>> this case has it all. it's got money. it's got a big house. it's got sex. it's every element you'd ever want. >> a woman dead at the bottom of a staircase. >> i said, "you need to read this, you need to understand that mom did not die from falling down the stairs." >> there were secrets on the hard drive. on the computer. >> hmm, big secrets. >> a simple case of murder. or was it? >> a review of the slides showed what? traces of bird feather? >> yes.

two. >> here i have two women who appeared to die the same way. lightning don't strike the same place twice. >> that's a whole lot of women dead at the bottom of the stairs in this guy's life, don't you think? >> but what looked like the end of this story -- >> it's really stuff made for tv drama. >> -- was just another beginning. >> i always had hope. it has to be made right. >> when the cell doors slide shut with a resounding clank -- >> i was a wreck during this period. i really was. >> when the sun will come up through razor wire every day for the rest of your life -- >> that's where it begins and ends. >> a convict's glimmer of a successful appeal and retrial

>> i always had hope. it has to be made right. >> but in the real world of criminal justice, most of the time once you're inside, you're done. >> this is reality that we couldn't change. >> but not every case ends the way you'd expect. meet michael peterson. his case, which defies all odds, became known as the staircase murder. the sensational investigation and trial that ensued would rip a family apart. the secrets, the sleaze on display for everyone to gorge on. >> my mother would be absolutely appalled. this is the last thing she would have ever, ever wanted to happen to her husband. >> let's go back to the night, early december, 2001 and stroll up the driveway of

house in a better neighborhood of durham, north carolina. the homeowners, kathleen and michael peterson, are out back on the patio, as the story goes, finishing a bottle of wine. in the living room, the christmas tree is already up. the grown peterson children, expected home for the holiday. kathleen was always happiest in that season, as her daughter caitlin remembers it. >> she loved christmas. she loved being in the mood playing music from the start of december all the way through new year's. >> it was the kids actually who brought kathleen and michael together. his marriage started to fall apart. she was separated. michael was raising his two boys and two young girls, margaret and martha. the girls became neighborhood playmates with kathleen's daughter, caitlin. >> i guess that was really when i met michael, before he was ever romantically involved with my mother. >> as the kids started spending more time together, so did kathleen and michael. before long, they ran an idea by caitlin, a big one about becoming a family together.

you know, caitlin, how wow like it if margaret and martha come to live with you and i immediately thought a permanent sleepover. >> and that's exactly how michael presented it to his two girls. margaret's the older. >> it is really funny. i think he put it, we're going to have a long sleepover. and we said, yeah. >> her younger sister, martha. >> of course, we want to live with caitlin and kathleen and play barbies and be a -- yeah, be a family together. >> michael's two boys from his first marriage, todd and clayton, were almost out of the nest by the time their dad moved in with kathleen. still, clayton has good memories of dropping by the melded family. >> i would go over all the time. i'd baby-sit the girls and spend a bit of time over there. we were very close. >> michael was a worldly u.s. marine vet and was now a full-time writer. one of his vietnam books got a big advance, money that went towards buying the big house. >> he said, we're thinking about

we didn't even go inside. we just looked, and we thought, oh, my goodness. you know, this is amazing. >> there in his office he'd write his war stories and churn out sharp-elbowed columns on city politics for the local paper. stick-in-the-eye stuff. he'd even been a losing candidate for mayor of durham. kathleen, meanwhile, was a top business exec who'd risen through the ranks of nortel, the telecommunications company. she received a masters degree in engineering from duke, even appearing on the coverage of a university magazine. she was nothing if not a super mom juggler. >> it was as much a priority to get their hair braided properly as her showing up to work on time. >> power points by day, martha stewart at night. her younger sister candace was in an awe of her energy. >> not only did she raise these children and have a quite accomplished corporate career, they entertained like several dinner parties a month.

she'd do it. >> and kathleen would even whip up nightly three-course meals with michael presiding at the table. >> loquacious, fun to be with, incredibly well-read. >> he was always the entertainer at dinner. he would carry the conversation and just have the most funny stories. >> so, the children were delighted when after years of living together michael and kathleen made it official and got married. >> i always thought, you know, this is what will register as the happiest day of my life. >> and for kathleen, it just may have been. >> she was thrilled to be marrying michael. all three girls were bridesmaids in her wedding. i remember at the wedding the three girls singing "we're going to the chapel." the day they married, my sister owed. kd we adurfor re t, theiog w ofti, arengs,

beener>>ikst being to say,'m with is man whan author and well traveled. >> but as christmas 2001 approached with the girls away at college, kathleen was jittery, she was taking valium. her job had been overwhelming of late, all those long hours at the office. more than anyone, she welcomed the time-out the upcoming holidays offered. and so, on that mild december night out back by the pool, as the story goes, michael and kathleen embraced his surprise good news that day. a big-time hollywood producer was nibbling at optioning one of his novels for the movies. another midnight glass of wine was in order. >> they definitely liked to drink wine. they could probably have two bottles of wine and, you know, start showing it a little bit. >> what happened next would be the subject of a decade of debate. it seems that kathleen left michael to finish his cigar by the pool. she had to get on the computer

conference call in the morning. still, another work crisis. michael says he went back inside the house about 2:00 a.m. only to discover something ghastly. kathleen soaked in blood at the bottom of the back staircase. >> 911, what is your emergency? >> [ bleep ]. please. >> what's wrong? >> my wife had an accident. she is still breathing. >> what kind of accident? >> she fell down the stairs. she is still breathing. please come. >> by dawn, the news of kathleen's fall, only the vaguest of details was reaching the sisters at college. family members delivered the awful news. happened. >> your mom has fallen down the stairs. you know, it was an accident. you know, you should come home. >> by the time kathleen's daughter, caitlin, got the word, it was as shocking as it was definitive. >> she looked me straight in my eye. and she just said, caitlin, it's your mom.

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erischod i a. ced sothing her so, as soon as the officers would allow, she enters. that's when michael showed her the back staircase where he said kathleen had taken that fatal tumble. >> my sister's blood is washed in pools up against the wall. there is blood just everywhere. >> and now a disturbing thought took root in candace and then began to grow. what if kathleen's death wasn't an accident? she couldn't go there. >> i still want to believe it was an accident. i don't want something horrible happened. >> but all that blood, up the walls, could it all be from a fall down the stairs? and that's precisely what was gnawing at detective art holland, ever since he arrived at the house the day before in the early morning hours after kathleen died. >> i've seen falls. i've had family members fall, and to me it did not look anywhere like a fall.

came to the house thought that kathleen could possibly have died from a fall down the stairs. >> he could see some lacerations or feel some of the lacerations on the back of mrs. peterson's head and he stat this could be the result of a fall. >> and certainly the emts had encountered a distraught michael peterson. he was found cradling kathleen, crying so hard he had to be pulled away. but still investigators wanted to be sure that this was an accident. >> explained to him, you know, sorry for his loss, but that the scene had to be processed. >> it would take the investigators the better part of two days to go through the 9,000-square-foot house. >> it was, you know, very time consuming. you don't want to go through it real speedy. you want to make sure that you cross all your ts and dot all your is. >> the crime scene tech started by photographing the stairwell,

and spray up the wall. outside, drops on the walkway and a smear on the front door. on kathleen's body, a bloody shoe print. in the kitchen, bloodstains on the cabinet, underneath a drop of blood on the counter. and right beside it, an open wine bottle and two glasses suggested that perhaps a night of drinking had, in fact, led to a tumble down the stairs. even kathleen's daughter, caitlyn, couldn't rule it out. >> she knew how to hold her alcohol. but that's not to say that she didn't drink a lot. she could easily drink a large amount of alcohol if she was up until 2:00 in the morning. >> meanwhile, michael peterson and his kids took refuge at a neighbor's house. michael and his brother, bill, kept watch on the police investigation across the street. >> we walked by the house several times to see what the police were doing. >> bill, a lawyer, advised michael not to talk with the cops. >> i'm thinking as an attorney now. because i don't know what's going on. all i know is the police obviously think something is going on. >> bill worried it was payback time.

brother had put a bull's-eye on his own back with those columns he wrote for the local paper. it turned out he often targeted the cops. >> he was extremely critical of them on a regular basis. >> he gave them a stick in the eye? >> constantly. they were a regular foil of his. >> so, he was taking on the good old boy system there? >> very much so. very much so. >> michael's daughters were also worried. they knew very well their father relished being a provocateur, and now the police were swarming their house, walking the yard, looking under bushes and trees. >> i remember feeling that something was going badly with the police. >> it was a few days after kathleen's death when michael called a family meeting to reassure them. he told them that no matter what they heard, no matter what the police tried to concoct, he would never have hurt kathleen. >> he specifically wanted us to know that he did not do it. and he told us that, you know, they had been there, and they had been drinking, that he had gone out to the pool, and

the bottom of the stairs. i said we believe you. >> but would the police? they seemed intent on peeling away the veneer of the petersons' marriage. what was going on behind the closed doors in the mansion on cedar street? >> they were asking me questions about kathleen and michael's relationship and if i knew of anything. i thought they were happily married. she was very much in love with him. >> but the detectives were beginning to believe the perfect marriage was anything but. the peters' marriage behind closed doors and the bombshell in the coroner's report that would tear a family apart. >> i said you need to read this. you need to understand that mom did not die from falling down the stairs.the stairs e beenetly selling krmacaro chees with no artificilavors preservative dyes. and s what? momsidn't ce. kiidn't noce. doidn't noce. therson d l" didnotice. springakers, coff maker

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tugedal am t te kathleen had possibly died from a fall down the stairs, the detective's gut told him there was simply too much blood. >> this doesn't look like an accident. >> he called in a specialist to analyze the blood in the stairway. >> we had to change gears. what was called in originally as a fall, accidental fall, changed over to a suspicious death. >> so while the forensics team did its collecting, the detectives started to peek behind the curtain of this durham power couple. >> in addition to the forensic evidence you're gathering, you have to ask what's going on in this marriage, right? >> right. >> that's a big part of your investigation. >> right. >> detectives pull kathleen's sister, candace, aside to ask if she'd noticed any trouble in her sister's marriage. >> the police took me in a police van to interview me privately. >> in her grief, candace was hesitant to say anything bad about her now-widowed otr--l. she'd always liked him. >> he was a fun person to sit

table. he was interesting. he was a little arrogant about his intelligence but he was a very smart man. i was his biggest defender. >> she told investigators everything was fine in her sister's marriage. it was only later that a conversation she'd had with kathleen a few months before she died started haunting her. >> she was very, very concerned about her job stability at her company, and they were making layoffs. >> and kathleen confided in her, the financial pressures were growing. her income was shaky and her expenses exploding. >> i didn't realize how much credit card debt she had. >> $143,000 on plastic. the big house, it turned out, was a money pit, and there were the big college tuition bills. >> we have got three kids going to college and good colleges, expensive, private colleges. >> kathleen's daughter, caitlin, knew just how heavily the financial stress was weighing on her mom. she was writing big checks not

but also helping out margaret and martha. michael had taken responsibility for them after their mother died when they were young. >> there was a lot of financial problems. i sensed it. i sensed the stress of that. >> and to make matters far worse, kathleen had been plowing a big part of her six-figure income back into her company's stock. the petersons had gone all in with the dotcom mania. >> michael kept coming up to kathleen all day long saying, nortel's worth this. oh, now it's worth that. oh, now it's worth that. he was fascinated with look how rich we're getting off nortel stock. >> but by late 2001, the bubble had burst. the stock tanked, and most of kathleen's nest egg went with it. a few weeks before she died she felt she was looking at her own fiscal cliff. >> the financial stresses were about to explode right before christmas. this was like the perfect storm

>> and when investigators looked at the couple's credit reports they saw just what kathleen's sister candace feared. >> if he wasn't writing a book or had any royalties coming in he had no income. >> and michael's dip into local politics caused only more stress in the marriage. when he ran for mayor he was called out for a lie. a whopper of one. the war action novelist didn't have a purple heart as he'd claimed. he was hurt not by taking bullets in vietnam but a car accident in japan. >> when it became public about his lies, it caused kathleen the friendships. she had to stand by michael or keep the friendships and the friendships were lost. >> the admired two on the town, the petersons, had taken a big hit. and the whole ugly incident did make candace wonder about her brother-in-law's judgment. why would you lie and then run

the truth of your military history and background? >> and now with her dead they were stacking up. were the problems starting up to a motive for murder. the blood pattern analyst completed his initial findings. >> he told me he felt strongly that this was a homicide. >> the lead detective saw a marriage on the rocks and a scene that he believed had too much blood for a simple fall down the stairs. just a few days before christmas, michael peterson was charged with the murder of his wife. he turned himself in. his children were stunned. >> to lose kathleen and then to lose dad, basically, we were all grief stricken and just in shock. michael into the county jail, the family stood unified behind him. kathleen's daughter, caitlin, echoed her stepfather's claim that the cops were harassing him. >> my mother would just be absolutely appalled.

wanted to happen to her husband. >> it was hardly the christmas that the peterson family had so looked forward to. kathleen dead. their father in jail. >> it was just us kids in that house by ourselves, you know, trying to piece together a christmas. >> but soon, another bombshell. and this one would blow the family apart. two months after christmas, the coroner released the results of the official autopsy. >> multiple lacerations to the back of her head like she was bludgeoned to death. severe, long, linear lacerations. >> not consistent with a fall? >> not consistent with a fall. >> if kathleen's sister candace had been harboring suspicions about what had really happened to her sister, the medical examiner's report was the thing that pushed her over the edge. >> how there's ve

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questions? no one did. >> later that day, peterson phoned elizabeth's sister margaret blair in rhode island with the dreadful news. >> he said, margaret, there's been an accident. liz fell down the stairs and died. what are you saying? i just totally went numb. >> margaret could not believe it. >> i mean, my sister. he's saying she died. she's young. she's got two beautiful little children, babies really. i mean, of course, i had a thousand questions afterwards. >> but any questions regarding foul play in elizabeth ratliff's death were laid to rest by the results of an autopsy performed at a u.s. army hospital in germany. elizabeth died, the examiner said, from a brain hemorrhage, natural causes. her body was flown to texas for burial beside her husband. at the funeral sister margaret anxious for further details wasn't going to hear anything more from michael peterson. >> michael was very aloof and

>> did he speak? >> no. he didn't really say a lot at all. he never talked about the -- what happened to liz. >> liz's will had designated the petersons and not her family as the girls' legal guardians. you didn't think that's strange? the petersons? who are these people? >> well, actually, you know, i can understand how that could happen. this was her world now. liz must love these people and trusted them to the nth degree. >> not long after, the new peterson family now with two boys and two girls moved back home to north carolina. the marriage of patty and michael, though, wouldn't last. michael struck up a relationship with kathleen. then there was their decade together raising kids, his best-seller, her business success, her social whirl in durham.

2001 and comes the uncanny, eerie parallel involving another death on another staircase. margaret, elizabeth ratliff's sister, got a call from one of the girls. >> she said, margaret, there's been an accident. kathleen fell down the stairs and died. i went, do you know what you're saying? i said, the same thing happened to -- she said, i know. >> margaret decided she had no choice but to pick up the phone and call the detective working the kathleen peterson case. >> do you know that my sister in 1985 had an accident? she fell down the stairs and died and michael was the last person to be with her. >> detective art holl dance did not know that. >> i was overwhelmed with here i have two women that appeared to die the same way, two women that are associated with michael peterson. >> the detective started digging into the elizabeth ratliff story. he learned that the pathologist who attributed elizabeth's death to natural causes back in

hemorrhage. had she been the victim of a stroke, a fall or foul play? the north carolina authorities decided the only way to know for sure would be to have the body exhumed from the grave in texas and look for themselves. disturbing what they found. dead women tell no lies, say some. >> the lacerations were very similar to the ones that had been perpetrated upon kathleen

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had produced something called red neurons which they say form after oxygen is withheld from the brain for at least two hours. >> that gives mr. peterson at least two hours to do things. before the 911 call's placed. >> what was he doing during all that time? the state argued he was staging the scene. detectives saw what they thought were white marks on the stairs. to them, it was an attempt at a cleanup. and there were those two wine glasses on the kitchen counter suggesting an evening of maybe too much drink followed by a tumble down the stairs. the thing was, kathleen's fingerprints weren't on either glass. in fact, the prosecution said kathleen's blood alcohol content was low enough that she could have passed a roadside breathalyzer test. was the writer of fiction making up yet another story, covering up murder as an accident? >> it seemed like somebody had poured the whole bottle of wine down the drain to make it look like they had been drinking more than they had.

>> it was staged. >> yet, if kathleen was bludgeoned to death as prosecutors thought, problem. investigators hadn't found the murder weapon. prosecutors believed it was a hollow fireplace tool seen here in family photographs. it had been a gift from candace to her sister a decade before. >> i just found it to be a great gift. i definitely saw it by the fireplace. >> prosecutors thought peterson had ferreted the blow poke out of the house that night after the attack. if he had, that could explain those blood drops on the walkway. >> blood dropping from the murder weapon as it was potentially disposed of somewhere outside the dwelling. >> but the state thought some of its most powerful evidence was what the medical examiner found on the top of kathleen's head, seven tears to the scalp. >> do you recall any case where someone died falling down the steps and there were multiple lacerations? >> no.

your opinion what the manner of her death was? >> the manner of death in this case is homicide. >> injuries that were eerily similar to those suffered by the peterson family friend from germany all those years before, elizabeth ratliff. and the jury almost in a trial within a trial heard that story. the long ago germany friends testified about their suspicions about michael peterson's involvement in another stairway death. another one with so much blood. >> the blood was up so high that i -- i couldn't figure out how did the blood get up there. >> it was the bow that wrapped up the state's case. >> do you really believe that lightning strikes twice in the same place? do you? >> michael peterson had been the last person known to have seen not only kathleen peterson alive but also elizabeth ratliff. >> that's a whole lot of women dead at the bottom of the stairs in this guy's life. don't you think? >> so, there was the

conviction. blood evidence. a staged scene and the trigger. the violent confrontation between husband and wife that resulted when a secret appetite for men was exposed. and not a bit of that made any sense the defense was about to tell the jury. the prosecution said it was missing. guess what turned up. >> my heart started pounding. >> and the defense's answer to that damning blood evidence.ing blooidineat d th conud ng biful my newest beauty routine secret starts in the shower es invationamop\. the new pedi perfect wet & dry. geeffo sn l d osk.plashaea the easy way for touchably soft feet. its as. new amop\fe d

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akesot of card seem one-sid. what happened on that back staircase? was it the violent culmination of a perfect storm of domestic stress as the prosecution held, or was it really something not criminal at all? an unfortunate accident.

girls margaret and martha sat in court suffering as prosecutors labeled their dad a killer. >> they would accuse my father of double murders or the wife murder or the staircase murders and we couldn't stand up and say, wait a second, this isn't true. >> but now it was lead defense attorney david rudolph's turn to convince a jury of that. kathleen's death, he said, was a simple, fatal accident. nothing else made sense. >> the truth is that kathleen peterson after drinking some wine and some champagne and taking some valium tried to walk up a narrow, poorly lit stairway in flip-flops. and she fell and she bled to death. >> there had been no violent confrontation that night, rudolph argued. no discovery of explicit e-mails by kathleen. all that he believed was a fantasy of the prosecution team. michael peterson was bisexual,

petersons weren't an extraordinarily happy couple. >> did michael have sexual needs that he fulfilled outside the marriage? okay, he did, but that didn't mean that their relationship was anything other than great. >> even brad the escort testified that peterson wrote to him about how much he loved his wife. >> in his e-mails, unlike most of my clients, indicated he had a great relationship. most clients don't want to say anything about the relationship. he indicated he had a warm relationship with his wife and nothing would ever destroy that. >> and the defense thought kathleen could have known about the sexual inclinations. bill said the sexual interest were no shock to him. >> were you shocked to learn that? >> no. i have known that since i was 14. >> even if kathleen discovered her husband's bisexuality that night, bill says an explosive fight wasn't the likely outcome. >> i think she would be the kind of person that would talk

even seeking external help if she wanted -- fell she needed it. >> as for the peters' money problems, not so, the defense argued. contrary to being on the brink of financial collapse, the couple's net worth, assets minus debt was a tidy pile. the state's financial analyst admitted as much in cross-examination. >> the situation in december of 2001 was a couple worth approximately $1.5 million after paying off their debts? >> that's correct. >> the defense now had to scale the mt. everest of the case. the forensics, explaining to the jury all that blood. how could a simple fall have resulted in spatter so high up the staircase walls? >> the defense will call dr. henry lee to the stand. >> celebrity medical examiner, henry lee of o.j. case fame would show the jury in theatrical fashion just how kathleen falling and staggering

have accounted for the spray. >> an injured person walking, can move, can shake their head. can move their head. can move the arm. can step forward. >> obviously, the blood all around was due to her being alive and moving around for some period of time. it didn't have to do with what inflicted the wounds. >> and the blood on his shorts? that could have happened the defense said while michael peterson was cradling his wife. as for the other blood evidence, the police said proved that michael peterson had tampered with the scene, drops of blood in the house and more on the walkway outside, none of that could be trusted attorney rudolph told the jury. >> the blood in that area had been completely altered. the scene at the house had been completely contaminated. >> the defense argued the police had failed to secure the staircase for their first hour on the scene. allowing michael and even his

blood throughout the house. >> michael goes up to kathleen with the police watching, hugs her. todd takes him, puts him on the couch where there's blood transfer. and then todd says, can i go get some soda and a glass? and the police say, sure. and here goes todd walking around the kitchen with blood on his hands. >> the defense believed the blood evidence was misinterpreted by overzealous investigators who may have had it in for peterson from the start. remember those newspaper columns taking pot shots at the local p.d.? perhaps his family thought this was payback time. >> he did not make a lot of friends with the police force. and so, perhaps they could have, you know, been doing little extra to him. >> as for the supposedly suspiciously death of elizabeth ratliff in germany, the defense granted it as a weird coincidence but legally here in durham, north carolina,

peterson was never charged with ratliff's murder and maintains he had nothing to do with her death. >> what you had was a sort of circular argument. because she died at the foot of a stairway, then kathleen peterson must have been murdered and because katayama -- kathleen peterson was murdered then elizabeth ratliff must have been murdered. well, the reality is that elizabeth ratliff died of a stroke. and that was determined by an autopsy at the time and it was never suspicious until kathleen died. >> peterson's brother agrees. investigators had been called to the scene in germany and found no indications of foul play. >> two dead women at the bottom of a stairwell. >> 17 years apart? coincidences do happen. >> then there were those ghastly lacerations on kathleen's head which the state's medical examiner attributed to a

defense attorney rudolph countered with an expert of his own, a neuropathologist who noted what he didn't find, no skull or bone fractures. >> kathleen peterson's injuries were the result of a fall and not the result of a beating. >> there was absolutely no fractures anywhere, no fractures to her fingers, to her arms, to her skull, and there was absolutely no injury to the brain, and that's just almost an impossibility if what you're doing is beating something with a metal object. >> just as unlikely, rudolph said, was the prosecution's contention that the brutal attack took place in a cramped stairwell. if michael peterson had been beating his wife with a metal object, wouldn't there have been nicks and dings in the wall? the defense took the jury on a tour of the cedar street home to show them there were none. >> it just defies imagination to

that in that space and not caused some collateral damage. >> and for a final exclamation point, the defense had a perry mason moment up its sleeve. the prosecution had insisted throughout the murder weapon used to bludgeon kathleen peterson was the fireplace blow poke, only police never found it. but near the end of the trial, a stunning revelation. >> my heart started pounding. >> peterson's son, clayton, said while fixing his car, he'd come across the missing blow poke. it was there all along he said and the cops had simply missed it. >> here it was in the basement just sitting in the corner covered in dust and cobwebs. >> clayton ran upstairs to tell his father who he said met the news with skepticism. >> he thought it was a set-up and that it was planted there and that the police were going to come storming in to the house. >> that's a blow poke, isn't it? >> in court the defense played the moment for all it was worth. >> it appears to be. >> getting the lead detective to agree that if this was, indeed, the murder weapon, it was completely intact.

even like a tiny little indentation? >> it doesn't appear to have any indents in it. >> that was the blow poke. well, if it is, then what was the murder weapon? >> lawyer david rudolph thought he peppered reasonable doubt all the way through the state's circumstantial case. from the questionable analysis of the blood in the stairwell to the marital perfect storm that wasn't to the murder weapon that wasn't missing at all and was no more than a dusty fireplace tool. the peterson camp was confident. >> we were so positive that he was going to get off because in our minds it was the clearest thing in the world. >> but would the jury agree? the verdict. >> i thought that we had won that case, hands down. >> i didn't do anything. >> we, the 12 members of the jury, find the defendant to be -- --

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after five months of trial, one of the longest anyone could remember in north carolina history, the peterson case was finally in the hands of the jury. >> i had this moment of doubt where i was like, what if it doesn't happen? what if he gets convicted?

there's no way. >> the peterson kids were confident their dad would be going home with them. and michael's brother bill, a lawyer himself, was certain the prosecutors had not proven their case. >> i thought that we had won that case hands down. i could not see anyone coming away from that trial with the conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that my brother inflicted a beating that caused her death. i just did not see it. >> but it seemed the jury as though the jury would never come back. day one, no verdict. ditto day two and day three. and the jury's deliberating and waiting? >> yeah. we were getting more and more optimistic, too, because the longer the jury's out, we're thinking they're having trouble, doubts. >> finally, on day four, they got word. the jury had a verdict. >> we were absolutely terrified. we knew the magnitude of this decision. >> a hush, and then the clerk began to read.

unanimously find the defendant to be guilty of first degree murder. >> i felt violently ill. we all sort of reached over and grabbed each other as if we were trying to hold on to the family. it was definitely a terrible moment in my life. >> as soon as we heard the first juror say guilty, i just was weeping like i was being taken over by grief and shock. >> is there anything you want to say before the court imposes punishment? >> i would like to say -- >> michael peterson turned to his kids. >> he said, it's okay. it's okay. i think on his part he was just trying to calm himself down. but also i think he felt like his role was to protect us. >> he was acknowledging that we had a huge loss and that we had just lost everything and that it was going to be okay and he was going to find some way to make it okay again. >> michael peterson turned to

of the sentence. >> the defendant is imprisoned in the north carolina department of corrections for the remainder of his natural life without the benefit of parole. >> for kathleen's sister candace, the verdict was nothing to celebrate. >> makes me cry when i heard it. there's no joy in this. it's just great sadness. >> and peterson's defense attorney david rudolph was racked with would have, could have, should have doubts. >> i was devastated. it made me question myself. >> as one of north carolina's most battle hardened criminal defense attorneys, he knew how slim the chances were for a retrial once a case went on to the appellate court. >> and i can't imagine a worse fate than being in jail for something you didn't do, particularly when it's a loved one who's died. you don't even have a chance to grieve that person. >> bill peterson who had moved to durham to be with his brother through the trial was in disbelief. >> i went back to the house and i broke down. that's the worst day of our lives.

absolutely the worst. >> the brother stepped in to help in whatever way he could. there was the big house to sell. margaret and martha about to be without a roof over their heads would have to move to nevada with him. he visited michael in prison to get things started. >> my brother had to sign some papers, power of attorney for me so that we could wrap up his life and he came up aennd tried to reach his hands through the glass and crying. that was bad. >> the peterson children resigned themselves to the harsh reality that prison was now their father's home. they visited him whenever they could. >> i would just sob every time i left. you hold it together for dad because there's -- why would you cry in front of dad? that's not going to help him. but then when you leave you're sobbing in your car. >> years passed. the girls now young women watched their father age. still, michael peterson told his daughters he wasn't giving up.

single appeal. and every single time it would get beaten down. >> by the end of 2007, the north carolina supreme court rejected michael peterson's request for a new trial. for peterson, it seemed to be the end of the line. >> wasn't going to come out. that was the hard part. >> with little to lose, he spoke in prison with aphrodite jones who had written a book on his case. >> i know i'm not guilty. i knew i didn't hurt kathleen. it's very difficult for me to accept the fact that i'm a prisoner, a convicted murderer. just -- it's nonsense. >> peterson said he loved his wife and his interest in men was not an issue in the marriage. >> did kathleen know -- >> yes, of course, she knew. i mean, it just was not a major factor in our lives. there's love, and then there's

and that's what that was. >> peterson told aphrodite he and kathleen were enjoying a pleasant evening at home the night she died. >> we had sex. she took a bath. we came downstairs. she started to cook. it was a -- a pasta thing. >> it was a night like many others peterson said until he found kathleen at the bottom of the staircase. >> people would say, how do you know she fell down the stairs? well, well, you know, you come in, you've been drinking a lot. she was drinking a good -- great deal. you find somebody at the bottom of the stairs. hmm, i guess they fell down the stairs. >> he said he never would have hurt kathleen. >> i didn't do anything. and i guess basically still in my heart in my -- i'd like to believe kathleen fell down the stairs. but nobody buys that one. >> his words were, but nobody buys that one. >> wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted. >> absolutely. wrongfully accused. wrongfully convicted. and he's going to find a way out of this.

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by 2010, seven years after michael peterson's conviction, his daughter martha had given up hope that her father would ever be released from nash

>> dad was probably going to be in prison until he died. this was the reality that was never going to change. >> but in the cell blocks at the same prison had been another inmate who would account for an astonishing reversal of fortune for peterson. his name is greg taylor. >> i had a wife and daughter and a suburban home and a career and also had some, you know, habit ss from my youth regarding drugs and alcohol that led me into a ditch one night. >> after a night out, taylor was accused of a brutal crime, the murder of a woman in an industrial section of raleigh, north carolina. from day one, he says he professed his innocence. >> any time they offered me a chance to prove i'm innocent, i jumped at it. >> but the police didn't believe him. perhaps because investigators found a spot of what looked like blood on the fender of his truck. tyler had abandoned it just yards from where the body was found. the lab backed up the suspicions. >> the blood was the issue right from the very beginning.

telling the truth with the victim's blood on my truck. >> at trial, taylor was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. he appealed his conviction all the way to the u.s. supreme court unsuccessfully. >> you figured you were going to die in prison? >> yes, sir. >> but taylor's fate began to change when his case fell into the hands of a north carolina attorney who fights to reverse wrongful convictions. she got a hold of the original blood analysis. >> it's one of those moments i will remember forever. >> the documents showed the substance on taylor's trd testositive r indicatis of d in amina tt. the rker ormed tional, more s at hader been rted t ie thshhe neenlo wo'thab callp deiv e prosecut g some nu?heheor on, its ea

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a decade after he was arrested for killing his wife, kathleen, an older-looking michael peterson was back in a north carolina courtroom arguing for a retrial on the grounds that the state's crucial blood pattern expert had given false testimony against him. but as far as kathleen's sister, candace, was concerned, prison was where peterson deserved to rot. >> ten years without my sister. ten years without her and ten years the rest of us have been alive and had our freedom but not kathleen. >> as the years passed, the hurt of missing her sister remained raw. she is determined to hold her former brother-in-law responsible. >> my sister's dead for eternity. oh, no, no, no. he murdered my sister. he took the prime of her. he should be held accountable for what he did.

determined to free his client from prison. over the course of a seven-day trial, rudolph methodically dissected the original testimony of blood pattern expert duane deaver. >> agent deaver lied to this court and our jury, not once or twice, but repeatedly. >> and with the peterson supporters holding their breath, the same judge who presided over the murder trial now laid out his thinking point by point, rhetorical questions. >> is a new trial required for newly discovered evidence, due process violations and perjured testimony? the answer to those questions is, yes. >> did duane deaver misrepresent himself to the jury? yes. did dane duane deaver's testimony make a difference in this case?

>> it will be the court's order that mr. peterson will receive a new trial. >> and there it was. michael peterson would be getting a new trial. his family was overwhelmed. >> i just about fell out of the chair. the bench just almost flipped over. >> i was weeping with joy and shock and could not believe that there was hope. >> i was, like, my dad's getting out. we're going to have our dad back. >> for the peterson children, now there was only joy. >> lots of hugs. lots of happy, happy photographs. so we're all like jumping up in to the air in a silly picture of just so, so happy. >> for defense attorney david rudolph, the judge's decision was a chance for redemption. >> it was a magic moment for me because for eight years i had labored under that and second-guessed myself and wondered if there was things i should have done differently. and it all boiled down to a witness who was not telling the truth.

issued his decision sharply criticizing the agent's work on the case, 69-year-old michael peterson was released on a $300,000 bond. he got to hold his grandchild then thanked his supporters and shared his hopes for vindication. >> i have waited over 8 years, 2,988 days, as a matter of fact, and i counted, for an opportunity to have a retrial. i want to thank judge hudson for giving me that opportunity. so that i can vindicate myself and prove my innocence in a fair trial this time. >> he was placed under house arrest. his every move monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet. but that was just a detail to his son, clayton. >> he wasn't in prison. he wasn't in jail. he wasn't behind bars. he was a free man again wearing clothes. >> for the girls, margaret and martha, the dark cloud that lay over the family name for nearly

family, and we are not afraid to say it. we were so stigmatized before, you know, and like hiding it. >> but there was still a chance that michael peterson could return to prison. the state appealed the decision to grant peterson a new trial. both sides were back in court as the state argued its position before a panel of appellate judges. >> the defendant in this case received a fair trial and there does not need to be a new trial in this case. >> in the end the state court of appeals unanimously upheld the ruling granting michael peterson a new trial and with plans for a new trial moving ahead, the prosecutor may have to try a different case. as defense attorney rudolph and peterson left the courthouse, they walked away believing some of the critical blood evidence will be inadmissible the second time around. >> i think their case is very, very badly compromised because of deaver. he was all over the crime scene. >> however, prosecutors could

peterson. in that case, reporter neff who investigated misconduct at the state crime lab says one witness may take the blame. a lot of people might regard michael peterson as a killer who got out on a technicality. >> that's widely perceived. ere is a possibility that michael peterson may be guilty, and he may never go back to prison. if that indeed is true, that's because of duane deaver's misconduct. >> michael peterson's days in the mansion on cedar street are long gone, with it his standing among durham's upper crust. he passes his days quietly now. spending time with those closest to him. he works out at the gym, reads at the library and writes about his experiences in prison. he still wears his wedding ring, his kids visit when they can. >> he's always been there for us, of course, i'm going to be there for him. it's just second nature. >> peterson for now is free from his prison cell but not from the suspicions that still surround him.

reclusive because while there are a lot of people that believe he's innocent and support him, there are other people who despise him and believe he's a murderer. >> for kathleen's sister, candace, if her former brother-in-law is retried, it will dredge up all the pain again. but there's no way, she says, that she will back down. >> i have to relive how my sister died. she died one of the worst, worst ways. she was beaten, and she knew the person who she loved was beating her. there's no way i'm not going to get justice for her. >> so the hopelessly divided families may be destined to face off again on opposite sides of a north carolina courtroom. either way it falls, one family's justice will be another's cosmic miscarriage. everyone older now but no less passionate in their convictions about what really happened on the staircase. that dreadful accident one side

that savage murder the other.e murder the other. [ cheers and applause ] thank you. thank you. okay. oh my lord, do we have a show for you today, girl! [ laughter ] now, if you haven't heard about my next guest by now, you must have been born yesterday, honey. [ laughter ] now, this girl's been on the cover of "time" magazine. she stars in her own sitcom. and she's just revealed to the world that she's gay.