Kathleen's death On December 9, 2001, Peterson called emergency services on 911, to report that he had just found Kathleen Peterson unconscious in their
Forest Hills neighborhood home in
Durham, North Carolina, and suspected she had fallen down "fifteen to twenty, I don't know" steps. He later claimed that he had been outside by the pool and had come in at 2:40 am to find Kathleen severely injured and lying at the foot of the stairs. Peterson said she must have fallen down the stairs after consuming alcohol and
Valium. Toxicology results showed that Kathleen's
blood alcohol content was 0.07 percent (70 mg/100mL), her alcohol in urine was 0.11, and she had taken between 5 and 15 mg of Valium. The
autopsy report concluded that the 48-year-old woman sustained a matrix of severe injuries, including a fracture of the superior cornu of the left thyroid cartilage and seven lacerations to the top and back of her head, consistent with blows from a blunt object. She had died from blood loss ninety minutes to two hours after sustaining the injuries. Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, and Kathleen's sister, Candace Zamperini, both initially proclaimed Michael's innocence and publicly supported him alongside his sons and adopted daughters. Zamperini reconsidered after learning of Michael's
bisexuality, as she did not believe Kathleen would have tolerated it. Caitlin read her mother's autopsy report and saw the photos before the trial; horrified, she became estranged from Peterson. Both subsequently broke off from the rest of the family. Although forensic expert
Henry Lee, hired by Peterson's
defense, testified that the
blood-spatter evidence was consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs, police investigators concluded that the injuries were inconsistent with such an accident. As Peterson was the only person at the residence at the time of Kathleen's death, he was the
prime suspect and was soon charged with her murder. He pleaded not guilty. The medical examiner,
Deborah Radisch, concluded that Kathleen had died from lacerations of the scalp caused by a homicidal assault. According to Radisch, the total of seven lacerations to the top and back of Kathleen's head were the result of repeated blows with a light, yet rigid, weapon. The defense disputed this theory. According to their analysis, the lacerations were not consistent with blows of any sort, because there was a lack of underlying injury, such as skull fractures or bruising, swelling, and hemorrhaging of the brain. The trial drew increasing media attention as details of Peterson's private life emerged. Hardin and his
prosecution team (among them
Mike Nifong) attacked Peterson's credibility, focusing on his misleading statements during his political campaign about his military awards, which were not supported by records. They also described his years as a closeted gay man who had numerous brief liaisons with men and kept them secret from family and friends. The prosecution contended that the Petersons' marriage was far from happy, suggesting that Kathleen had discovered Michael's allegedly secret gay life and was so infuriated that she wanted to end their marriage. It was the main motive that the prosecution offered at trial for Kathleen's alleged murder (the other being a $1.5 million
life insurance policy). According to Assistant District Attorney Freda Black, Kathleen: The defense argued that Kathleen accepted Michael's bisexuality and that the marriage was very happy, a position supported by Michael and Kathleen's children and other friends and associates. A juror contacted after the trial noted that the jury had dismissed the idea of the blow poke as the murder weapon.
Suspicion surrounding Elizabeth Ratliff's death Elizabeth Ratliff, a friend of the Petersons and mother of Margie and Martha, had died in Germany in 1985. In what appeared to have been an accident and Peterson said was caused by a brain aneurysm, she had been found dead at the foot of her staircase with injuries to the head. Her death had been investigated by both the
German police and U.S. military police. An autopsy at the time of her death concluded Ratliff died from an
intra-cerebral hemorrhage secondary to the blood coagulation disorder
Von Willebrand's disease. This was based on blood in her cerebrospinal fluid and reports that she had been suffering severe, persistent headaches in the weeks leading up to her death. The coroner determined that the hemorrhage resulted in immediate death, followed by Ratliff falling down the stairs after collapsing. Patty and Michael Peterson had had dinner with Ratliff and her young daughters that night. Peterson had stayed and helped Ratliff put the girls to bed before going home. The children's nanny, Barbara, discovered Ratliff's body when she arrived the next morning. Peterson was the last known person to see Elizabeth alive. When the prosecution investigation found similarities between the deaths of the two women (head injuries after a fall down a staircase), they wanted further information. The Durham court ordered the exhumation of Ratliff's
embalmed body in order to reexamine the cause of death. Arrangements were made for the Durham medical examiner, who had initially performed Kathleen's autopsy, to perform this reevaluation, over the objections of defense counsel who argued that the autopsy should be performed by Texas medical examiners. The body was transported from Texas to Durham. The Durham M.E. found sufficient evidence drawn from the results of the second autopsy, along with new witness statements describing the scene, Denial of parole requires
premeditation. Despite the jury accepting the murder as a "spur-of-the-moment" crime, they also found it was premeditated. As one juror explained it, premeditated meant not only planning hours or days ahead but could also mean planning in the seconds before committing a spur-of-the-moment crime. Peterson was housed at the Nash Correctional Institution near
Rocky Mount until he was released on December 16, 2011. While awaiting a new trial, he was ordered to be under electronic house arrest. The Appeals' ruling said the evidence was fairly admitted. The judges did find defects in a search warrant, but said they had no ill effect on the defense. Because the ruling was not unanimous, under North Carolina law, Peterson had the right to appeal to the
North Carolina Supreme Court, which accepted the case. An oral argument was heard on September 10, 2007. On November 9, 2007, the Court announced that it affirmed the decision of the appeals. Absent a reconsideration of the ruling or the raising of a
federal issue, Peterson had exhausted his appeals of the verdict. On November 12, 2008, attorneys J. Burkhardt Beale and Jason Anthony of
Richmond,
Virginia, who were then representing Peterson, filed a
motion for a new trial in Durham County court on three grounds: that the prosecution withheld
exculpatory evidence about the blow poke, that the prosecution used an
expert witness whose qualifications were disputed, and that one juror based his judgment on racial factors. On March 10, 2009, Peterson's motion was denied by the Durham County Superior Court.
Owl theory In late 2003, a new theory of Kathleen's death was raised: that she had been attacked by a
barred owl outside the house, had fallen after rushing inside, and had been knocked unconscious after hitting her head on the first tread of the stairs. The owl theory was raised by Durham attorney T. Lawrence Pollard, a neighbor of the Petersons who was not involved in the case but had been following the public details. He approached the police suggesting an owl might have been responsible after viewing the autopsy photographs of Kathleen's head wounds. Later, when reading the
North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) evidence list, he found a feather listed as found in Kathleen's hair (despite having previously been informed by the District Attorney's office that no feathers had been found during the investigation). The SBI crime lab report listed a microscopic feather and a wooden sliver from a tree limb entangled in a clump of hair that had been pulled out by the roots found clutched in Kathleen's left hand. A re-examination of the hair in September 2008 found another microscopic feather. According to Pollard, had a jury been presented with this evidence it would have "materially affected their deliberation and therefore would have materially affected their ultimate verdict". Prosecutors have ridiculed the claim. Deborah Radisch, the pathologist who conducted Kathleen's autopsy, says it was unlikely that an owl or any other bird could have made wounds as deep as those on her scalp. However, Radisch's opinion was challenged by other experts in three separate
affidavits filed in 2010. Despite interest in this theory among some outside advocates, no motion for a new trial was filed on this point in 2009. On March 2, 2017 (following his
Alford plea), Peterson's attorney filed a motion to allow him to pay for a bird expert at the
Smithsonian Institution to examine feather fragments found in Kathleen's hair to determine whether or not she had been attacked by an owl. In 2023, Pollard endorsed the theory presented in the book
Death by Talons by Tiddy Smith, which posits that a bird attack was not restricted to the outside path, but continued inside the Petersons' house.
Retrial hearing In August 2010, following a series of newspaper articles critical of the SBI,
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper led an investigation that resulted in the suspension of SBI analyst
Duane Deaver, one of the principal witnesses against Peterson. The investigative report found that his work was among the worst done on scores of flawed criminal cases. Pollard subsequently filed affidavits to support a motion that Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson order the state Medical Examiner's Office to turn over all documentation related to Kathleen's autopsy to Peterson's attorneys. However, Judge Hudson barred Pollard from filing further motions on behalf of Peterson because he did not represent him. A new motion was filed in August 2010 by David Rudolf, one of Peterson's original attorneys, who acted
pro bono in proceedings challenging the SBI testimony. Deaver was fired from the SBI in January 2011, after an independent audit of the agency found he had falsely represented evidence in 34 cases, including withholding negative results in the case of Greg Taylor, a North Carolina man who spent seventeen years in prison on a murder conviction based on Deaver's testimony. A bloodstain-analysis team that Deaver had trained was suspended and disbanded. In the 2003 Peterson trial, Deaver testified that he had been mentored by SBI bloodstain specialist David Spittle, worked 500 bloodstain cases, written 200 reports, and testified in 60 cases. During the retrial hearing, SBI Assistant Director Eric Hooks testified that Deaver had written only 47 reports. Spittle testified that he could not recall mentoring Deaver, who, since completing a two-day training course in the 1980s, had testified in only four cases, the Peterson case being the third. The SBI cited the bloodstain analysis given in the fourth case as the reason for firing Deaver. On December 16, 2011, Peterson was released from the Durham County jail on $300,000
bail and placed under
house arrest with a tracking anklet. His release on bond followed a judicial order for a new trial after Judge Hudson found that Deaver had given "materially misleading" and "deliberately false" testimony about bloodstain evidence, and had exaggerated his training, experience, and expertise. Former North Carolina Attorney General
Rufus L. Edmisten said that any evidence gathered after Deaver arrived at the scene might be deemed inadmissible in a new trial. In July 2014, Peterson's bond restrictions were eased. In October 2014, the court appointed Mike Klinkosum to represent Peterson, replacing David Rudolf, who had been working
pro bono on the case since Peterson's conviction was overturned. Rudolf had stated that he could no longer afford to represent Peterson without being paid. On November 14, 2016, Peterson's request for the second trial to be dismissed was refused, and a new trial was scheduled to begin on May 8, 2017. However, a news report on February 7, 2017, indicated that a resolution had been negotiated by Rudolf (once again representing Peterson) and the Durham County District Attorney.
Alford plea On February 24, 2017, Peterson entered an
Alford plea to the voluntary
manslaughter of Kathleen, asserting his innocence but agreeing there was enough evidence to likely result in a guilty verdict. The judge sentenced him to a maximum of 86 months in prison, with credit for
time previously served. Because Peterson had already served more time than the sentence (98.5 months), he did not face additional prison time. ==Media==