Michael Peterson trial

Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001.

After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony.

While there, Peterson was president of Sigma Nu fraternity and was editor of The Chronicle, the daily student newspaper, from 1964 to 1965.

He attended classes at the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After graduating, Peterson took a civilian job with the United States Department of Defense, where he was assigned to research arguments supporting increased military involvement in Vietnam.

That year he also married Patricia Sue, who taught at an elementary school on the Rhein-Main Air Base in Gräfenhausen, West Germany.

They had two children, Clayton and Todd.

In 1968, Peterson was commissioned in the United States Marine Corps and served in the Vietnam War.

In 1971, he received an honorable discharge with the rank of captain after a car accident left him with a permanent disability.

When Elizabeth Ratliff died in 1985, Michael became the guardian of her two children.

After Michael and Patricia divorced in 1987, Clayton and Todd lived with Patricia, and Margaret and Martha stayed with Michael, who then moved to Durham, North Carolina.

Clayton and Todd later also joined their father.

In 1989, Michael moved in with Kathleen Atwater, a successful Nortel business executive.

They married in 1997, and Kathleen's daughter Caitlin became the fifth sibling in the blended family.

Peterson wrote three novels based "around his experiences during the Vietnamese conflict": The Immortal Dragon, A Time of War, and A Bitter Peace.

He co-wrote the biographical Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company with journalist David Perlmutt, and co-wrote Operation Broken Reed with Arthur L. Boyd.

Peterson also worked as a newspaper columnist for The Herald-Sun, where his columns became known for their criticism of police and of Durham County district attorney James Hardin Jr., who would later prosecute Peterson for the murder of his second wife, Kathleen.

Years later, during the 1999 Durham mayoral election, Peterson claimed he had been awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Valor, and two Purple Hearts.

He had all the medals, but said he did not have the documentation for them.

Peterson claimed he had received one Purple Heart after being hit by shrapnel when another soldier stepped on a land mine, and the other when he was shot.

He later admitted his war injury was not the result of the shrapnel wound in Vietnam, but was the result of a car accident in Japan, where he was stationed after the war as a military police officer.

The News & Observer said records did not contain any mention of the two Purple Hearts that Peterson said he had received.

Peterson and his first wife Patricia lived in Germany for some time.

There they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two children, Margaret and Martha.

After George's death, the Peterson and Ratliff families became very close.

Peterson's case is the subject of the French documentary miniseries The Staircase, which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017.

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" stairs.

He later claimed that he had been outside by the pool and had come in at 2:40 am to find Kathleen 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, and 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 children, but Zamperini reconsidered after learning of Michael's bisexuality, as did Caitlin after reading her mother's autopsy report.

Both subsequently broke off from the rest of the family.

Several other documentaries have been produced about Kathleen's death, including a sequel to the 2004 French documentary, podcasts, radio shows and other media.

Michael Iver Peterson was born near Nashville, Tennessee, the son of Eugene Iver Peterson and Eleanor Peterson (Bartolino).

He graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in political science.

In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter.

He was sentenced to time already served and freed.

In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wife's death in an independently published memoir, Behind the Staircase.

Miniseries The Staircase starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also covers the case and its aftermath.