Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - MURDERED: Kathleen Peterson

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

She was found at the bottom of the staircase—dead and covered in blood. But was Kathleen Peterson’s death a tragic accident, or a calculated murder? Morgan and Kaelyn examine one of the most notorious true crime cases of the past two decades, from the blood spatter and hidden emails to an infamous missing fireplace blow poke. Follow along as they sift through the evidence, the controversy, and the wild theories. What clues were overlooked, and what truths remain hidden to this day? This episode contains graphic descriptions of injuries and death that some listeners may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. In particular, please note our trigger warnings for the the timestamps below: 10:27-10:38 - Photos of Kathleen Peterson's death scene 13:47-17:10 - Details of Kathleen Peterson's autopsy 52:24-52:33 - Photos of Kathleen Peterson's autopsy Episode Sponsor: This year, skip breaking a sweat AND breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at https://mintmobile.com/CLUES. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t Miss out on all things Clues! YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore  Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Dr. Hrini-Bot, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets uncomfortable, banished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, and events that science still can't fully explain. Listen to and follow Hidden History, available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is Crime House. I've whispered her name more than a thousand times,

and I can't stop crying. It is one of the twistier cases I feel like we're going to cover. Could Kathleen's death have been accidental, or was it definitely murder? Hi guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

I'm Kailen Moore, and I'll be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released for these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Apscher. I'm going to be pulling at the strings that I found deep online that add up or don't. Each week on Clues,

we're going to explore how even the smallest pieces of evidence, think blood spatter, email, even a fireplace blowpoke, which we're going to get into, could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and may even bring long-awaited justice. At Crime House, we really value your support. So please be sure to share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate review and follow clues to help others discover our podcast. For bonus episodes, early access and ad-free listening, join our Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. Today, we are going to get into the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson, which you might know this case from The Staircase.

case documentary that came out. What seemed at first like a tragic accident led to a very high-profile murder trial with enough twists and turns to make a scripted courtroom drama seem boring by comparison. Police suspected Kathleen's husband Michael, but with no witnesses, no murder weapon, and no concrete DNA, they had to piece the crime scene together from circumstantial and forensic evidence, plus a secret or two from Michael's past come out. And even after the trial was over, the case wasn't. A shocking appeal. Peel presented a new suspect, nobody anticipated, and key parts of the story remain in mystery to this day. More on this case and the clues that defined it right after this quick break.

Hey, before we jump back into the show, let's take a quick break. But not just any break. This is a refreshing break with Snapple. We all know about Snapple's iconic, real facts, so let's take a minute to go over some of my favorites. Snapple Real Fact, 964, it is illegal in the United Kingdom to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances. Snapple Real Fact 1013. It is illegal to sing off-key in North Carolina. Snapple Real Fact 233. Americans consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th. Snapple Real Fact 705. Every ton of recycled paper saves about 17 trees. So grab a snapple, take a second, and enjoy the moment. Because let's be honest, this might be their most refreshing part of your day. Snapple. Make your break more interesting. All right. Now let's get back to clues.

I am so curious to see where I stand when we get to the end of this one because this is by far one of the most baffling cases to me. I know. And I mean, we'll say this now, but people watching might have seen the staircase documentary. It is very popular, very famous. It's on Netflix right now. There's a lot that the documentary doesn't cover about this case that we're going to get into today. So as always, if you think you have an opinion on what happened to Kathleen Peterson, please let us know in the comments like at the start of this video and then let us know if your opinion changes at all by the end. Wait, I would love that. If you comment initially and you're like, okay, initial take. This is what I think. Reply to yourself and then post what you think after you hear everything. Yeah. If anything changes. Yeah, because I'm like, I'm so I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But like this truly is, it is one of the twistier cases. I feel like we're. going to cover. And like, I didn't really know a lot about this case until getting into the research about it. It was kind of happening around the same time as the Kaylee Anthony case. And so I think it kind of got a little lost in the media. And so this one is really interesting for me. Yeah, there's a lot of twists and turns, a lot that the documentary doesn't cover. So let's get into it.

Also, if anyone is watching this episode on YouTube, you're going to see some photos that will help you visualize parts of this case. And if you're listening, don't worry, we will be posting those same photos to our social media that's at Clues Podcast on Instagram. On December 8th, 2001, 58-year-old Michael Peterson and his wife, 48-year-old Kathleen Peterson, are home after a long day of Christmas shopping. They spend the evening together at their very luxurious 14-room home mansion that sits on this beautiful three-acre lot in Durham, North Carolina. As you can maybe tell, they're a pretty successful couple. Michael is an author who wrote three well-received novels based on his experience in Vietnam. He had even recently managed to sell the movie rights to one of the

non-fiction books he wrote called, quote, Charlie, Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company. And that's based on the true story of a Chinese boy who was taken in by American Marines during World War II. And that actually is part of the reason they were celebrating that night. Kathleen is also very successful as well. She has a six-figure telecom job with corporate stock options. She's also the steady breadwinner of the family. Michael will write books and kind of make money depending on that, but Kathleen has like a pretty consistent job. But on this night, Kathleen may have needed to have a nice evening with her husband because over the last few months, she's been dealing with a lot of stress from work. Her company had been going through layoffs and Kathleen was actually one of the people who had to

break the news to some of the employees that they were being laid off. So after the couple shares a meal and watches a movie, Kathleen and Michael go when they lay out by the pool and chat under the stars for a bit. Michael says that they shared about two bottles of wine throughout the evening. He also said that Kathleen may have taken a valium for stress at some point during the night. Then Kathleen went inside around 11 p.m. because she had to take a call. And according to Michael, he stayed out by the pool until sometime after 2 a.m. So it was over three hours that he was out by the pool by himself. At that point, he wants to head inside intending to go to bed. But around 2.30 in the morning, Michael calls 911. He is absolutely panicked on this call. And he tells the operator that his wife

has had an accident. He says she fell down the stairs. So you can hear Michael tells the operator that Kathleen is still breathing, and he asks them to get someone here right away. And then he hangs up abruptly. Here's a clip from that. John, now, well, why you're your market? 1810 feet of street, please. What's wrong? My one kind of accident, she's still breathing.

What kind of accident? She's still breathing, please. Is she conscious? What? Is she conscious? No, she's not conscious. How many stairs did he fall down? How many stairs?

How many stairs? How many stairs? How many stairs? Calm down, sir. Calm down. No, 15, 20, I don't know. Please, get somebody here right away. Okay, somebody's just back in the ambulance while I ask you questions.

It's a force shield, okay? Please, please. Okay, sir. Somebody else is this back in the ambulance? Okay, is she awake now? Hello? But then, six minutes later, he calls 911 again, and he's wondering where the police are. But this time, he says that Kathleen is no longer breathing.

And he asks for the ambulance to hurry up. Where are they? It's 18th century. Please, please, would you hurry up? Can I hear me? Sir? They're on the way. Can you tell me for sure she's not breathing?

Sir? Hello? Hello? So let's take one step back here and talk a little bit more about who Kathleen and Michael are. Kathleen was born in 1953 as Kathleen Hunt. She was an award-winning student who studied advanced Latin and graduated first in her high school class. And in 1971, she was accepted to Duke University's prestigious engineering school. Yeah.

And just to give you guys an idea about how big of a deal that was, Kathleen was actually the first woman ever accepted into the program. And this program was founded in 1939. So 1939 and 1971, someone else that's better at math can do that. But that's a long time. And for her to be the first woman accepted, that's a big deal. She was clearly very smart. And that is also where she met her first husband, a man named Fred Atwater. And after graduating with a master's degree in mechanical engineering, a huge feat.

Kathleen started her corporate career in Baltimore. And she was so smart. Everyone just always talks about how smart she was. And she was working in a male-dominated field. And she never gave up. but she just like was like an incredible person. Then she had a daughter, Caitlin, in 1982, with her first husband. But by 1986, when Kathleen was 33, she ends up splitting from her husband.

And then shortly into that separation, Kathleen met someone new, a decorated Vietnam War veteran with a passion for writing. And that brings us to Michael Peterson. The two were introduced sometime around 1986 or 1987 shortly after Michael had actually moved home to the United States. where he had settled in Durham, North Carolina. And before that, he was living in Germany with his first wife, this woman, Patricia. Michael was about 10 years older than Kathleen. He was raising four kids. Clayton and Todd, those were his biological children. But then he had two other children, daughters Martha and Margaret, who were actually taken in by the family after the girls' parents both died. Their parents had been really close friends of Michael and his wife,

Patricia. So when they passed away, it was actually in their will that the children go with that couple. And at some point, Michael and Patricia realized that though they were very good friends, they actually didn't want to be married any longer. And that is when he met Kathleen. And we know that the two fell in love very quickly. And by 1989, they were living together. And then they kind of like Brady bunched their families together. All five kids ended up living with Michael and Kathleen. There were his two boys, his two girls, and then Kathleen's only child, Caitlin. They were this like very happy seeming blended family. By 1997, Kathleen and Michael were officially married.

But let's go back to the night that Michael called 911. You guys, we are going to show one of the photos from the staircase just to show you guys the blood spatter. It is a pretty intense scene. So please skip if you can't handle that today. The markers will be in the description and show notes. So police and paramedics arrive just a few minutes later. And they find Kathleen.

lying on her back at the bottom of the stairs. She's wearing a sweatsuit and she is very obviously dead and in a pool of her own blood. I don't know if you've seen the crime scene photos. If you watch the documentary, you definitely have. Yeah. But there is so much blood. And that's actually what the investigators and the EMTs notice right away is kind of the shocking amount of blood that is at the bottom of the staircase on the wall, on the landing, like all down the stairs. It's everywhere. And also, they kind of make note that it's very dry. A lot of the blood has dried. So it's not clear how long she's been there for.

Everyone kind of just makes a mental note of that. Now, Kathleen is barefoot, and there's blood on the soles of her feet. There's a pair of flip-flops lying nearby her body. There's also, like I said, blood all over the walls next to the stairs. It's not necessarily smeared, mostly spattered around, almost like the pattern you would see from a spray paint bottle. And when Michael goes to let the cops in, he's also covered in blood. He's barefoot as well. He's tracking bloody footprints everywhere in the house. And as first responders are examining the body, Michael's kind of walking aimlessly in circles, appearing totally disoriented.

Someone ends up having to check his pulse just to make sure he's not having a health emergency of his own. And he's not. And he's with it enough to let police know that he and Kathleen had been drinking that night. He does seem to want the investigators to know that, like, they had been drinking. He actually goes and displays their wine bottles and empty wine glasses for, like, the cops to see. As police are, like, looking at the wine glasses, like looking at the bottles, talking to Michael, they also noticed that Michael may have tried to clean up some of the blood before the first responders arrived because they see a roll of bloody paper towels next to Kathleen. Which, I mean, cleaning wouldn't be the first thing I do. I do.

but everyone handles things differently. Turns out the medical examiner thought that maybe that was a normal response because the medical examiner on the scene says Kathleen's death was probably accidental. Michael doesn't end up calling a lawyer that night. There's no reason to. He never even makes a formal statement to the police because, again, it doesn't seem like there's any reason to. The initial theory, just based on seeing the scene that night, is that Kathleen maybe tried to go up the stairs and her flip-flops after having too much to drink, potentially a valium, and she's sluble.

and she slipped somewhere around the third or fourth step. She fell backwards, hit her head, maybe fell forward and then fell backwards again and hit her head. But it doesn't necessarily explain the sheer amount of blood that was on the stairs or the spatter that's all over the walls. But it does fit the position that she was found in at the bottom of the stairs. But remember, they're just looking at the scene. This is just based on what they observe. It's not really until we get Kathleen's autopsy that we start to get some more clues as to what may have happened. Just a trigger warning for you guys.

We do go into pretty gruesome details about the autopsy reports. Please skip ahead if you can't handle that today. Markers will be in the description. So Kathleen's autopsy report does come back, which kind of ends up being clue number one for us. Dr. Deborah Raddish is the Associate North Carolina Medical Examiner at the time who handles this. and she finds something super interesting. She actually found seven irregular gashes on the back of Kathleen's head. She thinks these lacerations are consistent with being struck repeatedly by a blunt object.

In other words, Kathleen may have fallen down the stairs, but the medical examiner doesn't think that's what actually killed her. She thinks Kathleen was actually beaten to death. Kathleen Peterson's cause of death is listed as, quote, blunt force trauma. Aside from the gashes on the back of her head, there were also some cuts and bruises on her own. arms and back. This would be consistent with either an assault from behind or a fall backwards, but her buttocks and legs were totally uninjured, which would be pretty strange if she fell

down the stairs with enough force to split her head open multiple times. If she was attacked, you'd expect the autopsy to turn up some skin cells from under Kathleen's fingernails, a clear indication that, you know, she might have struggled with her attacker, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. And these are some big points that are really talked about in this investigation. But the full autopsy report also points out a few other things. Kathleen also had various small cuts and bruises on her face. Those would be consistent with a fall down the stairs either before or after her death. But here's what's really perplexing. Kathleen had clumps of her own hair in both of her hands. And this hair was actually pulled out like from the bulb. It wasn't broken

strands. It was like you have to like she was ripping her hair out. You have to like really aggressively do this. Yeah. The medical examiner thought maybe she was grasping at her injured head in pain and pulled out some hair. She also had a cartilage fracture in her neck, though, which could be from a fall, but more often you see this type of injury when someone is actually strangled. On top of that, there was also a small hemorrhage on the left side of her brain, which basically means that she was bleeding on the surface of her brain, which then further supports the blunt force impact as the cause of her scalp lacerations as opposed to, say, a different type of weapon. A toxicology report also found trace amounts of anihistamines and muscle relaxers in Kathleen's blood. A slightly larger amount of valium was detected, but it wasn't a big dose, and it actually

wasn't possible to determine when she last took this valium. This report also confirmed Kathleen had been drinking, but her blood alcohol content at the time was 0.07. This is essentially low enough for her to drive. However, she might have had more alcohol in her system when she either fell or was attacked. And then if Kathleen was, you know, lying there for a few hours, that alcohol level would have gone down. This report actually says that Kathleen's brain became so starved of oxygen for at least a few hours before she died, which caused her brain cells to begin dying, presumably due to this massive blood loss. I mean, it's apparent based on the scene, which would make it hard for her body to supply blood to the brain. So the examiner kind of comes

to the determination that Kathleen might have been already bleeding heavily, but still alive actually, between midnight and 1 a.m., which would kind of explain why they're already seeing dried blood for, you know, something that Michael just came upon. At the earliest, that places her injuries nearly three hours before Michael's 911 call at 2.30 a.m. So after this autopsy takes place, they're pretty quick to drop the accident theory. And they begin investigating Kathleen's as a possible homicide. And really the only suspect they have is Michael. On December 12th, they end up searching the Peterson's home again, and they confiscate a bunch of

stuff. They take computers, they take condoms they found, hairs found on the staircase, and more blood evidence. And a few days later, they also obtain phone records from three cell phones and a landline that belonged to the couple. And they thought that if they combed through the house and turned over every little thing that they would possibly find the murder weapon, but they never do. And actually, they don't find anything that may have caused the lacerations or trauma to the back of Kathleen's head.

And remember, this property that they owned was huge. Just the house alone was 9,000 square feet. That is massive. It's a big house. There's also not really neighbors close enough who could have, like, heard or seen anything. And on top of that, it's not like the couple had a history of threats. They never had any domestic violence calls on them. Their kids all said that Michael and Kathleen were very happily married, which kind of brings us to our huge question. Could Kathleen's death have been accidental or was it definitely murder? One of this week's partners is Peloton. There's a specific kind of joy and freedom that comes from a truly great workout, that feeling where everything just clicks. Peloton is helping you unlock that feeling with the new Peloton cross-training

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focus on what matters most. Download the Instacart app now and get groceries just how you like. I really had to dig into this more because I was curious how likely it was for her to die by falling down the stairs. Apparently, it happens to almost 2,000 people a year in the United States alone. That still makes it a pretty rare cause of death, even compared to murder, which there's about 20,000 cases a year in the U.S. And it's often not just a simple fall, right? Like they said Kathleen probably fell from the third or fourth stair, not from the top. And a sober, healthy person who falls down the stair will oftentimes, like, reflexively shield their head. It's kind of just like one of those reflexes that's ingrained in us.

Yeah. So people who fall and end up with fatal head trauma, they're often intoxicated or have another health event while they're actually descending or ascending the stairs. Like a heart attack, a stroke. And given all these stats, statistics say that you'd have to be pretty terribly unlucky to lose one luck. loved one due to a fall down the stairs, much less two. So remember the two girls Michael became the guardians of in Germany, Martha and Margaret? Well, at the time of Kathleen's death, Martha's about 18 and Margaret's about 19. And after interviewing the two girls, people realize Kathleen was actually the second person

in Michael's life to be found deceased at the bottom of a staircase. case. The first was their mother and the family friend, Elizabeth Ratliff, which brings us to our second big break in this case, the mysterious death of Elizabeth. As you mentioned, she and Michael and his first wife, Patricia, were all really good friends in Germany. As a fellow expat, Elizabeth really helped them adjust to life in Europe. In return, Michael and Patricia looked out for Elizabeth while she raised her two girls alone while her husband was on tour and after his death. But in 1985, about a year before Michael and the family moved back to the States, Elizabeth was found dead in her home after seemingly falling down the stairs. And Michael was actually in Elizabeth's

house the night before she died. There was even one source I saw where a neighbor said that she saw him running from the house that night, but he wasn't suspected of any foul play at the time of her death. He didn't seem to have any reason to hurt Elizabeth. Granted, there was no investigation at the time. nobody really tried to find a motive, though. And that's really because her cause of death was ruled to be a cerebral hemorrhage, which caused her to collapse and then fall down the stairs. It was not ruled a murder. But remember, Kathleen also had a small hemorrhage on her brain.

But again, it wasn't necessarily what killed her. Instead, the medical examiner suspected it was what caused the fall, something that might have been overlooked in Elizabeth's case. Plus, he really didn't seem to have a reason to really hurt, Elizabeth. Granted, there was no real investigation at the time, so nobody tried to find a motive, but they did have a medical explanation for her death, which was blunt force trauma to the head, which led to a brain hemorrhage. So when prosecutors find out about this, it all just seems way too coincidental, so much so that later they actually have Elizabeth's body exhumed and brought

to North Carolina for a new autopsy with the same medical examiner who performed Kathleen's. And she finds Elizabeth also had scalp lacerations at the back of her head and was probably also beaten to death. Her cause of death is then changed to homicide. And I wanted to jump in here at this point because this is something that like the staircase documentary gets into. But there may have been somewhat of a political angle to Elizabeth being exhumed and then reexamined. Because they could have done her autopsy in Texas. That's where she was buried. But when they dug her up, they sent her.

1,200 miles away so that the exact same Radish, Deborah Radish, exact same medical examiner could look at her body. And she had already said that someone had beaten Kathleen to death. So she was maybe a little bit more inclined to say that this other person was also beaten to death. So there's that angle to it. And then also her daughters had talked about how it was kind of known that around the time of their mother's death, she had been complaining of horrible migraines, like really bad headaches, but she hated going to the doctor. So she hadn't gone for a long time, but actually like two days after her death, she had a doctor's appointment to go get these headaches treated. So it's not unrealistic to say that maybe this actually was a hemorrhage.

I think that's just important context to kind of add to the larger picture because without that context, like Michael just looks like he killed two women. But it's a little bit more complicated than that. It is. And in an ideal world, they would have had this done by a more neutral medical examiner to see if there was any. corroboration between the two cases. So it is interesting that they went through those efforts to do that. Yeah, exactly. So at this point, police don't really have any other suspects besides Michael and Kathleen's death. There's no signs of an intruder in the house anywhere. So about a week after Kathleen passed away, Michael decides to get lawyers. And he hires this guy named David Rudolph, this high profile private

defense attorney and he starts building his case. David interviews Michael's family. members, including Kathleen's sisters, Lori and Candace, who both say Michael's marriage to Kathleen seemed great. They fully believed that they were soulmates. A friend also says he spoke to Kathleen that night and she sounded fine. It didn't seem like there were any troubles going on at home. Michael's 24-year-old son, Todd, and a friend actually stopped by the house earlier the night that Kathleen died as well. And they both said that Michael and Kathleen seemed totally normal. Very happy, nothing seemed up. So David starts building a pretty strong case of this loving couple that didn't have anything wrong in their marriage. But when it comes to identifying a different suspect,

he has the exact same problem as the police. There's no witnesses. There's no DNA evidence. Though I will say David is the defense. He doesn't have to build a case against someone else. He just has to build a case that says Michael didn't do it. He doesn't have to find the actual suspect. And so while David isn't really like interested in building out what could have happened, he does. start kind of coming up with a theory as to why Michael was maybe being targeted by the police. Like maybe this was an effort against Michael. And so David starts thinking that the cops maybe don't like Michael and they want to see him go to prison. Because, see, Michael was a columnist for the local paper, the Harold's son. He did this in between writing his novels. And most of Michael's

writing included very scathing commentary on local politics and the police department. From his point of view, he felt like he was calling out government corruption and like the police department's failure to deal with rising crime rates. But many of the local police officers did not appreciate what he had to say, and it kind of landed him on their radar. And David starts wondering if maybe this made him a target within the police department. And then on December 20, 2001, a grand jury feels like there's enough evidence against not. Michael, and they do indict him on charges of first-degree murder. He turns himself into the Durham County Jail. He brings his own personal Bible. And on the way inside, he actually pauses to speak to reporters. And he proclaims that he is innocent. And he says to them, quote, I've whispered her

name more than a thousand times. And I can't stop crying. And if you've seen any of the footage from trial, that actually is accurate. He really doesn't stop crying the whole time. He continues saying, quote, I would have never done anything to hurt her. I am innocent of these charges and I can't wait to prove it in court, end quote. And about a month after that, Michael actually gets out on $850,000 bail. Over the next year and a half, he has to give up his car, he has to give up his passport, he can't leave the state, though technically he is a free man. And according to some reports, he actually spends some of this time negotiating a book deal

for one of his memoirs. And he also, this is something that's not really talked about in the documentary, but he pockets $347,000 in deferred compensation owed to Kathleen by her employer, Nortel. And he is most likely using that money to defend himself in the trial. That is honestly wild that he was able to do that given he's on trial for potentially killing her. Her murder, yeah, and he's able to still collect that money. I know, I thought that was interesting too. Yeah, very interesting. I will say too something I do want to point here is his family, all the kids at this time, except Kathleen's daughter from her first marriage, were super supportive of him. They were outside with like signs saying like a man with a family has nowhere to run. Oh yeah, there's something like that. There's no doubt in their mind that he's innocent. And even Kathleen's daughter believed he was innocent for the first year. And then she starts feeling like maybe it was murder. But let's jump in to where the prosecutors are at during this time.

prosecutors are continuing to build their case against Michael, and they're focusing really heavily on the blood spatter. Duane Deaver, an expert blood analyst, has been digging through all of the police photos and videos of the crime scene. Basically, Duane is like trying to figure out what happened to Kathleen based on where all of her blood ended up, which is tricky because there is, as we've mentioned, a lot of it. Not only was their blood all over the floor, the walls, and Kathleen, actually all over Michael too. And he tried to clean some of it up with both paper towels and white bath towels. The blood on the walls, though, this is really, really important because it wouldn't be there if Kathleen just fell backwards down the stairs. Though some say she could have fallen,

hit her head, tried to get up, made it part way up the stairs, and then fallen again due to her head injury. There was something else that we've kind of mentioned that was really telling. some of the blood was partially dried, suggesting that Kathleen was lying at the bottom of the staircase for a long time before Michael called 911. Still, after examining all of this evidence and the spray of blood on the wall, Duane does agree with the medical examiner. He feels, by the patterns of blood he's seeing, it's more likely that Kathleen was beaten to death. According to Duane, it's exactly what he'd expect to see if someone was repeatedly raising a blunt object and striking someone in the same. the head with it over and over. And based on the way that the blood accumulated on Michael's clothes, Duane believes Michael was the one who committed the crime. It is not great news for Michael, but there's

kind of a caveat here, and that's that blood spatter analysis isn't necessarily an exact science. There's a recent study that we found that says bloodstained analysts are still wrong about 11% of the time. Another study said that it might be because bloodstain analysts, based their conclusions unconsciously on maybe other information that they receive about the case. And mostly they get other information from the police, which kind of can lead them to believe police theories more often than they should. Also, Michael's lawyers claim that the crime scene photos prove some of the blood actually moved after Michael was removed from the scene. It's very weird to see, like in the documentary, they literally show photos where it's like before Michael was

removed from the scene when they're like immediately taking photos and then afterwards and there's like extra blood spatter there's like drops that appeared out of nowhere and the cops were trying to say that that was michael that was messing with the crime scene but there's definitive proof that he was in he was like being held in custody at the time so it definitely wasn't him like moving the blood around or like adding to the blood yeah there was a lot and you see this a lot on the subreddit and threads on this case too there is a lot of speculation on all of the blood spatter especially because Because some even think Michael actually changed clothes at some point because there was blood found in his shorts. And so it's confusing like how would the blood get there?

And so people think maybe he changed and accidentally as he was getting into the new clothes. That's how the blood transferred. But there's a lot that people really kind of argue over when it comes to the blood evidence. Absolutely. And the defense had a blood spatter analyst as well, Dr. Henry Lee. He's like a very famous forensic expert. He was on the OJ trial. I'm pretty sure he worked on Casey Anthony, on John Bonnet Ramsey.

Like he was being called to all these really high profile trials. And he said that through his analysis, basically that the spatter on the walls could have come from someone coughing. So his theory was maybe that Kathleen hit her head and the blood was pouring down her face from her head wounds and she was coughing it back up onto the wall. But what I have to say about that, what a lot of people have to say about it, is if you look at pictures of Kathleen after she passed away, like, there's no blood on her face. She's not, like, soaked in blood, and it seems like it was, like, getting in her mouth. There wasn't blood found in her mouth. There wasn't blood found in her lungs. So it doesn't really make sense either that she was coughing it up, in which case, like, the blood spatter on the wall just really doesn't make a lot of sense.

And that's basically what the prosecution tried to say that it had to come from, like, someone hitting her with something with some sort of. blunt force object. So Dwayne's analysis is kind of the closest thing that they have to hard evidence against Michael and they basically decide that they're going to rely really heavily on that in court. And in July of 2003, 19 months after Kathleen's death, Michael's trial for first degree murder officially begins. And he pleads innocent. As with all criminal trials, the prosecution goes first. They know that they have one very important problem to deal with if they want to convince the jury that Michael is guilty, they need a motive. Like, that's still the thing that they don't have right now. This couple seemed absolutely perfect and in love. What could the motive have

been? So they start trying to point at things like the couple's financial situation. Apparently, it was not as secure as it seemed from the outside. Michael did have debt. Some of his sons had debt. Kathleen was the breadwinner. They like point to that. And they go after their relationship in a very serious way because there's actually this huge reveal, this huge secret that was being held inside of their marriage. And one that was even more dramatic in 2003, specifically, in North Carolina, than it would have been today. This episode is brought to you by Quince. So lately, I feel like I've wanted to be more intentional about the stuff that I've been wearing every day. I want to lean into pieces that feel effortless and comfortable, but still look put together. That's the key.

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Work your magic. So our next big clue in this one, Michael's possible infidelity and the truth about his sexuality. You see, after the police confiscated all of his computers, they found a lot of gay porn on them. And the prosecution uses this as evidence to say that he was actually bisexual. Their theory is that Kathleen and Michael might have been fighting about his sexuality right before he died. Kathleen might have gone on his computer to email a colleague for work. She might have happened to see some things. But the defense says that it actually wasn't a secret about Michael's sexuality and that he was bisexual.

Michael's family members even testify that they've known about his sexuality since he was a teenager. The prosecution argues that even if Kathleen knew about his orientation, she definitely had no idea that Michael saved thousands of images of nude men to his computer until perhaps she found those photos on the night of her murder. They do have some circumstantial evidence for this theory too. You see, Michael was actually using this computer while police were still at the house on the night of Kathleen's death. They actually found dried blood on these printed pornographic images of men. And they were found near his computer. This led the prosecution to theorize that Michael was at his computer while calling 911 after Kathleen died. Yeah, I know there's a theory that she died and he immediately went to go start deleting things from his computer.

Yeah. Still, there's no hard proof. ever saw what her husband was looking at online, but it didn't stop with pornography. Apparently, Michael was exchanging emails with a male sex worker who went by Brad starting in August 2001. What do they call him, Secret Soldier? That's what he was, that was like his username. Yeah. Brad seems interesting. When he takes the stand, you know, he's really badgered about what kind of sexual activities he performs. Like, I don't know if this line of questioning would fly today. Like, It was very, like, it was very aggressive.

Like, the prosecution continuously calls Michael filthy. Filthy, filthy, filthy. Like, what services did you offer describe to us everything you would do with these men? Yeah. And Brad just kind of replies, like, everything under the sun. Yeah. Like, it's just like, okay. But they have evidence from these computers that they plan to meet up for sex the next month.

But on the day of the appointment, Brad actually canceled. Michael never reached back out to Brad to reschedule. So again, like they're bringing up kind of the seemingly innocuous thing. Like they never met even. Right. But they did like Brad did cancel. They were going to meet up. And so I know that the prosecution kept bringing that up.

Like, well, they would have met up if Michael had it his way. It was not Michael who got a conscience and like canceled on Brad. It was Brad that canceled because he had to go to Palm Springs the next day and he was worried he was going to be tired. Yeah. And so if Michael actually did have any physical affairs with a guy during his marriage to Kathleen, the prosecution was never actually able to find it. Still, most of Kathleen's family members said she would have considered that email exchange alone to be infidelity. And she really would not have tolerated that from Michael.

Yeah, and it seems like this is really the thing that does it in for Kathleen's family. Like after they learn about his bisexuality and the affairs, they really considered him guilty after that. Even though, you know, Brad brought up something interesting on the stand. He says that the guys he dealt with were all. all like very important people. A lot of them were like judges, lawyers, doctors. Like Brad was like, I charge a big fee. So everyone that sees me as a professional. And most of these guys would not even identify as bisexual. They are primarily straight. They have wives. They've only ever been with women. Maybe they're like a little curious. But he also said that none of them ever talked about their wives.

But Michael in emails would talk about how wonderful his wife was. And Brad found that like endearing in a way. So he does talk about that on the state. I don't think the prosecution cared, but it was like an interesting tidbit. But that's really just kind of like the tip of the iceberg for Michael because there's another big thing that prosecutors lean on in court. The money. And this, I will say, is something that is severely left out of the documentary, is all of the stuff pertaining to their finances. Yeah, despite Kathleen's $145,000 a year salary, the Peterson's were up to their eyeball. in credit card debt. And Michael's writing career was kind of floundering at this point. He hadn't

made any money in the past three years. They were financially supporting five kids, three of whom were attending expensive private universities. So even with the royalties from, you know, Michael's old books and Kathleen's really successful telecom career, they weren't making enough to cover their living. And prosecutors looked to there being one quick way to get out of debt fast. You see, Kathleen had a life insurance policy through her employer that was worth $1.4 million. And she had made Michael the beneficiary after they were married. Michael never ended up getting the money. But the prosecution says that's only because he got caught.

If Kathleen's death had been ruled an accident, he would have gotten paid. And as you mentioned, he was already using some of that last work settlement to potentially pay for legal fees. Right. On the other hand, there are easy. easier ways that Michael maybe could have gotten out of debt. They owned six rental properties, various cars, a collection of antiques. So if they really needed to, they probably could have liquidated some of these assets. Plus, the house they lived in, which was entirely in Kathleen's name, had appreciated so much in value. So they could have either sold it or gotten a second mortgage.

So the defense said that there's no way Michael would have turned to murder just for money, when they could have just sold a property or two to pay off these debts. But the The prosecution claimed Michael thought Kathleen was about to get laid off from her high-paying job. You know, she was the one doing all these layoffs. What's to say she's not next? And killing her was the best way to keep getting the money from her after this happened. So during the trial, when it comes time for the defense team to speak, they share a totally different theory on the case. According to Michael's lawyers, Kathleen did definitely fall down the stairs. They say she was under the influence of alcohol. She had taken a valium. She had been under all of this like stress

from work. And remember, like blood tests did confirm that she had both of those substances in her body, but her blood alcohol level was under the legal limit to drive. She could have operated a vehicle that evening. So this kind of tracks with one part of the story that both sides agree on. And that's that Kathleen and Michael had dinner together and they drank some wine that night. The defense also says that Kathleen was wearing flip-flops, which made it easier for her to trip going up the stairs. And when she fell backwards, she got those injuries on the back of her head. And then while trying to get up, they say that Kathleen maybe slipped in her own blood and then fell again, hitting her head on a piece of crown molding on the wall. And the defense also tells the jury that

Kathleen's autopsy didn't show injuries usually found in people beaten badly enough to kill them. And this is like a really important part that they bring up. They say, listen, there were no skull fractures. There was no swelling of her brain. There was no real sign of a struggle. Yes, there was that hemorrhage on the surface of her brain. And there was that fracture in her neck cartilage that was like maybe consistent with strangling. But the defense is that those injuries were caused by the fall too. Like they're also consistent with a fall.

So maybe she just hit her neck on something as she went down. And one thing they point to also is there's not blood spatter on the ceiling that's consistent with like being hit with something and then you pull the weapon away. And so the prosecution tried to argue that maybe Michael hitter, wiped off the instrument, then raised it, hit her again. But even then, like, her injuries weren't consistent with, like, that heart of a hit. So he was probably just, like, raising the object to chest level and kind of coming down. It's just like a weird, like to come down, wipe it. Back up. Come down, wipe it.

It was just like a very strange way to attack someone. Yeah. But that's what they were trying to say happened. The defense also says that the Peterson's marriage was happy. And Kathleen maybe knew all about Michael flirting with men. Like, Michael really believed Kathleen knew he was bisexual. Did you hear about this? Like, this one really got me.

They would go to, like, a military event where there was, like, a bunch of military guys. And Kathleen would say something like, look, those guys are just like you. Like, they're gay. And Michael, Michael was like, you know, it was so beautiful when she said those things to me because it just really proved that she understood me and she knew that I was like a bisexual man. She saw me. And I think she was just being like kind of homophobic by saying that. But like he took it as like this tacit understanding.

So he said that they never like explicitly talked about his bisexuality or his affairs with men, but that he figured she approved of it because she would like make those kinds of comments to him. And again like context of this one, you guys, marriage was not legal. Like same sex marriage was not legal nationwide in the U.S. until 2015. We were 14 years out when Kathleen died. So again, that's really why the prosecution was going after his sexuality and really like making this such a big bombshell.

Yeah. Again, like you kind of mentioned it. Like, I don't know if you would, you'd see that today. I know. Like, this was such a devastating secret that if someone learned about it, he had to kill them to make sure that it didn't get out. They're outing him on the stand, which is just insane. Mm-hmm.

But yeah, it's to speak to that, like that's enough motive to keep that secret. That's what they're saying. And as for money, they claim that the couple wasn't really feeling much urgency to pay off their credit card debt. They actually knew that Kathleen had deferred almost $350,000 of her compensation to reduce their tax bill. So it seems like they were going to pay off their debt once that came in. And then Michael's daughters, Martha and Margaret, also testified for the defense. And they said that they do not think Michael killed their buy. biological mother or Kathleen. There is one person in the family who has a totally different point of view.

And that is Caitlin Atwater, who is Kathleen's 19-year-old daughter with her first husband. She said that initially she felt like her mother and stepfather had this amazing marriage. She felt like neither of them would do anything to hurt one another. But after she reads the autopsy report and learns about the horrific intensity of her mother's wounds, Caitlin changed her mind. Soon she began to feel certain that Michael had beaten her mother to death. And Caitlin even filed a wrongful death claim against Michael Peterson in a civil lawsuit. So Caitlin decides to testify, but she testifies with the prosecution against Michael.

And she talks about her mother's marriage and she adds some serious credibility to the prosecution's theory about that. Based on everything she knew about her mother, Caitlin says that Kathleen would definitely not have accepted Michael's bisexuality if she knew about it, which kind of to them proved that like Kathleen didn't know about the bisexuality. She also confirms to the jury that she believes Michael killed her mother. Caitlin can't imagine the mother she knows getting drunk enough to fall down the stairs backwards once, let alone multiple times. And Caitlin's testimony creates this really like permanent rift with her stepsisters and stepbrothers. Margaret and Martha decide to never speak to her ever again. I actually don't think any of the kids speak to her now. But at least to

Caitlin, she feels like telling the truth is worth whatever cost she has to pay. So the prosecution does get a big boost to their proposed motive and the defense is kind of left reeling from it. The defense does have one more trick up their sleeve. Remember how nobody ever found a murder weapon? Like nothing in the search of the property turned up anything that would fit? Well, the prosecution theorized it was probably a fireplace blow poke that Kathleen actually had received as a gift from her sister that was used as a murder weapon. And basically, you guys, if you don't know what a blow poke is, it's this long brass tube with a small point at the end, essentially used to like stir firewood around. You like stick it into the fire and you blow into one end and it like adds.

Adds oxygen to increase the fire. And this was something that was like very prominent in their home. like it was in so many pictures of their house where you could see the fireplace. Like it was out and about very commonly displayed. And they argue that this is the murder weapon because it would be hard enough to hit someone with it, maybe even split their skin open, but not hard enough to crack their skull. Yeah. Which matches Kathleen's autopsy pretty perfectly. And the blow poke from the family set of fireplace tools was actually missing.

It wasn't with the set. And police couldn't find it around the house. during their investigation. But did you see that part of the staircase? Like one of the daughters has a theory as to like why the blow poke was missing. It seems like they really thought that the blow poke was part of the house because they had seen it in a family photo from like the early 90s. And they were like, okay, there it is the blow poke. But the daughter, Martha, is like, no, I'm going to go through all of my family footage from the last 10 years and see if I can find the blow poke.

When it moves. And for years, like the blow poke is not in any of the like footage she has around So she's like, I don't think the blow poke's been there in years. So it's missing, but is it like really missing or has it just not been there in years? Like that's still like a question that people have. Yeah. Well, on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2003, the defense team presented that missing blow poke in court and asked the judge to actually enter it as evidence. Apparently someone had found it in the Peterson's garage the previous Saturday night and then turned it over to the defense. But if this really is the missing blow poke. There's no way it was the murder weapon. It's undamaged, which would be pretty

impossible given Kathleen's injuries. Plus, it was covered in years of dust and cobwebs. Yeah. And I believe they had a picture of it too, like before they moved it and turned it in. And like it is very clear. Like it was tucked away in a corner kind of seemingly maybe easy to miss and covered in cobwebs. Yeah, there's like dust all over it. Yeah. And we can't totally be certain that this is even the right blowpoke. It's not like the fireplace tools have serial numbers. It's kind of also like kind of a generic design. Yeah. But it did match the other tools in the set. And so the defense offers the prosecution the opportunity to test the blow poke for DNA or traces of blood. But the DA actually declines. It's too late in the trial for that now. And he really

doesn't want to hold anything up. Yeah, this did come into evidence like two days before the trial wrapped and they were like we want to go home yeah we're almost to the finish line yeah which is unfortunate because it is like a very important piece of evidence so after three months of testimony imagine being on that jury that's a long time the jury finally goes out to deliberate on monday october 6th 2003 there's a lot that they have to consider they have two different blood spatter analysts who say two totally different things about how the blood spatter got in the walls they have people telling them that like the lacerations are from a fault lascerations are from a fault lacerations are actually from a blow poke.

The blow poke was missing. Now it's here, but it's maybe not the right blow poke. Also, Michael was gay, but does that have anything to do with his crimes? Like, they were in debt. There's like so much to consider in this. You have the kids testifying. It's just so, like, what is that, 90 days worth of new information. That's a lot. And so they don't come back with a verdict until Friday the 10th, which is really only four days.

And when they do return, they decide that Michael Peterson, is guilty of first-degree murder. And under North Carolina law, Michael is automatically sentenced to life without parole. But the case is actually far from over. So Michael and his team appeals the verdict several times, pretty much immediately after the verdict is read, they start appealing this.

And they use various different legal theories. In one appeal, his lawyers claim that the evidence about Elizabeth Ratliff's death in Germany should not have been admitted into court. They say that death was so unrelated to this. Like that was an open and shut case. It was determined that she had a brain hemorrhage 18 years ago. It was put to rest.

That should never have been admitted into this trial. Like there's no reason that that should have been admitted and it was political. But a judge rules against that appeal. And then every other time they come forward with an appeal about some sort of like mishandling of the case, they're completely rejected. And there's actually one appeal that they filed. that like maybe people listening have heard of. And that one gets a lot of attention. Yeah, you guys, this is the part where this case really got to me.

Okay. Yeah. You guys are all like, I teeted up at the beginning. I'm like, this case is so baffling. And you guys are all sitting there and you're probably like, Morgan, baffling. It seems pretty straightforward so far. Yeah, until this. This next part is wild.

So in 2009, six years after Michael was convicted, his attorney files a motion. And this motion claims that there was something else responsible for Kathleen's death. It was actually an owl. Yeah, OWL. A bard owl to be specific. Hoo-hoo. Owl. I believe it's actually hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo is like the bard owl call.

Look at you. They taught us at New England in elementary school. Allegedly, the lacerations to Kathleen's scalp could have actually been caused by this owl. And oddly enough, there might be some evidence behind that. I know. We're like cracking jokes, but this is potentially a very legitimate theory. Yes. And so the theory basically goes like this. At some point in the night, Kathleen was outside, maybe close to entering her house and was attacked by a territorial barred owl. It grabbed her head with its talents from behind, causing her to slap the back of her head and pull some of her hair out.

she might not have even seen or heard the owl. I mean, these birds fly completely silent. If you watch a video of them on YouTube, it's really crazy. And so a person being attacked by one might just experience like this hard impact, pain. Like you're kind of going into shock. Like you don't really know what happened. And then the owl just might let go and fly away. With the victim, like not even really knowing what caused the wounds.

Even more interesting, some of Kathleen's scalp lacerations were really. really in the shape of owl talons. And we'll have an image for you guys to look at where you can kind of see how these wounds were. And you can see kind of like a claw like cut in some of that. Yeah. Yeah, it's like the exact shape of the talons. And there were even drops of blood on a walkway outside of the house and blood smeared on the exterior doorframe as if an injured person walked back inside from outdoors. And this is the one piece of evidence that really does say owl.

all caps, owl. There was one small feather found on Kathleen's body and a twig stuck to her, like a pine needle, which owl up in a tree could be carrying the pine needle. And in this new appeal, they even argued that there were additional microscopic feathers along with these wood splinters and cedar needles found in the fistfuls of hair that Kathleen had pulled out. And they go even further to say that like this does also align with some of the. of Kathleen's other injuries. You know, she had some scratches on her face and things like that. So

it could actually be an owl. Yeah, like maybe it attacked her from behind and she, like, was grabbing at her head or like trying to fight the owl off of her head. Yeah. Wow. And it would explain why she had, you know, the cuts and bruises on her arms, but her legs and buttocks were like seemingly uninjured if she was covering her head, as you kind of explained from an owl attack. Ultimately, the owl theory gets way more attack. in the media than in the courtroom, and it doesn't lead to a new trial or sentencing relief for Michael. But a bunch of websites, TV shows, and podcasts, hi guys, debate whether or not owls can be murderers. I mean, you said that there was only really ever one other case of a

barred owl killing a person. There has been one case. Okay. I went off the deep dive on this, And there is actually one prior fatal owl attack that's been recorded. It was actually a trucker named Robert Schmidt, and he was killed by an owl in 1985. His death has also kind of mystified investigators because he was found dead on a California roadside just outside of a small town. And his big rig, like his semi-truck was still just pulled over on the side of the road idling. Like it was still on. And he was found just a few hundred yards away. They found that it had a dent in the hood.

And then his body was covered in a series of like chicken scratches is what the medical examiner referred to it as. And his face and chest bore like a majority of these wounds. And so they kind of put all of this together and they're like, okay, hood has a dent. He pulled over. He was known to be like a huge animal lover. And so they hypothesized that like he hit the bird. He felt bad. tried to go over and help it

and then it turned on him and just attacked him. And so they were able to conclude that like because of the blood loss from all of these scratches all over him, he went into shock and passed. Wow. Interesting that the owl was also not seen at the crime scene in that

case too though. Yeah. They get in and get out. They're gone. Wow. So in 2010 there was actually another huge twist in this case. There's a bombshell report that drops. And it's an independent review of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations Crime Lab. And it finds 230 cases where blood analysts misled juries by misstating, omitting, or lying about blood evidence. And Dwayne Deaver, who is the

blood analyst who testified to Michael's trial, has really the starring role in this report. Even though Michael's case isn't specifically mentioned in the entire report, but in fact, some suspicious testimony he gave is really the whole reason that the state's Attorney General orders a new independent review into Michael's case. And it turns out that Dwayne Dever hugely overstated his professional qualifications. It's so funny to read about, but like, Dwayne Dever has more training as a zoologist than he does as a blood spatter analyst. Those two things, not really compatible. The bottom line is that for at least 16 years, the State Bureau of Investigations Crime Lab hasn't been providing objective

expert testimony. It's been systematically helping prosecutors get convictions, even in cases where the evidence isn't really clear or points to maybe a different suspect. And in at least three of those cases, defendants were later executed by the state. Terrible. Horrible. And this report completely destroys Dwayne Dever's credibility. I mean, they even interview one of the people who gets out of prison after 17 years because Dwayne Dever said that he tested blood spatter he found on a car and confirmed it was blood and then years later it comes out that like it was tested and it wasn't blood it was like rust and that completely exonerated the person that went to jail for 17 years for a murder and it's heartbreaking to hear that story where he's talking about missing his daughter's graduation and the birth

of his grandchild like you miss out on so much of life because Dwayne Dever is like just being an absolute idiot. And because Duane's testimony about blood spatter was a huge part of Michael's trial, think about it, like the blood on the inseam of the pants that came from Dwayne Dever. The fact that he said the only way that like the blood spatter could have happened was if Michael was above Kathleen and was striking her with a blunt force object. That was all coming from Dwayne Dever. They even interviewed jurors afterwards who said the reason they felt Michael was guilty was 100% because of Dwayne Dever's testimony. And so they actually grant Michael a chance to appeal his case. And in December of 2011, a judge sides with Michael and actually

vacates his conviction. All thanks to Dwayne's history of making, quote, material misleading and quote, deliberately false statements when testifying about blood spouter evidence. The judge also orders that after eight years behind bars, Michael be released immediately. Meanwhile, North Carolina can actually still try Michael again for this crime. But first, they appear. the judge's decision to vacate the conviction and in 2013 the judge's decision is upheld by an appeals court then the state supreme court declines to consider the case so prosecutors are going to have to go forward with a new trial after all and some clarification on this it's not really considered double jeopardy when a judge decides to vacate a conviction it's actually just returns the decision back to the

states but michael doesn't really want to take any chances with this new trial so on february 24th of 2017, he actually takes this thing that's known as an Alford plea. And it's this rare type of plea bargain where the defendant basically maintains their innocence, but kind of like acknowledges that the government has enough evidence to convict them. And Michael's plea agreement isn't for murder. This time is actually for voluntary manslaughter, which still includes intentionally killing someone, but under mitigating circumstances, like a crime of passion per se. Yeah, that was like one thing he really wanted to be crystal clear on, like, was that he was not admitting any guilt. Yes. Yes. This, yeah, the plea deal was able, it was like this kind of crazy loophole that they

were able to find. But the maximum sentence for voluntary manslaughter in North Carolina is actually 64 months. And because Michael had already served eight years, he was free to go. I did just want to add here because we talk a lot about Dwayne Deaver kind of coming in and having, like very misleading blood spatter analysis. So remember, I was talking about how the defense also has a blood spatter analyst take the stand. This guy, Dr. Henry Lee, he also had a career ending scandal when he put two people behind bars for 30 years because he said that he tested like a t-shirt or a towel for blood and confirmed that there was blood on it. And that was enough to send these two guys away to jail for 30 years. And then eventually they found out that he lied about that.

and that there wasn't actually blood on the towel. So like both blood spatter guys in this case are like liars. So that's why it's so hard to figure out exactly what happened in this case because I go back and forth on it all the time. But what's interesting in like being able to watch the documentary kind of like understanding some of the scandals that have come out afterwards, like a lot of this was political. A lot of it was people being buddy, buddy with each other, kind of saying whatever they felt like they needed to say to get the result they want.

And like it's so hard to tell who is being truthful in this case. Yeah. And I know there's there's a lot in this case that the jury really picked up on. I think, you know, Henry Lee also did something that was kind of contentious at the time and put a ketchup packet in his mouth during his blood spatter analysis. Yeah. Like spit the ketchup out and tried to say that would be similar to if blood was coming down your face. So there were things like that. Something else that. you know, a big bombshell that really comes out at this trial is Michael had talked a lot about being a Purple Heart recipient. Yes. Yeah, we didn't even talk about that. Decorated, decorated veteran. And it turns out that he was lying about that. They put him on the stand. And he says something along the lines of like, it was just easier to lie. And so they really shot his credibility in all of this too. Like if you're willing to lie about being a decorated veteran, a purple heart recipient, what else are you willing to lie about? Like, that was a huge thing. This is

also coming after 2001, September 11th. Like, we are in a very patriotic phase of culture. American history, yeah. Yeah. And so there was a lot that really just kept shooting down his credibility. And then, like, to have, you know, an expert that spits a ketchup packet out, there were a lot of things that just didn't really make him look great. No, absolutely. And so you can kind of see how the jury came forward with, like, their decision. It is interesting, too, I will say, we talked about this a little bit, but like, the decision to right away allow a camera crew into your home pretty much within weeks of your wife's murder to film this documentary that ultimately becomes the staircase is a little bit strange to me. Like it made me think of Robert Durst of like, I'm so innocent. I have to show people

how innocent I am so I can let these cameras in because no one will ever think I'm not innocent if they can like see up close how innocent I am and really like you're harboring this whole secret, you just think you're smarter than everyone. I know a lot of people have issues with that. And then it of course comes out that the editor of the documentary was in a relationship with Michael afterwards. And what side are you really seeing of the case when you watch the documentary? It's definitely not unbiased. No, it's like severely biased.

I mean, the whole time is spent with the defense. Yeah. You don't even like hear from the prosecution. They don't interview anyone in the prosecution. And Kathleen's daughter did not participate in that. And all the other kids did. He had a very heavy hand in the editing and dating the editor. I mean, there was a lot in that.

Yeah, I'm curious for anyone listening who did see the documentary, what you felt at the end of watching the documentary. Because there's a lot of people who say, like, listen, I know that they were trying to make him look innocent in this doc. And it made me think he was even more guilty than I would have otherwise. Yeah. I mean, I find that really interesting. You know, there's a lot about him personality-wise that like, like, you're just kind of like, oh, that's interesting. Like, I think the timeline of this, like, he was outside for three hours. And they did Luminol.

And they found his footprints, like, all throughout the yard and all this stuff. So they kind of speculate he was like, maybe running around, cleaning things up. Like, there was obviously a very big gap. And, like, maybe he found Kathleen and then tried to clean and clearly tried to clean up blood. So it's like, where, like, his response just seemed to really. odd to people and yeah he tried to be mayor and then so that leads back into the cops like maybe not liking him yeah i went down the rabbit hole so much so like i'm i'm sitting here now after all of this and i'm like was it the owl yeah like no joke i mean when you look at the scratches

on Kathleen's head like you're you start to like just it's the lacerations without the head trauma that really throw me off like how can someone have no No broken bones, no head trauma from the fall, but have seven deep cuts enough to die from blood loss. Yeah. How do we have owl feathers, you guys? Yeah. How did the owl feathers get there? And, you know, owl attacks do happen.

So I honestly, I don't know where I stand on this one. I know Reddit is just like they're off the rails a little bit. You know, they really still want to know what happened to Elizabeth Ratliff. Yeah. They talk about the cat painting that, you know, Michael and Kathleen in their house had the same cat painting that Elizabeth had. Well, turns out Elizabeth's sister actually said that's Elizabeth's painting. Michael just took it. Oh, afterwards and put it in his own stairs.

Yeah, so it's the same painting. Wow. So there's so many rabbit holes you could go down with this one. I'm really, really curious to see where everyone has ended up. Yeah, absolutely. to this day Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, still is very vocal about her belief that Michael killed her mother. Typically, Caitlin does say she doesn't like talking about this case, but she did give one interview to a childhood friend that we saw, who now happens to be a reporter on the condition that they would only talk about Kathleen. And Caitlin spoke about her favorite childhood memories.

She shares that she still cooks from Kathleen's recipes for her own children. I know maybe you agree with Caitlin. Maybe you don't. Like one thing about the documentary and really everything that's come out about this case is it completely erases Kathleen from the equation. You don't learn anything about Kathleen in the documentary. You don't learn how smart she was, how hardworking she was, this like beautiful life she built for herself and her children. And Caitlin is at least out there like trying to keep her mother's memory and legacy alive because Kathleen is really just viewed as like a corpse in the entire documentary. And it's like it's so heartbreaking.

She was a very real person and like Caitlin is doing a lot to keep that alive at least. Yeah. And there's still issues with Caitlin and Michael. We don't have to get like too far into it. But he does owe her $25 million in from the wrongful death settlement that she filed against him. And it does not seem like he has paid any of that to this day. No, I don't think she's gotten a cent. No.

I did read that he has donated the money from the two books he's written to charity. because he did admit in an interview that he is like intentionally avoiding making any money on his writing because he would legally have to pay that to Caitlin any money he makes on his writing especially if it's about Kathleen he's not allowed to make any money any profit from anything regarding Kathleen's death that money is supposed to go straight to Caitlin and so he is like very intentionally skirting around that so that he doesn't have to pay her any money which donated a charity out of spite So going to charity, it's interesting legally that it's not immediately garnished and that he even gets the decision to donate to charity. Interesting. Where do we stand today? While Michael still insists that he is innocent, he's a bereaved husband that was railroaded by cops and prosecutors who hated him for writing negatively about their work. And he claims that using his sexuality against him was pretty bifobic. Even though members of the jury later said those arguments,

didn't really sway them. And that leads us to today. Caitlin, as you mentioned, is, you know, really trying to do right by Kathleen's memory. And Michael, on the other hand, is still insisting he's innocent. He's a bereaved husband who was railroaded by cops and prosecutors who hated him for writing negatively about their work. And that's kind of where we stand. Yeah, that's really all we have for this episode of Clues. We hope you enjoyed unraveling this case with us today. And as always, we do really, really, really want to hear from you guys. It's your thoughts, your theories, your feedback that make this community so special. And I'm just, after like living with this case for so long and doing all of this research, I need to talk about it with someone. So I need everyone who's

watching to really like drop what they think happened in the comments. What's your final thought? My final thought, this is what I'll say. I do not think there was enough evidence to convict him in a criminal court. And that's really like the only thing I have in terms of like guilty or I don't know, but I do feel like there wasn't enough evidence to convict him. And that a lot of the conviction was based on probably feelings about gay people at the time and like preconceived notions about like marriage in the South. A lot of implicit biases here. Yeah.

But that is all we have for this case. We are shutting it. At Crimehouse, we really value your support. So again, please be sure to share your thoughts on social media. Like, subscribe, rate review, all of the things. If you want additional bonus content, we've got you covered. Head over to Apple Podcasts. And we will be back next week.

What do we doing next week? I don't even know which one's next week. We have a lot of good stuff coming down in the pipeline. Yes, we do. And we hear you on lesser known cases. We are really, really, really doing the research on a lot of cases that impact people of color, missing murdered, indigenous women. Like, we hear you guys, this is something we're so passionate about covering. We had a lot of pre-recorded episodes, too.

And so we've like just now started being able to like incorporate feedback and stuff into the episodes. So we're like very excited for the stuff we have coming out. I know. Our schedule was like really and like the research our team did and everyone and what we've been working on was like kind of concrete until this point. So we are really, really, really diving into those cases. And if there's any that you really want to hear. I have a spreadsheet. I'm keeping a spreadsheet of the ones you guys are suggesting. So it is being noticed. There's been some really, really great suggestions. You know, one we are considering for. Domestic Violence Awareness Month is a woman who testified at her own murder trial. There are some really important cases to shed some light on. So if you have one that comes to mind for you, please drop it in the comments. We really want to make this show something bigger than just a show and really help with advocacy. All right.

We will be back next week on that note. And we will see you next time on Clues. Bye guys. Bye. Capture your favorite summer feeling with Pandora Jewelry. Discover a collection inspired by the sunshine, freedom, and moments that make the season unforgettable. From sun-kissed metals to personalized pieces, ready to be engraved with your summer mantra. Each design moves with you, from beach days to golden nights and every memory in between.

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