If you have not heard of this case, you must be living under a rock. The case has been featured in a documentary on Netflix and then a series was developed on HBO that described the filming of the documentary and all the things that happened behind the scenes. I have watched both and to me, there was never any doubt that Kathleen was murdered. I have reviewed the autopsy photos and the crime scene photos. While it is very hard to make me feel ill at the sight of blood, the gruesomeness of this crime scene made me feel sick and so sad for Kathleen and her children.
They really did seem like the perfect family. She was a Telecommunications Executive for a company called Nortel and he was a successful, published writer. They lived in a beautiful home in Durham, NC. Michael has two sons with his ex-wife Patricia and also two girls that he and Patricia adopted after their parents had both died in Germany.
Michael attended classes at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and after graduating went to work for the Department of Defense. He was not enrolled in the military; this was a civilian position. That same year in Germany, Peterson married Patricia who was a schoolteacher in Germany. At that time, they had their two boys, Clayton and Todd. In 1968, Michael was commissioned in the Marines and served in the Vietnam War. In 1971, he was in a car accident that left him disabled, so he was given an honorable discharge from the Marines as Captain. Be sure that you're following along because later, his military service will have much to do with his ability in the eyes of the court to be truthful.
Michael attended classes at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and after graduating went to work for the Department of Defense. He was not enrolled in the military at this time; this was a civilian position. That same year in Germany, Peterson married Patricia who was a schoolteacher. At that time, they had their two boys, Clayton and Todd. In 1968, Michael was commissioned in the Marines and served in the Vietnam War. In 1971, he was in a car accident in Japan that left him disabled, so he was given an honorable discharge from the Marines as Captain. Be sure that you're following along because later, his military service will have much to do with his ability in the eyes of the court to be truthful.
Michael and Patricia lived in Germany for quite some time and ended up becoming really close friends with their neighbors, The Ratliffs. They had two little girls by the name of Margaret and Martha. George ended up passing away and leaving Elizabeth a single mother. In1985, she took a fall down her slight of stairs (sound familiar?) and ended up dying of her injuries. The Peterson's ended up becoming Martha and Margaret's custodians. In 1987, Michael and Patricia ended up divorcing. Michael took the girls to North Carolina, while the boys stayed with their mother for a period of time before joining their father.
In 1989, Michael met and ended up marrying Kathleen Atwater, a beautiful and intelligent executive. They moved in together along with Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin. So altogether that was Michael, Kathleen, Margaret, Martha, Clayton, and Todd. Living happily ever after. Seemingly anyway. When watching the documentary and the HBO series, you are made aware just how bad things were. It was obvious to me that the couple were not on the same page. He had secrets and during the trial, what was held in the dark, came to light.
On December 9th, 2001, Michael claims that he and Kathleen were relaxing by the pool, drinking a couple of glasses of wine, after watching a movie that he had gotten from Blockbuster earlier in the evening. He states Kathleen went in the house before him stating she had to answer an email from work. To this day, he claims he never heard her fall. heard no cries for help, or any noises for that matter. Michael came in the house, according to him at approximately 2:40 am to find Kathleen bloody at the bottom of the staircase. He called 911 and stated that he had found her, and she had fallen down " about 15 or 20 stairs". He also stated that Kathleen had consumed alcohol and Valium (nerve pill) that night.
Toxicology results showed that Kathleen's blood alcohol content or BAC was 0.07 percent (70 mg/100mL), her alcohol in urine was 0.11 and she had taken between 5 and 15 mg of Valium. The autopsy report concluded that the 48-year-old woman sustained a multitude of severe injuries, including a fracture of the superior Cormu of the left thyroid cartilage and seven lacerations to the top and back of her head, consistent with blows from a blunt object, and had died from blood loss ninety minutes to two hours after sustaining the injuries. She didn't die right away. She slowly bled to death. And he heard or saw nothing...how ironic. The autopsy report also shows that she had hair gripped in both of her hands. Grabbing her head to keep the blunt force trauma from killing her perhaps? She also had 7 major contusions in her head, very deep. Some that, according to the autopsy, went right down to her skull.
At first, Kathleen's daughter and her sister were with the family claiming that Michael was innocent and had done nothing wrong. The police on the scene that nigh and saw all of the blood and blood spatter thought that a fall, even from 15-20 stairs could have caused such a horrific bloody scene. After reading the autopsy report, Kathleen's sister no longer felt that Michael was innocent and when the news broke that Michael had been having extra marital affairs with men, Caitlin then also stooped supporting him and fully believed that he was the reason her mom had died. The medical examiner, Deborah Radisch, concluded that Kathleen had died from lacerations of the scalp caused by a homicidal assault. According to Radisch, the total of seven lacerations to the top and back of Kathleen's head were the result of repeated blows with a light, yet rigid, weapon. The defense disputed this theory. According to their analysis, the lacerations were not consistent with blows of any sort, because there was a lack of underlying injury, such as skull fractures or bruising, swelling and hemorrhaging of the brain. Since Michael was the prime suspect and only person that was with Kathleen that night, he was soon arrested.
As the secrets began to come out pretrial, Michael's credibility was being questioned. He had told numerous people that he had gotten awarded the Purple Heart twice, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star with Valor. He had the metals but no paperwork to authenticate them and eventually told everyone he did not receive the medals in combat, but due to the accident he had in Japan. When the prosecution checked, no evidence of him ever being awarded the Purple Hearts was found. Also, coming out were the affairs he had with men. His bisexuality or his being gay. Many people believe that the night Kathleen was murdered, she had found out his secret and confronted him with it. That obviously will only be between Kathleen and Michael, and he denies that she found out that night. According to him, she already knew that he was seeing men on the side. That I will NEVER believe.
At one time during the trial, Kathleen's sister noticed that the fireplace poker that all three sisters had alike was missing. Many believe that this had to be the murder weapon, however, the poker was found in the garage, having been overlooked by investigators, was tested and determined to not be the murder weapon. We still to this day have no idea what Michael may have used to inflict such hard blows into Kathleen's skull.
Elizabeth Ratliff, the friend of the Petersons who died in Germany in 1985, had also been found dead at the foot of her staircase with injuries to the head. Her death had been investigated by both the German police and U.S. military police. An autopsy at the time of her death concluded Ratliff died from an intra-cerebral hemorrhage secondary to the blood coagulation disorder Von Willebrand's disease, based on blood in her cerebrospinal fluid and reports that she had been suffering severe, persistent headaches in the weeks leading up to her death. The coroner determined that the hemorrhage resulted in immediate death followed by Ratliff falling down the stairs after collapsing. The Petersons had dinner with Ratliff and her daughters, and Michael Peterson had stayed and helped Ratliff put the children to bed before going home. The children's nanny, Barbara, discovered the body when she arrived the next morning. Peterson was the last known person to see her alive.
Before Peterson's trial, the Durham court ordered the exhumation of Ratliff's embalmed body, buried in Texas, for a second autopsy in April 2003.Arrangements were made for the Durham medical examiner, who had initially performed Kathleen's autopsy, to perform this reevaluation, over the objections of defense counsel who argued that the autopsy should be performed by Texas medical examiners. The body was then transported from Texas to Durham. The Durham M.E. found sufficient evidence drawn from the results of the second autopsy, along with new witness statements describing the scene, to overturn the earlier findings and list Ratliff's cause of death as "homicide".
The prosecution declined to accuse Peterson of Ratliff's death but introduced the death into the trial as an incident giving Peterson the idea of how to "fake" Kathleen's accident. Despite police reports that there was very little blood at the scene of Ratliff's death, the nanny, who was the first to discover Ratliff's body in 1985, took the stand at Peterson's trial and testified that there was a large amount of blood at the scene. Another witness testified to spending much of the day cleaning blood stains off the wall. Doubt as to the admissibility of the Ratliff evidence in court was one of the grounds for the subsequent appeal against his conviction, lodged by Peterson's lawyers in 2005.
In October of 2002, Caitlin, Kathleen's daughter, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Michael. In 2006, Peterson tried to file bankruptcy, but Caitlin filed a claim against it. They ended up settling out of court for 25 million.
On October 10, 2003, after one of the longest trials in North Carolina history, a Durham County jury found Peterson guilty of the murder of Kathleen Peterson and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Denial of parole requires premeditation. Despite the jury accepting the murder as a "spur-of-the-moment" crime, they also found it was premeditated. As one juror explained it, premeditated meant not only planning hours or days ahead, but could also mean planning in the seconds before committing a spur-of-the-moment crime. Peterson was housed at the Nash Correctional Institution near Rocky Mount until he was released on December 16, 2011.
And now for the stupidest shit that you have ever heard, let me present the "owl" theory. In late 2009, a new theory of Kathleen's death was raised: that she had been attacked by a barred owl outside, fallen after rushing inside, and been knocked unconscious after hitting her head on the first tread of the stairs. The owl theory was raised by Durham attorney T. Lawrence Pollard, a neighbor of the Petersons who was not involved in the case but had been following the public details. He approached the police suggesting an owl might have been responsible after reading the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) evidence list and finding a feather listed. Peterson's attorneys had determined that the SBI crime lab report listed a microscopic owl feather and a wooden sliver from a tree limb entangled in a clump of hair that had been pulled out by the roots found clutched in Kathleen's left hand. A re-examination of the hair in September 2008 had found two more microscopic owl feathers.
According to Pollard, had a jury been presented with this evidence it would have "materially affected their deliberation and therefore would have materially affected their ultimate verdict". Prosecutors have ridiculed the claim, and Deborah Radisch, who conducted Kathleen's autopsy, says it was unlikely that an owl or any other bird could have made wounds as deep as those on her scalp. However, Radisch's opinion was challenged by other experts in three separate affidavits filed in 2010.
Despite interest in this theory among some outside advocates, no motion for a new trial was filed on this point in 2009.On March 2, 2017 (following his Alford plea), Peterson's attorney filed a motion to allow him to pay for a bird expert at the Smithsonian Institution to examine feather fragments found in Kathleen's hair to determine whether or not she was attacked by an owl......If you're shaking your head, so am I.
On December 16, 2011, Peterson was released from the Durham County jail on $300,000 bail and placed under house arrest with a tracking anklet. His release on bond followed a judicial order for a new trial after Judge Hudson found that Deaver had given "materially misleading" and "deliberately false" testimony about bloodstain evidence, and had exaggerated his training, experience, and expertise. So, boys and girls, what that means is one expert witness lied about his experience and this POS got a new trial. Former North Carolina Attorney General Rufus L. Edmisten said that any evidence gathered after Deaver arrived at the scene might be deemed inadmissible in a new trial. In July 2014, Peterson's bond restrictions were eased. Well, of course they were!
In October 2014, the court appointed Mike Klinkosum to represent Peterson, replacing David Rudolf, who had been working pro bono on the case since Peterson's conviction was overturned. Rudolf had stated that he could no longer afford to represent Peterson without being paid. On November 14, 2016, Peterson's request for the second trial to be dismissed was refused, and a new trial was scheduled to begin on May 8, 2017. However, a news report on February 7, 2017, indicated that a resolution had been negotiated by Rudolf (once again representing Peterson) and the Durham County District Attorney.
On February 24, 2017, Peterson entered an Alford plea (a guilty plea entered because sufficient evidence exists to convict him of the offense, but the defendant still claims his innocence) to the voluntary manslaughter of Kathleen. The judge sentenced him to a maximum of 86 months in prison, with credit for time previously served. Because Peterson had already served more time than the sentence (98.5 months), he did not face additional prison time.
So, Michael Peterson killed his wife because she found out he was cheating on her with men. He served 86 months and then because of a technicality, he was able to get out with an ankle monitor, and then enter an Alford Plea that got him time served. Anyone else agree that justice was not served, and the system DID NOT get it right? Just me?
If you have the time, look at the crime scene photos. As you're doing that, think about how long it took Kathleen to bleed out and die. Probably while he watched. She didn't deserve this. Her daughter didn't deserve it either.
Rest in Paradise Kathleen.
Sources:
The Staircase: Netflix Documentary
The Staircase: HBO Miniseries
Michael Peterson - Wikipedia
I watched this then and I followed it. He did it and he wanted to do it!! He should has spent life in prison!