The Staircase vs. the True Story of Kathleen Peterson's Death

The Staircase vs. the True Story of Kathleen Peterson's Death

In 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her home in Durham, North Carolina with lacerations on the back of her skull. Her husband, Michael, thought she had fallen after mixing alcohol with Valium, and the police initially ruled her death an accident, saying that the cuts on her head must have been caused by the banister. But they soon revised their conclusion after the coroner said the lacerations were likely "a result of beating." And despite never finding a murder weapon that could have caused the distinctive 2q00pattern, police arrested Michael Peterson for her murder. ⁠

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But years after Michael Peterson was sentenced to life in prison, an independent forensic analysis of Kathleen Peterson found traces of feathers, wood splinters, and cedar needles in her hair. It also uncovered the fact that she had been holding a clump of her hair in her hand when she died, leading to a strange new theory that she may have been attacked by a barred owl, leaving her disoriented enough to collapse down the stairs. Go inside the bizarre true story behind "The Staircase" by clicking the link in our profile.⁠

Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony. In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed.

Peterson's case is the subject of the French documentary miniseries The Staircase, which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wife's death in an independently published memoir, Behind the Staircase.

 The Staircase, a 2022 miniseries featuring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also takes this murder case as its subject. Several other documentaries have been produced about Kathleen's death, including a sequel to the 2004 French documentary, podcasts, radio shows and other media.

On December 9, 2001, Peterson called emergency services on 911, to report that he had just found Kathleen Peterson unconscious in their Forest Hills neighborhood home in Durham, North Carolina, and suspected she had fallen down "fifteen to twenty, I don't know" stairs. He later claimed that he had been outside by the pool and had come in at 2:40 am to find Kathleen at the foot of the stairs. Peterson said she must have fallen down the stairs after consuming alcohol and Valium.

Toxicology results showed that Kathleen's blood alcohol content 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 matrix of severe injuries, including a fracture of the superior cornu 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.

Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, and Kathleen's sister, Candace Zamperini, both initially proclaimed Michael's innocence and publicly supported him alongside his children, but Zamperini reconsidered after learning of Michael's bisexuality, as did Caitlin after reading her mother's autopsy report. Both subsequently broke off from the rest of the family.

Although forensic expert Henry Lee, hired by Peterson's defense, testified that the blood-spatter evidence was consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs, police investigators concluded that the injuries were inconsistent with such an accident. As Peterson was the only person at the residence at the time of Kathleen's death, he was the prime suspect and was soon charged with her murder. He pleaded not guilty.

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 

The defense argued that Kathleen accepted Michael's bisexuality and that the marriage was very happy, a position supported by Michael and Kathleen's children and other friends and associates.

The prosecution said that Kathleen's murder was most likely committed with a custom-made fireplace poker called a blow poke. It had been a gift to the Petersons from Kathleen's sister but was missing from the house at the time of the investigation. Later in the trial the defense team produced the missing blow poke, which they said had been overlooked in the garage by police investigators. Forensic tests revealed that it had been untouched and unmoved for too long to have been used in the murder.[citation needed] A juror contacted after the trial noted that the jury had dismissed the idea of the blow poke as the murder weapon.

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