Barry Winston, Peterson’s attorney, told local news reporters that the investigation would clear his client. Winston was advising Peterson not to speak with police because of what he called their “heavy-handed tactics.” Kerry Sutton told the media that she hoped the police weren’t going to persist in asking Mr. Peterson to “prove a negative.” It wasn’t her client’s job to prove that he wasn’t guilty. It was up to the police to show culpability . . . whether it be Mr. Peterson, someone else, or no one at all.
DA Jim Hardin had not yet submitted the investigation’s results to a grand jury. The investigation was still open. The Durham police had asked his office to assist, and the district attorney was doing that, even though his office had not made any decisions.
As the investigation progressed, the police began looking at records of phone calls from the Peterson house and from the Petersons’ cell phones. However, after a week of searching, no unusual phone patterns had turned up. The police could only characterize Mrs. Petersons’ death as suspicious. Attorney Barry Winston would repeatedly insist to the media that his client Michael Peterson was innocent. Winston reminded people that the phone records proved one thing: Michael had done what anyone would do in his situation, which was to call 9-1-1.
To all of his supporters, the situation seemed obvious; Mr. Peterson’s local political commentary had gotten him into a snarl. That was the opinion of all of his friends and family. People were concerned that Michael was slowly being framed. After being advised to search for a more powerful attorney, Michael agreed to make some calls. If the local officials were intent on blaming him, Michael needed to arm himself. Michael had plenty of net worth. And just to be safe, he decided he would make a round of phone calls.
Looking for the best lawyer that money could buy, Peterson fired Barry Winston in favor of David Rudolf, another Chapel Hill attorney, who had a reputation for being one of the best defense lawyers in the South. David Rudolf was not only high-powered, he had just reached national attention for his victory in a case that involved an NFL player, Rae Carruth, the Carolina Panthers wide receiver. Carruth had been facing the death penalty on a charge that he had killed his pregnant girlfriend, but with Rudolf defending him, the NFL player was convicted of the lesser charge of conspiracy.
Although Peterson no longer wrote columns for the Herald-Sun newspaper, Peterson still kept his political views in front of the public by having his own web site, www.Hizzoner.com. However, in light of all the controversy, Mr. Peterson decided to pull down all of his political barbs. It was a sad commentary on civil rights in America, but Peterson felt he had lost his right to free speech. In light of the serious accusations being hurled at him following his wife’s death, Peterson could no longer continue his free-wheeling attacks on the police and local officials. Peterson needed to focus on his innocence. Peterson needed to remind the community about how much he loved his wife.
In place of Peterson’s political commentary about the dismal state of Durham affairs, Hizzoner.com would begin to show only one thing. It was a beautiful photo of Kathleen in a brightly colored dress. She was smiling, with sparkles in her eyes, standing on the spiral stairway in their mansion. Under Kathleen’s photo, there was this loving caption, written by Michael’s friend Guy Seaberg:
“All of us at Hizzoner.com mourn the death of Kathleen Peterson, a dynamic, wonderful and remarkable lady—a loving wife, mother and friend. Her passing is Durham’s immense loss. Our love and sympathies to Mike, their children, and their entire family.”
Twelve
In the South, David Rudolf’s reputation as a criminal attorney was legendary. A close friend of former O.J. Simpson defense lawyer Barry Scheck, he had been described by Scheck and other colleagues as a legal perfectionist. Rudolf and Scheck met when they were both public defenders in the South Bronx. The two maintained a close friendship and a high regard for each other. Over the years, Scheck called Rudolf for opinions on all of his major criminal cases.
But it wasn’t only Barry Scheck who thought the world of David Rudolf. Anyone who looked at his track record would agree that Rudolf deserved his high-powered reputation. Rudolf was not only brilliant, he was the type of attorney who would put an exceptional amount of energy into a case. Rudolf was a fighter, a believer in the justice system, and he enjoyed a challenge.
Above all, Rudolf had a tremendous amount of experience. He handled state and federal cases involving everything from drug conspiracies to sales of firearms. As far back as the 1970s, Rudolf was involved in sticky cases. In United States v. Busic, Rudolf acted exclusively as the counsel for a defendant in a federal trial involving a group of Croatian nationalists who were charged with an airplane hijacking and the murder of a New York City police officer.
Over the years, there were many examples of his victories, particularly in jury trials. There were prominent cases in North Carolina where David Rudolf successfully represented men who had been charged with murdering their wives. Rudolf excelled in that area.
There was one prominent physician whom Rudolf defended, Edward Friedland, who had spent four years as a murder suspect in his wife’s death. The woman had been found slashed in the couple’s home, and her doctor husband would have faced the death penalty, if convicted of the first-degree murder charges. But with David Rudolf at the helm, not only was the criminal case dropped, a civil case was filed to clear Friedland’s name. In the civil matter, David Rudolf was able to win a jury verdict of $8.6 million.
Another accused husband whom David Rudolf defended was Charlotte businessman John Hayes. After hearing Rudolf’s compelling argument, a panel of North Carolina jurors spared John Hayes from the death penalty, convicting the businessman of the lesser charge of second-degree murder in the slaying of his wife. David Rudolf had won the victory by mounting the first “battered-husband” defense ever heard in North Carolina.
David Rudolf was good; he was really one of the best.
But it was the case he handled on behalf of former NFL player “Rae-Rae” Carruth that won Rudolf his most public acclaim. Rae Carruth, a player for the Carolina Panthers, hung out in the fast circles of professional athletes. Along the way, Carruth had met a beautiful young woman at a party, Cherica Adams, who became his girlfriend, and later, the mother of his child. Adams, a twenty-four-year-old dancer who reportedly socialized with basketball stars such as Shaquille O’Neal, had been in love with Carruth. However, their romance allegedly soured when she told Carruth of the unexpected pregnancy. A few months after she shared the news, the expectant mother became the victim of a drive-by shooting.
The murder involved alleged associates of NFL player Carruth. One of those associates, a career criminal by the name of Van Brett Watkins, would later cut a deal with North Carolina prosecutors for which Watkins stated that Rae Carruth had hired him as a hit man.
Throughout the trial, David Rudolf was successful in launching an attack against hit man Watkins, maintaining that Watkins was psychotic. But another codefendant in the case, Michael Kennedy, testified that he had witnessed the drive-by shooting, that he had been in the passenger seat of Watkin’s car on November 16, 1999, the day that four bullets ripped through Cherica Adams’s body. Kennedy testified that Adams was driving down a dark road behind Carruth’s SUV. According to his testimony, the codefendant, Rae Carruth, deliberately slammed on his breaks, blocking Adams’s path, pinning Adams’s car at the end of a dark alley.
On her deathbed, Cherica Adams managed to write a note that corroborated the other eyewitness accounts. In it, Adams stated that Rae Carruth had used his SUV to block her off on the road. Adams died a month after the shooting. Luckily, her son with Carruth, a healthy boy she named Chancellor, was born before her death, and the boy survived.
But regardless of the fate of the child’s mother, by the end of the highly publicized case, David Rudolf had been able to create enough reasonable doubt. He began poking holes in the state’s case by bringing up inconsistencies in the evidence, by questioning the credi
bility of career-criminal witnesses. To fortify his theory that Carruth was innocent, David Rudolf called upon the famed forensic expert, Dr. Henry Lee, whose testimony had helped O.J. Simpson get acquitted.
During Rae Carruth’s trial, Dr. Henry Lee would take the stand to say that the angles of the bullets at Adams’s murder scene suggested that Carruth’s SUV was not blocking Adams’s vehicle. The famous Dr. Lee would testify that the first three bullets that entered Adams’s car were at a ninety-degree angle, indicating that Adams’s and Carruth’s cars were parallel. David Rudolf was using Dr. Lee’s testimony to support Rae Carruth’s claim that he was innocent.
However, the state of North Carolina painted a portrait of NFL player Rae Carruth as a man plagued by bad financial decisions. To compound his financial worries, Carruth had suffered numerous injuries over the years, and then Carruth sprained his ankle again, just a month before his pregnant girlfriend’s murder.
Ironically, after bail for $3 million was posted for Rae Carruth, the former NFL player decided to pick up and drive out of the state, driving in a white Ford Expedition. After a car chase, Carruth said he was headed for Tennessee because he “needed time to think.”
Of course, the North Carolina jury hadn’t completely bought into the notion that Carruth was innocent. Regardless of Rudolf’s contentions, regardless of Dr. Lee’s expert testimony, a jury of twelve convicted Rae Carruth of conspiracy to commit murder. For that, “Rae-Rae” Carruth was sentenced to serve at least eighteen years in prison.
For certain people following the NFL Panther’s case, there seemed to be eerie similarities between Rae Carruth and O.J. Simpson. There were so many claims that each of these men had made—claims that didn’t seem to add up. There was the expensive dream team each man had hired; there was all that reasonable doubt.
Then there were the alleged killers, who had no blood on their hands. And there was that odd phenomenon of the professional athlete, who, regardless of having been accused of murder, seemed to feel a sense of entitlement to freedom. It was as though these star players deemed themselves above the law.
But no matter what parallels people might have drawn, no matter what people might have thought of O.J. Simpson being found innocent, of Rae Carruth being found innocent of a first-degree murder charge, the truth was, their defense teams had fought the good fight. And in Carruth’s case, it was David Rudolf who was able to combat the prosecutor’s theory that the NFL player had masterminded the fatal shooting of his pregnant girlfriend. To all of his legal colleagues across the country, once again, David Rudolf had seen victory. The former NFL wide receiver, Rae Carruth, had been spared the death sentence.
And now, with the trouble facing Michael Peterson, David Rudolf would have his chance to prove his skills all over again. Because of his local celebrity, Peterson was under the scrutiny of yet another North Carolina prosecutor. And David Rudolf decided to defend the prominent Durham author, even before any indictment or formal charge had come down.
Peterson hadn’t done anything wrong. His lawyer believed that. His family believed that. Together, they would beat the legal system. Michael Peterson knew it would cost him, but for a lump-sum retainer fee, Mr. Peterson could rest assured that David Rudolf would cover all the bases. If necessary, Peterson was told, the esteemed Dr. Henry Lee could be called upon to examine Kathleen’s blood in the stairway. As he had done for Rae Carruth, Dr. Henry Lee would be willing to fly to North Carolina to see if he could determine what might or might not have happened to Mrs. Peterson in that mansion.
Thirteen
A special session of the grand jury was called to convene in Durham on Thursday, December 20, 2001, just eleven days after Kathleen Peterson’s death. The grand jurors would hear evidence presented by District Attorney Jim Hardin, who had called the jurors back from their Christmas holiday. If the grand jurors so decided, the homicide investigation could be dropped. But it was also possible that they could issue an indictment, probably that same day, so Peterson and his team were gearing up.
Michael Peterson’s friends would continue to talk about how loving and caring Michael was with his wife. From their impressions, he and Kathleen were so close, so very supportive of each other, there was no question that Michael would be cleared of any suspicions. The two of them respected each other. He called her sweetheart. In all the years they were married, he and Kathleen had never ever had a fight.
But on the day the grand jury listened to evidence and testimony from the state’s key witnesses, Michael Peterson, the fifty-eight-year-old novelist who had written war stories, the decorated U.S. Marine who had served his country in Vietnam, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Kathleen.
After the indictment was publicly announced, DA Jim Hardin was bombarded by calls from the media. The press wondered how serious the case against Michael Peterson really was. They wanted to know if Peterson would be facing the death penalty, but no one could get any answers. Hardin would make no comment about what penalty his office might seek.
Peterson’s attorney, David Rudolf, would tell media that his client was not guilty of any criminal offense. Rudolf made comments about the one-sided nature of grand jury proceedings, making remarks to deflate the magnitude of the murder indictment. Rudolf wanted the public to realize that grand juries were held to the “lowest standard possible,” and only needed to find a reasonable cause to believe a crime might have been committed. Rudolf felt confident that once Peterson’s side of the story was known, his client would be fully exonerated.
But it didn’t matter what Rudolf said. The murder indictment was there, and the public was stunned. The vast Research Triangle region was abuzz—everyone in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill—had their own opinion. Most of the people who lived there were well educated; they were involved in research, industry, and technology. They wondered how the Durham DA, with no witnesses and no murder weapon, would mount a successful case against Peterson.
It would be an entirely circumstantial case, people realized. There didn’t seem to be anything that might point to premeditated murder. It was going to be a rough ride for the prosecution, especially with all of Kathleen and Michael’s family working so hard, with David Rudolf and his team also fighting, to prove that Kathleen and Michael had the perfect marriage.
For the man who had been indicted, the day turned into a media event. Supporters wrote the local papers, applauding Peterson for hiring a prominent defense attorney. People believed it was a conspiracy, and they wanted Peterson saved from a possible death sentence. As for Peterson, he had always maintained that the American justice system was slanted. Peterson would assure his friends that he wasn’t about to be railroaded by police. He felt certain that the DA hadn’t done his homework. Peterson wasn’t too concerned. If anything, he seemed annoyed about the charge filed against him.
Although grand jury sessions are closed to the public, Michael Peterson’s first-degree murder indictment did name the three witnesses who testified.
They were: Art Holland, the lead Durham Police Department investigator in the case; Dr. Deborah Radisch, a state medical examiner out of Chapel Hill; and Duane Deaver, a North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation blood spatter analyst.
So the grand jury had seen the photos of the crime scene. They had reviewed the autopsy and toxicology reports. And they had been given an expert’s evaluation about what the various blood patterns in the stairwell meant.
After learning of the indictment, on the afternoon of December 20, 2001, Mr. Peterson left his house on Cedar Street to head for the Durham County Jail. Driving his tan Jaguar, Peterson lead a caravan of four other vehicles. All the cars moved slowly, driving through the tree-lined streets that gave way to the downtown area of Durham. They passed the historic district, the remnants of former tobacco production, and wound up in an unpaved lot, where they parked across from the jail. It was there, on Mangum Street, that Peterson and his entourage were greeted by members of the press.
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sp; Dressed in a sport jacket and looking very dapper, Peterson was flanked by four of his children. His brother Bill and other family friends were there to support Michael as well. Peterson was prepared to make his first public statement since Kathleen’s death, and he told the group of reporters that he was an innocent man.
“I whispered her name in my heart a thousand times,” Michael said. “She is there, but I can’t stop crying. I would never have done anything to hurt her.”
Not many people realized that Peterson was quoting a portion of an Emily Dickinson poem that had been read aloud at Kathleen’s funeral. It was odd, especially to some family insiders who watched Michael on the news, to see him talking about his sorrow, about “whispering her name a thousand times,” stealing the line from a great American poet.
As Michael Peterson ended his short speech, he spoke with a vehemence about the upcoming trial. It was clear now that Peterson was truly ready to fight the legal battle. And he was looking forward to his day of victory.
After a big good-bye to his family, Peterson walked, with his head held high, into the Durham County Jail. A somewhat-short but well-built man, Peterson sat himself down calmly, with his legs crossed. Looking like a man being persecuted, he waited very patiently; he had brought along a Bible and a pair of athletic shoes. For the esteemed novelist, the whole thing was a charade, a great insult. But Peterson did what he was told. He changed out of his expensive jacket and Italian loafers, and put on a regulation orange jumpsuit.
Because of the high-profile nature of the case, Peterson was housed in a single-man cell, in a section typically reserved for people with medical problems. The Durham detention officers said they were trying to keep Mr. Peterson’s best interests in mind, but Peterson felt he was being singled out, being further degraded by having been placed in solitary confinement. While there, he began to write a journal, just to keep his mind busy. He wanted to keep a record of all of his thoughts, especially the thoughts of Kathleen. He wanted to remember her when she was still alive, when she was happy and content, and by his side.
A Perfect Husband Page 8