Death on the Stairs

0:00 Speaker 1: The staircase Mystery, the death of Kathleen Peterson December ninth,

0:05 Speaker 1: two thousand and one, Durham, North Carolina. It was supposed

0:09 Speaker 1: to be an ordinary night inside a beautiful family home,

0:13 Speaker 1: a successful writer, a loving husband, a quiet neighborhood. But

0:17 Speaker 1: before sunrise, a nine to one to one call would

0:20 Speaker 1: turn a private residence into the center of one of

0:23 Speaker 1: the most debated murder cases in America. A man was

0:26 Speaker 1: crying on the phone. He told the dispatcher that his

0:29 Speaker 1: wife had fallen down the stairs. Her name was Kathleen Peterson.

0:34 Speaker 1: She was forty eight years old, and within hours, investigators

0:38 Speaker 1: would discover that her death was not as simple as

0:41 Speaker 1: it first appeared. Kathleen and Michael Peterson lived in a

0:44 Speaker 1: large home in Durham. Michael was a novelist and former

0:48 Speaker 1: newspaper columnist. Kathleen worked as an executive for a major company. Together,

0:54 Speaker 1: they appeared to have a successful life. They had a

0:57 Speaker 1: comfortable home, a blended family, financial stability. To outsiders, everything

1:03 Speaker 1: looked normal, but behind the scenes, investigators would uncover details

1:08 Speaker 1: that changed the direction of the case forever. On the

1:11 Speaker 1: night of December ninth, Michael said he and Kathleen spent

1:15 Speaker 1: the evening together. They drank wine, they talked, they relaxed

1:19 Speaker 1: by the pool. Later, Michael claimed Kathleen went inside while

1:23 Speaker 1: he stayed outside. Hours later, he said he entered the

1:26 Speaker 1: house and found her lying at the bottom of the staircase.

1:30 Speaker 1: She was badly injured. He immediately called nine one one,

1:34 Speaker 1: but when police arrived, they noticed something unusual. The scene

1:38 Speaker 1: did not look like a simple accident. Investigators discovered that

1:42 Speaker 1: Kathleen had suffered multiple injuries to her head. The question became,

1:47 Speaker 1: did she fall or was she attacked? The staircase became

1:51 Speaker 1: the center of the investigation, blood patterns, the location of

1:56 Speaker 1: her body, the injuries she suffered. Everything was examined, and

2:01 Speaker 1: slowly suspicion began to focus on the person who found her.

2:05 Speaker 1: Her husband, Michael insisted Kathleen's death was a tragic accident,

2:09 Speaker 1: but prosecutors believed something else happened inside the home. They

2:14 Speaker 1: argued that Kathleen was murdered during an argument. They pointed

2:18 Speaker 1: to the injuries as evidence. They claimed the crime scene

2:21 Speaker 1: did not match a simple fall. Then investigators uncovered another

2:25 Speaker 1: shocking detail. Years earlier, Michael had been connected to another

2:30 Speaker 1: unusual death, a woman named Elizabeth Ratliffe, who had been

2:34 Speaker 1: close to Michael's family, had died after being found at

2:37 Speaker 1: the bottom of a staircase in Germany. Her death had

2:41 Speaker 1: originally been ruled an accident, but after Kathleen's death, authorities

2:46 Speaker 1: reopened questions surrounding that case. The similarity shocked the public.

2:50 Speaker 1: The trial became one of the most talked about criminal

2:53 Speaker 1: cases in the country. The prosecution painted Michael as a

2:57 Speaker 1: man hiding secrets. The defense are argued that Kathleen's death

3:01 Speaker 1: was a tragic accident and that investigators had rushed to judgment.

3:05 Speaker 1: After a highly publicized trial, Michael Peterson was convicted of murder,

3:10 Speaker 1: but years later the case took another dramatic turn. New

3:14 Speaker 1: legal battles followed. Questions were raised about evidence presented during

3:18 Speaker 1: the trial. Eventually, Michael entered an Alfred plea, maintaining his

3:24 Speaker 1: innocence while accepting a conviction for a reduced charge. He

3:27 Speaker 1: was released from prison, But the biggest mystery remains what

3:32 Speaker 1: truly happened inside the Peterson home that night. Was Kathleen

3:36 Speaker 1: Peterson the victim of an accident, or was something much

3:39 Speaker 1: darker hidden behind the walls of that staircase more than

3:43 Speaker 1: two decades later, the case continues to divide people. A staircase,

3:48 Speaker 1: a broken family, and a mystery that may never have

3:52 Speaker 1: a completely satisfying answer.