Kathleen Peterson

Case background and investigation

Kathleen Peterson, a Nortel Networks executive, died on December 9, 2001, at the home in Durham, North Carolina, that she shared with her husband, Michael Peterson, a novelist, former newspaper columnist and one-time mayoral candidate. According to ABC News, Michael Peterson called 911 that morning and said he had found his wife unconscious at the bottom of a staircase. He maintained that she had fallen after drinking wine and taking Valium.

Police who responded were suspicious because of the amount of blood at the scene, ABC News reported. An autopsy found multiple lacerations to her scalp, and then-District Attorney Jim Hardin said the injuries could only have come from repeated blunt force trauma. Peterson was charged with murder. Wikipedia's account of the case, citing the autopsy, gives her age as 48.

The trial took place in 2003, and on October 10 of that year a Durham County jury convicted Peterson of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. ABC11 reported that the prosecution obtained the conviction without a murder weapon or a clear motive, although witnesses testified about financial problems and about Peterson's bisexuality. Jurors also heard about the 1985 death in Germany of a family friend who was likewise found at the bottom of a staircase.

A central prosecution witness was Duane Deaver, a bloodstain analyst for the State Bureau of Investigation. The SBI dismissed Deaver in January 2011 after an independent review of the state crime lab, according to WRAL. In December 2011, after a hearing, Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson, who had presided over the original trial, ordered a new trial and Peterson was released on a $300,000 bond. In a written ruling reported by WRAL in May 2012, Hudson found that Deaver had misled the court and jury about his expertise and the reliability of his tests, and that this had a substantial effect on the verdict. Deaver's attorney disputed those findings.

In November 2016 Hudson declined a defense request to dismiss the case, and a retrial was scheduled for May 2017. Instead, on February 24, 2017, Peterson entered an Alford plea to manslaughter, a plea in which a defendant maintains innocence while accepting that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict. The judge found he had already served his time and he left court a free man, the Associated Press reported.

District Attorney Roger Echols said it remained the state's position that Peterson was responsible for his wife's death and that the plea was arranged in consultation with her family. Peterson and his attorney, David Rudolf, said he was innocent and had not received a fair trial. Kathleen Peterson's sister, Candace Zamperini, and her daughter, Caitlin Atwater, have said they believe he is guilty; Atwater reached a $25 million wrongful-death settlement with him in 2007, in which he admitted no guilt, ABC11 reported.