A Perfect Husband

by Aphrodite Jones

  Thomas Maher, a partner of David Rudolf who was now part of the team representing Peterson, told reporters that Peterson’s family had never seen any problems in the marriage. Maher made statements about the strength of the Petersons’ marriage, saying they were “a couple who made each other bloom.” Maher characterized the Petersons as a couple who “finished each other’s sentences.”

  Bill Peterson told reporters that the family had little chance to grieve “because of the unfair charges by police.” With tears in his eyes, Bill assured the public that his brother had nothing to do with Kathleen’s terrible accident. Nick Galifianakis, another supporter of Peterson, and a former U.S. congressman and prominent Durham attorney, told media that he was baffled by the murder charge. Like David Rudolf, Galifianakis was confident that the judicial system would establish his friend’s innocence.

  The day following Peterson’s indictment, David Rudolf went to court to request that his client be released on bond. Rudolf mentioned the “roots” Michael Peterson had put down in the Durham community. He was asserting that a man of such character should not be held in a county jail, that Peterson could be trusted to await trial.

  “Others in similar circumstances have been granted release on bond,” Rudolf told the court, believing that Michael Peterson deserved the same treatment. Michael Peterson should be released, David Rudolf insisted, “not because of who he is, but because of how he has lived his life to this point.”

  But it was only partially true that Michael Peterson had been regarded as a pillar of the community. Indeed, he did live in one of the largest houses in the city. And he had owned property in Durham for many years, almost from the time he graduated from Duke in 1965. But if Peterson was a man with a following, he was also a man whom people disliked. He was a rebel. He caused trouble. He made people feel uncomfortable at times. He liked to brag about his military service; he liked to mention that he’d earned a Silver Star and a Bronze Star of Valor. Certain people were enamored with him, especially women. But others felt put off by Peterson’s superior attitude.

  Still, whatever people thought of him, good or bad, there were certain things that no one could deny. Michael Peterson had been successful as a novelist. He had written about Vietnam in three acclaimed novels, including the New York Times bestseller A Time of War. Beyond that, he had written a biweekly political column for the Herald-Sun newspaper that had gained so much attention, it almost led to a populist uprising. And there was the political history Peterson had in Durham. He had run for mayor in 1999, and had been supported most greatly by his wife, Kathleen.

  Though Peterson lost in the mayoral primary, he still remained a familiar face in local politics. Because he was a public figure, and because his wife had so much belief in him, Peterson truly had a number of supporters out there. In 2001, Peterson had tried his hand at politics again, running for city council. But the political race became riddled with mudslinging, and in the end, Peterson lost to a longtime incumbent. His defeat was disappointing for Michael and Kathleen, but Peterson wasn’t deterred. He would still play a role in politics, his family had rallied around him, and Kathleen, in particular, was ready to do anything to support her husband’s ambitions.

  Kathleen had known Michael before he ever wrote a best-selling book, before he ever dabbled in politics. Though she hadn’t met him until after his return from Vietnam and Germany, Kathleen was convinced that her husband was a man of principle and valor. She didn’t need to see his bronze or silver medals to know that he had the courage to take a stand for people. She had watched him for over a decade, and he was a man of conviction, usually rooting for the underdog.

  Even from an early age, when Michael had been a law student at the University of North Carolina, he had worked on behalf of a defendant in a famous homosexual sodomy case. The case stirred so much controversy, Michael left UNC law school and became an analyst for a defense consulting firm in Washington DC. And Kathleen admired that about Michael. He had always been a standout. Her husband had always taken the road less traveled. He was a leader, a man to be proud of.

  When Peterson’s DC firm sent him to Vietnam to conduct studies about how mechanized divisions could win the war, his vision of the war changed. Peterson suddenly developed an attachment to the soldiers fighting the war, and also a cynicism about war correspondents, whom he deemed hypocritical. After witnessing the reports of so many men being killed in action, reports that conflicted with the favorable media stories being played back in the States, Michael Peterson decided to leave his job and join in the combat. He enlisted himself in the marines.

  In 1971, Peterson received an honorable discharge with a permanent medical disability. He retired with the rank of captain, and for the next fifteen years, he and his first wife, Patricia, would move with their two sons between Durham, North Carolina, and a small town just outside Frankfurt, Germany. Living near a U.S. Air Force Base outside Frankfurt, Patricia supported the family by working as a Department of Defense teacher, and during that time, Peterson struggled to write his first novel. At first, living among military personnel was good for Michael and Patricia. They had their own established community of Americans, people to whom they were very close. For Patricia and the boys, that was a great support network. For Michael, however, as his writing began to take over his life, the friends around them didn’t matter as much. He ultimately didn’t care where he chose to write. Living in his fictional world, Peterson had become a loner.

  Released in 1983, Peterson’s first book, The Immortal Dragon, was a novel set in colonial nineteenth-century Vietnam. Though the book was no real success in America, many of his friends from the American Air Force Base admired it. The fact that the military community seemed to admire his writing skills was a perk for him. Michael was complimented on the veracity of his writing style and the vitality he captured in his first war novel. Michael was very happy to hear that. For him, being in print was a dream come true, and it had somehow put him on the map.

  While many of the American military personnel in Michael’s inner circle enjoyed reading the book, some of his friends, especially his close-knit group in Germany, had concerns about how racy the novel seemed to be. Some people didn’t understand the need for so much gratuitous sex and violence in the novel, and they questioned Michael about it. Certain people were even offended by the obscenity in the book. Of course Peterson was cavalier about that. Sex and murder were what people expected. They were the only things that would sell.

  It would be seven years before Peterson would put out his second book. But with the novel A Time of War, he had hit the big time, earning enough of an advance to buy the Durham mansion. By that time, he was already living with Kathleen, he had received his divorce from Patricia, and he was ecstatic about his good fortune. Life with Kathleen was better than he ever could have imagined. Their lifestyles meshed; their personalities complemented each other. They were finally able to live the life they’d both yearned for, and they were making plans to marry.

  Being financially secure allowed Michael the freedom to work at his own pace, which was important for a man like Peterson, who took painstaking efforts to study the origins of war, the governments and politics of Southeast Asia. His novels were historically based, very intense tales, and Peterson made sure that all his facts and figures were to the letter. Reportedly, Peterson had received over $600,000 for A Time of War, a book that centered on a fictional diplomat, Bradley Marshall. The figure could never be confirmed, but there was proof that the book had sold well, and had also been optioned by a network for a miniseries.

  But after that one New York Times bestseller, unfortunately, Michael Peterson saw no other real success. His sequel to that novel, A Bitter Peace, was not received well by the public. The book chronicled the evolved circumstances of Bradley Marshall, who made efforts to help end the conflict in Vietnam in the early 1970s. The narrative presented Marshall as a man on a mission, as a man of honor who tried to achieve peace in Vietnam. Peterson had bas
ed one of female characters on Kathleen, and she was entirely flattered by that. His wife held book-launching parties for him, and their friends all agreed that it was a captivating work. Everyone was certain it would go bestseller. It would be a book that readers wouldn’t be able to put down.

  With his first book out of print, with his New York Times bestseller never having been transformed into a miniseries, Peterson needed A Bitter Peace to be a national hit. But Michael and Kathleen’s hopes for A Bitter Peace were never realized. A reviewer from Publishers Weekly said Peterson’s narrative was impeded by storytelling that fell flat. The fact that his third novel was largely ignored by readers was a real blow to him, both financially and personally.

  That was one of the reasons why Peterson’s fourth book was all the more important for him. Aside from being a story he believed in, the book was a departure from war novels. For Peterson, who had never written a nonfiction work before, Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company became a labor of love. The book told the real-life story of a young orphaned Chinese boy who was befriended by a company of marines during World War II. A tale that embodied what was still the American dream: “Charlie” was eventually saved from starvation in his war-torn region of China. The marines helped their friend Charlie make the odyssey to freedom in America. It was a years-long effort, but Charlie ultimately settled in the serenity and beauty of Chapel Hill.

  In order to write Charlie Two Shoes, Michael Peterson worked with a coauthor, the North Carolina journalist David Perlmutt. Critically, the book was well received, and was even praised by Norman Vincent Peale in a 1993 quote, which was placed on its jacket. Michael Peterson had hopes that it would become the next Saving Private Ryan. As it happened, it was Michael’s good friend Nick Galifianakis who had pushed the project along. Nick was hopeful about the potential movie deal, and knew that a film option had already been signed. There was much talk among the Peterson clan that the true-life story would be made into a film; and in the meantime, the book had a tremendous regional following, which was a blessing in and of itself.

  Everyone knew it was a noble story, one of bravery and courage in the face of impossible odds. Everyone felt it was exactly the kind of project that Hollywood producers were looking for, particularly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when patriotism and brave soldiers were all front-page news. The timing was right, and Michael Peterson, as well as his many supporters, felt he had earned it.

  In fact, Michael and Kathleen had been celebrating the movie option for Charlie Two Shoes on the night of her death.

  But no one ever knew if an actual movie was going to be made. If real money was going to be paid, actors would have had to sign on, a director would have had to been attached, and none of these things had happened yet. There was no green light from a studio; there was nothing concrete. When the media asked Galifianakis to confirm the details about the film project, he said he couldn’t discuss it.

  The court motion filed by David Rudolf on December 21, 2001, asked that Michael Peterson be released from jail on a $1 million property bond. Rudolf argued that Peterson was not a likely flight risk. Peterson would use his mansion as collateral, and of course he would not skip town. Rudolf insisted that Mr. Peterson was a most worthy citizen.

  But certain things had turned up about Michael Peterson, as a public figure, that made people wonder just how worthy he was.

  There was his claim that he had earned two Purple Hearts for service in Vietnam. But in 1999, when Peterson ran for mayor, reporters uncovered a lie: the Purple Hearts were found to be a total fabrication. At the time, Peterson held a press conference to explain that his war injuries had been caused by a car accident in Japan. He told reporters that he hadn’t ever explained the circumstances surrounding his Purple Hearts because the memories were too painful for him. Peterson insisted that he did receive the Purple Hearts, even though there were no military records of them, even though he couldn’t produce the medals. Then there was a 1993 driving while intoxicated (DWI) charge against Peterson later reduced to wreckless driving, which had been discovered and reported by the media as well.

  But even more curious to the general public was a 1994 incident involving his son Clayton Peterson, who was convicted for placing a pipe bomb in the main administration building at Duke University. Clayton Peterson, a onetime engineering student at Duke, claimed the bomb and the accompanying threatening letter were just a hoax. And even though Michael Peterson had tried to pass off the incident as a childish prank, his nineteen-year-old son would spend four years in prison.

  Now, with Mr. Peterson facing a first-degree murder charge, each of his past failings would come back to haunt him. David Rudolf would do everything he could to distract the public from gossiping about Peterson’s failed political career, about Peterson’s “Duke Bomber” son, about Peterson’s bogus Purple Hearts. And, in fact, none of that past history really mattered. The truth was, the man was being charged with murder, and all the gossip, all the spin, didn’t make him a guilty man.

  In direct response to the indictment, Rudolf reminded the public that the case was entirely circumstantial, and insisted to reporters that the crime scene police were relying upon was “hopelessly contaminated and mishandled from the beginning.”

  In one of Rudolf’s defense motions, he criticized the police investigation. Among his concerns: friends and family members were allowed into the Peterson house before police began gathering evidence; items listed as being seized in police search warrants were never removed from the home; Michael Peterson and others had been allowed into the stairwell, destroying the integrity of the scene.

  In an overwhelming attack on the prosecutor and the Durham police, David Rudolf’s motion suggested that the officials had rushed to judgment. In his view, even if it were possible that Kathleen Peterson’s injuries hadn’t been caused by a fall, the police and the DA were ignoring the idea that someone other than Michael Peterson could have been responsible for Kathleen’s death.

  Rudolf would begin to talk about a possible “intruder theory.”

  Rudolf told the court that Peterson’s home was rarely locked. The defense attorney would note that in June 2001, an unknown intruder had entered the residence after midnight and had stolen a computer and a cellular phone. Allegedly, the Peterson house had been broken into on at least two other occasions, and the cars in their driveway had been broken into at least six times.

  Rudolf asserted that if, by chance, someone had struck Mrs. Peterson, it was far more likely to have been an intruder. It was Rudolf’s view that there was no evidence, no motive, to show that Michael Peterson was in any way responsible for the death of his wife. Michael and Kathleen Peterson were dutiful partners. There was never any trouble in their marriage. There was never any hint of physical or verbal abuse between them.

  David Rudolf argued that in order to believe that Michael Peterson killed his wife, Peterson had to have gone from being a loving and respectful husband to a premeditated murderer overnight. And that concept, Rudolf claimed, was something that “strained credulity to the breaking point.”

  Fourteen

  Without listening to any testimony or arguments, a superior court judge ruled that Michael Peterson would be held without bond. Awaiting a new hearing, which had been scheduled for January 22, 2002, Mr. Peterson, having dressed in street clothes, fully expected to be released on bond for the Christmas holidays. He slumped down in his chair and hung his head as Judge Ron Stephens announced his decision.

  His attorneys, David Rudolf and Thomas Maher, were astounded. They had not only offered to arrange a $1 million property bond, but had also offered to have Nick Galifianakis, a former U.S. Congressman, monitor Mr. Peterson’s whereabouts. To them, the decision had come from out of the blue. They had no explanation to give any member of Michael’s family. The whole Peterson clan had come to Durham to support Michael—filling the courtroom in a standing-room-only crowd. But none of them could believe their ears as they heard the judge deny b
ond. They felt the court was treating the family harshly.

  “This is absolutely unbelievable all around,” Caitlin Atwater told members of the press, insisting that her mother and Michael had the “most amazing, loving relationship ever” and were “ideal parents.” Caitlin and her four siblings were tearful and shaking their heads as they watched Michael being quietly led away by deputies to spend his second night in jail. As they struggled to subdue themselves, their tears quickly turned to indignation.

  To the media, Caitlin became vocal and outraged about her stepdad being treated so unfairly. She told reporters that her mother would be “absolutely appalled” by the idea of Michael spending the holidays in jail, reiterating that neither Michael nor Kathleen would ever, in any way, harm each other. Her stepbrother Todd felt the judge’s ruling was beyond unfair. In shock and disbelief, he said that having his father in jail would create “the most unbelievably heartbreaking Christmas” anyone could imagine.

  David Rudolf promised the family that he would not give up easily. He was willing to do research to see if Judge Stephens’s ruling could be contested in the state court of appeals. He told media that if police believed that Kathleen Peterson hadn’t died from a fall, they needed to be “looking for an intruder” and not focusing on Michael Peterson.

  Rudolf wasn’t convinced that an aggravating factor existed. The attorney felt that Kathleen’s death was more consistent with a fall, mentioning to reporters that the forty-eight-year-old Kathleen Peterson had been drinking on the night of her death. Rudolf also said that Mrs. Peterson had suffered “a couple of recent blackout periods.” Though Rudolf didn’t have any medical reports available, he was having independent experts examine the autopsy reports and other evidence.