THE Staircase mystery continues to grip the world as theories spiral over the final moments of Kathleen Peterson, who was found dead in a pool of blood in 2001.
Novelist Michael Peterson was convicted of killing Kathleen, his second wife, after her body was found at the bottom of a dimly-lit staircase in the North Carolina mansion they shared.
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Michael, who has maintained his innocence, spent nearly a decade behind bars after being convicted of Kathleen's murder in 2003.
However, he was granted a new trial in 2011 and later submitted an Alford plea to a reduced charge of manslaughter. The plea allowed Michael to deny any wrongdoing while acknowledging the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him.
Todd Peterson, Michael's second son from his first marriage, has spoken out in the wake of the death of his own mom Patricia 'Patty' Peterson, who died last year from a heart attack aged 78.
He told how his father had a "great relationship" with Kathleen and revealed the last conversation he had with her before she was found dead.
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According to Todd's recollection of events, Kathleen told him people have one relationship in their mid-20s to mid-30s, another in their mid-40s to 50s, and a third in their 60s which lasts the rest of their lives.
"Well my dad was the second relationship because Kathleen was in her late 40s I think early 50s [when she died]," he continues.
Todd, who has long supported his father's claims of innocence, made the remarks in a video posted to Instagram late last year which has since been deleted.
The US Sun was sent a copy of the video by a source close to the family who did not wish to be named.
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THE STAIRCASE MURDER
Kathleen's mysterious death was first chronicled in 2004 in the 13-part documentary The Staircase, which Netflix later revisited with three new episodes in 2018.
The case is also the subject of a new eight-part HBO drama of the same name, starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, which was released on May 5.
Kathleen died at the bottom of a dimly-lit staircase in the home she shared with Michael Peterson on December 8, 2001.
A hysterical Michael dialed 911 at 2.40am, wailing to an operator that Kathleen "fell down some stairs. She's still breathing, please come!"
First responders arrived to find 48-year-old Kathleen, a telecoms executive, lying lifeless in a pool of blood at the bottom of the staircase towards the rear of the home.
On the walls surrounding her were large splatters of blood. She also suffered severe injuries to her head and body that investigators believed were not consistent with a fall down the stairs.
A subsequent autopsy would reveal that Kathleen suffered seven lacerations to her skull, in addition to 38 injuries across her face, back, arms and hands.
Peterson was charged with first-degree murder soon after. The then 58-year-old was accused of bludgeoning Kathleen to death with a fire iron recovered in his garage.
Investigators said at the time that he carried out the murder after Kathleen uncovered details of affairs he'd been having with male escorts and threatened to leave him.
But Peterson vehemently denied any involvement in Kathleen's death, suggesting that she had likely slipped and fallen after a night of heavy drinking.
According to his version of events, he and Kathleen had been drinking wine and champagne by their pool to celebrate a potential movie deal for one of his books on the night of her death.
Kathleen, he claimed, decided to go inside while he stayed out by the pool. He later followed her in at 2.40am to find her at the bottom of the staircase.
Peterson said he believed Kathleen, who was wearing flip-flops, had fallen down the stairs after consuming alcohol and valium.
At his original trial in 2003, Peterson's defense team sought to explain Kathleen's extensive injuries by suggesting she had likely fallen down the stairs and then slipped in her own blood and hit her head again, before losing consciousness and bleeding to death.
Peterson also claimed that Katheleen was accepting of his bisexuality and their marriage was a happy one.
But the prosecution claimed otherwise, pointing out that while the couple appeared to enjoy an affluent lifestyle they were also in $140,000 worth of debt and Kathleen was the breadwinner.
Suggesting an additional motive, they claimed Peterson killed Kathleen to cash in on her $1.4 million life insurance policy.
A CHILLING COINCIDENCE?
Another piece of compelling evidence unearthed by the prosecution was the death of Elizabeth Ratcliff, a family friend of Peterson, and his first wife Patricia, who died in eerily similar circumstances to Kathleen 16 years earlier.
Peterson and Patricia had been living in Frankfurt, Germany, at the time with their two sons Todd and Clayton.
Ratcliff was a recent widow with two young daughters who lived next to Peterson and Patricia.
Peterson, who would go over to her home most nights to help out with her children, was the last known person to see her alive.
She too was found at the bottom of her staircase in a pool of blood having suffered severe head injuries.
German authorities initially concluded Ratcliff had died of a cerebral hemorrhage which led to her falling down the stairs.
Peterson adopted Ratcliff's two young daughters, then aged 1 and 2, and raised them as his own.
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However, her body was exhumed from her Texas grave in 2003 as part of Peterson's trial. After conducting a second autopsy, US investigators ruled her cause of death a homicide.
Prosecutors claimed that even if Peterson didn't kill Ratcliff, the circumstances of her death provided him with a "blueprint" for how to take out Kathleen without raising suspicion.
The jury sided with the prosecution after the four-month trial and Peterson was sentenced to life in prison.
A FRACTURED FAMILY
The case, which drew national attention, split apart what was left of Kathleen and Peterson's family, with some of his children and step-children standing by him while others did not.
Through all of it, Todd and his brother Clayton were steadfast in their beliefs that Peterson was innocent, as were Ratcliff's two daughters that he adopted after her death.
But Kathleen's family, including her daughter Caitlin Atwater and sister Candace Zamperini, did not.
In 2007, Atwater reached a $25million wrongful death settlement with Peterson and he filed for bankruptcy shortly after.
Then in 2011, a judge ordered a new trial after finding that Duane Deaver, the blood spatter analyst of the State Bureau of Investigation, provided unreliable testimony. Deaver was fired earlier the same year after an independent audit found problems in 34 of the cases he'd been involved in.
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Prosecutors refused to drop the charges against Peterson and his sons advised him to settle the case somehow, believing he'd never be afforded a fair trial.
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He decided to take the Alford plea against lesser charges of manslaughter in 2017, which allowed him to maintain his innocence while acknowledging the prosecution had enough evidence to persuade a jury to find him guilty. He was sentenced to time served and still lives in the Durham area.
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