- Today's video is
brought to you by Raycon. Go to buyraycon.com/kendallrae
for 15% off your order. (upbeat music) Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you here again
for another true crime video. Today's case is one of the
most interesting to me. It is also one of the most annoying to me, and I have many feeling about it. This one is very controversial, so I'm sure there'll be some
fighting in the comments and that's fine, you guys
can express your opinions there of course. Today we are talking about
a case that's widely known as the staircase, and many of you have probably heard of it, it's a quite popular one. There was a big series
called The Staircase that came out on Netflix a few years back. And by big, I mean, very, very long, it's like 11 or 12 parts. I have watched the whole thing, even though it really annoys me how long this documentary is. It's absurdly long and doesn't
need to be that long at all. I have a lot of feelings about
The Staircase documentary that I will share later in this video, but it is what got me
interested in this case. And I think if you haven't
heard of it, you will find it to be very interesting as well. So maybe you've browsed on Netflix, but you just don't have the 11 plus hours to commit to The Staircase. Then I'm going to try to break everything down more simply
for you in this video. And before this video starts, I just wanted to give you
guys a little reminder to subscribe to my channel, like this video if you enjoyed it. And isn't there another
thing, I don't know. I'm supposed to be saying
that as a YouTuber, that's what you're supposed
to do, and I never say that, so just reminding you. It really does help my channel though, so thank you to
everyone who leaves comments, likes my videos, engages with them, shares them,
it means a lot to me. So there are quite a
few people in this case, there are quite a few names that we'll be bringing
up throughout the video, but for the most part we are
gonna be talking about Michael and Kathleen Peterson. So let's start with Kathleen. She was born Kathleen Hunt
on February 21st, 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina. And growing up Kathleen was very smart. She actually graduated
at the top of her class of 473 students at J.P.
McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And Kathleen was also the first woman, accepted into the School of
Engineering at Duke University, and that was a huge
accomplishment for her. While she was at Duke, she earned her bachelor of
science in civil engineering and a master's in mechanical engineering, and then went on to work in
high level executive positions at pharmaceutical and IT companies. Kathleen was well-liked, she was a big member of
her community as well. She served on the board of
the Durham Arts Council, and received multiple awards
for her leadership skills, and was also a very
generous philanthropist. Kathleen married her first
husband, Fred Atwater, in 1977 and they had one
daughter named Caitlin. And after a 10 years of marriage, things kind of fizzled and it wasn't working out for
either of them so they decided to get a divorce. They got divorced in 1985. And Kathleen was perfectly
fine being alone at first, but she did get introduced
to someone fairly quickly, another dad from her daughter's school, and his name was Michael Peterson. So let's talk about Michael,
Michael Iver Peterson. He was born on October 23rd, 1943, near Nashville, Tennessee. He also went to Duke University, and graduated with a degree
in political science. And then after that, he
took some law school classes at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. After college Michael
actually worked as an analyst for the department of defense, and he spent most of his
time there researching justifications for the US
military involvement in Vietnam. In 1965, Michael met his first wife, and her name was Patricia. A few years after meeting Patricia, he ended up joining the Marine Corps, and went over and served in Vietnam. But that didn't last long
because he was discharged for an injury from a car accident. This injury was pretty bad and loved him permanently disabled. So after this, he and his
wife moved to Germany, and they really enjoyed
living in West Germany. They had two sons, Clayton and Todd, and Patricia worked as a
elementary school teacher at the military base. And while she was working
there she ended up meeting this other woman who
she became best friends with, and her name was Elizabeth Ratliff. Elizabeth had a husband named George, and they had two kids as well. So all of them would spend time together. Their two daughters were
named Margaret and Martha, and they loved spending
time with the Peterson's, and they all really got along. George was also a captain in the military, so he and Michael had plenty to talk about and they really liked each other. But then unfortunately George
passed away suddenly in 1983, he actually had a heart attack, during the US invasion of
the island nation of Granada. It was really shocking to
his family, to his daughter, and so the Peterson's
really stepped up and tried to be there for them as much as possible. And Michael really stepped it up. He was very close with
Elizabeth and her daughters. He really tried to step in
kind of as a father to them. They really tried to help them out as much as they
can to grieve the loss of their dad, to move on with their new life. And just as Margaret and Martha
were kind of getting used to life without their dad, their mother suddenly passes away in 1985. The medical examiner
determined that Elizabeth died from an intra-cerebral hemorrhage, secondary to Von Willebrand's disease, which is a blood clottation disorder that she did suffer from. And it was just horrific for the girls, they had just lost both parents
in the span of a few years. I mean, they were completely devastated, they didn't know what their future was gonna look like at this point. So her body was brought
back to the United States, and buried in Bay City, Texas. And so now the girls were orphans. So Michael Peterson actually
became their legal guardian. Soon after that, Michael's
marriage with Patricia started going bad, and they ended up getting
a divorce in 1986, and he ended up leaving without his sons. They stayed with Patricia in Germany, and he went back to United States, to start a new life with
Margaret and Martha. He moved back to North Carolina, and when he got there he
formally adopted both girls, and then both sons
actually ended up joining him over in America. He worked as a columnist for the local Durham Herald Sun Newspaper, where he was known openly for criticizing the police department, and going after the district attorney. He also spent time writing
about his experience, when he was in the military a lot. He wrote multiple military related novels, and that was always
something that just intrigued him and stayed with him
throughout his life. And he did pretty well as a writer, reportedly I can't
confirm this but I guess he got a half a million dollar advance for one of those books, and he also had interest from
a Hollywood production company to make a movie out of
it, but it never happened. So then in 1986, Margaret and Martha met
a new friend at school, named Caitlin Atwater. And they introduced Michael to Caitlin's mom, Kathleen Atwater. And when Kathleen and Michael met, they hit it off instantly. They had a lot in common and
seemed to just really click. They started dating and not
much longer after they had met, they asked the kids how they would feel about them all moving in together. And the girls were actually thrilled. This worked out pretty well for them. They're gonna have their friend Caitlin get to move in with them, and
they even remember calling it like a permanent sleepover. So in 1989, Kathleen and Caitlin moved in with
Michael, Martha and Margaret, and then they got married
years later in 1996. They raised their new
brady bunch style family in a 9,000 square foot mansion, in the forest hills neighborhood
of Durham, North Carolina. Here's some footage of the house. It's very beautiful,
very classic Southern, and it's big. And Michael and Kathleen were said to have had a fairy tale romance. They were completely devoted
to each other, totally in love, and dedicated to their children. They had just seamlessly
blended their lives and families together, and it
worked out perfectly for them. Everyone really got along,
they were both successful in their careers, and
involved in the community. They had a wide circle of
friends and loved ones. They just seemed to truly have it all. People who knew the
Peterson's really liked them. Friends and family, neighbors, they got along with
everyone, and like I said they were very involved
in their community. People loved the girls, they loved their story of
how the girls were adopted, and they were this blended family, and they all got along so well,
Michael was such a good dad, Kathleen was such a good mom. They have this beautiful
life, they really had it all. But that all changed. On December 9th, 2001, around
2:40 AM, Michael called 911 and said that he found Kathleen, at the bottom of their back staircase. They had two staircases in their house, this was kind of a back way,
it was a very small staircase, very confined, we'll look at it more. But he said, he just found her there, and he had
no idea what happened. So let's go ahead and play the 911 call. Okay, so I am actually recording
this part on another day. I did not realize that
the Michael Peterson 911 call is copyrighted, and I keep getting the
video blocked every time I upload it, so I'm gonna
have to just explain it to you and then link it below. However, the only version
I found of it on YouTube is just on some random account, and I could see it getting taken down. So the 911 call is in
The Staircase documentary if all else fails and
you're trying to hear it. I do think it's interesting to hear it, but I'm gonna do my best
to just describe it to you. So it's pretty quick, it's pretty short, and Michael definitely sounds panicked, and he doesn't seem to hear
the dispatcher super well. There's been a lot of debate
over that, was he trying to not actually answer her questions by seeming confused and panicked, or was he actually confused and panicked? He keeps just saying,
please come right away, please come right away, my wife fell down the stairs, and the dispatcher asks, how
many stairs she fell down? And Michael takes a while
to answer that question, but eventually he tells
her maybe 15 to 20 stairs, I don't know, just please
get here as soon as you can. Michael son, Todd was
over at a friend's house, and Michael called him
and he actually came back to the house before the
ambulance even got there. And when the first responders did get there, they were shocked. It was an incredibly bloody scene for a fall down the stairs. Kathleen's body was
found almost completely out of the staircase. Her upper body, her
head was on the landing, but there was so much
blood at this crime scene, I'm talking everywhere, all
over the walls of the staircase, all the way down to where
she was at the landing kind of pooled there, it
really was everywhere. Of course, as soon as they got
there, they rushed Kathleen to the hospital, but it was too late, Kathleen died from her injuries. She was only 48 years old. So right off the bat, this obviously seems incredibly
strange for her to have died from falling down the stairs. Of course it happens, but normally with much longer staircases. Her actual fall wasn't that far. And with the amount of blood, it seemed like there was just
no way that could be generated from just falling down the stairs. - There was just a
tremendous amount of blood on her clothing, on the walls, behind her, on the steps, on the face plates of the steps, and on the bottom of her feet. - So how did this happen? How did she take such a brutal
fall that it killed her? Michael said that it was
a perfectly normal day. He and Kathleen had
watched a movie that night, they watched America's Sweethearts, and then afterwards they
relaxed by their pool with some drinks. And they're just talking
out there having a good time when Kathleen decided to
go back into the house, and Michael stayed out by the pool. So it's two in the morning, Michael's out by the pool alone
and he's smoking his pipe, and it is pretty late,
but it's not that weird people stay up late
and smoke and whatever. And he heads in around 2:40 AM. And that's when he said he
stumbled across Kathleen's body. He said he immediately assumed that she had fallen down the stairs and called 911 right away. Investigators did find a bottle of wine and two wine glasses at the scene, so that corroborates Michael's story that the two of them were drinking and relaxing and hanging out. But they just couldn't get
past the sheer amount of blood that was at the scene. It was way more than you would expect from a fall down the stairs. And the more that police
started gathering information from Michael about that night, the more they started
to question his story. So they collected a bunch of evidence, and they started building
a case against Michael. And on December 20th, 2001, they finally had enough evidence
to charge Michael Peterson with Kathleen's murder. And this was totally shocking
to everyone who knew them. People just thought Michael
was such a good guy, and that they were such a good couple that they were so in love, that there's no way he would harm her. His kids were absolutely shocked, and they just didn't believe it was true. Michael was also shocked
that he was arrested. He said he never thought
anyone would think that he killed his wife. So at first, Michael was
released on an $850,000 bond, and he had to give up a lot of
his possessions, his wallet, his car, even his passport. He wasn't allowed to travel
anywhere, he wasn't even allowed to leave the state. And after this, Michael spoke out publicly for the first time. - Kathleen was my life. I whispered her name in
my heart a thousand times, she is there but I can't stop crying. I would never have done
anything to hurt her. (air whooshing) I am innocent of these charges, and we will prove it in court. - So at that point, Michael had already been
in prison for a month, and you can see in the clip, it definitely took a toll on him. He seems very disheveled, very upset, and the public was pretty
torn on what to think, I mean, they hadn't heard
a lot of the evidence yet, and we will start going over all of that. But just his demeanor and his plea and his
reputation with the public, made a lot of people think
he really was innocent. And a lot of people
believe that to this day. So jury selection started in May of 2003, and the trial was set to begin in July. In the lead up to the trial, Michael's friends and family really stood up for him,
publicly stated their support for him and that they
believed he was innocent. This included his adopted daughters, they really stood strong for their dad, and also his ex wife, Patricia, who was friends with Kathleen, and she just did not think
there was any possible way Michael could have done this. She said that she knew
Michael was innocent, that he would never hurt Kathleen, that he just wasn't violent like that. She said that he truly loved her, and that they would
be together forever, if she hadn't passed away. Michael also repeatedly
said that he was innocent, and said that he would never have wanted to end Kathleen's life, she was the best thing that he had. And he continually talked
about the great times that they had over the
past 14 years together. So Michael was represented
by a Charlotte attorney named David Rudolf. David decided that they would argue, that Kathleen had mixed alcohol and the prescription drug Valium, which made her very disoriented and dizzy. And they said that she was
actually trying to walk up the stairs, which was a
shock to a lot of people, because if you die from a staircase fall, a lot of people are gonna assume you fell down, and he fell far, but Kathleen actually fell going up, only a few steps up too. They said the staircase
is dark, which it is. There's no windows, there's
no natural lighting, and this was that night in
the middle of the night. The staircase is really narrow too, kind of closed in, would make me a little claustrophobic almost. And she had flip-flops on. So they said it easily could
have caused her to fall. And they actually argued
that she fell several times, that after the first fall, she struggled to get
up and then fell again. They said she may have even fallen more than that, trying
to get up several times, falling again, slipping, and that she hit her head several times, which is what caused her death. - Because falls can happen
in a million different ways, with a million different variations, but what I can tell you is
that our experts will say, that the injuries on
Kathleen Peterson's body, not just the lacerations, but the bruises, all can be explained as
consistent with this fall. - The defense got a man named Henry Lee to assist in her case, and he's a blood spatter
analysis and forensic expert. And after he looked at everything, he concluded that Kathleen's
injuries were the result of a tragic accidental fall, and that the volume of blood
at the scene was irrelevant. He said that she was bleeding profusely from the injuries on her head, and she was also coughing
up blood at the same time. And this guy is very controversial. He has been involved in
several high profile cases, and has an interesting reputation. And during court, he actually did something very strange. The dude brought out some ketchup, and showed what it would
be like if you had blood in your mouth and you were to cough, and he showed what that blood spatter would look like, to explain
all the blood on the wall. And a lot of people did
not like that he did this. They thought it was pretty disrespectful, honestly and not a real
scientific method for court. The prosecution completely
disagreed with this. And when you see Kathleen's injuries, it makes everything even more confusing, because it turns out Kathleen
had multiple head lacerations, almost as if something
or someone scratched her or she was hit with
some type of object, but it was strange because there
were no bruises on her arms or her legs. And Michael kept pushing the
idea that Kathleen was drinking a lot that night, but when they
did her blood alcohol test, it came back that she was not drunk. She was actually at 0.07%
blood alcohol level. So definitely not drunk
drinking, but not drunk. As most of you know, at that point you're actually legally still allowed to drive, it's not until you hit 0.08%
that you cannot legally drive. The autopsy report showed
that she had a total of seven deep lacerations on
the top and back of her head, which were likely caused by repeated blows from a light rigid object. She also had a fracture of
the thyroid neck cartilage, which indicates an intense
pressure on the neck, like possible strangulation. And another thing is when first responders first got there, most of
the blood around Kathleen had completely dried, meaning she was probably
there for quite a bit, which of course Michael said
he was out smoking the pipe by the pool. But the neurons in her brain
showed that she was alive and unconscious for at least 90 minutes, if not up to two hours
before she actually died. So she was just lying there for a while. And that data just completely
conflicts with Michael's statement that he was out by
the pool for only 40 minutes after she went inside. And the medical examiner, Deborah Radisch actually ruled
Kathleen's death, a homicide, and this was huge. - At the end of the autopsy examination, taking into account the
number of scalp lacerations, their locations, their orientation, together with the neck injury, the findings were unequivocal
that this was not from a fall down the stairs. And the fact that she was found
at the bottom of the stairs would indicate either
that's just a coincidence or she was there for a reason, perhaps to make somebody think that she had fallen down the stairs. - So obviously her wounds
are incredibly strange for a staircase fall. I feel like we can all agree to that. It probably wasn't just the staircase, there had to be some other
element to her death, and the prosecution
actually presented the idea that it could have been a
blow poke from a fireplace. It turns out that the couple owned this custom very nice blow poke, that sat next to their fireplace. And this is to kind of
like stoke the woods. This was a gift from Kathleen sister. It was something that
was important to them. And oddly enough, it was
missing from their home. But the defense argued that since there was no skull fracture found in the autopsy report, that there was no way
that she could have died from being beaten to death. But the autopsy was just the
beginning of the evidence that the prosecution plan
to share during the trial. Now the prosecution, not the
greatest, I'll just say that. But one of their primary goals was to establish that Michael was a liar, in order to hurt his
credibility with the jury. So the first thing that they
brought up was that Michael had previously lied about
his military accomplishments. Years earlier, Michael had run for mayor, and while he was running,
he would go around saying that he was awarded two Purple Hearts. One of them for being hit by shrapnel, from a landmine explosion in Vietnam. He had a whole story about it. But it turns out he made all of that up. According to the military records, he had been awarded a Silver Star, and a Bronze Medal with valor, but no Purple Hearts. And like we talked about earlier, his injury was caused from a car accident, that was not at all related
to serving in the military. So right there in court, they proved that he was willing to lie about something as big as that. And Michael even admitted in court, that sometimes he lied
because it made things easier. - It's easier, it was just easier sometimes to let the lie come out. - Next, the prosecution needed
to show that Michael had lied on the night of Kathleen's death. And the evidence that they brought up for this
was that the wine glasses, that were sitting out, that Michael said, they were using to drink earlier, were never touched by Kathleen, there were no fingerprints from Kathleen on either wineglass. And they also brought in their
own blood spatter analysis to counteract what Harvey Lee had said. His name was Duane Deaver, he's a blood spatter analysis with North Carolina State
Bureau of Investigation. And he said that the blood
spatter on the walls, and around the staircase were
caused by someone lifting the murder weapon over and
over, while bludgeoning Kathleen to death, not from her coughing up blood. - In other words, something
contacted the wall with blood on it, made smears in here, and
then another impact occurred creating another stain, which came across the top of that. The stains on these pants are consistent with the impact spatter, with the result of a forceful impact, and that the individual
wearing these pants at the time of that impact, was in close proximity
to the source of blood, when it was impacted. - So of course, they
also have to show motive. They have to prove why
Michael would want to kill his beautiful wife Kathleen, who he loved so much,
they have this great life, why would he wanna ruin all of that? - If the prosecution is correct, how do we go from soulmate and lover, to cold blooded murder, how does that happen? - So to start, they dropped
a big bombshell in court. They had evidence that
Michael was bisexual and that he was having
an affair on Kathleen with another man. Investigators had discovered
over thousand photos of men on his computer, and they also found a
conversation between Michael and this 26 year old male
escort named Brent Wolgamott. And they actually brought
him in to testify in court. - What types of services did you perform? - Oh, well, that's pretty broad, basically it's a companionship
for other males of legal age. - And did that involve sexual activities? - Sometimes it does. - Okay, what types of
sexual activity, sir? - Oh, just about anything under the sun. - It turns out that the two
of them had been talking for at least four months
before Kathleen's death. And from what we know, it was all online, but they had been planning
to meet up in person soon. And it turns out that
the night Kathleen died, she had gotten on Michael's computer, just a few hours before. And this isn't something she normally did, but she had to prep for a
conference call the next day, so she had asked Michael
to use his computer. She asked him for his password, and she got on there. And who knows what she saw. And not only that, Michael
had actually printed out pages of conversations with this escort, talking about where they plan to meet, what sexual acts they plan to
do, and he literally printed it and left it in his desk drawer, where Kathleen could have
easily found it that night. So they theorized that Kathleen had found all of that while she was on the computer, that she discovered that
Michael was cheating on her. They presented the idea that
maybe she came to him angry, and they got in a fight over his affair. At some point, maybe
this fight got violent, and Michael beat Kathleen to death, and then staged everything at
the bottom of the staircase. Now, one of the district
attorneys on the prosecution that really tried to emphasize and sensationalize his
sexuality during the case, was attorney Freda Black. She seemed just determined
to cause a huge scandal about his secret gay life. But Michael claimed
that Kathleen was aware that he was bisexual and
that she was okay with it. But that doesn't mean that she was okay with him having an affair. The defense even argued though that why would he
print out conversations, and leave them in the desk
or let her on his computer, if he was hiding all of this stuff. So the next motive that they
introduced was financial, and this is where, gets really dicey. It turns out that the two of
them were in about $143,000 worth of debt. And they were headed for
big financial trouble. - They were basically having to live month to month on credit cards. She was on the edge of losing her job. All those things combined, from a financial perspective, we thought caused significant
stress in that home. - Kathleen salary at the
time was $145,000 a year. But that year she deferred
a lot of it, and her company was laying off a lot of people. Michael, on the other hand hadn't had a steady income in years. His writing career really never took off
like he wanted it to. And then they found out that their sons, Michael and Patricia's sons, were also in quite a bit of debt. They actually pulled
out emails of Patricia and Michael talking
about their son's debt. And in one of those emails
Michael said that he had to keep this a secret from his wife. And of course it turns out that Kathleen had a huge life insurance policy. - First of all, the amount available to Mr. Peterson upon Ms. Peterson's death would have been what? - [Man] $1,834,166! - But of course, before
he could get that payout, he had to make sure that Kathleen's death looked like an accident. And the prosecution argued
that he actually got this idea years earlier, when he
was living in Germany with his first wife. And this is where, gets wild. So just a reminder Michael
and his first wife, Patricia, who he's friendly with now, they have two kids together,
they used to live in Germany, like I said, at the
beginning of the video. And they had a friend
named Elizabeth Ratliff who died suddenly in 1985. And then Michael adopted her daughters, when she passed away and they
moved back to the States. And Elizabeth had a sister, her name was Margaret Blair. And when she heard how Michael's
second wife, Kathleen died, falling down the stairs, she had to contact authorities. It turns out that there
were a lot of similarities between the way that Kathleen died, and the way that Elizabeth died. So let's talk a little bit more about how Elizabeth actually died. According to her sister Margaret, Elizabeth and her daughters had dinner at the Peterson house that night, and then they came home. Michael actually walked them home. And then he was seen by another
neighbor later that night running from their house. The next morning they found Elizabeth dead at the bottom of her
staircase, just like Kathleen. And she was actually
found by the girls' nanny who was named Barbara. And get this, she also had
lacerations to the back of her head that looked
exactly like Kathleen's. In the weeks leading up
to Elizabeth's death, she had been suffering from
pretty severe headaches. So the medical examiner just concluded that she had intracerebral hemorrhage, and that caused her to collapse, and fall down the stairs. Her death was investigated
by the German police and also the US military police. And at the time, no one thought there was any way this was any type of homicide. They thought this was a natural
causes accidental death. And what's weird is in the
police reports at the time, they did not note that
there was a lot of blood around her body, but Barbara the nanny who found her said there was blood everywhere. - When I looked at the wall, the blood was up so high. - [Woman] How high was it? - I'm almost six feet, and I was standing up with my hand and the blood was over my hand. I couldn't figure out how did
somebody get blood that high? - Michael was coming
and going and handling all the military people. - Michael said that she
had a brain aneurysm. - [Woman] Did Michael Peterson say that? - Yes, and that she must
have fallen down the stairs. - They even brought in
another witness who cleaned the crime scene. And she said, it took her
hours to clean all of the blood off of the staircase. And this is just kind of strange, but Kathleen and Elizabeth
also look eerily similar to one another. So when this whole Elizabeth Ratliff thing came out, everyone was shocked. A lot of people started
changing their minds quickly, friends and family even
because it just didn't seem like he could have a connection to both of these strange staircase deaths. How often do you hear someone dying falling down the stairs in their home? This was a big turning point in the case. This is when a lot of
people changed their minds. So prosecutors decided to
exhume Elizabeth Ratliff's body. If you remember, she was buried in Texas, so they were able to
access her pretty easily. And she was examined by Deborah Radisch, the same medical examiner who had ruled Kathleen's death a homicide. David Rudolf really did
not like that Deborah was performing the autopsy and requested that it be done
by a Texas medical examiner instead, but this request was denied. And when they got the
updated autopsy report back, they concluded that Elizabeth's
death was also a homicide. - In my opinion, the cause
of death of Mrs. Ratliff was blunt trauma of the head. - What is the manner of
death in your opinion? - Homicide! - Of course, Michael was never charged with anything from Elizabeth's death, but they definitely use this in court, to show that Michael
could have had a history here, that there might be a pattern here. It really seemed like Michael had possibly gotten away with murder once and then used it again as a blueprint
for murdering Kathleen and getting away with it. The prosecution of course
had plenty of theories about what happened, but they were still missing
a key piece of evidence, the murder weapon. They needed to explain how
this actually happened. Of course, they had
already presented the idea that it could have been this blow poke in the house that Michael
had used that was missing. And then it showed up. During court the defense actually
brought the blow poke out. It turns out that Michael's son
actually found the blow poke in their garage, which was strange because this
was an area that was searched many times by police, and they completely missed
it, unless it wasn't there. They did forensic testing on it. And this thing was covered in spider webs. It's very controversial whether or not that could have been placed there, but they did do
forensic testing on it. And it showed that the blow
poke hadn't been used in years, years before Kathleen had died. So it couldn't be used in
court as the murder weapon. This was a big blow to the prosecution. Things were looking pretty shaky for them. And also the jury wasn't impressed with how they were acting. They had acted
unprofessionally several times. It became kind of a sport to them to win, like cheering after
certain testing was done. Just odd things like that. And after this blow poke thing, it was looking shaky for the prosecution. No one knew what the jury
would come back with. During the trial, the jury was actually brought
out to the Peterson's house, so that they could view the staircase, they could see the pool where they were hanging out
before this all happened, and they could get a better idea about the distance between
the pool to the staircase. So this trial went on and
on, it lasted three months, and years leading up to this,
so there is tons of footage that was in The Staircase documentary. And some of it really should have been cut out, because it's
literally sometimes people just setting down papers or breathing. They just really left in as
much as they possibly could. They wanted this thing to
be as long as possible, and probably get the biggest
deal they could from Netflix. But the trial itself lasted three months, which is a long time, this was the longest in North
Carolina's history actually. And during their deliberation, they determined that the blow poke couldn't have been the murder weapon. And they also made the
decision to not even consider the death of Elizabeth Ratliff, when discussing Michael's case. They said that it was irrelevant, but they finally reached a
decision on October 10th, 2003. Michael Peterson was found guilty of first degree murder. - [Woman] We the 12 members of the jury, unanimously find the
defendant to be guilty of first degree murder, just
the 10th day of October, 2003. - Michael was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And parole was actually denied
because the jury determined that this was a premeditated murder. And in this case, it
didn't need to be weeks or days even of preparation, it could have been even a few seconds to be considered
premeditated in this case. Michael was devastated by the news, and so were his daughters
who really stood by his side at this time. And in court, he whispered to them, I love you and I'll be all right. - [Man] Is there anything you wanna say before the court imposes judgment. - I'd like to say, (inaudible chatter) (air whooshing) - And from the beginning of the trial to the end of the trial, Michael lost a lot of his supporters, his personal supporters. Kathleen's daughter actually
changed her mind about Michael after reading the autopsy report. She just knew there was no
way that her mother's injuries could have been caused by
falling down the stairs. She and many of their friends and family were under the
impression that the injuries just weren't that severe, but when they saw it, it
was pretty hard to deny that Michael had to have been involved. And one of the experts
in court actually showed that someone had likely tried
to wipe up part of the blood. It looked like someone had
started and then kind of gave up. Michael was the only other
person that was there. Kathleen's sister Candace also
stopped supporting Michael after learning more about their marriage, and his bisexuality. And after the trial, both of them really became
strange from the whole family. They really wanted nothing
to do with Michael. But Michael still claimed
that he was innocent, and he started the appeals
process right away. In 2006, a court appointed attorney, argued for Michael that he
didn't get a fair trial. He pointed out many mistakes
that were made by the judge, some of the issues they
have with the prosecution, but this was denied. The case was then brought to the North Carolina
Supreme Court in 2007, and the court upheld the 2006
decision to deny the appeal. But Michael was not going to
give up and in 2008 he hired new attorneys to file a
motion for a new trial, questioning mostly the
testimony of Duane Deaver, who was the blood spatter
analysis with the SBI, who had came in and counteracted a lot of what their blood
spatter analysis had said. The motion was denied again in 2009, but this time it was
picked up by the court, that there was some
questioning around Deaver. They started questioning
his lack of experience in the press, and his tactics during the trial. So the attorney general
actually opened an investigation into Deaver in 2010, and he found that Deaver
and other agents of the SBI repeatedly helped
prosecutors get convictions by misrepresenting or
suppressing evidence, in over 34 cases over a 16 year period. So he was fired in 2011. So at this point, his old
attorney, David Rudolf stepped back in and started
trying to help Michael get a new fair trial. And he was so determined to help Michael, who he really believed was innocent, as far as we know, that he ended up working
on his case pro bono. And this time when they
brought it back to a judge, he rolled that because of Deaver, Michael did not get a fair trial, so he granted him a new trial. And they actually made the
decision to lease Michael on house arrest on December 16th, 2011, and on a $300,000 bail. A lot of this is filmed in The Staircase, which Michael had a heavy
hand in the production of all of that. He's very close with the editor, I'll touch on that in a bit. But this is when they really start to play up a lot of the emotion. A lot of the documentary is not focused on the details of the case, a lot of it is focused on the girls and how sad they're gonna
be when their dad leaves, and Michael talking about
his pain from all of it. But he doesn't show too
much emotion about Kathleen, which is strange to me. So the new trial was
scheduled for May of 2017, but they never ended up making it to trial because Michael decided
to accept an Alford plea. An Alford plea is kind of a weird thing, it's not very common, but
if you're in a true crime, I'm sure you've heard of it at some point. And what it means is that you're accepting that there is enough evidence to convict you, but you're also
maintaining your innocence at the same time, so you're
kind of pleading but not. So in February of 2017, he pleaded guilty to
voluntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to a maximum
of 86 months in prison. But Michael had already
served 89 months in prison, so he was released on time served. This was very, very controversial, as you can imagine. - Am I gonna put my life and my freedom, in the hands of the Durham
Police, the district attorney, look what they did the first time. I have waited over eight years, 2,988 days as a matter of fact, that I counted, for an opportunity to have a retrial, so that I could vindicate
myself, and prove my innocence in a fair trial this time. - [Man] This court does find
that he has served his time and he is free to go. - It has been the most difficult
thing I've ever done, ever. - The prosecution had hoped
that this would still bring some sense of peace and
justice to Kathleen's family, but it's not ideal for them. - Michael Peterson, the words Alford plea, they're meaningless, Alford-shmalford, means nothing, guilt. An innocent man does not plead guilty, Mr. Peterson pled guilty today. - But as of today, Michael is a free man. So let's talk about The
Staircase documentary. So the director of the
documentary is an Oscar winner. His name is Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. And he started filming the
documentary about this case within weeks of Kathleen's death. So he spent a lot of time
with Michael over the years and had hours and hours to edit down. So I do understand why it was 11 parts. I still don't think it needed to be. I think they needed to make some more cuts in that, but that's just me. And at first, Michael
did not want them to film in his house for some reason, but after three months he
decided that they could. Jean-Xavier said that this
documentary was supposed to be an unbiased look at this case. However, I think most people
who watch it can agree that Michael really used
it to his advantage, and it's very biased towards him. I personally think it's one
of the most biased true crime documentaries out there,
and that's because Michael was pretty involved in it. Even the director admitted
that Michael really used his storytelling skills, his intelligence, and his sense of humor to try
to manipulate the narrative of the documentary
throughout the whole thing. And one thing that you
noticed when watching it is, Michael really
avoids the tough questions as much as he can, he
will change the topic, kind of switch you in
a different direction, and the questions never
really get answered. After filming everything
from Kathleen's death through the 16 years of court, he also filmed two extra
episodes at the end with Michael kind of
sharing his final thoughts. And he really does pull
on people's heartstrings. I mean, Michael is very charming, he has a way of making you feel bad for him, making himself
seem like the victim, and almost tries to make you just forget about all the other hard
evidence against him. The series did incredibly well at Netflix. Millions of people have seen
it, and millions of people have their own opinions. And I know people are split on it. But the thing that really
gets me is that the editor of the documentary had a
relationship with Michael going on while he was in prison, they were kind of dating. And after he left prison, he
actually moved in with her. So there you go, who knows
how much of a hand Michael actually had in the final
editing of the project, and how much he could
have influenced people who are working on it. The following year,
Michael published a memoir, about the case and how his life has been since his release from jail. He called the book Behind The Staircase, all profits go to charity, and release the book public domain, meaning it's not copyrighted, and anyone can use the content. So let's wrap it up here by talking about the possible theories. And one of the theories
that wasn't brought up yet, that is very interesting,
we'll get to that in a sec. So in October of 2002,
Caitlin, Kathleen's daughter, filed a wrongful death
claim against Michael. Michael tried to file
for bankruptcy in 2006, and Kathleen immediately
filed an objection. But he ended up agreeing
to settle for 25 million in February of 2007, but did not ever admit
to murdering Kathleen. So even though the state
medical examiner was trash and lied in court, the actual blood evidence is
pretty strong against Michael. Like I said, Kathleen was lying
face up, with her upper body on the first few stairs, her head leaning up against
the landing at the bottom. The walls around her
body are covered in blood and there's smears, almost as if someone
had tried to clean it. And they also found out that
there was a bloody shoe print on her sweat pants that
matched Michael's shoes. But when paramedics
arrived, he was barefoot, and his socks and shoes
were kind of laying over near her body. And a luminol test, actually show that there
were bare footprints, walking around the house
and around the backyard. This could mean that Michael left her there, and was walking
around doing things, trying to figure out how
to lay out the crime scene best before he called. And there was also drops of blood found inside of Michael's shorts. Which there's also a lot of questions around Michael's attire that night, 'cause he was wearing a t-shirt
and shorts and barefoot, and it was 50 degrees out at the time. So as we know, the
defense said that Kathleen slipped on the stairs and was disoriented, slipped again in her own blood and then started coughing up blood, and that's what all the blood
spatter on the wall is from. They said she got up, fell over and over again and
that's how she got all of the lacerations on her head. And I don't know about you guys, but that just really does
make any sense to me. Kathleen's flip-flops were
found next to her body. Like they have slipped
off while she was falling, but the defense argued that
there wasn't enough room in the staircase for Michael
to really beat her to death, especially with a blow poke, but later on after trial, a neighbor actually came
forward and said that they found a tire iron outside. So Michael has tried to
argue that maybe an intruder came into the house, that maybe they beat
her with the tire iron. But this is a very strange theory, because nothing else was disturbed. Why would this person come
in, murder her for no reason in the middle of the night, not take anything, not do
anything else and just leave. The whole blow poke
thing now has been a big point of contention. The defense has really tried to argue that it couldn't have possibly
have been the murder weapon, just because it was found downstairs, covered in spider webs, and maybe it was down
there that whole time. But either way when the defense found it, they never gave it to the
police to actually process it as evidence, they just all of a sudden whipped it out at court. So it wasn't really handled properly. So there's definitely no real proof that it wasn't the murder weapon. It could have been, maybe it
really was placed in the garage later on, because it was
weird that the police had missed it the first time. But of course, please do
miss things all the time, so the blow poke thing is
probably always gonna remain a point of contention. Of course, many people
have wondered why Michael didn't hear Kathleen
screaming inside the house, if she was falling, like chances are she tried to
make some noise and get help. But the defense actually
recreated the scene and showed that Michael
wouldn't have been able to hear her from outside. Now Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, did not participate in
The Staircase documentary, but she has done some other interviews, and she's talked about
Michael's quick temper, and said that he had multiple outbursts when she and her mom first
moved in with his family. And this gives a little
more credibility to the idea that Michael just snapped on Kathleen and decided to kill her, or maybe she really did
find out about his affair, and they got in an argument and he freaked out and killed her then. Now tons of experts, and just people on YouTube who do body language analysis videos, and then also Dr. Phil, have all pointed out that
Michael's body language, seems very strange at
many different points. A lot of them have brought up
that there are many red flags that he has been lying. In this clip, Michael seems to slip up and say, the last time he saw Kathleen
alive was when she walked into the house, but he quickly corrects himself. - And the last I saw her was when I was there
and she was just walking, walking here, that's it, that was the last I saw Kathleen alive. No, she was alive when
I found her but barely. - Also many people have brought
up that in the 911 call, Michael never mentions the
amount of blood at the scene. This is something people
normally describe on 911 calls. He repeated over and
over again that his wife was still breathing, but then wouldn't answer certain questions from the dispatcher. He seemed to make no effort to calm down, or to try to help Kathleen and listen to what he needed to do. Of course, it's very
hard to judge 911 calls as always, no one really
knows how they would act in that situation, but
it's odd and worth noting. And another extremely weird
thing is Michael's son, who was at the crime scene
before the first responders even were, never talked to police. He refused to give any
interviews, which is very odd. It makes a lot of people think he may have been covering for his dad, or just knows more about what happened. Of course, another theory
is that an intruder did it, but like I said,
it seems very unlikely. But about six months
before Kathleen's death, Michael did report a burglary. At first, he said it was his phone, but it turns out it was
actually his son's phone, and they ended up figuring
out who they thought took it anyway, so not really anything that could possibly connect. But Michael also claims
that there was at least five auto break-ins around his area, around the time of her death. A lot of what Michael and
his defense use to this day, is that they believe that
since Michael was a columnist who went after the police a
lot, that maybe someone targeted him and kind of set all
of this up to make Michael look like a murderer. But I really don't think
that holds much water, and most people just
don't believe that at all. I mean, just seeing the
evidence in the crime scene, and knowing about
Elizabeth Ratliff's death, definitely isn't something anyone could have just whipped up, I mean, this is Michael's reality. He's been a liar, he's been connected to another staircase death. But it can't be completely
ruled out because Kathleen's clothes were never tested
for DNA that night. Incredibly frustrating, I'm not sure why. But we can't determine if there was any other
third-party DNA there. Of course, another theory is
that it was just an accident, plain and simple. The night that Kathleen
died though, Michael said that she had fallen at
least down 15 or 20 stairs. He said that she'd been drinking, was wearing the flip-flops
and that led to the fall. But it's really hard to believe, I'm sure most of you agree that she fell while walking up the stairs, which was only a couple steps, and then slipped again, got up fell again. It doesn't even make sense
for that to have caused the injuries on the back of her head. But the blow poke actually
does make a lot of sense because it's light enough that
it wouldn't actually fracture her skull, but it could
cause some serious damage and definitely knock someone unconscious. And the whole blow poke
thing is so, annoying because it turns out that
police actually did see the blow poke, this came out way later. Not only did they see it in the garage, they took pictures of
it, but then they left it there, and never told anyone. So that's great. And then there's one
of the wildest theories I've ever heard, but it's
very, very interesting. It's debated all over the place. People will go on and
on about this on Reddit, even to this day people discuss this, and that is the owl theory. Yes, that's right, there is a theory that an owl was the one who murdered Kathleen. This theory was introduced a neighbor, a lawyer named T. Lawrence Pollard, who went by Larry. After he saw pictures
of Kathleen's injuries, Larry thought that the head wounds kind of looked like Talon marks. He consulted with an expert on birds, who told him that owls are
known to dive bomb humans, specifically attacking the head. They came up with a theory
that the talon marks could have been caused by a barred owl, which are really common in Durham. This is what they look like, very cute, but I guess they can be really mean. Larry believes that Kathleen
was actually outside, when she was attacked by
the owl and she ran inside, and why she would have gone
down the stairs to the kitchen instead of out to Michael to get help, isn't really explained. According to theory, Kathleen
tried to run up the stairs to escape the owl, she slipped, fell, became
unconscious and died. Now here's where this gets really weird. According to the forensic report, Kathleen had a big clump of her own hair that she was grasping in her left hand, and it had been pulled from the root. And when they looked at the hair closer, they found microscopic owl feathers, and they also found a tiny
sliver of wood in there as well. Which definitely makes you
think about this owl theory. I mean, it's weird. How did those feathers get there? It's pretty odd. But how many owl deaths have you heard of. This evidence was re-examined in 2008, and they actually found two
additional owl feathers. In 2008, Larry held a press conference in front of the Durham County Courthouse to bring awareness to his theory. But Deborah Radisch, the medical examiner and the prosecutors in the case, dismissed this theory, claiming that it was highly
unlikely a bird could cause this deep of wounds in Kathleen scalp. In 2018, David Rudolf, Michael's lawyer, launched a world tour
at a lecture in Durham called Inside The Staircase, Lies Fake Science and the Owl Theory. The owl theory is something
that, of course, the defense really considers, but it
was brought to them too late to present it in court. By the time David Rudolf had really thought that the
owl theory was plausible, he had already pushed
the idea that Kathleen had fallen on her own, so
he couldn't really change it at that point. But the owl theory is pretty interesting. Even David Rudolf now who
believes the owl theory for the most part, said that even he thinks
the slip and fall theory doesn't really make a lot of sense. And a lot of people
believe the owl theory. I'm sure a lot of you do. And I would love to hear
more about why you think that, because it is
interesting the owl feathers add a whole new element to it. But again, I haven't
heard of many owl deaths, and that owl got the hell
out of there and left no other evidence. I feel like there would be more evidence of an attack outside or something. And of course, when you
really think about things, and you think about Michael's connection to another staircase death, that a witness saw him
running from the scene, and the fact that he was the last person with Elizabeth Ratliff before she died, it's very hard to think that that could have just happened twice. So the death of Kathleen
Peterson is still a mystery to this day, it is highly
debated all the time. The speculation and
interests around the case, and the theories have
only continued to grow since all of this came out. Most people who believe that
Michael killed Kathleen, believe that his motive
was because of money, that they were drowning, and that was the only
way he was gonna be able to save himself. But many people argue that
Michael really loved Kathleen, and there was just no
way he would do that. HBO Max has recently announced that there will be a
dramaticized version of the case, being released to their platform. So I'm interested to see
what that'll be like. I'm not normally a fan of
recreation and dramaticized shows, but sometimes they're good, and HBO normally does a good job. And the director of The Staircase
documentary Jean-Xavier, to this day says that after
working on it for so long, he has no idea if Michael
is innocent or guilty. He said that at the end of the day, the court system really failed
because both the prosecution and the defense did a pretty shitty job, and really failed to prove
their points either way. And I definitely agree with that, I think a much better
trial could have been done. And I think it's interesting
that the director after spending so much time
with Michael still is unsure. As far as we know of course, I mean, he might have his own thoughts
that he just doesn't share. But he has since met with Larry, the guy who presented the
owl theory multiple times. And he's also interviewed some
people who have been attacked by owls, so he's still
looking for answers himself. And after learning more,
he says that he believes that most likely it was an
owl that killed Kathleen. So at the end of this,
no one really knows. I'm not sure if we will ever know, what actually caused
Kathleen Peterson's death. But a lot of people really
do believe in the owl theory, a lot of people think it's ridiculous and extremely unlikely, but it's just kind of person to person. And it doesn't matter because
he took an Alford plea, he's out, he's done. This really is one of
those cases where people are very mixed with what
they think happened, or they just fall into the
land of, I don't, know, this is way too confusing. So of course, I wanna know what you think, and what theory makes the
most sense to you and why? I definitely don't
discount the owl theory, I think it's very interesting. I wish I could know more about how owls and about other possible owl deaths, but there's just really not
enough at the end of the day to say that that was it. And with all the other evidence, and when you bring in
Elizabeth Ratliff's death, to me it just seems too
obvious that Michael did this. I get very strange vibes
from Michael personally, the way that he acts
about different things, the way that the
documentary was so biased, and a little narcissistic. I think it's strange that
he didn't tell people, that he was so close to
another staircase death. You'd think he'd be bringing
that up all the time, like, I can't believe this happened. I also knew this other woman
who we were close to who died falling down the stairs too. Like, what are the chances, but no one in his family knew about that? None of his friends, in my opinion, and I don't always give
my opinion in these cases, because I really want you
guys to make up your own mind, I don't want you to feel
like you have to agree with me, but I think
the Peterson is guilty. I think he's guilty, of course I can't say that
without a shadow of doubt in my mind, because there is
room for those other theories, the owl theory, could have
possibly been an intruder, extremely unlikely, that's probably what I believe the least. All I know is she didn't
just fall down those stairs, because she was drinking
and slip over and over. That makes no sense to me at all. I think Michael's history of lying, lying about getting Purple Hearts, that's a big lie, that's a ballsy lie. And I think that it says
a lot about his character. Also, I do think that there
is something to the idea that Kathleen got on his
computer that at night, and that all that stuff
was on the computer. We don't know if she actually knew about it and was cool with
it or not, but that seems unlikely to me as well. And I'm sure she was devastated to find out that he was having an affair, probably confronted him about
it, maybe he freaked out. Maybe he thought she would tell people, and he didn't want people to know. I mean, there's so many possibilities. I feel so sorry for Kathleen's loved ones, for the girls having to lose their mother, and then another mother figure after that, and losing their dad. There's just so much
tragedy in their family, and I feel sorry for them
having to go through it all. But that is all that I
have for you on this case. Please let me know your opinions. I wanna know what you
guys think on this one. But before I go I'd like
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then and stay safe out there. (air whooshing)
