Crime Weekly - S3 Ep106: Kathleen Peterson: A Night In (Part 2)

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

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: Pretty Litter Go to Pretty Litter dot com slash crimeweekly to save twenty percent on your FIRST order. HelloFresh Go to HelloFresh dot com slash crimeweekly21 and use code crimeweekly21 for 21 free meals plus free shipping Helix Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners! Go to Helix Sleep dot com slash crimeweekly. With Helix, better sleep starts now. MagellanTV Claim your one-month free trial by clicking on the link here: https://try.magellantv.com/crimeweekly. Start your free trial TODAY so you can watch MURDER MAPS and all of MagellanTV’s other exclusive true crime content!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. part two of the Kathleen Peterson series. We're actually getting into the meat and potatoes of the case pretty early on, I guess, for us in a series to really dive into what happened the night of. I feel like part two is early, but that is what's happening because honestly, there's so much that happened after the night of that this is still early on in the case, discussing at least what Michael Peterson claims happened because it was only him and kathleen peterson there that night but before we get started i do want to just let everybody know in case you are either a not following us on youtube or b you don't have your notifications turned on derek and i have started a weekly segment that is exclusive to

youtube um so that means it won't be out on audio and we're calling it crime weekly news and it's just our opportunity to discuss with you guys uh what was basically happening in the news more current things or or you know cases that we don't have enough information to make full series about because what crime weekly does is deep dives we go very in-depth on cases but some of these cases are newly happening or they just don't have enough information about them to make these full-fledged series about yet and we still want to discuss them with you and you guys still want to know our opinion on them and we constantly are getting messages where you're asking hey talk about this talk about this

but we just don't have enough to make a series so we said we want to talk about this with with our people but we we can't make a series what do we said, we want to talk about this with our people, but we can't make a series. What do we do? So we're just making a new segment. It's called Crime Weekly News. It's only on YouTube. So if you're not following us on YouTube, go over to YouTube right now, type in Crime Weekly and give us a follow, turn on notifications so that you will be notified when we post a new Crime Weekly News segment. Now, we did post our most recent one about the arrest in the Idaho murders case, but that probably went up on this past Wednesday.

And as Derek said, when we were talking in that video, we're gonna get these up as soon as possible within a few days of recording them, but we don't always know when they're gonna go out. They're just gonna go out at some point during the week. So that's why we want you to have notifications on. And we'll also let you know on social media too, Twitter and Instagram when we post a new Crime Weekly News segment.

Yep. She said it. She said it all. Nothing else to add. Check it out. Tuesdays, Wednesdays around that time. Not going to be guaranteed. So I think the biggest takeaway is if you really want to be informed as soon as we put them up, because the information is kind of evolving that we're talking about, you want to catch them

early or they're going to be outdated. Have your notifications on, subscribe to the channel. It's the best way to do it. And I thought we had a great conversation about the Idaho murders. Again, not something we could cover in a multiple part series on Crime Weekly, the main thing we do, but definitely something worth talking about. A lot of you guys DM'd us. A lot of you guys have mentioned it in the comments. So the Crime Weekly News is our more journalistic approach to these crimes in the headlines and just give you the facts as we've learned them and weighing in on them a little bit. I think I said in the episode we recorded this week, it's my opportunity to shed some light on, even though there may not be a ton of information out there, I can tell you what may be going on behind the scenes,

which could be cool for you. So check it out. It's a fun segment. It's quick. So it's something, if you don't have two or three hours to sit down and watch one of our episodes, this is an easy digest. It's 20 to 30 minutes.

We're going to shoot for just a quick rundown of what's going on and a chance for you guys to weigh in, in the comments. Yeah, I agree. I was thinking I was echoing that same sentiment. I thought we had a really good conversation and we did go over the 30 minute mark, but just because this is such a big case and we've never talked about it.

It was the first one too. Yeah. We've never talked about it on Crime Weekly. It's so hard for us. Like it's so hard for us because we both like to talk and we do have a lot to say about it and especially a topic like that. But we're going to get it in there where this is specifically designed for people, again, crimes in the headlines, but also people who want to just come on for a quick video, trying to kill a half hour or so to get some updated news information on these cases that you're hearing about on maybe your local news channel or on Twitter or whatever. And so this is our opportunity to weigh in on it in a public forum. Yeah, we could have talked about it for another hour, to be honest.

We had to kind of, yeah, we had to edit ourselves there. But go check it out. Let us know what you think. And let's dive in to today's episode. Absolutely. Let's do it. All right. So like I said at the top of the episode, we're actually going over the timeline of the evening of December 8th, 2001, going into the early morning hours of December 9th, 2001. Now, December 8th was a

Saturday night, and according to Michael Peterson, he and his wife Kathleen decided to stay in that evening because, you know, there was a lot going on in their lives at that time. They needed to just relax and reconnect, heading into a busy holiday season. The day before, Kathleen had taken the afternoon off from work to do some Christmas shopping, and that evening, she and Michael had attended a party where they had danced until 1 a.m. On top of all of that, Kathleen was leaving for a business trip the following Monday, so that Saturday, she just basically made some pasta for dinner. They ate dinner, and then she curled up with her husband on the couch to watch America's Sweethearts, which was the DVD that Michael had picked up from Blockbuster earlier that day.

Now, while they were watching the movie, a woman named Christina Tomasetti arrived to pick up Michael's son, Todd, so that they could attend a nearby party. So there's like some weird stuff. Once again, this case is actually harder to cover than I thought it would be because there is so much conflicting information depending on what you're reading. There's two books that I'm reading about this case written by two separate authors. And then there's Michael Peterson's book that I'm reading. And all three books give different version of events. And then sometimes you'll go,

you go into the staircase documentary and that's giving a different version of events. But from what I can tell, Todd Peterson was the only kid out of all five who still lived in the Durham, North Carolina area. The rest had sort of like relocated out, but he didn't live with Michael and Kathleen Peterson. It looked like he lived someplace else. So he came over that night and then he waited for his friend Christina to pick him up,

probably because the party they were going to was close by. So he just said, pick me up at my dad's house. But first Todd came over and then Christina came to pick Todd up to go to this party. Now, Christina said she got to the house around 9.45 p.m. She noticed that Michael and Kathleen were sharing a bottle of white wine and they were also sipping champagne. Now, apparently they were in good spirits and having champagne because they were celebrating some great news. Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company was a book that Michael had co-written with a man named David Perlmutt, and this book had been published in late 1998. And David Perlmutt claimed that they had been in talks for over a year with a producer in LA named Stratton Leopold about optioning this book for a movie

and Perlmutt had just heard that it was a done deal so he called Michael on Friday December 7th to let him know the good news that they were basically taking this book that they had written and turning it into a movie now when he called on December 7th Kathleen had picked up the phone and David said he spoke to her for about 10 minutes. He said, quote, She must have been talking in the kitchen because I said, Is the old man there? Kathleen and I are the same age, and Mike was about 10 years older. And she said,

Yeah, the old man is here, but he's going to have to empty the dryer and mop the kitchen floor before he comes to talk. They always had a very playful way with each other, and I could hear him chuckling in the background." So when Christina Tomasetti saw Michael and Kathleen Peterson that night, they were toasting with champagne and in a good mood because this was going to mean a good windfall of money. And to be honest, Michael and Kathleen may have been looking for a lifeline financially. Although Kathleen made very good money in her role as an executive at Nortel, her job wasn't necessarily secure. The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9-11 had been devastating in more ways than one. According to a 2001 Fortune article, quote, It's impossible to overestimate the carnage on Wall Street.

Of the nearly 5,000 dead or missing, some 2,000 worked for financial firms, meaning that one Wall Street worker in 100 had been lost. More than 15 million square feet of office space was either obliterated or badly damaged, equivalent to the entire downtowns of Atlanta or Miami. Early estimates suggest that anywhere between $2 billion and $5 billion worth of telecom and computer equipment was destroyed. Nearly every company on Wall Street can count losses in some or all of these four key areas. People, equipment, real estate, and trading capacity, end quote. But you look at it and you say Nortel should have technically been okay because it was a Canadian company based out of Ottawa.

In fact, the year 2000, Nortel Networks was Ottawa's largest employer outside of the government. And on the first day of trading in January of 2000, Nortel Networks changed hands at $145.85 per share. At its peak during the tech bubble of 2000, Nortel reported about $30 billion in annual revenue and employed nearly 93,000 people. But even before 9-11, they were starting to slip, with their stock price falling 30% after the company warned of lower sales. And this is most likely due to, you know, the internet being a thing and there being less demand for telephone services. So when the economic system in the United States took a hit after 9-11, so did Nortel on the other side of the border. And it was a hit they weren't

prepared for because they were already sort of financially slipping. In the year before Kathleen Peterson's death, Nortel Networks had laid off 45,000 employees, a staggering two-thirds of its staff. And Kathleen had confided in her sister Candace that it was her concern that by the end of the year, she would not have a job. Although by December of 2001, Kathleen was still employed, her stock options with Nortel had dropped over a million dollars, and this was a huge blow to her because that money had been Kathleen's nest egg. Her retirement plans hinged on her stock options. Now, Kathleen's husband, Michael, reassured her that she was far too valuable to the company to be dismissed, and he was encouraged that Nortel would bounce back

and everything would be fine. But Kathleen was under a lot of pressure, which is something that Michael acknowledged in an email that he wrote to a family friend six days before his wife died. In this email, Michael said, quote, Poor Kathleen is undergoing the tortures of the damned at Nortel. They've laid off 45,000 people. She's a survivor and in no trouble, but the stress is monumental there, end quote. I will say this real quick because I've seen it with other individuals that I've personally known where sometimes the most valuable people are the ones that are let go, not because they're not

qualified, but because they're usually the highest compensated. So unfortunately, when it comes to dollars and cents, even though the people in charge, the shot callers may see the value in that person, they feel like they can have someone else do that job, maybe not at the same quality, but at a much lower price. So when you see companies like this making making big budget cuts usually it starts at the top because that's where they're most heavy as far as money is concerned so I think it's a you don't think about that with the World Trade Center and how it can affect how many people it really affected you could see a situation where Michael and Kathleen have a lot of overhead a lot of money going out and if she were to lose her job I could see as we said in episode one she was making big money for back then it would have a lot of overhead, a lot of money going out. And if she were to lose her job, I could see,

as we said in episode one, she was making big money for back then. It would have a dramatic impact on their lives. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's one or one of two ways that you could look at it. Outwardly, Michael appeared to be encouraging that like, oh, no, you're not going to lose your job. Don't worry. But like, I understand there's stress on her. He could have just been saying that to to put forth this outward appearance. But also maybe he knew at the end of the day, like she was going to lose her job. And at that point with her life insurance, she would be worth more dead than alive to him. I mean, it's horrible to say it. They are going to come forward.

The prosecution is going to basically say there's like two motives here. Money, and we'll talk a lot more about the money and the financial situation that they were in in the next episode when we dive deeper into the motives, but money is one motive, and then his bisexuality and alleged affairs with other men is gonna be like the second motive. If both of those motives were a thing,

this is not necessarily saying that there can only be one over the other, but if both of them are a thing, they're just reinforcing each other and it's like extra reasons why, you know, he doesn't want her alive. That being said, that would also assume that it's like premeditated, right? Where he's like, oh, I know that I need to take her out so I have her life insurance money. And not even really the prosecution kind of made it seem like it was premeditated. At the end of the day, they went with, you know, Kathleen discovered this stuff on her husband's computer. She confronted him. They argued.

And a fight ensued, which ended up with her not being alive. So it looks like the prosecution at the end of the day felt it was more motivated by Michael Peterson's sexuality than the money aspect. But it could be the other way around and they were just more focused on his sexuality than the money aspect. Well, I think we talk a lot about defense attorneys and how they'll throw out multiple things that may create reasonable doubt in the eyes of a jury member. It could be a different thing for a different jury member well the same goes for prosecution as well yeah they might have one narrative that they really trying to push but they'll throw out other things where it's like hey jury member if you're not biting on

to the whole financial motive maybe you'll bite on to this because it doesn't need to be one specific thing again you have a jury of multiple people who may respond to different things so you throw out both avenues and at the end of the day all the prosecution is looking for is a guilty verdict that's all they care about they don't care how you get there so they might throw out both options and let the jury member decide what's what one's more believable for them I will say one thing as you're reading this that I'm making notes of yeah could be financial obviously all that when I knew you were going towards motive but also I will say one thing as you're reading this that I'm making notes of. Yeah, could be financial.

Obviously, all that when I knew you were going towards motive, but also something as far as that night's concerned when we're talking about the idea that maybe Kathleen fell down the stairs accidentally. I don't know how inebriated she was, but it is important to note that she had been drinking and there was a celebratory drink situation going on there. So I know from my own personal experience, I'm not a huge drinker, but when I do drink, especially if it's in celebration, sometimes we can tend to drink a little bit more than we should, especially if we're at home. So when we're talking about your cognitive abilities, your balance, things like that, they would be inhibited by alcohol. So could that be a contributing factor in the accidental falling up down the stairs theory? Yeah, I do think alcohol would play a factor in that. So the fact that she had been drinking that night to me is very important. So because you brought it up, I'm going to address it. I wasn't going to address it until we got into the autopsy, but no, I mean,

it's normal. You're like an ex-police officer. That's obviously normal that you're going to say if she was drinking, she may have been compromised as far as her balance and things like that go. And, you know, David Rudolph, Michael Peterson's lawyer, made that same argument in court. However, the problem is they did test her BAC and it was only, I think, 0.07 or 0.08. So just like just under the legal limit to drive. So like if she had gotten pulled over, she wouldn't have gotten a DWI. However, she was wearing these like clear flip-flop things. And so some people say like, okay, oh, and then David Rudolph said she had like Xanax and stuff like that. And she was taking that stuff and maybe sleeping pills and things like that. Once again, we don't know how much alcohol she had consumed, but according to Todd Peterson,

who saw them that night, he said she was drunk. And Michael Peterson's going to claim that it looks like they shared a bottle and a half of wine. If she had that much to drink, I don't think her BAC would have been that low. So that is a question. Like, once again, is this just something you're saying so that you could support that this was like a cozy night in and this, this and that? Or did she actually drink that much? Or did, you know, the, the, by the time the Emmy got to her, had her blood alcohol content gone down? Who knows? I don't know. I would even say if everything's on the up and up and it's just 0.07, I still think that's something that could throw you off a little bit, not to the point where you're falling down,

but just enough to maybe throw you off a little bit more than you would be if you hadn't been drinking. And so it's still a factor. And then you couple that in with, like you said, her footwear, things like that. Just this wasn't the situation where we're looking at her husband for a potential murder. Could I tell you a story where I was like, man, I had a couple of glasses of champagne and I was wearing these like slippers that didn't really have a good grip on the bottom. And I was walking down the stairs and I was just a little off and I slipped and fell and hurt my back. Completely reasonable, right? I didn't die from it, but those contributing factors could have played a role in why she fell down the stairs that night as opposed to some other night. So just something to consider. We're going to always look for the holes in Michael Peterson's story as far as his potential guilt.

I think it's also important to acknowledge that there is a world that many believe that this could have been just a tragic accident. And if that's the case, I do think it would be irresponsible for us not to acknowledge certain things that were pointed out by, from what I know at this point, very early on, an impartial witness who had saw them drinking that evening and in a good celebratory mood. One thing that I want to say is the motive of it being about money seems less likely to me when we find out that they were celebrating the fact that Michael's book had gotten picked up to be turned into a movie, right? That's good money. Yeah, that's a great point, right? It's the money's coming. The money is coming. He was still actively writing. And yeah, your book's getting turned into a movie. That's going to be good money regardless of how you look at it, right? So there's that. I think it's a great point.

I'm glad you brought it up. And I'll even add on to it where usually when you find cases where the motive is financial, even if on the surface things look okay, when you start to dive into their financials, you can see that there's a lot of problems going on there on the verge of losing maybe their house or vehicles or something like that. I don't think we're going to go there with this case. Maybe we will. I'm sure you're going to bring up some stuff, but you also don't usually see a financial motive where a spouse kills a significant other because of the potential of them getting fired down the road.

They haven't even been fired yet. They're still making the money, but the idea that they may lose their job is an incentive to kill them preemptively so that it maybe doesn't look as suspicious before. I don't know. I often, but I guess that's why we cover these cases to get all the different perspectives and to kind of get different angles that sometimes offenders take and these different motives that we find out about because obviously everyone's different and they're motivated by different things. said earlier when you were talking and I forget exactly what you said but it made me think of how since I've gotten deeper into this I have changed my perspective a little bit because when I first came into this I said like I keep going back and forth I don't know and that was because really the only media I had consumed on it was the staircase and then I had done like a little extra work here and there and I heard David Rudolph talk at crimecon one year in New Orleans and so you know I had kind of talk at CrimeCon one year in New Orleans. And so I had kind of looked into those things, but I hadn't really gone deep into it like I am now.

And my opinion is slightly changing where I feel more like he could be guilty. And I feel bad about it. I feel like I'm turning against my dad because for the longest time- There were some YouTube comments on there there were some comments being like hey you guys got to watch some other things and so I can see where you might be coming from that because there are some people in our this is why I stay out of the comment section because obviously guys if I'm doing this I'm going to look at other things yeah before I do this like so this is why I stay out of the comment section in crime weekly though, man, because it's like, y'all know me, I'm not gonna just like watch the staircase and then be like, Michael Peterson is the best daddy ever.

You know, like, even though I kind of did that, but that was just my first impressions. Like I wanted to give you guys my first impressions and like my feelings going into it with what I knew. And it still feels hard to say that because it's like, I don't want him to freaking be guilty, man, because he's like such a sweetheart. But, you know, we know. Is he though? That's what we're here to find out.

Exactly, man. Well, let's let's take our first break. We'll be right back. We are back. So we're back to December 8th, December 8th, 2001. It was the perfect cozy at home night. Celebrate the good news, relax together before a busy day of Christmas decorating that Kathleen had planned for that next day, Sunday. Tomasetti left for their party around 10 20 p.m. and at that time Christina saw Michael opening up another bottle of wine and then returning to his movie. Michael was really glad that Kathleen would be able to just chill out that weekend and not think about work for a few days. She would be able to do something she looked forward to doing every year which was prepare their beautiful home for the holidays but then something happened that threw a wrench into her plans. When they had finished the movie, Michael and Kathleen walked into the kitchen to put away the wine and wash the wine glasses, and they noticed that the light on the answering machine was blinking. The message was from a co-worker of Kathleen's named Helen

Preslinger in Canada, and Helen said on this message, hey Kathleen, call me back as soon as possible. So at 11.08 p.m., Helen spoke to Kathleen on the phone and informed her that they had a conference call the next day at 8 a.m. and there were also documents that needed to be reviewed by Kathleen before that call. Now Michael said his wife was not happy about the work call that had been sprung on her. In his book, Behind the Staircase candles for our 48 windows, 36 nutcrackers for each step in the hallway, two large wooden reindeer for the outside, and all the lights and ornaments for the tree. This year, a 12-foot Fraser fir with its star would graze the living room ceiling. We loved decorating the house, especially the tree, because each ornament was special and

brought back a happy memory. We'd sip wine and joyfully retell stories of each, end quote. By the way, just because he just said sip wine and joyfully retell stories of each, it seems like Kathleen and Michael Peterson, they'd be drinking a lot, okay? Like, it seemed like opening a bottle of wine was kind of standard for them when they got home. Like, Kathleen would get home from work, pop open a bottle of wine was kind of standard for them when they got home. Like Kathleen would get home from work, pop open a bottle of wine. They'd be cooking dinner, drinking wine. We remember, you know, that that was one of the stories that their daughters had told about them.

Like, oh, they're drinking wine and cooking and everyone's laughing. They're drinking wine, watching the movie. They're having champagne to celebrate. They're drinking wine when they're decorating the Christmas tree. So it did seem like a very integral part of their lives, which also leads me to say that I don't think having a 0.07 or 0.08 BAC would make Kathleen super clumsy on her feet. Because as someone who drinks a lot of wine,

I can drink half a bottle of wine and easily. I mean, when I got to go upstairs, I got to crawl over like the dog fence so that the dogs don't get upstairs. And I'd be like clearing that fence. No problem. I'm light on my feet. I'm nimble because my body is used to it. Right. It's not as if I am a person that doesn't drink a lot and I have a glass of wine and I'm like tipsy.

I don't really even feel it when I've had two or three glasses of wine. So it could be that she was sort of, what do they call it when you built a tolerance to something? She built a tolerance maybe and she wasn't as kind of unsteady as somebody else might be after having three, four glasses of wine. I don't know. And I think there are a lot of factors to it. Like you said, tolerances, all these different things that we're never going to know definitively, but I will say 0.08, you know, you're not supposed to be driving a car. If you're a 0.08, you can be arrested for it. So is it reasonable to assume that at 0.07, you could be just a hair off, just a hair. It's the difference between your heel hitting the full step and slipping off the edge. I've had it where I can walk fine, but I'm just thinking about something as I'm walking down the stairs and I slip just because I'm a little bit off. Could that alcohol do that? Even though

she's perfectly fine, you could have a conversation with her. She looks great, but it just throws her off by a, by an inch, by a, by a half an inch and just causes her to miss a step slightly. We're not talking about if you had said to me, well, the, the, the situation in question was she, she accidentally walked off a cliff. I would say, okay, well, 0.07, that's not going to do it where she's not going to know she's walking off a cliff. That's a little hard to believe. Just kind of like to go flashback here, Robin Pope. She had a couple of drinks that that night. She didn't walk off the dock that she's walked down every single day. She wasn't that drunk from what we understand. She drove all the way to Maryland. We're not talking about a lot here. We're talking about something that could have been very minor, just a slip of a step that resulted based on how she fell in a serious injury. So I don't know her. You could

be a hundred percent right where she could drink. She could be at 0.07. You would never even know, but just maybe thinking about something, just a drink or just a combination of things. Just again, just a hair, just a hair off socks on your feet or something slippery where you catch. Cause these were wood stairs from the photo I was seeing, right? Yeah. Wood stairs. And they kind of do like turn a little bit. So they go straight, but then they like to kind of at this, I think, a little bit unnatural of an angle so that they kind of go into the kitchen. So, yeah, it does appear that, well, what the defense thinks happened is she was on her way up the stairs. And when she did that turn to go into the straighter part of the stairs, That's when she slipped. So. Oh, really? She was going up the stairs. Oh, that's interesting. Cause I wouldn't think she would have the moment. She'd only be at the bottom of the stairwell. She'd only go down a couple of steps. I won't even go there yet. I'll

wait until we get there. I mean, if an owl's flying into your head too, like you may, it doesn't matter how much wine you've had, right? It's true. It's true. But the wood steps, I also think are, I personally experienced it. Wood steps are dangerous's true. But the wood steps, I also think are, I personally experienced it. Wood steps are dangerous, man. They can get you, especially if you have some footwear on socks, socks and wood stairs, dangerous. I've personally taken some dives on the stairs where you just slip your edge of the, uh, the edge of the stair catches the back of your sock and you're off. You're sliding down those things and you can't stop. So dude, yeah, my sister was carrying Aiden down the stairs when he was like two and she slipped because she was wearing socks and he broke his leg because she fell down all

the way down the stairs and his leg got caught in like one of the spindles and his poor little leg broke. Yeah, it's crazy. But they also think because, you know, it's like that weird turn and it's like kind of narrow there. And then there's like crown molding and stuff on the wall too that there was blood on. So they think, you know, she could hit her head on that. Things like that.

A lot of things you can catch yourself on. Yeah. But the whole thing that may have started at the fall, could the drink have played a factor? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's just she was not paying attention. It doesn't have to be drunk. But again, all these things for the people who

want to automatically say Michael did it, you can't not acknowledge these things. Her autopsy report was 0.07. Could that have played a factor? Yeah, absolutely. You can't definitively say it wouldn't have. Yeah, I agree. That's why I go back and forth, right? And then we are going to talk next episode when we talk about the autopsy and how the defense expert witnesses sort of saw that autopsy and then how the prosecution expert witnesses saw it. You know, and of course, it's two different scenarios that they come up with. And I guess it's going to be up to us, like which one of these expert witnesses and their testimony is the most plausible, you know, based on what we know and like logic and common sense. I agree.

So Kathleen's on the phone with Helen. Helen's like, listen, we got this conference call tomorrow. You've got to review these documents before. Kathleen's pissed. You know, according to Michael, she's like, oh, this sucks. Like, I've got to freaking do this thing tomorrow and I don't want to do this thing. And he's like, don't worry about it. And he's like trying to calm her down.

And because Kathleen had left her own laptop at work, she asked Helen to send the documents that needed to be reviewed prior to the conference call to the family computer and the family email address that was on the home computer. Now, at that time, it was 1108 p.m. Helen Preslinger said that Kathleen sounded professional, she sounded normal, she didn't sound intoxicated at all, and Helen also didn't notice any tension between Kathleen and her husband, Michael. Helen said she heard Kathleen ask Michael what their home email address was, and he responded pleasantly. Now, at 11.53 p.m., Helen's email would arrive, but it would never be opened. According to Michael Peterson, after getting off the phone with Helen, Kathleen was still pissed about having the conference call the next day.

He said he talked her down, and he told her, don't worry about it, you know, we can decorate after the call, and then we can finish decorating and preparing the house for Christmas after you get back from your business trip to Toronto. Like I said, Kathleen was leaving for Toronto on Monday, and she'd be returning on Wednesday. But Kathleen was still wound a bit tight, so they decided to head out to the pool, which was one of their favorite places to hang out and to talk. And there at the pool, they could finish their wine.

Now, according to the layout of the house, the pool isn't actually that close to the main house. There's this big, long slate patio at the back of the house, the pool isn't actually that close to the main house. There's this big, long slate patio at the back of the house, and then you would need to walk down some stairs off the patio, sort of head down a hill, and the pool is actually down that hill closest to the opposite side of the house from the kitchen where Michael claimed they were when Kathleen called Helen. The opposite side of the house from where Kathleen would be found dead because she's found dead at the bottom of that staircase. That staircase leads into the kitchen. So the pool is actually over by like the library and in the library was Michael's office and also his PC, the PC that she claimed, you know, or that he claimed she had Helen send the email to. And then there's like a covered patio off the, at the like office in the library. But it's still, the pool's not right next to it.

It is down a hill a ways. So if you look at this Google Earth image, here is the Peterson home. This is the area where the kitchen would be. And over here is the library where the home computer was located, the covered patio. And then over here is the pool where Michael Peterson claims he and Kathleen sat and talked for about an hour after her call with Helen. So let's examine the timeline really quickly. If Kathleen spoke to Helen Presslinger at 11.08 p.m., that call couldn't

really have lasted more than five to ten minutes. But to be generous, let's put Michael and Kathleen out by the pool at like 11.30 p.m. Michael claims that they talked out there for about an hour, at which point Kathleen announced that she needed to get inside and go to bed so that she could be up in time for her call. Now that puts Kathleen walking inside the house around 1230 a.m. on December 8th. And Michael said he watched her walk in along with their two dogs, Wilbur and Portia, who were outside with them when they were out there drinking wine and talking by the pool. In his book, Michael Peterson said, quote, that last night had ended like so many with us sitting outside at the pool, happy and content, drinking wine, talking, our two English bulldogs snoring at our feet.

It was warm for December, nearly 60 degrees and clear. The pool fountain sparkling from underwater light. Around 1 a.m., Kathleen had got up to go in the house. Wilbur and Portia, our lethargic English bulldogs, raised their heavy heads to watch, but any effort to move was too much, so they stayed with me, also too lethargic to move. It was a beautiful magical night, with the pool shimmering and the stars glistening. I settled contentedly on the chase. I was so happy, my life so good. I loved my wife, loved my children. I loved my work. I had just heard that a book of mine had been optioned

for a movie i loved my house i loved my dogs i wanted this moment to last forever what did i say to her as she disappeared up the stone path something innocuous i'm sure good night love see you in the morning i'll stay out here a little longer and then put the dogs to bed i'll be up shortly end quote okay so michael Michael Peterson in his timeline has Kathleen going in at like 1 a.m., which begs the question, if she's talking to Helen Preslinger at 11.08 p.m., why did you wait so long to go outside? Because if you sat outside for an hour before she went in, and she went in at 1, then that puts you outside or starting to go outside at midnight. But she was on the phone at 11.08 p.m. So what happened in that, you know, roughly 50 to 45 minutes?

What were you doing before deciding to go outside? Now, maybe, you know, Kathleen was just ranting about how much she hated her job. Michael talks about this in his book, saying she hated her job and she was, you know, she liked the money, but she was too free spirited to work for like corporate America. And she hated how, you know, everything was very structured and she hated the like PR thing and how everybody had to be so like sensitive to other people. And I guess she'd had to take some like sensitivity training at some point and so he goes on and on talking about how she just would rant about hating her job so was she ranting about hating her job for like 30 to 40 minutes and then they went outside it's possible but he doesn't say

that you know he doesn't add that in his timeline he wasn't like she yelled about hating her job for about 30 or 20 minutes and then then we went outside. He just kind of makes it seem like she got the call, told Helen to email the stuff, and then they took the wine outside. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't have a big problem with this. I feel like in that 50 minutes, he did mention that he talked her down. So I'm assuming that conversation took a little bit of time to talk her down and maybe finish whatever glass they were on. And maybe they're sitting around the kitchen counter or whatever, back on the couch where it's a conversation that goes nothing crazy that happened in that time frame that was worth a lot of mention other than, hey, I talked her down after the call. And then they go outside.

That doesn't mean that's what happened. I'm just saying if we're to believe that this was all innocent I think it's it's explainable at this point. Nothing to me stands out where I'm like, hmm That's kind of a head turner where doesn't make a lot of sense It's an awful long time but I could see a 35 40 minute period where there's a conversation to talk her down and Also, I would assume they weren't in their bathing suits at that point. So there's a point where they got to go upstairs They got a change. No, they weren't swimming in bathing suits at that point. So there's a point where they got to go upstairs. They got to change. No, they weren't swimming in the pool.

They were sitting by the pool and talking. They didn't go in the pool at all. So they didn't change or anything to go out there. You don't think nothing. They just. Okay. So, yeah, I guess they wouldn't have to really do anything, but still 45 minutes of conversation about what just happened. I don't think that's like completely unreasonable.

And I said, I'm not saying it's team team Michael here. I'm just saying what I don't think that's like completely unreasonable. And I said, I'm not saying it's team Michael here. I'm just saying what I personally think after hearing that. It doesn't seem, it seems like something I would do. No, I want you to say what you think exactly because I'm torn, but I do have a certain feeling about this, which I will tell you when we come back from our next break. All right, we're back. So I've actually been in this position, Kathleen's position, a few times myself. I do have like a sort of unorthodox job where it's not like I have nine to five hours. And I mean, I've been in situations with you sometimes where you'll text me or call me at like 1130 or midnight and be like, I'm sending something over. I need you to look at it. Like I need a decision on this now. And even though I'm like, oh, I hate this. Like I'm so, you know, I'm down for the night. Like

it's the weekend. I don't want to work right now. I still have to go and see what you need so that we can move forward in whatever, you know, we're doing for this task or business venture or whatever. So I've been in positions where I'll get these calls late at night and I'll have to go and do something when I don't want to. And I just wonder why she would have Helen send the email with the papers and things that needed to be reviewed before the conference call. But instead of going and checking the email, printing them out or reviewing them, she would go right out to the pool and then say, you know, around 1 a.m. I'm heading in because I have to go to sleep. Was she planning to check the files then at 1 a.m.? Or was she just like, screw it, I don't need to review these. I'll just like wing it on the conference call or I'll get up early tomorrow and do it for me personally, my personality, I wouldn't be able to put it off till the next day because I'd be anxious about it. I'd be like, I at least have to get eyes on these documents, see if it's something I can sort of like, you know, wing and I don't have to actually,

you know, like read them in depth or is this something I'm not familiar with at all and I'm going to look like a fool tomorrow on this call if I don't review them now. So I'd at least have to like open up the attachment and see what it was before I decided like I'm cool to drink wine for the next hour outside by the pool with my husband. But she doesn't open the email even though it comes at around 11.53 p.m. Yeah, I can see that because I'm the polar opposite of you. Like you are that research person. You want to be prepared. And I can see myself being already upset that I have to handle it.

My husband just talked me down. The last thing I'm going to go do is open the email and see all this stuff I got to talk about now and piss myself off again. So I'm like, F it. I'll wing it. I know I know my job. I'll be able to at least get through it without looking like a complete idiot. I can manage, but I'm not ruining the rest of my night for this call the next day. So I'll get to it when I get to it. Maybe I'll come back in. Maybe she plans like coming back in and then she'll read it before going to bed. Or maybe she's like, hey, I'll get up early and read it in the morning. But either way, I would have done the exact same thing. I'm not going to go open it and piss myself off even more. Okay. Okay. That's interesting.

That is interesting. See, it is really a perspective. You would be out with your notes, emails, preparing. Yeah, that definitely would be you. No, because you don't even know what this is. It could be something that, I mean, maybe she got some indication from Helen what it was. I'm sure Helen, yeah, gave her a little heads up. She's probably not going into it completely blind. Okay. It's very subjective then because I would literally not be able to sleep until I saw what that stupid attachment was. Like it would haunt my freaking dreams. I wouldn't be able to relax until I had that out of the way. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm aware. I think people in the comments will,

I think you'll have a mixed bag on that one, which is normal because it depends on the person. We would have to know more about Kathleen and was she more like you where it was like, hey, I could get right on it. Or was she someone who was like, in this particular situation, very good at what she does. We know that. Where she just felt like, hey, listen, it's not a catastrophe. I'm going to be able to get through this. It might not be my best performance, but I'll manage. I'm going to finish my wine. I'm hanging out by my pool. And maybe I'll check it when I come back back and maybe I won't. We'll see. Yo, what did you say? Is she like you or is she just really good at her job and she doesn't need to check that?

Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that. Jesus, no, no. You're good at your job, but even though you're good at your job, you're still always very, you have to be on top of everything where she might just be looking at it, thinking in her head, I'm good at my job. I don't need to go look at it. I'll wing it. Where you're like, even though you know you're good, why am I explaining myself? You know it's not how I'm doing it. Jesus. No, I know. You're like, is she like you or is she good at her job? Yeah. I mean, listen, is she someone like you who sucks at

what she does and has to prepare for weeks on end? Or is she someone who's actually good at her job and can just get up and do what she's been trained to do? No, that's not what I meant. Just drink her wine and forget about it. I'm saying from her perspective where she's like, hey, I know what I'm doing. I got this. And to Michael's own omission, he said she was pissed off about it. So I could see a behavior where you're like, F that. I'm not going.

I'm not looking at it right now. I was just thinking that too. She seemed like kind of done with the whole thing. She's worried she's going to lose her job. She's all these people are getting laid off. I read that she had told her sister, she had to fire her own boss. And she was like, really, um, just kind of sick of the whole thing and, and stressed and probably, you know, so maybe she was like, fuck it. Like I, I'm not going to give one more freaking night of my blood, sweat and tears to this company. It can wait till tomorrow.

That's possible. It's possible. And I, yeah. And I was saying, I could see it too, where it's like, it's not this huge meeting that's going to be a life altering thing. She's probably figuring while I'm on the call, I can have the email open. I can get through it. I'm not going to upset myself anymore. I'm enjoying the rest of my evening. And they sprung this on me last minute. So honestly, how prepared can they expect me to be? Yeah. Was it 11 PM? You said 11 08? 11 08 PM when she finally spoke to her. Yeah. So it 11 p.m. you said? 1108? 1108 p.m. when she finally spoke to her, yeah. So Michael said that he remained outside for about an hour after Kathleen went in. He finally headed inside around 2 a.m., at which point he rinsed the wine glasses in the sink. He set them on the counter and then he began his normal before bedtime routine,

which was he would walk around the house, turn off all the lights, and then let the dogs inside through the den at the other end of the house. But he never got that far because as he moved to leave the kitchen, he saw Kathleen. In his book, Michael Peterson described this moment saying, quote, I saw her sprawled at the bottom of the back staircase in a pool of blood, motionless, eyes opened, stunned as if electrocuted my breathing stopped this couldn't be i had just seen her everything was fine what happened oh jesus jesus i closed my eyes to black out the terror but when i opened them she still lay on the staircase floor and blood was everywhere end quote now remember that in his book michael peterson said there was blood everywhere and this was something that every single person who walked into that house that night would also comment on.

The first responders, law enforcement, everyone. They said it was crazy how much blood there was. But Michael Peterson did not seem to mention the copious amount of blood at all during his 911 call, which we did play in the teaser of last episode, but we're going to play that again now because I do want to discuss, you know, Michael's words, his demeanor, what you think of how he sounds fell down the stairs. She's still breathing. Please calm down. Is she conscious? What? Is she conscious?

No, she's not conscious. Please. How many stairs did you fall down? Huh? How many stairs? Stairs. How many stairs? Calm down, sir. Calm down. No, 15, 20. I don't know. Please get somebody here right away. Please.

Okay, somebody's dispatching the ambulance while I ask you questions. It's a force field, okay? Please, please. Okay, so what do you think of this 911 call? Found it very believable. And I'm not someone who claims to be like a total like expert in like intonation and tone of voice. But I didn't feel like it sounded contrived. But I will tell you, I don't put a lot of stock in any of these 911 calls ever for any,

regardless of which way I'm going. I've heard so many 911 calls and we've dissected them. I think the one that I was apprehensive about as far as it being believable was Faith Hedgepeth with Karina Rosario. That was the one where there was no emotion. And I found that one to be very off-putting. And we brought in a couple experts in voice analysis who also agreed. But with these types of situations, just because I was a detective doesn't mean I'm an expert in voice analysis and I don't pretend to be. So in this particular

situation, I would defer to people who do this for a living. But just from my ear, I didn't pick up on anything that was completely off. He was asking the 911. He was telling the 911 operator multiple times what he had saw. And she was trying to, I thought it was a little odd that she was asking how many stairs. I know they always try to get as much information as they can, but I feel like she, she was really concerned about the, how many steps there was and how many steps she had fallen down. But I felt like he had said, like, my wife had fallen down the stairs.

Maybe she assumed that he had witnessed the fall and knew how many stairs she had fallen down. He was like, huh? What? How many stairs? I don't know. 15, 20? Like, he was like, I don't know. My wife's here dying.

Like, I'm not counting steps right now for you. That was my initial impression. Why? You're looking at me like I'm crazy. So obviously you don't know. My wife's here dying. Like, I'm not counting steps right now for you. That was my initial impression. Why? You're looking at me like I'm crazy. So obviously you don't feel the same. So, I mean, even like even when I wanted to believe he was innocent, even when I was like, oh, I this guy's got to be innocent. Like he couldn't have done this. Like it had to have been.

I thought that 911 call was suspicious, man. I thought it was so over the top. 15, 20. I don't know. Please get someone here right suspicious, man. I thought it was so over the top. 15, 20. I don't know. Please get someone here right away, please. He sounds like an old like black and white movie actor. I don't know. 15, 20, please. Like, I don't know. It's just so like over the top. Okay. So the part that I found believable, you didn't. You found that part believable.

Yeah. I felt like he was like, what? 50? And he's probably really off with the stairs too, because 20 stairs from that photo looks like a lot. But I think when you're focused on one thing, you have tunnel vision about something. Unless you've purposely counted the stairs in the past, most people wouldn't know how many steps there are. Although I do think on each landing, at least in an apartment complex, it's usually 13 stairs. It sounded like he was acting to me.

Okay. Fair enough. So that's interesting because I thought that it was obvious that he sounded like he was acting to me. Okay, fair enough. So that's interesting, because I thought that it was obvious that he sounded like he was acting, even if he wasn't, you know, some people just have that. And you can see, even in his writing, man, he's dramatic, and he's flowery. And he's like, Oh, I was so lethargic. I just couldn't move like the bulldogs were lethargic. And it's like the sparkling water of the pool and the stars. And that could just be his personality. Like he could just be like a very like dramatic extra

kind of person. But even if, if, you know, taking all that aside, like I thought it was like just kind of objective that he sounded over the top, like he was acting. So I'm interested to hear in the comments section. What do you guys think? And I'm not being sarcastic here. I'm genuinely asking, what is the normal reaction in that situation? No, I think that this is the normal reaction. I think that this is how somebody would react.

The words that they would say, even like the heavy breathing, I think that is spot on. It just felt like he was going too hard, doing too much. Like there wasn't a director there to say, hey, pull back. You know, you're going a little a little overboard. Like, you know, make it more believable, make it a little bit less. But wouldn't you expect them to be overboard if they just found their significant other in a pool of blood? Like that's

what I'm saying. Like you would lose yourself, right? Like you would be over the top. Like I'm surprised he wasn't more like, why the do you care about the stairs? Get somebody here now, you know, help me help her. Like, what do you care about the stairs? I couldn't tell you exactly what it was. It didn't ring true to me. I'd be losing my mind to be honest. If somebody asked me about the stairs for sure. Oh, I mean, we talk about this all the time with 911. Like when she's like, calm down, sir. And it's like, what are you talking about? Calm down. Like don't waste time telling me to calm down. I'm not going to calm down, you know, but they she's like calm down sir and it's like what are you talking about calm down like don't waste time telling me to calm down i'm not going to calm down you know but they need you

to calm down so you can give them the information and things like that but you know at that point you're like my wife is laying at my feet in a pool but he doesn't mention the blood right he says she fell down the stairs she's not conscious but she's still alive but at no point does he say like there is a massive amount of blood here. Please hurry. And you think that that would be something you would mention, right? Yeah. So that they understand the urgency of the situation.

Like, you want them to hurry. And maybe telling them there's a shitload of blood there is going to make them hurry. That's possible. It's always hard for me to say I've never been in that situation that where someone I care about so deeply. I've seen I've walked into bloody crime scenes, but and you had to work on someone immediately, but never someone that I cared about that much. I think the closest thing I've had to it was one year. Jana accidentally, well, she didn't accidentally, but she put one of those like stocking holders on top of a shelf like the metal ones. And and the stocking was hanging there. And unfortunately, Tenley walked by and those like stocking holders on top of a shelf like the metal ones and and the

stocking was hanging there and unfortunately tenley walked by and pulled the stocking and it was like a cast iron like you know weight at the top there and it had a corner on it and it split tenley and your head bleeds so much when it bleeds even if it's small but i walked around the corner and she looked like carrie from the movie and i lost my mind i was like what the fuck i was like i i went numb so i imagine if i had gotten on a phone call how how bad how poorly i would be at relaying what was going on i don't know that's the best example i try to put myself would you have said like there's a lot of blood on her i don't know that's what i'm saying i don't know i don't know how i react i'd like to think that if i if they called like if i called i. I'd be like, Hey, this is what happened.

This is the situation. We got blood here. Like how I would respond if it was someone that I'm dealing with on the street, like in a personal, like a professional encounter. But I feel like when it's someone you care about all that training, all those things you think that, you know, to do in a, a very stressful situation as a cop, those go out the window when it's someone you personally care about. That's, that's at least how I feel. I've had it happen to other officers where they were

hurt, whatever it is, it's, it's different. It just, you react differently, but the whole voice analysis, the, the, the judging of people on these 911 calls, I definitely don't try to make a living doing it because I always feel like it's not, there's people who train to do this, who have actually like done this for many years and who are way better equipped to say whether or not. And I'm assuming I don't know if we'll cover it in this series, but I'm assuming multiple experts have weighed in on this 911 call. Right. Is that fair to say? Am I? Yeah. Yeah, I suppose. I would I would assume. And what's there? Are you do you want to go there yet? Or I have no idea. Honestly, I don't know what anyone else besides me thinks about that 911 call. I try not to look at opinions until I'm a little bit deeper in the case.

I try not to look at opinion pieces and things like that until I'm a little bit deeper just so I'm not swayed. But I am interested to see what everyone listening and watching thinks. I don't think we're judging him. I mean, it's just like my initial like, dude, when I first heard that, I remember because I was in the shower and I was watching the staircase and I watch my phone when I'm in the shower. So I was watching it and the 911 call came on and I remember like turning around and looking at my phone and being like, what was that, dude?

Like, I just remember feeling so like it was disingenuous, but that's neither here nor there. That's just my snap reaction. Can I ask you a quick question before we move on? Yeah. I was thinking back to Connie debate while you were talking about this, because I looked at, you know, when you put up the Google maps of this house, it's obviously huge. So I'm assuming there was some type of security system in the house.

Maybe there wasn't, but I'm interested to know, because obviously just like with Connie debate, you had situations where the alarm, even though it wasn't active, you could see points where the sensors were being triggered because doors and windows were opening constantly that morning. But I saw your reaction. If you're watching on YouTube, it seems like no, maybe not something that would suggest what I'm getting at here is he wasn't at the pool. There's activity between 11 and 1 a.m. where someone is constantly opening doors inside and outside the house that would suggest maybe Michael wasn't at the pool the

entire time. That's basically why I was asking. Yeah. I don't think there was a security system. Also, we have to remember it's 2001, so it's less technology happening right here. Not every single person had a, it's not like everybody had a ring doorbell camera like they do now. So it didn't appear that they did have one. Although what we're going to talk about later makes me surprised that they didn't because Mingya, this guy like went off in article after article as he wrote as a columnist talking about how bad the crime was in Durham. I would think in a house like that, you would have some type of security system. But you would think it's a pretty, yeah, pretty well-known house. I mean, even I read a newspaper article where his house was featured and they like interviewed

him about the house because it's supposed to be like a pretty popular house. So, yeah, I don't think that they had a security system. But either way, I am interested because I feel like you're leaning towards kind of like you believe him right now. And that's great because once again, I still don't know what to think. I think as we get more into it and we pull back the curtain, it's going to make him that's where it starts to make Michael look incriminating. I think on the surface, things may add up. But then when you start looking at the things that were going on behind closed doors, that's where you start to go. Oh, OK. Now I can see some potential motive here.

So I'm just looking at the night in question. And, you know, we're very early into this. So we'll see where it goes. All right. So let's go over the timeline again. And I'm kind of re-evaluating because you say you think it's possible that they were out at the pool at 12 and they didn't go right out after the call. So let's say that his timeline, what he says is they're out by the pool around midnight. Kathleen goes inside around 1 a.m. And he follows her at 2 a.m.

Now, the first 911 call from Michael Peterson didn't happen until 2.40 a.m. and he follows her at 2 a.m. Now, the first 911 call from Michael Peterson didn't happen until 2.40 a.m. That seems like a long time to, you know, if you went in at 2 and you rinsed out the wine glasses and then you went to go start your, you know, turning off the lights and stuff and that's when you saw her, that does not take 40 minutes to rinse out wine glasses. So if you went in at 2 and the first 911 call doesn't happen until 2.40 a.m., that seems like a long time to know that your wife is lifeless in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs and not call 911, even if you didn't go inside until 2 a.m., even if we're kind of giving them like a 45 to 50-minute window after that call with Helen Preslinger to go outside by the pool,

even if his timeline is correct. That's still a long time to go inside, not see her dead at the bottom of the stairs, which is going off the kitchen and not call 911. I agree with you there. I agree with you. Yeah. I think even if we think more, because I think the timeline you said earlier too, was like like she might have gone in even closer to 1230. It would be off by half an hour. Yeah. So you're giving him even more leeway where we're saying, hey, let's say you're off. Let's say you're off by a half hour, right?

Still put you inside around 2 a.m. Yes. And yeah, this was a big house, but it wasn't a mall. So you would think he would go downstairs, put the thing, you know, the wine glasses away. He goes into the kitchen. Yeah you know, the wine glasses away. He goes into the kitchen to rinse the wine glasses out. Kathleen's body's at the bottom of the stairs. Those stairs enter into the kitchen. So he's not even having to go into a different room. Right. But from what you're telling me, I haven't seen the kitchen, but people believe that she was coming up the stairs. So is it safe to assume that the stairwell

there? No, dude, her body is out of the door because it's like a door, right? If you look and we'll put a picture up or I'll have Shannon put a picture up. But if you look, it's like the kitchen. And then there's a couple of doors off the kitchen. One is like a cupboard pantry. And then one is that that doorway that goes up to the staircase. And it's like the doorway and then the staircase is right inside. There's no like entryway. So when she falls down the stairs and as the police will tell you later, her body is sort of like half on the staircase but half like off. Like going into that exit way that you would see her blatantly and clearly from the kitchen. So she comes down the stairs and the door that separates the stairwell from the kitchen,

you're saying there's a door there, right? But it's not a closed door. It's just like an open doorway. So her body would be there. Yes. With the blood. Yes. And he would have to walk right by that.

Yeah. I feel like as soon as you come into the kitchen, you're going to see that, you know? I got to see the photo. Definitely. I want to see the photo and I'm sure it's going to be up on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube right now, but this is, that's important because it's a big house. I don't see in my small house, how I would miss someone laying in the kitchen. It would be impossible actually, but I also don't have what we call the rich people problems where it could be so big.

It's often the distance, but I will again, admit that seems kind of hard to believe. And even if he had gone upstairs, not seen her and then go, where the hell is Kathleen? Come back down. Now he's doing a more, you know, conscious look around the area. He would see her almost immediately to say two, two 15. Your first reaction is to call, you know, check on her and immediately call 911. So at worst case, 220. Yeah. He says he comes in around two, rinses the wine glasses out, and then he's going to go and start his bedtime routine of turning all the lights off and letting the dogs inside. But before he can do that, he sees her body. Why did it take 40 minutes for you to rinse out some wine

glasses and see her body? I agree. Yeah, that seems like an awful big window. I agree. So besides Michael Peterson, the last person to see Kathleen Peterson alive was Michael Peterson's son, Todd's friend, Christina Tomasetti, 10.20 p.m. That's when she saw Kathleen Peterson alive. And the last person to talk to Kathleen besides Michael was her co-worker, Helen, at 11.08 p.m. So we know that Kathleen was alive at 11 p.m. But between 11.08 p.m. on December 8th and 2.40 a.m. on December 9th, we really don't know what was happening. And to throw another wrench into the timeline, at 10.40 p.m., Kathleen logged into the family computer.

And we assume that it was kathleen logging in because whoever used the computer logged in with the password at water which was her previous surname and the surname of her daughter caitlyn now according to the prosecution this computer login is significant because it shows the moment that kathleen peterson found evidence on her husband's computer that he was communicating with other men for the purposes of sex. But if we are to believe that, we also have to believe that this discovery didn't immediately start an argument, right? Because Kathleen spoke to her coworker, Helen, after this. And Helen said that Kathleen seemed fine. There didn't appear

to be tension or problems between Kathleen and her husband, Michael. And Kathleen's talking to Michael like, hey, what's our email here? What's our family email? And he's answering her. And they don't seem to be in this huge fight, whereas the prosecution makes it seem like she found it, confronted him with it. He starts arguing with her and then she's dead. I could see it both ways. I could see a situation where it's definitely not something in his corner where if she logs in there and find something, it could be the start of something. Maybe during the call, she puts on a professional hat because she has to and she's able to get it over on the caller that there's an argument going on and maybe that's why she's frustrated. Maybe that's why I know she said she didn't hear anything

in the call that would suggest she was upset but you know maybe she wasn't listening hard enough I don't know but that could be the start of something and then it progressively got worse when she got off the phone I also see the other side of the coin where it's like hey if this is something that we believe uh the night was going great she sees the email she sees the the communication she sees what she sees on the computer. And it immediately turns into a full blown out war that results in her death. They're not going to pause that fight that's escalating by the second to take the phone call. She wouldn't even have picked up.

Well, she didn't pick up. Remember, there was a message. She heard the message and then called Helen back. But I agree. That's true. It still stands, right? Like you're not going to stop the argument. So there's some thought there where there was time to calm down, time to take the Helen back. But I agree, it still stands, right? Like you're not going to stop the argument. So there's some thought there

where there was time to calm down, time to take the call back and find out what's going on. Would she have been concerned about calling back if she had just found what she allegedly found on the computer? I don't know. I don't think I would at that point.

I'm handling that first. No, I would not. I would not. I wouldn't worry about anything like until I have some answers and you know We have some like, you know, you know figure out what's going on here Like no, I'm not worried about anything other than that and I don't think you can even be capable of sort of compartmentalizing at that point if

The argument was as heated as the prosecution wants to make it seem this doesn't seem like it's something they sort of Calmly talked about, you know, if it's ending in her dying. Right. I do think the call at 1108 is significant for with Helen, because if you don't have that call, I think this this this theory holds a lot more water. Having that call complicates things because it goes in the face of the idea that this was an argument that started and escalated and resulted in a murder. So you have that call in between it. It doesn't, it doesn't go well for the idea that this, whatever happened on the computer, whatever was found resulted in some assault with her being. I mean, the other problem is that computer refresh my memory, that computer where,

where is it located again? In the library, Michael's office. Which is upstairs at the top of those stairs or? It's on the other side of the house. She's found in the kitchen. She's found at the bottom of the staircase in the kitchen, which was the most commonly used, you know, this beautiful structural thing, but it wasn't like what was everyday used. Did they bring a biomechanical engineer in for this case? They did. Yes.

The defense did. All right. The biomechanical engineer, because I'd love for them to kind of weigh in on the injuries based on the staircase, because they're great at letting you know how the person fell. I used a biomechanical engineer multiple times on cases and they really can use heat maps and all these things to kind of determine how the person fell based on their injuries. So I wonder if they ever substantiated that she fell backwards or going up the stairs as opposed to coming down them. Well, that's what I'm saying right the the wounds the injuries based on her autopsy the prosecution expert witnesses and the defense's expert witnesses saw those wounds and her injuries two

completely different ways and that's yeah that's why I said like when we figure out what what they see and what they interpret those injuries to mean we're gonna have to decide who we believe the most and what what makes the most sense because honestly like you're just you're just gonna get opinions from people who are you know sort of i don't know like suggestible to go one way or the other but they did have dr warner spitz and dr henry lee for the defense so um you know and we did touch on what henry lee had said when we talked about this during the first episode, but we are going to go into what each side believes happened, what the prosecution experts say, what the defense experts say, and then it's going to be, like I said, up to us to decide You'll have experts both qualified in their fields. The defense will find someone who sides with what they believe. And then the prosecution will find

another expert that will side with them. You see what use of force cases as well, because at the end of the day, they're experts, but their opinions are still just that their opinions based on their expertise. And they could they can both be experts and still interpret the case in different ways yeah and i mean i will say like just one thing if you're looking at the timeline there is a world there's a possibility where kathleen goes on the computer at 10 40 and then they go back and watch the movie and then she's got to take the call and then she goes back to the computer after um she gets the call like I said I would right and maybe that's what she's doing in that time before she goes outside but she doesn't even get to that email or maybe you know because Helen didn't send it until

almost midnight maybe it wasn't there yet so she was waiting on it and while she was waiting on it maybe she was going through the other email in Michael Peterson's inbox because this is his inbox at this point, his email that Helen is sending this to. So she's waiting for the email from Helen to come in, and she's just scrolling through trying to kill time, thinking Helen's sending it right away, even though we know she didn't. And that's when she sees things in Michael Peterson's inbox that she has a problem with. She goes downstairs, confronts him, or she calls him up. he goes and goes up and she's confronting him. What is this? What is this motioning at the computer? And that's when they fight. Maybe he chases her

to the staircase. She goes down. Maybe he pushes her down, whatever. But there is a world where that's a possibility that she did go on the computer again after that 1040 time. And that's why when Helen talked to her at 1108, she sounded fine, but it wasn't until after 1108 when she was waiting for that email that she went back on the computer. But wouldn't there be, you said there's no proof of that though that she went back on the computer? She wasn't logged in, she didn't log in again.

She could have still already- She didn't log in again. She could have still been logged in from the 1040 time. Yeah, that's even more plausible than what I was gonna say. I was gonna say maybe it's something where she finds something and as she's finding it, she's going through now what she found. She's reading everything. And while she's doing that, she doesn't answer the first call, but then calls back.

After the call with Helen is when she confronts Michael because she was kind of researching beforehand. But I think even your scenario is even more plausible where maybe she didn't have that moment of realizing what was happening until after the call with Helen, the first call. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, she's waiting for the email, right? If I tell Helen to send me a freaking email because I got to be up at 8 a.m. for a conference call, you better be sending that shit right after I get off the phone with you. Why is Helen waiting 45 damn minutes to send this freaking like information that needs to be reviewed before an 8 a.m. call? Why are you sending it close to midnight, Helen? So if I'm Kathleen, I'm sitting there like, okay, Helen, where's the email? Where's the email? And

I'm getting impatient and I'm scrolling through the email that's in there, which is Michael's email. And you know, you see something because he was on a bunch of porn sites. He was communicating with like a bunch of male escorts and stuff. If she was to find something, it would have been in his inbox. It's a great point. It's a great point, a very plausible theory. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay, we're back. And the first two people on the scene were James Rose and Ron Page, paramedics with the Durham County Emergency Medical Services. As they were arriving at the Peterson residence, Todd Peterson and Christina Tomasetti were also returning home after their party. Now, in all accounts, the paramedics claimed that Todd Peterson brushed

past them and charged through the open front door, which James Rose and Ron Page noticed had blood on it. Straight ahead, through the front door, the two paramedics could see the large main staircase leading to the second floor. That's the one in the foyer. And to their left, after entering the home, there was a hallway leading down to the kitchen. And off that hallway near the kitchen was an enclosed narrow stairway also leading to the second floor. And this is where they saw Kathleen lying at the bottom of the stairway. According to the paramedics' report, quote, her legs were out into the hallway and her head was just inside the encased open door frame where the first few steps are located. The stairwell runs parallel to the hallway but has

a few angled steps at the bottom designed to open up the staircase perpendicular to the hallway. Defendant Michael Peterson was seen standing over Kathleen in a semi-knees-bent position, with blood on his hands, arms, legs, and feet. He wore shorts and a t-shirt, partially blood-soaked with splatter spots. End quote. According to Michael Peterson, even before he had called 911, he had gathered Kathleen in his arms to see if she was alive. He said at that point she was limp and dying, and he knew what death looked like because, quote, I had seen it many times in Vietnam, and one of my sergeants in Japan had died next to me in a terrible car crash, end quote. He held Kathleen for a moment, called 911, then held her in his arms again, staring into her

sightless eyes, urging her to silently live. But by the time the paramedics and Todd arrived, Kathleen was gone. And in fact, if you go back to what we talked about in part one of this, Michael Peterson called the 911 and said she was still alive. And then I think it was like six or eight minutes later, he called back and said she was no longer alive. So we need that time frame because of what these medical professionals are going to say. So when Todd Peterson got there, he pulled his father away from Kathleen's body and said, Dad, she's dead. The paramedics are here. Once Michael Peterson had been pulled away from Kathleen's body, paramedics Rose and Page determined very quickly that Kathleen had no pulse and she wasn't breathing. Both men noticed a large amount of blood at the scene,

which was unusual for an accidental fall, but they also noticed that some of the blood was dried. Because she had dressed for a relaxed night in, Kathleen was wearing white sweatpants, a navy blue sweatshirt, and clear flip-flop sandals. Her sweatpants were covered in blood. Now here is paramedic Rose explaining what he observed that night. When we arrived at the location, we had a little bit of difficulty finding the house due to a Christmas wreath that was hanging over the numbers to the residents. It probably didn't delay us 30 seconds to a minute at the most. It was just a matter of counting numbers back and going into the correct driveway.

Go ahead and finish if you would, describing the scene that you saw here. Okay, an enormous amount of blood involved. A lot of the blood that were on the walls were dried. The blood under her head was technically termed coagulated. It had already clotted and started to harden. And there was also a towel on the patient's head that was soaked through. As I said, I was standing on this side of the patient and my partner was standing here and we can see that it was dry blood on the steps and also on the wall and it also looked like it had been wiped away or wiped on it had

been smeared instead of just blood droplets or just soaking down the wall okay and as you can see it's a little bit better there you can see the smear marks on the wall paramedic rose described that not only was some of the blood dry but the the blood on Kathleen's head wounds had started to coagulate, and there was blood on the wall that looked as if it had been wiped up. A few other things about the scene at the bottom of the staircase that stood out was a blood-soaked roll of paper towels near Kathleen's leg and a bloody bathroom towel under her head, which Michael later admitted to having placed there. He also admitted that he attempted to wipe up the blood in the stairwell with paper towels. Both Michael Peterson and Kathleen Peterson were barefoot. Kathleen's flip-flops were near her body, and there was blood on the bottom of her feet. Michael's socks and sneakers were also near Kathleen's body, so he had taken them off at some point. Once he ran to her after he came inside,

he took off his socks and his shoes for some odd reason. Additionally, a bloody shoe print that matched Michael Peterson's tennis shoes, which we know had been removed and discarded by the time first responders arrived, that was found on Kathleen's sweatpants on the back of her leg. Additionally, when the paramedics talked to Michael Peterson, he told them he had just stepped outside to turn off the pool lights. And when he came inside, he had found Kathleen at the bottom of the stairs. And reportedly, it was only when he heard that some of the blood was dry that he changed his story to say that he'd been outside for an hour after Kathleen had come in. But what he couldn't change was the claim he'd made to the 911 operator, which was that when he called initially, Kathleen was still alive. So that is very suspicious to me because the paramedics do say in their report, they were like, what happened? And he was like, oh, I don't know. I just went outside to turn off the lights. And when I came in,

this is how I found her. And it seemed like he modified this story when he heard that the blood, some of the blood was dry because if she was just dying as you talk to 911, by the paramedics, the time the paramedics arrived, which wasn't 10 minutes later, why would that blood be dry at that point? When he figured out that some of the blood was dry, that's when he came up with this whole, oh, we were outside sitting by the pool and she came in an hour before I came in. That's when he said that story. But we do remember when he talked to the 911 operator at 2.46, he said she's still alive. So he couldn't kind of change that. He couldn't change his 911 call. So a couple things there. One, she could still be alive, but have some of the blood be dry.

If she had injured herself an hour before where she was progressively losing blood, maybe it wasn't a lot right away. Maybe it was a slow bleed, but she was unable to get a hand or something over the wounds. She could have bled out slowly. And yeah, some of the blood, especially the thinner blood on the floor, it dries fairly quickly and starts to coagulate fairly quickly. The issue that I do have is what you brought up is the fact that he initially says he walks in, she's still alive, which is fine. But allegedly he told paramedics from what you're saying that he walked out, he was just changing, you know, shutting off the pool lights, came right in almost as if he came in right behind her. That's a little less believable because yeah, you wouldn't have

the blood be immediately dry at that point. But I will say in my experience, even personally and professionally, you have a situation where you have a nosebleed and you might drip blood onto like a wooden floor or a tile. And then like five minutes later, after the blood stops in your nose, you go to clean up the mess that was kind of left behind. And you'll the whole blood droplet won't be dry, but you usually get like a bloody dried ring. I don't know if you've ever seen that before. And that's only after a couple minutes. So take that all about an hour. And if the blood is thin, it will dry fairly quickly when it's exposed to the air. The changing in stories is more concerning than the blood drying or not drying to me. Cause I, I know it does. That does happen fairly fast. So it's interesting that the paramedic would make that a thing. Maybe he made that a thing because he he made that a thing because he was told initially he came right in after she allegedly fell. So that would be a concern to have that much blood being dried, especially congealing. I think drying and

congealing are two different things, although they do kind of get swapped around. The clotting, the clumps of blood is different than just a couple of dry spots where the blood is thinner as far as the droplets. So maybe that's why the paramedic emphasized that. I also think what's interesting, the cleaning up of the stairs, you're in the moment, you're trying to render aid to your wife. I'm not worried about any mess in the area of blood, whatever it might be. I'm not worried about cleaning that up. If anything, I'd be wiping the blood away from her to try to locate the injuries. But as far as the stairs and stuff, I'm not touching any blood away from her to try to locate the injuries. But as far as the stairs and stuff, I'm not touching any of that.

So that is probably the biggest red flag of that whole thing is that it looks like it might have been some attempt to clean up some of the blood. And what he has told us was a very short period of time between him finding her, him calling 911 and them arriving. Right. There's like, like I said, 10 minutes between when he calls 911, which is allegedly when he first saw her, you would hope. Allegedly, yeah. Right. And then when the paramedics arrived, so you had time to take your socks off, to take your shoes off, to get a towel, put it under her head, to get the paper towels and start wiping up the blood while you're making this call and also cradle her and hope that she's still alive and then she dies and you call 9-1-1 again and this is all happening in like a 10-minute period that i find incredibly hard to believe not even to add to the changing stories not even to add to the

wiping up the blood not even to add to the what the hell are you doing between two o'clock and 2 45 when you call when you said you came in and when you called nine on one, you know, like all of that together, it looks really bad. Doesn't look great. Doesn't look great. There's a couple of things in there that definitely, as I said earlier, didn't really wasn't really a head turner. Some of these things get a little more confusing and a little bit more suggestive that maybe there's more than he's telling. Now, why is that? Is it because there's something incriminating there? Is it because he doesn't really remember? And now he's second guessing himself like, oh my God, by me saying this, I'm looking like I did something I didn't do.

Sometimes you're your own worst enemy where you actually get yourself in more trouble by trying to be transparent because you feel that your lack of transparency or your lack of remembering could be interpreted as malicious and lying. So you're trying to fill in the blanks because you want to be forthright. And yet it actually, you dig a deeper hole. You should just be honest and say what you remember and whatever you don't, that's fine. Yeah. There's a couple of things in there. I can see where people are looking at that information and saying, yeah, this doesn't add up, especially the timeframes. And you would remember distinctly, it was an hour between the

time that I came in and she came in or it was right away. I'll also say in his defense that she could have been on her last breath, literally and figuratively when he made the call where she could have been slowly dying before he came in. If he did come in an hour later where it just so happened that he caught her at the very end. And by the time, time you know seven minutes later she did pass away because he he came it was too late that it that is still plausible based on what we know what we've been told if we believe that our window thing it is still plausible it doesn't explain the changing story i agree with that that's i don't know how you confuse that the only explanation i

could give and i'm not trying to give him an out here, is that the paramedics misheard him. That's the only thing. But we can't make that leap for them. If they're saying that's what they heard, we have to believe them because they have no incentive to lie. But you also have to look at the timing and say, okay, if you'd called at 2.46, she was still alive and you called like six minutes later and you said she wasn't alive anymore, would you be spending any of those precious minutes like getting paper towels and cleaning blood off the stairwell? Nope. Got no rebuttal for that one. Completely agree. That's why I said it. I don't know why you're touching any of the blood. If it's smearing, if he admitted that he was trying to clean up the stairs, that's one thing. Or could it have been him moving her?

That's a different thing. But from what we're hearing, he said, oh, I was cleaning up some of the blood on the stairs. Why were you doing that? Why were you cleaning the blood on the stairs? Yeah, because they're like, where the hell the paper towels come from? And he's like, well, I was trying to wipe the blood up, you know? And, you know, what was the other case? Danielle Redlich, right? Where she claimed it was self-defense and like she didn't call 9-1-1 and she spent like hours trying to clean the blood up, you know? And then in that situation, you know, she says, well, I was traumatized. I was a woman who, you know, experienced domestic abuse. So I was traumatized and your mind doesn't make sense of what you're doing and you do things that don't make sense,

but we can't just use that excuse all the time and say like, I was traumatized. So, you know, I was cleaning up the blood, not thinking about what I was doing because I was traumatized. And it's like, well, how often are we going to use that excuse when you're the only person in the house with this person who's dead? Yeah. And that could be another situation. It's great you bring up Danielle because it is another situation where we've talked about premeditation, where it could be financially motivated into why he killed her. It could also be a situation where you've kind of gone towards it where she confronts him, There's an argument, it gets violent and it results in an accidental death where there wasn't an intention to kill her, but due to the violent

acts of the argument, which apparently got physical, she dies in that situation. And now he's trying to figure out how to clean up his mess. So you do have three scenarios where it could be an accident, could be premeditated murder, could also be an argument gone wrong, which still, again, is criminal, but obviously not premeditated murder. Let's say it's an argument that gone gone wrong that happened much earlier and he tries to clean it up and then he's like, there's no way I can freaking clean this up. So he spends like an hour trying to clean it up and trying to and then he's like, oh, there's no way I can do this. Now he's putting a story together. So now i've got to call 9-1-1 and say something you know but he doesn't realize that they're going to figure out well some of this blood is dry so we can tell timing

of her death it doesn't match up with your first story which is you just went to turn the pool lights off and came back in and now he has to revamp so right that is possible and in that story he calls says she's still alive but she isn. And then he calls back very quickly before the police would be able to get there, before paramedics would arrive and says, oh, now she's dead. When in actuality, she was dead on the first call. Yeah, it's definitely definitely possible. Yeah. So and then, you know, we got Todd Peterson's there with his his friend. And then Todd Peterson also called another one of his friends, Ben Manier, and Ben's girlfriend, Heather Whitson. And apparently these two individuals were at the party with Todd earlier. So they were still in the area because the party had just ended when Todd came home.

And Heather Whitson was reportedly a doctor. So I don't know what they thought they were going to do, like whether the doctor was for Kathleen or whether the doctor was to calm Michael Peterson down. They never really explained that, but Michael said he wandered around the kitchen in a daze while the paramedics attempted to revive Kathleen, and finally his son Todd steered him over to the sofa and had him sit down. Next on the scene were Durham police officers McDowell and Figueroa. After being informed that Kathleen was dead and seeing a large amount of blood at the scene, McDowell called for detectives and crime scene technicians. Now, according to Michael Peterson and his son Todd, within moments of the police being on the scene, Michael was treated as a suspect. Lead detective Art Holland would say that when he

arrived, he had introduced himself to Michael, shook his hand, and told him that he was sorry for his loss. But he also said, listen, like, this scene appears to be a little bit suspicious, and it needs to be processed as such. Art Holland said, quote, When I first entered the house, I noticed what appeared to be two legs just kind of sticking out of a doorway or hallway to my left. And once I approached the victim, there was just a very abundant amount of blood on her, on the floor, on the walls, that was just not consistent when somebody falling down the steps, end quote. Art Holland said that this was what caused him to seek out a search warrant for the Peterson home very quickly. We'll talk about that later. I think it's probably pretty common, honestly, for the police to treat a death in this way since they don't know what happened.

It's better to be safe than sorry. It's better to potentially or treat the situation as a potential suspicious death in case later it turns out that the victim didn't die from an accident. We would judge police in other circumstances if they didn't do this. We judged them in the JonBenet Ramsey situation where it was know, it was very suspicious and the police were like letting people in and out and they were treating, you know, JonBenet's parents with like kid gloves and not really questioning them or pushing them too much, not really separating them. And, you know, in this case, what the police did, I think, is correct because, yeah, it sucks if you're not guilty, but you could be. And they have to process the scene in that way in case, you know, they don't want to

take their chances to treat it as an accident only later to find out it was not an accident and you didn't collect the evidence properly. Couldn't agree more. Even in times where it doesn't look suspicious, but just the age and initial understanding of the person's medical history, if they're young and don't appear to have any major illnesses that would cause this sudden death, we still treat it like a crime scene just to be safe. Yeah. And a lot of these guys were like, we were completely thrown because we were told this was

an accidental fall down the stairs. And we've seen dozens and dozens of like accidental fall down the stairs. And we've never seen one that looked like this. Like that's what they all kept saying repeatedly. What's interesting about that for me with this blood in the stairs, it doesn't appear on the surface like if this was a crime, Kathleen was killed somewhere else or injured somewhere else and then moved to the stairs. It seems like whatever happened, it probably happened on that staircase. And more than likely, it was her falling down the stairs, whether it was by her own actions or by him pushing her or whatever. So that's the one thing that's confusing to me because let's say, for example, he pushed her down the stairs violently. She still bled out from her injury sustained while getting pushed down the stairs.

Unless we're to believe that there was a blunt force object used near the staircase and that's what caused the injuries and that's what caused the blood. But I guess I'm jumping around because you kind of talked about the iron poker and things like that earlier and how it didn't really line up. So maybe I should hold those thoughts for when we get to those points. But if you're in the camp that believes he pushed her down the stairs intentionally to make it look like an accident. Well, then in that case, he's guilty of a crime, but it was in fact the stairs that caused the blood that you saw. Now, if you're in the camp that believes it was another weapon that was used in that area, so he used the stairs as the excuse because it was so close. Well, then I guess I could see your

argument there. Yeah. It didn't seem like the prosecution ever went with the she fell down the stairs. They believed that he used that blow poke or something like it to beat her in the stairwell. And that's why there was so much blood. Yeah, she just happened to be in that area. So he said stairs it is. Yeah, maybe he was chasing her down the stairs or whatever and like hitting her as she went. That's kind of what they believe happened. Or maybe she was trying to get up the stairs, whatever.

They believe that it happened in that stairwell. And that's why there was so much blood because he was hitting her with this thing. And that's why the blood was like on the walls. I see the argument cast off on the walls, things like that. Hey, guys, don't let the stairs, don't let them take you off the track here. He wants you to believe it's a staircase. In reality, the staircase has nothing to do with it. It's a red herring.

Yeah. I mean, if you watch the trial, like witness after witness, first responder to first responder is like, it just didn't look like she accidentally fell down the stairs. Like we couldn't get past that, you know? And so right from the bat, they are suspicious. And right from off the bat, they treat Michael Peterson, you know, as a person of interest. But just Michael and Todd Peterson did not like this. They were very put out by this. Todd said, quote, I knew for a fact no way in this world that my father would ever hurt Kathleen. While it was completely unfounded in my mind, the way they were behaving, the way they were

barking orders at us, restricting us from talking to one another, they truly drove home the point that they were investigating this as a crime. End quote. The police separated the group, which at this point included Michael, his son Todd, Todd's friend Christina, Todd's friend Ben, and Ben's girlfriend Heather. And later during the trial, investigators testified that they had tried to keep Michael Peterson, Todd Peterson, and their friends apart so that they couldn't talk about what happened and get their story straight. However, they had a difficult time doing this. Officer McVeigh said, quote, I saw Todd Peterson trying to relay messages through the window because there was a patio off the study. I caught him doing that two times. Todd Peterson and Ben were whispering a lot like they didn't

want us to hear what they were saying. End quote. I don't find that super suspicious because it's like you like some people just don't feel comfortable when the police are treating them like a suspect, you know, and that being treated like a suspect may have caused the suspicious behavior. So they're like, we got to be really quiet and really like low key about what we're talking about. And of course, if you think they suspect you, you're going to want to play your cards close to your chest, no matter if you're innocent or guilty. You know, you're just going to not want to be super cooperative, I think, at that point. Yeah, you're right. And I think the police handled it the right way. I mean,

some may see it as insensitive, but as you laid out earlier, if a crime scene looks suspicious, you have to treat it as a crime because you don't want to come back and get egg on your face because you went in there and like you had said, oh yeah, everything's good. Let's mop it up, boys. Let's get out of here. And then you realize you just cleaned up all the evidence that could have implicated someone in a murder. And as you also said, as a human being, if you didn't do anything wrong, when law enforcement is telling you directly to your face, hey, we got to treat this like a crime scene. And you guys are the only ones here. So if it is a crime, you're the suspects.

It doesn't reasonable deduction probably get you there. So now they're concerned about what they're saying and how it could be used against them. So I think it's all fair at that point. I think it's all reasonable to assume that would be a reaction to law enforcement indicating they're treating it as a potential crime and you could be the potential suspect. I would probably react the same way. Yeah. And I think the way Art Holland, the lead detective, handled it was good. He came in, said, hi, Michael Peterson. I am Art Holland. I'm the lead detective. I'm sorry for your loss. However, just to be safe, we need to do this. He's given them the heads up. He's communicating with them. It's not like they're just blindsiding him. And they did call Michael Peterson's brother, Bill, who lived in Reno. And Bill was a lawyer, not a criminal lawyer, but a lawyer.

And then they had put Bill on the phone with the lead detective, Art Holland. And Bill was like, you know, they're not talking to you like they don't need to talk to anybody until a lawyer gets there. So, you know, stuff like that. I think that probably them whispering and not talking is because Bill had said, don't talk to the police. You know, it's pretty normal. Yeah. No issue with any of that. The way the police handled it and them, you know, secretly speaking to each other could have been just, hey, our loved one's dead.

What are we doing here? What's going on? Yeah. And Michael Peterson said, quote, I can remember. And it must have been very early while I was still in the kitchen that a cop was on me instantly. Everywhere I went, a policeman was there. I went outside with Ben and a policeman was there. There was always a policeman with me, end quote. So yeah, very put out about it. And I'm going to tell you why he claimed he was so suspicious and put out about it when we come back by 3 0 7 a.m police investigator and evidence technician dan george had arrived at

the scene and he too immediately felt that foul play was most likely at work at least more likely than an accident he said in his 20-year career he had seen several falls on steps and the scene did not look like this and And he said from his point of view, the blood on the stairs, floor and wall appeared to be dry. George immediately told Officer Figueroa to begin securing the scene while they waited for the crime investigation department who were on their way. And at that moment, Dan George claimed that Michael Peterson, barefoot and covered in blood, ran past him and bent over Kathleen, crying and caressing her. Again, as I was backing up, Mr. Peterson come running through the home and he was moaning.

And he ran through the home over to Mrs. Peterson's body. Now, before you get there, did he have any shoes or socks on? No, sir, he did not. Okay. The only thing I observed him wearing was a pair of shorts and a knit shirt. Okay. And you say that he went over to Ms. Peterson's body. That's correct.

How did he do that? He walked over to her, knelt down beside her, and then sat down on the step facing her. Okay. And then he put his arms around her and he was still sobbing. So basically the implication here is that as soon as Michael Peterson heard that CSI was on the way, he was like, let me get up in here and mess with this crime scene a little bit more and really throw off what it looked like and get more of her blood on me and just get everything all over the place. And then Todd Peterson comes over and pulls Michael off. And then Todd Peterson has Kathleen's

blood on him. And then, you know, there ends up being blood all over the damn house because they both got blood on them and, you know, things like this. And the defense team would later kind of look at the police and accuse them of not handling the crime scene correctly. Like, why would you allow this to happen? Why would you allow her husband to come rushing in and touch her and move her and do all of this? And the police were like, well, we didn't know what to do at that point. Like, he did it so quickly. It's not like he asked permission, you know, and then what were you supposed to do? Like, eventually, you know, we got him off. But by that time, it's not as if it's like as soon as he heard that they were sealing off the crime scene, that they were going to rope it off so nobody could get there. He like ran over. her the entire time. So it's not going to make much of a difference at that point. I don't know if I was a patrolman or a

detective in that moment, especially if he's rushing. I'm not going to tackle him to stop him from touching a body to me as a body when I know he's already been handling that body. It's not going to contaminate it any further. I guess I should walk that back. Some DNA experts out there will say, Hey, you know, maybe, maybe. But yeah, I think human element comes into it to a certain degree. I even think about JonBenet, whether you believe that the parents are responsible or not, him bringing up JonBenet's body, it's his daughter. If he's on the up and up, how do you stop that? How do you stop that in that moment when you're a patrolman? Because you're looking at it as a crime scene, this person potentially just lost their wife. I wish everything was this scientific lab where the crime occurs and there's

no contamination and everything's perfect. But Henry Lee actually told me this in person one time when we were talking about OJ Simpson, and he said, no crime scene is not contaminated. The minute the crime happens, it's already contaminated by something, whether it's the elements from outside, the elements from inside inside no matter what happens every scene is contaminated it's just a matter of how contaminated it is and he's right did you just did you just name drop henry lee i mean henry me and him are close can i call him henry is that okay do i you know i think you can call him i think you can call him like mr lee maybe i mean you might call him that i mean me and henry are on a first name basis but so you can call him like Mr. Lee, maybe. I mean, you might call him that. I mean, me and Henry are on a first name basis.

So you can call him Hank, technically. I mean, I don't go that far, but you know, I've worked with Henry a couple times. Dr. Lee, I'm only kidding. I've worked with Dr. Lee a couple times, you know, and I remember having a conversation off camera talking about different things, talking about this crime scene, talking about any crime scene. He was like, listen, man, people think that even if you get their first person on scene, the minute, even the CSI tech cutting off the scene, that person is technically contaminating it with their own footprint, literally and figuratively. Don't be jealous. Don't be jealous of my relationship with Dr. Lee. I am so, I'm so freaking jealous. Actually, I love Dr. Henry Lee. Like I would love to be able to sit with him. i'll introduce you one time yeah can like we we get together

like a like a tea party or something i just want to stay with him for like an hour and talk to him i'll start a group chat i think we should talk to him about this case technically you know reach out see if he's free all kid decide i do have his number i do i think he'd hop on a podcast probably not he's a very uh sought after person and i will tell you the times that i did work with him was for discovery and uh he didn't do anything for free that's not a knock on him i'll just say he doesn't do he doesn't do anything he doesn't really do anything for free so as far as what you said about contaminating the crime scene i do agree with you actually and sometimes when i'm reading these books and things and sometimes i'm like am i missing something like why are they making such a massive deal out of

this because as far as i'm concerned there was a good amount of time that michael peterson had kathleen peterson to himself as well as that scene where he could have done anything he could have moved her body around i mean we know he brought paper towels in he was wiping up the scenes contaminated already he's already got her blood all over him. So what was this last sort of ditch effort supposed to do? Who knows? But I do think, like, if you guys know in the comments what this was supposed to signify and why, you know, people who are against Michael Peterson make such a big deal out

of this moment, let us know, because I do feel like I'm missing something on that note. Before the crime scene team arrived, Michael Peterson was pretty much left to his own devices. So they said he walked around the home. Sometimes he was talking to himself. He mumbled something about email, and then he went to his computer, and he was looking at his computer for a while. He paced in the kitchen. He even tried to wash his hands in the kitchen sink, but the police stopped him and they were like, you can't wash your hands right now. You know, you got to keep the blood there. Like I said, Peterson even used the computer in the library to check his email between 4.15 and 5 a.m. And we're going to talk about that next time because there's some evidence that while he was on

the computer, he was deleting a bunch of stuff. And by 5 a.m., Michael Peterson had called his lawyer, Carrie Sutton, who arrived 20 minutes later. Now, Michael claims he's been judged harshly for lawyering up so early, but he said he also felt from the very beginning that there was a target on his back and he had reason to believe that he wasn't the Durham PD's favorite person. During the late 90s, Michael Peterson, in his role as a columnist for the Durham Herald Sun, had written a series of articles criticizing the Durham Police Department for their inability to solve crimes as well as their alleged racism and corruption within the department. Now listen, what I just said, that sentence that he wrote a series of articles criticizing the police department, talking about

racism and corruption, all of that stuff, that's kind of the party line. It's the narrative that's always been sort of spun for us. And I don't necessarily believe that anymore. But we'll talk about that in a second. What really ends up happening is that Michael Peterson didn't save his contempt specifically for the police. He also spoke out against District Attorney Jim Harden, the same man who would lead the prosecution against him, and basically the entire ruling class of Durham, North Carolina in general, which is eventually what spurred him to run for mayor of the city in 1999. He didn't win, but he did run. In September of 1999, Michael Peterson wrote, quote, Our elected officials haven't tackled drugs, crack houses, crime, or even race. As mayor, I will provide leadership because I have a clear vision for where this city should go and what we should be doing. We need to get rid of illegal weapons and make Durham an utterly hostile environment for drug violence and gangs.

We must address race. We must get beyond the rhetoric of shouting racism as a crutch and as a weapon. Mutual understanding sounds like such a long, difficult process, but I'm willing to start the process and facilitate small discussions. I will meet with anyone, anytime, anywhere to further racial understanding and harmony. I will do with anyone, anytime, anywhere to further racial understanding and harmony. I will do it as a full-time job, end quote. The December before that, Peterson wrote a column wishing everyone happy holidays, but also saying, quote, how can we expect big things, peace and goodwill throughout the world when we can't manage a little decency among ourselves? For those of you warm and fed, your presence opened. Ponder a moment those less

fortunate. Our homeless shelters team, our jails are filled, yet every child was born young and innocent. None was meant to live behind walls or in a shelter or grow up hungry or deprived either, end quote. And his real battles, he fought with the city council, the Durham City Council. He called them inept. He exposed that they'd given themselves a 30% pay raise. He tried to get members removed. He started a petition to reduce the size of the council by more than half. He gave them these tongue-in-cheek nicknames like Bubba Buttkiss. And they didn't like it. There was a lot of people in the public who liked it. His column actually had a large readership, but there were people who were really scandalized

by what he was saying each week. And, you know, you see this in the letters to the editor portion of the paper, which, you know, I spent way too much time reading his articles on newspapers.com. But I'm really glad I did spend so much time going through over 100 old newspaper articles because it did shift my opinion. I guess that I had always assumed Michael Peterson had been talking like a ton of shit about the police and the police department. And the example I often seen that's used to illustrate this is that there was some tension between Peterson and his local police department because he gave

incorrect statistics, claiming that the Durham Police Department's clearance rate was 5%, meaning they only solved 5% of the crimes they investigated. And the police chief at that time, her name was Tessa Chambers, she personally wrote to Michael Peterson and corrected him, telling him they had a clearance rate of 47%, at least when it came to homicides, and that he should be ashamed of himself for spreading false information. But during my research, I found that Michael Peterson actually spoke pretty highly about the Durham Police Department 99% of the time. He was extremely critical of the city's politicians and the city council. Like I said, extremely, like uncomfortably so at some point.

He was like really mean to them. But overall, he was pretty supportive of the police department. For instance, in June of 1998, in an article where he referred to the Durham City Council as dwarves, who were all named dopey, to avoid confusion, he said, quote, over $250,000 for endless talk about flags and cows and plastic road memorials. Cops, firemen, teachers, all city employees work harder than the dwarfs, yet they get a 3% raise, end quote. In August of 1999, Peterson wrote, quote, this is not just a police problem, it's our problem. Car thefts are a right of gang initiations. Crime and terror have spread far beyond Linwood Avenue. Convenience store

clerks are shot on Chapel Hill Boulevard, end quote. And the year before that, in August of 1998, Michael Peterson said, quote, we have an excellent police chief, school superintendent, city and county managers, but our elected officials are not properly representing us, end quote. So overall, after my research, I decided that Michael Peterson did far less trash talking about the Durham Police Department than we have been led to believe. And while I have no doubt the major political players in Durham may have had an ax to see him destroyed, like see him behind bars for the rest of his life, wrongly accused for the murder of his wife. I mean, I guess if you were arguing for Michael, you could say the police are just following orders, like the people that give the cops their marching orders are the people he was

trash talking. But I'd have to see some legitimate proof of that, honestly. Like what we have to understand is these first responders, these paramedics and stuff like they're not over here like the guy who's talking shit about the Durham PD in his column two years ago. We're going to get him. You know, that's not necessarily what's happening. And like I said, we also have to keep in mind that although Michael Peterson was writing a column, it was a popular column, and he had ulterior motives for going so hard on Durham's existing power structure. After all, he would go on to run for mayor of the city in 1999. So knowing he had a large readership and

the people reading his column would be the same people casting their vote for the next mayor, I think you can see that Michael Peterson was clearly campaigning in these columns. And I think that most everyone was aware of that when they were reading them, like even his opponents. They smear each other in general when you're kind of going through an election or a campaign or something like that. So this wasn't really anything that was out of the ordinary from a normal political campaign. I've seen them get pretty ugly. I just didn't see him talk a lot of bad stuff about the police department. Honestly, he seems to be like, oh, I get it. They're doing the best they can with what they have. Yeah. Personally, we've had numerous experiences over the years where you have current political figures and possible political figures who are

critical of the local law enforcement or fire department, whatever it might be. And for the most part, police officers understand that's kind of like part of the game and that's always going to be a hot topic, crime, things of that nature. So we expect it. And it's not something where you're looking at it like, oh, if I get an opportunity to bag this guy, I'm going to do it. Now, I know people in the comments are going to say, well, that's not all cops, Derek. Some cops are the other way. And that's very true.

But I would say just focus on the case that we're talking about at hand here and ask yourself whether or not the actions of the detective specifically when they arrived were in line with what a good police officer or a good investigator would do if they didn't know who the person was. You know, just ask yourself the question if if a detective shows up and he's a he's presented with this crime scene where you have paramedics saying this isn't the normal amount of blood you would see for this type of injury. And even the detective may have some experience with that as well. Things aren't completely lining up. You could have a potential crime scene. You're going to treat it as a crime scene and try to limit the amount of contamination

going forward. You can't limit, limit what happened before you got there, but you can, you can step in and make a difference going forward from that point. So are the actions of the police officer or the detective reasonable? I think they are. So as far as the motive behind it, it's irrelevant at that point. You have more of an issue when you start to talk about the decision to charge him and some of the higher ups who are getting involved with those decisions and maybe past experiences and past relationships. And now

those can have a factor on whether or not they decide to pursue him legally. But the initial actions of the officers, especially when you consider that, I believe you said 1990 was when he really went hard on law enforcement. No, 19, it was like 1998, 1999.'t think the officers are going there. Like you said, oh, this is the guy. We're going after him. There's nothing they haven't heard before, and they probably heard a lot worse. So I don't think they're going in there with that approach. So yeah, I think everything was- And it wasn't even that bad. Yeah. It wasn't.

He tore the city council apart, man, every single day. It was hard to read sometimes. I was like, holy shit. Did they kill your dog? What's happening? You hate these people. So there was a lot of contempt there. But I mean, you also have people I think I think like it's easy for him to say that maybe he truly believed it. But it's also like maybe wanting people who are not like super, super like feeling good towards police to kind of jump on that bandwagon. You know, people are always looking for a

conspiracy. You still have people who think like Andrew Tate got arrested because he talked shit about Greta Thunberg on Twitter the night before he got arrested. Like, no, he's like a creepy guy doing sketchy things like in a foreign country is why he got arrested. Like there's no power structure in this world who's going to be like, Andrew Tate talked about Greta Thunberg on Twitter. Get him. Get him now. What is this? But they'd rather believe that their hero or somebody they look up to is being wrongly accused or treated poorly or is like the underdog and the target of some huge one world government scheme than to just say like, this is just what they did. Now, when you go to like, like you said, the D.A. up there who's deciding to charge him, I would also go on to say that I think it had less to do with him talking shit and more to do with his sexuality, because when they found those emails, which was just about a week after Kathleen's death, because it was the second search warrant that they found them, it was the day of

her funeral. That's when they started to go real hard and was the second search warrant that they found them, it was the day of her funeral. That's when they started to go real hard and be real savage on him when they found out that, you know, he was like having sex with men as well as women. And that's when I think it kind of like really clicked for them and they became real fixated on going after him. Was it because he was bisexual or was it because they thought this is the motive? This is a great motive. Who knows? But that's really when they like locked in on him and they were like, we got you now. It wasn't really from the start. So they do make a big deal out of this. However, I will say that I don't think Michael Peterson was super fond of the police because this wasn't the first time that

the Peterson family had come on law enforcement's radar. In 1994, Michael's oldest son, then 21-year-old Clayton Peterson, had been sentenced to four years in prison for planting a pipe bomb in the main administration building of Duke University. Now, Clayton insisted that he didn't mean for the bomb to go off. He had only meant it to be a diversion so he could steal the equipment that he needed to make a fake ID for a trip to Myrtle Beach. But apparently the whole situation had left a bad taste in Michael Peterson's mouth towards law enforcement and towards his old alma mater, Duke. In 1997,

Michael told the Greensboro News and Record, quote, I think that was the most painful thing that happened to me. This is not how I plan to spend my 50s, going to visit my son in the pen. I'll never get over that. They hammered him. He did something wrong. There's no question. He should have been punished, but it was pretty excessive, end quote. Also, in the same article, which remember, it was published in 1997, the author says, quote, Peterson saw extensive action. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and earned two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star, end quote. So we're still lying about his military record and the awards he won. I think it's interesting, this whole Clayton Peterson thing, because from what I had read, Todd Peterson seemed to be like the bad apple, and Clayton had gotten his life together by the time Kathleen Peterson died.

But if you didn't mean for the bomb to go off, how could it act as a diversion for you to steal this equipment to make a fake ID? What did he mean to just put the bomb out in plain sight and have people be like, ah, bomb. And then he sneaks in and steals the stuff. Like if you didn't mean for it to go off, but it did go off, how does that happen? Why did you make a bomb that functioned then? You know, that's what I was going to say. I mean, why, why not just make it a decoy and make it a dummy? But yeah, I, I don't really have any justification for obviously the kid's got some issues if he's making pipe bombs at all. And for the reason he suggests, not that any reason would be justified for a trip to Myrtle Beach. Come on.

Before we go too far down, just a quick question. We don't have to dive too deep into it because it's more of a psychological thing. But do you think there's anything to the fact that we have seen displays of blatant disrespect and maybe some violent words towards other adults publicly by Michael Peterson? And that could suggest how he may react even worse behind closed doors towards possibly Kathleen when nobody's around. Like, I don't think everybody talks like that to other adults. And the fact that he's referring to them as dwarfs and things like that, is there anything there that you think should be noted as far as how he's talking publicly about other people? I don't know. I've been known to have a sharp tongue. If I feel the need for

somebody to get a verbal ass whipping, they probably deserve it the need for somebody to get like a verbal, you know, ass whipping, like they probably deserve it and I'm going to make sure it's a good one. So he felt strongly that they were corrupt, the city council. And so when you make someone your enemy, sort of all all all bets are off the table. Right. And we see that now in a very divisive time in a very divisive country. When you see someone as other, when you see someone as trying to do something that to you is morally bankrupt, whatever you do to them can be justified by you. So I think that had a lot to do with him. I think he has a moral high ground. I think he puts himself up on a pedestal. I think he thinks, you know, I have all the answers and only I know what's right. And it's clear what needs to be done here. And not that I don't agree with his stances.

I do agree with his stances. Like, you should make your city inhospitable to drug dealers. Like, you should want to cut down on violent crimes. You should want to do something about that and stop wasting time and money on things that really don't matter when the foundations of your city are crumbling because they're being eaten away by crime and, you know, corruption. So I don't disagree with him. And I think maybe he could be condescending. And was he ever condescending to Kathleen? I don't know. But somebody being condescending doesn't necessarily mean you're violent. Yeah. I'm not saying murderer, but I am saying the guy has definitely been an asshole publicly. So could he get in an argument or being a bad mood and act

like an asshole to Kathleen and others? And maybe that goes, gets worse. You know, I'm not looking into it too deep, but it's something, hey, this guy might try to paint himself as this perfect person sometimes, or a good guy, loving father, and that doesn't appear to be anybody on the outside. 100%. I think he painted himself as this perfect person. And like I said, put himself on this public pedestal, but we know nobody is 100% what they put forward to the world, right? We know there's always stuff behind, under the scene. And we're seeing some of it publicly

in his approach to others, you know, other adult dwarves and things like that. Now, I'm not saying he's like a terrible, this happens as a political back and forth. We see it even more now today. We see it every day, every hour, but it wasn't as prevalent back then.

I don't think i mean i was jesus i was in my teens but um just something to point out he's a good he's a good writer he's clever and he it never came out as outright mean it just kind of came off as like playful but cruel you know and he was funny he made it funny yeah i guess i guess i can see that too calling him dopey and stuff it wasn't really really. Yeah, I guess I see that. But it was mean. And like when you're reading a lot of them back to back, I was like, holy shit, like this is intense, man. So I remember what Clayton Peterson said. We talked about episode one, how him and his mom, how Michael and his mom would fight. And he said he was never the one to get an argument. He would just laugh

and walk away. And while that seems passive, it also could be considered passive-aggressive. It's him being dismissive. You know, if your wife has a genuine concern and she's trying to raise an issue with you and you laugh at her and walk away, you're sending a message. You're not important. What you care about isn't important. And I don't have time for this. You're sending a message to that person that you don't value them or their opinion or respect them. So, yeah, there was, I think, some of that in him. Yes.

Again, just to reiterate, not saying, oh, he's definitely a murderer, but, you know, there's some signs where he can lose his cool once in a while. And if he's doing it to people in the public and he's willing to write it in an article, what's going on behind closed doors? Who knows? Dude, and imagine getting into an argument with someone like that where they do have like a way with words and they do have like this clever way of like having something right on the tip of their tongue and they always have a response. It could get very frustrating and it could turn, you know, a little aggressive because I've been in argument. I mean, I am a person like that. So I understand it's very difficult to argue. My husband always says, like, I hate arguing with you because you have an answer for everything. And you always, like, you argue like a lawyer. You argue like a lawyer. You're like, you're just hitting me and I'm on the stand. For the record, Stephanie just saying how she's like, oh, it must be tough to argue with someone who's always got something on a tip. They're just super witty.

It must be tough to argue with someone who's always right. Yeah. Flex for me earlier with Henry, I had to throw one back at you. Listen, I like it. I like it. I like arguing because I'm good at it. Well, we know. We all know. But I can, I can imagine. And that's why I think I do see a little bit of myself in him. Like, he's kind of like a condescending prick and I can also be like a condescending prick. Like,

if you piss me off, I will let you know how little I think of you. So it's, it's, it's hard for me to judge that while also recognizing it in myself. But I do know that it does frustrate people who are close to me when we argue and that it can turn very frustrating for them. So we'll see. I wonder if other people have said the same thing about him. I wonder how someone like Michael, who's very witty and sharp and quick, how he would react when someone equally, if not more intelligent and maybe more quick, like Kathleen, responds back. And she's getting the best of him. How does he react to that when someone, he meets his match?

He's not going to react well, probably, right? I would imagine so. I don't know. I haven't met my match yet, but I'll let you know when I when one day I do and how I feel about it. OK, I'm not saying anything. You're setting yourself up there, homie. So we're going to kind of move on and I'm going to kind of go back to the scene, because within the first few days after Kathleen Peterson was found dead on the floor of her beloved home, there was the research warrants applied for and executed.

The first warrant dictated that law enforcement could collect evidence, including fingerprints, bloodstains, the physical layout and measurements of the premises, documentary evidence, including ownership. They could take video and picture of the scene in order to preserve it, and this warrant was obtained on December 9th. The next day, December 10th, Detective Art Holland applied for a second warrant, which stated the home at 1810 Cedar Street could be searched, as well as four vehicles that had not been included in the first

warrant. And on December 12th, Detective Holland got another search warrant that included all items from the previous warrant, as well as computers, CPUs, files, and software. And we're going to talk about what they found. That's when they found all that stuff on Michael's computer and they went hard on him. But let's talk about the evidence of the scene that stuck out as being inconsistent with the story that Michael Peterson had told. And using this evidence, the prosecution would put forward their theory that Michael had staged this scene. He basically killed his wife and then spent all of that time that he wasn't calling 911 while her blood was drying to stage the scene to make it match a certain story he was telling. First, there was a bottle of wine and two wine glasses on the kitchen counter, and Michael's fingerprints were

found on both the wine glasses as well as the wine bottle, but reportedly Kathleen's fingerprints were not found on either wine glass. Additionally, there was what appeared to be a used condom in the bedroom of Michael and Kathleen Peterson. Now, the condom seemed to have a substance inside that resembled semen, and towels were found nearby, which also appeared to have semen stains on them. However, it turned out there was no semen inside the condom or on the towels, so the prosecution believed the condom hadn't actually been used, but it was put there by Michael to illustrate that he and his wife still had a passionate sex life. They were still intimate. In fact, they'd been intimate the night of her death.

And why would Kathleen have had sex with her husband if she were upset with him, if she found out he was cheating on her, or if their marriage was plagued by tension and issues. Now, here's what issue I have with this. You can't say, oh, Michael Peterson told the paramedics one story and then changed his story to they were outside drinking wine by the pool when he found out the blood was dried, if you're also going to say that he staged the scene to make it look like they were outside drinking wine by the pool and that's out the blood was dried, if you're also going to say that he staged the scene to make it look like they were outside drinking wine by the pool. And that's why the blood was dried. You know what I mean? Like, you got to pick a story.

Did he change his story quickly after the paramedics got there? Or did he set the scene to look like that story that he had planned to tell before the paramedics got there? Completely agree. It's something I'm sitting here. I'm like, OK, well, if you're going that angle, then he's been consistent in his story. He obviously wouldn't screw up his own story when he's been setting it up all night. Right. And Todd and Christina saw Kathleen drinking wine. So, like, we know she was drinking wine.

Why weren't her fingerprints on that glass? I don't know. Was it a bad collection method? I said it a million times. It's not a guarantee. Glass is something that is very good for fingerprints, DNA. Usually you will have it, but it's not 100%. The lack of DNA doesn't definitively state that the person couldn't have touched that item. We just did it with Adnan Syed. I do think people feel like, oh, there's no way you could touch a glass and not leave behind your dna where it's traceable or detectable or able to be processed

it can happen maybe rare would you leave fingerprints because of the oil on your fingers like how could you touch a wine glass and not leave fingerprints you could leave fingerprints but they could be smudged where you're able to see that someone touched the glass but nothing that can be identified. So here's what I'll say. And they don't tell you this in the two books I read, because these two books go hard on Michael Peterson. They don't really show his side of the story. The staircase does that. Right. But in the two books I read, they say, oh, Kathleen's fingerprints weren't found. But then I read transcripts from the top, the trial where David Rudolph, Michael Peterson's lawyer, says, well, like partial prints were found

on that wine glass, like just because they don't look like Kathleen's or you can't tell that they're Kathleen's doesn't mean they aren't. Right. And the person on the stand was like, yeah, that's true. Like, we don't know if they were hers or not. So that's very interesting that they leave that out in these books that that go against him, because I that's important like it's not as if there was no fingerprints on the glass just kathleen's fingerprints weren't discernible on the glass yeah they didn't identify them definitively as her prints but yeah partial prints they could be anybody's but i think that coupled with witness testimony that she had been drinking i think an assumption can be made that more than likely it's her unless you're really to believe he had preemptively been setting this up all night, which seems a little hard to believe because he would have been doing some of it

at least under her nose because she was again, those witnesses saw them drinking together. So he would have been it's like something where she had alcohol in her system, right? Yeah, she was drinking something unless she was drinking it out of her hand. She was probably using a wine glass. Or out of the bottle. Listen, we've all had those nights. Dude, I have those nights all the time. It's like, nope, no wine glass here.

Like the condom with the substance inside that looked like semen but turned out not to be semen. Like, I can't tell you. I can't tell you what the hell that means, man. Yeah, that was interesting. It could be a variety of things, but I definitely think and I think it's hard to say that like, oh, the wine and the wine glasses were like set up to stage the scene. And we also have to keep in mind the person who processed these wine glasses, Dwayne Deaver, he's the same person who would literally cause the case to be thrown out against Michael Peterson because

of the fact that he was like so bad at his job and he sucked so bad that he had so many issues processing evidence in so many other cases that the state was like, all right, dude, just take your Alford plea and go. We don't want to get sued. We don't want to deal with this anymore. And Dwayne Deaver is the one who was processing this part of the scene. So, I mean, maybe he just didn't lift the fingerprints correctly, you know? He might not have. You can, by using the tape on the fingerprint, you can actually smudge the print. It might be a good print before you do. There's different things you can use.

Siren Acrolight, you can use a glue where if you think you have prints, you can take the glass. You can bring them back to a laboratory. You can bring them back to the station if you have any evidence room. You stick them in this big machine, essentially. What it does is it sprays a glue into the air, basically like super glue. That super glue will attach to the oils on the glass, enhancing the fingerprints. And then you can dust them because the super glue will attach to the oils themselves, increasing that print, making it more visual to the, even just the human eye, then you can use the dust to obviously cover the blueprint, tape it off, pull it off and you're

good to go. Yeah. So, I mean, he could have just like Dwayne Deaver could have just not gotten the fingerprint properly. You know, there's a reason that they completely, you know, kind of changed their tune when, when it came out that Dwayne Deaver was like shitty at his job and kind of let Michael Peterson go home after that. So it was pretty bad. Now, additionally, crime scene technician Eric Campin would later testify that while he was using luminol in the Peterson home, he was able to identify a series of bloody footprints that were not visible to the naked eye, which means I assume that they'd been wiped up after they were put there. These footprints came from bare feet, which led from the location of Kathleen's body to the laundry room. They stopped in front of the utility sink in the laundry room, then they went into the kitchen, they paused in front of the wine cabinet, and then returned to the bloody scene

at the foot of the staircase. Reportedly, there was also blood found on the wine cabinet. There was blood found on the door leading out to the patio. And there was a drop of blood found on the slate patio outside. Now, at this point, I'm just giving you the prosecution side of things, what they claim they saw, what they claim they observed, how they interpreted those things. I'm not really giving you the rebuttal of Michael Peterson and his legal team yet or telling you why this specific evidence may have been misinterpreted, even though I kind of I kind of did. But I also think like because it's so hard to say one side, you know, it's hard

to say one side of the story like it's hard. But I will also say like, yeah, there's blood all over the place. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he was setting up the scene because we know he had blood on him by the time the paramedics arrived and he was walking all over the place and he was going outside on that slate patio. So, you know, the drop of blood could have come from him. The blood that was all over the place could have been just from him walking around and touching things. Did he do that on purpose to mess with the scene? Who knows? But I don't think it necessarily screams like he staged it and here's what he did and how he did it.

No, I agree. On the surface, when you just read that, it sounds pretty bad. But then when you put some context behind it and you have some understanding of his actions that night, we also know that at some point he grabbed a towel and stuck it under his wife's head. Where'd he get that towel from? I'm assuming he probably got it from the laundry room. Right.

That's exactly what I was thinking, right? We think alike. We're twins. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, I'm telling you this stuff because I want you to understand this is why the police and the D.A. would eventually get a warrant for Michael Peterson's arrest on December 20th. And in my opinion, all of this stuff did look very suspicious to the police and the D.A., but it was when they went through that electronic evidence that they were really sold on Michael Peterson being a killer. District Attorney Jim Harden would later argue in court that he believed on the night of her death, Kathleen Peterson had gone to use her husband's PC, and there she discovered evidence that Michael

was not only bisexual, but carrying on relationships with other men while married to her. This revelation would lead to Kathleen confronting her husband, an argument ensuing between the two which spiraled out of control, and ended with Kathleen dead at the bottom of the stairs, beaten to death by a desperate man who was living a double life and could not have his secret get out, a man who was dependent on his wife for income because he was financially in trouble, a man who needed to remain married to Kathleen, not only because she could provide cover for his closeted sexuality,

but also because she was providing him financial support. And that's kind of what they would go with. They would kind of mix these two sorts of motives. And in the next part, we're going to go over the evidence that was found on Michael Peterson's computer, even though, like I said, someone did attempt to delete quite a bit of it, which is suspicious. And we'll talk about Kathleen Peterson's autopsy and how her injuries were described and interpreted by both the prosecution and defense witnesses and medical experts. And, you know, so it's going to be a very, very like heavy episode, a thick episode full of like evidence next time. Oh, I'm sure because this one had no evidence in it whatsoever. I mean, the crime scene. Yeah, it starts to break it down and I can see both sides.

I think kind of when we were talking about experts, you see it here where it's the evidence is the evidence. But at the end of the day, it's how it's interpreted. And depending on where you, what side you're on, you could interpret the same information two different ways. So we'll keep going with it. It's an episode. I think we're going to be a little bit over two hours. It was a good episode. I think it was packed with a lot of information. So it definitely is a good point to end it. And also, you know, we're going into 2023. Now we're trying to make sure we're doing all the right things as a, as you haven't noticed i've been putting the links to all the advertisers for each episode in the description box for both audio and on youtube so if you're listening or watching

whatever it is pull out your phone if you want to try one of the products that we talked about in the episode the links are right there for you and if you if you do use our links it's definitely going to help us out. It lets the advertisers know that you're coming to them from us. So we would appreciate it if you decide to check one of them out. We're very appreciative of all the advertisers

that decide to put their products on our channel. Yeah, support them so they keep supporting us and we can keep doing this every week. Well said. Appreciate you guys. Thank you for being with us. Stay safe out there. We'll see you next week. Well said. Appreciate you guys. Thank you for being with us. Stay safe out there. We'll see you next week. Bye.