At 2:40 a.m. on December 9, 2001, police in Durham, North Carolina, received an alarm call from a middle-aged man.
On the phone, he identified himself as Michael Peterson and said in a panicked voice: "My wife Catherine fell down the stairs and is now in danger of life." ”
Seven minutes later, when the police arrived at his house, Catherine, covered in blood, had stopped breathing, and she collapsed under the stairs from the kitchen to the mezzanine passage on the first floor, covered with blood on her head and chest, which made the police feel very abnormal - because the large pool of blood around Catherine had coagulated, not at all like she had just died.
Michael Peterson said that before the accident, he and Catherine drank and chatted for hours by the outdoor pool, Catherine said that the next day there was a conference call, first back to the house, he then spent about 45 minutes outdoors, drinking while thinking about writing material, Catherine stayed indoors alone, without any noise or abnormality.
After he finished drinking, he pushed the door into the house at about 2:30 and saw Catherine lying in a pool of blood, and when he called the police, Catherine still had a breath.
Michael Peterson, 58, was a well-known American novelist who had published several best-selling military novels and ran for mayor, and Catherine Atwater was his second wife.
Michael Peterson and Catherine Atwat
Although Michael Peterson insisted his wife had fallen to her death by falling off a flight of stairs, prosecutors took him to the dock.
After 16 years of investigation and prosecution, 74-year-old Michael Peterson was identified by almost all Americans as a wife killer, but due to insufficient evidence, he was still released from prison and became a free man.
There are many doubts in this case, and even Detective Li Changyu has not been able to draw a clear conclusion, except for Michael Peterson himself, I am afraid that no one can know the truth.
1. Cheating in marriage and being accused of killing his wife
Michael Peterson was born in 1943 to a military father, which led him to live a highly precarious life from childhood, always following his father's frequent changes of defenses and moves.
Having lived in a military barracks since childhood, Michael Peterson was very enthusiastic about military life, and after graduating from college, he joined the Marine Corps, participated in the Vietnam War, and received the highest military medal for the U.S. military, the "Medal of Honor" awarded by the president himself.
According to incomplete statistics, the U.S. Military Medal of Honor has only been issued more than 3,000 pieces so far, which can be called the highest honor of the American serviceman: the soldier who receives the medal must be a recognized hero of the unit, who has risked his life in battle and has a fearless spirit.
After the war, Michael Peterson entered the government sector, where he served as a military adviser in overseas offices for 11 years before returning to his native North Carolina in 1986.
After retiring from the army, he began his own creative career, because of his military family, personal experience in war, and intervention in regional disputes, Michael Peterson's rich knowledge and military knowledge were very popular, and he had a certain reputation in society, and he was a well-known celebrity in Durham.
At that time, 43-year-old Michael Peterson was a bachelor, the family had four children, two adopted daughters Margaret, Martha is the child of a good friend of his, because the friend died unexpectedly overseas, two young daughters were left unsupported, Michael Peterson brought them both overseas to the United States for them to go to school, plus his ex-wife Petty's two sons Todd and Clayton, he actually took care of and supported four children alone, and became a father and a mother, very hard.
His kindness and talent attracted Catherine Atwat, a school-turner, she had bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering, her career had been going well, she became a vice president of Nortel Network in her early 30s, but her marriage was not very happy, and the short marriage left her with a young daughter, Caitlin, and the mother and daughter lived a dependent life until they met Michael.
Out of admiration for the hero of the battle, Catherine accepted the marriage proposal of michael Peterson, who was ten years older, and the two settled down in Durham.
Due to Catherine's huge income, they purchased a 3.5-acre garden mansion with a three-story building of about 1022 square meters, a swimming pool outside the house, a luxurious decoration inside, works of art everywhere, a garden full of carefully trimmed flowers and plants, and a happy life for the whole family of 7.
Michael's home with Catherine
After the marriage, Catherine and Michael's relationship has been very sweet, until the day before the accident, when a friend called, he heard the two joking with each other on the phone, and with the support of his family, Michael Peterson had participated in the local mayoral campaign, and his heroic experience in battle was widely known.
And it was such a prominent local family that was broken overnight.
After Catherine's death, police suspect michael Peterson of a motive for murder because he found a life insurance policy that Catherine had bought a long time ago, with a compensation of $1.4 million and $350,000 in deferred damages, totaling $1.75 million, and Michael had a lot of debt before the crime.
According to the police officers who first arrived at the scene, they arrived at Michael's house in only 7 minutes after receiving his call, and the blood around Catherine dried up and coagulated, looking like he had been dead for hours.
Moreover, there was so much blood around her that it was flowing everywhere, catherine's lower body was soaked in a pool of blood, and the door rails, walls, stairs, and kitchen cabinets were all spray-shaped bloodstains, and if she had simply fallen down the stairs, it could not have been so tragic.
The forensic examination revealed that Catherine had 35 wounds all over her body, 7 severe lacerations and multiple bruises on her head, and a fracture of thyroid cartilage in her neck, which were not impact injuries, and it was likely that she had been hit by a blunt object.
For the reason for this incident, Michael claimed that Catherine had taken a tranquilizer for insomnia and drank some alcohol, which may have caused her to fall down the stairs due to confusion, and there were indeed bottles and glasses on the kitchen counter, but after police testing, it was found that Catherine's body alcohol content was only 0.07%.
Since then, the prosecution has sued Michael Peterson in court for "wife killing", and the "novelist's wife killing case" has become a sensation in the United States.
2, many years ago, there was a "hanging ladder case"
After the news spread throughout the United States, just as Michael's legal team was preparing to actively respond to the lawsuit, the aunts of the two adopted daughters suddenly took the initiative to contact reporters and said something even stranger: 16 years ago, her sister Elizabeth Lariffer died exactly like Catherine.
Elizabeth, a former teacher at the National Defense University, was widowed while working in Germany while raising two daughters alone, and Michael and his ex-wife Petty worked and lived in Germany for a while because of Michael's co-worker relationship with Elizabeth' husband, during which time the two families were close.
Elizabeth Lariffer
On the eve of Michael's return to China, on November 25, 1985, after he came to Elizabeth's house to say goodbye, Elizabeth was found dead under the stairs by the maid of the house, and the death was similar to that of Catherine, and Michael was the last person to see her.
After Elizabeth's death, the eldest daughter Margaret was 2 years old, and the youngest daughter Martha was 1 year old, becoming a fatherless and motherless orphan daughter, Michael adopted them, brought them back to the United States to live and go to school, and thus obtained Elizabeth's $60,000 savings.
The case was characterized by the police as an accident at the time and was quickly closed. Because Elizabeth had a medical record of cerebral hemorrhage, the police speculated that she had a stroke before falling down the stairs.
After the "staircase murder" spread across the United States, the police reopened the coffin of Elizabeth, who had been dead for 16 years, and found that her head had many cracks like Catherine's, and it was as if she had been repeatedly hit to death by a blunt object.
Elizabeth on the left and Catherine on the right
What is even more surprising is that after the police found Elizabeth's old photo, they found that she and Catherine looked like twins carved out of a mold, and their faces and facial features were exactly the same!
Similar appearances, similar suspicious causes of death, the last person I saw before I was alive was Michael... These amazing coincidences puzzled the police, and they conducted an in-depth investigation into Michael's life, which revealed that Michael was a liar with a mouth, and most of his life experiences and honors were fictional.
Michael did not go to the battlefield of the Vietnam War, and his leg injury was not a memorial to the war, but to a car accident in Japan. He never received any medal of honor, but when he ran for mayor, Michael Peterson was familiar with his "war experience", portraying the war scene vividly and portraying himself as a "hero".
In response, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Jim Halding, dismissively said: "From our findings, everything in Michael Peterson's life is a lie. ”
By searching Michael Peterson's computer records and personal data, the police found that he had always been a "bisexual" and often looked for same-sex lovers outside, and this kind of marital infidelity would undoubtedly cause problems in his relationship with Catherine and his wife.
But Michael's two sons and two adopted daughters were understandable about the police's findings, believing that Michael, although he had a same-sex lover, did not affect family life, and that Catherine knew about it.
Michael's eldest son and two adopted daughters
After Learning of these secrets, Catelyn, Catherine's daughter, who had firmly believed that her stepfather would not kill anyone, "turned against". On the show, she said, "Maybe it was the unknown side that wanted my mother's life." ”
The police speculated that Catherine may have found a large number of photos hidden by Michael in the computer that night, and went downstairs to have a fierce argument with him, while Michael picked up the blowing stick by the fireplace, smashed it on Catherine's head, and then went to the backyard to hide the murder weapon, because there was a drop of Catherine's blood found in the backyard underground, if Catherine accidentally fell down the stairs, the blood could not have appeared in the backyard, and, when the police arrived that night, they found Mike urgently deleting the photos in the computer.
In response to the police speculation, Michael flatly denied that in order to obtain conclusive evidence, the police called on The National Bureau of Investigation's blood analyst Di Fu and Chinese detective Li Changyu to let them analyze according to the situation at the scene.
Defoe believes that there is spurted blood near the foot of the stairs, it is impossible to be a fall, but Catherine's head was hit by a continuous blunt object, and droplets of blood were found inside Michael's shorts, indicating that when Catherine was injured, he was very close, and the blood coagulation state at that time proved that Catherine had died for more than an hour and a half when the police arrived, so he concluded that the foot of the stairs was the scene where Michael beat his wife with a blunt object.
Li Changyu put forward a different view, he believes that the stairwell is very narrow, the blowing stick is very long, can not be beaten from the outside, moreover, the scene of the blood from different directions, the ceiling of the stairs did not find any blood, he believes that Catherine is likely to be in the process of blood loss repeatedly struggled to get up, but constantly slipped, resulting in the subsequent impact of the head.
But the North Carolina police did not accept Li Changyu's opinion, when Li Changyu was far from the same popularity as later, and the police arrogantly claimed: Li Changyu is Of Chinese descent, speaks with a heavy accent, we can't understand what he is saying, and his analysis is only for blood traces and cannot overturn other evidence.
Since then, although Michael's lawyers have also presented some evidence, such as no blood was found on the blowing stick, and the beneficiary of Catherine's insurance policy is not Michael, it cannot dispel the doubts in the jury's mind.
In 2003, Michael Peterson was convicted of homicide and sent to prison.
In march and 70, the novelist was released, and the story was put on the screen
Because of the coincidences and impact of the case, after Michael was imprisoned, there were still lawyers trying to help him overturn the case, and one of the most enthusiastic lawyers lived next door to Michael's house, named Lawrence Pollard (T. Millard). Lawrence Pollard）。
In 2008, Lawrence went again to investigate the "staircase murder" file and found a detail: the autopsy report recorded that Catherine had grabbed a piece of her own hair in her hand, almost uprooted, and two pieces of owl fluff were hidden in the hair.
Lawrence offered his thoughts to prosecutors: Could It be that Catherine had been attacked by an owl at home before falling down the stairs?
The prosecution dismissed his opinion as absurd.
Michael's lawyer was intrigued by this idea, and he approached Lawrence and applied to the police for a second examination, which found not only tiny owl fluff in Catherine's hair, but also some splinters of branches and cedar needles, and, according to the University of Minnesota's veterinary medicine professor, the wound on Catherine's head was very similar to the wound left by the scratching and tearing of a large bird of prey.
Some ornithologists have also stepped up to support Lawrence's conjecture that Kate Davis, executive director of the Rocky Birds of Prey, an expert on owls, found a salad bowl, filled it with clay, and then induced the owl to scratch the clay, only to find that the scratches left by the eagle's claws were very similar to the scars on the victim's head.
But this conjecture alone does not exonerate Michael, who has been ruined by years of litigation, and in 2011, michael was given the opportunity to re-appeal after two investigators were found guilty.
The first was Jim Halding, the district attorney responsible for prosecuting him, who was ousted and imprisoned for misconduct in a 2006 case.
In 2011, the National Bureau of Investigation's blood analyst, Duane Dufoe, was also indicted for perjury in the investigation of the case for a long time, and framed several people in prison.
Duane Defoe
According to the investigation, Difoe has fabricated false evidence and falsely reported test results in 34 cases, and also caused an innocent person to sit in prison for 17 years.
In Michael's case, Defoe once boasted in court that he had handled more than 200 cases of incriminating evidence through blood analysis, but in fact there were only 17 cases, and he had handled 0 fall cases, which can be said to have no experience in fall cases and was completely subjective analysis.
At that time, Defoe had done many simulations at the foot of Michael's stairs, but could not reproduce the blood spray in the case, but Defoe hid this situation from the jury, in fact, the results of the analysis he handed over to the prosecution could not be proved at all.
After the "Defoe Incident" was exposed, Michael was released from prison on parole, he put on electronic shackles and was placed under house arrest, at this time Michael Peterson was 68 years old, and his more than 8 years in prison made him white-haired and his face was withered, and his handsome appearance of the past was gone.
He was less interested in the court's proposal to reopen the case, with Michael saying that he was close to bankruptcy because of the cost of the lawsuit, and "American justice is so expensive." ”
Since the evidence found at this point was in his favor, defense attorney David suggested that he sign an Alford plea with the court, saying, "I can't make you innocent, but I can set you free." ”
In 2017, michael signed the "Alford Agreement" with the court, an American-style plea bargain that roughly means: the defendant does not admit guilt, but admits that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict, so he makes a plea statement, thus receiving a lighter sentence.
After signing the agreement, Michael was sentenced to 64 to 86 months in prison, and since he had actually served 98 months, his freedom was immediately restored.
Michael, 74, has since lived in Durham City, living in seclusion and living a quiet old age. His once-happy family was torn apart, his children rarely interacted, and his youngest daughter, Caitlin, was cut off from the rest of her family after she got married.
To this day, when it comes to Catherine's death, Michael still bursts into tears.
In 2018, Netflix filmed a 13-episode documentary based on this story, "The Staircase", however, until the end of the film, the documentary could not dig out the truth, and could only explore his heart through the first-person narration in Michael's novel.
Although there are many doubts and coincidences in the two "hanging building cases" of Elizabeth and Catherine, the evidence obtained by the police is not enough for Michael to be sentenced to a heavy sentence, and the prosecutor in charge of this case and the blood analyst have left many loopholes and handles in the process of handling the case, which is very imprecise.
Judging from the two "hanging building cases" separated by 16 years, Michael does have a great criminal suspicion, but the confusing case makes people feel that there are some inexplicable places.
Was it Michael who pushed two women down the stairs to their deaths, or was it a coincidence with a very low probability? I'm afraid only Michael himself knows the truth.