Michael Peterson 'staircase' murder.

wasapi

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wasapi
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For some reason, I wasn't interested enough in the case to follow it at the time, but recently heard part of an interview with Peterson, and have some questions.

I only saw about 10 minutes of the interview, but formed some opinion on Petersons character.


He has the charming-sociopathic thing down. A good writer, his speech was full of description and easy banter, and went into detail about how 'look at me - you don't think I could harm a soul', do you looks. I thought he could be an excellent actor.


As far as the death (following another of his partners also dying from a staircase fall), without viewing forensics, I formed an immediate opinion he was a murderer. Of at least one, possibly two.


That, I admit, is not the way I usually look at a case, it is just a gut instinct that may be wrong. Does anyone recall this case, and could you share some viewpoints. Thank you.
 
Owl tell you all about it

IIRC the woman who died in Germany was originally thought to have Von Willebrandt's disease, and I am not aware of any persuasive reason why that view should be rejected. She was a friend of the family, but I do not believe that she and Mr. Peterson were ever romantically linked.

With respect to Kathleen Peterson, I would look seriously at the owl hypothesis for at least a couple of reasons. One is that very small feathers were found in her scalp. Two is that there was what appeared to be a talon mark on her arm. It is a shame that the feathers were not tested for animal DNA.
 
Interesting case. He's definitely a creepy/charming character.
The Netflix documentary is worth a watch.

The "owl hypothesis" is certainly interesting and there is precedent for vicious owl attacks on people.

She may have bled out from the deep head lacerations and alcohol thinned blood combined with falling down the stairs.

Even if Michael didn't have anything to do with her death I do think he was in no hurry to call for assistance. A convenient accident perhaps.
 
Why he might have taken the Alford plea

Mr. Peterson is over seventy years old and may have wanted the certainty of freedom. Trials are a crap shoot.
 
The alleged murder weapon?

Peterson's attorney David Rudolf wrote, "But perhaps the most significant fact we learned was regarding the blow poke...And he had also been present when the police came back to the house in June 2002, pursuant to a search warrant, to take measurements of the house. During that trip, the crime scene technicians, Eric Campen and Dan George, had again searched the house. During this search, they had found what turned out to be the “missing blow poke” in the basement boiler room taken it outside and photographed it, and put it back not where they found it, but rather in the garage, where we found it more than a year later. Dew and Deaver were both there and witnessed this." The prosecution later alleged that the blow poke was the murder weapon and had gone missing.

Mr. Rudolf continued, "But we had never been told about this discovery or given this photo or any report documenting the discovery – even though Campen and George had both testified at the trial. This was yet another clear violation of Michael’s constitutional rights and might well have changed the outcome of the first trial."
 
Two fatal owl attacks

“A trucker named Robert Schmidt was killed by an owl in 1985...His big rig was still purring over in idle, a few hundred yards from his body. It had a deep dent in the hood. His body was covered in a series of what the medical examiner later called "chicken scratches". His face and chest bore the majority of the wounds.” blog

From a different blog: “Author and naturalist, the late Jack Denton Scott once documented a Great Horned Owl attack on a human…The ranger did not survive the attack.”
 
Chris_Halkides said:
“A trucker named Robert Schmidt was killed by an owl in 1985...His big rig was still purring over in idle, a few hundred yards from his body. It had a deep dent in the hood. His body was covered in a series of what the medical examiner later called "chicken scratches". His face and chest bore the majority of the wounds.” blog

From a different blog: “Author and naturalist, the late Jack Denton Scott once documented a Great Horned Owl attack on a human…The ranger did not survive the attack.”
Click to expand...
Seabirds are more common attackers, sometimes under the influence of domoic acid.
 
Whip said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peterson_(criminal)



not sure why one would submit an alford plea if one is sure enough they could be proved not guilty in requesting a new trial.
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It was for time served. As long as he didn't care about his criminal record that's basically the same as the charges being dropped. Case over. Fin.

Going to trial would entail both the expense and trouble of experiencing a full blown murder trial while being under bond restrictions and risking the possibility, however slight, of having to go back to prison and die there. With the only benefit over the deal being a cleaner criminal record. Even if he is 100% certain of acquittal that isn't a wise use of one's remaining time on this planet.
 
Change in cause of death

Attorney David Rudolf wrote, "For example, we learned from Freda Black’s handwritten notes that Deborah Radisch had originally NOT listed the cause of Kathleen’s death s blunt force trauma, but rather simply as “loss of blood.” According to Black’s notes, Radisch said that her boss, the Chief Medical Examiner of North Carolina, had insisted that she list the cause of death as blunt force trauma. This was something we could use to impeach Radisch at any retrial."

I am not an expert, but the whole business of her conducting an autopsy on Ms. Ratliff, who had von Willebrand's disease had died in 1985, struck me as dubious. An Alford plea is an uneasy compromise, but (as was also the situation regarding the WM3) sometimes it is in the best interests of the defendants. There is an interview with Mr. Peterson here. On the whole I find Mr. Peterson a little glib to be entirely sympathetic, but that is not a factor in how I view the case.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
From a different blog: “Author and naturalist, the late Jack Denton Scott once documented a Great Horned Owl attack on a human…The ranger did not survive the attack.”
Click to expand...

Back in 2020, our local law school assigned watching The Staircase documentary series in the Evidence class—the one where you learn about the rules of evidence in a trial. I'm part owner of the bar closest to the law school, so naturally we organized a watch party. It was absolutely delightful to watch that series with law students and professors, and then to watch them absolutely loose their minds when the owl theory happened.

This is why you see pirated street signs "Beware of Low-Flying Owls" in some lawyers' offices. It's an inside joke in the field. I'm attending the inauguration of a new public defender this weekend, and that's going to be my gift—lawfully obtained, of course... :rolleyes:

catsmate said:
Seabirds are more common attackers, sometimes under the influence of domoic acid.
Click to expand...

Fun fact: Utah's state bird is the California seagull (for reasons), extremely abundant thanks to the nearby lake. Yes, seagulls are aggressive and somewhat bigger than you think. Also, flocks of seagulls are the number-two cause of UFO reports. However, they have webbed feet, so you won't get talon marks. Their bills are pointier than they look.

Chris_Halkides said:
On the whole I find Mr. Peterson a little glib to be entirely sympathetic, but that is not a factor in how I view the case.
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I'm told this is fairly common. After they undergo the stress of a very public trial lasting for years, defendants grow numb to the emotional content of the story and dissociate from it. They can talk about it as if it happened to someone else.
 
The Owl hypothesis

They should have been howling at some of the evidence that was let into the first trial. Why did they lose their minds about the owl hypothesis? Let me do an offhand summary of the facts that support the owl theory. One, fatal owl attacks have limited but nonzero precedent; nonfatal attacks have greater precedent. Two, three small (micro?) feathers were found in Kathleen's hand. I was under the impression that they were from her scalp, but according to Audubon: "As Pollard discovered, the strands in the victim’s left hand contained three small feathers." From a caption to a photograph: "Note the small feathers that cover the Barred Owl's feet—unique to this family of birds." Three are the injuries. I once saw a photograph of her elbow (I do not recall where), and it looked like a talon had caused them to my non-expert eyes. I don't know Larry Pollard's level of expertise, but here is what he said: “The injuries to the eyes, and the injuries to the elbows, and the little pock marks on her wrists, here and here, all are consistent with her having her hands over her head, holding onto her hair, because something is grasping that hair.” Four, the combination of the attack and the presumed fall might together have been what caused her death. If the feather(s) were tested for DNA and found to be from an owl, this would be game over IMO.

Tiddy Smith wrote a book about the owl hypothesis, which at least one reviewer found unconvincing. The reviewer has experience in covering the criminal justice system.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
They should have been howling at some of the evidence that was let into the first trial.
Click to expand...

Oh, they were. That was the point of assigning it as a learning exercise.

Why did they lose their minds about the owl hypothesis?
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Because it's such a plot twist. It's not that the owl theory lacks support. It's that the theory departs so abruptly from everything that came before it. There's a lesson there too, which is why it makes a better classroom exercise than the hypothetical stuff dreamed up by law professors.

Thanks for the references. I'll put them on my reading list.
 
paying per conviction

The appeal document covers the many misdeeds of Duane Deaver, but I would like to highlight a related problem. IIRC Jim Hardin was the lead, and Freda Black was the assistant in this case. One of them summed up that Mr. Deaver "gave you truthful and accurate information. And you know what? They didn’t get paid not one penny extra to come in here. Deaver should have, my goodness what he had to go through on the witness stand, but, no, he didn’t get an extra penny. . . They are tried and true. Tried and true. Because they work for us.... For our state."

It may be strictly true that the witnesses were not paid for their testimony, but to leave it at that is to mislead. Roger Koppl and Meghan Sacks wrote, “Several state statutory schemes require defendants to pay crime laboratory fees upon conviction. North Carolina General Statutes require, ‘‘[f]or the services of’’ the state or local crime lab, that judges in criminal cases assess a $600 fee to be charged ‘‘upon conviction’’ and remitted to the law enforcement agency containing the lab whenever that lab ‘‘performed DNA analysis of the crime, tests of bodily fluids of the defendant for the presence of alcohol or controlled substances, or analysis of any controlled substance possessed by the defendant or the defendant’s agent.’’

Radley Balko wrote, “Think about how these fee structures play out in the day-to-day work in these labs. Every analyst knows that a test result implicating a suspect will result in a fee paid to the lab. Every result that clears a suspect means no fee. They're literally being paid to provide the analysis to win convictions. Their findings are then presented to juries as the careful, meticulous work of an objective scientist.”

I am not sure when this policy was repealed. There are bad apples in forensics, but there are also broader problems that create conflicts of interest and increase the opportunity for cognitive bias.
 
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confabulation of memory

David Rudolf wrote, "But the most prejudicial evidence was provided by a trio of women who claimed to have seen a large amount of blood at the scene of Liz Ratliff’s death, describing the scene in exactly the same language, and as very similar to the scene in the Peterson stairway – large amounts of blood all over the walls going up the staircase...Most importantly, their descriptions were completely inconsistent with the contemporaneous report written by the investigator employed by the CID. He specifically reported there was only a small amount of blood immediately under Liz’s head... However, we knew that cross-examining these witnesses, who were justifiably emotional about Liz’s death, was a delicate exercise. We couldn’t imply they were lying, but we had to dispute the accuracy of their testimony." I had not expected to find problematic eyewitness testimony in this case, but there it is.

The little reading that I have done suggests that von Willebrand's disease is associated with increased risk of hemorrhages. The protein known as von Willibrand factor is involved in blood coagulation.
 
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potential jurors

David Rudolf wrote, "Although Liz Ratliff only had a couple of small lacerations on her scalp, Deborah Radisch concluded in her autopsy report that “the inflicted trauma is clearly from a homicidal assault.” I had read many autopsy reports of blunt force trauma resulting in death, some prepared by Radisch. None had ever concluded that the injuries were from “a homicidal assault.” That was not a medical diagnosis – it was a closing argument. And when the judge denied our motion to seal the report until he ruled on whether the Ratliff evidence would be permitted, Radisch’s language had the desired effect. “Liz Ratliff killed as a result of a homicidal assault” was the lead on every TV station that night."

I am not an expert, but I don't see why one should prefer Deborah Radisch's viewpoint (which was based on the autopsy of a body from about 17 years previous) to those of the doctors in Germany.
 
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