Kathleen and Michael Peterson - Part 3

0:00 I am Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Seems like it seems like you're really feeling that today. Some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill Hey Tina, Hey Rich, welcome back. They welcome back to you and all our wonderful listeners. I was laughing at the intro just because you sound so tired. You sound really over it. I am so ready to be done with Michael Peterson.

0:44 And I really wasn't thinking this was going to be a three parter. I thought I'll probably be two parter. But there's just two. There's just a lot. It's a it's yeah, there's a lot of information, and you've done a great job researching, and I did a mediocre job. I mean, you could just gave me some topics that you wanted me to cover. Yeah, you've done a fine job on those topics so far. I know you're going to talk about the owl theory later in this episode, so I'm really stop it with the owl puns. Sorry. I do enjoy a good pun. Actually I'm really bad at pun I'm not punny at all. Your punnier than I am. My grandma, who was about four foot ten, she would she was one of the funniest people ever knew. And she loved puns. And she would always tell me that she loved puns. Puns are supposed to be the lowest form of humor, and because she was only four foot ten, that meant that was why she liked puns so much.

1:40 She was sweet, she was. Yeah, she was a sweet lady. I wish I would have known her. I wish you would have too, You would have liked her a lot. I think puns are really uh, you have to be really quick witted for a pun. Yeah, I think it's a sign of intelligence. Really, And I'm not good. I used to be really good when I was younger. I would like I worked in and we used to get in pun more. It's like we would somebody would come up with a topic and we would just start riffing on that topic, like and it was one pun after another. And I can't do that anymore. I think sometimes you're playing off someone. It's easier than just coming up with one on your own. Yeah, And because I'm never you're just good at a turn of a phrase, too. You've always been good at that.

2:23 I don't feel very good at that right now, but you're just sleepy. We started this at ten am and it is now three thirty and we're still going. So here we go, Here we go episode three, and we're committed to doing If this episode is six hours that we're going to finish the Peterson case please no, no, it won't be that long. But there are some things to discuss. Yeah, I do have more snacks. Well, I know there's you brought four. There are two left, so are you just going to give them both to me? I think one of them has sugar and or chocolate? No? Are you kidding? You didn't do any sugar? How don't Dare you? I really trying? I think you need to, sir, you need to leave the room and go find something. Well. I did eat the carrots and the cucumbers from the episode one. I do have Uncle Ray two things. I have Uncle Ray's hot Cheese. My dad and brother are both Ray, so Uncle I thought you would like this. I'd never heard of Uncle Ray's brand before you have it.

3:20 You definitely have because we bought them because my brother is Uncle Ray. Yeah, okay, well, cheetos, hot cheese crunch. And then I bought some hip peas chickpea puffs. Okay, you can just leave those somewhere else because I've had those before and I do not like them. Okay, well why did you? Well, I guess it was I picked them the order that I picked them. So yeah, all right, just when we need more snacks in the pantry that we never could eat a cat, all right, let's try them. That was not delicious. I actually liked them both. Well, good for you, I thought. I thought the chickpea puffs were like very here's the thing, and here's the thing. I know we're you in to get these snacks. There are better options. They have cookies, they have cakes, they have candy, they have fried chicken, they pizza, they have many things. But yet you chose these snacks, the hip pieas. Like initially you put it in your mouth like, oh, it's a delicious, crunchy cheese snack. And then you're like, oh, wait, it is some mushy vegetable. Like there's this vegetable. I guess it's made with chickpeas, right, there's like a chickpea. After taste.

4:31 In my opinion, I really liked it, but maybe it was because I followed it right away with the hot cheese crunch yeah, which uh were I don't It's obviously it's like a flame and hot cheeto, but it's not as crunchy and just it didn't have much flavor other than yeah, there's heat. I really let you down with our snacks today. Well, you know, we've got the laced snacks. We did stacks stacks, and I did bring up a little a bit of a piece of chocolate because well it's almost four o'clock and I really haven't anything today other than chips and vegetables. So anyway, let's get on with it. Let's finish this bad boy up, all right. Well, if you haven't listened to parts one and two, definitely go do that. We've talked about Michael's background, Kathleen's background, the whole thing with Elizabeth Ratlift and her strange death at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Let me ask a question about Elizabeth Ratlift that you probably don't know the answer to. She was not swabbed or given a rape kit at her death. I'm pretty sure the answer is no. But I don't know for one hundred percent, but I never read anything. I would be curious if she and Michael had sex. That would be interesting to know. In the last part, we talked about the crime scene, the circumstances around Kathleen's death, Michael's nine one one call, and kind of the initial investigation.

5:59 So now we're going to get into sort of the you know, what happened after Kathleen's death, a little bit more on the investigation, the family dynamics, and the trial, and we will talk about the famous owl theory in some detail. So I'm looking forward to that nice. So we did talk about the fact that Michael lawyered up very quickly. He did first hire a friend of his, a woman named Carrie Sutton. You mentioned that she brought another lawyer into the case, but then days later Michael exchanged them both for a very high powered legal team, David Rudolph and Thomas Maher, who are featured in the documentary pretty heavily. Rudolph he had defended some very high profile cases in North Carolina, and then in February, his attorneys hired doctor Henry Lee as an expert witness. A lot of people know doctor Henry Lee well known for the work he did for OJ's defense, and you know, a lot of people think of him as one of the world's foremost forensic science other people think of him as no more than a hired gun who will basically, you know, say whatever you're paying in. And his reputation has been sullied in recent months. Yes, yes, after this whole thing happened, but his reputation has definitely been sullied. Initially, the whole family was behind Michael in publicly supporting him and proclaiming his innocence. Some people, like Kathleen's sisters, had doubts early on, but they kept those to themselves. Michael had asked Kathleen's sister Candace, to take care of the funeral and the burial arrangements.

7:31 She bought a gravesite at the ceremony at the cemetery, but it turned out that the plot wasn't big enough to accommodate a headstone. The cemetery said that she would need to buy four contiguous plots if she wanted a headstone. I know, it seems really strange to me too. I don't know why a headstone would take up that much space, but that's what they said. She told Michael that that was the plan. Later, she was in the house and she was really cold, and so she asked Michael if he wouldn't mind turning up the heat. He snapped at her, said, I can either turn the heat on or buy four plots. I can't afford to do both. She felt like she had been slapped in the face. Another example about of Michael's sensitivity toward money. After Kathleen's death, Kathleen's other sister, Laurie, handled the floral arrangements for the funeral. Later, when Michael got the bill from the florist, he fired off a nasty email to Laurie, complaining about how much she had spent. I don't know if we have elaborated on this enough, but Michael he did like money. He liked to spend money. The lifestyle that he and Kathleen led was probably it was definitely above their meals. Oh yeah, they were spending much more than they were making at that time. Well, Michael, I believe his income for least a couple of years prior to Kathleen's death was zero. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. Caitlin, who is Kathleen's daughter. She originally was behind Michael, and she was actually in a lot of ways the de facto spokesperson for the family. But after she read the autopsy report, she started reflecting on

9:01 her relationship with Michael and she started thinking, you know, he's not a very loving person. There was a time when he had talked Kathleen into not visiting her at college. He had this temper that she knew about. He yelled frequently, he was controlling, and so she really changed her view after that. She actually called Margaret and begged her to look at the autopsy report, but Margaret refused. And it was really sad because Caitlyn was, you know, she was really good friends with Margaret and Martha both before they became a blended family, and so suddenly they were on opposite sides. And Caitlyn got a lot of pressure from Todd and other family members to appear with them in interviews, and she declined. There was actually one TV interview that Todd had arranged and he wanted all five of the kids to be on camera talking about their dad and how distraught they were with all this stuff, and Caitlin basically refused to be on it. And what ended up happening. It's kind of funny, is is. The four other siblings did the interview, and Clayton's girlfriend, Becky was on with the interview as well. Becky was never identified and she didn't speak, and so a lot of people just assumed that that was Caitlin, but it was not Bill Peterson, Michael's brother. He called Kathleen's sister Candace at one point to let her know that Michael was a practicing bisexual, because he knew it was only a matter of time before that information became public. At some point after that, Michael called Candace collect from I think he was in jail at that point in time, waiting to get

10:33 bonded out. She asked him directly if he was homosexual or bisexual. He said no and asked why she was asking him that, and she said, well, Bill called and told us that, and he got very flustered at that point and he ended up hanging up without saying anything else. So again it was an indication that he was he was not open with his bisexuality. He may have been open with Kathleen or not, we don't know for a fact. You know that Bill was the only one in his family like his other brother and his sister did not know that information as well, So it wasn't like he was wide open about that aspect of his life. You should mention this was over twenty years ago, and in terms of accepting people's sexuality, we've come a long, long way. Yeah. Absolutely. The district attorney convened a special grand jury on December twentieth of two thousand and one.

11:26 They heard testimony from doctor Deborah Radish, agent Dwayne Deaver, and investigator Art Holland, and they returned a bill of indictment for first degree murder against Michael. It took a while for his bail hearing, but Michael was eventually released on eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond on January fourteenth. Patty, Michael's first wife, was behind him all the way. But I have to say her. She gave a few interviews and some of her statements were kind of vague and open to interpretation. In one she said, my assumption and my hope is they are going to find the truth and that he is innocent. Another, when she was asked did he ever hit you, she replied, I would say no, which again just very kind of you know, replies they're hedging. Yeah, a little cagy, It's a good way to say it. Michael's sister Anne in California, she changed her view over the course of the trial and eventually believed that Michael did kill people. I didn't have and Liz. Yes, she did an interview where she told the press, I'm not keeping it a secret that I think he killed both Kathleen and Liz.

12:33 And Michael's book Behind the Staircase, at one point he talks about his parents and how they both sent him messages. It said we love you, and he said at that point that's all he needed and it made him feel better that his parents. He had his parents' support. Yeah, but apparently he did not have all of his family members support. No, that was interesting that Anne, uh definitely changed her views. Everyone else, though, Clayton, Todd, Margaret, Martha, they've all been firmly in his camp throughout the entire process. None, none of them have ever said anything, at least publicly that they doubted his innocence. So I want to talk a little bit about the documentary that got made because it was it almost became part of the story in some ways. It's wild to me the timing of that and how it happens. I'm hoping you can break that down for us.

13:20 I don't know exactly when they started filming the documentary, but it did seem like it was pretty early on. So it was a French company that called Maha Productions that actually did the documentary. They started filming before they had any kind of a deal, Like they didn't have a deal with Netflix or anybody, and so that was a little bit strange that they Yeah, they started doing it really quickly. One of the two people from Maha Productions that was involved, he was in Vietnam at the same time as Michael, and he was also at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill when Michael was there in law school. He denied knowing Michael, but it did make people wonder like was there some connection between them? Was there something more to it, because they really had a lot of access to the defense team. I mean, they were behind the scenes and the whole thing. If you watch the documentary, you'll see like they're in all the meetings, they're you know, they're really behind the scenes. Yeah, and people have commented that that's not it's just not done. No, I don't know how they got that access, but to allow them to be in the grand jury room or whatever. It just was not supposed to happen that way. Yeah, and it really kind of came off, I think ultimately as the documentary came off looking very biased towards Michael. And part of that could be because they had access to the defense, they didn't necessarily have the same access to the prosecution. So initially they were supposed to have access to both the prosecution and the defense, but the prosecution, for whatever reason, didn't want to be a part of it.

14:52 Yeah, so we don't know how who made contact first. Did Michael contact his friend the filmmaker or vice versa, Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, Michael was you know, he was a fairly well known author. So it could be that the documentary company heard about this case and was like, oh, this is going to be a big one because he's he is at least somewhat of a well known personality. So I would assume they heard about it and then you know, latched onto it. But I don't know. There's a huge ick factor there too. And the kids, who I call them kids, but they're not kids. I mean they're all over eighteen at this point, some of them are. I think the youngest was tell me Margaret, Martha was the youngest. Martha was the youngest, and she was eighteen or I believe, so she had just started to just started college, and Caitlyn was a year older. And then Margaret was a year older than him and the boys or her, I'm sorry, and the boys were like twenty five and twenty seven. So this documentary I believe impacted the children to an extent that we as viewers can never know. I think it essentially ruined some of their lives in a lot of ways. I'll talk about that at the end. But yeah, it's kind of sad that this choice was made by Michael not thinking about the impact that it would have on his family for years to come. In my not defending Michael, but also I think he had no idea probably how big this case would become either, Yeah, for sure, but I mean to put that your kids through that and to have you know, they became celebrities of a sort and everything, every action

16:26 was scrutinized and filmed yep, for sure. Then there's the whole thing with the film's editor Sophie Brunei, who reportedly fell in love with Michael at some point during the process of making this documentary. They had a relationship that lasted for thirteen years. According to brune she finished work on the eight original episodes of the documentary without ever meeting or corresponding with Peterson. She said that she was inspired to reach out to him only after he was sentenced to life without possibility of parrole. Sorry alert, she said, quote, it was only because I was not the film editor anymore that I felt entitled to reach out to him. Otherwise I would have found it improper unquote. I just want to mention spoiler alerts are usually given at the beginning, a retroactive spoiler alert.

17:17 Well, people have said, and I do question their sanity, that Michael is charming. So you have to wonder did he charm her to you know, get her on his side and to make the documentary more favorable. You do wonder didn't they break up right after the release of the documentary. Well, I know they were together for about thirteen years total. Now. The documentary was released in a sort of a staggered way, Like the first eight episodes were released in like late two thousand and four, early two thousand and five, and then I think they made three more episodes like a few years later, or two more and then three more like a few years after that. Okay, we must have watched it in its entirety. I think we did, yeah, twenty eighteen. Yeah, I'm not remembering it's two thousand and four release at all. Yeah, we might tid Netflix would have been like DVDs in the mail only, And I'm pretty sure we didn't watch it. Yeah, I think you're right. We watched it after the whole thing was out. Maybe maybe it didn't make a big splash until the second, you know, chunk of it came out. I don't know. After they broke up, Sophie did say quote Michael was not the man he had pretended he wanted to be, or he changed too much during the long justice process, but she never she never came out and said she suspected that he killed Kathleen. And she also said she's not bitter about the time that they spent together as well. I just want to make a couple of comments about money that Michael was able to get from Kathleen's estate after her death, because I think if the motive if he did kill her and the motive was financial.

18:49 Here's sort of the rundown of that. On January twenty sixth, he filed a claim on Kathleen's assets with Nortel, her employer. Ten days later, Norton issued him the first check for twenty nine thousand dollars, which was the balance after taxes of her long term investment funds. On February nineteenth, Nortel released another check to Michael for her pension fund after taxes that was over ninety four thousand dollars. When he got that check, he went on a shopping spree. He bought a bunch of items for every room in the house. He did not drugs, artwork, and furniture. He bought a ten thousand dollars plasma TV for the family room and a room full of exercise equipment instead of spending that money on his legal defense, and a small fridge for his bedroom to keep white wine chilled and his wineglass frosted. So yeah, I'm not sure his priorities were quite in order thereikes later, Nortel issued a final check for two hundred and thirteen thousand, and that was for Kathleen's deferred income from the past year. We didn't talk about this earlier, but she had the option with her employment to defer her income, basically saying I'll wait and get it, you know, after the end of the year, to keep it like free and right. We didn't talk, like you said, we didn't talk about that, but I did wonder, like their credit card debt, maybe they just kind of carry that. Yeah, we're going to give me. The interest rate on her deferred income was higher than their credit card debt, and that's just how they right could be. Michael received a total of about three hundred and forty thousand dollars from Nortel. He still wanted

20:19 to get his hands on her life insurance. She had a seven hundred and twenty five thousand dollars life insurance policy, but it paid double for accidental debt, so that would have been about one point five million that he would have gotten from that. I can't believe. Sorry, sometimes I just can't get over things. And the fact that he was out buying TVs and I know that's an sorry flabbergasted. Yeah, it's a little shocking. You like to he liked to shop. I guess what about his kids? So back to Elizabeth Ratlift. Do you remember Elizabeth Ratlift? They sure do. Yeah. So when the prosecution found out that Michael had someone else in that he was close to in his life that had also died at the bottom of a staircase, obviously that raised their eyebrows, and they filed a request to exume Elizabeth Ratliff's body at the end of October in twenty twelve. Elizabeth was buried in Texas. On February sixth of two thousand and three, Margaret and Martha wrote a letter granting the DA permission to exhume their mother's body, but in the letter they attacked the DA's character, saying, quote, we only hope that you treat our mother's remains with more respect than you have treated her memory unquote.

21:40 In mid April, investigators flew to Texas and supervised the exhumation of Elizabeth, and then they drove her body back to Chapel Hill for the autopsy. Werner Spitz, the famous forensic scientist, was present on behalf of the defense along with their investigator Ron Garrett. Doctor Radish performed the autopsy along with doctor Aaron Gleckman, who is a forensic neuropathologist, Doctor Radish was curious based on the original report because she had never in twenty years seen a cause of death listed as sudden unexpected death due to a spontaneous intracranal intracranial hemorrhage caused by von Willebrand's disease. Elizabeth's body was in an excellent state of preservation. The skin on her face it looked quite normal. They removed the makeup and they saw bruising under her left eye and a laceration on her eyebrow. The embalming process had the effect of preserving any bruising that was there. There was bruising and a tear on her upper gums and also on the back of her left hand and her left wrist. There were seven distinct lacerations to her head, the same number as found on Kathleen's. They didn't look exactly the same, but they were, you know, somewhat similar. Hers were on the top of her head, the very top of her head, whereas Kathleen it was on the back of her head. But really the fact that her the lacerations were on the top of her head really made it more suspicious because if you think

23:12 like falling down the stairs. It'd be like, actually cutting the top of your head would be kind of hard to do. Yeah. There was also a distinct fracture along the base of her skull, traveling from there down to where her spinal cord connects. Ultimately, the report said that because of the character and the number of scalp lacerations, the trauma inflicted on Ratliff was clearly from what is called a homicidal assault. It's just crazy that twenty years later that they can, you know, exzoom a body and change the whole trajectory of the autopsy. Bananas and Michael's defense team was outraged over this whole thing, as you can understand that they were outraged, but they were outraged that they exhumed the body, that they waited to do it until it was close to the trial because they felt like they were trying to get publicity, and that they transported the body all the way back to Durham to have their you know, forensic their medical examiner do the autopsy rather than having someone independent do it in Texas. So it became a source of controversy. You have to wonder if this is even relevant to Kathleen's death. Yeah, it is.

24:26 It is somewhat surprising that this was admitted into the trial, that the judge said this was admissible. I mean, it definitely is interesting for us looking at the case, not from a legal perspective or a trial perspective, But yeah, is it relevant I don't know. I don't think it is relevant in the case of Kathleen's death. I guess you could say it's a pattern of behavior, but in a court of law, you have to look at the exact events that caused Kathleen's death, and throwing Elizabeth into the mix just is confusing to the jury. Yeah, I agree, And this just adds to the trauma of poor Margaret and Martha, and I just wish, I hope that they have peace now. But they've been through so much. They have been through a lot, and this is probably a good time to take a quick break. Let's talk about Michael's trial. Okay. On May fifth of two thousand and three, they started doing jury selection. They brought in one hundred and twenty four people, which is double the amount they usually do.

25:36 Because obviously this case had so much publicity. That surprises me. I would think it would be much higher. Yeah, well, I will say that they expected jury selection to last two weeks, but instead it took about a month and a half. So holy how yeah, it took a long time. So wait, so there was only one hundred and twenty four That doesn't not seem like enough. I don't know if they ended up bringing in more. Maybe they were thinking they would get through it in that time, but I don't know. The trial actually started. Opening arguments began on July first of two thousand and three. In his opening statement, the DA Jim Harden, he talked a lot about the blowpoke. We haven't really talked about the blowpoke, but obviously this has been a big part of the case, right because Candice, Kathleen's sister came forward shortly after Kathleen's death and said, Hey, you know what, I bought these blowpokes for everyone in the family, and I wonder if that was the murder weapon, a blowpoke. Everyone does everyone know what a blowpoke is? By now? Probably not. Most of us had never heard of a blowhoke until this case, which actually sounds like a pretty good device. Yeah. It's like a fireplace tool. It's like a long kind of hollow rod and you can use it to poke at a fire, but you can also blow into it. Sometimes you need to do that to get a fire going. Yeah, exactly. So they had not found this when they searched the house, and so that kind of became a focus all of a sudden, is like, you know, I bet it was the blowpoke that was the murder weapon, and he must have maybe hidn't it somehow? They were they were grasp me at straws at trying to

27:08 determine how how Kathleen was murdered. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they had no murder weapon. If they were if they were saying that Michael Peterson did this, but they didn't have a murder weapon, that was definitely going to weaken their case. And because the blowpoke is long and hollow, they thought, well, that's why there was not a fracture your head, because you would expect to have a fracture from those wounds that were on her head exactly. And it did have a pointy part on it as well, which could also account for some of the wounds like on her face that were you know, more like like a poke or a pock mark or something like that. This part of the case kind of drives me crazy that Candice is just like, wait a minute, I have an idea, and it became the theory of the prosecutions, like their main theory. Yeah. It was really a big, a big mistake on the prosecution's part. Too huge mistake.

27:59 They really, yeah, they really based a lot of their case on that. Also in the opening statement, Harden highlighted the fact that Michael had had no income and that the family was living on credit, and that Kathleen's job was in jeopardy, and the fact that Michael would suddenly have one point eight million dollars on hand if he got the life insurance payout along with her other payouts from Nortel. Doctor Radish testified that the injuries to Kathleen's head were consistent with injuries caused by the blowpoke, but not by a fall down the stairs. She also pointed out the many defensive wounds that appeared on Kathleen's hands and arms. Dwayne Deaver, who I know, will talk about more coming out, but he was an important witness for the prosecution. He was the blood spatter expert, and he testified that the blood patterns seen on the walls and the stairs of the Peterson's home and where Kathleen's body was found were consistent with a person being beaten to death. He testified that he had had a lot of experience in blood spatter, He had been trained by one of the best experts in the field, and that he had worked on five hundred blood spatter cases, written two hundred reports, and testified in sixty cases. Spoiler alert not true, okay girl. During the trial, the judge ruled that Michael's porn browsing and homosexual emails were admissible as evidence because he said it goes to the issue of motive and also goes to attack the idyllic marriage that the defense

29:32 had put forth in their opening statement. They wanted to portray that Michael and Kathleen's marriage was perfect, and so the judge allowed this, which again a little bit surprising, but for sure you have to question the judge's decision on that too, because Michael's sexuality really shouldn't have been admissible in today's court. It probably would not have been. Yeah, there was a male escort, Brad who testified during the trial. This was a guy he was in the military, but he was running an escort business and Michael and he had corresponded over email a few times he testified in the trial, which just kind of added to it. Was kind of a circuits like atmosphere, I would say of the trial. And what was the phrase that Frida Black used all throughout the trial describing Michael's behavior, something about te pure te filth, pure te filth. Yeah, what if someone I don't know if that's a Southern expression, But I don't know what she means by pure tea filth. I don't either. I don't know what the images that were saved on Michael's computer were, if they were just you know, pictures of men in compromising positions, or if they went beyond that, but I think they were just regular porn images. Yeah. I think this trial may have ruined poor Freda Black's life.

30:48 She died in twenty eighteen of liver disease caused by chronic alcoholism. And I think she'd had several arrests for duys. And didn't you say she had worked at a dry cleaner? Yeah, the one article I saw about her arrest for DUI was that she was working at a dry cleaner, So yeah, a little surprising. Yeah, I think she did the best that she could do as a prosecutor. Yeah, At one point during the trial, the jury took a field trip to the home. The defense wanted them to conclude that the space was too tight to swing a blowpoke, and they did actually come to that conclusion that there wasn't enough room, But some of them came to another conclusion also, and that was that the space was too small for someone to sustain such massive injuries from that fall, Like there just wasn't enough room or enough you know space where it would have been that brutal of you know injuries. I'm curious and how many instances of a fall downstairs would there be a skull fracture. Yeah, I don't know. I think that in most cases the skull would be fractured. Yeah. I think in most cases they're looking for some either some type of not necessarily a skull fracture, but could be your neck, you know, breaking your neck or other bone, broken your ribs or legs, or something like that. There's usually some type of a fracture or break. Thousands of cases I believe were analyzed and no injuries similar to Kathleen's were found. Yeah. Doctor Henry Lee testified that the medium velocity spatter can come from many things other than impact, so for

32:20 example, shaking your hair, swinging your hand, coughing, sneezing, or wheezing. He said that the evidence was more consistent with an accident than a beating. But he also said that there was too much blood for a beating, which was counterintuitive to the jury and for a lot of people on the jury. They later said that was a blow to his credibility because it just didn't make sense that there's too much blood for a beating. During the defense's case, the blowpoke made another appearance, so literal appearance literally. Peterson's attorney, David Rudolph, produced the blowpoke, dirty and covered with cobwebs, and not bent and not damaged, not no blood on it. They had apparently found the blowpoke in the garage, it had been discovered, and it was there gathering dust and cobwebs the whole time. So just imagine the gasp in the courtroom when the defense produces this blowpoke that the I don't think we can elaborate how much that the prosecution had how often they had said the word blowpoke, and their whole case surrounded this blow poke. Interestingly, though the jury so it was really great theater in the courtroom. I think it was like a Perry Mason moment type of thing. But in reading, you know what the jury said afterwards, they had actually already eliminated the blowpoke as a possible weapon. They were like, yeah, that wouldn't have wouldn't have worked anyway because it just wouldn't There wasn't enough room to swing a blowpoke around. So

33:52 yeah, it was good theater, I think in the courtroom, but I don't think it necessarily had a huge impact on the jury. My understanding of the law is very primitive, but I thought any information had to be shared with the other side, and so I'm kind of surprised that it was such a surprise to the prosecution. So after Rudolph produced the blowpoke, that was the last thing the defense rested at that point. Now, in his opening statement, Rudolph had promised that he would call witnesses who would testify about the relationship between Kathleen and Michael. He promised a doctor who would testify about Kathleen's headaches and migraines, and he promised marines that would testify about Michael's valor and leadership during battle. But he did not call any of these. And again we talked about this, I think on the Scott Peterson case as well.

34:39 But if you're an attorney and you make a promise in your opening statement, you really need to deliver on that promise. If you don't, I think the jury really looks at that as you know, like you were just talking in the opening statement, but you didn't follow through. So much time had elapsed, so the jury probably forgot everything that was said in the opening statement that could be In the state's rebuttal case, they called a doctor who was an expert in injury biomechanics. He pointed out thirty three places noted in the autopsy where there were bruises, abrasions, or lacerations. Based on that, he concluded at least fifteen different impact sites. Also, he said that a straight flat impact does not create lacerations four to five inches long. Because of the curvature of the skull, the object that struck Kathleen's head had to move across the surface, which a stare can't do. We get a laceration when we hit hard and fast, and if what strikes us isn't going fast enough, we don't get a splitting type of laceration. Her first fall didn't have enough height to create that type of laceration, and she just wouldn't have had you know, her body wouldn't have had the amount of energy to create a laceration that big. He also testified that he was not getting paid for his work. He was volunteering because it seemed like the right thing to do.

35:55 And I think the jury, you know, I think they're always suspicious of people who are I was just going to say, experts, you know what I think of expert witnesses. Yeah, So Rudolph presented in his closing argument his top ten list of reasonable doubts. So I'll talk to that real quick. One the missing murder weapon isn't missing and it wasn't used in a murder. Two there was no credible motive. Doubtful there is a financial motive. Three Michael and Kathleen were happily married with no history of violence. Four Michael's grief and shock were sincere, and no one who was there disagreed. Five Kathleen's injuries are not consistent with a beating. No skull fractures, no traumatic brain injury. Six you don't beat someone and let them crawl around and die of loss of blood after thirty or forty minutes. Seven, the information and documentation from the scene was not reliable. Agree with him on that. Eight the state relied on junk science like blood spatter, which is a I think that is a good That is a point that has been debated a lot, whether blood spatter is real science or not. But we should say that the blood spatter and you will post a picture. You've probably seen a picture.

37:07 There is a substantial amount of blood spatter and a fall down the stairs. That's more blood spatter than you would have from just falling down the stairs. Yeah. Number nine, the state relied on emotion, guesswork, and conjecture. And number ten, the states of it investigation suffered from tunnel vision. They really only looked at Michael as a possibility. From the prosecution, they're closing arguments focused on a few key pieces of evidence. One the presence of red neurons and Kathleen's brain that could not develop unless she were unconscious, and there was a significant deprivation of blood to the brain which had to take at least two hours. Two sitting out by the pool and shorts and a T shirt for a couple of hours when it was fifty one degrees and damp out three there were thirty eight lacerations, bruises and contusions. How could that be possible even if there were two falls. The next point was why would a grieving spouse want to clean up if he's just found his wife dead from a fall. You only do that if you want to hide something, and there was evidence that he had tried to clean up some of the blood. And then lastly the spatter inside of Michael Schortz that they said could only have come if he was standing over her and beating her. So finally the case went to the jury. This turned out to be a five month long trial, which was at that time at least the longest criminal trial in Durham history.

38:30 On the first afternoon of deliberations, the jury took a preliminary vote, as they usually do. Four were undecided, five were guilty, four were not guilty. So they say that again, four were undecided, five were guilty, four were not guilty, So very much split. Yeah, that adds up to thirteen. Though maybe I made a typo there, I don't know, or maybe they had the alternative. They might have an alternate, but I don't know think the alternats are there varies from state to state. Baby One juror later said, quote, on the first day, when we voted on one element, it was unanimous. It was not a fall. It was definitely a homicide. Unquote. The jurors set aside Elizabeth Ratliffe. They felt like any attempt to ascertain his guilt in her death would just be a distraction. Oh, well done, jury, that was interesting, right.

39:22 The judge allowed this, and the jury was like, Eh, it's not really relevant. The jury discarded the blowpoke evidence. They were not convinced it was the weapon. In any case, pretty advanced jury, it seems like a yeah. Doctor Radish's testimony about the autopsy rang true for all of them, and for many she was the turning point of the trial. The biggest obstacle in reaching a verdict was premeditation. So they charged him with first degree murder, and for whatever reason, it was not an option to choose second degree murder. Hmm, they said. The jury later said that they probably would have taken second degree murder if that had been an option, but it wasn't. I believe that it was not premeditated. Yeah, I don't really think it was either. At the end of day three of deliberations, they did another vote. This time the vote was six guilty and six not guilty.

40:07 Wow. At the end of day four it was ten guilty and two not guilty, And on day five they finally reached a verdict of guilty. Do you have any idea what evidence swayed the people that believed he was not guilty. I don't know specifically what convinced them at that point, but if they all, you know, if you think about it early on, if they all agreed it was homicide and it wasn't a fall down the stairs, then there's not many other options left. Right Did someone break into the house or come into the house and killer with no motive and not taking anything. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. So I think ultimately there weren't many other options if you put aside that she died from a fall, or there are others that I might tell you about in a minute or two. Yeah, we should talk about those other theories or that other theory before we move on to that. I did want to mention the sentence was mandatory life in prison without pearl. Back to Dwayne Deaver. We talked about him as of witness during the trial. Dwayne Deavers, a blood spatter analysist who worked for the State Bureau of Investigation of North Carolina, was the star witness for the prosecution during Michael Peterson's trial. He was on the witness stand for days, making a case to jurors that Michael had brutally beaten his wife to death.

41:28 In twenty eleven, Divers was fired by the SBI after it was found that he had misrepresented his forensic expertise. He had made quote material, misleading, and deliberately false testimony about bloodstained evidence. His experiments did not follow the scientific method his experiments he had his end before his means. Yeah, he basically was trying to prove a theory. Not well it was. I think the most damning one was with Michael Schwartz, Like he did everything he could to get blood spatter up the leg of someone's short He was accused of withholding exculpatory evidence. A man named Greg Taylor was wrongly imprisoned for seventeen years when Devers failed to share blood test results with the defense that would have exonerated him.

42:22 So horrible, it's so horrible. Yeah, and that was just you know, his own ego. Yeah, he just wanted to win. You count on these experts to know what, because you know, you and I aren't blood spatter experts, and the jury's not blood spatter experts, so it's like you count on them to tell the truth. Devers had falsified his education and credentials. His degree was actually in zoology and he had only taken two classes in blood stained analysis. Wow. An in depth investigation into the SBI revealed that from nineteen eighty seven to two thousand and three, misleading blood evidence was used over two hundred times. Thirty four of those instances were by Devers.

43:02 Wow. He later sued the state for wrongful termination and was given thirty four months of back pay. Really, yeah, that's surprising. In December of twenty eleven, eight years into his prison sentence, a judge vacated the verdict and ordered that Michael Peterson received a new trial. Michael paid a three hundred thousand dollars bond. Don't know where he got that money, and he was put under house arrest and wore an ankle monitor for several years. I'm not sure what the what happened, but there was like I think seven years where he was just under house arrest waiting for a new trial. Michael Peterson was given three choices by his attorney after his conviction was overturned. He could have a new trial, he could plead guilty, or he could take an Alford plea. In an Alford plea, the defendant pleads guilty while maintaining their innocence and recognizes that the prosecution has sufficient evidence to convict them of the crime should the case go to trial, and Alford plea is often used by defendants when the death penalty is at stake. I think at Alfred plea is much like the blowpoke, Like no one had heard of an Alford plea before this case, and now everyone knows what an Alford plea. Kind of yeah, does that make sense? I think that's good. I mean it's basically like saying it's pleading guilty, but saying but I'm not admitting I did it. I'm just gonna plead guilty. So Michael decided not to risk another trial. It was scheduled for May eighth, twenty seventeen, but on February seventh, twenty

44:34 seventeen, Michael decided that he couldn't put himself or his family through another trial and entered an Alford plea. And I don't really blame him for that either. I like a lot of people criticize and say, well, if you're really innocent, you would never do that, But gosh, I mean, he was like at that point, he's an old man, like, you don't want to spend another five ten years fighting this battle. He pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Kathleen's death, maintaining innocence. The judge sentenced him him to eighty six months in prison, but he had already served every one hundred months in prison, so he became a free man. He said, quote, Accepting this Alford plea has been the most difficult thing I've ever done. Ever, the most difficult thing I ever did in my life was to sit through that trial and listen to the lies in perjury, fake evidence, made up evidence, withheld evidence. So many times I wanted to jump up and scream, liar, this is not right, But you can't do that in court. Elford pleas are not admissible in Michigan, New Jersey, or Indiana.

45:31 The Elford plea isn't always available, and it's not always offered by the prosecution or approved by the judge, but they are a good way to avoid a costly trial where the outcome is otherwise left up to the jury. Interesting. So the difference between no contest and the Alford plea, there's they're kind of similar. In a no contest plea, the defendant doesn't admit guilt or innocent, but acknowledges that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict and it's likely if the case goes to trial, the outcome will not be favorable to the defendant. So they're not entering a plea of guilty or innocence. Okay, that sounds almost exactly the same, But they're not entering a plea. You're just saying no contest. A defendant waives the right to a jury trial and enters a plea of no contest to the charges. A judge may accept the plea or enter a conviction. Does that make sense. Yeah. In two thousand and three, Caitlin Atwater filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Michael Peterson for the death of her mother. The case was settled in February two thousand and eight for twenty five million dollars. Michael obviously did not have that kind of money, but if he ever tries to profit from the retelling of his and Kathleen's story, the money would go directly to Caitlin. Michael did write two books in twenty nineteen, Behind the Staircase and Beneath the Staircase. All proceeds were donated to charity. Isn't that crazy? That doesn't seem fair, though, Like, how can you just make that decision? Like I I don't know how much he made off these books, but let's just say he made one hundred thousand dollars. He can just say I'm going to donate it to

47:05 charity instead of giving it to Caitlin. Even it's shady, it doesn't seem horrible. Yeah, I don't get it. I mean, you're never going to understand Michael Peterson. I think that's that's the gist of this. Behind the Staircase was his retelling of the events leading up to Kathleen's death and the aftermath. And Beyond the Staircase I think told more of Michael's story of his life in the military and whatnot. That brings us We're almost we're almost done, but we will not be done unless we talk about owl theory. Oh you're ready, I am ready. A friend and neighbor of the Peterson's Larry Pollard, also an attorney, introduced the so called owl theory to Michael's defense team. But he gave them this theory like a day or two before the closing, so they really couldn't use it. They couldn't introduced any new evidence at the time. Kathleen was found with strands of her own hair and both hands. You mentioned this earlier, but I'm just gonna summarize it. Her left hand contained three small feathers. Polard and several ornithological experts noted the pattern shape of the wounds on Kathleen's head are more consistent with talents, not an object that caused the blunt force trauma. And if you look at the pictures, you really can see I can see maybe you can't see it. Two there's two kind of like it's like a trident, kind of three pronged injuries

48:37 to the back of her eye. I could definitely see that. The barred owl is common in and around Durham, and they were known to live in the woods surrounding the Peterson's property. Several ornithologists agree that Kathleen's injuries were consistent with an owl attack, although some also said that they didn't. It was split, but I think more people said yeah, and I'll absolutely could have done this. I should mention that the feathers found on Kathleen have not been analyzed and have not been determined to definitely be from an owl. A lot of people said, Oh, it could have been from a pillow or a comforter or some object around the house. Barred owls are smaller versions of the great horned owl. They prefer to live in a forest environment in hollow trees.

49:22 Most are grayish brown. With their feathers they have like a striped effect. Bard owls are typically less than two pounds, with a wingspan of forty three inches, and can fly at speeds of forty miles per hour. Wow, so they're small, but they're kind of mighty huge. Yeah. I had a friend that hit an owl like at night in driving and she said it was just the most horrifying thing. Oh. Bart owl's unique feather structure. They're serrated on one side and fringed on the other. It allows them to fly silently at night, so it's pretty easy to sneak up on someone. In a twenty fourteen study published in the journal Experimental Biology, it was determined that an owl weighing less than a pound is able to pounce on a mouse with a force greater than one hundred and fifty times the weight of a mouse. If a one hundred and seventy five pound human were struck in the same intensity, it would feel like being struck by a thirteen ton truck.

50:17 Kathleen was only one hundred and twenty pounds, but still, the point being that that impact of an owl on the back of your head could be described as blump forest trauma. Bard owls are quote aggressive owls, and they're highly territorial, says Jonathan Slought, a wildlife biologist with Wildlife Conservation Society. They traditionally nest in cavities of trees. Unfortunately, these owl human confrontations are more common now because of the shrinking availability of dense forests that allow owls to be more secluded. The more you reduce the places where an owl can nest, the more likely it's going to be nesting somewhere in close proximity to humans.

50:59 Sadly, all attacks seem more common in the Pacific north Northwest, but they occur all around the US. What do you think about owl theory so far? I'm a little skeptical. Yeah, Kathleen may have been putting out some Christmas decorations. The decorations were found the next morning on the lawn and the police did put tape around them. Michael said that he didn't remember them being out previously in the day. So there was like a sleigh with like these reindeer that were made out of birch, and an owl could have thought that that was prey. Do you know, did the decorations Did they come like from the garage or like somewhere where maybe the owl could have been nesting or something like that, or you just think it was that. I really don't know. I think she just walked out of the house at night. And also, like you know, the wreath was up by the gate. She could have walked to the gate to put the wreath up. We don't really know, but yeah, we do know that there there were drops of her blood on the walkway. How else with the drops of blood gotten there, and there was a door on the blood on the door jam right, and a pretty significant amount on the back of the door. I'm going to give you a little more evidence to support this theory. In her hands and one hand she had thirty eight hairs of her own, and the other hand she had twenty five. That's a significant amount of hair. So you can almost picture her with her hands pulling out her own hair like kind of you know, swatting at this owl that could have potentially been in the back of her

52:30 head. Also, in her hands you had mentioned this earlier, there were some pine needles. How else would the pine needles have gotten in her hand. In the hair, there were microscopic bird feathers. There was the twig with the dried blood. And the wounds you had mentioned. There were over thirty wounds on her body that are kind of hard to explain. They're almost like pockmark wounds that would be maybe consistent with the beak. She had her around her eyes, her elbows like again, you know, picture her with her arms up and her elbows, you know, would have been vulnerable to an attack. The wound on her head we mentioned this, you know, the two wounds two kind of distinctive trident patterns like you and an owl.

53:12 We were talking about this earlier. So an owl, once they put their talents and they're grasping something, clutching something like if they were clutching a you know, a fish or a mouse or another small prey, they can't just release their talents. They it's grasped firmly, and to release their talents they have to extend their arms fully and then that's how their talents work. They are released that way. So the attack happened at night, when owls are most active. It was also December, which is the beginning of mating season for owls, and they're definitely more aggressive during this time. I thought they would be more aggressive during their nesting, which would be like in the springtime.

53:53 Oh, I forgot that you're an owl expert. I'm sorry, Yeah, I forget. What about your degree in ornithology. A lot of people dismiss owl theory and laugh it off, but owls do attack thousands of people each year. I couldn't find another case of anyone being killed by an owl, but I would like to. I think this is important to mention Kathleen didn't die from an owl attack. She she died from from bleeding out, and she likely sat at the bottom of the stairs for an hour or two, you know, causing causing her to bleed out, and had her husband, she had a better husband who wouldn't have fallen asleep by the pool.

54:37 She would have received medical attention, and she wouldn't have died. I'm still not selling you, am I I am not. I'm not one hundred percent opposed to the owl theory. I am. I think it is plausible, and I think honestly, if I had been on a jury and that had been presented, it might have given me enough reasonable doubt to not convict him. But hurt owl theory, I was like, you are effing crazy. There's no way that that is a plausible theory. But if you look at the wounds, it is kind of hard to dismiss it. Yeah, and okay again, like the blood spatter is is also hard to explain with the owl attack too. But I she could have been swatting at her, you know, her head. Her head was definitely at this point, you know, she had enough energy to get into the house owl. Some people have said, oh, the owl attack happened in the house. There's I don't think there's anywhere that an owl could have entered the home. There would have been war feathers and more damage. Yeah, So here's my so, I think there is some plausibility. But the things I have that I'm really struggle with on the owl theory are one, how could there not be a trail of blood from like if she came in the front door and then made her way to that the bottom of the staircase or to the top of the staircase and fell down or whatever. Why was there no blood trail from the front door into the stairs. I thought there was a few spots of blood.

56:00 Not really, I mean not well. And versely, how did how did the blood then get outside of the door? And how are the excuse me, I'm not done. How are their droplets of blood on the walkway that could have come from Michael could have gone out to meet the paramedics and he was blood. I don't know. I don't think he would have dripped blood in a droplet. Yeah, no, I mean that, you're right, it's a it's a definitely some question there. But then the other thing is that, so the shape of the wounds, You're right, the shape of the wounds look like talons or a trident shape or whatever it might be. But that could also come from being hit on the head with an object like the wounds, as I think doctor Henry Lee explained it. Henry, I know he's discredited in a lot of ways, but I think this is true.

56:45 Is that if you get hit by something in the head, it causes like a split, right, it causes the head I'm not sure. I think that might be bad science. I'm not sure. I did a lot of googling of head wounds yesterday. Oh you googled it? You did, yes? And is that yeah? I mean, you know, if you get hit by something, it can split like it can cause like a tear. And why was there no brain damage? And why if there's a there's a point when you can get hit by something that is hard enough to cause elaceration but not hard enough to cause the skull fracture, and the brain was bruised. There was bruising on the brain. So I don't know. I'm just saying I think that the I think that the owl theory is slightly plausible, but unlikely. How do you explain the lash the excuse me, the lacerations and the injuries to the beak like injuries to her. The lacerations could happen if you get hit in the head and it causes a split that can cause me we're talking about the injuries on the back of your skull, I'm talking about the her facial injuries, which are consistent with the beak. Yeah, those I don't I don't have an explanation because we don't know what the murder if he did kill her, we don't know what the murder weapon was.

57:58 So it's hard to say why. If so, You're you're saying that Michael beat Kathleen in some manner. Yes, why didn't he have more blood on him? He had a fair amount of blood on He did not have blood on not a lot of blood on his shirt consistent with the blood that was the blood spatter. Like if he had a weapon that he was wielding and he hit her, he would have had more blood on his body. That true. True? Yeah, Okay, trust me. I do not like Michael. I don't think that he's an innocent person in all of this. But yeah, you know, either all of the theories are problems. There are flaws with every one of the theories that that is the big problem in this case. Y for sure, and there were literal like bird feathers found. I also want to say, like, right, they were small, and also no one thought that this was really a plausible theory until years later, literal years, so investigators might not have been looking for any feathers either. Yeah, for sure, I'm going to give you a quick update on how Michael and Kathleen's kids are doing. Caitlin seems like she has fared pretty well good. She is married with two children. She lives in Virginia.

59:12 In an interview with Indie Week in twenty seventeen, Caitlyn said, quote, the only thing that I have to say about the trial and all the subsequent fallout is that if there was any closure to possibly come from all this, it came after sitting through the entire trial and listening day after day to all the evidence on both sides end quote. That has been really hard for Oh. Yeah, heard is set through that, especially sitting on the opposite side of the courtroom from her. Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of feelings there. I don't believe they've ever spoken, I guess, which is heartbreaking. Margaret works as a documentary filmmaker in California. She was very angry when Michael appeared on the Doctor of Phil show and called it a violation of her family. She has been an intensive therapy to heal from her family's trauma for years. She began a nonprofit to help other former documentary subjects heel.

1:00:01 Margaret co produced a documentary called Subject that explores what happens to people after documentaries featuring their stories are released. That made me pause, yeah a second. Martha lives in Colorado where she owns her own practice working as a licensed clinical social worker. She works with young children and their families, and she has suffered severe anxiety, panic attacks, and nightmares since Kathleen's death. And Margaret and Martha still both wholeheartedly support Michael Clayton. Peterson lives in Maryland with his wife, Becky and their two sons. He works as an electrical engineer, so it's good that he has straightened. He's the one that went to prison for four years. He shuns the spotlight, but remains close to his dad and chooses to believe that he's innocent. Quote. No one knows what happened that night, and no one will ever know. Clayton has admitted that he was an alcoholic. He's a recovered alcoholic and Patty, his first wife, had been living together since his release in prison in a house with no stairs. That's interesting, though, I did not know they were. Are they together together or just living together? I think they just I think they support each other and they help each other. I don't think there's a romantic relationship. But Patty sadly died in twenty twenty one after a cardiac incident.

1:01:25 And this is the twist you've been waiting for. Oh yeah, I've been waiting for a twist. Todd Peterson made a video where he said he now believes his father is a murderer, not just a murderer. He called his dad a serial killer what and he said that he killed Elizabeth Ratliffe Kathleen and his own mother, Patty. He claimed that Michael withheld medical care from Patty while she was having a cardiac event. Isn't that crazy? I I am blown away. I did not see that coming at all. The Todd's video is over eleven minutes long. And when I first saw it last night, it's very raw, it's very emotional, and I was hesitant to share it.

1:02:06 But Todd wants it shared. He says in the video, please share, So we are going to play a brief clip of it. Yeah, the whole video is how long? Did it's like twelve minutes long or something? So, well, we should link to it because it is pretty interesting to see. But let's just play a short clip and then let's talk about it a bit. Sure, I'm how to call the cops my father's the murder of my mother, Trish Peterson, and now today realized that the motivation was money, just like I now believe Kathleen. I didn't really realize it all until I'm trying to break my sobriety. Coles, my own father try to break my sobriety. That's actually I figured out as a serial color.

1:02:49 Until then, I was blind and stupid and thought he won't hurt a family number, And well, sure, if you want to break your own son's sobriety, do anything. I was a fall down drunk. I'm not a good guy. I'm not a good guy I am now, But if she judged me against my whole lifetime, I've done some horrible shit former alcoholic drug addicts. I have to say, I'm I'm like blown away by that fine because I never would have thought Todd would have turned. He obviously has some issues. Like you said, he's kind of rambling and talking a lot about his alcoholism and things like that. And when I saw it, maybe wonder is he is he drunk or is he on something on the video because he's very agitated and rambling. But it reminds me of other people that I've known that are recovering alcoholics when they're you know, spiraling. He seems like he's spiraling. But his impetus for recording this video was he found out some things about his dad and some of the financial issues, and he was he was stealing from his mom's estate essentially, which is so gross. Like at this point healing from you, and Michael was trying to kind of keep things from him, I think, And in the video of Todd says like he's going to call the police, and I don't think anything ever came of it.

1:04:09 But it's it's sad, it's it's traumatic to see it. It really just shows how deep and wide this family's trauma is. Oh yeah, whether it's whether Michael killed these women are not, it's you know, these kids have struck and they're not kids there, you know, they're adults. But they've all been put through the ringer. I mean, it's really sad. Yeah, if you want to see the whole video of Todd Peterson, look in our show notes and we will link to it. Yeah. Great, Well, if you are still with us, congratulations, he's been sleeping. I can't believe we've done two three part episodes in a row. And that wasn't our intention. It really was. I think this case and the Scott and Lacy Peters and case are both so complicated and so involved, and there's so much information out there that we had to make an exception for these two.

1:04:58 And hopefully it's been interesting. I've found it super interesting to go through this, and I've learned a lot. And uh, this is definitely one of the more baffling ones that we've ever covered. I mean, I really I do feel like he is guilty, but I do not feel one hundred percent And I don't know if I would have been able to convict him. I do think there is some possibility of the owl theory. It's definitely a plausible theory. Yeah, and I guess I'm not really sure. If I had to say, I probably wouldn't have convicted him. But remember the jury did not have that all evidence. Yeah, so I don't know. I hate to say that I am undecided, but I think I am. I think I'm undecided. Michael Peterson is guilty of being a horrible person. Yeah, you can't convict it. You can't convince me otherwise. But I'm not sure if he's a killer or not. Yeah, and rest in peace, Kathleen and Elizabeth Ratliffe as well well, and Patty Patty now too, Patty, yeah as well, so well. And yeah, that is if he did withhold treatment to Patty, that's a horrible thing to do, because Patty was I think Patty was really good to him. Yeah, but enough about Michael Peterson. I think we're really excited to never talk about Michael Peters. We still we still have another tough Peterson to get through. I'm pretty sure that Drew will only be two parts all, probably not one, possibly one, but definitely not three. All right, thanks for hanging in the here.

1:06:20 Yeah, thank you everybody for listening. We really really appreciate each and every one of you. We sure do follow us on social media. Our brains are fried there sitting here for us eight hours, but definitely we would love it if you follow us, we would love any feedback you have. Email us at Lovemary Kill at gmail dot com. I would love to hear what you guys think about this case, so please let us know what you think and if you think all theory is plausible. I don't know if I did a spectacular job presenting the evidence for it and against it, but I really do think that is That's where I would land if I had to. I'm sorry we sized that I was done with Michael Peterson. I'm still babbling, okay, okay. And the next time we do a three part case.

1:07:01 If you'd like to hear all three parts at once, support us on Patreon, Patreon dot com, slash Love Mary Kill so early access to episodes. If we do multipart episodes, we published them all at the same time, and we do a bonus episode every month. Yep, yep, all right, until next time. We love you guys. Don't kill your husband. Don't kill your wife.