Michael Peterson (author)
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Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943 near Nashville, Tennessee, USA to Eugen Iver Peterson and Eleanor Bartolino) is a fiction writer and politician. In 2003, he was convicted of the murder of his wife, Kathleen Peterson.
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[edit] Personal life
Michael "Mike" Peterson graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in political science. He attended classes at the law school of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
At Duke he was the president of Sigma Nu fraternity and the editor of The Chronicle.
In 1965, Peterson married Patricia Sue Peterson. They had two children, Clayton and Todd. Todd lived with Michael at the time of Kathleen's death.
In 1968, he voluntarily enlisted in the Marines but was discharged four years later when a car accident left him with a permanent disability.
Michael and Patricia lived in Germany for some time, where they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two children, Margaret and Martha. After George's death in Grenada, the Peterson and Ratliff families became very close. When Elizabeth Ratliff died in 1985, her two children became Michael's wards.
In 1989, Michael moved in with Kathleen Peterson, a successful Nortel business executive and socialite. They married in 1997. Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, and Michael's sons, Clayton and Todd, joined the extended Peterson family.
[edit] Professional accomplishments
Michael Peterson wrote three novels: The Immortal Dragon, A Time of War, A Bitter Peace, and a biography: Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company. He was a controversial editorial columnist for the Durham Herald newspaper, expressing opinions about the racial divide that existed in the town where he lived.
Over the years, Peterson made various attempts to win public office. It was discovered during his 1999 mayoral campaign that he had lied about his record of military honors.
[edit] The trial
[edit] Kathleen's death
On 9 December 2001, Michael called the emergency line to report that he had just found Kathleen lying in a pool of blood and suspected that she fell down "15 or 20 stairs." A week later he was charged with her murder.
Peterson pleaded not guilty. He maintained that Kathleen must have fallen down the stairs after consuming alcohol and valium. Toxicology results showed that his wife's blood alcohol content was 0.07 percent.
The autopsy report concluded that the 48 year old victim sustained a matrix of severe injuries, including a neck fracture and seven lacerations to the top and back of her head consistent with blows from a blunt object.
Defense experts concluded that the injuries sustained were consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs.
Prosecutors presented emails between Michael and a male prostitute, arranging a sexual tryst, as the basis for a probable motive for Kathleen's alleged murder. Although the male prostitute never showed up for his appointment with Michael, the prosecution claimed that Kathleen had found the emails, discovered that Michael was bisexual, and had confronted him, leading to his killing her.
The defense argued that there was no evidence that Kathleen was upset about Michael's bisexuality, and that the marriage was very happy.
[edit] Suspicion falls on Elizabeth Ratliff's death
Elizabeth Ratliff, who died in Germany in 1985, was also found at the foot of her staircase with injuries to the head.
An autopsy at the time of her death concluded she had died from an intra-cerebral haemorrhage secondary to the blood coagulation disorder Von Willebrand's disease.
By all accounts, including his own, Peterson was the last person to see her alive.
Following a court-ordered exhumation of Elizabeth's enbalmed body a second autopsy in April 2003, conducted by the same person who had performed Kathleen Peterson's autopsy, concluded instead that she had died due to fractures of the skull caused by a homicidal assault. There were in total 7 lacerations to the top and back of her head. The admissibility of this evidence in court was one of the grounds for the subsequent appeal against his conviction, lodged by Peterson's lawyers in 2005.
[edit] Verdict
On October 10, 2003, after one of the longest trials in North Carolina history, a Durham County jury found Michael Peterson guilty of the murder of Kathleen Peterson. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and is housed at the Nash Correctional Institution near Rocky Mount.
[edit] Appeal
Peterson's appeal has been filed by his defense counsel Thomas Maher, now serving as his court-appointed attorney, and was argued before the North Carolina Court of Appeals on April 18, 2006.
On September 19, 2006 the Court of Appeals rejected Peterson's arguments that he did not get a fair trial because of repeated judicial mistakes. 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 Court of Appeals' ruling was not unanimous, under North Carolina law Peterson had right to appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
[edit] Suspicions: a documentary of the trial
The court case generated widespread interest in part because of a televised documentary named Soupçons (Suspicions) which detailed Peterson's legal and personal troubles. The six hour documentary was assembled from over 600 hours of footage. It comprises eight segments and is variously known as The Staircase and Death on the Staircase. It was released by Maha Productions in October 2004. It was directed by French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade.
The documentary offers an intimate depiction of defense preparations for the trial. It also examines the role and behavior of the popular press as it covered aspects of the case.
The filmmakers started their project within weeks of the December 2001 murder and Peterson's murder indictment; jury selection took place in May 2003 with the case itself going to trial in July 2003.
[edit] Current status of the parties
- In October 2002, acting as administratrix of Kathleen's estate, Caitlin filed a wrongful death claim against Michael. In June 2006, he voluntarily filed for bankruptcy; if approved, the bankruptcy would have nullified any personal liability to Kathleen's estate. Two weeks later Caitlin filed an objection to the bankruptcy. On February 1, 2007, Caitlin and Michael settled the wrongful death claim for $25 million, pending acceptance by the courts involved. In the settlement, Michael did not admit that he murdered Kathleen. As illustrated by his bankruptcy filing, there is no expectation that he can actually pay a significant amount of the $25 million; but Kathleen's estate will have a claim on any assets that he comes into.
- In 1994, Peterson's son Clayton placed a purposefully defective pipe bomb near the main administration building at Duke University in hopes of distracting police while he snuck inside of the admissions office to steal a laminator in order to create fake ID's to sell to freshmen. After an investigation which involved tracking down the Gatorade bottle he had purchased at the student store, which was used to make the dud-explosive, he was caught and expelled. Clayton, 19 at the time, was convicted and sent to federal prison for four years. [1].
- Caitlin Atwater attends Cornell University.
- Peterson's younger son, Todd Peterson, runs an internet site for teenagers.
- Peterson's wards, Margaret and Martha Ratliff, attend college. Margaret attends Tulane University and Martha is at University of San Francisco.
- Following the trial one of Peterson's lawyers, Thomas Maher, resigned from the firm that bore his name (Rudolf, Maher, Widenhouse & Fialko). He is now Peterson's court-appointed attorney.
- Lead defense counsel David Rudolf does not mention the Peterson case on his web site.
