He had also been the last person to see close family friend Elizabeth Ratliff, the mother of his adopted daughters, alive before she, too, died at the foot of a staircase in 1985. More shockingly, they claimed his wife’s death fit a pattern. They brought out a gay escort he had corresponded with, speculating that Kathleen’s discovery of his bisexuality might have led to a confrontation that ended in murder. Days later, Peterson, a novelist and former mayoral candidate, was arrested for murder.Īt the trial the following year, prosecutors argued Peterson had led a double life. The copious amount of blood around the staircase made her death suspicious, with her husband the prime suspect. “She's still breathing! Please come!”īy the time police arrived at their 19-room Durham, North Carolina, home, Kathleen, a 48-year-old Nortel Networks vice president, was dead. “She fell down the stairs,” he told the operator, apparently in hysterics. In December 2001, Michael Peterson called 911 to report that his wife, Kathleen, had had an accident.
