Michael Peterson and the Night a Staircase Turned Into a Crime Scene

In the world of true crime, some cases are seen as simple, where all the evidence points one way and the conclusions seemingly obvious. Yet, sometimes, emphasizing coincidence, character, and plausibility too much can have dangerous consequences, particularly if it discards the actual physical evidence. Such is the case of Kathleen Peterson, a wife who was allegedly cruelly beaten and thrown downstairs, or was she? Perhaps her husband Michael may be the best real-life example of the famous Sherlock Holmes quote that states, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

On December 9, 2001, Michael Peterson made an emergency call to say that his wife, Kathleen Peterson, was unconscious at the bottom of the stairs at their Durham, North Carolina home. Michael stated that he had found her, and he suspected she had fallen down the stairs. He would later claim that he had been outside by the couple’s pool and come inside around 2:40 a.m. to find his wife, believing she fell after consuming alcohol and Valium.

Michael and Kathleen had been together since 1989 and married in 1997. Kathleen was a successful business executive, and Michael was finding his feet as an author, having written one book and having another on the way. His subject matter was the Vietnam War, of which he had personal experiences, having served first at the Department of Defense and then in the Marine Corps.

During this time, Michael married his first wife, Patricia Sue, a teacher. The couple was seemingly happy, having two children, Clayton and Todd. In 1971, Peterson received an honorable discharge as a captain following a car accident in Japan that left him with a disability. He was confirmed to have received a Bronze and Silver Star during his time in the military and publicly claimed to have received two Purple Hearts, yet Marine Corps files showed no record of this being true.

Following military life, Michael and Patricia lived in Germany for a time. They struck up a friendship with Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two children, Margaret and Martha. When George died, the family became even closer to Elizabeth. However, in 1985, Elizabeth also died and was found at the bottom of her stairs with a head injury.

Michael, Patricia, and Elizabeth had dinner that evening alongside Elizabeth’s two daughters. Michael had stayed and helped his friend put the children to bed before returning home. The body was discovered the following day when the family’s nanny arrived for work, and Michael Peterson was the last known person to have seen Elizabeth alive.

German and U.S. military police both investigated the death, and an autopsy concluded that she’d died from an intracerebral hemorrhage secondary to Von Willebrand’s Disease. She had been suffering from headaches for weeks, and the conclusion was that the bleeding caused her death and fall. Michael Peterson seemingly had nothing to do with it, and he and Patricia subsequently became the guardians of Elizabeth’s daughters.

Michael and Patricia divorced in 1987, with their children initially staying with their mother while Elizabeth’s daughters stayed with Michael. Eventually, all four children would come and live with their father. He successfully advanced his career and began carving out a public image for himself as he attempted to launch a political career.

Peterson’s attempts to become mayor of Durham County ended badly, with the local press catching him in the lie about how he left the Marines. Peterson had claimed that a severe war injury to his leg was why he was discharged, rather than the truth about the car accident in Japan. However, he insisted that he had received the Purple Hearts, even when confronted by the lack of documentation.

“It’s unfortunate that someone who had served in combat and had medals for valor would feel the need to embellish his record,” Maj. Patrick Gibbons, deputy chief of media affairs for the Marines, told The News & Observer in 1999.

It wouldn’t be the only thing that Michael Peterson wasn’t being entirely honest about, with his private life about to be spread all over news networks. After taking expert advice, police concluded that the injuries to Kathleen were consistent with a serious assault and homicide. Michael was charged with his wife’s murder.

The autopsy had shown that Kathleen had suffered a range of injuries, including a fractured superior cornu of the left thyroid cartilage and seven lacerations to the head, consistent with blows from an object. She bled out between ninety minutes and two hours after the accident.

Medical examiner Deborah Radisch declared the injuries were the result of an assault and that the blows to the skull had come from a light but hard weapon, not being in any way the blows that could have come from the head striking stairs. However, it was also noted that Kathleen did not suffer a fractured skull or any brain damage, which would be unusual in death by beating. Also in opposition, Peterson hired his own expert, who concluded that the blood spatter at the scene showed the fall had been accidental.

Pleading not guilty, the trial became a sensation when it was revealed that Michael had been having a homosexual affair and was bisexual. This, alongside his lies about his war injury and dubious claims about his medals, led the prosecution to present him as a man of secrets, somebody who could not be trusted to tell the truth. It was alleged that Kathleen had uncovered his affair and wanted a divorce, with a $1.5 million insurance policy also adding extra motive.

“[Kathleen] would have been infuriated by learning that her husband, who she truly loved, was bisexual and having an extramarital relationship — not with another woman — but a man,” Assistant District Attorney Freda Black told Netflix in 2018. “[She] would have been humiliating and embarrassing to her. We believe that once she learned this information, an argument ensued, and a homicide occurred.”

The death of Elizabeth Ratliff was raised before the trial had even begun, and the court ordered that she be exhumed and a new autopsy performed. Taking place in April 2003, this further examination concluded that her death had, in fact, been a homicide, a decision that was enforced by new witness statements that described the crime scene.

While the prosecution didn’t accuse Peterson of murdering Ratliff, they suggested that her death had been the perfect inspiration for how Peterson might try and get away with a murder. However, whether the evidence relating to Ratliff was admissible in court would be a point of contention that would become grounds for later appeals.

The defense in response argued that Kathleen and Michael had, in fact, had a happy marriage and that his bisexuality was not a secret, a position supported by the couple’s children and friends. Meanwhile, a claim from the prosecution that a fireplace blow poke had been the murder weapon was dramatically discounted when the “missing” instrument turned up in a garage while the trial was going on.

In the end, despite significant doubts in the case, Michael Peterson was found guilty of the murder of his wife on October 10, 2003, following one of the longest and most commented-on trials in North Carolina’s history. He was sentenced to life in prison without any possibility of parole and sent to Nash Correctional.

The story of Michael and Kathleen Peterson is as much a story of legal wrangling as it is a story of murder. From day one, Michael didn’t accept the verdict, and in 2006 his claims of an unfair trial were rejected. The court judged that evidence was fairly admitted, and while there were defects in a search warrant, they had not affected his defense.

The ruling was not unanimous, giving Peterson leave to appeal further to the North Carolina Supreme Court. However, his hopes were dashed when the court affirmed the original decision in 2007, meaning that Peterson had now exhausted his appeals. Applications for a new trial were also rejected in 2009.

It wasn’t long after the rejection of a new trial by the Durham County Superior Court that a new theory emerged, astounding enough to be almost unique in the world of criminal defense — the claim was that the culprit was actually an owl.

Durham attorney T. Lawrence Pollard, a neighbor of the Petersons but not involved in the case, was the one who first came up with the theory. He approached police with the suggestion after learning that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had listed a feather as evidence found at the scene.

This feather was a microscopic owl feather and was found alongside a tiny wooden sliver from a tree limb. These items had been found in a clump of hair from Kathleen Peterson, pulled at the roots, and found in her left hand. A further examination of the hair in September 2008 discovered two more feathers present.

Owl attacks are not uncommon in North Carolina around the Peterson home, and barred owls were living in the woods close by. Such birds are aggressive and have attacked humans on several occasions. Besides this, there were drops of blood on an outside walkway leading to the front door and another smear on the front door frame. The defense would contend that two of the wounds to the scalp resembled talon marks, with tiny wounds to the face consistent with a beak.

While the theory that Kathleen was attacked by a bird may sound fantastical, there is no ready explanation for the presence of the feathers. Pollard believes that if the jury had been presented with such evidence at the original trial, Michael Peterson would not have been found guilty. It’s worth remembering that Kathleen showed no brain injury or swelling that would be consistent with being beaten with a blunt object.

On the night she died, Kathleen had been putting Christmas decorations on her lawn, and some have suggested that the owl could have mistaken the decorations for prey and gone after Kathleen because she was close by. Fleeing inside and leaving the blood on the door frame, the owl followed, and tragedy struck.

No motion for a new trial was filed on the evidence despite this. Prosecutors have scoffed at the theory and stated that it is unlikely that an owl could have made the wounds to the scalp seen during the autopsy, an opinion challenged by other experts.

The new theory, while sounding implausible, appeared to be scientifically possible, which only added more pressure to the State Bureau of Investigation after a series of highly critical articles on other issues that arose in local newspapers. The state Attorney General Roy Cooper opened and led an investigation into the bureau, which led to the suspension of analyst Duane Deaver and his eventual firing in 2011.

Deaver was one of the principal witnesses against Peterson. The inquiry had revealed that his work was highly incompetent, being considered some of the worst seen on dozens of flawed prosecutions. He misrepresented evidence, including withholding negative results in the case of a man who had spent 17 years in prison.

A bloodstain team formed by Deaver were all suspended and then disbanded. During the original 2003 case, Deaver had stated that he worked on 500 bloodstain cases and written over 200 reports, giving him the air of an expert. In fact, he’d written less than a quarter that number of reports and testified in only three cases, including the Peterson trial.

In response, T. Lawrence Pollard attempted to force Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson to command that the Medical Examiner’s Office hand over all files relating to the Peterson case, particularly the autopsy. However, Pollard was barred from acting as he did not officially represent Peterson. A new motion was filed by David Rudolf, one of the original attorneys in the case.

Michael Peterson was released from jail on December 16, 2011, on a $300,000 bond. He was under house arrest and given an ankle tracker. The order for his release came when Judge Hudson found that Deaver had given deliberately false testimony about bloodstain evidence at the scene and hugely exaggerated his experience as an analyst, giving the jury undue cause to give his testimony credence. Any evidence gathered after the arrival of Deaver at the scene may well have been inadmissible.

Rudolf, who had been working pro bono, was replaced on the case in October 2014, unable to continue offering his services free of charge. Instead, Mike Klinkosum was appointed to represent Peterson. However, there was still little progress for the Peterson camp, with a request for the second trial to be dismissed being refused. The trial date was set for May 8, 2017.

Proceedings never reached that stage, however. On February 24, Peterson entered an Alford plea whereby the defendant is allowed to plead guilty and acknowledge that there is sufficient evidence to convict them in a court of law of the offense but maintains that they are still innocent of the crime. Michael pleaded, therefore, guilty to the manslaughter of his wife, and the judge sentenced him to 86 months in prison, with credit applied for time already served, which stood at over 98 months. Peterson maintains his innocence.

In the immediate aftermath of the Alford plea, his attorney filed a motion that would allow him to bring in a bird expert from the Smithsonian to examine the evidence found in Kathleen’s hair to determine whether an owl attack had been the cause of her falling down the stairs.

Despite his protestations, many were unconvinced, including Peterson’s daughter, and Michael’s stepdaughter, Caitlin Atwater Clark. Clark filed to reinstate the $25 million wrongful death judgment against Michael, initially started in 2002, reaching the settlement four years later.

The evidence against Michael Peterson rests solely on the content of his character, what happened to Elizabeth Ratliff, and the fact that, if it was a murder, he could be the only person present in the home. However, the presence of the owl feathers and wood has not been satisfactorily explained, and experts have said such a scenario might be possible.

While it may sound fantastical, it does raise doubts about the guilt of Peterson, and sometimes investigators must be willing to accept that the implausible might just explain away the gaps in the evidence. That being said, as it stands and despite his protests, Michael Peterson will be officially recorded in the history books as being responsible for killing his wife.