The Staircase Murders Part 1: Two Dead Women, Two Staircases, One Suspect

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December 9th, 2001. A 9-1-1 call at 240 in the morning. Michael Peterson says his wife fell down the stairs.

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But it's not what he said. It's how he said it. And when prosecutors started digging into his past,

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they found another body, another staircase, another wife of a friend. Dead the exact same way.

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Part 1 of a story where nothing is what it seems.

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[Music]

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At 240 in the morning, on December 9th, 2001, Michael Peterson called 9-1-1 from his home in Durham, North Carolina.

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His wife, Kathleen, was at the bottom of a staircase. She wasn't moving, and there was blood everywhere.

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And the first words out of his mouth were, "My wife had an accident." She fell down the stairs.

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That sentence would become one of the most analyzed pieces of evidence in the entire case,

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not because of how he sounded, which was hysterical, but because of what he said and when he said it.

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Here's the thing. If you just walked into your house and found your spouse covered in blood

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at the bottom of a staircase, what would you say? Most people would be frantic. They'd describe

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what they're seeing. They'd say something like, "There's so much blood, please hurry. I don't know

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what happened." They wouldn't necessarily offer an explanation for how it happened. But Michael

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Peterson did. Before he even described the scene to the operator, he told her it was an accident.

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He told her Kathleen fell down 15-20 stairs. He was providing a narrative before anyone asked for one.

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"Drum now, why are you marketing?" "1810 see the street please." "What's wrong?"

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"My wife's kind of anxious. She's still breathing." "What kind of accident?"

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"So don't stand up. She's still breathing, please." "You need conscious, bro?"

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"She's conscious." "No, she's not conscious." "How many stairs did you fall down?"

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"Oh, I mean, she's a bear." "Sear!"

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"How many stairs?"

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"Combo, sir."

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"Combo?" "No, just being 20, I don't know. Please, get somebody here by the way.

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"Okay, somebody is dispatching the ambulance." "No, ask you questions."

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"It's okay, it's also, it's a force shield, okay?"

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Experts who analyze 911 calls for signs of deception flag this immediately. When someone is

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genuinely discovering a traumatic scene for the first time, they don't have all the answers yet.

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They're reacting to what they see. They're asking for help. They're not explaining calls and effect.

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Peterson also said Kathleen was still breathing. That word "still"

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suggests that he's monitoring her condition, like he's been watching and waiting for something

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to change. It's a small word, but it implies a timeline that doesn't match the story of a husband

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who recently walked in and found his wife injured. The prosecution would later argue that Peterson's

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911 call sounded scripted, that he wasn't discovering his wife's body. He was narrating a scene

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he already knew about. When investigators arrived, they found Kathleen Peterson dead at the bottom

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of the main staircase. The scene was disturbing. There was an enormous amount of blood. It was on the

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walls, on the stairs, pulled on the floor. The medical examiner counted seven deep lacerations on

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Kathleen's scalp. The cause of death was determined to be blunt forced trauma from blood loss

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caused by those injuries. On December 20, 2001, her death was ruled a homicide. Michael Peterson was

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indicted for first degree murder. But here's where the case gets complicated. Despite those seven deep

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cuts on her head, Kathleen had no skull fracture, no broken bones, no brain injury, no subdurohematoma,

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nothing. Defense experts would later point out that in hundreds of documented cases where someone

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was beaten to death, there was always massive brain injury, skull fractures, or other broken bones,

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always. A fatal beating doesn't just cause scalp lacerations. It destroys the structures underneath.

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So the defense had a theory. Kathleen fell down the wooden stairs. Her head hit the sharp edges

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of the steps multiple times. That's what caused the lacerations. And the reason there was so much blood

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is because scalp wounds bleed heavily. Add in the possibility that she coughed up blood or that it

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mixed with urine. And you've got a crime scene that looks worse than the actual injury. The prosecution

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had a different theory. Someone beat Kathleen Peterson to death and that someone was her husband.

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Michael Peterson was a novelist and former Marine. He had written books based on his military

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experience, including The Immortal Dragon and A Time of War. He had run for mayor of Durham.

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He had worked as a newspaper columnist and in that role he had been openly critical of law enforcement

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and the district attorney, James Harden Jr. The same district attorney who would later prosecute him.

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Michael and Kathleen had what looked like a happy blended family. Kathleen was a successful executive

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at Northell. They both had kids from previous marriages. They also had guardian ship of Margaret and

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Martha Ratliff, the daughters of Michael's deceased friend, Elizabeth Ratliff. That last detail is

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important because Elizabeth Ratliff's death would become the centerpiece of the prosecution's case.

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In 1985, Michael and his first wife, Patti, were living in Germany. Their friend and neighbor,

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Elizabeth Ratliff, was found dead at the bottom of her staircase. She had recently lost her husband.

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Michael had been the last person to see her alive. He had dinner with her that night and helped her

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put her two young daughters to bed. When Elizabeth was found the next morning by her nanny,

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German police and US military authorities investigated. They concluded she died of natural causes,

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specifically a brain hemorrhage, possibly related to a blood disorder called Von Willenbrand's

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disease. The official finding was that she collapsed from the hemorrhage and then fell down the stairs.

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After her death, Michael and Patti took in Elizabeth's two daughters and raised them as their own.

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That should have been the end of it, but 17 years later prosecutors in North Carolina saw an

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opportunity. The prosecution petitioned the court to "exoom Elizabeth Ratliff's body from Texas and

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bring it to Durham for a second autopsy." This happened just three weeks before Michael Peterson's

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trial was set to begin. The defense fought hard against this, arguing that they were being forced to

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defend two separate deaths at the same time, which would severely prejudice their case, but the

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judge allowed it. The Durham medical examiner, the same one who had performed Kathleen's autopsy,

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conducted the re-evaluation, and suddenly the findings changed. The second autopsy concluded that

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Elizabeth's death was from a homicidal assault. Seven cuts from multiple blunt force impacts.

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The new ruling said that her injuries were inconsistent with a simple fall. The prosecution never

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formally accused Peterson of murdering Elizabeth Ratliff, but they didn't have to. They just

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needed to get her death into the trial. The legal mechanism they used is called Rule 404B. It

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governs when you can introduce evidence of other crimes in trial. The rule says you can't use

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prior bad acts to show that someone has a pattern of behavior and therefore probably did the thing

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they accused of. That's explicitly prohibited, but there's an exception. You can introduce prior

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bad acts if they prove something specific, like motive or intent or identity or the absence of accident.

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The judge ruled that Elizabeth Ratliff's evidence was admissible to show the absence of accident.

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The prosecution argued that two women dying at the bottom of staircases both connected to

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Michael Peterson couldn't possibly be a coincidence. Therefore, Kathleen's death wasn't an accident.

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This ruling was devastating for the defense because now the jury wasn't just deciding whether

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Kathleen's death was a murder or an accident. They were being asked to believe that Michael Peterson

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had killed two women in nearly identical ways, 17 years apart. The emotional weights of that argument

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is massive. Even if the physical evidence in Kathleen's case was ambiguous, even if there were

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doubts about whether it was actually a murder, the presence of Elizabeth Ratliff's death created

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a narrative that was almost impossible to defend against. Two staircases, two dead women,

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same guy. It didn't matter that the original German investigators found no evidence of foul play.

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It didn't matter that Michael had no motive to kill Elizabeth. The pattern itself became the evidence.

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The prosecution also argued that Michael Peterson had a motive to kill Kathleen,

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and that motive was rooted in his sexuality. Investigators discovered that Michael Peterson was

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bisexual. Between August and September 2001, he'd exchanged emails with a male escort and made

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plans to meet, although the meeting never happened. The prosecution immediately sought to introduce

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this as evidence, arguing that it was crucial to proving motive. The judge allowed it,

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ruling that it goes to motive. The prosecution's theory was that Michael's sexuality and his attempts

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to pay for sex proved the marriage was unstable. They argued that if Kathleen had discovered this

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secret, it could have led to a violent confrontation. They also pointed to financial difficulties and a

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$1.5 million dollar life insurance policy. The defense pushed back hard. Peterson's attorney argued

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that Kathleen knew about and accepted Michael's bisexuality. That's they were soulmates,

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that their relationship wasn't compromised by his sexual orientation. Even the male escort

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testified that Peterson had spoken warmly about his wife, describing a relationship that nothing

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could destroy. The escort also noted that many of his clients were married men whose wives knew

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nothing about their sexuality. But the damage was done. The prosecution spent significant time in

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closing arguments asking the jury if they believed Kathleen knew her husband was bisexual.

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The implication was clear. A bisexual man who contacted an escort couldn't have a happy marriage,

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and if he couldn't have a happy marriage, he had a motive to kill. This was Bifobia,

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addressed up as legal argument. And it worked. The prosecution's case relied almost entirely on

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one witness, Duane Deever, an agent with the state Bureau of Investigation. Deever was a blood

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spatter analyst, and his testimony was the only evidence that directly tied Peterson to the act

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of killing Kathleen. Deever testified that the blood patterns on the stairwell showed several

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points of origin above the floor. He said this couldn't be explained by an accidental fall.

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Born importantly, he testified that the blood on Peterson's clothing showed spatter penetration

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that was inconsistent with Peterson's story. Peterson said that he had cradled Kathleen's

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body after finding her. Deever said the blood patterns proved Peterson was present when the

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blows were inflicted. But here's something interesting. Deever had declared Kathleen's death a homicide

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within 90 minutes of arriving at the Peterson home. Before he did any formal analysis,

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before he conducted any experiments, he walked in, looked around, and decided that this was a murder.

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The defense brought their own experts, including Dr. Henry Lee. They argued that the injuries were

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consistent with an accidental fall. That the large amount of blood came from profuse bleeding from

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deep scalp wounds, probably mixed with coughed up blood or urine. They emphasized that a fatal

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beating that leaves no skull fracture and no brain injury is medically unusual. There was even a

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theory that got some attention later, though it sounds absurd at first, the owl theory. This theory

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suggested that Kathleen was attacked outside by a barred owl, a species known to attack humans.

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The owl's talons could have caused the scalp lacerations. Kathleen could have rushed inside,

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disoriented from blood loss and collapsed down the stairs. There were a few details that supported

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this. Two of the scalp wounds were shaped like owl talons. There were tiny wounds consistent

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with a beak. There were drops of blood outside the front door, and there was a feather found on

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Kathleen's body. The theory sounds wild, but it highlights something important. The scalp injuries

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were unusual. If they could have been caused by something other than Michael Peterson beating his

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wife, then the entire prosecution theory falls apart. In October 2003, the jury found Michael

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Peterson guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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The conviction rested on Duane Dever's blood spatter testimony. On the prejudicial introduction

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of Elizabeth Ratless death, on the insinuation that a bisexual man with a secret couldn't be trusted,

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and on the absence of any other explanation that the jury found believable. But the physical evidence

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was ambiguous. No murder weapon was ever found. The blowpoke that prosecutors theorized he used

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was later discovered by the defense in the garage, and the jury dismissed it. There was no eyewitness,

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no confession, no direct evidence linking Michael Peterson to a violent act. What the prosecution

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had was a story, and sometimes a compelling story is enough. Michael Peterson would spend the next

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eight years in prison, but the story wasn't over because the foundation of his conviction was about

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to crumble, to be continued in part two.