174: The Neverending Staircase, The Death of Kathleen Peterson, PART 2

WEBVTT

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Southern frid True crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

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there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advised. At

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two forty a m. On Sunday, December ninth, two thousand one,

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fifty eight year old Michael Peterson called
nine one one. According to Michael,

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his wife, forty eight year old
Kathleen Peterson, had a terrible accident.

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She'd fallen down the stairs. Less
than ten minutes later, first responders arrived

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and declared Kathleen dead. Then the
police arrived and they were immediately suspicious.

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There was just too much blood.
It didn't look like a fall. In

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my last episode, The Never Ending
Staircase, Part one, I covered the

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background of Michael and Kathleen Peterson and
their uniquely blended family. If you haven't

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listened to part one, stop go
listen. It's important to understand Michael's history

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of deceit, the Durham Police Department's
dislike of Michael's outspoken journalism, and the

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complex in her workings of the Peterson
family. Also in my last episode,

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I introduced you to the general scene
of Kathleen's death. We surveyed the area

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from a bird's eye view, so
to speak, broadstrokes if you will.

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Kathleen's body was displayed at the foot
of the staircase. Michael sobbed an anguish

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and her blood, her blood was
everywhere. Now, I'll take you through

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the Peterson household step by step on
the night of December ninth, two thousand

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and one. You will experience the
seeing just as the emergency responders, law

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enforcement officials, and others did.
This isn't broadstrokes anymore. We're getting into

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the minutia because this is a case
where the devil is truly in the details.

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Welcome to episode one seventy four,
The Never Ending Staircase, Part two.

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At two forty eight am, two
paramedics arrived at the Peterson mansion.

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The paramedics spotted blood droplets on the
walkway leading into the house and smeared blood

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on the front door, which was
open already. These microscopic details would cause

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chaos in the courtroom later. If
Michael had truly found Kathleen unconscious at the

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bottom of the stairs and immediately called
nine one one, then while were there

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bloodstains on the walkway and the front
door, had Michael opened the door to

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help the emergency responders get there faster, or had he been frantically trying to

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cover up the brutal killing of his
wife. This case is full of moments

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like these, where one loose string
can be pulled and pulled until an entirely

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different yarn comes to light. As
the paramedics entered the Peterson's foyer, they

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saw a large spiral staircase leading to
the second floor, but this was not

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the staircase where Kathleen was located.
The paramedics turned left from the main entryway

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they entered the hallway that led to
the kitchen. Before they arrived at the

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kitchen, they stopped at a white
trim doorway. This doorway led to an

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enclosed stairwell and wooden steps. The
walls of the stairwell were painted a neutral

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tan color. On the bottom wall
of the stairwell, I guess looking up

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there was a framed poster, an
eighteen by twenty four inch vertical print with

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French text and the silhouette of a
large black cat. It was a copy

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of artist Theophile Steinland's eighteen ninety six
poster. He created it to advertise a

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popular Parisian cabaret's upcoming tour. The
cabaret group was called Lescha noir or in

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English, the black Cat. Believe
it or not, that detail about the

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poster will come up in court.
As the paramedics looked into the stairwell,

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they saw the cat poster to their
left. They also saw that only a

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few steps up the stairwell, the
stairs turned sharply to the right. This

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allowed the staircase to run parallel to
the hallway. But all of this would

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be secondary in the paramedics minds,
because at the bottom of the stairwell was

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the unmoving body of Kathleen Peterson.
Her legs were spread out in the hallway,

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her head was barely inside the door
frame near the stairs first steps.

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She was wearing a navy sweatshirt,
white sweatpants, comfy house clothes. She

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was barefoot and the soles of her
feet were bloody, and her flip flops

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were on the floor nearby. Michael
was next to Kathleen, trying to help

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her. He had a dazed stare
and was audibly crying. Before the paramedics

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arrived, Michael surrounded his wife's body
with towels and paper towels, and his

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socks and shoes were also on the
floor. Later, one of the paramedics

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would say that Michael was obviously very, very upset. They recalled that Michael

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had blood on his tennis shoes and
clothes. Later it will become unclear how

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much blood Michael had on his clothes
or where. The paramedics checked for Kathleen's

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heartbeat, but there was none.
Kathleen was gone. Soon after the paramedics

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arrived, a fire engine crew entered
the Peterson household. If you're not familiar

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that standard procedure. Firefighters are trained
as paramedics too. Most cities have a

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system where firefighters respond to medical emergencies
even when there is no fire involved.

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It's a fell safe to make sure
there is enough trained personnel available right away.

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The fire captain noticed something odd about
Kathleen's body. The bottom of her

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feet were bloody, as if Kathleen
had been standing in the blood. That

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didn't match the captain's mental picture of
a person falling down the stairs. If

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Kathleen had slipped, landed poorly and
died, then why would she have blood

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on the bottom of her feet.
And it wasn't just Kathleen's feet that were

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covered in blood. There was also
blood on the waist of her sweatpants soaked

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in blood, like she had bled
directly on to the pants, not transferred

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blood. Blood was literally everywhere on
the floor and the staircase, even the

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walls. The blood on the walls
of the enclosed staircase appeared to be smeared.

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Later, the emergency responders would testify
that much of the blood appeared dry

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right away. The paramedics were confused, suspicious what had really happened to Kathleen

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Peterson. Was this truly the most
horrific fall done a few steps that they

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had ever seen, or was this
something more nefarious? Could this all be

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an elaborate ruse staged by Kathleen's own
husband, Michael Peterson. Playing it safe,

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the first responders called the police to
come and investigate. Later, in

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court, the very clues that made
the first responders suspicious would be given reasonable

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explanations. For example, the blood
on Kathleen's feet. If she fell multiple

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times, it would make sense that
she had blood on the soles of her

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feet, as if she slipped once, her flip flops coming off, then

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blood profusely started to get up,
pushed herself to her feet, and slipped

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again, this time and her own
slick blood and the blood on the waist

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of Kathleen's sweatpants that would be consistent
with Kathleen's sitting up between falls. She

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was bleeding from the head as she
sat up, and it ran down the

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front of her body, trying to
catch her bearing but continuously failing as she

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fell over and over again. There
were corresponding smears on the door frame,

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as if she had tried to pull
herself up with her hands. It also

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explains the blood smears on the walls
if she was struggling to get herself up

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in that narrow corner, now slick
with blood, and according to a Pill's

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documents, when the emergency workers moved
Kathleen's body, her clothes were saturated with

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blood positively dripping, not dry at
all. Plus, as I mentioned in

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the last episode, not a single
one of the paramedics reports nor police reports

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mentioned the supposedly dry blood. It
wasn't until court testimony that this crucial detail

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was revealed, but that will all
come later. For now, the paramedics

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exchanged sidelong glances and meaningful whispers in
the Peterson mansion. The local police were

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on their way and Michael's son,
Tod arrived at the house. He was

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the first non emergency worker to get
there. Todd told the makers of the

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docuseries the staircase quote, it was
such a shock when I drove into the

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driveway to see an ambulance and just
think, oh my god. At first,

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Tod thought his father had a heart
attack. After all, Michael was

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about ten years older than Kathleen.
Todd naturally assumed that Michael was more at

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risk for a medical emergency. Upon
seeing that his father was fine, Todd

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felt relieved, But when Michael urgently
motioned to the staircase, Todd realized that

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Kathleen was in trouble. According to
Michael's interviews, he vividly remembered finding Kathleen

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calling nine to one one and seeing
Tod. Tod hugged his father so closely

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that Michael thought his son was trying
to contain him, and he probably was.

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Todd realized right away his father was
pretty much hysterical and that the paramedics

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were not happy about that. He
would soon find the police were not sympathetic

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either. Then the police arrived at
about three o nine am. The lead

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investigator was Art Holland Junior. After
looking at the staircase and Kathleen. The

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law enforcement officers quickly determined that they
had a crime scene on their hands.

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Their working theory was vague, but
they knew one thing. Kathleen Peterson hadn't

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fall and down the last few steps
of stairs. Rather, Michael had killed

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her. They weren't sure how,
but they knew the proof was somewhere in

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this house. But as they began
investigating, they struggled to keep the Peterson's

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massive, ten thousand square foot house
secure. A parade of people, including

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both civilians and emergency workers, traps
through the home. Michael Todd and others

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wandered freely. They touched things,
moved them. To be fair, these

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civilians were friends and family who thought
this was an accident, not a crime

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scene. Even with the police presence, they didn't think it was a murderer,

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and no one was officially cording them
off from the scene. For example,

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in the blood next to Kathleen's body, there was a wireless phone just

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laying there. Unaware of police procedure, Todd picked it up. Presumably he

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put the phone somewhere else. The
absence of the phone left behind a phone

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shaped outline in a pool of Kathleen's
blood. Here's another instance of evidence contamination.

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After the police showed up, Michael
began to wash his hands in a

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sink in the kitchen. This didn't
appear to be a Lady macbeth style out

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damned spot situation. Michael wasn't being
sneaky, and honestly, he could have

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been. He could have washed his
hands before the cops even got there.

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He could have gone to the bathroom
under the pretense of using the toilet just

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to hide his hand washing from prying
eyes. But he didn't. In fact,

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Michael was in clear view of the
police officers as he scrubbed his bloody

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fingers, and when they asked him
to stop, he did. Regardless,

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it was too late. His hands
had been washed. If anything important was

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to be found on them, it
was irrelevant now. And there was more.

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Not long after paramedics arrived, a
friend of Todd's showed up. Then

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more worried neighbors and friends entered the
Peterson's home. Of course, these concerned

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people meant well, but in hindsight, they shouldn't have been there. We

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will never know the full extent of
how much evidence was tainted during these critical

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hours. The police couldn't manage the
house or the people inside, and they

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knew it. According to court documents, at least one officer realized within minutes

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that there were nowhere near enough officers
at the house to control the crime scene.

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Michael was walking back and forth non
stop, as if he didn't know

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what to do. He appeared confused. At the police officer's instruction. Michael

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and Tod went outside. The father
and son waited on a patio that was

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adjoined to the kitchen. There,
Michael wept and paced some more. Tod

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was then allowed to go into the
kitchen to get a drink and a glass.

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This action drew the investigator's attention to
a blood stained diet co can.

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It was on the patio table near
Michael and Todd. DNA analysis later identified

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that the blood on the soda can
did belong to Kathleen. Michael's DNA was

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also found on the beverage, along
with strands of Kathleen's hair. Durham County

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Medical Examiner doctor Kenneth Snell later stated
in court that this made sense. He

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believed that Michael would have strands of
Kathleen's hair on his hands since he was

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recently holding her head. The strands
were then transferred to the diet coke can

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as Michael drank out of it in
the kitchen. Law enforcement also discovered blood

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spatters on the cabinets containing the drinking
glasses. It looked like Michael had grabbed

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a diet coke can and maybe thought
about getting a glass, but changed his

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mind, And this had to be
before they saw him washing his hands.

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See what I mean about the contamination. It makes all the sequences of events

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so confusing. According to court documents, a Durham forensic evidence technician named Dan

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George arrived at the house at three
of an am. At this time,

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Michael was on the patio. When
Dan George was leaving the area, he

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saw Michael come through the kitchen.
Michael passed by an officer who did not

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stop him from proceeding onward. The
officer almost certainly noticed Michael, because George

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reported that Michael was moaning and groaning. Still, Michael was allowed to approach

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Kathleen's body. He was able to
put his arms around her. He pretty

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much threw himself on her body as
everyone stood around and watched. Todd saw

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this encounter and he was the only
one to intervene. He ran over to

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his dad. He tried to convince
Michael to release Kathleen, but Michael wouldn't

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listen, he would not let go. Finally, Tod was forced to physically

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lift Michael away from Kathleen's body.
All the shifting of Kathleen's body revealed wet

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blood underneath her, and Dan George
noticed that her clothing was still wet with

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blood. Dan George's account of this
wet blood directly opposed the first responder's later

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testimony that it was dry. It
also creates a problem a certain blood spatter

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expert, Durham's own little Dexter,
would later have explaining the blood on the

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shorts Michael was wearing. I never
understood why so much was made of this

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supposed evidence when several cops, medics, and crime scene technicians literally watched Michael

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do this. If the blood was
still dripping when Kathleen's body was moved,

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it stands to reason it would splash
or otherwise transfer to Michael. Schwartz and

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the medics who moved Kathleen's body into
a body bag would later say that the

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blood was indeed still dripping from her
clothes. But let's just take a moment

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to acknowledge that moving Kathleen's body should
not have happened. Michael should have been

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supervised, some one should have been
watching the body something. This was not

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good police work. After Michael was
forcibly removed from Kathleen, he sat on

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a couch near the kitchen. Since
he had just touched Kathleen's bloody body,

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Michael transferred blood onto the couch again. This was showing that at least some

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of Kathleen's blood was wet, not
dry. Remember, wet blood supported Michael's

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version of events an accident had happened
only a few minutes before his nun one

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one call. Dry blood supported an
alternate, more malevolent version of events,

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where Kathleen had lain dead for hours, or at least since her phone call

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with her nortail colleague just after eleven
p m. Next, the police moved

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Michael and Tod to a third location, the din. Inside the din was

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Michael's desk and computer. Police officer
mc Callup remained in the room with Michael

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and Tod. His job was to
prevent the father and son from talking to

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each other. Michael and Tod recalled
that these moments made it clear to them

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that this was a crime scene.
Tod was characterized as argumentative and even combative

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later by law enforcement. But think
if he walked in and believed his stepmother

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had a terrible accident and his father
was in shock, and the police retreating

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him as a suspect, he would
be angry at their treatment. I can't

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fault him for that. According to
Michael, everywhere he went a policeman was

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always there. They were with him
constantly. In the din, Michael got

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on his computer. Officer mc callup
said, Michael checked his emails and served

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the web. After a time,
mccallop was relieved from keeping an eye on

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Michael and todd Up. Next was
Officer Hester. Hester testified that Michael was

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visibly upset as he wrote on a
pad of paper. At different times,

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Michael would moan, cry, and
hold his hands to his head. Michael

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walked around, often trying to compose
himself. Under Hester's watch, he was

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asked to change out of his clothes
so they could be collected for evidence.

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When Michael was done, Hester notified
his commanding officers that Michael's clothes were ready.

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Officer Hester didn't bag them as evidence, though, and I guess because

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they were wet. He set them
on a window sill in the din.

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Since the clothes were important evidence,
Officer Hester wanted someone to come collect them,

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but the clothes sat on the window
sill for four to five hours.

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At seven forty am, the Durham
County Medical Examiner, doctor Kenneth Snell,

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stepped into the crime scene. By
the time he arrived, the towels under

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Kathleen's head had been removed and discarded
on the floor. Her sweatpants were still

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dripping with blood. That's five hours
after Michael's nine one one call and Kathleen's

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clothes were still dripping. I just
think this is so important, especially when

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there will be such argument over dried
blood and the blood on Michael's clothes.

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Doctor Snell noted three to four visible
injuries on Kathleen's body, but he couldn't

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do a full examination that would require
moving the body, and doctor Snell was

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worried that if he had old Kathleen's
body too much, the injuries would worsen.

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He felt the tears on her scalp
would open more. Sometime during doctor

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Snell's visit, the local police officers
shared their suspicions with doctor Snell. They

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didn't believe that Kathleen fell down the
stairs. In fact, the police officers

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were quite certain that Michael had somehow
beaten his wife to death. So as

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he wrote his original report, doctor
Snell knew of the police officer's concerns,

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and yet doctor Snell's original reports stated
it appears that she hid her head on

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the steps above the corner and then
hit the floor in the corner of the

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stairs. Blood spatter appears to support
the scenario. Doctor Snell noticed multiple lacerations

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or cuts on Kathleen's head before he
left the Peterson home. He told the

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officers that it appeared to be a
fall, but they should look for an

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instrument that may have caused the lacerations. It's important to note a few things

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here. At no point did doctor
Snall say weapon. He only indicated that

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something an instrument might have caused the
damage to Kathleen's skull. The stairs banister

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could have been an instrument or a
piece of wood sticking out of the wall.

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Also, something that is rarely mentioned
is that there was an old chair

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lift in the stairwell. It was
long out of use, but the Peterson's

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had never had it removed. It
was folded up, but definitely still in

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place, and depending on where Kathleen
fell, she could have hit part of

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the lift. It is difficult to
see it in photos and one I saw

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it as right above the sixteenth step
as this diagram labeled it, which sounds

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high up to me, but it's
actually right above the corner turn inside the

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staircase, so like the third or
fourth step if you're counting from the bottom.

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The stairlift is parallel to the staircase, so it's on the first step

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going straight up. Sorry if I
have confused you, I'll try to find

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a good photo to post. But
at any rate, the stairlift was close

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to the bottom of the staircase where
Kathleen would have fallen. Due to the

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unusual nature of Kathleen's death, as
well as the officer's continued suspicion of Michael,

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doctor Snell went ahead and authorized an
autopsy, and following doctor Snell's examination,

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Kathleen's body was removed from the scene. I'm going to pause now for

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a short commercial break. Kathleen's autopsy
was conducted a few hours later at noon

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on Sunday, December ninth, Medical
examiner doctor Snell, who had just observed

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her body at the scene, was
present for the autopsy. However, he

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didn't perform the autopsy. Doctor Deboratush
did that this autopsy, like everything else

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in the case, comes under much
debate. To begin, it was recorded

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that Kathleen was five foot two inches
tall and weighed one hundred and twenty pounds.

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Her hair was dark brown and her
eyes were gray green. At this

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time, her body had not yet
gone through rigor mortis. Will now go

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through each of Kathleen's injuries. First, Kathleen was diagnosed with multiple lacerations and

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divulsions to the posterior scalp. In
short, she had cuts on the back

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of her head. The pictures of
these lacerations leave a lasting impression. They

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are large, deep cuts. It
looks like her skull is bursting open.

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I hate to be gross, but
think of it like the skin of a

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peach pulling away. These lacerations,
along with the photographs of the bloody stairwell,

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are probably the most compelling pieces of
evidence against Michael. From a layman's

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perspective, it is difficult to understand
how Kathleen could have been injured this severely

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from a fall. Next on the
autopsy was Kathleen's multiple contusions to the posterior

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scalp, meaning she had bruises on
the back of her head. This is

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something I haven't heard in many places, I think because it's confusing. It's

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bruises on the skin, on the
scalp, not bruising on the brain,

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which we are getting to, or
even on the skull. Because there is

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such a thing as bone bruises.
Think of banging your elbow on something sharp.

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There is a cut and around that
cut as a bruise. Now you

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didn't break your arm, but it
is still bruised. Does that make sense.

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Then there was Kathleen's slight to moderate
suborachnoid hemorrhage. Essentially, there was

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bleeding in the space between her brain
and her skull. But, and this

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is important, Kathleen's brain was not
injured. It was not bruised. This

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hemorrhage was probably from the lacerations.
As doctor Radish put it in the notes,

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she found no contusions or abnormalities.
Remember I used the word bruise a

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moment ago. Well, a contusion
is a medical term for a bruise.

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We hear it all the time on
our favorite crime shows because it sounds fancier

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or more sinister than a bruise,
or the fake medical examiner on the TV

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can say, see all the contusions
and bruising on the victims, blah blah,

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it's just to add extra words.
Usually you won't see both in a

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medical report. They are the same
thing. Please google this if you don't

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believe me. Anyway, you ask
the question, you get the same answer.

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A contusion is the same thing as
a bruise, although of course there

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are different types and varying degrees of
seriousness for contusions or bruises. I think

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bruises is something you hear a doctor
say to you instead of contusions, which

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is more formal and scary sounding.
But again, there were no contusions or

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bruises you prefer that word on Kathleen's
brain. Not small ones, not insignificant

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00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:11.880
ones, none. They were only
on her scalp surface level, all so

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important. The autopsy did not reveal
any skull or neck fractures, both of

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which are common when a person is
brutally beaten to death. The autopsy did

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find a fracture of her thyroid cartilage, which was located in her neck.

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This particular injury caused a huge amount
of debate. Doctor Radish believed it may

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have been indicative of strangulation, which
supported that Michael had hurt Kathleen, but

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there were no other signs of strangulation. There was no bruising around her neck

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area, no particular hemorrhages, and
her highoid bone was not broken. These

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are much more common signs of strangulation, and according to Michael's book Behind the

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00:25:56.799 --> 00:26:02.039
Staircase, Kathleen did suffer a neck
injury about three months before December ninth.

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She had dove into the shallow end
of the pool while tipsy at their empty

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nest party they threw after their youngest
Martha, left for college that fall.

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Kathleen had worn a neck brace for
weeks after. Could this cartilage injury have

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been caused by that? I don't
know, but I have a gut feeling.

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I had knee surgery several years ago
after an MRI and X rays showed

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no broken bones or cartilage, but
they thought I might have a torn meniscus.

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Well I didn't, but I had
ten pieces of broken cartilage floating around

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in my kneecap area. I had
dislocated my kneecap is what started at all,

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and yet they didn't see the broken
cartilage on the tests, and that

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was ten pieces of broken cartilage floating
around. My point is she dove into

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the shallow end of that pool,
hit her head, and went to the

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hospital. But if that cartilage piece
was as small as anatomy diagram show it

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was, I think it is possible
they could have missed it. It wasn't

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00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:10.920
broken, it was a small fracture. It is also a possibility that she

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got it falling down the stairs.
A broken neck and of course cartilage in

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that area is also one of the
many common injuries from falling down the stairs.

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But as for her previous neck injury
that September, it was bad.

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She was still in pain, still
taking valume and flexoryl, a common muscle

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relaxant, in December. Even though
the original injury was an early September.

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Flexorril wasn't mentioned in Kathleen's toxicology screening, But then it might be something you

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have to look for, and Michael
said she sometimes took flexoryl, although he

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wasn't sure if she had taken any
earlier that day or evening into the night.

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He did remember the valume, though
in addition to all this, Kathleen's

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autopsy also showed that she had numerous
bruises and abrasions on her face, back,

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and the back of her arms,
wrists, and hands. These could

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be indicative of a fall, but
if they were defensive wounds, you would

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think they would be much more severe
considering the damage to her scalp. Also,

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00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:25.559
she had small abrasions and bruises around
her eyes, which would be unusual

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00:28:25.680 --> 00:28:30.200
in a fall or in a beating, as the occipital bones in your face

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00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:34.880
would protect those areas, but for
our owl theory enthusiasts, a beak could

336
00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:41.839
definitely hit those areas. Also for
our owl people, Kathleen did have two

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00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:45.960
pine needles stuck to her right hand, and a wood splinter was found in

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00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:48.160
the hair on the back of her
head, but we'll get to the potential

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00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:53.839
significance of that later. A section
from Kathleen's central area, which is an

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00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:59.920
airway, showed a small amount of
blood. This is important to note because

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00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.160
the defense expert would point out that
some of the blood spatter could have been

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00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:08.680
from Kathleen coughing. She did not
aspirate and did not have blood in her

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00:29:08.759 --> 00:29:15.079
lungs, so the prosecution always denied
this theory that she had blood in her

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00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:19.880
mouth and coughed, but the autopsy
does show blood in her airway, which

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00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:25.240
supports the theory that when she sat
up, blood had run into her mouth

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00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:30.640
and throat and she coughed, creating
that blood spatter. Kathleen's blood alcohol content

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00:29:30.839 --> 00:29:37.000
was point o seven. Her urine
ethanol concentration was point one one. Remember,

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00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:41.119
she and Michael had been drinking out
by the pool. They were celebrating

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00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:45.759
his book being turned into a movie. She was not drunk, but maybe

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00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:52.359
tipsy that Kathleen's autopsy also revealed that
she had taken between five and fifteen milligrams

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00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:59.240
of valuum. Medical experts believed it's
likely she took the valume shortly before she

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00:29:59.359 --> 00:30:04.319
died, which Michael confirmed. Kathleen
had been suffering from severe migraines, either

353
00:30:04.440 --> 00:30:08.799
from her earlier injury or from work
stress. I think it could have been

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00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:12.559
from the earlier injury, but I
know that is up for debate. So

355
00:30:12.599 --> 00:30:18.039
here I go again. I hate
to keep bringing myself into this, but

356
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:22.720
right now I need surgery on my
neck for bulging disks, bone spurs,

357
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:26.960
and a pinch nerve. I am
in extreme pain. Often, but the

358
00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:30.559
surgery is being put off because it
is still too soon for me after surviving

359
00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:37.200
sepsis and all the following corrective back
surgeries I underwent. But I am scheduled

360
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:41.680
for another round of epidural shots to
help with the pain caused by these issues.

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00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:45.799
And I have headaches often turning into
migraines all the time, and the

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00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:51.880
only thing that relieves these headaches are
muscle relaxers. By the way, that

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00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:56.680
is why this episode is so late. I have had several migraines this past

364
00:30:56.720 --> 00:31:00.799
week when I needed to record,
and I cannot court on muscle relaxers.

365
00:31:00.839 --> 00:31:04.319
My vision is too blurred to read
the script, and I sound drunk.

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00:31:06.519 --> 00:31:11.960
But back to Kathleen and the valum. According to experts, that amount of

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00:31:11.039 --> 00:31:18.920
valum would have reacted with the alcohol
in Kathleen's system the effects of both substances

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00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:23.640
would have been greater than normal.
In other words, Kathleen was almost certainly

369
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:30.200
feeling a little out of it.
Later in court, prosecutors would sneer at

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00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:34.400
her level of intoxication, pointing out
that it was below the legal level so

371
00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:38.759
she could drive a car. First
of all, ignoring how mixing valum with

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alcohol would have intensified her intoxication.
And second of all, I would love

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to hear them cross examine that argument
in court. For a car accident when

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one of the drivers was close to
legal intoxication, you can bet your ass

375
00:31:55.720 --> 00:32:00.920
they would have considered the valume mixed
with alcohol an impairment. Moving on,

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00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:07.240
as I said, Kathleen's autopsy was
performed on December ninth. The next day,

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00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:12.119
on Monday, December tenth, two
thousand and one, Assistant Commander Connie

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00:32:12.119 --> 00:32:17.720
Bullock of the Durham Police called medical
examiner doctor Snell. Commander Bullock knew that

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00:32:17.759 --> 00:32:23.160
doctor Snell had reported Kathleen's death was
possibly due to a fall, but Bullock

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00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:29.519
disagreed with that conclusion. The assistant
commander, along with the rest of the

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00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:36.680
Durham Police, were sure that Michael
murdered Kathleen Peterson. Only after this conversation

382
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:42.319
did doctor Snell waver in his opinion. He went from it was probably a

383
00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:46.680
fall to it might be due to
something other than a fall. I will

384
00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:52.960
interject here to say that the police
talking to the mmy isn't exactly uncommon or

385
00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:58.119
unlawful. You would think that a
medical examiner should not be influenced by police,

386
00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:02.559
but they do often work together.
Police might ask an emmy to look

387
00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:09.400
for something particular, like looking for
signs of strangulation or requesting certain drugs be

388
00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:14.880
tested for in the talk screen,
but they should not be telling them to

389
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:20.319
change their conclusions, which does seem
to be the case here. Fast forward

390
00:33:20.359 --> 00:33:24.160
two months later, on February eighteenth, two thousand and two, the autopsy

391
00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:30.960
results were signed and made public.
At this point, doctor Snell developed a

392
00:33:30.039 --> 00:33:35.960
completely different conclusion about Kathleen's death.
If you look at the report, the

393
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:42.400
original findings were even crossed out.
Following ongoing discussions with the police, who

394
00:33:42.440 --> 00:33:46.440
continued to believe Michael killed Kathleen,
doctor Snell no longer thought Kathleen fell.

395
00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:52.559
On the autopsy report, Snell authorized
a new cause of death, blunt forced

396
00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:58.920
trauma of the head. This would
be shocking to absolutely no one, since

397
00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:02.200
Michael will already be in jail by
this time, and the papers had been

398
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:07.079
reporting this cause of death for weeks. But we'll get to that momentarily.

399
00:34:08.119 --> 00:34:13.880
According to court documents, doctor Snell
said, quote and my opinion, the

400
00:34:13.960 --> 00:34:17.920
cause of death in this case was
due to severe concussive injury of the brain

401
00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:23.239
caused by multiple blunt force impacts of
the head. Blood loss from the deep

402
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:29.039
scalp lacerations may have also played a
role in her death. The number,

403
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:35.320
severity, locations, and orientation of
these injuries are inconsistent with a fall down

404
00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:40.360
the stairs. Instead, they are
indicative of multiple impacts received as a result

405
00:34:40.519 --> 00:34:45.559
of a beating. Okay, this
is bizarre even to a lay person.

406
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:52.039
We already know that Kathleen did not
suffer a traumatic brain injury, no contusions,

407
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:58.599
no skull fractures, nothing, So
it would seem that she exanguinated,

408
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:04.639
meaning she blood to death from the
lacerations. Literally, it was all that

409
00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:08.400
blood at the crime scene that made
her death suspicious in the first place,

410
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:15.639
not the autopsy. Hell. Doctor
Snell ordered the autopsy because of all the

411
00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:21.719
blood, so that wording deep scalp
lacerations may have played a role. As

412
00:35:21.880 --> 00:35:28.199
suspect, I would love to know
how much blood Kathleen Peterson lost. I've

413
00:35:28.199 --> 00:35:32.199
combed the report. There is no
mention of blood volume, but considering that

414
00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:37.400
crime scene, she had to have
bled out so much. And back at

415
00:35:37.400 --> 00:35:45.440
the crime scene, forensic evidence technician
Dan George collected Michael and Todd's clothing George

416
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:50.360
put all of Michael's clothes into a
single paper bag to be transported to the

417
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:55.599
police station. Todd's clothing was packaged
the same way. Later it was revealed

418
00:35:55.679 --> 00:36:01.199
that this was not the correct evidence
collection procedure. George should have documented the

419
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:06.920
stains on the clothing before he bagged
them. Now that they had been folded

420
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:10.519
and stored in a tight place,
no one knew what stains were originals versus

421
00:36:10.519 --> 00:36:16.639
transfer stains. Annie blood spatter analysis
would be moot or should have been anyway.

422
00:36:17.639 --> 00:36:22.159
A technician named Angie was a sign
to photograph the crime scene, and

423
00:36:22.320 --> 00:36:28.800
Angie was new. She hadn't even
completed her training. Her mistakes were probably

424
00:36:28.880 --> 00:36:34.440
not with ill intent, but as
a beginner in the field, Angie's photography

425
00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:39.559
skills were lacking. She missed a
lot of crucial images. Blood stains and

426
00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:45.559
other important items in the Peterson's home
were never photographed. Plus there was a

427
00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:52.880
problem with so called glitches in the
photographs. Imagine two pictures of a single

428
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:58.079
stair step, but with different blood
spatter patterns. That's what was happening,

429
00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:02.039
but not just with pictures of the
stairsteps, with lots of pictures of many

430
00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:07.920
things that's a big deal. In
a case where blood spatters would be meticulously

431
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:15.920
analyzed by the world's leading experts,
which blood spatter pattern was more recent to

432
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:21.280
Kathleen's death, there was no way
to know, And as it turns out,

433
00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:24.960
some of these differing blood spatters were
not blood at all. They were

434
00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:31.239
the photograph glitches I mentioned dark spots
there were accidentally caused when the crime scene

435
00:37:31.239 --> 00:37:37.960
photos were developed. As a result
of these glitches, it was almost impossible

436
00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:43.800
to know for sure which crime scene
photo had an accurate representation of Kathleen's blood

437
00:37:43.800 --> 00:37:49.280
spatter. On the evening of Sunday, December ninth, North Carolina State Bureau

438
00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:54.280
of Investigation arrived. The bureau is
more commonly known as the SBI, so

439
00:37:54.440 --> 00:37:59.880
I will call it that from now
on. Crime scene technician Eric camp And

440
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:06.719
had requested them he needed help interpreting
the bloodstains, so SBI agent Duane Deaver

441
00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:12.440
arrived at the house around five pm. Deaver reviewed the photographs that had been

442
00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:19.360
taken and processed. Then he examined
the bloodstains on the staircase. Agent Deaver's

443
00:38:19.400 --> 00:38:24.559
blood stain analysis will be very important
in the upcoming court proceedings. For now,

444
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:30.000
we're going to talk about Deaver's interaction
with the crime scene on this one

445
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:35.400
day, December ninth, two thousand
and one. We'll get into the evolution

446
00:38:35.559 --> 00:38:42.559
of his analysis, his interesting experiments, and his testimony later on. It's

447
00:38:42.599 --> 00:38:49.079
important to understand the context of Deaver's
blood stain examination. He was not analyzing

448
00:38:49.119 --> 00:38:55.239
a pristine, untouched crime scene.
Over twelve hours had passed since Michael's original

449
00:38:55.360 --> 00:39:00.760
nine one one call. Approximately ten
police officers had been in and out of

450
00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:07.159
the house repeatedly. Michael had,
in his grief, shifted Kathleen's body on

451
00:39:07.320 --> 00:39:14.239
multiple occasions. Medical examiner doctor Snell
had walked up and down the bloody stairwell.

452
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:19.480
The photographer Angie had been in the
stairwell to take pictures, and when

453
00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:23.199
the EMTs removed Kathleen's body from the
scene, she was still dripping blood.

454
00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:30.239
As her body was relocated, new
blood spatters were created. Agent Deaver was

455
00:39:30.280 --> 00:39:35.679
in a tough situation, but it's
not like he had a choice. This

456
00:39:35.800 --> 00:39:39.039
was the crime scene he had been
dealt. Later in court, it was

457
00:39:39.079 --> 00:39:44.920
revealed that Deaver did not know other
people had walked through the crime scene that

458
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:52.400
day. Deaver took numerous measurements and
calculations, and in his initial report,

459
00:39:52.079 --> 00:39:58.760
Agent Deaver did not find a cast
off pattern in Kathleen's blood spatters. To

460
00:39:58.880 --> 00:40:04.599
understand Kathleen Peterson's case, we have
to understand cast off patterns. What are

461
00:40:04.639 --> 00:40:09.400
they? In the context of Kathleen
Peterson's case. Cast off pattern refers to

462
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:15.280
the blood droplets flung off a weapon
midstrike, as in, if Michael Peterson

463
00:40:15.320 --> 00:40:20.679
had beaten Kathleen to death, each
time he raised the weapon after the first

464
00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:24.119
blow, an arc of blood droplets
would fly through the air. They would

465
00:40:24.159 --> 00:40:30.360
be quote cast off of the weapon. Then the cast off blood pattern would

466
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:34.960
be visible in a linear formation on
the floor, walls, or ceiling.

467
00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:39.480
Forensic analysts can use a cast off
blood pattern to confirm that a weapon was

468
00:40:39.599 --> 00:40:45.920
used. Cast Off patterns are also
helpful when narrowing down the direction an assailant

469
00:40:45.960 --> 00:40:52.760
was standing. But, like I
said, at this time, Agent Deaver

470
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:58.199
did not see any cast off patterns
of blood in the stairwell. Agent Deaver

471
00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:02.039
also looked for strike mark on the
walls. If Michael had beaten Kathleen to

472
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:06.840
death in the stairwell, it would
have been tricky not to bump into the

473
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:13.079
walls. The enclosed staircase was pretty
narrow, but Agent Deaver didn't find any

474
00:41:13.119 --> 00:41:16.519
strike marks other than the normal dings, wear, and terror expected in a

475
00:41:16.599 --> 00:41:22.239
family home, and he did find
that the stains on the doorway and near

476
00:41:22.280 --> 00:41:28.719
the floor were consistent with Kathleen's head
banging into those surfaces. Deaver agreed with

477
00:41:28.760 --> 00:41:34.559
the fire captain the blood stains on
Kathleen's feet meant she probably stood up after

478
00:41:34.639 --> 00:41:38.360
she began to bleed. That same
day, on Sunday, December ninth,

479
00:41:38.760 --> 00:41:45.199
technician Eric Campin performed luminole testing.
He focused the testing on the stairs,

480
00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:50.519
trying to see if there were any
trace amounts of blood that the naked eye

481
00:41:50.559 --> 00:41:53.800
couldn't see. When he sprayed the
luminole mixture at the top of the stairs,

482
00:41:54.280 --> 00:42:00.320
it reacted. It turned fluorescent blue
under a black light, right next

483
00:42:00.320 --> 00:42:06.119
to the second floor landing's linen closet. This indicated that blood might have been

484
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:10.199
at the top of the stairway,
but how could that be. Everything else

485
00:42:10.280 --> 00:42:15.840
indicated that Kathleen had fallen on the
bottom few steps. Unless Michael had started

486
00:42:15.880 --> 00:42:21.199
beating Kathleen at the top of the
stairs and cleaned up the mess after.

487
00:42:22.199 --> 00:42:27.159
Luminol would have detected the blood even
if it had been cleaned up. But

488
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:34.480
conversely, this luminoal reaction may have
been caused by crime scene contamination. Both

489
00:42:34.559 --> 00:42:39.760
medical examiner doctor Snell and the photographer
Angie had walked through Kathleen's blood and stood

490
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:45.199
at the top of the stairwell.
Forget Michael Peterson for a moment, Forget

491
00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:51.159
his guilt, forget his innocence.
At the end of the day, the

492
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:57.199
police bungled this investigation, and they
grossly mishandled the crime scene. Due to

493
00:42:57.320 --> 00:43:04.199
negligence and poor professionalism, The authorities
ruined the integrity of countless pieces of evidence

494
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:09.280
in the forty eight hours following Kathleen's
death. Who knows exactly what important details

495
00:43:09.280 --> 00:43:15.679
were lost forever. Michael was a
smart guy right from the jump. He

496
00:43:15.760 --> 00:43:21.000
knew the police thought he had killed
Kathleen. In interviews, Michael's son Todd

497
00:43:21.400 --> 00:43:25.039
recalled how the police treated him and
his father as criminals. Michael told the

498
00:43:25.079 --> 00:43:30.159
documentarians quote, I knew for a
fact that no way, ever in this

499
00:43:30.199 --> 00:43:35.559
world would my father hurt Kathleen.
But the realism of their investigating it did

500
00:43:35.599 --> 00:43:39.239
seem real while it was completely unfounded
in my mind. The way that they

501
00:43:39.239 --> 00:43:44.599
were behaving, the way that they
were barking orders at us, restricting us

502
00:43:44.599 --> 00:43:47.519
from talking to one another. They
truly drove home the point that they were

503
00:43:47.599 --> 00:43:53.639
investigating this as a crime. On
Sunday, Michael's two adoptive daughters, Margaret

504
00:43:53.639 --> 00:44:00.119
and Martha, arrived to eighteen ten
Cedar Street. Police would not allow them

505
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:05.360
in the house, so Michael came
outside. He was still in shock shaking.

506
00:44:06.039 --> 00:44:10.320
According to Martha's account, Michael told
his daughters emphatically, I didn't do

507
00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:15.719
it, and Margaret and Martha responded, Dad, we believe you. This

508
00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:21.920
is horrible. How can we not
believe you? As police were searching his

509
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:28.199
home on Sunday, Michael contacted several
defense lawyers, including attorney Carrie Sutton.

510
00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:36.719
Sutton had co managed Michael's unsuccessful mayoral
campaign in nineteen ninety nine. Sutton publicly

511
00:44:36.760 --> 00:44:42.559
criticized the Durham police for treating Michael
poorly. In fact, she later told

512
00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:46.400
The Herald's son that the police barred
Michael from speaking to her in person.

513
00:44:46.519 --> 00:44:52.159
On Sunday. When Sutton arrived at
the Peterson home, Durham police investigator Art

514
00:44:52.199 --> 00:44:58.199
Holland met with her. Holland said
he would send Michael down the driveway when

515
00:44:58.239 --> 00:45:05.199
he meaning Holland was comfortable, But
as time passed it became apparent to Sutton

516
00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:09.000
that Holland was not going to let
Michael exit the house. Holland had fed

517
00:45:09.039 --> 00:45:15.960
her alone of bullshit. Another lawyer
representing Michael said the police made Michael a

518
00:45:15.039 --> 00:45:21.960
prisoner in his own home. Already
tensions were high between Michael's legal team and

519
00:45:22.079 --> 00:45:27.559
Durham Police, and they would only
get higher. Following his attorney's advice,

520
00:45:28.039 --> 00:45:32.480
Michael did not speak to the authorities, and that was probably wise because the

521
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:38.880
authorities were not on Michael's side.
Durham Police Major Steve Chalmers told The Herald's

522
00:45:38.920 --> 00:45:45.519
son that they were treating Kathleen's death
as suspicious until all evidence and tests that

523
00:45:45.559 --> 00:45:51.119
are performed prove otherwise. And now
we come to the part where your friendly

524
00:45:51.159 --> 00:45:55.880
neighborhood true crime podcaster reminds you to
never talk to the police without a lawyer

525
00:45:57.079 --> 00:46:00.360
if you have been involved in any
type of incident. They are allowed to

526
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:06.639
mislead you, they are allowed to
outright lie to you. Don't worry about

527
00:46:06.719 --> 00:46:10.239
how lawyering up looks. As cop
shows put it, you have every right

528
00:46:10.280 --> 00:46:15.159
to protect yourself. If you happen
to be friends with law enforcement, they

529
00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:20.679
will tell you the exact same thing. I'm going to pause now tear a

530
00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:28.480
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541
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dot com slash Southern Fried. There's no

546
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safe like simply Safe. The City
of Durham first heard of Kathleen's death on

547
00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:46.880
Monday, December tenth, and it
was big news. As you know from

548
00:47:46.880 --> 00:47:52.039
my last episode, Kathleen was an
involved community member. One person said,

549
00:47:52.119 --> 00:47:58.000
Kathleen was the Martha Stewart of Durham, and of course Michael was a well

550
00:47:58.039 --> 00:48:01.079
known author. He all so wrote
a column twice a week for a while

551
00:48:01.119 --> 00:48:06.480
in the local newspaper, The Herald's
Son, where he was very critical of

552
00:48:06.519 --> 00:48:10.800
the police, the day's office,
and politics in general, which caused him

553
00:48:10.840 --> 00:48:16.880
to run unsuccessfully for mayor in nineteen
ninety nine. Just a month before Kathleen's

554
00:48:16.920 --> 00:48:21.159
death. In November of two thousand
and one, Michael had run for another

555
00:48:21.159 --> 00:48:25.599
political office, city council member.
He lost, but Durham residence would have

556
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:30.719
noticed his name on the ballot,
so in Durham's newspaper, The Herald's Son

557
00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:37.760
published an article entitled wife of City
council candidate dies. People took note,

558
00:48:37.480 --> 00:48:43.840
and they picked up on the nuance
of the articles subtitle Kathleen Peterson was found

559
00:48:43.840 --> 00:48:49.599
dead in her home from an apparent
fall. Despite the paper's carefully chosen words,

560
00:48:49.920 --> 00:48:54.159
the article was mostly an homage to
Kathleen's passing, a recognition of her

561
00:48:54.239 --> 00:49:00.519
kindness, generosity, and friendship.
The first Harold's An article does not accuse

562
00:49:00.639 --> 00:49:07.159
Michael Peterson of killing his wife,
not yet anyway. That would come the

563
00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:10.519
next day, on Tuesday, December
eleventh, when the New Herald Sun headline

564
00:49:10.519 --> 00:49:19.599
read police called Peterson's death suspicious subtitled
wife of Durham political figure died Sunday when

565
00:49:19.679 --> 00:49:24.760
she apparently fell down the stairs.
Again with the apparentlies. On the afternoon

566
00:49:24.760 --> 00:49:30.360
of Monday, December tenth, police
obtained a search warrant for Michael Peterson's home.

567
00:49:30.159 --> 00:49:36.599
The warrant allowed the police to search
for evidence related to Kathleen's death fingerprints,

568
00:49:36.960 --> 00:49:40.360
bloodstains, weapons, trace hair and
clothing, fibers, security footage,

569
00:49:40.760 --> 00:49:45.199
etc. The same day, the
police gathered for a briefing to prepare for

570
00:49:45.239 --> 00:49:51.760
the upcoming search. During that briefing, the police officers were shown a photograph

571
00:49:51.800 --> 00:49:57.400
of the crime scene. It was
of a slender blood stain magnified intensely.

572
00:49:58.159 --> 00:50:01.880
The image had no reference, so
it was impossible to tell how large the

573
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:07.880
stain was. The police officers were
asked what could have caused this stain.

574
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:13.840
One officer said he believed the stain
was indicative of an instrument with a long

575
00:50:13.880 --> 00:50:19.079
handle, like a tire iron or
a fireplace tool. Later in court,

576
00:50:19.199 --> 00:50:22.960
it would be revealed that this officer
had no idea that the blood stain pictured

577
00:50:23.400 --> 00:50:29.800
was only one inch long. It
was yet another problem with the undertrained police

578
00:50:29.800 --> 00:50:36.239
photographer, another glitch, so to
speak. Following this briefing, with fireplace

579
00:50:36.280 --> 00:50:42.079
tools freshly implanted in their minds,
the police conducted an extensive search of Peterson's

580
00:50:42.119 --> 00:50:49.039
stately mansion. Approximately thirty officers were
divided into five search teams. These search

581
00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:54.440
teams scoured the exterior of the house. A group of homicide investigators searched the

582
00:50:54.480 --> 00:51:01.599
house's interior. During this search,
no weapon was recovered, nor any indication

583
00:51:02.159 --> 00:51:07.199
that someone with blood on them left
the property, walked out of the house

584
00:51:07.559 --> 00:51:10.639
or down to the basement. If
there was a bloody murder weapon somewhere,

585
00:51:12.079 --> 00:51:15.079
the perpetrator had not left with it. It had to be on the Peterson

586
00:51:15.119 --> 00:51:21.320
property. Although the police could not
find a weapon, they did seize numerous

587
00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:25.360
other items for evidence. These included
blood and hair from the bottom steps of

588
00:51:25.400 --> 00:51:30.840
the staircase, a paper weight,
an O. J. Simpson notebook,

589
00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:36.880
condoms from a bookcase, socks and
tennis shoes found near Kathleen, Michael's watch,

590
00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:42.000
wine glasses, wine bottles, paperwork
from Michael's office, and a blood

591
00:51:42.039 --> 00:51:45.400
sample from the kitchen cabinet. But
you won't be surprised to hear that the

592
00:51:45.440 --> 00:51:51.800
police missed other important items, as
in, they didn't seize items that were

593
00:51:51.840 --> 00:51:57.079
prime candidates for seizing the wireless phone
that had been laying in the blood and

594
00:51:57.159 --> 00:52:00.559
had been removed from the stairway by
Todd, the flip flops Kathleen had been

595
00:52:00.599 --> 00:52:07.480
wearing, the towels that were placed
under her head, the house keys which

596
00:52:07.480 --> 00:52:10.960
were left in the front door of
the house, and Kathleen's eyeglasses that were

597
00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:17.159
on the stairs. In court,
forensic's expert Dan George would say he didn't

598
00:52:17.199 --> 00:52:23.800
collect the eyeglasses because there were no
bloodstains on them. Michael's defense lawyers would

599
00:52:23.800 --> 00:52:29.440
pose the question, how could a
person be violently bludgeoned on their head without

600
00:52:29.440 --> 00:52:35.119
getting blood on their glasses. A
mind tickler for sure. Even if there

601
00:52:35.239 --> 00:52:38.639
wasn't blood on them, they were
on the stairs, surely that would be

602
00:52:38.719 --> 00:52:45.760
part of the crime scene evidence near
the body. And they literally left the

603
00:52:45.840 --> 00:52:50.280
bloody towels that had been under her
head, not to mention her flipflops,

604
00:52:50.719 --> 00:52:53.840
but God forbid, they mess a
paperweight in his office wore a novelty O.

605
00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:58.800
J. Simpson notebook. O.
J. Simpson's memoir was not written

606
00:52:58.880 --> 00:53:02.480
until years after, so it had
to be a novelty item, and prosecutors

607
00:53:02.519 --> 00:53:07.679
never again brought this item up,
so it obviously wasn't relevant, And yet

608
00:53:07.800 --> 00:53:15.360
so many pieces of real evidence were
left behind that evening. Still, on

609
00:53:15.480 --> 00:53:21.440
Monday, December tenth, crime scene
technician Eric Campen returned with forensics expert Dan

610
00:53:21.519 --> 00:53:27.000
George to perform more lumino testing.
They sprayed luminol on the floors of the

611
00:53:27.079 --> 00:53:32.280
kitchen, laundry room and other adjoining
rooms. Their decision making process here is

612
00:53:32.320 --> 00:53:39.360
confusing at best and shoddy crime scene
investigation work at worst. First, let's

613
00:53:39.400 --> 00:53:45.519
address that Campen and George performed this
luminal testing a day and a half after

614
00:53:45.639 --> 00:53:50.320
the alleged crime. During most of
that time, the crime scene was largely

615
00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:55.320
unsecured, So for thirty six hours, the police, Michael Todd, neighbors,

616
00:53:55.639 --> 00:54:00.400
the medical examiner, the photographer,
and others had been running amuck through

617
00:54:00.400 --> 00:54:07.079
the Peterson house. Then, once
Camping and George administered the luminal test,

618
00:54:07.400 --> 00:54:12.320
they didn't document where it reacted.
They didn't take any pictures, they didn't

619
00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:17.519
draft a diagram. Instead, they
claimed they saw barefootprints leading a trail around

620
00:54:17.559 --> 00:54:22.760
the Peterson's house. They claimed someone
with trace amounts of blood on their bare

621
00:54:22.840 --> 00:54:27.639
feet had walked from the kitchen to
the laundry room, then returned to the

622
00:54:27.719 --> 00:54:31.880
kitchen. But you know what,
none of this should matter. Without documentation,

623
00:54:32.599 --> 00:54:37.119
You can photograph luminal testing. Forget
about modern technology we have now.

624
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:44.119
I found it in a forensic science
textbook dating back to nineteen seventy three.

625
00:54:44.639 --> 00:54:49.920
So Camping and George could have photographed
these supposed footprints. They just needed to

626
00:54:49.960 --> 00:54:54.199
have been prepared. But since they
did not officially document this testing, you

627
00:54:54.239 --> 00:55:00.920
would think it wouldn't be allowed in
court. You would think later TV pundits

628
00:55:00.159 --> 00:55:06.360
like Nancy Grace would have a field
day speculating that Michael had walked around cleaning

629
00:55:06.440 --> 00:55:10.440
up blood. Pundits are going to
do their thing, but crime scene technicians

630
00:55:10.639 --> 00:55:15.400
shouldn't be allowed to talk about evidence
that they have no proof of. But

631
00:55:15.559 --> 00:55:21.360
this testimony did reveal one important thing. No blood was found in the sink,

632
00:55:21.440 --> 00:55:24.280
in the laundry room, in the
washing machine, or on the household

633
00:55:24.360 --> 00:55:29.840
mop and bucket. If Michael had
killed Kathleen, he had not made any

634
00:55:29.840 --> 00:55:34.199
attempt to clean up the blood.
The police wrapped up their two day search

635
00:55:34.519 --> 00:55:38.639
by nine pm on Tuesday, December
eleventh, After forty hours of investigating,

636
00:55:39.079 --> 00:55:44.960
they were finally done. It had
been less than three days since Kathleen's death,

637
00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:52.519
but from afar, the sprawling Peterson
mansion looked practically normal. The police

638
00:55:52.559 --> 00:55:57.639
tape was removed, no unfamiliar cars
were parked in the driveway. But this

639
00:55:57.679 --> 00:56:01.920
wouldn't last for long because on Wednesday
evening, as Michael, his sons,

640
00:56:02.159 --> 00:56:08.239
his daughters, and his brother were
preparing to attend Kathleen's viewing, the police

641
00:56:08.280 --> 00:56:15.400
returned. They had another search warrant, this time for Michael's computer and other

642
00:56:15.440 --> 00:56:21.679
technology. For about two hours,
ten police officers searched the Peterson home once

643
00:56:21.760 --> 00:56:25.599
more. As a result of this
search, the police confiscated two computers from

644
00:56:25.639 --> 00:56:31.320
the second floor, plus one computer
from Michael's study. Michael's defense lawyer,

645
00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:36.440
Sutton, told the Herald's son that
the police were probably trying to access the

646
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:40.719
house while it was empty. One
officer explained of Sutton that they were prepared

647
00:56:40.920 --> 00:56:45.239
to break down the door. As
a result of the police's impromptu search,

648
00:56:45.760 --> 00:56:51.159
Michael did not get to go to
his wife's wake. He was angered by

649
00:56:51.199 --> 00:56:55.039
the intrusion at the time of Kathleen's
wake and stated the house to watch the

650
00:56:55.079 --> 00:57:00.159
police. By the time he got
to the funeral home, the hundred or

651
00:57:00.199 --> 00:57:04.239
more people who had come to visit
were gone, and only his immediate family

652
00:57:04.320 --> 00:57:08.760
was still there. I think you
can understand his paranoia and anger at this

653
00:57:08.880 --> 00:57:14.719
point. He had cooperated with their
searches, and now they come in like

654
00:57:14.840 --> 00:57:20.639
gangbusters on the evening of Kathleen's wake
for yet another search. They could have

655
00:57:20.679 --> 00:57:27.039
come during the day instead of disrupting
the family before the wake or needlessly breaking

656
00:57:27.039 --> 00:57:31.320
down the door that evening. It
was disrespectful at best, sneaky at worst.

657
00:57:32.280 --> 00:57:37.159
As the police's animosity toward Michael became
more and more apparent, the public

658
00:57:37.280 --> 00:57:45.760
was increasingly flabbergasted. Numerous people praised
Michael and Kathleen's relationship. Several told the

659
00:57:45.800 --> 00:57:49.880
Herald's son that the couple was just
so happy. They were two peas in

660
00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:55.000
a pod, adorable and very family
oriented. Everything was done for their five

661
00:57:55.079 --> 00:58:01.239
kids, and one person said Kathleen
always spoke lovingly of her husband. The

662
00:58:01.320 --> 00:58:07.599
Peterson family bond seemed to be holding
strong too. At the beginning, all

663
00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:13.280
five children were certain that their parents'
relationship was loving, that Michael would never

664
00:58:13.360 --> 00:58:19.840
have hurt let alone killed Kathleen.
Caitlin Atwater, Kathleen's daughter from her previous

665
00:58:19.880 --> 00:58:24.679
marriage, told reporters quote, my
mother and Mike had an absolutely loving relationship,

666
00:58:24.880 --> 00:58:28.920
and there is no way that either
one of them would ever wish any

667
00:58:28.960 --> 00:58:34.280
sort of harm on the other.
One years later, Margaret told the Staircase

668
00:58:34.360 --> 00:58:39.639
documentarians that her family was extremely close. They didn't let conflicts fester. They

669
00:58:39.639 --> 00:58:45.079
addressed them out in the open.
If Michael and Kathleen had been fighting,

670
00:58:45.519 --> 00:58:50.360
Margaret was confident she would have known
about it. That might sound a little

671
00:58:50.440 --> 00:58:54.000
naive. Kids don't always know what's
going on, but Michael's son Todd,

672
00:58:54.119 --> 00:59:01.480
echoed Margaret's sentiment by all accounts,
Michael and Kathleen had appeared content, satisfied,

673
00:59:02.280 --> 00:59:08.320
happy, and later in court the
prosecution could not find one single person

674
00:59:08.639 --> 00:59:14.960
who would say a bad word about
the Peterson marriage. Even Candice, Kathleen's

675
00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:20.400
sister, who would become an extreme
presence against Michael Encourt, would have to

676
00:59:20.440 --> 00:59:25.039
admit on the stand that she never
saw a bad marriage. On Thursday,

677
00:59:25.079 --> 00:59:31.400
December thirteenth of two thousand and one, Kathleen Peterson's funeral was held. Hundreds

678
00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:37.159
of Kathleen's friends and family attended.
They remembered Kathleen's many contributions to the Durham

679
00:59:37.199 --> 00:59:43.800
community, delivering croissants to her neighbors
on Christmas Eve, running in the annual

680
00:59:43.880 --> 00:59:49.480
Thanksgiving five k race known as the
Turkey Trot, her dedication to local art,

681
00:59:50.079 --> 00:59:54.920
her compassion, her patience. The
reverend reminded the mourners of Kathleen's love

682
00:59:54.960 --> 01:00:00.800
for dancing. He recalled that Kathleen
and Michael had atten and at a Christmas

683
01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:05.400
party one day before her death.
The reverend said, hold in your mind

684
01:00:05.480 --> 01:00:09.360
the image of Kathleen dancing just as
she did Friday night, late into the

685
01:00:09.480 --> 01:00:16.360
night with Michael. Meanwhile, the
police were examining the data on Michael's confiscated

686
01:00:16.400 --> 01:00:24.039
computer, they discovered sexually explicit images
and emails of a homosexual nature. In

687
01:00:24.079 --> 01:00:30.760
other words, Michael had looked at
and downloaded Gapehorn, and Michael was sending

688
01:00:30.840 --> 01:00:37.840
sexual emails to another man. According
to the prosecuting lawyer's interviews with the docuseries

689
01:00:37.920 --> 01:00:42.159
The Staircase, this evidence led them
to come up with the following scenario.

690
01:00:43.559 --> 01:00:46.119
On the night of Kathleen's death,
she had a late night work phone call

691
01:00:46.159 --> 01:00:52.039
from her Nortel colleague Helen. After
this phone call, Kathleen happened to look

692
01:00:52.079 --> 01:00:58.599
at Michael's computer. Then she saw
the gape horn and sexual emails to another

693
01:00:58.639 --> 01:01:04.440
man. According to quote, persons
that know her well, including her sister,

694
01:01:04.920 --> 01:01:08.239
Kathleen would have been furious. She
would have been insulted that Michael was

695
01:01:08.320 --> 01:01:12.840
cheating on her, and it would
have been salt in the wound when she

696
01:01:12.960 --> 01:01:17.800
realized that Michael was cheating on her
with a man. Kathleen, humiliated and

697
01:01:17.920 --> 01:01:24.320
embarrassed, confronted Michael about the affair. An argument ensued, and a homicide

698
01:01:24.360 --> 01:01:30.119
occurred. I'm going to pause now
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699
01:01:32.679 --> 01:01:37.679
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700
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702
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707
01:02:10.400 --> 01:02:15.760
get more info on a guy named
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708
01:02:15.159 --> 01:02:20.199
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709
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719
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721
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723
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Help dot com slash Southern. The
police felt they now had a clear motive.

725
01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:40.440
This was why Michael, who had
seemed to have the perfect marriage with

726
01:03:40.599 --> 01:03:45.920
Kathleen, bludgeoned his wife to death. Firstly, Michael was cheating on her,

727
01:03:46.440 --> 01:03:52.440
and secondly, he was bisexual,
which in the early two thousands was

728
01:03:52.480 --> 01:03:58.800
a scandal unto itself. North Carolina
had explicitly banned same sex marriage in nineteen

729
01:03:58.880 --> 01:04:03.039
ninety six, only five years prior. State officials would affirm this ban in

730
01:04:03.079 --> 01:04:08.880
two thousand and twelve. In North
Carolina, gay marriage would not be legal

731
01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:14.639
until federal courts forced them to make
it legal on October fourteenth, two fourteen.

732
01:04:15.559 --> 01:04:18.360
But for now, in December of
two thousand and one, only a

733
01:04:18.400 --> 01:04:26.239
week after Kathleen's death, Michael's bisexuality
was largely unknown. The general public had

734
01:04:26.320 --> 01:04:30.320
no idea. Sure. Michael Peterson
wrote about gay soldiers and his novels,

735
01:04:30.519 --> 01:04:38.400
but those were fictional, not autobiographical. So who did know about Michael's bisexuality?

736
01:04:38.639 --> 01:04:43.119
Bill, Michael's brother, told documentarians
that he had known of his brother's

737
01:04:43.199 --> 01:04:48.760
sexuality since childhood. Bill also said
that their parents knew as well. Michael's

738
01:04:48.760 --> 01:04:54.599
first wife, Patty knew, and
according to Michael, even Kathleen knew,

739
01:04:55.239 --> 01:05:00.480
But of course he would be highly
motivated to say that, reg hardless of

740
01:05:00.519 --> 01:05:04.159
who might have known. The Durham
police now definitely knew, and the police

741
01:05:04.480 --> 01:05:09.920
wanted Michael to know that. On
the evening of Wednesday, December twelfth,

742
01:05:10.199 --> 01:05:15.079
when the authorities took Michael's computer,
they left behind a single telling photograph they

743
01:05:15.159 --> 01:05:20.639
had obtained it from Michael's computer,
printed it out and purposefully placed it on

744
01:05:20.679 --> 01:05:27.719
a clean table in Michael's den.
The picture was of gaype horn. Michael's

745
01:05:27.719 --> 01:05:32.360
brother Bill felt the image was an
intimidation tactic, a message as if the

746
01:05:32.440 --> 01:05:35.960
police were saying, quote, we
know what you're like, we know the

747
01:05:36.079 --> 01:05:40.679
secret life of yours, and we
don't like it, and we're going to

748
01:05:40.719 --> 01:05:45.320
do something about it. Now.
I ask you, if you're leaning towards

749
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:49.599
guilt, put that aside. What
if he was innocent and his bisexual trysts

750
01:05:49.760 --> 01:05:55.679
were just that, not emotional affairs
that hurt his marriage, but just sex,

751
01:05:56.559 --> 01:06:00.679
or what if he just looked at
those images. We live in a

752
01:06:00.760 --> 01:06:04.039
time now where we don't kink,
shame what kind of porn people look at?

753
01:06:04.559 --> 01:06:10.159
But not then. So on the
evening before his wife's funeral, Michael

754
01:06:10.199 --> 01:06:14.800
Peterson basically got a threat from the
police. Even if they never charged him,

755
01:06:15.159 --> 01:06:19.239
they would leak this information. Even
if he no longer cared about his

756
01:06:19.280 --> 01:06:25.679
own reputation, he did now have
to tell his children about his sexuality before

757
01:06:25.679 --> 01:06:30.079
they saw it on the news.
Everything else was already being leaked. Within

758
01:06:30.159 --> 01:06:33.599
two days, the newspapers would report
on the findings of blunt force trauma,

759
01:06:34.039 --> 01:06:39.840
even though the autopsy wouldn't be released
for two months, so why wouldn't they

760
01:06:39.920 --> 01:06:45.360
leak this too? And Michael's interviews
for the Staircase documentary, he was candid

761
01:06:45.400 --> 01:06:50.760
about his relationships with men, except
Michael wouldn't categorize them as relationships. From

762
01:06:50.760 --> 01:06:55.760
the way he described it, his
affairs with these men were purely sexual.

763
01:06:56.400 --> 01:07:00.280
He did not love them. He
loved Kathleen. He was committed solely to

764
01:07:00.400 --> 01:07:05.519
Kathleen, but he had always desired
men, and according to Michael, Kathleen

765
01:07:05.599 --> 01:07:11.519
allowed that. Later, when Michael
was preparing for his trial, a man

766
01:07:11.639 --> 01:07:15.760
named Dennis Rowe provided the prosecution with
a statement. In this one and a

767
01:07:15.800 --> 01:07:21.360
half page handwritten document, Dennis claimed
he and Michael had sexual relations recently.

768
01:07:23.559 --> 01:07:27.880
Dennis was actually a childhood friend of
Kathleen's, having grown up just down the

769
01:07:27.920 --> 01:07:33.480
street from her in Lancaster. Like
Kathleen and Michael, Dennis attended Duke University,

770
01:07:33.960 --> 01:07:38.880
but it was years after the Petersons
did. Dennis was about ten years

771
01:07:38.880 --> 01:07:44.679
younger than Kathleen and almost twenty years
younger than Michael. After graduating from Duke

772
01:07:44.760 --> 01:07:48.199
with his bachelor's in English, Dennis
worked in the Duke Medical Center library.

773
01:07:48.480 --> 01:07:55.239
He also designed gowns and other textiles
for clients nationwide, and in two thousand

774
01:07:55.280 --> 01:08:00.119
and four, Dennis worked in tech
support for the US Postal Service. Three

775
01:08:00.239 --> 01:08:03.320
years after Kathleen's death, on Tuesday, November twenty third, two thousand and

776
01:08:03.320 --> 01:08:09.519
four, forty two year old Denis
was murdered. He was found stuffed upside

777
01:08:09.519 --> 01:08:15.000
down and a trash can bound with
duct tape. Dennis's roommate, Tyrone LeCour

778
01:08:15.360 --> 01:08:18.840
had stabbed and beaten him to death. At first, the media wanted to

779
01:08:18.920 --> 01:08:25.760
draw a connection between Dennis's murder and
Kathleen's death. Both of their autopsies reported

780
01:08:25.800 --> 01:08:29.439
that they died from blunt force trauma
of the head, and Dennis, like

781
01:08:29.600 --> 01:08:34.159
Kathleen, had no skull fractures,
but the two deaths were wholly unrelated,

782
01:08:34.720 --> 01:08:39.920
and an interview with the News and
Observer, Dennis's killer, Tyrone Lecoeur,

783
01:08:40.119 --> 01:08:46.359
confirmed this. Tyrone attributed him murdering
his roommatee to mounting tensions. In January

784
01:08:46.359 --> 01:08:50.039
of two thousand and nine, after
fleeing the authorities for almost two years,

785
01:08:50.159 --> 01:08:56.560
Tyrone pled guilty to second degree murder. He was incarcerated for almost sixteen years

786
01:08:56.680 --> 01:09:01.239
before his release in June of two
twenty. While Michael admitted to having sex

787
01:09:01.279 --> 01:09:05.920
with other men while married to Kathleen, he always denied sleeping with Dennis Rowe,

788
01:09:06.520 --> 01:09:12.279
and Dennis's handwritten statement never made it
into the court room. Many have

789
01:09:12.399 --> 01:09:17.000
wondered why with Denis's statement, the
prosecution could have shown that Michael had had

790
01:09:17.159 --> 01:09:23.560
an extra merital affair recently, and
even worse, Kathleen had known Dennis.

791
01:09:24.159 --> 01:09:29.560
The prosecution could claim that this particular
affair was the catalyst that caused Michael to

792
01:09:29.640 --> 01:09:34.640
murder Kathleen. Perhaps Kathleen had felt
the Dennis affair was the last straw approached

793
01:09:34.720 --> 01:09:40.279
Michael, and then Michael took violent
action, after all, all his other

794
01:09:40.319 --> 01:09:46.239
affairs were earlier on in his in
Kathleen's relationship. Speculators wondered if Denis's statement

795
01:09:46.399 --> 01:09:51.199
did not appear in court because he
may have revealed sensitive information while on the

796
01:09:51.279 --> 01:09:58.359
stand. There are rumors that Dennis
had sex with multiple high profile Durham Residence

797
01:09:59.479 --> 01:10:03.560
residence who did not want to be
outed as gay or bisexual men. Maybe

798
01:10:03.600 --> 01:10:09.479
that was why the prosecution was motivated
to keep him off the stand. As

799
01:10:09.520 --> 01:10:13.560
I stated earlier, it was not
okay to be gay in North Carolina for

800
01:10:13.600 --> 01:10:16.159
a long, long time. And
if you were gay and trying to get

801
01:10:16.159 --> 01:10:23.479
promoted or reelected in the early two
thousands, good luck with that. And

802
01:10:23.600 --> 01:10:28.439
it's not like Dennis Froe was a
drug addict or otherwise unseemly. He was

803
01:10:28.520 --> 01:10:32.199
college educated with a good job.
Why else wouldn't the prosecution use him.

804
01:10:33.079 --> 01:10:39.520
While it's unclear if Dennis and Michael
had sexual relations, Michael's computer did reveal

805
01:10:39.680 --> 01:10:45.199
other information that was helpful to the
police. Michael had communicated with a mal

806
01:10:45.439 --> 01:10:50.079
escort from Raleigh named Brent Wogamont.
He went by Brat as an escort for

807
01:10:50.119 --> 01:10:56.399
the record. He was also an
Army pharmacy specialist stationed at Fort Bragg and

808
01:10:56.640 --> 01:11:00.359
was seeking his master's degree. Later, the Juge would allow him to mask

809
01:11:00.439 --> 01:11:04.680
his identity in court, because not
only was he worried about his future employers,

810
01:11:04.760 --> 01:11:09.279
but this was the height of don't
ask, don't tell in the military.

811
01:11:09.800 --> 01:11:15.600
But the media outed him anyway.
Wolgomot would later describe this experience s

812
01:11:15.680 --> 01:11:19.359
freeing, but at the time it
was really unfair since he and Michael had

813
01:11:19.479 --> 01:11:25.960
never even met. Brad and Michael
had exchanged emails for several months from August

814
01:11:26.119 --> 01:11:30.319
to September of two thousand and one. In those emails, Brad and Michael

815
01:11:30.399 --> 01:11:34.359
discussed meeting in person, but the
timing never worked out. In those emails,

816
01:11:34.560 --> 01:11:40.000
Michael shared many personal details with Brad. Michael said he was bisexual,

817
01:11:40.239 --> 01:11:44.119
and although he loved his wife dearly, he was interested in a paid,

818
01:11:44.359 --> 01:11:48.760
physical only relationship with Brad. To
Brad, this seemed normal. As a

819
01:11:48.840 --> 01:11:53.560
male escort, he had seen a
lot of men who he said were straight

820
01:11:53.800 --> 01:11:59.760
but with slight homosexual tendencies, basically
closeted bisexuals, though he never said it

821
01:11:59.840 --> 01:12:03.000
that way later on the stand.
The only startling part of the ordeal,

822
01:12:03.319 --> 01:12:09.600
according to Brad, was how committed
Michael was to his wife. Usually Brad's

823
01:12:09.640 --> 01:12:14.399
clients complained about their spouses, but
not Michael. He had gone out of

824
01:12:14.399 --> 01:12:18.560
his way to explain his love for
Kathleen. However, that piece of information

825
01:12:18.720 --> 01:12:25.279
did not sway investigators. They felt
Brad was a clear indication that Kathleen and

826
01:12:25.359 --> 01:12:30.720
Michael's idyllic marriage was actually a facade. Michael was a closeted bisexual. Kathleen

827
01:12:30.760 --> 01:12:35.439
had found out about Brad. They
thought Michael killed her and that was that.

828
01:12:36.640 --> 01:12:41.680
Frankly, Dennis Rowe would have been
a more compelling witness if they had

829
01:12:41.720 --> 01:12:45.920
an actual physical affair. All Michael
and Brad did was email each other,

830
01:12:46.600 --> 01:12:50.520
but the prosecution didn't care. They
thought it was proof enough and could drop

831
01:12:50.560 --> 01:12:56.680
the row testimony, which was apparently
a political hot potato for them. On

832
01:12:56.760 --> 01:13:01.119
Friday, December fourteenth, Durham police
continued to lacked evidence from Michael Peterson's home.

833
01:13:01.720 --> 01:13:06.640
They seized molding and would pieces from
the stairway. You know, physical

834
01:13:06.720 --> 01:13:12.560
evidence you would think they had already
taken. On December sixteenth, The Herald's

835
01:13:12.560 --> 01:13:17.119
Son reported that medical investigators say Kathleen
died from blunt force trauma to the head.

836
01:13:17.640 --> 01:13:21.560
If you'll recall, the autopsy would
not come out for another two months.

837
01:13:23.079 --> 01:13:27.239
It is unclear why the medical examiner, doctor Snell, told the newspapers

838
01:13:27.239 --> 01:13:31.720
this conclusion so early, as if
someone wanted the public to think that Michael

839
01:13:31.760 --> 01:13:36.359
had murdered Kathleen before he had even
taken one step into the courtroom. Michael

840
01:13:36.399 --> 01:13:42.840
would be damned by the court of
public opinion. On Monday, December seventeenth,

841
01:13:42.960 --> 01:13:47.239
investigators were reviewing Kathleen and Michael's phone
records. By this point, police

842
01:13:47.239 --> 01:13:53.920
had obtained five search warrants to collect
evidence from the Peterson's home. The detectives

843
01:13:54.039 --> 01:13:59.039
also went to the funeral home.
They performed a rape kit on Kathleen because

844
01:13:59.039 --> 01:14:03.119
a condom had been found in the
Peterson bedroom. Michael scoffed that they didn't

845
01:14:03.159 --> 01:14:09.079
even use condoms. Kathleen could not
get pregnant. She had had great difficulty

846
01:14:09.359 --> 01:14:13.920
getting pregnant with Caitlin when she was
a much younger woman. Todd would later

847
01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:16.840
explain to the police that the condom
was from a friend of his who had

848
01:14:16.880 --> 01:14:20.640
sex and Michael and Kathleen's bed when
the boys had had a party at the

849
01:14:20.680 --> 01:14:28.079
house that Thanksgiving. Before Kathleen's death, she traditionally hosted a big Thanksgiving dinner

850
01:14:28.159 --> 01:14:31.840
for all her children and her sister's
families. She changed her mind that year

851
01:14:32.520 --> 01:14:38.239
she and Michael went and visited her
mother in Florida instead. So the boys

852
01:14:38.279 --> 01:14:43.239
seized the opportunity and through a rager
and then did a shitty job cleaning up.

853
01:14:43.800 --> 01:14:48.680
Regardless, there was absolutely no indication
that Kathleen had been sexually assaulted.

854
01:14:49.119 --> 01:14:54.159
The scene did not look at all
like a sex crime, especially if you

855
01:14:54.239 --> 01:14:58.520
think because the husband is cheating on
his wife with men. Even if the

856
01:14:58.520 --> 01:15:02.520
Petersons did use con what would that
matter. But performing a rape kit on

857
01:15:02.600 --> 01:15:08.520
his wife's body mattered very much to
Michael, who was very angry and upset

858
01:15:08.560 --> 01:15:12.439
about it and tried to block it
from happening. The funeral director said it

859
01:15:12.439 --> 01:15:15.039
would delay Kathleen's wake because the police
would just have to come back with a

860
01:15:15.119 --> 01:15:20.159
warrant, so Michael finally agreed to
it. If he was innocent, you

861
01:15:20.199 --> 01:15:26.119
can only imagine how outraged he would
feel about his wife's body being treated this

862
01:15:26.159 --> 01:15:30.399
way at the funeral home. She
had already undergone an autopsy. This felt

863
01:15:30.399 --> 01:15:36.439
like a desecration. The rape kit
was negative. Again, Peterson was upset

864
01:15:36.520 --> 01:15:42.479
needlessly by investigators. On a guess, I think he kept this detail from

865
01:15:42.479 --> 01:15:45.640
his children at the time, but
they would certainly find out later. And

866
01:15:45.680 --> 01:15:50.920
by now Michael was getting nervous.
The police had not named him a suspect,

867
01:15:51.359 --> 01:15:55.880
they hadn't pressed any charges, but
he could see the writing on the

868
01:15:55.920 --> 01:16:01.079
wall. So he hired a new, well known defense attorney, David Rudolph.

869
01:16:01.159 --> 01:16:05.199
Rudolph had a reputation as one of
the best defense lawyers in all of

870
01:16:05.279 --> 01:16:11.119
North Carolina and in the US for
that matter. He earned his law degree

871
01:16:11.159 --> 01:16:15.399
from New York University in nineteen seventy
four, so you cannot help. But

872
01:16:15.560 --> 01:16:20.439
notice he doesn't have the same volksy
accent the prosecution does at trial. Many

873
01:16:20.479 --> 01:16:25.960
people feel that hurt with the jury, but it doesn't mean Rudolph wasn't a

874
01:16:26.039 --> 01:16:30.960
successful, well respected defense attorney.
David Rudolph is a Jewish Man from New

875
01:16:30.079 --> 01:16:34.239
York, and there is no mistaking
his New York accent. Although it isn't

876
01:16:34.319 --> 01:16:40.640
very thick, it's just so different
from the overly dramatic Southern accents we will

877
01:16:40.680 --> 01:16:45.520
hear from the prosecution. After graduation, Rudolph spent eight years working as a

878
01:16:45.520 --> 01:16:48.319
federal defender in New York. In
nineteen eighty two, he opened his own

879
01:16:48.399 --> 01:16:53.479
law firm, and by two thousand
and one he was the vice president of

880
01:16:53.560 --> 01:16:58.920
the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers. Before Michael's case, Rudolf had already

881
01:16:58.960 --> 01:17:02.119
saved two men who were accused of
murder from the death penalty. One of

882
01:17:02.159 --> 01:17:08.079
the men had his case dropped and
ended up winning a related civil lawsuit for

883
01:17:08.159 --> 01:17:14.439
eight point six million. The Herald's
son hailed Rudolph as legendary. Another lawyer

884
01:17:14.520 --> 01:17:18.760
said He is the most meticulously prepared
lawyer I have ever met. Co founder

885
01:17:18.800 --> 01:17:25.000
of the Innocence Project, Barry Shack
is a close friend of Rudolph's. Scheck

886
01:17:25.119 --> 01:17:28.880
said of his friend, he has
a national reputation as being one of the

887
01:17:28.920 --> 01:17:32.520
finest criminal defense lawyers around. I
don't think there's a major case I have

888
01:17:32.640 --> 01:17:39.199
tried where I haven't called Dave for
advice. The day after Michael hired Rudolph,

889
01:17:39.319 --> 01:17:43.800
the Durham District Attorney, Jim Harden
Junior, held a special grand jury

890
01:17:43.840 --> 01:17:46.840
session. It was the first of
its kind and over a decade for Durham.

891
01:17:47.199 --> 01:17:51.319
It makes you wonder if Hardon wasn't
sure they had enough evidence to bring

892
01:17:51.399 --> 01:17:58.399
charges. David Rudolph didn't even know
the grand jury was taking place until journalists

893
01:17:58.439 --> 01:18:01.560
asked him about it. Grand juries
are supposed to be held in secret,

894
01:18:02.039 --> 01:18:08.039
but here we go with these leaks
again. Once he was notified, Rudolph

895
01:18:08.079 --> 01:18:13.039
expected the grand jury would indict his
client. He told the Harold's Son grand

896
01:18:13.119 --> 01:18:16.279
jurors. Here one side of the
story, the police side, but also,

897
01:18:16.760 --> 01:18:20.479
as the old saying goes, you
can indict a Ham Sandwich if that's

898
01:18:20.520 --> 01:18:26.680
what you want. Still, it
would seem Harden wasn't hedging his bets,

899
01:18:27.359 --> 01:18:31.520
and Rudolph was right. On Thursday, December twentieth, eleven days after his

900
01:18:31.600 --> 01:18:36.640
wife's death, fifty eight year old
Michael Ivor Peterson was indicted for first degree

901
01:18:36.720 --> 01:18:42.520
murder. An hour after the indictment
was announced, Michael surrendered himself to the

902
01:18:42.520 --> 01:18:46.439
police. He was held in the
Durham County Jail without bell since it was

903
01:18:46.479 --> 01:18:50.439
the holidays. He sat in jail
for almost a month waiting on his bond

904
01:18:50.479 --> 01:18:56.119
hearing. On January fifteenth, two
thousand and two, Michael was released on

905
01:18:56.159 --> 01:19:00.279
an eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars
bond. The next day's indictment was front

906
01:19:00.279 --> 01:19:06.760
page news and Durham Rudolph blasted the
prosecution for relying so heavily on circumstantial evidence

907
01:19:06.880 --> 01:19:12.960
and worse, a contaminated crime scene. When speaking with The Herald's son,

908
01:19:13.239 --> 01:19:18.119
Rudolph pointed out that Michael and Kathleen's
home was notoriously unlocked easy to break into.

909
01:19:18.439 --> 01:19:23.119
Since Michael and Kathleen had purchased their
large home, it had been broken

910
01:19:23.119 --> 01:19:28.680
into at least three times. Their
cars were ransacked so often that Michael simply

911
01:19:28.760 --> 01:19:33.279
left his tan Jaguar unlocked to avoid
paying for yet another broken window. Why

912
01:19:33.319 --> 01:19:39.319
hadn't the police suspected an intruder,
wondered Rudolph to journalists. Why did they

913
01:19:39.359 --> 01:19:44.800
turn to Michael so quickly and with
so little evidence? David Rudolph told reporters

914
01:19:44.960 --> 01:19:47.600
for us, if in fact the
police arright, that this was not a

915
01:19:47.640 --> 01:19:51.640
fall, that should have been the
beginning of the investigation, not the end

916
01:19:51.640 --> 01:20:00.159
of the investigation. Michael was devastated, his family was confused. Durham was

917
01:20:00.199 --> 01:20:04.880
shocked. Bill Michael's brother told The
Herald's son, we know he had nothing

918
01:20:04.920 --> 01:20:10.520
to do with this terrible accident.
Michael's co author, David Pearl Mutt,

919
01:20:10.560 --> 01:20:14.920
who spoke to Kathleen the day before
she died, said they admired each other

920
01:20:15.079 --> 01:20:18.039
and loved one another and were supportive
of each other. I just have not

921
01:20:18.159 --> 01:20:23.199
seen a glimpse of anything that would
tell me he was capable of violence,

922
01:20:23.479 --> 01:20:28.680
let alone first degree murder. Michael's
neighbor, Marian Barry, confirmed the sentiment.

923
01:20:29.039 --> 01:20:31.800
She told reporters, I still believe
him to be innocent and have no

924
01:20:31.920 --> 01:20:38.199
idea why he was indicted. But
five months later, police would discover a

925
01:20:38.239 --> 01:20:44.159
detail from Michael's past that would propel
his case from local celebrity to national stardom.

926
01:20:44.760 --> 01:20:48.199
A detail that would permanently damn him
in the eyes of many people.

927
01:20:48.960 --> 01:20:55.119
And that detail was Elizabeth Ratliffe,
the mother of Michael's two adopted daughters,

928
01:20:55.159 --> 01:21:00.479
Margaret and Martha. I'm going to
pause now for a final commercial break.

929
01:21:02.359 --> 01:21:08.359
Liz Ratliffe was found dead in November
of nineteen eighty five by Margaret and Martha's

930
01:21:08.439 --> 01:21:12.800
nanny, a woman named Barbara.
She was found at the foot of her

931
01:21:12.840 --> 01:21:16.359
stairs. Barbara Wren passed her body
to go get the little girls and then

932
01:21:16.439 --> 01:21:20.720
ran to Michael Peterson's house for help. He lived just a few doors down.

933
01:21:21.319 --> 01:21:26.279
She banged on his door, screaming
and crying. Michael ran over in

934
01:21:26.359 --> 01:21:29.359
a T shirt and boxers, even
though there was snow on the ground.

935
01:21:29.920 --> 01:21:33.640
He calmed the nanny down and called
the authorities. I am going to once

936
01:21:33.640 --> 01:21:39.279
again state for the record that Liz
Ratliffe was not then, nor was she

937
01:21:39.399 --> 01:21:45.399
ever Michael's wife. His first wife
was Patty. Kathleen was his only other

938
01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:48.720
wife. Sorry to be a broken
record, but there are still people on

939
01:21:48.760 --> 01:21:54.760
social media spreading this misinformation. We
also need to clear up. Another common

940
01:21:54.800 --> 01:22:00.479
misconception, or rather something that has
gotten glossed over or for time over the

941
01:22:00.600 --> 01:22:05.239
years. You will often read or
hear that Michael had two women in his

942
01:22:05.359 --> 01:22:11.520
life that he found dead at the
bottom of a staircase. The implication is

943
01:22:11.520 --> 01:22:15.039
that he was alone with both of
these women when they were found dead.

944
01:22:15.479 --> 01:22:19.640
That's not true. He did not
find Liz Ratliffe. Then Nanny found Liz,

945
01:22:19.760 --> 01:22:24.359
and instead of calling a police herself, she ran a few doors down

946
01:22:24.439 --> 01:22:29.279
hysterically crying and banging on the Peterson's
door. He and his wife, Patty

947
01:22:29.439 --> 01:22:32.439
were close friends with Liz, so
he did go running over there to try

948
01:22:32.479 --> 01:22:39.239
and help. Patty also showed up
soon after. It is still obviously a

949
01:22:39.319 --> 01:22:43.760
coincidence. But give me just a
moment and I'll go into that. Then

950
01:22:43.840 --> 01:22:48.119
Nanny had thought Liz might still be
alive because her body felt warm, but

951
01:22:48.199 --> 01:22:53.000
Michael had to break it to her
that she was gone. Her body was

952
01:22:53.039 --> 01:22:57.359
still warm due to the heated flooring, which was common in German households.

953
01:22:57.840 --> 01:23:00.720
As per German law, a doctor
was called to the scene because it was

954
01:23:00.760 --> 01:23:04.760
an unattended death, not because it
was a crime scene. She was not

955
01:23:05.039 --> 01:23:10.119
in rigor mortis and she had not
been dead long. The doctor did a

956
01:23:10.119 --> 01:23:14.399
spinal tap on Liza's body while she
was still where she was found. He

957
01:23:14.479 --> 01:23:18.560
found blood in the spinal fluid,
which indicated a cerebral hemorrhage. There were

958
01:23:18.560 --> 01:23:23.039
a few of Liz's friends who came
over while the doctor was there, and

959
01:23:23.119 --> 01:23:28.000
then when American military authorities showed up. Liz worked as a teacher for the

960
01:23:28.039 --> 01:23:31.800
Department of Defense, just like Patty, and was the widow of a war

961
01:23:31.960 --> 01:23:38.359
veteran. The MPs would not have
taken her death lightly. If foul play

962
01:23:38.399 --> 01:23:43.920
had been suspected, they would have
investigated, but no one suspected foul play.

963
01:23:44.600 --> 01:23:47.880
None of the officials at the scene
reported seeing much blood. They didn't

964
01:23:47.880 --> 01:23:51.960
even see a reason to take photographs
of the scene. But I will go

965
01:23:53.039 --> 01:23:57.800
into this in further detail on the
next episode. For now, just know

966
01:23:58.199 --> 01:24:02.119
that Lizza's body was sent to an
Army pathologist who confirmed the cause of death

967
01:24:02.239 --> 01:24:09.760
to be a cerebral hemorrhage. Then
the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology also reviewed

968
01:24:09.840 --> 01:24:15.640
Liz's autopsy and brain tissue. The
chief of the Division of Forensic Pathology agreed

969
01:24:15.840 --> 01:24:20.359
that Liza's death was due to unexpected
bleeding in the brain and conjunction with her

970
01:24:20.439 --> 01:24:26.760
prior health issues. That is,
three doctors, one German and two American

971
01:24:26.880 --> 01:24:30.640
who said Liz Ratliff died of a
cerebral hemorrhage. Liz had fallen down the

972
01:24:30.720 --> 01:24:35.439
stairs when the hemorrhage occurred, very
much like a stroke. It is often

973
01:24:35.479 --> 01:24:41.760
called a stroke by journalists and other
media. Liz had been suffering from terrible

974
01:24:41.800 --> 01:24:46.039
headaches and she had a rare blood
disorder, but she did suffer several injuries

975
01:24:46.079 --> 01:24:51.640
when she fell down the stairs,
actually more severe than Kathleen's. It's possible

976
01:24:51.760 --> 01:24:57.640
that she fell from a higher step. Following Liz's death, Michael and Patty

977
01:24:57.680 --> 01:25:00.840
took custody of Margaret and Martha.
They were about two and a half and

978
01:25:00.960 --> 01:25:06.720
eighteen months old. Michael and Patty
received a seventy thousand dollars life insurance policy,

979
01:25:06.920 --> 01:25:12.239
which, according to Michael's legal team, was spent exclusively on the girls.

980
01:25:12.840 --> 01:25:16.880
Just for your reference, it costs
about upwards of seventeen thousand dollars a

981
01:25:17.000 --> 01:25:20.960
year to raise a child these days. In the eighties, when Michael took

982
01:25:21.000 --> 01:25:26.520
custody of the girls, it was
about twelve thousand a year and You've got

983
01:25:26.560 --> 01:25:30.520
to double that with two girls,
making it around twenty four thousand dollars a

984
01:25:30.600 --> 01:25:34.079
year. So the Ratliffe life insurance
would basically have run out about two and

985
01:25:34.079 --> 01:25:39.880
a half to three years after Liza's
death, and Michael and Patty divorced in

986
01:25:39.960 --> 01:25:43.800
nineteen eighty seven. She did not
want to raise the girls or help.

987
01:25:43.920 --> 01:25:47.159
After the divorce, he was on
his own. He also did get the

988
01:25:47.199 --> 01:25:51.520
rest of the Ratliffe estate, as
far as art, fine china and crystal

989
01:25:51.560 --> 01:25:57.039
ware, expensive rugs and so on, And why wouldn't he. He took

990
01:25:57.079 --> 01:26:00.239
custody of the girls, was left
the life insurance, and he still lived

991
01:26:00.239 --> 01:26:05.159
in Germany. Liz's family was in
America, but still, once he was

992
01:26:05.239 --> 01:26:11.600
under suspicion of murder, even this
was seen as nefarious. But still he

993
01:26:11.720 --> 01:26:15.880
really received no financial benefit from Liz's
death. If anything, he took on

994
01:26:15.920 --> 01:26:21.760
a great financial expense taking in the
two girls, not to mention the incredible

995
01:26:21.880 --> 01:26:29.319
personal responsibility he assumed in becoming their
father. So why would Michael be motivated

996
01:26:29.359 --> 01:26:33.239
to kill Liz Ratliffe? Perhaps it
was the same reason that Michael was believed

997
01:26:33.359 --> 01:26:39.079
to be motivated to kill Kathleen.
He was having an affair, this time

998
01:26:39.079 --> 01:26:44.199
with a woman, Liz herself.
Maybe these daughters that Michael was so willing

999
01:26:44.239 --> 01:26:48.239
to adopt were actually his biological daughters. That was the line of thinking for

1000
01:26:48.279 --> 01:26:54.520
the prosecution anyway. But when they
tested Michael's DNA in comparison with Margaret and

1001
01:26:54.600 --> 01:26:59.640
Martha Ratliffe's, they concluded that Michael
was not the father. It was an

1002
01:26:59.720 --> 01:27:04.359
ugly, disgusting rumor that hurt the
girls immensely on top of everything else they

1003
01:27:04.359 --> 01:27:10.680
were going through. Even Diane Fanning, who was definitely pro guilt in her

1004
01:27:10.720 --> 01:27:15.760
book on the case, slammed the
prosecution for this move. In May of

1005
01:27:15.800 --> 01:27:19.840
two thousand and two, Liz's sister, Margaret Blair and formed the Durham Police

1006
01:27:19.920 --> 01:27:26.800
of the odd coincidences between Liz and
Kathleen's deaths. Initially, Blair said she

1007
01:27:26.880 --> 01:27:31.439
was conflicted about going to the authorities, so she consulted her priest. Blair

1008
01:27:31.479 --> 01:27:34.920
told the Herald's son, the priest
told me it was the right thing to

1009
01:27:34.960 --> 01:27:39.800
do. Then he prayed with me
and asked in his prayer that anything in

1010
01:27:39.880 --> 01:27:44.720
darkness be brought into the light.
Blair and Michael were known to have disagreements

1011
01:27:45.000 --> 01:27:47.840
and when Michael and Patty took custody
of Liz's daughters, Margaret and Martha.

1012
01:27:48.079 --> 01:27:54.520
Blair was devastated. She was their
aunt, their actual blood family, but

1013
01:27:54.640 --> 01:27:59.439
it didn't matter. Liz and George's
wills were clear. Michael Peterson was named

1014
01:27:59.520 --> 01:28:03.439
as guardian to the girls. Blair
spoke to a lawyer about trying to adopt

1015
01:28:03.479 --> 01:28:08.720
the two girls, but it didn't
pan out. When Michael moved from Germany

1016
01:28:08.720 --> 01:28:13.079
to North Carolina, the girl spent
a long summer with Margaret Blair and Rhode

1017
01:28:13.079 --> 01:28:18.039
Island. Blair was heartbroken when Michael
insisted they returned with him to North Carolina,

1018
01:28:18.159 --> 01:28:23.720
but she still insisted she wasn't holding
a grudge. She told the Herald's

1019
01:28:23.720 --> 01:28:27.479
son, I let it go.
I can't say that I had any resentment,

1020
01:28:27.800 --> 01:28:31.119
And as I told you in the
last episode, she had accepted that

1021
01:28:31.199 --> 01:28:35.479
Liz and George felt closer to their
friends in Germany after having lived there for

1022
01:28:35.520 --> 01:28:41.920
so long, so she did come
to understand and accept their decision. Fast

1023
01:28:42.000 --> 01:28:45.439
forward sixteen years. She called the
Durham police. But if she really thought

1024
01:28:45.479 --> 01:28:49.239
Michael had killed her sister, why
didn't she raise the alarm when she died?

1025
01:28:49.800 --> 01:28:54.960
I would guess because she believed the
autopsy results, and as there had

1026
01:28:54.960 --> 01:28:59.359
been no investigation into foul play.
She didn't suspect her sister was murdered.

1027
01:29:00.079 --> 01:29:03.880
But it was an incredible coincidence that
two women in Michael's life were found dead

1028
01:29:03.960 --> 01:29:08.479
at the bottom of a staircase.
I can see why she felt she had

1029
01:29:08.520 --> 01:29:12.560
to say something even if she had
not suspected anything at the time of Liz's

1030
01:29:12.600 --> 01:29:16.319
death. For the record, because
it does seem too coincidental, and we

1031
01:29:16.479 --> 01:29:21.159
true crime folk don't believe in coincidences, I decided to do some digging.

1032
01:29:21.720 --> 01:29:28.039
According to a twenty seventeen study done
by the American Journal of Emergency Medicine,

1033
01:29:28.239 --> 01:29:33.239
about twelve thousand Americans die from falls
down the stairs every year. But to

1034
01:29:33.279 --> 01:29:38.760
get technical, Liz Ratliffe didn't die
from the fall. She died from a

1035
01:29:38.800 --> 01:29:45.359
cerebral hemorrhage. The prosecution would later
insist about the coincidence that lightning can't strike

1036
01:29:45.399 --> 01:29:49.880
twice. Well, statistics might say
otherwise. I was truly shocked at that

1037
01:29:50.000 --> 01:29:56.399
number. If Michael Peterson is innocent, it is still a wild coincidence and

1038
01:29:56.560 --> 01:30:00.800
a truly unfortunate one for him,
as we will see when David Rudolph found

1039
01:30:00.800 --> 01:30:05.039
out about Liz Ratliffe. You can
see in the documentary that he is pissed.

1040
01:30:05.479 --> 01:30:10.359
How could you not tell me?
He says, It's simple. Michael

1041
01:30:10.439 --> 01:30:14.520
knew that Liz died from a cerebral
hemorrhage. It was the hemorrhage that made

1042
01:30:14.560 --> 01:30:18.039
her fall down the stairs. It
didn't seem relevant to him. And we

1043
01:30:18.199 --> 01:30:23.319
can all collectively groan with Rudolph on
this one, because I know if I

1044
01:30:23.399 --> 01:30:26.520
was in Michael's shoes, it would
be the first thing I would have told

1045
01:30:26.520 --> 01:30:30.239
my lawyer. Do with that what
you will. Just weeks after the news

1046
01:30:30.319 --> 01:30:34.359
of Liz Ratliffe's death hit the papers, Michael's trial date was also set.

1047
01:30:34.880 --> 01:30:39.239
He would stand before a jury of
his peers a year later, in the

1048
01:30:39.279 --> 01:30:45.039
summer of two thousand three. But
before then, the prosecution insisted on exuming

1049
01:30:45.159 --> 01:30:50.560
Elizabeth Ratliffe's body. They wanted to
perform a second autopsy, and yet they

1050
01:30:50.600 --> 01:30:56.560
waited for months to actually exume Ratliff. In April of two thousand three,

1051
01:30:56.760 --> 01:31:01.600
almost a year after Margaret Blair notified
the authorities about her sister's death, the

1052
01:31:01.720 --> 01:31:08.359
prosecution finally got around to examining Liz's
body. It was just two months before

1053
01:31:08.399 --> 01:31:12.960
Michael's trial. They had the lead
detective, Art Holland, and a hearse

1054
01:31:13.239 --> 01:31:17.159
drive from North Carolina to Texas.
They dug up Liz Ratliff's grave, put

1055
01:31:17.199 --> 01:31:21.159
her coffin in the hearse, and
trucked it back to Durham. If you're

1056
01:31:21.199 --> 01:31:28.079
wondering if they could have conducted a
second autopsy in Texas, saving taxpayers a

1057
01:31:28.159 --> 01:31:32.279
lot of money and expediting the entire
process, the answer is yes, yes,

1058
01:31:32.319 --> 01:31:36.279
they could have. It would also
have been a neutral, third party

1059
01:31:36.319 --> 01:31:42.800
medical examiner, which is what David
Rudolph felt should have happened if they insisted

1060
01:31:42.800 --> 01:31:47.840
on exuming a woman whose death had
already been ruled natural by German and American

1061
01:31:47.920 --> 01:31:54.640
authorities. But prosecutors wanted their own
medical experts to see Liz Ratliff's body,

1062
01:31:55.000 --> 01:32:00.640
and Liz's body was re examined by
doctor Radish and doctor Gleckman. Just like

1063
01:32:00.840 --> 01:32:06.000
Kathleen. The medical examiners found seven
lacerations on Liza's head. For the record,

1064
01:32:06.279 --> 01:32:12.720
they do not at all resemble the
lacerations on Kathleen's head, but because

1065
01:32:12.760 --> 01:32:17.039
there were seven lacerations another coincidence with
Kathleen, the state would make much of

1066
01:32:17.079 --> 01:32:21.560
that. And come on, if
he killed both women by striking them in

1067
01:32:21.600 --> 01:32:25.960
the head, did he count the
blows on Kathleen's so they would match.

1068
01:32:26.680 --> 01:32:31.199
That is just a ludicrous comparison to
me. There was also a linear fracture

1069
01:32:31.359 --> 01:32:35.079
at the base of Lizz's skull,
as well as bruising on her hand,

1070
01:32:35.279 --> 01:32:41.319
wrist, face and back, more
consistent with a fall down the stairs if

1071
01:32:41.319 --> 01:32:45.760
you ask some people, but to
the Durham folks, consistent with a beating.

1072
01:32:45.359 --> 01:32:51.920
Also, remember Kathleen's skull wasn't fractured. Ultimately, this second autopsy determined

1073
01:32:53.039 --> 01:32:58.359
that Liz Ratliffe did not die of
natural causes. According to Durham medical experts,

1074
01:32:58.560 --> 01:33:01.760
Liz was the victim of a home
aside blunt forced trauma to be specific,

1075
01:33:02.359 --> 01:33:08.319
just like Kathleen, even though she
had been buried for about eighteen years

1076
01:33:08.359 --> 01:33:12.479
now and only about a third of
her brain tissue was even left after her

1077
01:33:12.479 --> 01:33:17.920
original autopsy. Except Rattish went even
further this time, calling it a homicidal

1078
01:33:17.960 --> 01:33:23.720
attack. That's not how autopsies are
supposed to work. You check a box

1079
01:33:23.800 --> 01:33:27.960
for manner of death, you can
list cause of death as blunt forced trauma.

1080
01:33:28.199 --> 01:33:32.239
Apparently even in exchange for exanguination if
you want to, but you're not

1081
01:33:32.279 --> 01:33:38.199
supposed to draw a conclusion that way
within the notes. To make matters worse,

1082
01:33:38.600 --> 01:33:43.680
the judge ruled to unseal the Ratliffe
autopsy for the press just two weeks

1083
01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:48.600
before jury selection, even though he
refused to rule whether or not the Ratliffe

1084
01:33:48.600 --> 01:33:54.760
evidence would even be admitted at trial. During a pre trial hearing, these

1085
01:33:54.840 --> 01:34:00.840
rulings are blatantly contradictory, David Rudolph
was outraged. He argued that he needed

1086
01:34:00.880 --> 01:34:04.479
to know if the evidence was coming
in so he could address it in his

1087
01:34:04.560 --> 01:34:10.720
opening argument, but the judge refused
to rule on that until the prosecution made

1088
01:34:10.720 --> 01:34:15.800
a motion to enter the evidence,
and the prosecution played coy saying they were

1089
01:34:15.840 --> 01:34:20.079
not sure they wanted to enter the
Ratliffe evidence yet, so then why exhume

1090
01:34:20.159 --> 01:34:26.199
her. Margaret and Martha were devastated
by this. As children, they had

1091
01:34:26.239 --> 01:34:30.359
suffered nightmares about their dead parents.
Years later, after Michael's trial, they

1092
01:34:30.399 --> 01:34:35.600
said having their mother exhumed brought on
new nightmares that the young women suffered for

1093
01:34:35.720 --> 01:34:41.720
years, and they were forced to
sign off on the exhamation. Lizz's sister

1094
01:34:41.800 --> 01:34:45.439
and mother gave permission, but it
would ultimately be up to the girls.

1095
01:34:45.960 --> 01:34:48.239
They felt if they said no,
it would make their dad look guilty.

1096
01:34:48.800 --> 01:34:54.640
It was a terrible position to put
these girls in for a death that German

1097
01:34:54.720 --> 01:35:00.600
and American authorities had ruled natural almost
two decades before. You ca not see

1098
01:35:00.640 --> 01:35:05.319
this as anything but prejudicial and tainting
the jury pool. The prosecution had known

1099
01:35:05.359 --> 01:35:10.359
for a year about Liz Ratliffe.
They had a year to exhume her body,

1100
01:35:10.600 --> 01:35:15.159
but waited until a little over two
months before trial. Then the autopsy

1101
01:35:15.239 --> 01:35:19.840
results are released to the press two
weeks before jury selection come on. But

1102
01:35:20.039 --> 01:35:28.159
prosecutor Jim Harden blamed the media circus
on Peterson's defense attorney David Rudolph. Rudolf

1103
01:35:28.399 --> 01:35:32.039
was notorious for working with the press, but in this case he pretty much

1104
01:35:32.039 --> 01:35:36.760
had to when the police, chief, medical examiner, and the prosecution were

1105
01:35:36.840 --> 01:35:43.840
leaking evidence against Michael to the press
before the trial even started. Even though

1106
01:35:43.880 --> 01:35:47.359
this case would go national, I
think not asking for a change of venue

1107
01:35:47.720 --> 01:35:53.479
was a major mistake on the part
of the defense. Durham knew Michael Peterson

1108
01:35:54.079 --> 01:35:58.520
and now they were well aware of
all of the salacious details, Whether or

1109
01:35:58.560 --> 01:36:03.119
not those details were even relevant.
Despite how you feel about Michael Peterson,

1110
01:36:03.560 --> 01:36:09.199
even if you think he is guilty, he deserved a fair trial. He

1111
01:36:09.359 --> 01:36:14.399
was still supposed to be innocent until
proving guilty, but he was tried in

1112
01:36:14.439 --> 01:36:21.359
the media before his actual trial even
got started. Southern Fried True Crimes,

1113
01:36:21.359 --> 01:36:26.760
hosted and produced by me Erica Kelly. Join us next week for part three

1114
01:36:26.840 --> 01:36:30.720
of Kathleen Peterson's case. We'll dive
into the Peterson family, supposed money struggles,

1115
01:36:30.800 --> 01:36:36.159
Michael's trial, his subsequent appeals,
and popular culture's response to this controversial

1116
01:36:36.199 --> 01:36:41.640
case. And of course, we
will discuss the infamous owl theory, which

1117
01:36:41.880 --> 01:36:45.520
is not as ludicrous as it sounds. Today's episode was researched and written by

1118
01:36:45.520 --> 01:36:50.439
Andrea Marshbank and me, and of
course all editorial opinions are my own,

1119
01:36:50.600 --> 01:36:56.640
but I cannot thank Andrea enough for
her incredible research and writing. The Peterson

1120
01:36:56.680 --> 01:37:00.199
case is one of the most complicated
I've ever covered, and I could not

1121
01:37:00.239 --> 01:37:03.279
do it without her. Southern Fraud's
original music is by Rob Harrison of Gamma

1122
01:37:03.359 --> 01:37:06.680
Radio and the original graphic art is
by Kley Horner. If you have any

1123
01:37:06.760 --> 01:37:11.680
case suggestions, please go to my
website and click on the listeners suggestion tap.

1124
01:37:11.840 --> 01:37:14.479
This is the best way for me
to get those little known cases.

1125
01:37:14.560 --> 01:37:18.479
Y'all always send me. Please remember
that I do not accept suggestions on social

1126
01:37:18.520 --> 01:37:23.920
media private messages. With three platforms
to manage, that is very overwhelming to

1127
01:37:23.960 --> 01:37:27.159
me. I hope you understand,
but please come join our Facebook group,

1128
01:37:27.239 --> 01:37:30.840
Southern Fred True Crime Fans Discussion Group
where we swap recipes, worship Dolly Parton,

1129
01:37:30.960 --> 01:37:35.039
and share memes. I'm much prefer
spending my social media time and our

1130
01:37:35.159 --> 01:37:39.880
lovely group. We do, of
course discuss true crime, not just Southern

1131
01:37:39.920 --> 01:37:43.279
fraud, but all kinds, but
it is still very much a Southern lifestyle

1132
01:37:43.319 --> 01:37:45.199
group. Our group is a safe
and fun corner of Facebook, and by

1133
01:37:45.199 --> 01:37:47.720
God, we mean it when we
say no shit us is allowed. It's

1134
01:37:47.720 --> 01:37:50.359
not just a motto, it's how
we run the group. If you enjoyed

1135
01:37:50.359 --> 01:37:54.640
today's show, don't forget to subscribe
and please tell a friend or rate interview

1136
01:37:54.720 --> 01:37:59.039
on iTunes. I'm also on all
large platforms like iHeart, Stitcher, Spotify

1137
01:37:59.159 --> 01:38:03.000
and now Emma's and Audible. Until
next time, thanks so much for listening.

1138
01:38:03.479 --> 01:38:04.239
Y'all take care