Kathleen and Michael Peterson - Part 2

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Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned

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in over twenty years of marriage,
some days you'll feel like killing your husband,

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and some days you'll feel like killing
your wife. Welcome to love,

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Mary Kill, Hey Tina, Hey
Rich, welcome back. You came back

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for part two. I'm so happy
I did. I did. I can't

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wait to discuss this case more well. Today we're actually going to talk about

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the you know, the actual crime
itself. Oh, if there was a

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crime. Maybe there wasn't a crime. I don't know, it's a real

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who done it? Yes? Sure
you see what I did? There?

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No who done it? Maybe I
didn't do who? Oh? Oh,

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you're doing an owl reference. There
you go a while. I'm a little

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slow. Sometimes you're really not.
Though you're pretty you're pretty quick. That's

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pretty good, though, do you
think there is foul play? Stop?

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I'm trying to think of a bird
pun and I can't come up with I

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was trying to come out with something
with talent, like tellan you're telling your

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talent me a story. You're going
to be that's pretty good. Okay,

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I didn't come up with it very
quick, very time. It's all right,

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Well, thank you so much for
coming back for part two. If

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you haven't listened to part one,
you should probably go listen to that first.

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We I think that this case a
lot of people are familiar with it,

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and I'm not necessarily apologizing for doing
it, but I hope that we

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gave you some information maybe that you
hadn't heard in part one. Yeah.

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I know the world does not need
another Michael Peterson podcast, but here we

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are. But I really it is
really kind of fun and interesting to dive

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into these cases that we know we
think we know so well. Yeah,

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yeah, there's I definitely have learned
a lot in this process. So it's

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still the same day that we recorded
part one, but you went and you

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quickly edited part one so we could
post it for our patrons. And I

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learned something while you were gone.
I was looking for pictures and you might

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have known this, but I didn't, and maybe you didn't even say this,

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but Martha and Margaret were never officially
adopted by Michael Peterson, which I

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don't like it all. Yeah,
I think I may have that in my

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script for this part. But yeah, he never adopted them because of the

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money, like because he would Yeah, they were getting benefits because their dad

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was a soldier, and that would
have stopped if he had adopted them.

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I guess I don't like that at
all. Yeah, like those again,

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we talked a lot about there.
They've been through a lot, and it

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amazes me that they have. They've
stood behind him throughout everything, unwavering to

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this day. Yeah, they've never
had any son, probably anyone else,

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and that kind that really blows my
mind because I think if I was in

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their place, I would have a
hard time. But you know, he

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was, He was there basically their
dad, right, they looked at him

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as their dad growing up. I
think this happens a lot in a lot

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of cases, that when you don't
have anyone left, you cling to who

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you right, who is still there. Yeah, that's a good point.

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I think like in Caitlyn's case,
she still had her dad though her mom,

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Kathleen had died, so I think
for her she had other, you

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know, other support system in place, and so for her maybe it was

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a little easier to look at things
objectively. I think Fred and Caitlyn were

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pretty close and he was really there
for her after Kathleen passed away. Yes,

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but we are just diving right into
it. But we should have a

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snack. Well back from the previous
episode, the Lovely Baby Carriss, most

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of it's still there. It's all
still there. Yeah, But I did

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buy some gas station snacks and we
had one of them in part one.

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I have three more. It's still
sitior too. Actually, we have a

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bad habit of kind of like leaving
snacks in this room that have been rejected.

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Well, pick a number one through
three and you'll get your next cas

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station one through three. I'm going
to go with one. Okay, you're

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some layers stacks definitely looks better than
lace. That's not normally an innovative snack.

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I've never had them before. I
guess you're right right. I don't

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know if I've had them either.
I was very interested, so I actually

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did a little research on lays stacks
because I was like, I didn't I

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didn't know lays had like an alternative
to pringles, and they basically look like

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around for a while they have,
so Lais stacks was introduced in two thousand

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and three as direct competition for pringles. Lays stacks are heavier and thicker than

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pringles and the shape. I'll be
the judge of that. The shape of

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the stacks is a simple curve called
a hyperbolic cylinder, while pringles are formed

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into a double curve known as a
hyperbolic paraboloid. How do you do it?

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Which you would just be? There's
a whole I think it blows my

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mind. The fees have been around
for twenty years and you've never seen them.

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Shows how much you go. You
go to the grocery store fair amount.

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I just probably never noticed them.
But and you're like, the lays

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for you is like one of your
favorite chips. You're just diving right in

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there. Huh yeah, I just
wanted to see the shape. They're kind

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of broken. I think I dropped
them earlier. But oh yeah, the

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shape is not nearly as interesting as
the pringles shape. It's much curved oval,

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yeah it is. But all right, let's try them, all right,

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be right back. Do you think
of those laid stacks? I thought

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they were delicious. These a lot
like pringles, don't they do? They

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are like marginally thicker though a little
thicker. Yeah, and the shape.

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I don't like the shape as much
because the shape of the pringles is such

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that you can put like ten of
them in your mouth. At once,

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and it curves over your tongue,
and these are they don't curve over your

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tongue the same. This is something
we have discussed before in our marriage.

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But how just putting ten pringles in
your mouth taste better than putting one pringle

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in your mouth. It's not about
taste. It was more like when I

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was a kid, this was a
competition. We like put my brothers and

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my sister. How many pringles could
you put in your mouth? And then

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take them out without breaking them?
Oh? Oh, you know we have

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done that before. I think it's
a good road trip game that we played.

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Yeah, yeah, all right,
well, thank you for That's just

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like I was just thinking this morning, it's kind of weird that we're like,

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you know, let's dive into like
a case of murder and blood and

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gore, and first let's have a
snack. Yeah, you don't want to

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talk about murder on an empty stomach. Very strange. Well, well,

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that's a deep subject. That's a
deep subject. I know most people are

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familiar with the case already, but
you want to do just the very the

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very briefest of recaps of what we
covered in part one. Michael Peterson bad

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Man uh, two women have done
well. We don't even know that Kathleen

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has died at the bottom of a
staircase, but we know that his friend

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Elizabeth, who may or may not
have been a lover, also died at

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the bottom of a staircase. Yes, I'm sorry, I just great retap

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a little. I'm a little tired. What else do we want to say?

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What's about it? Really? We
just went under their backgrounds. Michael

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is kind of a contankerous, kind
of funny, funny story. I while

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you were editing the episode, I
was going for looking for pictures, and

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I'm pretty sure that Michael was born
looking forty years old. I could not

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find any I usually can find pictures. I could not find any pictures of

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Michael as a younger man. Interesting. Some people are just like that.

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They just have that look of an
older person when they're really Last night I

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sent you a picture of the penguin
from from Batman and Robin because he kind

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of has that same squenched up look
as the penguin. Yeah, a little

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bit. So is there anything else
we want to say about I mean,

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I think everyone it's pretty familiar with
the case. Yeah, I go back

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and listen to part one. If
you haven't, I did want to before

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we get into the day of Kathleen's
death. I did want to first share

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a couple of anecdotes about Michael's temper. We talked about a couple examples earlier

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of him having kind of a hair
trigger temper, but one more example.

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One time, Margaret and Martha's aunts
and a cousin were in Durham visiting and

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most of the family was all sitting
by the pool while the Peterson's four English

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bulldogs were playing, jumping in and
out of the pool and running around.

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One of the dogs, Clancy grabbed
the hose that was attached to the hard

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plastic fountain in the pool and dragged
it over to the deep end. Michael

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was in his office that looked out
on the pool and seeing what Clancy did,

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he came running out and screaming,
you stupid dog. I've replaced that

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thing three times already because of you. The dog out of the pool and

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beat him over the head with the
hard plastic fountain again and again until Yeah.

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Margaret finally jumped up and screamed,
stop it, stop it. Hit

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me, leave the poor dog alone. Margaret ended up cleaning the blood off

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of Clancy's head, and this was
witnessed by Aunt Margaret and all the you

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know, the other family members that
were there at the time. When Aunt

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Margaret came to visit again for Martha's
high school graduation, she noticed that the

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dog, Clancy wasn't there. She
asked Michael about it, and he told

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her, without looking her in the
eye, that Clancy had had a heart

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attack and drowned in the pool,
and that the kids found him floating there.

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Aunt Margaret always wondered whether Michael had
potentially killed the dog, but again,

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we'll never know. Horrible story.
Yes, In the months leading up

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to Kathleen's death, the family was
under a lot of financial stress. While

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Kathleen had done well at Nortel and
had a bunch of stock options, their

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value had plummeted. At one point, her options had been worth two point

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four million dollars, but by the
summer of two thousand and one they were

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worth less than fifty thousand dollars.
Just so I can't that's just so horrible

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to think about. You think you've
got like a half million dollars happened to

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us, not that amount of money, but yeah, that has happened to

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us before. So yeah, and
Michael had made good money from his books,

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but it wasn't a steady income,
and it had been three years since

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his last book, was probably he
pretty much kind of stopped writing right other

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than for the newspaper. Yeah,
I don't or was he writing in his

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books just weren't being picked up.
Oh no, he I mean, he

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had done the Charlie Tushoes book,
which was a collaboration, and I don't

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think after that he had worked on
any other books, although he did say

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that he was working on something that
was about the military and porn, but

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I think that was kind of an
excuse for why he had a lot of

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porn on his computer, because no
one ever found like a manuscript or any

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draft or any notes for the book
itself. So okay, As you mentioned

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in part one, Michael and Kathleen
were now empty nesters. The three girls

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were all in college. Margaret was
at Tulane University in New Orleans, Martha

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at the University of San Francisco,
and Caitlin at Cornell University in New York,

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and the two boys still needed financial
support even though they were older,

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which is nuts. It is nuts, and I mean, those three colleges

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are they're all still very state.
They're all very good university, so not

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cheap at all. In April of
two thousand and one, Michael and Kathleen

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took out a second mortgage on the
home. In two thousand, their expenditures

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exceeded their income by nearly one hundred
thousand dollars, and they had a credit

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card balance of more than one hundred
and fourteen thousand dollars. The upkeep on

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the home was expensive as well.
It needed major repairs. It needed a

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new roof, there was termite damage, and the plumbing needed an overhaul.

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So can I interrupt just for a
set and tell you that the house was

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a very nice house, But the
house wasn't it was. It did appear

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to be dated, like in the
pictures that I saw when they lived there.

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Yeah, yeah, it was built
like you said it was built.

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It was built in nineteen forty.
Yeah, And the houses like that can

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be a money pit, and I
think it was a little bit of a

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money pit, just the upkeep of
landscape, because it was kind of you

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know, in a in a very
woodsy area. You know, because your

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roof does need to be replaced more
if it's subjected to you know, large

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trees and yeah, I guess they
had a colony of bats living in there.

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Attic, did you know that I
did hear something about bats? Yeah?

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Yeah, yeah. Bats are one
of my biggest hopes, which is,

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I know, silly, but one
of my biggest fears. On November

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twenty ninth, just over a week
before Kathleen's death, Michael sent an email

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to his ex wife Patty where he
asked her to take out a thirty thousand

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dollars home equity loan to help Clayton
and Todd out of their crippling credit card

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debt. At the end of the
email, he said, quote, it

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is simply not possible for me to
discuss this with Kathleen. End quote.

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I just want to say, in
case our children are listening, which they're

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probably not. I know they're not. You don't pay off your kids credit

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card debt? I know. I
just think that's yeah, when you're like,

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I don't know how old they were, but twenty five or twenty six

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or what I think they were,
twenty five and twenty seven, Yeah,

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it's like kind of your responsibility.
It's you. I'm not going to lose

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sleep while I might lose sleep over
and I'm gonna feel bad for you.

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But yeah, and that email that
he sent to Patty about their finances was

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one of the emails that was deleted, so he had we'll talk about it

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in a little bit, but he
had deleted a lot of files, both

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before Kathleen's death then after. I
don't know much about Patty. Do you

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know much about Patty? What did
she do for I know, we know

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she was a teacher. Did she
wasn't independently wealthy? Was she? I

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don't think so. But I don't
know a lot about Patty either, other

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than what you know she was in
the documentary. But I don't know a

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lot about her background now. I
only know one thing that at the We'll

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get to this later, but I
think she had an extensive art collection that

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may have been valued at a million
dollars. Oh really, Yeah, I

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00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:11.639
did not tell you why. I
know that later. Okay. One other

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00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:15.559
point about the you know, the
stress that they were under the financial stress.

206
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Kathleen was very stressed about her job. Nortel had gone through several rounds

207
00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.759
of layoffs, and even though she
was at an executive level, she was

208
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worried that she was next, she
confided in her sister that she was worried

209
00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:33.159
and that she was not enjoying life. Oh that's too bad. What was

210
00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:37.240
twenty two thousand and one, and
you know nine to eleven had just happened,

211
00:14:37.320 --> 00:14:43.039
and so I think everyone's investments were
tanking. Yeah, that's a good

212
00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:48.600
point. One last thing before we
get to the circumstances around Kathleen's death.

213
00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:54.480
As anyone who saw the Staircase documentary
knows, Michael was bisexual and he had

214
00:14:54.519 --> 00:14:58.840
flings with men outside of both his
marriage to Patty and to Kathleen. Whether

215
00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:03.759
Michael was open about this with Kathleen
or not is a good question. Michael

216
00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:09.360
later claimed that they had an understanding, but people who knew Kathleen well,

217
00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:11.559
like her sisters, say that there's
no way she would have condoned that.

218
00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:16.519
For example, when she found out
that her first husband was having an affair,

219
00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:18.759
that was enough for her to end
the marriage. Well, she did

220
00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:24.879
try to work on the marriage,
Kathleen on her first marriage, Yeah,

221
00:15:24.919 --> 00:15:28.600
she did, but I think it
was that was the thing the catalyst of,

222
00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:31.279
you know, eventually ending the marriage. We just we don't know if

223
00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:35.360
she knew about Michael and his flings
or not. She never said anything about

224
00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:41.120
it to her sisters or her family, but she might have felt uncomfortable talking

225
00:15:41.159 --> 00:15:43.600
to them about that. So we
just don't know. Well, there was

226
00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:48.919
one anecdote about like Michael had they
had an extensive amount of books in their

227
00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:52.759
house, and Michael did have a
lot of gay literature, and there was

228
00:15:52.120 --> 00:15:56.840
sometimes I guess the kids, you
know, it was a long many years

229
00:15:56.879 --> 00:16:00.360
ago, they would kind of put
these It wasn't porn. I think they

230
00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:03.519
were just you know, like books
about gay sex and things like that,

231
00:16:03.559 --> 00:16:07.840
and they would put the book in
each other's rooms and then they would be

232
00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:08.600
like, oh, are you gay? And it was just kind of a

233
00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:12.399
family joke. Yeah, So that
doesn't mean that anyone knew that he might

234
00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:18.000
have been bisexual. Right, The
literature wasn't the home. Yeah, Okay,

235
00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:25.000
let's get to the weekend of Kathleen's
death. On Wednesday, December fifth,

236
00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:29.200
Michael sent Kathleen an email to her
work email that read, quote,

237
00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:33.600
here's the scoop on the Independent,
which is a Durham newsweekly. There were

238
00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:37.799
no invitations, but we can still
go let me know if you want me

239
00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:40.480
to call in, or we could
just show up at the door of Friday

240
00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:44.399
night. He's talking about a party, a Christmas party that that newsweekly was

241
00:16:44.440 --> 00:16:48.080
going to have, and apparently Kathleen
wanted to go to it. I'll continue

242
00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:52.639
his email said, you looked great
last night. If only we hadn't gone

243
00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:56.720
to Poo Limb, which is an
Asian restaurant in Durham. Let's work on

244
00:16:56.799 --> 00:17:00.720
our marriage tonight. End quote.
I don't have much more text about this

245
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:03.840
email, and it may or may
not be relevant, but I think it

246
00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:08.119
made investigators seem like it made them
think that maybe Michael was in the doghouse,

247
00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:11.000
that maybe they had had a fight, because he was saying, let's

248
00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:15.480
work on our marriage tonight, and
he said something about not you know,

249
00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:18.240
if only we hadn't gone to this
restaurant, like maybe they had a fight

250
00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:21.880
there or something like that. But
oh, I actually was thinking that it

251
00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:25.240
meant like one of them got food
poisonings. That could be too you know,

252
00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:29.960
we we don't know. On Friday
the seventh, Kathleen took a vacation

253
00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:33.839
day from work. She and Michael
went shopping that morning to Costco and a

254
00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:36.839
few other places to buy Christmas gifts. Wait, Michael, who I think

255
00:17:36.839 --> 00:17:40.160
as a monster went to Costco with
his wife. I know, maybe he's

256
00:17:40.200 --> 00:17:45.559
not so bad after all, right, Costco is your least favorite. No,

257
00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.799
that's not true. That's not true. Why do why do you never

258
00:17:48.839 --> 00:17:52.279
go with me? Then I go
with you to Costco? Oh? Please,

259
00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:55.920
at least once every three months,
I go with you to Costco.

260
00:17:56.079 --> 00:18:00.640
That is that is a blatant line. That is that is a that is

261
00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:06.880
you've never I'm going to start documenting
my trips to Costco with you. Okay,

262
00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:11.440
all right, listeners, we will
hold him accountable. After Costco,

263
00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:14.759
they also went to a few other
places to buy Christmas gifts for the kids,

264
00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:18.200
along with a TV for the house
and a Christmas tree. That afternoon,

265
00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:22.839
they put the tree up and decorated
it. In Part one, I

266
00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:26.799
talked about Michael's book Behind the Staircase, and in the book he wrote about

267
00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:30.960
Christmas and how Christmas was so important
to Kathleen. You know, she was

268
00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.880
like the Martha Stewart type, and
she really loved to decorate for the holidays,

269
00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:41.400
like every holiday. And she was
kind of disappointed because she had this

270
00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:45.079
call that she had to take on
Sunday morning, and she really wanted to

271
00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:49.599
have the house all decorated before the
kids came home from college for Christmas,

272
00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:55.160
and he made it sound like the
house was not decorated, which was kind

273
00:18:55.200 --> 00:19:00.200
of weird to me because there were
definitely there are definitely decorations. Whether she

274
00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:03.759
was done or not, we don't
know. Well, I think police officers

275
00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:07.480
said that the tree was up and
decorated. It might not have been finished,

276
00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:10.039
but you know, at least some
decorations were on it, and the

277
00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:14.440
candles were all in the windows.
And we'll talk about this a little bit

278
00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:17.839
later, but there was some wreaths
like on the front gate and on the

279
00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:23.319
front door, Okay, and the
famous lawn ornament. Again, we'll talk

280
00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:26.839
about that later too. But she
definitely had started decorating for Christmas. But

281
00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.759
in his book he made it sound
like they hadn't. That they had brought

282
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:34.359
the ornaments down from the attic or
whatever and they were all over the house,

283
00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:37.000
but they hadn't started decorating. It
was just to me that was just

284
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:44.960
establishing that he he lied and trying
to rewrite history to suit whatever his narrative.

285
00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:48.920
Early that Friday evening, they got
a call from David Peerlmutt, who

286
00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:53.599
co authored the Charlie two Shoes book
with Michael David was calling to share the

287
00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:57.759
good news that a major Hollywood producer
wanted to option the rights to Charlie two

288
00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:02.319
Shoes. By the way, the
movie still has not been made, but

289
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:06.319
I did see an update from the
producer from the spring of twenty twenty three

290
00:20:06.359 --> 00:20:08.759
that they were preparing to shoot the
film this year in Savannah, Georgia.

291
00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:11.400
Oh wow, so it looks like
it's actually still happening. It's a good

292
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:17.079
name. Yeah, I mean it
was interesting though. The video I saw

293
00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:19.000
of this producer. He was I
can't remember his name, but he he

294
00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:23.359
produced The General's Daughter, which was
a pretty well known movie, and he

295
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:26.720
was in this little video with David
Peerlmutt, who was the co author of

296
00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:32.079
the book with Michael Peterson, and
it was like Michael Peterson didn't exist.

297
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.640
He was like, David, you
wrote this book, and like they never

298
00:20:34.759 --> 00:20:38.319
mentioned Michael's name at all, of
which yeat a little bit, a little

299
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:42.240
bit. We don't have any idea
how much money that would have been though.

300
00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:45.680
No, A lot of people have
pointed to that amount of money was

301
00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:49.559
probably a significant amount of money because
it was going to be a major production

302
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:55.000
and that would have alleviated a lot
of the financial stress. It's at all

303
00:20:55.039 --> 00:20:59.480
of it. Yeah, because if
money was the motive for him killing Kathleen,

304
00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:03.279
then maybe wasn't quite a strong motive. But yeah, I never saw

305
00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:06.440
the amount of money that was going
to come in from that. And it

306
00:21:06.519 --> 00:21:08.359
was it was a co authored book
as well, so you know, whatever

307
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:11.759
it was, he would only get
half of it. But I did not

308
00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:14.079
see the amount. If a movie
is made of your book, then that

309
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:18.119
book is going to sell a heck
of a lot of copies before the movie

310
00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:22.400
comes out. Yeah, good point. After that call, Kathleen and Michael

311
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:25.759
went to the party that he had
mentioned in his email thrown by The Independent.

312
00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:30.839
They danced and socialized until one am
on Saturday morning. Kathleen went into

313
00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:34.519
her office to do some work and
to prep for a business trip to Toronto

314
00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:38.160
that was coming up on Monday.
She left the office and headed back home

315
00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:44.400
around four pm. Sometime before she
came home, Michael used a program called

316
00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:48.599
quick Clean to delete two hundred and
sixteen files from his computer. We don't

317
00:21:48.599 --> 00:21:52.799
know exactly what those files were,
but we know that he also deleted three

318
00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:57.960
hundred and fifty two files with the
same program two days earlier. A few

319
00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:02.880
minutes before Kathleen got home, Michael
left to go to the YMCA to work

320
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:07.440
out. He called Kathleen at around
six pm, and she was apparently annoyed

321
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:11.079
about the amount of time he spent
at the gym. I don't know how

322
00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:12.559
we know that. It was in
the book that I read about the case.

323
00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:15.680
But I thought back, I'm like, well, the only way we

324
00:22:15.720 --> 00:22:18.240
would know that is if Michael said
that, which would seem odd, but

325
00:22:18.880 --> 00:22:22.480
that was the claim in the book
that she called him and she was or

326
00:22:22.519 --> 00:22:26.319
he called and she was annoyed.
Well, when Michael went to the gym,

327
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:29.799
was he really going to the gym? Or was it he going to

328
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:34.119
meet nice people? Yes, that
is a good question. I imagine it

329
00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:37.920
was both. I mean, Michael
was very like he was to see his

330
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:40.640
arms. He was very fit,
He had very strong arms, so I

331
00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:44.319
think he did work out a lot. But there was definitely more going on

332
00:22:44.359 --> 00:22:48.880
at the YMCA than just working out. Michael suggested that they stay home that

333
00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:52.880
night and celebrate the good news about
Charlie Tushoes, and he offered to pick

334
00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:59.920
up a romantic movie. Just before
seven pm, Michael stopped by the Blockbuster

335
00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:08.279
remember Blockbusters, and rented America's Sweethearts
of Romantic Comedy Style Your Boyfriend, John

336
00:23:08.359 --> 00:23:12.720
c Catherine Zeta Jones, and Julia
Roberts and Billy Crystal. Oh, I

337
00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:19.799
don't remember. It's a great cast. At nine pm, Todd's friend Christina

338
00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:23.960
Thomasetti arrived at the Peterson home to
pick Todd up and go to a Christmas

339
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:26.880
party in the neighborhood. The book
I think we kind of read the same

340
00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:33.079
book. She was described as very
hot. Oh really, Oh, I

341
00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:36.400
don't remember seeing remember that. I
wasn't actually going to mention this, but

342
00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:40.960
it came up later at the trial
that Christina Tomasetti I believe she was married

343
00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:45.640
at the time, and the prosecutor
in the trial actually said in the trial,

344
00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.119
well, you know that Todd was
having an affair with Christina or he

345
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:52.839
was planning to have an affair with
her that night or something, which was

346
00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:55.720
really like in the trial, I
think when that came up, it caused

347
00:23:55.720 --> 00:23:59.400
a big commotion and the judge was
like, struck it from the record and

348
00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:02.599
all of that. I don't know
what the truth is there. I just

349
00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:06.319
know that it came up at the
trial that that was the case. Well,

350
00:24:06.359 --> 00:24:12.640
she testified, and she described the
evening between Michael and Kathleen forget their

351
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:17.200
names. Sometimes it's like they were
having a night, like everything was nice.

352
00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:18.880
They were having a nice time.
They were sharing a bottle of wine,

353
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.480
and they seemed happy in their normal
selves. Yes, she said that

354
00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:26.039
she came at like nine forty five. She and Todd left for the party

355
00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:32.039
at about ten twenty pm, and
she did say that they were watching their

356
00:24:32.079 --> 00:24:36.599
movie. They seemed like they were
in good spirits. Around ten forty pm,

357
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:41.160
Kathleen logged on to the family computer. Normally she would use her laptop,

358
00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:45.319
but she had left it at work. Just after eleven pm, Kathleen

359
00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:49.119
returned a call from a colleague of
hers in Canada, Helen Prislinger. There

360
00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:52.960
was a conference call for work schedule
on Sunday morning, and Kathleen needed to

361
00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:56.960
get a document from Helen in order
to prep for the call. During that

362
00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:02.319
call, Kathleen asked Michael for their
home email address so that Helen could send

363
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:07.160
the documents to that email address.
Helen later reported that Kathleen did not sound

364
00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.480
drunk at all, nor did she
sense any tension between Kathleen and Michael when

365
00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:15.480
Kathleen asked him for the email address. Is so weird that she didn't know

366
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:18.039
the home email address. I thought
that was a little bit weird too.

367
00:25:18.200 --> 00:25:23.200
Yeah, but maybe she just never
used it. Yeah. What happened between

368
00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:27.440
eleven PM and two forty one am
when Michael first called nine to one one

369
00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:32.759
is not one hundred percent certain,
as we only have Michael's account of this

370
00:25:32.839 --> 00:25:36.960
time. So that's what almost four
hours of time. Yeah, we don't

371
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:41.319
really know exactly what happened. We
do know that the email from Helen with

372
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:45.759
the attachment arrived at eleven fifty three
PM, but it doesn't appear to have

373
00:25:45.880 --> 00:25:48.599
ever been opened. But we don't
know. Again, we don't know did

374
00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:55.039
Kathleen stay at the computer? Did
she leave? What Michael said happened after

375
00:25:55.079 --> 00:25:57.839
that is that he and Kathleen went
out and sat by the pool talking and

376
00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:03.960
drinking some more wine. He said
that Kathleen went inside between one forty five

377
00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:07.079
and two am, while he stayed
out by the pool for another forty five

378
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:11.799
minutes to an hour to finish smoking
a cigar. So they were real night

379
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:18.039
owls again with the owl puns.
Very good, Well, they were,

380
00:26:18.119 --> 00:26:21.319
though, I mean, you know, for an older couple, not an

381
00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:23.880
older couple, but yeah, usually
you wouldn't think you'd be out till like

382
00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:26.920
two in the morning, you know, hanging out with if we had elaborated

383
00:26:26.920 --> 00:26:30.559
on this, But Kathleen was forty
eight and Michael was fifty eight. Yeah,

384
00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:36.559
and as we mentioned in part one, the temperature that evening was probably

385
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:41.000
in the low fifties, like maybe
fifty one fifty three at most, and

386
00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:44.319
Michael was wearing shorts and a T
shirt and one other thing. So that

387
00:26:44.440 --> 00:26:47.480
was his story later that he would
say that they were out by the pool

388
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:51.480
for that amount of time and then
he came in and found her at the

389
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:56.359
bottom of the stairs. When the
paramedics initially came, he actually told them

390
00:26:56.440 --> 00:26:59.160
that he had just gone out to
turn off the pool lights and then came

391
00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:03.480
back to find Kathleen there, implying
that he found her just moments after the

392
00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:07.000
fall. And so he kind of
changed his story. I think when some

393
00:27:07.079 --> 00:27:11.200
of the information came out about how
long she might have been dead for,

394
00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:15.359
which we'll talk about in a minute, but I think he at first was

395
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:17.480
like, oh, I just stepped
out and back in I found her,

396
00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:19.480
and then he later sort of made
it sound like, oh no, I

397
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:23.240
was out there for like forty five
minutes or an hour, so she could

398
00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:27.200
have fallen, you know, at
any time during that you know period.

399
00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:33.240
So the implication like originally they had
gone in together and then he went and

400
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:36.200
turned off the pool light. That's
what it sounded like. Yeah, and

401
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:41.480
that is strange. Yeah, and
I believe there's as much as a two

402
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:47.200
hour discrepancy as to what time Kathleen
came into the house. It's never we

403
00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:48.960
don't really know what time she came
in, right, We really we don't

404
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:52.279
even know if they were out at
the pool. I mean, all we

405
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:56.279
have is Michael's word. But between
eleven PM and two fifty one or two

406
00:27:56.359 --> 00:28:00.519
forty one am, anything could have
taken place during that time. We talked

407
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:03.799
about the house and the setting in
the last episode. But they had a

408
00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:10.000
for being in like a neighborhood.
They had three and a half acres of

409
00:28:10.039 --> 00:28:14.400
property, so their nearest neighbors weren't
that near really, and they had you

410
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:17.559
know, so there's probably there's no
neighbor testimony that can say, oh,

411
00:28:17.599 --> 00:28:18.960
yeah, I heard them by the
pool or I saw the pool lights on.

412
00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.000
It was very private, yeah,
and wooded. Yeah, for sure.

413
00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:25.880
I do have a little clip I
wanted to play. This is from

414
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:30.519
much later when Michael Peterson went on
The Doctor Phil Show and he talked about

415
00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:33.880
what happened that night, so I
want to hear it from his words of

416
00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:38.200
what he said happened that evening.
So we got the rest of the wine.

417
00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:42.039
We went out to the pool and
we talked, and again one of

418
00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:45.039
those things, what do you talk
about when your wife's going to die in

419
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:48.799
a couple of minutes. Well,
I didn't know she was going to die,

420
00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:52.119
so I'm sure we just talked about
Christmas was coming up, what we're

421
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:55.799
going to get the kids, and
things like that. And then she did

422
00:28:55.839 --> 00:28:56.839
to me, Uh, well I
got to go to bed. I'm going

423
00:28:56.839 --> 00:29:00.720
to go upstairs for the teleconference in
the morning, and uh, I said,

424
00:29:00.759 --> 00:29:03.319
okay, good night there. Uh, And that was the last I

425
00:29:03.319 --> 00:29:10.920
saw her, really alive, vibrant. Was walking from the pool towards the

426
00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:15.480
house and I stayed out there for
maybe an hour. I mighta dozed,

427
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.480
I honestly don't know. It was
a beautiful night, the pool was sparkling,

428
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:22.240
and it was just really magical.
I was happy with my life.

429
00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:26.039
So then I got up and I
went into the house the back way,

430
00:29:26.759 --> 00:29:30.200
and then I was gonna go around
this v was a very big house and

431
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:33.960
go around and lock the rest of
the house up. And then I turned

432
00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:37.440
the corner and now on the back
staircase, I saw her. She's just

433
00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:45.920
lying at the bottom of the stairs, and it w it was, you

434
00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:49.960
know, I'm like, what what
uh? And so I I went to

435
00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:56.599
her and the first thing I noticed
was, you know, there was blood,

436
00:29:56.880 --> 00:29:59.960
but I wasn't aware of that much
blood until later, but she was

437
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:03.559
crumpled up on the floor, and
I picked her up and I held her,

438
00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:07.559
and then I called nine one one, What do you talk about with

439
00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:11.359
your wife when she's going to die? And a couple of such a weird,

440
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:14.400
very strange thing to say. And
then right after he's like, well,

441
00:30:14.440 --> 00:30:18.240
of course I didn't know she was
going to die, but please don't

442
00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:21.880
if something happens to me and my
death is suspicious, don't go on the

443
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:25.839
doctor Phil just going to be a
mistake. It seemed like doctor Phil was

444
00:30:25.880 --> 00:30:29.440
kind of on his was on his
side on the show, but yeah,

445
00:30:29.720 --> 00:30:34.480
it was doctor Phil just makes me
feel like I need a shower. Yeah,

446
00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:40.279
you know, I just realized that
Michael Peterson's voice reminds me of reminds

447
00:30:40.279 --> 00:30:45.680
me of Thurston Howl from the from
Gilligan's Island. I might date myself a

448
00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:49.680
little bit there, but I should
say, I don't know what you're talking

449
00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:53.440
about, Island. What kind of
show is that? Clearly, yeah,

450
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:57.559
a little bit. He just very
unlikable in my opinion. I know that

451
00:30:57.559 --> 00:31:02.640
doesn't matter. It's irrelevant whether he's
likable or not, but I just don't

452
00:31:02.759 --> 00:31:12.359
like the guy on that note.
Let's take a break and we're back.

453
00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:17.920
Can I just say shout out to
the lace people. They're really good on

454
00:31:17.960 --> 00:31:22.480
our little break them again? Oh
yeah, definitely. Did I mention the

455
00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:26.599
Trader Joe's ones? Uh No,
I don't. Okay, Trader Joe's makes

456
00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:29.359
a really good chip in a tube
too. I can't what they're called,

457
00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:33.400
because Trader Joe's is. I love
to go there, but it's kind of

458
00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:37.720
off. It's a drive for us. But their chips in a can are

459
00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:40.799
really good to I had no idea
there were so many brands of chips in

460
00:31:40.839 --> 00:31:44.279
a can. Well you you yeah, you did know about the Trader joe

461
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:47.160
was one because you've eaten them?
Oh okay, okay, but yeah,

462
00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:49.480
you're not gonna I know what you're
gonna say, and I don't want to

463
00:31:49.519 --> 00:31:52.880
hear it. I do not want
to hear the night one. Well,

464
00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:56.680
I am going to play them.
There's actually two nine only one calls,

465
00:31:56.720 --> 00:32:00.440
although the second one is very short, but the first one I'm going to

466
00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:04.880
play both of them. Let's start
with the one at too forty one A

467
00:32:05.119 --> 00:32:08.240
them? John? Now, well
one way your margency? Fifteen ten?

468
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:13.880
The street brief? Or Tom?
Where you'll bring him? What kind of

469
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:19.880
act? Those sins? Giving me
a conscious? Is she ncious? Her

470
00:32:19.960 --> 00:32:23.720
coaches? How many stairs did you
all them? How many for there there

471
00:32:23.720 --> 00:32:31.440
are? How many stays? Tom
nails? Start com down? So fifteen

472
00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:35.640
point? I don't know, Chris
to somebody who would works? Okay,

473
00:32:35.720 --> 00:32:40.279
somebody's this back in the ambulance.
I'll ask you questions with the horse hields.

474
00:32:40.400 --> 00:32:45.880
Okay, put this quence start?
Somebody else? Is this back in

475
00:32:45.960 --> 00:33:00.680
the ambulance? Okay? Is she
away now? Hello? Hello? H

476
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:17.400
Okay. Before we talk about that, let's play the second nine one one

477
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:21.279
call. He called them back five
minutes later, at two forty six a

478
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:35.640
m. Where where please please?
Would you hurry up? Learn dark nd

479
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:38.640
There on the way, Can you
tell me for sure she's not breathing?

480
00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:46.279
But the love that was it?
Yeah? What do you think about those

481
00:33:46.359 --> 00:33:52.039
nine one one calls? Well,
recently I read an angry Reddit post where

482
00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:58.000
the poster said that there was no
reason for podcast to play nine one one

483
00:33:58.039 --> 00:34:00.920
calls and it drove them crazy when
people analyze a nine to one one call,

484
00:34:01.279 --> 00:34:07.359
which I agree to a certain extent, because I mean, we've said

485
00:34:07.359 --> 00:34:09.960
it before. You never know how
you're going to react to a situation like

486
00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:14.360
this. I do want to say, even if you murdered your wife,

487
00:34:14.719 --> 00:34:19.400
even if you pushed your wife down
the stairs with intent, you can still

488
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:22.039
be emotional about it. You know, Yeah, you would be probably,

489
00:34:22.159 --> 00:34:25.960
I would hope, well not not, I mean a sociopath, Yeah wouldn't.

490
00:34:27.320 --> 00:34:29.320
But we talk about that all the
time. While they sound guilty or

491
00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:34.880
not, well, it's possible to
be guilty and also be really upset about

492
00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:38.239
it. Yeah, you're in a
very stressful situation either either way. Yeah.

493
00:34:38.519 --> 00:34:44.480
Yeah, I thought the I mean
I thought his emotions sounded genuine,

494
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:49.159
like he definitely sounded like he was
freaking out and breathing heavily and things like

495
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:52.679
that. The one thing that bothered
me a little bit is that on the

496
00:34:52.679 --> 00:34:55.559
first call, he says she's still
breathing, which I think is a little

497
00:34:55.559 --> 00:35:00.400
weird. He says it twice,
and I do it makes you quite if

498
00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:01.800
she's breathing or not, because I
kind of think that she wasn't at that

499
00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:06.039
point. I think she wasn't either. The thing that bothers me is when

500
00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:09.119
he said sorry. When he says, huh, that's a huge pet peeve

501
00:35:09.159 --> 00:35:13.800
of mine. Our kids will tell
you, they will drives me nuts.

502
00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:16.639
So, I mean, it does
kind of sound like an old, old

503
00:35:16.920 --> 00:35:25.320
Jimmy Stewart movie because he is definitely
a reactive person, maybe the overly dramatic

504
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:30.480
person, like the crying. And
I think for hours after he was sobbing

505
00:35:30.599 --> 00:35:32.199
when the police were there, and
he couldn't talk to anyone, like like

506
00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:35.760
even on the nine one one call, he wouldn't. He didn't answer any

507
00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:37.079
questions, right. She would ask
him a couple of things, he didn't

508
00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:42.360
respond, and when the police came
later, they would ask him basic questions,

509
00:35:42.599 --> 00:35:45.480
you know, what's her birthday,
things like that, and he just

510
00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:47.840
he would just stare at the police
like he didn't, like he was in

511
00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:52.199
shock. But you know, makes
you wonder if it was in act.

512
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:55.000
Yeah, yeah, exactly, like
if he was just trying to act like

513
00:35:55.039 --> 00:35:58.920
he was in shock and couldn't even
function. And it is kind of rare

514
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:05.559
because most people are able to process
the you know, they're upset and speak

515
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:07.199
to the police at the same time, which honestly, I'm always kind of

516
00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:10.840
amazed by. Yeah, and this
is but this is someone who was in

517
00:36:12.119 --> 00:36:15.320
Vietnam in combat situation and he does
like to talk about that a lot.

518
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:19.599
And I think he describes the crime
scene with the amount of blood and he

519
00:36:19.679 --> 00:36:22.920
was like, oh, I wasn't
really bothered by that because of my experience

520
00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:27.119
in Vietnam, I'd seen a lot
of dead people. So that is a

521
00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:30.000
good point. Yeah, yeah,
you would think he would maybe be a

522
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.920
little more able to you know,
cope and handle trauma like that. But

523
00:36:35.159 --> 00:36:39.280
again, it's easy for us to
say his behavior on the nine to one

524
00:36:39.320 --> 00:36:44.920
one called didn't bother me too much. Sometimes I think you're supposed to stay

525
00:36:44.920 --> 00:36:46.400
on the line, and it does
seem like, well, if you're supposed

526
00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:52.159
to resuscitate your wife or you want
to you know, care take care of

527
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:54.440
her, right, then you don't
want to be on the phone, so

528
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:58.239
he gave the address. He said, my wife is still breathing. He

529
00:36:58.280 --> 00:37:01.599
made it sound like it was,
but he never did CPR. Never,

530
00:37:01.920 --> 00:37:06.239
he never performed CPR, And he
said that later that he never did.

531
00:37:06.480 --> 00:37:09.599
Yeah, which is strange. And
he put towels under her head. You're

532
00:37:09.639 --> 00:37:13.119
probably going to talk about that in
a minute. Yeah, I'll talk about

533
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:15.800
the crime scene. So, yeah, unless you have anything more to say

534
00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:16.679
about the nine one one call.
Well, it didn't bother me that he

535
00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:21.079
hung up either, because I could. I can kind of understand that because

536
00:37:21.079 --> 00:37:23.800
it sometimes it doesn't make sense to
stay on the line. Yeah, and

537
00:37:23.880 --> 00:37:28.519
I wanted to mention too that it
did take them a little longer to get

538
00:37:28.519 --> 00:37:31.360
there because there was a wreath on
the front gate. They drove by the

539
00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:35.639
house. He drove by the house
because they couldn't see the address because the

540
00:37:35.679 --> 00:37:38.559
reef the wreath was covering correct the
address. But they did arrive at two

541
00:37:38.719 --> 00:37:43.159
forty eight am, so it was
seven minutes after the first call, which

542
00:37:43.199 --> 00:37:46.159
is not too bad. Which coincidentally, at the same time that they arrived,

543
00:37:46.199 --> 00:37:52.119
Todd and Christina also returned. Right
at that same time, the EMTs

544
00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:55.119
found Kathleen sprawled across the floor at
the bottom of the stairs, with Michael

545
00:37:55.199 --> 00:38:00.599
crouched over her crying. Michael initially
told the Paramount, as I mentioned earlier,

546
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:05.559
that he had only briefly been separated
from his wife prior to the accident.

547
00:38:05.599 --> 00:38:07.079
He said, I went out to
turn off the pool lights. I

548
00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:12.519
came back and there she was.
Kathleen's legs were spread wide and her head

549
00:38:12.599 --> 00:38:15.840
was bent back and resting on the
first step. The EMTs were prepared to

550
00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:20.119
deal with broken bones or even a
broken neck, but they were taken aback

551
00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:22.920
by the blood. One of the
EMTs said that he had responded to thirty

552
00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:28.639
or forty falls and had never seen
so much blood. There was a red

553
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:31.880
splattered roll of paper towels by her
foot, along with some wadded up used

554
00:38:31.960 --> 00:38:37.360
towels. There was dried blood on
her gray sweatpants, especially around the hip

555
00:38:37.360 --> 00:38:40.960
and waste area, where the sweatpants
were completely red from the blood. There

556
00:38:40.960 --> 00:38:45.079
was dried blood on the soles of
her bare feet, and there was a

557
00:38:45.079 --> 00:38:50.000
pair of bloody white socks laying between
her legs. One of Michael's athletic shoes

558
00:38:50.079 --> 00:38:52.880
was sitting by Kathleen's foot, with
a few spatters of blood on it.

559
00:38:53.360 --> 00:38:57.760
What could she have tripped over his
shoe or was the shoe No, I

560
00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:00.400
think he had taken the shoe off. I think he must have taken the

561
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:05.519
shoe off because there was also a
I'll talk about this later, but there's

562
00:39:05.559 --> 00:39:09.840
like a footprint on the back of
her sweatpants that matched the shoe. That's

563
00:39:09.960 --> 00:39:14.360
very strange. And the socks I
don't recall hearing about the socks before.

564
00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:17.480
Yeah, I looked at the picture. I think they were maybe her socks,

565
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:21.599
and they were taken off and they
were just sitting like between her Her

566
00:39:21.679 --> 00:39:22.920
legs were kind of, you know, spread apart on the floor, and

567
00:39:22.920 --> 00:39:27.280
they were like right between her legs. That's very strange. And I thought

568
00:39:27.320 --> 00:39:30.079
she was wearing flip flops. She
had been wearing flip flops, I believe,

569
00:39:30.199 --> 00:39:35.599
but her when her body was found, she was in bare feet and

570
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:38.440
the flip flops I've read were sitting
next to her foot, like they were

571
00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:42.159
stacked one on top of the other, next to one of her feet.

572
00:39:43.599 --> 00:39:47.599
The socks, I'm I'm I'm very
curious about the socks. How they got

573
00:39:47.639 --> 00:39:52.159
there. The whole scene is very
curious. There was also there were also

574
00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:55.960
blood soaked towels under her head and
all around her. There was blood smeared

575
00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:00.159
and splattered on the wall, the
stairs, and the floor underneath. What

576
00:40:00.280 --> 00:40:02.960
the ceiling. I've heard some I
don't believe about the ceiling. Okay,

577
00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:07.199
from everything I've read, there was
no blood on the ceiling. Kathleen had

578
00:40:07.239 --> 00:40:12.239
no pulse, no respiration, no
blood pressure, and her pupils were dilated

579
00:40:12.239 --> 00:40:15.480
to six millimeters, indicating a lack
of oxygen to the brain. She was

580
00:40:15.519 --> 00:40:19.639
dead, and it appeared to the
Empts that she had been dead long before

581
00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:22.960
they got the call. When they're
indicating that when he said she's still breathing,

582
00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:29.079
he probably was was either lying or
wrong. I think so. Yes,

583
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:32.920
And as we mentioned earlier, when
they asked Michael for basic information like

584
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:37.039
Kathleen's birth date and her medical history, he just gave them a blank stare

585
00:40:37.119 --> 00:40:43.719
and didn't respond. At the bottom
of the staircase there is a French print

586
00:40:44.760 --> 00:40:47.199
of a black cat. Ah.
Yes, the black cat. Yeah.

587
00:40:47.239 --> 00:40:52.559
And the print I'm not sure if
it's the same print that was in Elizabeth

588
00:40:53.360 --> 00:40:55.840
A. Ratcliffe's house. It's the
same picture, but it may not be

589
00:40:55.880 --> 00:41:00.480
the same print, right right.
I think the girls said that they thought

590
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:06.039
it might have been their moms,
because you know, Michael had control of

591
00:41:06.079 --> 00:41:09.440
her estate, so he might have
kept some pieces. But it might be

592
00:41:09.519 --> 00:41:15.280
kind of like a cheeky reference to
an Edgar Allan Poe short story called The

593
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:20.280
Black Cat. It's about a man
who finds a black cat and the black

594
00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:23.719
cat plagues him for some reason.
He thinks the cat, we have two

595
00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:28.840
lovely black cats, which one of
them is a little spooky. If you've

596
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:32.800
listened to our podcast long enough,
you know this. But he kills the

597
00:41:32.840 --> 00:41:37.880
black cat and then he finds another
black cat and then he ends up killing

598
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:43.119
his wife. So it almost seems
like, you know, because Michael is

599
00:41:43.159 --> 00:41:46.239
so intelligent, like a few people
would get that reference. Yeah, he

600
00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:51.440
was doing some subtle literary reference to
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of an

601
00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:55.079
interesting side note. Yeah. So
the first police officers arrived on the scene

602
00:41:55.079 --> 00:42:00.320
around three AM. As the EMTs
were still checking Kathleen's vital signs. On

603
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:05.280
seeing the amount of blood, the
first officer that was there radioed the Criminal

604
00:42:05.320 --> 00:42:10.559
Investigations Division. Around that time,
Todd's friends Ben Maynor and Heather Whitson showed

605
00:42:10.639 --> 00:42:14.920
up. Todd had called Ben and
asked him to bring Heather, who was

606
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:19.840
a medical resident. Unfortunately, Ben
was really drunk and started loudly telling people

607
00:42:19.880 --> 00:42:22.519
to get out of the way.
Heather offered her help but was told it

608
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:25.920
was too late. Todd asked her
to go attend to his dad, who

609
00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:30.840
he said was in shock. The
next couple hours at the house were chaotic.

610
00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:34.679
So you had Michael, Todd,
Christina, Ben, and Heather all

611
00:42:34.719 --> 00:42:38.119
there. The police told them to
wait in the den, and Ben was

612
00:42:38.119 --> 00:42:43.880
clearly intoxicated and getting in everyone's way. We when the police told them you

613
00:42:44.079 --> 00:42:46.800
cannot talk exactly like, this is
a criminal investigation. If you're going to

614
00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:51.079
be here, you can't talk to
each other. Literally, no words should

615
00:42:51.119 --> 00:42:54.199
be exchanged, and that did not
happen that way. Michael was pacing the

616
00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:58.840
floor up and down. Todd kept
making phone calls and trying to leave the

617
00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:04.039
den. The police are trying to
secure the scene. Todd called his uncle,

618
00:43:04.079 --> 00:43:07.679
Bill, Michael's brother, who was
a lawyer. Bill told Todd to

619
00:43:07.679 --> 00:43:09.719
make sure that his dad did not
say anything, and to tell the officer

620
00:43:09.719 --> 00:43:14.880
in charge that Michael is represented and
his attorney is on the phone and has

621
00:43:14.880 --> 00:43:20.000
instructed him not to talk to anyone. Bill did not live in North Carolina

622
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:23.880
and could not practice as an attorney
in North Carolina, so he really couldn't

623
00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:28.320
represent Michael, but he could give
him legal advice. Yeah, that makes

624
00:43:28.320 --> 00:43:31.400
sense. I'm not sure if it
was Bill, but someone arranged for an

625
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:36.840
attorney, a female attorney, to
come to the house to support Michael and

626
00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:42.559
Michael's book, the book that I
only read twenty percent of. He says

627
00:43:42.679 --> 00:43:45.960
that the attorney was not allowed into
the house and she had to sit outside

628
00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:49.880
in her vehicle or whatever. But
I've heard other reports that she was in

629
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:52.320
the room with them, So that's
I can't imagine why the police. Yeah,

630
00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:55.519
maybe they would though, because they
weren't really questioning him at that time,

631
00:43:55.599 --> 00:43:59.480
So maybe an attorney wouldn't be allowed
into the room. Maybe. Yeah,

632
00:43:59.719 --> 00:44:02.000
it's that's strength that was unclear whether
she was there or not. Yeah,

633
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:04.880
the whole I mean, I think
the whole scene was chaotic, and

634
00:44:04.920 --> 00:44:07.559
there's a lot of discussion about he
lawyered up so quickly and does that look

635
00:44:07.599 --> 00:44:10.880
suspicious, which I you know,
I don't think it does. I think

636
00:44:10.920 --> 00:44:15.119
you can't have that both ways right
exactly, Like it is your legal right

637
00:44:15.440 --> 00:44:20.519
and if you have the means and
the police are in the room with you,

638
00:44:20.599 --> 00:44:22.119
he definitely should call an attorney.
Yeah, And I think they probably

639
00:44:22.199 --> 00:44:27.679
knew pretty quickly that they were start
they were looking at this as a suspicious

640
00:44:27.719 --> 00:44:30.400
death, and that Michael was probably
the person that they were going to look

641
00:44:30.440 --> 00:44:32.320
at, because I don't you've talked
about this a little bit the last episode,

642
00:44:32.360 --> 00:44:35.840
and you're probably going to talk about
it again. But Michael was very

643
00:44:35.920 --> 00:44:39.920
nervous about the police because of the
articles that he'd written in the newspaper.

644
00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:45.599
Yeah, for sure. At one
point in the evening, as the police

645
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:52.480
were investigating, Michael walked over and
he was moaning and groaning and went over

646
00:44:52.519 --> 00:44:55.679
to his wife's body put his arms
around her. Todd tried to coax his

647
00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:00.639
father to let go of his wife
and had to physically lift Michael off of

648
00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:06.920
Kathleen's body. At that time,
there was wet blood under her body and

649
00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:10.760
her clothing was still saturated with blood. And after Todd removed him, he

650
00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:15.519
went back and sat on a couch
in the kitchen, which transferred blood to

651
00:45:15.599 --> 00:45:17.719
the couch. So the whole I
think the whole scene was just chaotic.

652
00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:22.000
It probably wasn't managed very well by
the police and controlled very well which is

653
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:25.800
a problem. It's going to be
a problem later. Do you think Michael

654
00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:30.760
was being performative or do you think
that was his genuine emotion. It's it's

655
00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:34.480
hard to say. We don't know, but I wouldn't put it past him

656
00:45:34.519 --> 00:45:38.519
to be performative. Do you think
that the police would have said, would

657
00:45:38.519 --> 00:45:40.719
have had it roped off or something, you know, her body roped off

658
00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:45.199
or something like you would think so. A medical examiner showed up at the

659
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:49.800
scene, and his initial assessment was
that Kathleen's injuries were possible with a fall,

660
00:45:50.239 --> 00:45:53.039
but an autopsy was needed to be
sure. He told the detective in

661
00:45:53.159 --> 00:45:55.840
charge, if it's not a fall
down the stairs, it was a rod

662
00:45:57.039 --> 00:46:00.280
like instrument, you should be looking
for something like that right away. That

663
00:46:00.519 --> 00:46:05.079
was what I read in the book
that I read that the medical examiner said

664
00:46:05.079 --> 00:46:08.159
that, Yeah, I thought the
medical examiner like within an hour ruled it

665
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:12.840
an accident. Well, like I
said, he said that it was possible

666
00:46:12.880 --> 00:46:15.760
that it was a fall, but
his point was that you need an autopsy

667
00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:21.400
to be sure. In addition to
the blood around Kathleen's body and on the

668
00:46:21.400 --> 00:46:24.280
stairs, there were a few other
locations where blood was found. There were

669
00:46:24.360 --> 00:46:28.320
drops of blood on the walkway leading
to the front door of the house,

670
00:46:28.360 --> 00:46:31.239
and some smeared on the front door, like a significant amount smeared on the

671
00:46:31.239 --> 00:46:37.280
front door. Detectives sprayed luminol on
the floor going away from the stairs,

672
00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:40.719
and they saw bare footprints leading from
the stairs to the laundry sink. The

673
00:46:40.719 --> 00:46:45.679
footprints turned toward the sink and then
walked off to the washing machine, and

674
00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:50.000
then the trail then led to the
kitchen sink and turned directly in front of

675
00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:53.000
that over to a kitchen cabinet,
to a spot where there was also blood

676
00:46:53.039 --> 00:46:59.280
found. The luminol stuff is interesting
to me. I don't think it necessarily

677
00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:02.360
tell a lot, But there were
these footprints, but it was never really

678
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:07.079
documented in the police report, and
so again I just feel like the police

679
00:47:07.719 --> 00:47:12.840
did not do the best job of
kind of documenting the scene and keeping it

680
00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:17.360
controlled. What do you think that
footpattern means? If anything, like the

681
00:47:17.400 --> 00:47:21.559
going to the like he could have
just been washing his hands. Yeah,

682
00:47:21.599 --> 00:47:23.159
I mean I think it was Michael, but I think yeah, it could

683
00:47:23.199 --> 00:47:25.639
have just been going to the sink
to wash his hands, get a towel,

684
00:47:25.800 --> 00:47:29.239
get you know, paper towels,
whatever it might be. So I

685
00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:32.199
don't think there's anything that suspicious about
it. Well, you talked a little

686
00:47:32.199 --> 00:47:37.880
bit about the paper towels being and
that is so strange that he would.

687
00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:40.800
Yeah, it almost seems like he
made an attempt to clean up some blood

688
00:47:42.519 --> 00:47:45.440
and then maybe decided it, you
know, it was just too much.

689
00:47:45.480 --> 00:47:49.239
He wasn't going to work anyway,
so why bother, so just leave the

690
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:52.519
paper towels there. It's all very
strange. It is very strange. The

691
00:47:52.559 --> 00:47:57.679
police collected the clothing that Michael and
Todd had been wearing. The most interesting

692
00:47:57.719 --> 00:48:01.159
finding from the clothing was Michael's shorts. There was blood spatter in the crotch

693
00:48:01.199 --> 00:48:06.960
area and up inside the leg of
his shorts. This wasn't transferred blood from

694
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:10.400
him tending to Kathleen. It was
spatter, and it indicated to investigators that

695
00:48:10.480 --> 00:48:16.079
it had to have come from Kathleen
while she was beaten. On Kathleen's sweatpants.

696
00:48:16.159 --> 00:48:20.320
There was I mentioned this earlier.
There was a clear impression in blood

697
00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:23.880
of the sole of an athletic shoe
which turned out to match Michael's shoe perfectly,

698
00:48:24.519 --> 00:48:27.960
and it was on the top of
the back of her leg, as

699
00:48:27.960 --> 00:48:31.800
if someone had stepped on her as
she lay there with the top of the

700
00:48:31.880 --> 00:48:36.760
back of you like the I think
it was like her thigh, like the

701
00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:39.920
back part of her like they saw
the footprint when they turned her over,

702
00:48:40.079 --> 00:48:44.199
yes, because it was facing the
floor, I think when she was laying

703
00:48:44.239 --> 00:48:46.679
there, so they did not see
it until they turned her over. That

704
00:48:46.840 --> 00:48:50.679
is strange. That one is very
Do you think her body was repositioned?

705
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:54.119
I mean I'm not sure, but
you know the way that her body was

706
00:48:54.159 --> 00:48:58.599
laying with her head on the first
step, and there were towels under her

707
00:48:58.639 --> 00:49:00.599
head, so obviously someone had at
least put the towels under there, if

708
00:49:00.639 --> 00:49:07.400
not moved her body. I'm not
defending Michael, but in that moment of

709
00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:10.000
panic and crisis, you know,
maybe he positioned her body more than he

710
00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:15.199
could recall. If he was truly
in shock and she was a tiny woman,

711
00:49:15.239 --> 00:49:19.880
maybe her sweatpants were baggy and he
accidentally, you know, just stepped

712
00:49:19.920 --> 00:49:22.679
on I don't know, Yeah,
I mean, her sweatpants could have been

713
00:49:22.760 --> 00:49:25.840
like sticking out and he might have
stepped on them. And then yeah,

714
00:49:25.880 --> 00:49:30.159
and then kind of when he lifted
her up a little bit to proper head

715
00:49:30.199 --> 00:49:34.320
on the steps. Yeah, really, Yeah, it's one of those things

716
00:49:34.360 --> 00:49:37.159
like looking at the crime scene itself. It's just kind of baffling, Like

717
00:49:37.199 --> 00:49:42.239
there's just so many different things that
can lead you to think in different directions.

718
00:49:42.559 --> 00:49:45.679
I haven't seen a ton of crime
scene photos. Part of me doesn't

719
00:49:45.719 --> 00:49:52.159
want to look at them. But
everyone says there was a tremendous, unprecedented

720
00:49:52.239 --> 00:49:57.360
amount of blood. Correct, Yes, but there's also a year and she

721
00:49:57.480 --> 00:50:01.159
had released her bladder, so there
was also a lot of urine, which

722
00:50:02.239 --> 00:50:07.119
you know, adds to the amount
of liquids. You know, it would

723
00:50:07.119 --> 00:50:08.639
see it would appear to be blood, but it was also urine mixed in.

724
00:50:08.760 --> 00:50:12.199
Yeah, I think that's true of
her. Like her sweatpants. The

725
00:50:12.239 --> 00:50:15.239
top parts of her sweatpants were just
completely soaked and that probably the urine probably

726
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:20.800
contributed to that, as well as
the blood underneath her as well. Investigators

727
00:50:20.800 --> 00:50:24.639
also found a discarded used condom in
the master bedroom, and because of that,

728
00:50:24.679 --> 00:50:29.840
they decided to search Kathleen's body and
to take samples of her head,

729
00:50:29.840 --> 00:50:32.639
hair, pubic hair, and bodily
fluids, basically performing a rape kit on

730
00:50:32.679 --> 00:50:37.800
her. Later, Todd told the
police that the condom belonged to one of

731
00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:40.840
his friends who had had sex with
a girl in Kathleen and Michael's bed.

732
00:50:42.960 --> 00:50:49.679
Gross. Yeah. Again. In
Michael's book Behind the Staircase, he talked

733
00:50:49.679 --> 00:50:53.400
about this, And so the condom
was in the like the middle of the

734
00:50:53.480 --> 00:51:00.400
floor in the in the bedroom.
And obviously Kathleen a meticulous housekeeper, if

735
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:04.679
she wasn't a meticulous housekeeper, would
have noticed a condom in the middle of

736
00:51:04.719 --> 00:51:07.960
the floor. And he said that
the police planted it. This is his

737
00:51:08.039 --> 00:51:12.480
claim that it was in the middle
of the floor. There is a crime

738
00:51:12.519 --> 00:51:15.920
scene photo of it. I believe
it was never talked about. It was

739
00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:22.440
never talked about on the trial because
DNA tests did exclude Michael and Kathleen from

740
00:51:22.679 --> 00:51:24.320
you know, it belonging to either
one of them. Yeah, it's a

741
00:51:24.440 --> 00:51:28.920
strange thing, Like you have a
party and have people over and be like,

742
00:51:28.920 --> 00:51:30.199
oh, I just go have sex
in my mom and dad's bed,

743
00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:35.000
Like it's good, it's great.
I mean horrible, it's horrible. We

744
00:51:35.039 --> 00:51:39.400
had a horrible incident where we had
someone for us house sat for us,

745
00:51:39.440 --> 00:51:44.400
and she had a big party and
uh, yeah, we don't know what

746
00:51:44.480 --> 00:51:46.639
happened that night in her house,
but it felt really icky when we came

747
00:51:46.679 --> 00:51:51.960
back to her house. True Michael
believed that the police were hoping that the

748
00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:58.440
condom had someone else's male or female
DNA that would make him look bad.

749
00:51:59.079 --> 00:52:01.239
Oh okay, and when it didn't, he was, you know, they

750
00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:06.039
had no reason, right. I
think that's a continuing theme that we'll see

751
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:08.000
as we get into the investigation and
the trial, is that, you know,

752
00:52:08.159 --> 00:52:12.360
Michael really felt like they were out
to get him, right And was

753
00:52:12.400 --> 00:52:15.360
he paranoid or were they out to
get him? Yeah? Good question.

754
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:20.320
Investigators searched the house and the grounds, but they didn't find anything that appeared

755
00:52:20.360 --> 00:52:23.199
to be an obvious murder weapon.
The house was turned back over to the

756
00:52:23.199 --> 00:52:29.400
family on Sunday evening. On Monday
night, someone presumably Michael, stayed up

757
00:52:29.480 --> 00:52:32.000
late into the night, deleting three
hundred and fifty two more files from the

758
00:52:32.039 --> 00:52:37.360
home computer. Some of these were
eventually recovered by investigators, and some of

759
00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:42.320
them were emails related to the Peterson's
financial struggles, like the one I talked

760
00:52:42.360 --> 00:52:45.280
about earlier, where he emailed Patty
asking for money to help the boys out,

761
00:52:45.559 --> 00:52:50.119
which again could suggest a motive if
he did in fact kill Kathleen,

762
00:52:50.159 --> 00:52:54.000
and maybe he was trying to cover
up some of those emails over two thousand

763
00:52:54.599 --> 00:53:01.280
peign images were found on Michael's computer
were not deleted. Those were not deleted,

764
00:53:01.960 --> 00:53:06.639
which is really interesting. So he's
deleting all these financial documents, but

765
00:53:06.760 --> 00:53:10.119
he doesn't delete the porn. I
would think that that would be the first

766
00:53:10.119 --> 00:53:15.320
thing that he would want to delete, because whether Kathleen knew about his bisexuality

767
00:53:15.440 --> 00:53:19.840
or not, Michael did not want
the rest of the world to know that,

768
00:53:20.199 --> 00:53:22.159
right, So that's another one of
them. If he was trying to

769
00:53:22.159 --> 00:53:25.239
cover up a potential motive for murder, you would think that that would be

770
00:53:25.239 --> 00:53:29.400
one of the first things he would
think about deleting. Yeah, yeah,

771
00:53:29.519 --> 00:53:32.440
very strange. Yeah, all right, let's talk about the autopsy. So

772
00:53:32.679 --> 00:53:38.800
Kathleen's autopsy was performed on Sunday at
noon by doctor Deborah Radish, so very

773
00:53:39.039 --> 00:53:44.800
quickly after her death. Really we
talked a little bit earlier about the question

774
00:53:44.920 --> 00:53:46.559
around the time of death, and
one of the things that kind of frustrates

775
00:53:46.599 --> 00:53:49.960
me. And I'm not a medical
examiner, so I don't know, but

776
00:53:50.440 --> 00:53:54.000
I would think if someone died,
you know, sometime between eleven PM and

777
00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:59.159
two AM or two thirty AM,
and they did an autopsy right like right

778
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:02.039
away, within our after that,
wouldn't it be wouldn't they be able to

779
00:54:02.119 --> 00:54:07.679
narrow down the time of death like
much more? You would hope so,

780
00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:10.760
I would hope so too. I
know you're about to say one thing though,

781
00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:15.719
that is indicative of her time of
death. When you talk about the

782
00:54:15.719 --> 00:54:19.719
autopsy results, Yes, you're talking
about the red neurons, Yes, sir,

783
00:54:20.199 --> 00:54:22.119
yes, that is on the list. But let me go through like

784
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:25.960
all the autopsy results and kind of
everything that all the significant findings from the

785
00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:30.719
autopsy. One is that she had
hair grasped in her hands, which turned

786
00:54:30.760 --> 00:54:35.239
out to be her own hair.
Some of the hairs were forcibly removed,

787
00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:38.840
like pulled out, while others appeared
to have been broken or cut. There

788
00:54:38.840 --> 00:54:45.360
were at least seven deep complex lacerations
and evulsions, which is a vulsion means

789
00:54:45.400 --> 00:54:50.159
the action of pulling or tearing away
to the posterior scalp, so right in

790
00:54:50.199 --> 00:54:55.000
the back of her head. Subarachnoid
hemorrhage, which means that there's bleeding in

791
00:54:55.000 --> 00:55:00.800
the space that surrounds the brain,
so like inside the sculp around the brain,

792
00:55:00.039 --> 00:55:06.280
which occurs if there's a weak area
in a blood vessel of the brain

793
00:55:06.519 --> 00:55:09.920
that bursts There was no subdural hemorrhage, though, and no contusions of the

794
00:55:09.920 --> 00:55:15.440
brain, and the skull was not
fractured. There was crusted blood under her

795
00:55:15.440 --> 00:55:19.119
fingernails, but no tissue, and
I believe the blood was her own.

796
00:55:19.119 --> 00:55:22.360
I never saw anything to indicate that
it was anyone else's, so I think

797
00:55:22.360 --> 00:55:27.400
it was probably her own. She
had several contusions and abrasions on her face,

798
00:55:27.559 --> 00:55:30.719
neck, and her ear. At
least some of these injuries could not

799
00:55:30.840 --> 00:55:34.079
be the result of an impact with
a flat surface like a stair step,

800
00:55:34.639 --> 00:55:38.159
because they were in locations of the
face protected by the orbital bone that would

801
00:55:38.159 --> 00:55:43.760
surround it. There were several contusions
on her elbow, her wrists, her

802
00:55:43.760 --> 00:55:47.239
hands, and her fingers. Doctor
Radish felt that these injuries were consistent with

803
00:55:47.360 --> 00:55:52.239
defensive injuries someone trying to fend off
an attack. There was a fracture with

804
00:55:52.320 --> 00:55:58.920
hemorrhage on the small extension off of
the left thyroid cartilage, which is unlikely

805
00:55:58.960 --> 00:56:01.280
to occur in a fall. Usually, an injury like that is the direct

806
00:56:01.320 --> 00:56:06.960
result or the result of direct trauma
to the bone, and is common in

807
00:56:07.039 --> 00:56:13.360
strangulation or attempted strangulation. It's more
of a vague sign of strangulation than something

808
00:56:13.400 --> 00:56:16.880
like a hyoid bone injury, but
it's still a common sign of strangulation.

809
00:56:17.800 --> 00:56:22.360
If it were a sign of strangulation, wouldn't there be on the other side

810
00:56:22.360 --> 00:56:27.119
of your neck also some trauma,
not just on the one side. That

811
00:56:27.159 --> 00:56:29.239
makes sense to me, right,
yeah, that would make sense because you

812
00:56:29.400 --> 00:56:30.880
know you put your neck, your
hands around the whole neck. Right.

813
00:56:31.840 --> 00:56:37.320
There were also two pine needles stuck
to her right hand. Her blood alcohol

814
00:56:37.400 --> 00:56:39.880
level was point oh seven, which
is below the legal limit of point one,

815
00:56:39.920 --> 00:56:45.360
which was North Carolina's legal limit at
that time. There were trace amounts

816
00:56:45.400 --> 00:56:52.280
of I'm not going to pronounce these
well, chlorofen, chloropheneramine asking the wrong

817
00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:55.880
girl, which is an antihistamine,
cyclobenzoprene, which is a muscle relaxant,

818
00:56:55.960 --> 00:57:01.599
and nicotine, diazepam or valium was
present. The concentration was zero point one

819
00:57:01.599 --> 00:57:06.239
point five milligram per liter, which
is actually on the low end of a

820
00:57:06.280 --> 00:57:10.239
normal dosage, and there were no
opiates found in her system. At the

821
00:57:10.280 --> 00:57:15.599
medical examiner's office, they inspected Kathleen's
brain tissue, and this is where getting

822
00:57:15.599 --> 00:57:21.159
back to your point earlier, that
a microscopic exam revealed the presence of red

823
00:57:21.239 --> 00:57:27.760
neurons. Their existence meant to the
medical examiner that she did not die quickly,

824
00:57:27.840 --> 00:57:31.679
that it probably took two to four
hours as blood flow to the brain

825
00:57:31.840 --> 00:57:37.719
decreases, depriving it of oxygen.
That causes a gradual process of brain cells

826
00:57:37.800 --> 00:57:43.599
dying and red neurons being formed.
There is, however, different opinions on

827
00:57:43.639 --> 00:57:49.880
this. As with everything, you
can find cases or examples where they could

828
00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:53.519
form potentially in less time than that
if you're under extreme trauma. Yeah.

829
00:57:53.599 --> 00:57:59.679
Yeah, So again, they took
it to basically mean that she had probably

830
00:57:59.719 --> 00:58:04.679
been for a couple of hours,
you know, or she had been dying

831
00:58:04.719 --> 00:58:07.039
for a couple of hours, right, But we don't know for sure.

832
00:58:07.920 --> 00:58:13.119
We talked about this a little bit
the last episode that Kathleen had had a

833
00:58:13.119 --> 00:58:15.639
traumatic injury when she drove into the
shallow end of the pool, and that's

834
00:58:15.639 --> 00:58:21.280
why she was on the muscle relaxanes
and the volume because she was still having

835
00:58:21.280 --> 00:58:24.400
pain from that accident. Right.
Yeah. I think the amount is interesting,

836
00:58:24.639 --> 00:58:29.159
And again I'm not a doctor,
so I don't know how, you

837
00:58:29.199 --> 00:58:31.280
know, how this might have changed
from the time she died until they did

838
00:58:31.320 --> 00:58:36.639
the autopsy. But the fact that
the level of alcohol was pretty low,

839
00:58:36.760 --> 00:58:40.480
really, and the level of valium
that was present was also on the low

840
00:58:40.599 --> 00:58:44.239
end as well. Like it wasn't
it wasn't like she had taken a huge

841
00:58:44.280 --> 00:58:46.360
amount or anything like that. Not
to say that she couldn't still have been

842
00:58:46.400 --> 00:58:51.719
dizzy or well. I think the
amount of you know, valuum plus the

843
00:58:51.719 --> 00:58:55.679
alcohol, plus the muscle muscle relaxing
and an antihistamine if nothing else would make

844
00:58:55.719 --> 00:59:00.400
you sleepy, could be yeah,
and you know, not completely impaired,

845
00:59:00.440 --> 00:59:05.480
but impaired to a certain extent for
sure. Yeah. So the autopsy,

846
00:59:05.519 --> 00:59:09.280
the final conclusion was I'm going to
quote from the autopsy report. In my

847
00:59:09.360 --> 00:59:14.400
opinion, the cause of death in
this case was due to severe concussive injury

848
00:59:14.440 --> 00:59:17.880
of the brain caused by multiple blunt
force impacts of the head. Blood loss

849
00:59:17.880 --> 00:59:22.960
from the deep scalp lacerations may have
also played a role in her death.

850
00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:27.920
The number, severity, locations,
and orientation of these injuries are inconsistent with

851
00:59:27.960 --> 00:59:31.480
a fall down the stairs. Instead, they are indicative of multiple impacts received

852
00:59:31.519 --> 00:59:36.360
as a result of a beating.
Cause of death blunt force trauma to the

853
00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:42.000
head manner of death homicide. In
our year plus of doing this podcast,

854
00:59:42.119 --> 00:59:46.079
I have learned to question every expert, and I think someone else would do

855
00:59:46.079 --> 00:59:52.440
this autopsy and possibly come up with
a different result. Do you I do,

856
00:59:52.440 --> 00:59:55.960
don't you. I think it's hard
to tell. I mean possibly,

857
00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:01.159
I don't. I mean I think
the cause of death was I think she

858
01:00:01.239 --> 01:00:05.880
blet out. Yeah, but I
think that. I mean, if you're

859
01:00:05.920 --> 01:00:08.400
looking at two possibilities, which they
weren't thinking about an owl or anything else

860
01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:12.519
at this point, I'm sure if
you're thinking about possibility, does she fall

861
01:00:12.559 --> 01:00:15.880
down the stairs or was she beaten
to death? I think this conclusion.

862
01:00:17.199 --> 01:00:20.599
I don't see how you could come
to the conclusion that she fell down the

863
01:00:20.599 --> 01:00:24.159
stairs. I suppose it's possible,
but it just seems very unlikely to me.

864
01:00:24.679 --> 01:00:28.639
You're putting your cards on the table
already. Huh. Yeah, I

865
01:00:28.639 --> 01:00:31.519
mean I really don't believe. Like, with the injuries she had, it

866
01:00:31.639 --> 01:00:37.559
just does not seem plausible at all. She would have had to like fall

867
01:00:37.599 --> 01:00:40.159
down multiple times, get up multiple
times, hit her head multiple times,

868
01:00:40.199 --> 01:00:45.320
and it just and it just doesn't
seem I do think it's possible that she

869
01:00:45.880 --> 01:00:50.519
got up and fell down, Yeah, that may not possible multiple times,

870
01:00:50.559 --> 01:00:54.159
and just it just seems very unlikely
to me. Yeah, I'm not going

871
01:00:54.239 --> 01:00:59.760
to put my cards on the table
yet. Fair fair enough. As much

872
01:00:59.800 --> 01:01:01.519
as I hate to say it,
I think that is a good place to

873
01:01:01.559 --> 01:01:06.719
stop at the end of part two, and we will wrap it up in

874
01:01:06.760 --> 01:01:09.199
part three. Oh dang, sorry
you guys. We'll solve the case.

875
01:01:10.519 --> 01:01:14.599
Oh will we? I mean,
I'm going to do my boss to convince

876
01:01:14.639 --> 01:01:17.639
you. But well, you have
some earth shattering revelation that you found.

877
01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:22.000
No it's not ruth shattering, but
it's it's going to shake you a little

878
01:01:22.039 --> 01:01:24.320
bit. I think you're going to
reveal it in part three. Yeah,

879
01:01:24.400 --> 01:01:29.440
okay, I will excellent, exciting. I'll look forward to that. Well,

880
01:01:29.480 --> 01:01:31.320
Cosmo is still here, our cat. Yeah, he's sleeping through the

881
01:01:31.320 --> 01:01:36.840
whole thing, but he's here.
I think he's he's listening eyes when you

882
01:01:36.840 --> 01:01:39.400
were talking about the black cat picture, he really perked up then for a

883
01:01:39.440 --> 01:01:44.440
minute. He does like to sit
in here when we podcast. It's cute.

884
01:01:44.840 --> 01:01:46.519
All right. Well, until next
time, Thank you so much for

885
01:01:46.599 --> 01:01:52.760
listening. Please like, review,
subscribe, follow on social media, send

886
01:01:52.800 --> 01:01:58.239
us an email at Lovemary Kill at
gmail dot com. Until next time,

887
01:01:58.599 --> 01:02:00.960
don't push your husband down the stairs. Don't push your wife down the stairs.