Man’s Previous Crime Comes To Light After He ‘Fakes’ His Wife’s Murder As Natural

A bizarre coincidence made prosecutors look into the death of Michael Peterson’s friend, Elizabeth Ratliff. In the 1980s, when Peterson was still living with his first wife, Patricia, in Germany, his friendship with Ratliff flourished.

In 1983, the two became even close after the death of Elizabeth’s husband, George Ratliff. As revealed in the 2004 docuseries The Staircase, the two were spending nearly every night together.

On November 25, 1985, Ratliff was found dead at the bottom of the stairs. According to CNN, her death was determined to be a result of cerebral hemorrhage. Following Elizabeth’s death, Peterson raised her daughters, Margaret and Martha, as his own.

In 1997, after he tied the knot to Kathleen Peterson, Michael legally adopted the two daughters and started living with them in his Maryland home. Almost two decades later, Kathleen was found unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, with a striking similarity to Ratliff’s death.

Peterson was accused of killing Kathleen, and it made prosecutors take a new look at Ratliff’s death. He was convicted of his wife’s murder. However, in 2017, he was freed after submitting an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter.

In the Netflix documentary The Staircase, Peterson and Ratliff’s friendship is described as strictly platonic. Ratliff allegedly leaned on his shoulder after her husband died, leaving her with two young daughters.

When Ratliff died, she was 43. According to Oxygen, before her body was found at the bottom of the staircase at her home, Peterson was the last person to see her. Her death was ruled natural, as a result of cerebral hemorrhage.

Her friend, Cheryl Appel-Schumacher, later testified that Ratliff had been suffering from headaches before she died. Although at that time, there was no investigation into her death, the friend claimed that she recalled cleaning up a large amount of blood alongside her husband after the body was moved.

"There was blood splatter all over those walls. How much, I can't say. The blood was all the way up the staircase,” she said. Nearly two decades later, her death was re-examined during Peterson’s 2003 trial. Her body was exhumed in Texas.

A subsequent medical examination ruled her death as homicide. It was determined that she also died from blunt force trauma, similar to that of Peterson’s second wife, Kathleen, reports Oxygen.

Dr. Deborah L. Radisch wrote that her death was “inconsistent with a fall down a set of stairs.” She noted, “Rather, they are indicative of multiple blunt force impacts, either from blows to the head caused by a blunt object or by the head being forcibly struck against a hard surface.”

“It is further my opinion that these injuries were incurred while Mrs. Ratliff was alive and are of sufficient severity to have caused her death,” she added.

Although Peterson was convicted of Kathleen’s murder, he was never formally charged with Ratliff’s homicide.