1: the head. Michael Peterson had been the last person to
28:12
Speaker 1: see both of them alive. So four days after Kathleen died,
28:16
Speaker 1: a memorial service was held at Duke Chapel, the towering
28:19
Speaker 1: Gothic cathedral at the center of the campus where both
28:21
Speaker 1: Michael and Kathleen had gone to school, and she was
28:24
Speaker 1: buried at Maplewood Cemetery, and an obituary ran in the
28:27
Speaker 1: local paper, and for a brief window, the story was
28:30
Speaker 1: still one of grief rather than suspicion. And then, eleven
28:33
Speaker 1: days after Kathleen's death, on December twentieth, two thousand and one,
28:37
Speaker 1: a grand jury indicted Michael Peterson for first degree murder,
28:41
Speaker 1: and he turned himself in after the indictment came down
28:44
Speaker 1: and the charge rested on the medical examiner's determination that
28:47
Speaker 1: Kathleen's injuries ruled out a fall, and Peterson was a
28:51
Speaker 1: former Harold's Son columnist, a novelist, and one time candidate
28:54
Speaker 1: for mayor, and Durham already knew his name, and that
28:57
Speaker 1: recognition pulled the local media hard, and as the case
29:01
Speaker 1: moved forward, the attention only grew, and Caitlyn's first instinct
29:05
Speaker 1: after losing her mother was to stand with her stepfather. Naturally,
29:09
Speaker 1: she believed what Michael had told everyone, that her mother's
29:12
Speaker 1: death was just a terrible, tragic accident at a freak
29:15
Speaker 1: fall on the stairs and nothing more than that. And
29:18
Speaker 1: it took a few days before Caitlyn could bring herself
29:21
Speaker 1: to walk back into the Cedar Street house. The staircase
29:24
Speaker 1: where her mother had been found was boarded up, and
29:27
Speaker 1: the kitchen hadn't been straightened up. Cards flowers and casseroles
29:31
Speaker 1: that covered the counters, alongside bottles of wine and liquor
29:35
Speaker 1: that grieving friends and neighbors had dropped off. Christmas now
29:38
Speaker 1: was only days away, but nothing in the house reflected it.
29:41
Speaker 1: At that point, Caitlyn had no reason to doubt Michael's
29:44
Speaker 1: version of events, and no one had publicly confirmed that
29:47
Speaker 1: the autopsy findings were inconsistent with a fall. So at
29:50
Speaker 1: this point she was grieving her mother, surrounded by people
29:53
Speaker 1: who loved Michael and believed him. But Caitlyn's disbelief didn't hold,
29:58
Speaker 1: and as the investigation proceeded and the evidence mounted, the
30:01
Speaker 1: picture she'd accepted began to crack, and by October two
30:04
Speaker 1: thousand and two, less than a year after her mother's death,
30:07
Speaker 1: Caitlin had completely shifted far enough to take legal action,
30:12
Speaker 1: and she took on the role of a state administrator
30:15
Speaker 1: and brought a civil wrongful death suit against Michael, and
30:18
Speaker 1: the filing made her position clear. She no longer believed
30:22
Speaker 1: it was an accident, and she intended to make sure
30:24
Speaker 1: Michael could never profit from what happened. And Peterson's biological sons,
30:29
Speaker 1: Clayton and Todd, took the opposite position, and they stood
30:33
Speaker 1: by their father from the beginning and never wavered, and
30:35
Speaker 1: Michael would maintain his innocence and his sons accepted that
30:39
Speaker 1: without qualification, and Margaret and Martha Ratliffe, raised by Michael
30:43
Speaker 1: since they were small, also remained loyal to the man
30:47
Speaker 1: they called dad. So the family that had looked so
30:50
Speaker 1: unified from the outside was now split along the fault
30:54
Speaker 1: line of Kathleen's death, so jury's selection began on May fifth,
30:58
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, nearly a year and a half
31:01
Speaker 1: after Kathleen's death, and opening statements followed on July first,
31:05
Speaker 1: and George Orlando Hudson presided over the Durham trial, which
31:09
Speaker 1: Indy Week deemed the city's longest and perhaps most sensational
31:13
Speaker 1: trial to date, and testimony stretched across thirteen and a
31:16
Speaker 1: half weeks before the case finally went to the jury
31:19
Speaker 1: and the state's case was in the hands of Durham
31:21
Speaker 1: District Attorney James Harden. An assistant District Attorney FRIEDA Black
31:25
Speaker 1: sat on the prosecution table with him, and Harden was
31:28
Speaker 1: on the DA whose office Michael had repeatedly targeted in
31:32
Speaker 1: his Herald's Son columns. Ooh, and now he stood across
31:36
Speaker 1: the courtroom from the man who'd spent years criticizing him
31:39
Speaker 1: in print. Peterson's defense attorney was David Rudolph, and according
31:43
Speaker 1: to the state, Peterson bludgeoned Kathleen with a blunt object
31:47
Speaker 1: and then arranged the scene to pass for an accidental fall,
31:50
Speaker 1: and their proposed motive was money, specifically the one point
31:54
Speaker 1: four million dollar life insurance policy on Kathleen's life, and
31:58
Speaker 1: Harden and Black pointed to the Hupple's growing credit card
32:01
Speaker 1: debt and argued Peterson saw the payout as a way out,
32:05
Speaker 1: and Rudolph countered with a version that fit the physical
32:08
Speaker 1: evidence differently, and he would say, quote, no one thought
32:11
Speaker 1: Michael could have ever harmed Kathleen, and indeed there was
32:15
Speaker 1: never a shred of evidence that they had ever had
32:18
Speaker 1: so much as a loud argument unquote. And also the
32:21
Speaker 1: defense argued that Kathleen lost her footing at least twice
32:24
Speaker 1: on the poorly lit back staircase, and each time her
32:28
Speaker 1: head caught the sharp molding on the way down, and
32:30
Speaker 1: she'd been wearing flip flops and had consumed wine and
32:33
Speaker 1: valium that evening, and Rudolph turned the autopsy against the prosecution.
32:37
Speaker 1: Seven lacerations covered the top and back of Kathleen's scalp,
32:41
Speaker 1: and there was no brain injury and no swelling, and
32:43
Speaker 1: he backed the claim with data, pointing the jury to
32:46
Speaker 1: state autopsy records covering two hundred and fifty seven killings
32:49
Speaker 1: going back to nineteen ninety one, and arguing that nothing
32:52
Speaker 1: about Kathleen's wounds matched a beating death and blood splatter
32:56
Speaker 1: evidence formed the backbone of the prosecution's forensic case, and
33:00
Speaker 1: their expert was Dwayne Deaver, an analyst with North Carolina
33:04
Speaker 1: State Bureau of Investigation, and on the stand, Deaver walked
33:07
Speaker 1: the jury through blood patterns found across the stairwells, walls
33:11
Speaker 1: and on Michael's clothing and on Kathleen's and he told
33:15
Speaker 1: them all of it pointed to one conclusion, she was
33:18
Speaker 1: bludgeoned to death, and his testimony carried considerable weight with
33:22
Speaker 1: the jury. And the blowpoke had loomed over the case
33:24
Speaker 1: since the investigation began right and prosecutors had argued it
33:28
Speaker 1: was the most likely weapon and its absence from the
33:31
Speaker 1: home suggested someone had removed it, and then late in
33:34
Speaker 1: the trial, the defense produced it and Rudolph entered the
33:37
Speaker 1: blowpoke into evidence himself after it was found in the
33:41
Speaker 1: Peterson's garage. It was fully intact, undamaged, with no trace
33:46
Speaker 1: of blood, so the prosecution's theorized weapon had been sitting
33:49
Speaker 1: in the house the entire time, untouched, but the actual
33:53
Speaker 1: murder weapon was never identified, and the prosecution also brought
33:56
Speaker 1: Michael's private life into the courtroom when the findings on
33:59
Speaker 1: his personal computer were deemed admissible, and they floated the
34:03
Speaker 1: confrontation theory from earlier where Kathleen found the emails and photographs,
34:07
Speaker 1: and an altercation followed, and a male escort took the
34:10
Speaker 1: stand and testified about his email exchanges with Peterson, and
34:14
Speaker 1: prosecutors used the correspondence to challenge the defense's portrait of
34:17
Speaker 1: a happy, stable marriage and freeda Black put the photographs
34:21
Speaker 1: from Michael's computer in front of the jury, and this
34:24
Speaker 1: was her word for what they depicted, quote unquote filth.
34:27
Speaker 1: Another defense pushed back on the theory, pointing out that
34:30
Speaker 1: the bulk of those messages sat on a part of
34:32
Speaker 1: Michael's hard drive, Kathleen had no way to reach. A
34:36
Speaker 1: defense attorney, Thomas Mayer called the confrontation theory pure suspicion
34:40
Speaker 1: and a whole lot of maybe's without any evidentiary support
34:45
Speaker 1: was more circumstantial and criminal law professor Kevin mcmonagall of
34:49
Speaker 1: Case Western University assessed the prosecution's strategy as a double
34:53
Speaker 1: edged sword, and he said the evidence was pretty relevant
34:56
Speaker 1: in terms of how happy their marriage was and whether
34:59
Speaker 1: or not they were arguing, but it also was very prejudicial,
35:02
Speaker 1: and he added, quote you could imagine, especially back then,
35:06
Speaker 1: there could be some jurors who would condemn him for
35:08
Speaker 1: that and maybe decide the case on an emotional basis unquote.
35:12
Speaker 1: And Peterson himself reflected on it years later, saying, quote,
35:15
Speaker 1: what happened in that trial could not happen today. It's
35:17
Speaker 1: just simply not possible. For Harden and Frieda racing around
35:21
Speaker 1: showing these pictures. He's guilty because he's bisexual. Try that
35:25
Speaker 1: one today in court unquote, he would go on to say,
35:28
Speaker 1: and he blamed Judge Hudson for allowing it and called
35:31
Speaker 1: it a very homophobic trial. And the prosecution turned to
35:35
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Ratliff's death, arguing that the parallels with Kathleen's death
35:38
Speaker 1: were too start to ignore. After Ratliff's body was exhumed,
35:42
Speaker 1: doctor Deborah Radish performed a second autopsy on the remains,
35:46
Speaker 1: and she was the same examiner who had autopsied Kathleen,
35:49
Speaker 1: and her finding was identical death by beating. And the
35:52
Speaker 1: jury would see footage of the exhumation and photographs of
35:55
Speaker 1: Ratlfft's body in the coffin, and Peterson understood the damage
35:59
Speaker 1: and he would say, quote, I think a lot of
36:01
Speaker 1: it had to do with Liz. We were watching the
36:04
Speaker 1: TV and there at the graveyard. Then they bring the
36:07
Speaker 1: body back and it's filmed all the way. It didn't
36:10
Speaker 1: have any effect on the jury. Are you kidding me? That?
36:13
Speaker 1: And the homophobia. Here are the photographs of Liz in
36:16
Speaker 1: the coffin and the filth, the filth, the filth. Hell,
36:20
Speaker 1: I would have probably convicted me unquote. And Caitlin had
36:24
Speaker 1: once stood beside her stepfather, but by the time the
36:27
Speaker 1: trial began, she had crossed to the other side, and
36:30
Speaker 1: she sat through every day of testimony, listening to both
36:34
Speaker 1: the prosecution and the defense lay out their cases, and
36:37
Speaker 1: afterwards she would say, quote, the only thing that I
36:40
Speaker 1: have to say about this trial and all the subsequent
36:43
Speaker 1: followut is that if there was any closure to possibly
36:46
Speaker 1: come from all of this, it came after sitting through
36:48
Speaker 1: the entire trial and listening day after day to all
36:51
Speaker 1: the evidence on both sides, and after the closing arguments,
36:54
Speaker 1: when all was said and done, I felt confident that
36:57
Speaker 1: I knew what happened. I knew what happened to my
37:00
Speaker 1: mom unquote. And Margaret and Martha Ratliffe remained on Michael's
37:04
Speaker 1: side grow out. Michael never took the witness stand. Looking back,
37:08
Speaker 1: he called it a mistake quote unquote, Oh absolutely, I
37:12
Speaker 1: wish I had testified. And jury consultant Margie Fargo had
37:16
Speaker 1: pushed more for Michael and his family to testify, believing
37:19
Speaker 1: it would humanize him in front of the jury, but
37:21
Speaker 1: Rudolph would not allow it, and he reasoned that putting
37:24
Speaker 1: Michael or any of his children on the stand meant
37:26
Speaker 1: the prosecution could reopen every damaging thread on cross examination,
37:31
Speaker 1: from the bisexuality to the escort remains, to Elizabeth Ratliffe's death,
37:35
Speaker 1: and on top of that, the purple heart fabrication gave
37:38
Speaker 1: prosecutors a ready made narrative Michael Peterson was a liar,
37:43
Speaker 1: and Rudolph wrote, quote I believe to this day that
37:46
Speaker 1: the right decision was made. I don't believe his testimony
37:49
Speaker 1: could or would have made a difference. In the end,
37:51
Speaker 1: the trial was not fair unquote. And on October tenth,
37:55
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, the jury returned its verdict and
37:58
Speaker 1: the verdict was a first degree murder, and the judge
38:03
Speaker 1: handed down life without parole. And Michael at this point
38:06
Speaker 1: was fifty nine years old, and he showed really no
38:09
Speaker 1: reaction when the word guilty filled the courtroom, and he
38:12
Speaker 1: faced his family in the gallery and spoke to them directly,
38:15
Speaker 1: saying I love you, and Margaret and Martha collapsed into
38:19
Speaker 1: each other crying, and Rudolph announced to the court that
38:22
Speaker 1: an appeal was coming, and officers cuffed Peterson and walked
38:25
Speaker 1: him out of the courtroom. And by the time it
38:28
Speaker 1: was over, the Peterson case had become one of the longest,
38:31
Speaker 1: most expensive, and most viewed trials in North Carolina history. So,
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Speaker 1: to it. So Michael was sent to Nash Correctional Institution
39:54
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, and as legal team challenged the conviction
39:58
Speaker 1: again and again over the years followed, but every appeal
40:01
Speaker 1: was rejected, including the homophobia angle, and in two thousand
40:05
Speaker 1: and six, the North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected his
40:08
Speaker 1: claim that judicial mistakes in admitting evidence denied him a
40:12
Speaker 1: fair trial ruling the errors amounted to quote unquote harmless error,
40:16
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and nine, an unlikely alternative explanation surfaced,
40:21
Speaker 1: and T. Lawrence Pollard filed the motion arguing that Kathleen
40:25
Speaker 1: had not been beaten by her husband, but attacked by
40:28
Speaker 1: an owl. And Bollard was described as a respected North
40:32
Speaker 1: Carolina prosecutor living next to the Petersons at the time
40:35
Speaker 1: of the killing, and Plard proposed that a barred owl
40:37
Speaker 1: had struck Kathleen outside the Cedar Street mansion and kept
40:41
Speaker 1: lawing at her as she ran through the front door,
40:44
Speaker 1: and according to Blard, the owl's talons caused wounds severe
40:48
Speaker 1: enough to kill her, and Kathleen bled out at the
40:51
Speaker 1: base of the stairs, and he pointed to the pattern
40:54
Speaker 1: of lacerations on Kathleen's scalp, which he claimed match the
40:58
Speaker 1: spacing one would expect barred owl talons, and a State
41:02
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation crime lab report had cataloged a single
41:05
Speaker 1: microscopic feather, and Blard's motion also cited additional feathers recovered
41:11
Speaker 1: from hair clutched in Kathleen's left hand, and investigators also
41:15
Speaker 1: recovered two small fragments from Kathleen's skull that were never
41:18
Speaker 1: actually tested, but which Pallard believed could have been pieces
41:22
Speaker 1: of an owl's talent. The theory got its most thorough
41:26
Speaker 1: treatment in twenty twenty three when Titty Smith published Death
41:30
Speaker 1: by Talents Didn't Owl Murder Kathleen Peterson, and even Smith
41:34
Speaker 1: wasn't sold at first. He described his initial take on
41:38
Speaker 1: the owl theory in his words, quote a crazy idea.
41:41
Speaker 1: Let me rephrase that batshit crazy unquote. But after examining
41:46
Speaker 1: the case, Smith reversed his opinion, and he wrote that
41:49
Speaker 1: no other theory holds up as well as the owl
41:52
Speaker 1: once you look at the evidence on its own terms.
41:55
Speaker 1: Smith went so far as to acknowledge that Michael's account
41:59
Speaker 1: of the evening all almost certainly wasn't true, but he
42:02
Speaker 1: still pinned Kathleen's death on the bird. And Mark Pinskey
42:06
Speaker 1: reviewed the book for The Indie Week, bringing decades of
42:09
Speaker 1: experience covering murder cases to his assessment, and he wasn't
42:12
Speaker 1: buying it, and he wrote that the book's argument relied
42:15
Speaker 1: on owl feathers, pine needles, and pieces of talon, and
42:18
Speaker 1: people found the idea fascinating and absurd in equal measure,
42:22
Speaker 1: but it never got Peterson back into a courtroom. Meanwhile,
42:26
Speaker 1: a scandal was unfolding that carried real legal consequences for
42:30
Speaker 1: Peterson's conviction, and Duayne Deaver had been an eighteen year
42:34
Speaker 1: veteran of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation by
42:37
Speaker 1: the time he took the stand at Peterson's trial, but
42:40
Speaker 1: his credentials were thinner than his courtroom confidence suggested, and
42:44
Speaker 1: his formal training amounted to a zoology degree and two
42:47
Speaker 1: blood stained analysis courses, and he had never actually joined
42:51
Speaker 1: a single professional organization in the field. So the unraveling
42:55
Speaker 1: started in twenty ten and a man named Greg Taylor
42:58
Speaker 1: received a nineteen ninety three conviction for the murder of
43:00
Speaker 1: a woman near downtown Raleigh, and at Taylor's trial, Deaver
43:04
Speaker 1: took the stand and told the jury that Taylor's vehicle
43:06
Speaker 1: had quote chemical indications for the presence of blood unquote,
43:10
Speaker 1: But what he left out, according to later foindings, was
43:13
Speaker 1: that additional testing using more advanced methods had come back
43:16
Speaker 1: completely clean, so there was no blood. And in twenty ten,
43:20
Speaker 1: Taylor walked free after having been locked up for seventeen years,
43:24
Speaker 1: and that case triggered a broader reckoning In that same year,
43:27
Speaker 1: an independent review found that the SBI's blood analysis unit
43:31
Speaker 1: had produced distorted or outright false evidence across multiple cases,
43:36
Speaker 1: and an independent audit examined two hundred and twenty nine
43:38
Speaker 1: criminal pieces handled by the unit, and auditors flagged five
43:42
Speaker 1: cases as deeply troubling, and Deaver's name was on all
43:46
Speaker 1: of them. And the SBI terminated Deva in twenty eleven,
43:49
Speaker 1: citing allegations that he had given false testimony across multiple trials.
43:54
Speaker 1: So on February fourteenth, twenty eleven, Peterson's attorneys filed a
43:58
Speaker 1: motion for a new trial. By December of twenty eleven,
44:01
Speaker 1: Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson had thrown out Peterson's conviction
44:05
Speaker 1: and granted him a new trial. So Hudson had sat
44:08
Speaker 1: on the bench for the original two thousand and three
44:10
Speaker 1: proceedings and now found that Dever's testimony had been materially
44:14
Speaker 1: misleading and deliberately false. Dever had overstated what he was
44:18
Speaker 1: qualified to do and sold the jury on methods that
44:20
Speaker 1: weren't as reliable as he made them sound, and Peterson's attorney,
44:24
Speaker 1: Jim Cooney now drove the point home during the appeals
44:27
Speaker 1: process and he divided the full trial transcript into two
44:31
Speaker 1: file folders and brought them both to court, and Dever's
44:34
Speaker 1: testimony filled one folder, and every other witness in the
44:38
Speaker 1: trial fit into the second, and Devers was thicker. And
44:42
Speaker 1: Cooney told the judges that Deaver quote was essentially a
44:45
Speaker 1: fraud unquote, and that if the jury had known it,
44:48
Speaker 1: the outcome would have been different. So he called Dever
44:51
Speaker 1: the critical witness, and by a wide margin, the most
44:54
Speaker 1: significant one in the entire trial. So Michael walked out
44:58
Speaker 1: of prison on December sixteenth, two thousand eleven, and he
45:01
Speaker 1: had served eight years. At this point, a judge placed
45:04
Speaker 1: him on house arrest while the case moved forward. The
45:07
Speaker 1: prosecutors fought to preserve the original verdict, and the North
45:10
Speaker 1: Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the new trial order in
45:13
Speaker 1: July of twenty thirteen. However, the state Supreme Court declined
45:16
Speaker 1: to hear the case, so his attorneys pushed to get
45:18
Speaker 1: the case thrown out altogether, pointing to failures in how
45:21
Speaker 1: physical evidence from the original investigation had been stored, and
45:25
Speaker 1: that motion was denied in November of twenty sixteen, so
45:28
Speaker 1: a new trial was scheduled for May twenty seventeen, but
45:31
Speaker 1: it never happened, and instead, on February twenty fourth, twenty seventeen,
45:35
Speaker 1: Michael stood in a courtroom at seventy three years old
45:38
Speaker 1: and entered an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter. And under
45:43
Speaker 1: the Alford plea, the defendant doesn't admit guilt. They say,
45:47
Speaker 1: I still maintain I didn't do this, but I recognize
45:50
Speaker 1: you have enough evidence that a jury could find me guilty.
45:53
Speaker 1: So Peterson still said he did not kill his wife.
45:56
Speaker 1: And Peterson left the courthouse that day as a convicted felon,
46:00
Speaker 1: but because the plea carried credit for the eight years
46:02
Speaker 1: he had already spent in prison, he was free. And
46:05
Speaker 1: Kevin McMonigal, the criminal law professor from earlier, weighed in
46:09
Speaker 1: on the nature of the deal, saying, quote, a lot
46:11
Speaker 1: of people think it's bad because if a guy is
46:14
Speaker 1: going to be punished by the government, then somebody ought
46:17
Speaker 1: to establish that he committed the crime, either a jury
46:20
Speaker 1: or he should admit it. Unquote. Mcmonagall pointed out a
46:24
Speaker 1: consequence most people didn't think about. The moment Peterson took
46:27
Speaker 1: that deal, the system lost any reason to keep investigating
46:31
Speaker 1: what actually happened. To Kathleen, and for someone facing the
46:35
Speaker 1: prospect of returning to prison, the temptation of a deal
46:38
Speaker 1: like that was hard to resist. So the case had
46:40
Speaker 1: been opened for more than fifteen years and the Alford
46:43
Speaker 1: Pleae closed it without resolving the central question, and the
46:47
Speaker 1: case's reach extended well beyond the courtroom. An Academy Award
46:51
Speaker 1: winner and French filmmaker Jean Xavier de Lestrade began filming
46:55
Speaker 1: Peterson and his family shortly after he was indicted, and
46:59
Speaker 1: the footage became The Staircase, a docuseries that first aired
47:03
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four and gave viewers a front
47:05
Speaker 1: row seat to Michael, his family, and the defense team
47:09
Speaker 1: as they moved through the murder trial, and the cameras
47:12
Speaker 1: came back in twenty twelve and twenty thirteen when his
47:15
Speaker 1: crew documented the legal battle to overturn Michael's conviction and
47:19
Speaker 1: turn the footage into a two hour follow up, and
47:22
Speaker 1: three additional episodes were later made for Netflix, and Netflix
47:26
Speaker 1: picked up all thirteen episodes in twenty eighteen and put
47:29
Speaker 1: the Peterson case in front of millions of people who
47:32
Speaker 1: had never heard of it, and there was also a
47:34
Speaker 1: private entanglement inside the production and dal Strade's film editor
47:38
Speaker 1: Sophie brune fell in love with Peterson during the making
47:42
Speaker 1: of the original series, and their relationship lasted more than
47:46
Speaker 1: a decade, spanning the original documentary and its follow ups.
47:50
Speaker 1: While this may or may not have made a difference,
47:53
Speaker 1: it should be noted that Brunette edited the footage that
47:56
Speaker 1: shaped Peterson's public image well romantically involved with him, I'd
47:59
Speaker 1: say that's a bit biased tbh, and HBO Max followed
48:04
Speaker 1: with its own dramatized version, also called The Staircase Could
48:08
Speaker 1: Be any More Creative, which drew from Dala Struan's original
48:11
Speaker 1: docu series. So when Michael was free, he wrote three books,
48:15
Speaker 1: and he also stayed in touch with his first wife, Patricia,
48:19
Speaker 1: and for a time the two of them lived together again,
48:21
Speaker 1: and Patricia eventually passed away and Michael moved to Reno,
48:24
Speaker 1: Nevada in twenty twenty four, and his attorney, David Rudolph
48:28
Speaker 1: once joked that Michael's new home didn't have a staircase.
48:34
Speaker 1: Nobody's laughing, you idiot, And Michael has never stopped saying
48:38
Speaker 1: he's innocent. The Alford Plea let him acknowledge the state's
48:41
Speaker 1: evidence without admitting guilt, and he's held that line ever since,
48:45
Speaker 1: and he still insists he did not kill Kathleen. And
48:49
Speaker 1: HBO Max's version of the staircase earned multiple Emmy nominations,
48:53
Speaker 1: and Michael called it a collection of egregious fabrications and
48:56
Speaker 1: made clear he wanted nothing to do with it. In
49:00
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, Netflix re released the original documentary series,
49:03
Speaker 1: putting the case back in front of a new generation
49:06
Speaker 1: of viewers, and more than two decades after Kathleen's death,
49:09
Speaker 1: the case still generates arguments in true crime forums, podcasts,
49:13
Speaker 1: and comment sections, and people who've watched the same footage
49:17
Speaker 1: and read the same documents land on opposite sides with
49:20
Speaker 1: equal confidence. The family that once filled the Cedar Street
49:23
Speaker 1: mansions scattered in every direction. Todd Peterson, Michael's biological son,
49:28
Speaker 1: had stood beside his father from the moment of the arrest,
49:31
Speaker 1: through every appeal, in every hearing, and then years later
49:34
Speaker 1: he reversed course in the most publicly possible, uploading a
49:38
Speaker 1: series of videos to YouTube in which he accused his
49:41
Speaker 1: father of killing Kathleen. So the son who never wavered
49:44
Speaker 1: was saying out loud now what prosecutors had argued two
49:47
Speaker 1: decades earlier, and Clayton Peterson, Michael's other biological son, took
49:51
Speaker 1: the opposite approach and went quiet, largely disappearing from public view.
49:56
Speaker 1: And Clayton carried his own history with the justice system,
49:59
Speaker 1: having been involved in a criminal incident during his time
50:02
Speaker 1: at Duke, a fact that surfaced during the trial era
50:05
Speaker 1: and added another layer of complication to the family's public image.
50:09
Speaker 1: And Margaret Ratliffe went on to make a documentary of
50:12
Speaker 1: her own. The film, called Subject, examined the experience of
50:15
Speaker 1: being a documentary subject and the cost of having your
50:18
Speaker 1: life turned into someone else's narrative, and Margaret spoke publicly
50:22
Speaker 1: about regret about the parts of her life that had
50:25
Speaker 1: been shaped by cameras she didn't fully understand as a child.
50:28
Speaker 1: I mean, she'd lost her biological mother at two years
50:32
Speaker 1: old and then watched the man who raised her get
50:34
Speaker 1: convicted of killing the only other mother she'd known. And
50:38
Speaker 1: Margaret told the Sydney Morning Harold she felt regret about
50:41
Speaker 1: growing up inside a documentary, and Martha Ratliff settled into
50:45
Speaker 1: a quiet life in Colorado, far from Durham and far
50:48
Speaker 1: from the cameras, and Caitlin Atwater's path after the trial
50:52
Speaker 1: was the most deliberate of any of them, because she
50:54
Speaker 1: had already filed that wrongful death claim against Michael in
50:58
Speaker 1: October of two thousand and two before the criminal trial
51:00
Speaker 1: even began, and that civil case eventually produced a twenty
51:03
Speaker 1: five million dollar settlement, with interest and other costs factored in,
51:08
Speaker 1: the total ode grew to roughly thirty million dollars, and
51:11
Speaker 1: through a separate court filing, Caitlin asked a judge to
51:14
Speaker 1: turn over all physical evidence from the trial so she
51:16
Speaker 1: could use it to enforce what she was owed, and
51:19
Speaker 1: as of the most recent reporting, she hasn't received a
51:22
Speaker 1: single dollar. A settlement exists on paper, but Michael has
51:25
Speaker 1: never paid it, and at one point one of Michael's
51:28
Speaker 1: sons told his father to pick up his chips and
51:30
Speaker 1: go home, to stop fighting, stop talking, and accept whatever
51:33
Speaker 1: version of freedom the plea had given him. And Michael
51:36
Speaker 1: didn't take the advice. He kept writing, kept giving interviews,
51:39
Speaker 1: and kept insisting the record was wrong. The Alfoord plea
51:43
Speaker 1: is the lock on this case, and it turns in
51:45
Speaker 1: both directions and believers in Michael's guilt see a technicality
51:49
Speaker 1: that let a guilty man walk free on a lesser
51:51
Speaker 1: charge after a tainted trial, and believers in his innocence
51:56
Speaker 1: see what happened when the system fails so badly that
51:59
Speaker 1: an innocent person decides a second trial isn't worth the risk,
52:03
Speaker 1: and everyone in between is left with something harder to
52:05
Speaker 1: sit with. And that is a legal ending that answered nothing.
52:09
Speaker 1: Two women connected to the same man were found at
52:12
Speaker 1: the bottom of staircases years apart, and Kathleen's scalp had
52:16
Speaker 1: seven lacerations, a shoe print marked her calf, and the
52:19
Speaker 1: blood in the stairwell had dried long before anyone called
52:22
Speaker 1: for help, and her husband said he loved her, but
52:25
Speaker 1: he kept secrets from her that she never learned about.
52:28
Speaker 1: And the owl theory sounds absurd until you read the details,
52:31
Speaker 1: and that it sounds only slightly less absurd. And the
52:34
Speaker 1: blood splatter analysts whose testimony helped put Peterson in prison
52:38
Speaker 1: for eight years turned out to have been completely falsified
52:40
Speaker 1: evidence in multiple cases. And every piece of evidence in
52:43
Speaker 1: this case has been interpreted at least two ways. Forensic experts, attorneys, judges,
52:48
Speaker 1: and family members have all looked at the same staircase
52:51
Speaker 1: and seen different things. And Kathleen Peterson was only forty
52:55
Speaker 1: eight years old when she passed away, and she was
52:58
Speaker 1: the first woman admitted to Duke's Engineering school, and a
53:01
Speaker 1: mother who built tea parties out of her grandmother's old
53:05
Speaker 1: dresses so her daughter's friends could feel like royalty for
53:08
Speaker 1: the afternoon. And she bled to death at the bottom
53:11
Speaker 1: of a staircase in her own home. And more than
53:13
Speaker 1: twenty years later, the question of how it happens still
53:17
Speaker 1: doesn't have an answer that everyone accepts. And Michael Peterson
53:20
Speaker 1: has maintained his innocence for over two decades now through
53:23
Speaker 1: American deviction, eight years in prison, a vacated verdict, and
53:27
Speaker 1: an Alford plea that let him go free without ever
53:29
Speaker 1: requiring anyone to prove or disprove what happened on the
53:31
Speaker 1: night of December ninth, two thousand and one. So the
53:34
Speaker 1: case may be closed, but the question is not. And
53:39
Speaker 1: I mean, I leave it to you. I would love
53:41
Speaker 1: to know what you think about this case. It's an
53:43
Speaker 1: extremely interesting case and I know a lot of people
53:46
Speaker 1: requested this case, so that is why I did it.
53:48
Speaker 1: If you have any other cases for me to look into,
53:51
Speaker 1: please let me know down below. I always read the
53:52
Speaker 1: comments and until then, I wisue your beautiful face, all right,
53:55
Speaker 1: and stay safe out there, okay,