Crime Weekly - S2 Ep105: Kathleen Peterson: The Staircase (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

In the early hours of December 9th, 2001, a man named Michael Peterson made a panicked phone call to 911, telling them that his wife, 48 year old Kathleen Peterson, had fallen down the stairs and they should hurry because she was still breathing. Six minutes later he called back and reported that Kathleen was no longer breathing, she was gone. Initially, it appeared that this had been a tragic accident, but as first responders and law enforcement began to arrive at the scene, the tension was palpable. The Peterson family and friends felt that Michael was being unfairly targeted, that the police were only suspicious of him because he had been loudly outspoken and critical of the Durham North Carolina Police Department in his role as columnist for a local paper. The law enforcement professionals on the scene claimed that from the moment they walked in, it felt as if something wasn’t right, and there was far too much blood for the death of Kathleen Peterson to be attributed to a simple fall down the stairs.  Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. PDS Debt PDS DEBT is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at www.PDSDebt.com/crime. 2. SmartNews Download SmartNews for free today in the app store to get the news that matters most. That’s S-M-A-R-T-N-E-W-S. Search for it in the Apple App store for your iPhone or iPad, or Google Play store for Android users. 3. Babbel Right now, get up to 55% off your subscription when you go www.babbel.com/CRIMEWEEKLY. Babbel—Language for life.

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apply. In the early hours of December 9th, 2001, a man named Michael Peterson made a panicked phone call to 911, telling them that his wife, 48-year-old Kathleen Peterson, had fallen down the stairs and they should hurry because she was still breathing. 911, where's your emergency? 1810 Cedar Street, please. What's wrong? My wife had an accident. She's still breathing. What kind of accident? She fell down the stairs. She's still breathing. What kind of accident? She fell down the stairs. She's still breathing.

Please come. Is she conscious? What? Is she conscious? No, she's not conscious. Please. Okay, how many stairs did you fall down? Come on.

How many stairs? Stairs. How many stairs? Come on. Calm down, sir. Calm down. No, 15, 20, I don't know. Please, get somebody here right away.

Okay, somebody's dispatching the ambulance while I ask you questions. It's a forced kill, okay? Please, please. Six minutes later, he called back and reported that Kathleen was no longer breathing. She was gone. Initially, it appeared that this had been a tragic accident. But as first responders and law enforcement began to arrive at the scene, the tension was palpable. The Peterson family and friends felt that Michael was being unfairly targeted, that the police were only suspicious

of him because he'd been loudly outspoken and critical of the Durham, North Carolina Police Department in his role as a columnist for a local paper. The law enforcement professionals on the scene claimed that from the moment they walked in, it felt as if something wasn't right, and that there was far too much blood for the death of Kathleen Peterson to be attributed to a simple and accidental fall down the stairs. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today, I mean, this episode technically marks our new season, our third Crime Weekly season. That's kind of crazy. podcasts and listening to our even our oldest YouTube video it almost makes you cringe a little bit I'm sure you have this with your channel as well where you're like oh my God we were horrible but it's like it was it wasn't like the sound the sound quality wasn't great but it was more like

our cadence with each other because for people who don't know like we we literally met each other spoke a couple times and then went right into recording, like maybe had five conversations, 10 conversations before we hit record. So we were, you guys got to see us literally learn about each other on camera or on audio. Cause we didn't always do YouTube and, um, yeah, to be three years later, it feels like now we do things that used to take us 30 minutes, 45 minutes in the beginning. We can bang it out in like five minutes now, like just the business element of it, like the ads and all that stuff. So it's been a good ride. I appreciate all the support from everyone over the years. It's so weird saying over the years, but I feel like we have so much to grow too. Like we're just getting started. I know a lot

of people say that, but I feel like we're getting better with each episode. So I'm interested to see how it looks over the next three years. Yeah, that's kind of what gets me is it feels like to me, like we're just getting started. You know, it doesn't feel like we've been doing this for that long. But then you look and you're like, yeah, with two full years of episodes, that's that is quite a while. And and yeah, we were strangers when we first started. So I definitely think I don't listen to those episodes. I don't want to. Don't do it. Because I feel like I will cringe and I'll hate it. So I'm not going to do that. But we were

strangers. And a lot of the conversations we had were like group conversations because we were with like a company at that time that kind of put us together. Remember? And we were kind of like always in group conversations. And so, yeah, we definitely, and we had that weird lawyer who was always like, you can't say this, you can't say that. So we felt like we couldn't really talk freely and you can tell. Yeah, we made some changes. We definitely decided like, yeah, this isn't working for us, made some changes. They were definitely the right decision now looking at it. And we have been able to express ourselves more freely, but we wouldn't be able to do it without you guys. I know, again, another cliche comment,

but we wouldn't be able to continuously do this week after week if we didn't have your support just coming in, watching the video or listening to it. That's what allows us to keep doing this because we're not telling you anything you probably don't know. The more viewership, the more listenership we have, the more advertisers, those advertisers sponsor the channel.

It allows us to always upgrade equipment, take more time for Stephanie to do her research, for me to plan out the schedule for the week, to make sure we get things uploaded, to hire better editors, people who can get things done and enhance the quality of the videos. It all takes money. And again, it all comes back to you guys supporting us, not only with Crime Weekly, but also with Criminal Coffee. We are very passionate about what we're doing here and what message we're trying to send. And we're doing that through another outlet with Criminal Coffee. And you guys have also been extremely supportive of that as well. It wouldn't have been a success without the Crime Weekly fandom coming in, supporting us and helping us out. And, you know, we're all big family here and we, we, we don't say it often, but we are truly appreciative of all of your support

and everything you guys have helped us do over the last three years. And we got some good plans coming too. I know we're not going to say, I always tease things, but we got some things coming that I think you guys are going to be really excited about. Yeah, definitely. And I think there's a lot of you who are going to be excited about today's case or the case that we're going to be covering over the next several episodes. You know, I don't know how many parts it's going to be, but I don't think it's going to be like eight parts, but I don't think it's going to be like three parts. That's as much as I can say, you know? Yeah. Yeah. This is a case that I have a little familiarity with, you know, being that it was a big special on Netflix called obviously the staircase.

I was telling Stephanie before we started recording, it was something where it was on my TV and it was very interesting. It was the episode regarding the owl. Again, I won't go into it cause we're going to talk about it here, but it was a fascinating case and it did seem like on the surface, there was more to the story than, than what was being conveyed initially. So now, again, here we are starting from the foundation. And for anyone who's not familiar with the case, after we get done, you definitely will be. Yeah, and I think this is a weird case, too, because like when we covered Scott Peterson or Casey Anthony, it's like the general consensus on Scott Peterson and Casey Anthony is like we think they're guilty.

Right. You know, there's obviously the outliers. There's obviously like 10, 15 percent of people who aren't on board for that. general consensus on Scott Peterson and Casey Anthony is like, we think they're guilty, right? You know, there's obviously the outliers. There's obviously like 10, 15 percent of people who aren't on board for that. But the majority of people were sort of on board for that. And I feel like with this, with Michael Peterson, there's it's very split, very split. I don't even really know if there is a general consensus, which I completely I completely understand. But one of our followers who we actually hung out with in Vegas, she messaged me on Instagram just like last week after we'd already decided to do Kathleen Peterson for our next series. And she was like, are you going to do the staircase? And I was like, I think we are, but don't tell anybody. So now you can tell people because it's out in the open. But yeah, we definitely have been planning to do this for a

while. And honestly, it was me that was holding it back because I just, I don't know. I don't know. This case is well known for fans of the Netflix documentary series, The Staircase, and I was one of those fans. I watched it avidly. And like many other people, I felt torn throughout the episodes where, you know, sometimes with a lot of cases, I'll get gut instincts about how I feel, you know, with Casey Anthony, with Scott Peterson. For me, like there's a lot of evidence one way or the other, but I have a gut instinct about how I feel either way. And with this case, I just couldn't get a read. And I really think that the blame for that lies with Michael Peterson himself, because he's honestly just, in my opinion, and not everyone agrees with me, but in my opinion, he's just so likable. You know, Michael Peterson kind of acts like that dad that everyone wants. He's the guy that everyone wants to sit down next to at the bar or at dinner. He's charming. He's endearing. He's clever. He's well-spoken and intelligent, but he also appears to also be very down to earth. At least that's how he presents.

And there's this quality about him that does make you feel comfortable and safe. And like, yeah, sometimes he's a bit extra and over the top. Specifically, there's like one interview where he's like outside of the courthouse and he's like, Kathleen, it was in my heart. She's in every beat of my heart, like things like that, you know, where he'll say that and I'll be like, oh, that's kind of cringy, man. Like, I don't know. But he's also a writer. So that could just be the flourishes that somebody who creatively writes for a living kind of just ends up talking in. I don't know. At the same time, though, because when he's saying these

things that are extra, he also appears to be sincere and earnest. So it's very difficult. He seems to really care about others. He seems to deeply love his family, especially his children, all five of them. And as we'll come to find out, Michael Peterson and Kathleen Peterson had a blended family. There were two sons from Michael's marriage to his first wife, Patty. There was a daughter from Kathleen's marriage to her first husband, Fred, to adopted daughters who had become orphaned when their parents, who had been friends of Michael Peterson's, tragically and suddenly died. And there's also a lot of tragic deaths circling this man, this family, this case. A witness who had spoken out against Michael Peterson and made outlandish claims about his sexuality was brutally murdered. One of the prosecutors, Freda Black, who made it her mission

to see Michael Peterson behind bars for the rest of his life, she was found dead in her home after a welfare check. And of course, the mother of these two adopted girls, she was also found dead at the bottom of a staircase, just like Kathleen Peterson. So it's no wonder that the world became transfixed by this case, by this man, Michael Peterson, and by the question of what happened to Kathleen Peterson. And as we'll come to see, Kathleen died due to one of three things, foul play, an accident where she slipped and fell down the stairs, or a random owl attack. Which sounds crazy on the surface, but that was the one small section that I caught. And some of the evidence supporting it.

It's pretty compelling. I'll just say that. As far as Michael Peterson's concerned, you know this as well as I do. He wouldn't be the first charismatic person who's murdered someone before that we've ever seen. And as you mentioned, he does have a leg up because he's a writer and someone who speaks very well and knows how to put that spin on something when relaying it to whoever's consuming it. So he would be in a good position where if there was someone out there who was a killer but was able to get over on most people and come off as endearing and someone you'd want to hang out with, this would be the guy, right? So he has that going for him in that aspect. And it's tough as an, even an investigator. Sometimes when you're interviewing these people in person, you do automatically come

to an initial assessment where you're like, do I think they did it? Do I think they didn't? And someone like this can really pull one over on you. And that's when you got to rely on the evidence and see where it leads you. I know you said with this case that you were hesitant about doing it. Was it because of the complexity of it or was it something else? Because I like to be confident about things. Some people might say Scott Peterson's charismatic and charming, but for me, Scott Peterson always gave me an unsettled feeling. He was oily. He was too slick. It was like a red flag for me there's

something in like my lizard brain when i come face to face with these men the ted bundy types that that's screaming like i know it looks like this is a nice pretty package but like run away because you don't want to open up this bitch you know like run away and so so i do like to be confident going in um to to let the evidence speak for itself but also kind of know how I feel about something. And I just don't know how I feel about this. And throughout the staircase and even now revisiting it, I'll run into a piece of evidence and I'll be like, oh, that looks really bad. And then I'll run into another piece and I'll be like, oh, well, here we are. Like that just completely discredits that piece. Like, what do you believe? It was very, it was very tough. And I still don't

know how I feel. So I guess we're going to have to figure that out together. Welcome to my world for every case, huh? Like I come into it with, you know, nothing really. I get hesitant about these bigger cases when we decide to do them. It's obviously the complexity of it, but it's more so there's so many people who have consumed information about these cases and are very passionate about it, whether they're wrong or right, they're very convinced. And I always feel like you're stepping in quicksand with certain people where no matter what you say, you're not going to be able to convince them and they'll do everything in their power to discredit what you're saying.

We had a lot of it on the previous series we did. So, and I had it on Breaking Homicide too, wherever the cases had some publicity, people become very invested in it. And this isn't a knock, but you have the normal people who look at the information like, wow, sounds to me like, you know, this or that. Then you have other people who have the same information that everyone else has and hasn't been able to solve the case, but they're convinced they solved it. And that's it. And they're the extremists. They're the ones that really make it not so fun sometimes. So whenever we do these bigger cases where people are stuck in their ways, I always get a little, I don't want to say nervous. That's an extreme, but

I'm always a little hesitant because it's like, here we go. We're exposing ourselves where we know what we do and how the extent that we go when we cover these cases. So I, we have never really had an issue, but you always know when you were stepping into the wolf's den, it's, it's, you know, this is a, allows a lot of people, or is it a lion's den? Could be both, I guess. Right.

What's the same? I think it's both, I guess, you know, wolves and lions equally are dangerous. I don't want to step in either den to be honest with you. I'd rather step in a wolf den than a lion den. That's a good argument. I could have that one with you too, because I'll tell you what, wolves are pretty bad too. But wolves could adopt you as their own, whereas lions are always just going to see you as food. The wolves may be like, oh, you know, are you a wolf?

Because they're just like dogs. Dogs evolved from wolves. Therefore, wolves are cooler than lions who cats evolved from. And cats aren't as cool as dogs. Like, that's my whole reasoning. We'll roll with that. We'll roll with that. But either way, it's something where, you know, we put ourselves out there for you guys.

It's a case that I do like covering because it's something where many people are passionate about it. And we'll go to these different events and people will talk about them. And it's nice to have some knowledge about it where you can kind of go back and forth. So for my own personal investment, that's where I, that's what I get out of it. Learning more about the case, seeing what you can take from it, applying it to other cases. And, and so I'm excited about it. We'll see, we'll see how it goes. I'm sure it'll be, you said minimum three. There's no way this is going to be three. I'm saying, I like guessing. I'm saying at least six. Well, you're not guessing because I told you at least six. Well, that's an educated guess. That just means I have inside information

and I'm making an educated guess. Don't knock me for using what I know, Stephanie. If I have an inside track with the person writing the script, why you got to call me out? Just let me use what I got and let's see if I'm right. Dude, I love it. It's like when I tell you something and then later you come back to me and you tell me that thing. And I'm like, I know you heard that from me, man. It's possible. I got a lot of people feeding me shit. It's tough to remember who told me. And sometimes I've told you things that I don't even remember telling you that I've ever had to discuss with you. It's's just there's only so much space in this big head of mine i can't you know i just write that's why i write everything down anyways we're getting off i'm sorry i can see you guys now derek shut up

so listen i'd like to do the cases that everybody knows stuff about um because like yeah i think the exception is those like people that are gung-ho and they like troll you and they're like you're going to see my point of view if i have to kill you but then there's also like i learn all sorts of things because there's only so much like you said my head is far smaller than your head and there's only so much i can fit in this cute little tiny head we're talking physically not saying brain wise i'm saying physically my head is actually bigger than yours it absolutely twice as big you have a ginormous head man and i have this little tiny head. I mean, there's only so much I could fit in it. So no matter how much research I've done and listen, I got like a bunch of books. You know, I like the books. I got Michael Peterson's book Behind the Staircase, which, by the way, he doesn't make any profits off of, which I kind of thought was cool because a lot of the times people write these books to just make money. It's a money grab. Like look at Casey Anthony and her Peacock series, money grab. But Michael Peterson

is not making any profits off his book. And I've been reading Aphrodite Jones's book about this. So like I've got all the books, I've got all the records and the police reports. I rewatched The Staircase. But I love when people come up in the comments and they're like, well, don't forget about this because then I'll jot that down and then I'll look into it and then it really just rounds out the research process. It's like having a bunch of research assistants in the comments. You know, most of them are productive and helpful. And yeah, the very few are like just trolls, but don't worry about that. Yeah, no, it's not the majority.

I'm looking forward to it. I think most people are. We were actually talking about the title of this episode probably gonna call it the staircase because there are people we always like to refer to the episodes by the victim's name first and so unfortunately if you were to take a poll i'm sure more people have heard of the staircase as opposed to kathleen peterson we'll obviously we want to try to help change that. So now, hopefully going forward, when you hear the staircase, you'll also think of Kathleen. Well, before we dive into the nitty gritty, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. So as always, to figure out what happened at the end, we have to go back to the beginning,

as we've done with other infamous figures and cases, as we did with Casey Anthony and Scott Peterson. It's important to see where these people came from, what their lives and relationships were like before they became household names. Michael Peterson may have killed his wife, we need to look back and see if there were any red flags in his early years or in the early years of his relationship with Kathleen. But I don't think we can have a real discussion about the case without first talking about the docu-series that brought it to our attention, and that's the Netflix docu-series The Staircase. Now, The Staircase was originally an eight-part docu-series that first aired on HBO in 2004, and it followed Michael Peterson, his family, and his legal team as they prepared for and went through a murder trial. In 2012, new revelations called for more episodes to be made, and two more episodes were added in 2013, but it wasn't until Netflix purchased the series and began streaming it in 2018 that most of us heard the names Michael and Kathleen Peterson for the first time.

And at that point, even more episodes were added, bringing the grand total to 13 episodes. The Staircase is the work of French filmmakers Jean-Xavier D'Lestrade and Denis Ponset. And originally, it wasn't supposed to be a series. It was supposed to be a two-hour documentary on HBO titled Death on the Staircase. And it was intended as a follow-up to their 2001 Oscar-winning documentary Murder on a Sunday Morning, which was a film about the shooting death of a tourist outside a Jacksonville, Florida, Ramada Inn. A young Black teenager was arrested and charged with this murder. His name was Brenton Butler. He was 15 years old. He was significantly younger. He was physically shorter than the described

suspect, but he was charged anyway. And what they wanted to do with this film was basically highlight how he was facing injustice and that the justice system, the legal system was not on this teenager's side. After the success of Murder on a Sunday Morning, Lestrade told HBO that he wanted to do something different for his next project. So for several months, Lestrade looked through over 300 different cases and finally found Michael Peterson, a wealthy white man who was established and respected in his community. The filmmakers wanted to show that injustice and a flawed legal system can attack anyone, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from. And The Staircase is honestly such a compelling experience for us because the documentary team began filming Michael Peterson very shortly after Kathleen

Peterson's death. And so you get this very unique and interesting look behind the scenes. This film crew lived with Michael Peterson. They had cameras going 24-7. We get to see Michael Peterson interacting warmly with his family, talking with his legal team about trial strategy. We get to see renowned forensic experts like Dr. Henry Lee in the process of looking at the crime scene for the first time. And we get to see our protagonist, Michael Peterson, in the throes of an accusation that he passionately denied and still does deny to this day.

And then we basically get to, like, watch him and follow him for over a decade. It's always interesting, and I guess a gamble for these filmmakers when they do this because, as you mentioned, him for over a decade. surface clearly they believe he's innocent if they felt like it was a slam dunk he did it i don't think they would be investing all this time and money into this case but but again it's it's it's interesting that they heard enough obviously after speaking with michael and his team that they felt he was innocent and they're rolling the dice so you know it's a big risk and i know a lot of production companies do this type of thing now but uh it always raises an eyebrow with me where it's like, I don't think this documentary from the limited amount that I watched was intended to be unbiased and objective and make you feel like, hey his perspective, naturally it's going to be more so in favor of him, especially when they're showing clips of him interacting with his family. And like you said, you want to hang out with them, right? You want them to be part of your family. So I don't think they're claiming to be impartial or objective, which is fine.

You take the information, you learn from it, and then you go and get the other side from somewhere else. But they really went all in on this one they really were trying to be impartial initially um and it's interesting because jean jean xavier lestrade de la strade this this french filmmaker guy he said like i didn't know if he was innocent or not i spoke to him before I decided to make it, you know, and he seemed to be very sincere in his love for his wife, Kathleen, in his innocence. So I said, well, let me, you know, take this on. And initially, I mean, Lestrade still claims he doesn't even know what to think to this day. He doesn't know whether Michael Peterson is a murderer or not. But he did admit that while he isn't convinced of Peterson's innocence, the process of making the series and being there every step of the way made it clear to him that Michael Peterson did not get a fair trial. And this docuseries did begin an attempt to be unbiased

where Lestrade and his team, they didn't want to just show Michael Peterson's side. They also wanted to sit with the DA and the prosecution and get their side of things. And so for the first episode or even two, maybe the first episode and a half, you do see and hear from the then district attorney, Jim Harden, and his assistant district attorney, Mike Nofung, Freda Black, one of the prosecutors, she's in there, several law enforcement officials who were at the scene that day, including the lead investigator, Detective Art Holland. But then after that, after that episode and a half or so, you don't really see or hear from them anymore because after a few months, I believe three months, the prosecution side, they stopped cooperating and they cut off contact with the documentary filmmakers. So they were like on board at first.

And then after three months, they were like, we're not talking to you anymore. They just stopped answering calls. They wouldn't take meetings anymore. So I'm not sure what that means. I think without being there, my initial reaction would be the questioning changed. Probably, you know, when they're doing their interviews, even when I was on Big Brother, you can kind of tell the narrative that's being written by the questions they're asking you. And it's not like, oh, you're a detective. It's just common sense. I could always tell what producers were gonna put in that week's episode based on the framing of the questioning. There was a guy on the show that his name was Devin good guy had a bad run in the house but I could tell that they were painting him as a villain because they would ask a question where the only answer would paint him in a negative light. And so- Yo, Devin was a villain, man. See, that's my point. And he actually, he, and I forgot that you watched it, but to get back to this, it's something where these lawyers are already, the prosecution's already probably

apprehensive about working with a film crew. I would never agree to that during a trial anyways, but that aside, maybe they just didn't like the style of questioning where it was like, hey, listen, this isn't advantageous to our case. Let's stop doing it. They're living with this guy. They're talking to him every day. We don't know the angle they're going with here. And by signing off on these, you know, whatever contracts are signing off on, it's not like unless they had it in there, prosecution has the right to be executive producers on it where they can cut out what they don't like. You know what I mean? They probably just said, Hey, we're going to work. We're going to interview guys, whatever we decide to throw in there, we have the right to do that. And based on the framing of the questioning, their team probably got together and said, Hey, why are we doing this? How is this going to help us? If anything, it's going to create something that could hurt us. So it could be just as simple as that, or just to play that other side, if they're doing things they shouldn't be doing, they obviously wouldn't want those things exposed. So if they're not doing things on the up and up, bringing cameras into the inner

workings of what they're doing, whether it was intentionally malicious or just accidentally malicious, that's not going to make them look good as well. So they probably decided to stop talking to the film crews, which probably was a good idea and should have never happened in the first place. So two things. I agree. I think it should have never happened in the first place. Like we all want to see the unbiased.

Crazy, right? It's weird, right? It seems weird. Like how are you that confident? And you can tell like when you said they maybe were reticent or like didn't feel comfortable about being in, nah, man, these people are, like, cocky in this. Like, that's why I want you to go back and watch that first episode. They are cocky. Jim Harden, Mike, his EADA, Frida Black, oh, I can't stand her, like, cocky and judgmental. And they're just, like, so,

they're smiling and laughing, cracking jokes, like, this doesn't look like an accidental fall down the stairs. He just thought we weren't going to look that idiot like they are going hard. And I just don't get why they agreed to be a part of it, because although I want to see both sides, I don't think it makes sense for the D.A. who's going to try this case to allow a documentary crew and cameras to come in and like, oh, look at this case we're building against this dude. Then Michael Peterson's legal team may have access to information that the documentary crew picked up while they were in like the DA's office. It just doesn't seem smart, but I do think they were so cocky and so confident that they had him. They were like, oh, who cares? Open the doors. And then after a couple of months, they were like, oh, man,

all right, like maybe the forensics coming back aren't what we wanted them to be. Maybe the autopsy results aren't what we wanted them to be. Maybe Michael Peterson has this bomb lawyer, David Rudolph. And, you know, they're giving us suppression motions. And now we kind of don't feel as confident and we want to just kind of close the doors and go back into our little turtle shell as we should have stayed in the first place. I agree. They definitely had some regret about even initially starting with it. I will say something you said earlier that the filmmakers coming into it unbiased or trying to be unbiased.

I don't think I'm saying anything that's completely out of left field here. They clearly had some opinion before coming into it, because again, there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars that go into this case. And there's a lot of things that happen before you guys see it. One of those being a pitch, right? There's a development process. There's a pitch to the network for them to invest in you and give you the money to film it.

I can promise you they didn't go in there saying, we don't know if he's innocent or not. We just want to film it and can promise you they didn't go in there saying we don't know if he's innocent or not we just want to film it and see what happens they go in there with an angle saying hey we believe this guy's innocent and we're going to see how it goes uh and and we'll go from there now i know you're shaking your head no but i've been on their angle they did have an angle but it wasn't he's innocent it was we don't think he's being traded fairly whether he's innocent or not sort of like similar to the Adnan Syed right right we don't know if he's innocent or not but we don't think he's being treated fairly and they kind of got this from the fact that Michael Peterson was a columnist and he

talked a bunch of shit about the Durham Police Department and now the Durham Police Department is over here investigating this death and they're they're looking at you as a suspect and so and then you know the whole issue of like michael peterson's sexuality comes in like he he was bisexual and apparently they're they are sort of trying to paint durham north carolina as like it's the deep south in the you know early or late 90s and they are not as open about homosexuality and men as they should be and and you know to be honest Frida Black this this prosecutor in the documentary the first episode she's going ham man she sounds judgy af it made me uncomfortable to hear it because she's like

people are not gonna like that around here they're going to. And it was kind of like they were going to play that to their favor. Like we're going to put together a jury of good Christian Southern people who are going to take one look at Michael Peterson and not care whether or not he killed his wife and just assume that he's a bad person because he has sex with men on the side. Yeah, I would I would have loved to been in that pitch meeting when they put the deck together. Deck is basically like a PowerPoint to show them how they were going to, because you don't just, Hey, we're just going to document it. See what happens. You got to kind of have a direction in which you're going, a beginning, a middle and an

end. I will say in their defense on this one, and you pointed it out that originally this was supposed to just be a two hour documentary. So it wasn't like they had a 13 part series lined up where they're like, hey, we're gonna take you on this rollercoaster Maybe it doesn't seem as contrived as that so I will give that to them where initially they're going in They're gonna make a two-hour doc about this see what happens and go from there Obviously based on its success was when they had to in a realize that they started on unpacking the layers what they had They kind of built it out to 13 episodes. So I'm going to

have to watch it. I was saying to you, I want to start doing something on a YouTube channel where it's not the research like this. Maybe that's an angle. Maybe you watch these documentaries. You said you can suggest them to me and just watch them and comment on the actual docs and see what I think. Cause otherwise I wouldn't watch them. Cause it's not necessarily. Yeah, I do that. I do that sometimes on my channel. And it's, you know, you always see a very like like plain narrative being spun for you. And that's why I really avoid these documentaries, because I know what you're trying to do. I know what you're trying to make me feel.

It's insulting and a little bit annoying and very one sided. But this was like early on, like early back in the days before true crime blew up. And I don't think that's what they were trying to do here. Now, of course, this is just what they say they're trying to do, but they could be lying. You know, they could. I'm not saying like I believe everything that everyone says, you know, I believe nothing that anyone says. But this is this is what they say. This is what they say happened and how they felt. And, you know, obviously, you understand they were living with this guy, like you said. So as much as this film crew, as much as they went in, right, attempting to be unbiased, at the end of the day, they all spent hundreds of hours with Michael Peterson. And they,

of course, developed a relationship with him. Lestrade, he said, quote, Michael Peterson himself is a very strange, very complex character. Of course, the man I spent many days, weeks, months and years with, the man I know, it's like it Peterson, like I said, he's compelling to me just on screen. I can't imagine how, you know, really magnetic he would be in person. And it's not the way he looks. He's not an outstanding looking person. He's not like anything special to look at. But there is something about his demeanor that's super comforting and just very home like.

And he actually ended up dating one of the editors of the staircase, Sophie Brunel. I think her name was. We're going to talk about her a little bit more in depth, like in, but they did start a relationship and I don't know, it's just they were living in his house. There's going to be blurred lines. 100%. And then the final product that you guys see, and you kind of just joked about it with Devin, right? Depending on how producers and editors want to show you, believe it, they can. They can paint you in a negative or positive light depending on their own personal opinions of you. You can go on a reality show, think you're the greatest person, and if they don't like you, they can really edit you to look like an asshole.

Conversely, if you're someone who may have some things that are off-putting, again, they can edit you in a way that's very endearing to the audience. So I'm not saying that was done here, just playing devil's advocate. Understanding this background as far as him dating an editor, I don't think he'd be dating one of the editors if they had made him look like a jerk the whole time. So clearly something developed from that. And I don't think she would be eventually dating this guy if while putting the film together, while putting the documentary together and editing it together. She felt he was a bad person So she clearly had I'm saying a certain way about like you could say he dated her So she made him look good in the final edit, but also she has to see all this uncut footage So if there's something that makes him look like a violent maniac wife murdering person is she gonna be like yeah This is the dude. I want to start dating and you'll never tell me any world where Devin is not an asshole.

Like, I don't know how you could edit somebody to be that much of a dick without them actually being somewhat of a dick. I will say he lost himself in the show. But in reality, after the show, you learn a lot about who you are as a person. I did as well. And you can adjust from that. So he definitely did. He's doing well now. But I'll also say about Michael, the fact that he's on film recording 24-7, if he is someone who's naturally charismatic and knows how to play to a crowd, I don't think he would be completely

exposing himself in how he would normally if he were behind closed doors. I mean, if I'm someone who just killed my wife or someone else for that matter, and there's a film crew here that could make or break me to the court of public opinion, I'm on camera 24-7 in my brain, and I'm always going to be playing to that character regardless of who I may or may not be. So these are all variables you have to consider. Yeah, he definitely is somebody who knows how to play to a crowd. He definitely is that person, but could he do that 24 seven for like months and months? That feels like that would be very difficult. Like that's the role of a lifetime, right? I'm not trying to keep bringing it back to big brother, but I was on camera 24

seven for 102 days. And I played a character not because I was doing it for the audience, but more so I was at a house full of people who didn't even know what I really did for a living. I was constantly playing whatever role I had created for that specific person. So. Yeah. But you could go on the confessional and be like, ha, these idiots, you know, at least break character sometime. Like he's not breaking character. Well, I'm sure they weren't like in his bedroom with him, you know, when he's sleeping. Well, Sophie may have been.

Or maybe they were. I don't know. I don't know how close they were. I'm going to, I'm going to definitely have to watch the series now that I'm getting all this insight behind it. And now knowing the dynamics of some of the relationships that's going to, I'm going to have to do it. You're going to have to give me some good recs.

You're going to have to give me some good doc recs. We clearly don't have time for it right now but i have a feeling the eye rolls during these documentaries would be something to watch for me you have to you have to give me like five or six series to watch i got you she's like oh i got you yeah i got you the uh the dynamics of of this whole how this series happened it's very unique you don't ever see this really usually a film crew is gonna come on like a year or two years after, but they're never like there before even he goes to trial. Right. And that was the coolest part for me watching his defense team, which I've never seen that process before, like building their case. And they like, you know, basically took the some of the experts like Dr. Henry Lee, who I love, by the way, I love Dr. Henry Lee. They put

him in front of like a test jury, basically, and they played his testimony. And the test jury was like, oh, he's hard to understand. So we don't think he knows what he's talking about and stuff like that. And it was just interesting to see that behind the scenes stuff and that behind the scenes conversation that you never get to see when you watch a trial. So it is really a good series to watch. And I think that you would enjoy it. But let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay, so this case is tough because the DA's

office said they believe there was no way that Kathleen could have fallen down the stairs and sustained the injuries that she did, which were several, I believe seven lacerations to her scalp. However, even though Kathleen did have these lacerations on her head, she had no skull fractures underneath the laceration, no brain injury or swelling. And the defense team, they claimed, listen, she slipped on accident. She'd been drinking that night. She was taking Valium. She was wearing these like flip flops. So she was on her way up the stairs and she slipped and hit her head on several stairs on the way down. And then, you know, as well as the molding on the wall. And that's why you don't see these skull fractures, because the prosecution said

initially that Michael Peterson peterson had beaten her to death with like a blow poke like a blow like a a fireplace poke what do they call them fireplace pokers you know the stuff that you like stoke the fire with yeah i fireplace stoker is what i would call it but yeah whatever it is they thought that that he had used that because that thing was missing when they like first investigated. But then you'd think if, you know, she's getting beat on the head with this metal fireplace poker, you'd see some skull fractures, right? You would see something underneath as far as the skull or the brain go.

I would expect to see something on the surface. Well, she had lacerations. She had lacerations. She had lacerations. But no skull fractures, no brain swelling, nothing like that. So it could be more indicative of something where she sustained those lacerations

while just falling down a flight of stairs. That's what the defense team said. And they said like she basically died because she lost, she went unconscious from hitting her head

and she lost all of this blood and she died from blood loss. And we're going to talk about the autopsy next week because there's also some controversy with that. But it's not like it's straightforward on either side because we have, you know, in this case, blood spatter experts being discredited, which was basically the reason that Michael Peterson was allowed to, you know, go back to trial and take an Alford plea where he said, like, listen, I still am maintaining my innocence, but I understand that you, the prosecution, have enough evidence to, you know, try me for murder. So I'm taking an Alford plea on time served. I'm going to get out. But, you know, technically, I'm saying I'm still innocent, but it's saying like, I know you guys could nail me to the wall if you wanted. But they basically discredited the blood spatter expert who had testified because this guy's testimony was a big reason why the jury found Michael Peterson guilty to begin with.

So he gets discredited. And then we have medical examiners, the people doing the autopsy, who initially are saying one thing, but then they change their minds. And the defense team is like, well, listen, they changed their minds only because they were under political pressure. And like I said, we have a murder weapon that the prosecution hinged their case on, which was this fireplace blow poke that was missing at the time of Kathleen's death. But then later it was found in the basement of the home and it was covered in cobwebs. And then when it was examined, it was determined that the blow poke had not been used in a murder at all. So it's going to take some time to pull all of these strings and see where they lead. But first,

we need to talk about Michael Peterson and Kathleen Peterson, who they were, what they were like, and how their lives merged, for better or for worse. Could you go back real quickly? I know we talked about it off record when you were doing research, but the Alford plea, what that means. I know we have a lot of people who are big into true crime, but I think even you were like, hey, what exactly is this? But it's pretty interesting how people can come with this plea. What is the Alford plea? What does it mean from the defendant's perspective? So like I said, it means that Michael Peterson is going up and saying, and this was after he'd already spent, I believe, a couple of years in prison. Right.

And he said, listen, I am maintaining my innocence as I always have, but I am also recognizing and understanding that you have enough of a case against me where if this went to trial again, I might be found guilty. Therefore, I'm going to take this plea. And usually when you see someone take a plea, it's because they're like, okay, I'm guilty,

but he's saying I'm taking a plea, but I'm not guilty. And if anybody's familiar with the West Memphis three case, that's what also happened with those three defendants. They were saying the whole time, you know, we are not guilty of this. And I believe that they are not guilty of that, by the way. They're saying we're not guilty. We're taking this plea so we can get out and get on with our lives. Right. They get a plea deal. They might already be for time served.

So it's something where I'm surprised. There's got to be a reason for it, but more defendants don't go this way, even if they're guilty, right? Like to just say, hey, listen, on record, I want it to be known that I'm still claiming my innocence, but I do acknowledge that the defense,

I'm sorry, the prosecution has put together a strong enough case where I could see a jury more than likely finding me guilty of these charges. So I'm not willing to risk that. I'll do whatever time I've already done and whatever excess I have left so that I can get myself out of this prison sooner than later. So Alford Plead, something where we don't see it as often as I would think you would, because you would think everyone- It has to be offered. It has to be offered to the defendant by the by the prosecution, by the prosecution. And in my opinion, it's only offered when the prosecution literally knows that they actually don't have enough and they know that they've done some naughty things during the case and they don't want it to go back to trial as much as the defendant doesn't want it to go back to trial,

because then if the defendant wins, they can sue them for false imprisonment. So this pretty much wipes everyone's hands clean. You get to move on with your life and we get to move on with our lives, not worrying that you're going to come back and sue us for a false imprisonment. It's basically like we understand we made some mistakes and we don't really want to shine a light on that again. So that's why it's not often offered offered because it's a clean slate for both parties and both parties have to be on board, whatever indiscretions happen between them. Yeah. And I think that's a great point to make where you could go to the angle of, oh, it's something malicious, but it's more so where prosecution, they're not the ones doing the initial investigation. As they're looking at this,

they may be finding flaws in the investigation themselves where they're looking at this, they may be finding flaws in the investigation themselves where they're saying, Jesus, this wouldn't be good. If I were on the other side, I would be attacking this. And so as you just mentioned, it may be something where they see holes in the ship and before they take the risk themselves, they're more than willing to offer something like this, basically saying, Hey, we think we got a pretty good shot, but we also acknowledge that this isn't a guarantee. And I also think there's something to be said about the fact that with these cases, they may feel like, hey, we got the guy, he did it, but there's also a world where he didn't do it. And like you said, this clears the deck on that where this person's acknowledging,

hey, listen, you got enough, but I'm innocent. And as you said, down the road, when it comes to any possible civil recourse, it would give them more standing to kind of hold their head on so the city or the state's not getting sued for millions of dollars, which I don't even know if they would be completely clear of that still, even with an Alford plea, but I guess we'll have to see down the road if that ever comes to fruition. Have we had any? Well, you have the West Memphis three, right? Where they took the Alford plea, but they got out. So I'm assuming they're suing the city civilly, right? Can they do that? That's the question. I don't know. I think that's the whole point. That's the question. I would have to consult with a lawyer,

but they're now free. Or consult with Google. Consult with Google. Yes, that's not always the best. Yeah, you cannot later change your mind and you cannot sue for damages. And that's 100 million percent why the prosecution offers it, because they know they fucked up. That's what happened in West Memphis 3. There is not a damn lawyer in this world who could look at that evidence and say like, yeah, you definitely had enough to charge these three kids with murder and put them in prison for the rest of their lives. There was no evidence in that case. They railroaded them in that case completely and they

knew it. And they knew like especially after the West Memphis Three had all of these like huge celebrities like Pearl Jam, you know, and the Dixie Chicks like speaking out for them. They were like, holy shit, like they're going to sue us and they're going to have their whole legal team financed by people who have way more money than we could ever even think of. And we're going to be screwed. And this is West Memphis, man. They don't got no money to begin with. So it's going to like bankrupt this whole this whole town. So, yeah, that's why they gave him an Alford plea. And I do think that there was some of that happening with Michael Peterson. But at that point, when you're Michael Peterson, you're like, I don't even care. I just want to get out at this at this juncture. Like,

I don't want to take my chances. And, you know, the prosecution was probably like kind of bluffing, like, we have plenty on you, Michael. You want to take your chances, roll the dice, sir. You know, like playing playing games. So let's talk about Michael Peterson. Michael Ivor Peterson was born on October 23rd, 1943, the first child of Eugene Peterson and Eleanor Bartolino. Michael had two younger brothers, Bill and John, who were born in 1947 and 1951, respectively, and a younger sister named Ann, who was born in 1953. And because their father was a career military man, the family moved around a lot. They lived all over the world, from Japan to Denmark, North Carolina, Virginia, San Francisco.

And as a child, Michael became an avid reader. He loved stories of real adventure, and soon Ern Hemingway became his favorite author and this caused Michael to dream of one day becoming a celebrated novelist like Hemingway. How familiar are you with Ernest Hemingway? I've heard of him. I've read a couple of his things, but it's more like doesn't he do like the greatest American novelist of our time and a very interesting person. But basically he started off as a war correspondent. And the cool thing about Ernest Hemingway was he would go into like these these wars to cover them for papers. But he wasn't satisfied with like staying in the safety and just like writing about it. He fought side by side, literally in the trenches with these people. He was injured. He was hospitalized just because he was there and he wanted to be close up. And he, I mean, there's this one story where Ernest Hemingway basically like steals a tank to go and like help these soldiers that he's become close with. Yeah, that's my kind of guy. I like that. He's so cool. So cool. He's a controversial figure, I will admit, but like nobody lived anymore. Oh Jesus. And I just said he's a good, now you're going to set me up where I'm like, oh, it sounds like my kind of guy. I think he's a cool guy. Listen, this dude had like 20 concussions in his life because he just,

I think he probably was not like super mentally well. He probably had like- You lead with the good stuff. And you're like, by the way, he's got some controversial things. He wasn't really actually controversial, but people think, you know, whatever. Who cares? Honestly, he's a badass badass he was the coolest person ever he lived a really cool life and i think he may have had a little bit of a self-destructive streak but he was an amazing writer war will do that to you by the way the war will fuck you up so i you know take the strongest people and break them you know seeing what those guys saw back then what it's not like it is especially back then we're talking like sort of world war one world

war two okay that's what i'm saying i mean there was no attacking people from you know 10 20 100 miles away with you know missiles from the trench warfare man yeah exactly it's hand-to-hand combat and i mean yeah you're close but those guns and he was in it. Yeah. That'll mess anybody up. I had a couple of family members that, yeah, it takes a toll on you mentally. But what Ernest Hemingway also did, which I think Michael Peterson really pulled from, was he was this very super charismatic person, like the kind of person that when you walked in, if everybody's sitting around in a circle laughing and avidly listening to somebody, Ernest Hemingway is in the middle of that circle. He was incredibly compelling. And that's why he could never

stay faithful to any of his wives, actually, because he was just so charismatic and he drew so many people to him. So Michael Peterson's like, I want to be a celebrated novelist like Hemingway. And that's what he always strove to do. So after graduating from Hampton High School in Virginia, Michael moved to Durham, North Carolina, and that's when he began attending Duke University. And this was the college that his future wife, Kathleen, would also be an alumni of, although they'd never run into each other there because Michael was 10 years older than Kathleen. Michael Peterson was very busy in college. During his freshman and sophomore year, he joined the Air Force ROTC, and he was a member of a legal group called Bench and

Bar. He was also a representative of the Student Union. He was on the staff of the Chronicle, which was the student paper. By his junior year, Peterson was on the debate team as well as the publication board. So that's basically just a group of people who oversee all the student publications, including the paper, the yearbook, and the campus magazine. And by his senior year, Michael Peterson was the editor of the Chronicle and the president of Sigma Nu, which is a fraternity. He also sat on the Interfraternity Council and the Council of Presidents. So he was a busy dude, not so much interested in academics, but interested in just these extracurriculars. We're going to talk a little bit more about it at the end of the episode.

But he says something in his book or he's like, Kathleen was always smarter than me. And, you know, she never let me forget it. And I kind of don't like how he says that because it's like he says it like playfully, like kidding, but not really. You know, like I've heard men speak about their partners like that before where they don't want to come out and like be resentful, obviously, but, you know, they get a little dig in there. So in 1965, Michael graduated from college with a degree in political science, and then he began attending law school at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill isn't that the same school the faith Hedgepath went to that's correct

Yeah, been a beautiful school by the way amazing campus. But yes, that is that is the school Yeah, that's what stuck out to me as soon as I said it just now It's like I saw her name But while he was attending law school Michael actually visited his family who at that time were living outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, because his father was stationed at the U.S. Army War College. And it was there that he met a young woman named Patricia Balkman, who was also visiting her military parents on her break from the University of Texas in Austin. I guess they kind of hit it off. There's not much out there about Michael and Patty's early years, but it seemed like they sort of had things in common, like they both came from military families. And when you're young and you're not really thinking about like the extended future, that's all in the military for like 30 plus years. So literally his entire childhood, they always traveled around. They never stayed in one spot. They didn't have roots. And I think that when you find somebody who can understand that, it's very like, you know, comforting at first, but I don't know if Michael and Patty had much else in common. Michael and Patty would get married in Virginia in 1966, and then Michael

Peterson began working as an analyst for a defense consulting firm in Washington, D.C. And this government think tank would eventually send Peterson to Vietnam to conduct studies about how mechanized divisions could win the war that was raging there. That's the Vietnam War. Michael Peterson, at that point, when he was in Vietnam, he saw for himself the violence and the carnage that was happening there every single day. And what he was seeing didn't necessarily match with the papers back home, what they were printing. Because as we know, during the Vietnam War, the media in the United States was very positive about the war. You had a lot of like student protests protesting the war

at that time. But the papers were like, this is the best thing ever. We're doing such great work. Nobody's dying. Everything's great. And Michael Peterson was like, no, it's like horrible. Like we got guys out here dying every day, like young guys who came here thinking that it was going to be easy because that's what the media is saying. And it's not easy. So he felt, you know, kind of almost like a contempt where he'd been a little bit like positive about war before because he came from a military family. He sort of became negative about it at that point. And he he did not like the war correspondents that were covering the Vietnam War because he thought that they were lying. And he was like, you guys are all safe and sound while

these men are fighting for their country and dying. And then you write stories about glory and success while all of these people are losing their lives. And he felt that these reporters should have been more like his idol, Ernest Hemingway, who was also a war correspondent, but who, like I said, literally got into the trenches and he fought next to the men that he was writing about. And so Michael Peterson also wanted to see combat so that he could also write the great American war novel like Hemingway. So he quit his job and he enlisted in the Marines. would use his experience fighting in Vietnam to launch a successful career as a novelist, publishing The Immortal Dragon in 1983, A Time of War in 1990, and A Bitter Peace in 1997. However, a lot of his clout as a war hero came from Peterson's claims that he had been awarded the Purple Heart after being injured when a landmine exploded, killing his radio operator and sending shrapnel into Peterson's leg, which ended up leading to his honorable discharge. heart after being injured when a landmine exploded, killing his radio operator and

sending shrapnel into Peterson's leg, which ended up leading to his honorable discharge. And this turned out to be a false claim. Michael Peterson was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in battle. I did look that up because all of this stuff is public record. You can find who's been awarded these things in the military. And he did win that for something that happened on February 22nd, 1969, when U.S. bases all around South Vietnam were attacked. But recollections vary even on that point. Major Ron Smaldone, who had recommended Peterson for the Silver Star, said, quote, that evening he demonstrated that he had what it takes when he's under heat. It's as close as you can come to circumstances of life and death right before

your eyes. You have to stay in control. That's what Michael did, end quote. However, Leo Hazleton, who was a corporal under Peterson in 1969, he remembered that night differently. Hazleton said that when the opposing forces descended on them, Michael Peterson panicked, and he and another Marine had to restrain their commanding officer, Peterson. And he said, quote, All I know, the lieutenant who was there promoted to sergeant less than two months later. But Michael Peterson claims that he doesn't believe Hazleton was even there that night. And Major Ron Smeldone said he doesn't remember anything coming over the radio that night or anybody saying afterwards that Michael Peterson freaked out and needed to be restrained. Either way, Peterson did not win the Purple Heart for

his actions that night. And there was a grenade present, but it actually rolled into his command bunker harmlessly, and he kept it as a paperweight on his desk. And the Purple Heart is a very important military award. I think it's probably the highest, if not, you know, one of the highest, if not the highest, but it's basically awarded in the name of the president of the United States for those who are wounded or killed while serving. And I remember, man, I used to work with a guy who always said he had a purple heart. And this guy was such an idiot. And I was like, there's no way you ever saw active battle, much less won a purple heart. Like he was lying about it. His name was Ryan. We always called him Lion Ryan because he lied about everything. But we were very easily able to disprove that he didn't have it. And so you can easily disprove that. But it didn't come out until Michael Peterson actually ran for mayor of Durham, North Carolina, I think in 1990. Once again, this isn't in this episode today, his mayoral run, but he did run for mayor.

It was unsuccessful. He didn't win, but it kind of came out then because people were looking into him and looking to try to make him look bad. And that's when it came out. That will happen. If you have skeletons in your closet, you want them to get exposed, run for political office. Dude, it's so right.

It's so true. They will pay people to really look you up and discredit you. If you have some things that you know you ain't telling the truth about, stay out of politics. But I mean, Michael Peterson was actually honorably discharged and he did receive medical disability from this injury that he sustained. But it didn't happen in Vietnam. After he left Vietnam, he was living in Japan for like, I think a year. And one night he had a couple of his military friends over for dinner. He drove one of them home. A truck crashed into the side of their vehicle. Michael Peterson's friend was killed and Michael's leg was shattered and his lung was punctured. So that's what he went to

the hospital for. And that's what he was honorably discharged for. So not in battle. And, you know, that's why he didn't get the Purple Heart, right? Because he he behaved bravely, I guess, during Vietnam, according to his commanding officer, but he wasn't injured or killed in service of his country. Yeah. And as you mentioned, he's not the first person who exaggerates about what they participated in overseas because there's usually not anybody who can discredit you unless it's public information that you're putting out there for a political office or something where you have been times where there's an incident you respond to and it's kind of like a blanket award where everybody who was on scene and participated in any way, shape or form, if their name's on the report, they get the award as well. And there's been some head scratchers for sure where we're like, Hey, how'd that guy, he just showed up like five minutes before it ended. And he actually just stood outside and just protected the perimeter and he's getting one of the highest awards you can get as a patrolman.

So nevertheless, there's also another side to this where this person may not have liked Michael Peterson and from his perspective because he wasn't a fan of Michael Peterson as a subordinate decided to discredit him when they say he was restrained and all these things. We don't know. And at the end of the day, you're over there. You're working as a subordinate decided to discredit him when they're you know say he was restrained and all these things we don't know and at the end of the day you're over there you're working as a team some people react differently under stressful situations it doesn't mean that they didn't contribute in a positive way but it's gonna be a he said she said we'll never know the truth but it is for our purpose important because when we're looking at Michael Peterson as a murder suspect you want to start to evaluate his credibility and his integrity as a person when it comes to his perspective of himself, when maybe there's not someone there that he feels is going to discredit him. And so

when you're looking at someone who's being looked at as a potential killer, yeah, these things do become important because how old was he at this time? This is 1969. How old was he around? I mean, 20s, early 20s. So early 20s, young, but not a kid and knows right from wrong and knows the significance of these types of commendations and awards and how it can be perceived if you're lying. So he would know that this is not the right thing to do if he was intentionally lying about the Purple Heart. And so is that something you would consider when evaluating his level of truthfulness when it comes to something that could put him in prison for the rest of his life? Yeah,

of course. If there's someone out, because I don't think it's a normal thing to lie about receiving the Purple Heart. Yes, it happens. I think it is, man. No, I think it is. I think a lot of people, or maybe not about the Purple Heart, but a lot of people come back with all Yes, it happens. you're not only disrespecting your, the military, but you're disrespecting the people who have received it. So it takes it, I'm just going to say a shitty person to do something like that. So I don't think it's the majority of service members. I do think stories, like you said, war stories can get exaggerated as far as, you know, maybe sensationalize a little bit for story purposes, but there's not necessarily something nefarious there. You're sitting around with your buddies. You might add a couple extra booms or something in there to make it a little bit more of a fascinating story. But when you're

telling people I received the purple heart for this, or, or you were, you, you were discharged from the military because of this injury you sustained in combat when really it was a crash while off duty, that's significant. It doesn't make you a killer, but I do think it's something that we would be, we would be ignorant to not consider it as we're evaluating things that Michael is going to say in the future as we progress through the series when it comes to his involvement or lack of involvement with something surrounding this case. Again, he was young. People make mistakes. But I don't think it's something where you go, ah, you know, everyone lies about getting a purple heart. Not a big deal. I think it is something to consider and consider going forward. I mean, he was young when it happened, but I don't think he was young when

he was lying about it. I think he kept that going until he was called out. And, um, you know, I think he, he eventually said like, oh, well, I don't like to think about that night. And that's why I lied. Like that don't make no sense to me, but that's neither here nor there. We also have to remember that Michael Peterson, although he wrote fictional novels for the most part, I believe he wrote two nonfiction novels, but he wrote fictional novels for the most part. And he wrote about war stories and stuff. So it does seem like he takes from his personal experiences, write what you know, as Ernest Hemingway did. And he maybe confabulates like what he's writing about and what actually happened to the point where he

almost starts to believe that what he's writing actually happened because he wrote in one of his books a very similar, he even wrote about like a commanding officer like freaking out and having to be restrained by two other Marines. But then he was like, that wasn't me that I was writing about. And yeah, this guy, Leo Hazleton, he may have just not liked Michael Peterson. Or let's say Michael Peterson knew the enemy was coming and he freaked out for a second, you know, because he's just like this kind of like, you know, normal kid off the street. We spent the last, what, how many years at Duke University? And now he's like in a war and the, and the enemy's coming, and he freaks out, but then he gets his shit together, and he ends up, you know, like, helping people. So there could be both happen. You could freak out, but still get your shit together in time to make it worth something.

And I'm not going to judge anybody who freaking puts on a uniform and goes and fights because that's scary no matter what way you cut it. You're brave no matter what way you cut it. You're brave no matter what way you look at it if you do that to begin with. Yeah. And I'm not judging him at all for that. If like you said, he freaked out or not, it's kind of irrelevant as far as what we're doing. Like you said, there's very courageous people who have a moment where they get scared. I know it's happened to me. So it's definitely something where that's normal for me. So whether it's true or not doesn't matter. I think the bigger issue here is the conscious decision to lie about something so significant that he knows can be cross-referenced and checked and discredited if they really wanted

to. So to go there and to push that narrative, I think is a deeper issue than whether or not he freaked out in the middle of a war zone. That doesn't affect me. But for what we're doing, trying to establish his credibility, his line, as far as how trustworthy he is, I do think it's something to consider. Again, doesn't mean he's a killer, but something as we're going forward and we're looking at interviews he's done, this is something you have to consider.

I agree. Let's take our last break of the episode and we'll be right back. While Michael Peterson was in the Marines and fighting in Vietnam, his new wife, Patricia, began living with her in-laws, who at that time were residing in Copenhagen, Germany. Patricia Peterson found a job teaching at Hahn Air Force Base. And when Michael left Vietnam, she went to Japan with him, where they lived for about a year before returning to Germany together. Michael and Patricia would actually live overseas for a good portion of their marriage, and they returned to North Carolina for, you know, periods here and there. They returned, I believe, for about a year so that Michael could once again attend Duke University and continue his education under the GI Bill. But when their first son, Clayton Peterson, was born on December 13, 1974,

they were back in Germany, and they were still there when their second son, Todd, was born on March 14, 1976. A friend of the Petersons in Germany, Patricia Finn, remembered that Michael Peterson was a good father. He was gentle and loving with his boys, and both Clayton and Todd would later recall that, yes, they would sometimes get spanked by their father if they acted up, but it was never overly aggressive or physically harmful. Even in disagreements with his wife, Patty, Michael would always be the one to chuckle and walk away instead of becoming aggressive or violent. Some might say that chuckling and walking away during an argument is passive-aggressive, but okay.

However, Patricia Finn remembered that Michael wasn't necessarily the best husband, and maybe the marriage between Michael and Patty was not very equitable. His wife, Patty, was the main breadwinner. She was the only one with a job, and Michael spent most of his days working out in the gym and then locked away in his office where he was trying to write the next great American war novel. Because Michael was the one who didn't have a paying job, he was supposed to take care of the house, but he didn't. And for the most part, the Petersons' home in Germany was always chaos and always a mess. And if Patricia Peterson confronted her husband about him not pulling his own weight, he would get very defensive and angry and he would blow up. And this caused his wife to eventually begin walking on eggshells around him. The Petersons also seemed to be financially well off, even though it was only Patty working. And, you

know, they lived very well on just a teacher's salary. And it didn't really explain why they were driving a Mercedes, why they had, you know had a nice house, expensive wine in their cellar, and constant trips that the family would take. Vacations in the Azores, Thanksgiving in Copenhagen, and Christmas in Nuremberg, plus many trips back home to the States. For example, both their sons, Clayton and Todd, were baptized in Atlanta, Georgia. And I feel like Patty took trips without Michael. Sometimes she would bring the kids places with like friends or neighbors because they lived outside of an Air Force base in Germany. So there was a lot of Americans around and they all got really close. And Patty took the

kids to Paris one year. So they're going on a lot of trips. They have a lot of things and nobody can really understand why. And one year, Michael's sister and her husband, John Christensen, they visited the Petersons in Germany. And John kind of jokingly asked Michael Peterson, like, yo, where are you getting all this stuff from? Are you working for the government? Like, you seem to have a lot of money. And he claimed that Michael Peterson got like, weird about it. And he was like, oh, I can't answer that. And even Patty was like, oh, we can't answer that. But some people have claimed that Michael Peterson told them that he was working for the government or the CIA. He said he was in Germany doing consulting work for countries on behalf of the government. And, you know, we don't really

know what he was doing. There's some suggestion that Michael Peterson was possibly doing some illegal things or immoral things to get money, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. It was also during this time in Germany that Michael and Patricia Peterson became close to another couple, George and Elizabeth Ratliff. The Petersons, like I said, were living near a U.S. Air Force base outside of Frankfurt. Patricia Peterson was working as a Department of Defense teacher on the Rhinemann Air Force Base, and that's where she met fellow teacher Elizabeth McKee. Elizabeth was an American woman living overseas.

Patricia Peterson and Elizabeth would become best friends very, very close, and Elizabeth became close to the whole Peterson family to the point where she even spent an entire summer living with them in the home that they still owned in Durham, North Carolina. In 1981, Elizabeth married Captain George Ratliff, a dashing young Air Force navigator who she had met at the Air Force Officer Club in Germany. Elizabeth and George were reportedly head over heels for each other. Patricia Peterson was Elizabeth's matron of honor. By December of that year, the Ratliffs were parents to a baby girl named Margaret. Another daughter named Martha would follow in January of 1983.

But sadly, that same year, George Ratliff would tragically be killed during a covert military operation. And when his wife, Elizabeth, also died after an accidental fall down the stairs, Michael and Patricia Peterson became the legal guardians of the two Ratliff girls. Now, as we kind of touched on earlier in this episode, there's a lot to discuss

about the death of Elizabeth Ratliff. Today's not the time to do that, so we need to move on in the story, but we will get there. We will talk about Elizabeth Ratliff, her mysterious death at the bottom of a staircase like Kathleen Peterson's death. You know, the prosecution did try to tie these two things in. Michael Peterson was one of the last people who saw Elizabeth Ratliff. I personally don't know if there is a huge connection or if it's just a coincidence, but I'm also not somebody who believes in coincidences that heavily. So it's a difficult thing to sort of wrap your head around. I suppose

you could say that Michael Peterson benefited financially from the death of the Ratliffs, but he also gained two more mouths to feed, right? He gained two young children that weren't his, and he did care for them and love them for their whole lives. And they loved him. I mean, they've always stood by him, Martha and Margaret Ratliff. They've never had a negative word to say about him. They call him dad. As far as they know, he's the man that raised them because he did. And I think that's a pretty noble thing to do, no matter which way you look at it. I've always felt uncomfortable even looking at that, taking in two children that are not yours and raising them and

loving them and caring for them forever and trying to find like a negative spin to that, because it takes a certain kind of person to do that. I agree with what you're saying there. But I also think that when it comes to Elizabeth's death and the fact that it's so similar to Kathleen's, we would not be doing our job if we didn't look at it, which we're going to do. We're going to dissect it, break it down. And I could see how the prosecution would do that as well and how they would try to make it part of their case. I will say, giving Michael some credit as far as his intelligence is concerned, although killers do many times have an MO, a modus operandi, as far as how they carry out their murders. If this was someone who's

trying to make these two separate incidences, let's say for this conversation, he is responsible for both. You would think if he had half a brain, he would probably choose a different route for the second murder so that there wouldn't be this correlation between the two. If he were responsible for both now, it could just be that that's the way he does things, but if you're trying to not draw attention to it and make it really look like an accident, you probably wouldn't choose to do it the exact same way you conducted a previous murder.

But as you said, this is just the foundation. We'll dive into the specifics, the similarities between the two, how they differentiate as well. And then also motive, right? We can probably establish a pretty quick motive for Kathleen, but Elizabeth might be a little bit more of a dynamic. You mentioned something about it being financial. So, but conversely, he had to, like you said, two more miles to feed. So we'll dive into it. But as far as the case is concerned, yeah, you have two women in his life that both die in a similar manner. Yeah. We got to, we got to into it. But as far as the case is concerned, yeah, you have two women in his life that both die

in a similar manner. Yeah, we got to break it down. I mean, you could also say just for the sake of argument to be devil's advocate, if you killed somebody in 1983 and you successfully passed it off as an accident, like so many years later, you're going to be like, hey, this worked then in Germany. This is the United States. It's been so long. It's so far. And nobody's really going to put this together. And I know this is a tried and true method because it worked once. You could just say that too. You could. And then at that point, I'd have to take back my compliment about

his intelligence. But yeah, you could. You absolutely could. Yeah. Just because somebody's smart doesn't mean they're like use common sense all the time, you know Well, that is common sense is somewhat part of your intelligence. I mean if you Yeah, I mean if you think that hey this worked one time I got away with it where no one put two and two together because it looked like a freak accident Let's try our luck again because they're not gonna look into it. Yeah, I mean, I guess he could but then yeah That would take away from what I had perceived as some level of intelligence. He's a writer.

He does all these things you would think. As a fictional writer, he would think outside the box in these situations. Yeah, he'd be a little bit more creative. That's what I'm saying. Without trying to be insensitive. But you would think he'd be able to conjure something up that may be a little different for the second one. If he were responsible for both or even one of the two. So- Yo, that's what I was just going to say. Maybe Elizabeth's death was an accident and he was like, oh shit, she died like that and it was an accident. So I can

make it look like Kathleen died like that because I know that people die from falling down the stairs. Yeah. That'll be an interesting segment to cover to break down the two and break them down and compare them side by side because maybe they are very similar or maybe there's some obvious differences in there that don't make them as plausible as we would like to believe or some people think. So now Michael and Patricia Peterson

are the parents of four children, like overnight, you know, their own two boys as well as Martha and Margaret Ratliff. So obviously, Michael and Patricia Peterson's lives are going to change a lot here. Although Michael clearly loved the two little girls and accepted them as his own, he was not the one handling the day to day with the family and the household. You know, he was locking himself in his office. He was writing his first book. And Patricia soon became overwhelmed. Her husband told her he believed it would be easier to raise four children if they moved back to the States, which they ended up doing. But life living in Durham, North Carolina full time wasn't really what Patricia wanted. She was obviously American. She was born in America, but she'd been living overseas for so long, it's kind of like all she knew, and she had a very tough time transitioning. And Michael Peterson would later tell his second wife, Kathleen, that Patty had never really been happy about the idea

of raising the Ratliff girls. She said she hadn't signed on for a second family, which, I mean, is fair. You know, that's a big decision. That's a big responsibility. And for something like that to happen overnight, you didn't really expect. Maybe you knew you were in the will of Elizabeth Ratliff as these girls' guardians, but you didn't expect that this young, healthy woman was just going to fall down the stairs one day and die. And then all of a sudden, you have two more kids. And these were little girls, you know. The youngest was just born, I think, basically six months earlier, and the oldest was only about two or three at the time. So this is a huge responsibility, especially when you're the

only one working full-time and your husband's over here clicking away, writing a book, which he would go on to eventually write a book, but it doesn't matter at that time when you need help, right? You need help. And according to Michael and Patty's son, their oldest son, Clayton, his parents' relationship was never really intimate or romantic. It was always very platonic. And as Patty became more and more unhappy with Michael and in Durham, Michael was becoming close to another woman, a neighbor who had recently been divorced and had kind of been left on her own to raise a young daughter. This woman's name was Kathleen Peterson, and her daughter Caitlin was

around the same age as Margaret and Martha Ratliff, and so the three girls became friends and playmates. Kathleen Hunt was born on February 21st, 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina. She had an older brother, Stephen, who was born in January of 1951, and two younger sisters, Candace and Lori, who were born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where the family had moved in 1955. Kathleen was an amazingly impressive person, and her drive in life most likely came from her parents, John and Veronica, who always highlighted the importance of an education. At McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Kathleen was president of the Debate Club and the editor of The Generation, which was the school's magazine. She was also the first student who was selected to be allowed to take advanced Latin classes at Franklin and Marshall

College while she was still in high school. This overachiever attitude did not fade out as she grew older, and Kathleen would become the first female student to be accepted into the School of Engineering at Duke University in 1971. In college, Kathleen stood out academically, but in the summer of 1972, she became temporarily distracted when she met Fred Atwater, a graduate student and a teaching assistant at Duke in the physics department. The two began dating and they would get married on August 3, 1975, the same year Kathleen graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. The young couple remained in North

Carolina. Fred was working on his doctorate degree and Kathleen went back to school to get her master's in mechanical engineering. But when Fred Atwater got a research job at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, he and Kathleen moved to Columbia, Maryland. And in 1977, Kathleen turned down a great job with Procter & Gamble because her husband Fred didn't want to relocate. She would eventually take a position as an applications engineer with Baltimore Air Coil Pritchard. That's a subsidiary of Merck, and in 1982, she was promoted to product manager for engineered products. That same year, Kathleen and Fred welcomed their first and only child, a daughter

named Caitlin, who was born on April 27, 1982. For a few years, everything moved along smoothly, but the Atwaters did have to eventually relocate again in 1986 when Fred took a job with GTE Government Systems. This was a job that brought them back to North Carolina. They settled in the Forest Hill neighborhood of Durham. They bought a nice house. They bought a sailboat. And for a time, Kathleen pulled back from her career to focus on settling them in. But in June of 1987, Kathleen took an entry-level position with Nortel. At that time, Nortel was a Canadian multinational telecommunications company, and they had a location in the Research Triangle Park. That's a commercial center in North Carolina

for the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill area. Kathleen would go on to rise in the ranks of this company very quickly because she was smart, she was good at her job, and she was hardworking, very focused. And soon she would become their director of communications, making $250,000 a year and traveling the world from China to Russia. But first, she had to get through a lot of hardship. $250,000 in the 1980s, that's big money. $250,000 back then would get you a lot. I mean, clearly very, not just quantifying her success by her money, but also, yeah, the comments that Michael would make about her being smarter than him and letting him know about it, it sounds like they were warranted to put it lightly. She was very, I mean, don't take our word for it.

Look at her resume. Very impressive. I mean, I don't even know what engineers do, to be honest. I don't have any idea. They build shit. Yeah. But I don't even think they build shit. They like imagine how to build shit, right?

And how to make, yeah, like that's even, I think that's harder than like building shit. Because you got to make sure, it's like being an architect. You got to make sure the building doesn't fall over or a big gust of wind isn't going to topple like a skyscraper. So you have to really be like smart, not just like in general, but mathematically, which I am not smart mathematically. So she must have been, I mean, the first female student to be accepted into Duke's School of Engineering. That's like a big accomplishment. Duke, I mean, I don't think I think most people know this. Duke is not an easy school to get accepted into Duke's School of Engineering. That's like a big accomplishment. Yeah, Duke, I mean, I don't think, I think most people know this.

Duke is not an easy school to get accepted to. It's a very high academic. I think it's Ivy League. Is Duke Ivy League? It might be. I think it's considered Ivy League. Yale, Brown, Columbia. Duke?

I don't know. I mean, that's, again, I guess we're not smart. We're not smart enough to go to Duke. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. No, it says Stanford University, Duke University, and Penn State are not part of the IB league. Still very hard schools to get into. They're prestigious.

Yeah, very hard schools to get into. And like you just pointed out, the first female ever to be accepted to the engineering program. So you think about how hard that would have been where at that time, that that's something that wasn't, they didn't want a woman, a woman to come in and become better than they were smarter than they were. And at this point, she must've put something on paper and displayed something where they couldn't deny her because it was, it would have been so egregious. She had to be not only qualified to be in the program, but above qualified to the point where she was, where she was smoking all the guys and they had no choice but to accept her. So that just says something.

Yeah. I think she probably had to be very persistent as well. Good for her. And that's, you know, it's kind of something that a lot of people say about, about Kathleen was she just like, wouldn't stop. Like she had her eye on the prize. She knew what she wanted. She knew where she wanted to go.

And she was pretty aggressive about getting there. And it seems like I really relate to her a lot because it seems like there was this dichotomy in her where in her professional life, she was very aggressive. She felt she had to be more masculine, I think, to fit in with what generally at that time and still is a very male-driven and male-dominated field. And she kind of just didn't take shit from anyone. And so she would sometimes get a reputation at work for, you know, maybe being a little bitchy, maybe being a little aggressive. But she didn't want to, like, let her guard down and she didn't want anybody to take advantage of her.

But then at home, she was very nurturing, very kind, very warm, like described as an excellent mother, so caring, so kind and an excellent wife. So she had a lot of hats on and she seemed to do it flawlessly. I don't relate to that. I don't feel like I do it flawlessly. I relate to wanting to be able to be both, but struggling. But Kathleen did not seem to struggle.

Yeah, very impressive. I mean, obviously we're only judging her on what we've learned, but the resume speaks for itself. You can't, unless she's bullshitting like Michael was about his purple heart. This is, it's a very impressive. And it sounds like maybe she was someone who internally told Michael how she felt about her level of intelligence compared to his, maybe during an argument or something. But it seems like on the surface, she was just someone who led by action.

She just put her money where her mouth is and proved how good she was at things by performing. So I don't think that they ever really argued, to be honest. I think that they really, I mean, nobody said that they ever argued. Everybody who was around them all, and their kids are around them all the time, you know, for the most part, they never argued. But I will say that there's a couple of things that Michael Peterson said about Kathleen after she died, and I want to read them to you now. So he said, quote, We had to jettison the baggage of our first marriages. She said Fred had controlled everything, even instructing her how to peel a potato. So she deferred to me more than I wanted.

I finally told her, I don't give a fuck how you peel a potato. So she deferred to me more than I wanted. I finally told her, I don't give a fuck how you peel a potato or even if we have potatoes. And then, you know, he kind of said like they would laugh about that. And then after he made that comment, you know, she would say like, well, you're not getting potatoes tonight because you don't care about potatoes. So it kind of seemed like they had these inside jokes. And then he says, quote, she was a petite dynamo, 5'2", 120 pounds, and smart. Validatorian of her high school with two engineering degrees from Duke and funny. For God's sake, don't tell anyone your college board scores, she said after I'd foolishly told them to her.

I don't want anyone to know I'm living with someone so stupid. Her scores, of course, were much higher, which she loved to rub in. I didn't mind. I'd finished in the lower half of my Duke graduating class a C student and not ashamed of it, rationalizing that I'd gotten A's in fraternity and extracurriculars, end quote. So I think that she probably made him feel insecure about himself at times. He does seem kind of like that alpha male type who wants to perceive himself as an alpha male, like war hero, Ernest Hemingway, such a badass. And then you have this woman being

like, oh, Michael Peterson, don't ever tell anybody how dumb you are because I don't want people to know that I married someone so stupid. Did she say that Or is that how he perceived that she felt about him? If she did say that, I can understand how that might be hurtful. I have a tendency to joke around like that with people, but I usually mean it. You know, it's not, I'm like joking, but I mean it. So did she mean that? If she said it, he probably felt that on some level she meant it and it made him feel you know not great about himself and not great about the unequalness in their marriage

where she not only is making more money than he is because he's a writer so he's only making money when he's publishing something similar to patty's uh marriage with michael he stayed home and wrote and kathleen went out and made the money and then came home and made dinner and did all of this. And everybody's always like, Kathleen's amazing. How does she do it all? How does she do all this? And Michael's over here like, well, I'm writing another book, you know. Now, it wasn't that Michael wasn't, you know, contributing to the household income. Like he did have books sell. And I believe right before Kathleen was killed or died, he actually got one of his books optioned for a film. So there's money coming in

there. And initially the prosecution made it seem like Michael had killed Kathleen for her life insurance money, because then he spent some of that money for his like you know legal his legal team to defend him against the the charge of her murder however he did seem to have money coming in so i think they quickly abandoned that aspect of the motive and then they started to say well he killed her because he was bisexual he was having affairs with men she found out about it that night. She accused him of it. She confronted him of it. And he, in a violent rage, killed her because she confronted him about it. So that was the motive that they eventually went with, not the financial motive. Yeah. I mean, all of it could be life insurance. We've seen it before in previous cases, cases we've recently done where that was

the motive. I think when it comes to the things that were said inside the home between the two of them, Michael and Kathleen, you got to just go with your gut on it because this goes back to the Purple Heart story that I was referring to earlier where we don't know Michael personally. All we can do is base our opinion off of information that we have that has been somewhat substantiated, things that he said or done that were proven to be untrue. In this particular case involving the death of Kathleen, there's not going to be anything definitive at this point that's going to say he's lying and he did kill her or conversely, he's telling the

truth he didn't. So it's all based on your assessment of the evidence. And so when we think about more just kind of surface level stuff, like things that she said to him while she was still alive, as far as intelligence and his perspective on it, it could be as simple as, like you said, he has this level of insecurity and maybe they weren't said that way, but he wants to create a level of sympathy for him and what he had to go through and you know at this point she's no longer with us so how could anyone discredit it on the other hand it could just be the truth where she had made

comments passively could have been just being funny and now he's using it again to garner some level of sympathy or just relaying what was said as a joke. Either way, again, it's surface level doesn't tip the scale one way or the other. But everything that Michael says at this point, there has to be some filter on it because we know through past actions that he has been known to lie. And so he's not someone who has always been on the up and up, and you have no reason not to believe him. So again, doesn't mean that he's guilty of this crime, but it does mean, unfortunately for us, we always have to consider what he's saying with some level of skepticism, not because of our personal opinions of him, but because of information we've learned that suggests he does have a tendency to lie in

certain situations yeah and it's gonna come into play as well when we get into this whole discussion about his sexuality and he's like i wouldn't have killed her over her finding that out because she knew i she knew about it and then everyone's like what do you mean she knew and kathleen's family are like she definitely didn't know because she wouldn't have been okay with it. We know her and she would have said something to us she didn't know. And he's like, no, she knew like we had an understanding. I wasn't actively like, you know, out there sleeping with men, but she knew I had slept with men before. And that was something that I was attracted to. And, you know, she would always make like jokes about it. He said one time they went to like an army base and she said and he said Kathleen said like, oh, look, look at those men in their

uniforms, like touching each other. They're all gay like you. That's what he says that she said. Once again, I don't know. I can only speak from experience that I wouldn't be OK with it if we got married and then and I found out about that and that was something you hadn't told me prior if I had found out about it I definitely would have told my sister I'd be like I'd call her and be like this freaking guy man can you believe what did this shit he springs on me two years into marriage or you know like two years into living with each other like I can't believe it I definitely would have told somebody but maybe Kathleen was embarrassed about it as far as he he's concerned, he says she was perfectly okay with it.

And I just don't, I don't know if that's, you know, true. But once again, we cannot ask her. And no one else remembered Kathleen telling them this. So no one else could support what Michael said. And like you said, we have to look at everything he says through a filter unless we have supporting evidence. So like he says he and Kathleen had a great marriage. We have supporting evidence of that. There's tons of people in the community, in the family, even her family, their kids. They had a great marriage. They loved each other very much.

They were very happy. We know that that's probably true because of the supporting evidence and the other people who are seeing it. But the whole like she knew I was bisexual and she wouldn't have had a problem with it. We don't know for sure. It's just convenient for his defense, I think, because if that's the motive, then you want to obviously say she knew. Why would that be the motive to kill her when she already knew? And we had previous cases like this as well. Scott Peterson being one of them where now that the victim is no longer with us, and I've said this before, you know, it's only a secret if one person knows.

If more than one person knows, it's no longer a secret. Well, the other person who would know about this quote unquote secret is deceased. So you can say whatever you want and your source, your credibility is all from a person who can no longer speak for themselves so it's a convenient angle to play and the sad thing is he could be telling the truth maybe their marriage was so successful because they had this understanding where they they valued each other as partners they had and accepted each other accepted each other for who they were it was something where he didn't do it right in front of her face but he was transparent about it she may not have loved it but she was okay with it if that's how he needed to express himself and maybe she chose not to tell anyone because it's not very what's the word to use without

being insensitive it's not the standard it's not uh the norm the norm yeah as far as uh what her family members and friends would think of it so So she chose to keep it to herself, which is completely possible. But unfortunately, she's no longer here. So, yeah, we're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place as far as is it truthful or not. And it's important because we're talking about possible motive. But it's like many other people claim to know that he was bisexual. Like his his own son, Todd, was like, yeah, we all knew his brother, Bill, was like, yeah, we've always known since he was like 11 or something. I kind of knew that that he liked men and he never tried to hide it.

Like even our parents accepted it. So it's like this was such an open thing amongst your family. You think she she probably know or Todd and Bill are lying because they love Michael and they don't want to see him go to prison like they could genuinely believe that he did not kill her but say like oh it looks bad if she didn't know so we're just gonna you know lie it's like when remember when Cindy Anthony got up on the stand and said oh I googled chlorophyll and it just must have typed in chloroform but then they proved that Cindy Anthony was at work when those Google searches happened.

Like for family, you will lie. For family, you'll put yourself out there, especially if you think at the end of the day that they're innocent. So you feel like the means, the end justifies the means, right? Right. Yeah. You see, people say it all the time.

Oh, they wouldn't risk going to prison for their family member. Yes, they would. Yes, they would. And, you know, it's understandable. Like I said, especially if you believe in your heart that they're innocent because you think you know this person. So once again, we have to look at everything Michael says through a filter, but also what those closest to Michael say, whether it's good or bad. We have to look at that through a filter because they may have some personal

motivation for saying it. So the year 1987 was a tough one for both Kathleen and Michael Peterson. While Michael Peterson was living in the exact same neighborhood and working on his second novel, A Time of War, Kathleen Atwater was discovering that her husband, Fred Atwater, was having an affair with a woman that he worked with, a woman that he had apparently like brought over to his house multiple times. And, you know, Kathleen didn't think there was anything going on, but then she found out there was and it was very devastating. And so Kathleen and Fred divorced. Kathleen and

her daughter, Caitlin, continued living in Forest Hills and Kathleen became very close to the father of her neighbors. So basically Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, starts playing with Margaret and Martha Ratliff. And while they're playing, Michael and Kathleen are standing there watching them play and talking. And then they're realizing they have a lot in common and they get along really well and they have great chemistry and they enjoy each other's company. And at that point, Michael Peterson was a published novelist and he was also a local celebrity in a way. He wrote a regular column for the Herald Sun newspaper. In his book, Behind the Staircase, Michael Peterson said, quote, Living only a block apart, our romance could be seen as a soap opera cliché where neighbors seek solace and sex. But our longing and lust soon

turned to love, for we found in each other what we'd been missing and desperately wanted. Closeness, joy, and fun. End quote. And it may have been what Michael Peterson wanted, but his current wife Patricia was not a fan of the blossoming romance between her husband and the beautiful, energetic, successful, and interesting divorcee down the street. In an attempt to hold their marriage together, Patricia gave her husband an ultimatum. She said, I'm not happy in North Carolina. I want us to rent out our house in Durham, and I want to take our kids and go back to Germany. We were happy there. You liked it there. I haven't been happy since I've been here in North Carolina. So the next few months were a roller coaster for everyone involved,

I'm sure, honestly, if you think about it, because Patricia knew something was going on with Michael and Kathleen, but she was still trying to hold her family together and control the situation. So first, Michael Peterson told his wife, Patty, that he was in love with Kathleen, and he was going to be taking Margaret and Martha Ratliff to live with him, Kathleen, and Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, in Kathleen's house, which remember, is just down the street. But Patricia would still control the situation where she could. She refused to let their sons, Clayton and Todd, step foot in Kathleen's home, and eventually Patricia took the boys and moved back to Germany. She figured that if Clayton and Todd were important enough to Michael, he would leave Kathleen and

join them in Germany, and for nine months he did. Michael left North Carolina. He followed his wife and sons to Europe, but being away from Kathleen was reportedly physically painful for him, so he eventually returned to North Carolina with Martha and Margaret, leaving Clayton and Todd behind in Germany. Back in Durham, Michael and Kathleen lived together with their daughters, and over time, Martha and Margaret would begin calling Kathleen mom, as would Clayton and Todd Peterson, who would each return to live with their father and Kathleen once they finished high school. All of the children saw what an amazing love and strong bond Michael and Kathleen had. They worked together to achieve a common goal, they just seemed to fit perfectly as if they'd been made for each other. The relationship did cause a temporary issue with Kathleen's family, especially when the happy couple purchased a home together in 1992, a dream home located at 1810 Cedar Street, still in Forest Hills. Kathleen's sister Candace

felt it was wrong and distasteful to live with a married man, and so she didn't speak to Kathleen for over a year. But Kathleen was blissfully happy, especially when they moved into the sprawling 14-room mansion, which was valued at $1.2 million. The house, like Michael Peterson, was sort of famous locally. Just before we talk about the house, what do you think about this whole situation? It's kind of weird, right? Like, it's very weird. And I guess, like, from the way that Clayton Peterson describes his parents' relationship, when I say his parents, I mean Michael and Patricia, he said, listen, it was never intimate. It was never romantic. They were always just kind of like platonic friends. They were always just kind of like, you know, they're working together for the family, but not like living their lives together. And when my dad found Kathleen, I saw how platonic his relationship with my mother was because of how much he and Kathleen got along and vibed and they had a passion and they had this love. But still, even with it being platonic, that's

confusing as hell for all of these kids involved. And these girls at the time, Caitlin, Martha, and Margaret, were pretty young, I think like eight years old. So that's a lot of moving and shifting and weirdness happening when you tell Margaret and Martha, like, okay, your mom, Elizabeth, died, and now Patricia's your mom, but now Patricia's not your mom anymore. Kathleen's your mom, you know? What the hell? Yeah, I can't imagine how hard that would be on the children.

For me, as you were talking about all of it, my mind is always going towards what we're here for. And I will say, to put a feather in Michael's cap, having this relationship with Patricia, where, although it wasn't violent, um, it was tumultuous. They did have things going on that weren't ideal. And when you think about motive, the fact that she was going, I'm sure at first threatening to take her, his two sons back to Germany, you want to talk about motive. That would be a motive to have your wife have an accident. Right. And it doesn't appear like there was anything that was even in that same vein.

And it also, from what you've said so far, maybe you're going to go back to this, but it doesn't seem like Michael was ever physically violent towards Patricia. That's not only from what we know so far, but also from the children, the two sons specifically, where their main perspective of this was, yeah, they were just like friends. They were indifferent towards each other. They weren't passionate. They weren't necessarily in love. They just kind of were living day to day. And so not saying that's a good thing from a romantic perspective, but what we're talking about here, it, you know, best predictor, future behaviors, past behavior.

It doesn't look like with his previous wife who had given him some things where some may say is a motive. He never went that route. He never put his hands on her. And there was never anything that she came out and later said where it was like, I was nervous around him. I was scared for my life or things he had maybe even just said in passing none of that. And to think that he may have killed Elizabeth allegedly before this, and then later killed Kathleen with this in between doesn't really always line up. I guess it could be possible, but I'm putting a negative mark in this column for the purple heart story. I got to put one in the positive comment column form here

and say, here's another opportunity to kind of carry out with his quote unquote MO, if that's what he has going on here. And there's no signs of violence in this relationship with Patricia, which is very important. Yeah. I mean, he wanted to be with Kathleen so badly that he literally moved out of his house, moved in down the street while his wife and sons were still in that house. And now, you know, Patricia's like basically saying like, okay, you're not going to see your kids if you don't come with me. She's physically taking him away. That would have been a great time for an accidental fall down the stairs if that's what was going to happen. But instead he tried to work with her. Or go to Germany and she has an accident there, right? Any place where something could have happened or as he made that move to Germany

with her against his will, maybe the relationship could have became violent as he made that move to germany with her against his will maybe the relationship could have became violent at that point and it never did from what we know so those are things you have to consider when we're thinking about a guy who apparently pushed at minimum his wife down the stairs later in life for life insurance um when he did have some money himself it does it does go in his favor as far as it doesn't really add up with some of his past behavior with previous spouses well listen there are people who say like oh he was violent with patty um we will get there she i don't believe she ever has and i will tell you after kathleen died she came out publicly and supported him as did kathleen's own daughter

caitlyn for a while I think it was about a year after when Caitlin Atwater, Kathleen's daughter, finally turned on him. And I believe it was after she heard about Elizabeth Ratliff, where she was like, this is a weird coincidence. But Patty, always, she said, I have no doubt in my mind that he had nothing to do with this. So I feel like if he'd ever been violent with her in that way, she wouldn't maybe necessarily want to come out and been like, oh, I think he did it. But she probably would have just kept her mouth shut and not commented on the situation at all. I completely agree. That says something when your ex-wife who you cheated on. And now it seems again, I'm just looking from the surface.

Your sons ultimately chose to live with him over you. Sure. That wasn't something she was thrilled about to come out and defend him when you really got a chance to get back at him. Even. That wasn't something she was thrilled about to come out and defend him when you really got a chance to get back at him. Even if he didn't do nothing to you, just say, Oh, you know, doesn't surprise me completely. You know, it's just something that would just make people talk, make people think she chose to defend him. Not very common. So yeah, I think it's very significant that she and her daughter initially from what you're telling me, and I don't know the dynamic with that, were on his side. And I do think without knowing all the specifics, it can happen where you have someone defend someone in regard to a case because of what they've personally experienced with that person.

And then when they start to get filled with other information that they weren't directly involved in, they start to develop their own opinions and then they can change as well, which happens. And it's not always the best information to rely on because now they're being influenced by others. So usually the initial reaction is the one you really want to focus on. So yeah, I think it's very significant that after all that, what you've already told me has transpired. Patricia still chose to defend him at first when this all went down. I think that's. Yeah, I don't think she was happy about the relationship. Right. Initially, she's not super pleased about it.

But I think even she, after time, acknowledged that Michael and Kathleen were far more compatible and far more happy together than he ever was with her. And so, you know, there comes a point of acceptance. And, you know, if you truly love a person, you want to be happy for them at the end of the day, no matter what. And she did defend him. And she did say, like, there's no doubt in my mind that he didn't do this. So that does say something, especially if he had been violent with her in the past. There may have been something at the back of her head that said, well, I don't want to believe that he did this, but it could be possible because I house. It's known as the John Adams Buchanan House. And the 11,000 square foot home was built in 1940 and designed by Durham's foremost architect,

George Watts Carr, on four wooded acres, which had been hand chosen by Buchanan. John Adams Buchanan was like a very influential like businessman back in the day in Durham. And he wanted a property in a home that would basically signify his new status in life where he could entertain his new fancy rich friends and things like that and it is a beautiful property a beautiful home with these large windows five fireplaces gleaming hardwood floors crystal chiers, built-in bookshelves, but most notably a large

spiral staircase that is the center point of the home. As soon as you walk in, you'll see it. It's the sweeping design of the staircase and it lets you know that you're in a home that was carefully designed to impress. But this was not the staircase that Kathleen Peterson would be found at the bottom of. Very similar to the home of John Bonnet Ramsey, if you remember we talked about that case, the Petersons' house in Durham had two staircases. The main one, which was the spiral one, and that's like the middle of the house at the front door when you walk in, but then they had a back staircase that led from the kitchen to the upper floors. And this was the staircase that the family would most often use and the one that Kathleen Peterson would die on. Now Kathleen and Michael would live in this house together with their large blended

family for five years before they even got married and when they did get married it was in that house. Kathleen loved that house and she used it as a base to create one big happy family. Kathleen Peterson was known as the Martha Stewart of Forest Hills. Even though she was a high-powered executive at a multi-billion dollar company, she was also focused on her family and her community. She served on the board of the Durham Arts Council. She hosted fundraisers and events for the American Dance Festival and the Carolina Ballet in her spacious home. And although she was a busy career woman who was making decent money, she never hired a maid. She preferred to clean the house herself. Kathleen loved working on projects around the house. She insisted on preparing five-course meals regularly,

where she made it known that everyone would be sitting down at the table and having family dinner. She was cooking, decorating, doing the most to make everything in her house and her life cozy and homey. Martha Ratliff, one of Michael Peterson's adopted daughters, said, quote, we would laugh all the time. They, Michael and Kathleen, would just come home and make dinner and drink some wine and it was beautiful because we would just end up laughing the whole night and I would just talk to my mom forever. It was beautiful. I never saw any problems, end quote. Michael would often tell anyone who would listen how lucky he was to find someone like Kathleen, a breadwinner, a supermom, a homemaker, a woman who did it all and did it all happily, a woman who put her family

and her children, whether they were born from her body or not, before all else. From an outsider's perspective, Michael and Kathleen did have a perfect marriage, one to be envious of. They were both Duke graduates, so they loved watching college basketball games together. They took trips together. They cooked together. They talked about how happy they were to have found each other, and they loved to spend evenings reconnecting after a long work week. One of their favorite ways to unwind and reconnect was to stay in, rent a movie, share a bottle of wine, and watch the movie, but then they would spend all night sitting outside by their beautiful swimming pool, talking and laughing, knowing that they were each in the presence of not only their lover, but their best friend. And that brings us to the evening of December 8th, 2001, when Michael

Peterson rented the movie America's Sweethearts from Blockbuster, and he and Kathleen curled up on the couch with a nice bottle of red to watch it. Within hours, a cozy scene of love and comfort would transform into a nightmare, and Kathleen Peterson's bright light would be extinguished forever. So here we are, getting into the meat and potatoes of it. Now I feel like this was a good episode as far as learning a little bit about Michael, who he was as a person before this incident, learning a little bit more about Kathleen as a person before she became a victim in this case. Now it could be a victim of an accident or it could be a victim of a murder. We'll get to that.

But overall, I feel like we have a little bit of a pull of the curtain so we can see Michael not only in his glory as far as the things that were going well for him, but some of the things that didn't go that great as well in his past and how they can end up relating to this case as we move forward. So overall foundation laid and now we can move on to the stuff that kind of gets my blood going as far as the evidence and how it correlates and how it links together. And is there a connection there or is this something where, yeah, it might look like something on the surface, but overall from a court perspective, from a trial perspective, there's nothing there. There are not enough. So, yeah, I can see just on the surface how this would be like a movie.

This definitely has Netflix written all over it, right? As far as this is something they would definitely sink their teeth into. You know, I think they recently did like a dramatized version of The Staircase with Colin Firth playing Michael Peterson. And I haven't watched it because generally I don't like dramatized versions of true crime events. That's why I didn't watch that Dahmer show. But apparently Colin Firth did an amazing job. But yeah, it is. It's one of those stranger than fiction stories, right? Like you can't make this shit up. Michael Peterson couldn't make this shit up. The twists and the turns. And I mean, just people dropping like flies, too. There's tons of people that just like die mysteriously or conveniently in this case. And yeah, there's a lot to talk about because next time we're going to talk about what Michael Peterson claims happened that night because he was the only one that was there, what he claims happened. And then we're going to talk about what the police think happened based on what they walked into. And they're two

drastically different stories, right? What looks like happened and what Michael says happened. And then we're going to talk about what the defense experts say and what the prosecution experts say. And of course, they don't agree, but they're all experts. One final perspective on this case and many others that we've covered. Yes, there are cases like Summer Wells where it doesn't fit this, what I'm about to say. But I feel like when it comes to coverage, both from a linear perspective, whether it's on TV or on streaming services now, you're going to usually tend to see cases like this where the family members or the people involved are well off because there's something about seeing these people from the outside and everyone admiring them and inspiring to be like them because their life is so perfect

that to have this fall from grace, whether it was a horrific accident or something deeper than that, either way, what draws you to it is the fact that even people who have everything you could want in most situations, this is something more tantalizing. This is something more appealing to production companies. And that's why they get the coverage as opposed to something like a Summer Wells. I know Summer Wells was very popular, but are they going to do a Netflix series on it? Probably not. I mean, that's impartially because of the socioeconomic issues surrounding it. Not saying I agree with it, but I feel like with these types of cases, that's why they get the publicity they do, which is unfortunate, but because she was this smiling, wholesome, all-American girl. And she had this van life angle going. Yeah. And I get it. As a person who likes to tell stories and likes to build out that context, I get it. The more you have to work with, the better. And yes, this is a very seductive sort of case because I think you're right. People like to feel like, ah, rich people or well-off people

or people who have it all they're just like us they can be a messed up too and they can have messed up dynamics too and just because everything looks good on the outside doesn't mean it is on the inside personally for me I don't like that because it terrifies me because then it makes me feel like no matter what you do and how much you achieve like you're still at risk for you know becoming a victim you're still you're not safe risk for, you know, becoming a victim. You're still, you're not safe no matter what you do. And that's concerning, I think. But yeah, people are drawn to it. And I think a lot of people also want to feel like, well, that can never be me. I think a lot of these stories bring people to say, well, that that could never be me. Like I would never, you know,

be married to Michael Peterson. Like I saw that on some Reddit. Well, why does she even marry him? He's clearly a creep. People like to feel exempt from these crimes. That's not my life, so that could never be me. Why was she jogging at night? She shouldn't have been jogging at night. I would never jog at night, so therefore I'm safe. Why is she cheating on her husband? She deserved to get killed. I would never cheat on my husband. So I'm safe. So they like to find things and aspects of these victims lives to say, like, well, that's not my life. So I'm safe. But like you said, it's across the board. It doesn't matter where you come from. And that's kind of what the documentary makers were trying to show. Like, it doesn't matter what socioeconomic background you come from, what color your skin is,

you can still be unfairly charged with a crime and dragged through the justice system, no matter if you have the money for a good lawyer, if you have all of this clout in the community, it can still happen to you. And I think that people don't like that thought. They don't like to think that anything could happen and no matter what they do and what kind of life they lead, however moral it is, they can still become a victim or run into trouble. Well said. Guys, as always, we appreciate you being here. If you want to follow us on social media to keep up with all the things we have going on for season three, you can follow us at Crime Weekly Pod on Instagram and Twitter. If you want to follow along with Criminal Coffee,

we have some things coming out on Instagram. It's going to be drink criminal coffee on On twitter, it's going to be drink criminal. We also have a facebook page You might want to start checking out our crime weekly facebook page. We'll have more to come with that I'm not going to get into it all right now But stephanie and I are working on some stuff that our facebook page is going to be a lot more active We're going to be recording a shorter series on that's going to be a lot more active. We're going to be recording a shorter series that's going to be specific to YouTube and Facebook.

But again, we'll have probably a special announcement with all those details, right, Steph? We'll save that, kind of break it down, why it's something you guys should be aware of, because it's going to benefit you guys. We're going to be doing some more work. It's going to ultimately benefit you. But a lot to be thankful for, for 2022. When you're seeing this, it's going to be,

if you're listening to this, it's going to be on Friday. If you're watching it on YouTube, it's probably new year's day. So for us, very thankful for everything that's happened so far and looking forward to seeing where we go. Any final thoughts from you, Stephanie? No, I think that's good. Let's wrap it up. And I'm already like writing out what kind of format I'm going to do for part two. So that's what I'm doing now. But I'm like excited to dive into that. So let's wrap it up so I can start working on the next episode. Let's get it going. Guys, everyone be safe out there. We'll see you next week. Bye.