A Perfect Husband

by Aphrodite Jones

  But Jim Hardin had something that all the experts in the world couldn’t truly explain. Knowing that he had to make a striking first impression with the jury, the prosecutor would waste no time in bringing out the worst photograph of all: the image of Kathleen Peterson’s shaved head as she was lying on the steel gurney at the medical examiner’s office. The photo exposed a large scalp area, covered entirely with bright red wounds. It would be unfathomable to jurors, the sight of the lacerations to Kathleen Peterson’s scalp. There were so many slices, and there were jagged type marks that resembled pitchforks.

  “They say it’s an accident, and we say it’s murder,” Hardin told the jurors, “and you will have to decide that.”

  “We say it’s murder. . . . ” The words would ring in the corridors of the court.

  The prosecutor didn’t have the actual murder weapon, but he spoke of the blow poke, the gift from Candace, given to Kathleen in the days when she was married to Fred Atwater. The missing blow poke, he said, was identical to the one he held before them. Kathleen’s sister had supplied the item to the prosecution. Having purchased a set of blow pokes as Christmas gifts for each of her siblings, Candace had been the person who originally suggested that the blow poke might have been used to cause her sister’s death. Candace had brought her own blow poke to Durham, hoping that police might be able to find the missing fireplace tool. But police had searched the Petersons’ grounds for days. They had been through every inch of the house on three separate occasions. They had even used dogs to scour the property.

  But there was no blow poke to be found. After exhaustive searching, police determined that the blow poke had been removed from the Peterson property.

  Jim Hardin wanted jurors to understand that he was not contending the blow poke in his hand was the actual murder weapon—only that Michael Peterson could have used an identical item, causing the severe lacerations to his wife’s head.

  Hardin would maintain that the primary mechanism for killing was something like the metal pole he held in his hand. Hardin said it was light, hollow, and easily used to inflict the wounds Kathleen Peterson suffered, wounds that had lacerated her scalp without fracturing her skull.

  As he spoke, Hardin raised the blow poke high up into the air, swinging it down into his left hand with a striking motion, making a tapping sound. The prosecutor repeated the move a few times, reenacting a beating.

  “This case is about pretenses and appearances,” the prosecutor continued, changing his tone. “It’s about things not being as they seem.”

  Then Jim Hardin began to unfold the story. He revealed the grandeur of the Peterson mansion, which gave the appearance of a storybook life between a couple who had a happily “blended family.” He would tell jurors that these were people who seemed to have it all. These were successful, high-class people, this author and his corporate executive wife, and they seemed to be the quintessential couple. From all appearances, they had the perfect household, the perfect family, the perfect marriage.

  “But as the old saying goes,” Hardin would tell jurors, “appearances can be very deceiving.”

  The prosecutor would explain that the Petersons had anything but a perfect home life. Things had gone awry in their household, and by 2001, things had spun out of control. While things looked grand from the outside, things were rotting away at the core. The Petersons had developed a huge appetite for expensive living, Hardin told jurors, and had cultivated a taste for fine things. According to the evidence, the Petersons were able to live well, largely because of Kathleen’s salary and benefits during her twelve-year career at Nortel. For many years, the Peterson family had plenty of money coming in, due to the rising profits at Nortel. And as the Internet gained worldwide appeal, particularly toward the end of the 1990s, the potential for greater wealth was always on the horizon.

  But then, in the years prior to Kathleen’s death, Hardin explained, the Petersons’ financial picture would begin to change drastically. And that changing picture was something that Michael Peterson just couldn’t tolerate. The prosecutor said that for several years prior to her death, it was Kathleen—not Michael—who had been the primary support for the Peterson-Atwater-Ratliff family. The evidence would show that everyone in the Peterson household—including Michael—depended on Kathleen to bring home her substantial salary and all-encompassing benefit package.

  In the years prior to her death, not only was Kathleen carrying most of the financial burden for the family, but she had become overwhelmed by the cost of paying three college tuitions, as well as multiple mortgages on rental properties that the Petersons held, properties that held little equity. Hardin would describe the financial predicament the Petersons had gotten themselves into, telling jurors that, according to the state’s financial analysts, by the years 2000 and 2001, Michael Peterson was making no money as a writer. Records would show that because Kathleen Peterson had deferred 80 percent of her income from Nortel Networks in the year 2001, the Petersons had to begin living on credit. They were also forced to liquidate Kathleen’s assets.

  To help put things into context, Jim Hardin explained that he would be calling a witness, a financial investigator, who would talk about the financial and personnel environment that Kathleen and others at Nortel Networks had found themselves in. By the fall of 2001, the fortunes of Nortel had deteriorated, and as the stock price plummeted, Kathleen Peterson, who had used her deferred income to purchase more Nortel stock, had lost most of her life’s earnings.

  To make matters worse, Nortel had begun to lay people off in great numbers. There would be evidence to show that Kathleen Peterson was worried about her job, that she was involved in the job-firing process at Nortel, which the company referred to as “optimizing.” Hardin would contend that, having fired so many of her employees, Kathleen was aware that her job could easily be eliminated. And Kathleen had confided to her sisters, Candace and Lori, that she was worried about being fired, frightened that she would join the masses of people who were being replaced by younger people, workers who were willing to do the same job for much less pay.

  Because of the state of the U.S. economy following 9/11, in late months of 2001, Kathleen Peterson had become convinced that she would be left with nowhere to go to find employment in the Triangle area. It was unbelievable to Kathleen that all of her years of hard work—after fighting for her engineering degree from Duke, after putting in so much overtime, and forsaking vacation time—her life’s work would amount to nothing. Kathleen had lost it all in the stock market. She had listened to her husband’s advice, had gambled with her future, and suddenly she found herself being forced to sell her Nortel stock at a ridiculous price. To add insult to injury, even with a conference room named after her, Kathleen Peterson knew that her job was not secure at Nortel. It was clear that no one could count on any loyalty from the company, and if she were to be terminated, Kathleen felt there was absolutely nowhere for her to turn.

  For years, Kathleen had been looking forward to an early retirement. She had seen her net worth increase tenfold in the dot-com era—in the age of high-tech mania. But suddenly, at the age of forty-eight, Kathleen found herself in a financial predicament that seemed unimaginable. Kathleen confessed to Candace that she could no longer afford a housekeeper, that she could no longer pay the basic bills around the house. She was forced to use a downstairs shower because none of the master bathroom plumbing was working properly.

  Kathleen had taken steps to avoid complete financial ruin; she had signed papers to reverse her deferred payment plan and would be receiving her regular income from Nortel in the year 2002. But even with her annual salary of $145,000, the family was facing too much debt, and with so many more expenses yet to come, Kathleen felt the situation was looking dire.

  In fall 2001, Kathleen’s boss was fired by Nortel. Just days before her boss was let go, he had warned her that her job had been placed on the “optimization” list, and secretly confided that he’d managed to save her job position. It was
at that point that Kathleen Peterson developed a sense of impending doom. In the months before her death, Kathleen felt certain that she was about to lose her only real source of income. Nortel Networks was axing everyone who worked around her. Kathleen was taking on more responsibility with each firing, but that would only be a temporary solution for her plight. No matter how hard she worked, Kathleen could see the darkness waiting for her—she had come to the end of the corporate tunnel.

  “But Mike Peterson, the creative thinker, the writer of fiction, was able to figure out the perfect solution,” Jim Hardin explained. “The solution was to make it appear as though Kathleen accidentally fell down the steps and died. And then like magic—no more money problems. Like magic—with Kathleen’s death, Michael Peterson goes from a point where they’re having to sell assets and live off credit to survive . . . to having 1.8 million dollars in his hand.”

  That would be the amount Michael Peterson stood to get, Hardin told jurors, between his wife’s life insurance policy and her deferred payment benefits. And that money, of course, would solve a lot of problems. It was a wonderful solution to the financial fire that Peterson had built for himself. But there was only one catch . . .

  Peterson would have to kill his wife to get the $1.8 million....

  Jim Hardin told jurors about the gamble that Michael Peterson took when he placed the first 9-1-1 call. Peterson was gambling that the police were as dumb as he thought they were. Peterson was gambling that the police would see his wife’s death as he wanted them to see it. Peterson had called 9-1-1 to say there had been an accidental fall, and Jim Hardin asked the jurors to listen carefully to the tape of that first call. He would contend that Michael Peterson had selectively given information to the dispatcher, saying that his wife was still breathing—then hanging up.

  In the second 9-1-1 call, Hardin emphasized, when Peterson had called again, moments later, suddenly his wife was not breathing. As the 9-1-1 operator continued to ask questions of him, Peterson didn’t answer. Peterson was being very cautious about the information he was giving, the prosecutor said, because he knew the call was being taped.

  A question Hardin didn’t raise, but something many people in the courtroom were wondering—especially as the 9-1-1 calls were later played by David Rudolf so jurors could hear the “panicked” voice of Michael Peterson—was why the distraught husband would deliberately hang up on the operator as his wife lay dying.

  Peterson had initially reported that Kathleen was breathing.

  It would make sense, then, that Peterson would have stayed on the phone with the dispatcher, that he would have wanted to get emergency instructions to try to save Kathleen. It would seem rational, since Peterson was clearly so upset on the phone, that he would do what most people did in an emergency. Most people would hang on the line to wait for help to arrive; they would want to keep the dispatcher on the line to help guide them through an attempt to save their spouses....

  Forty-four

  David Rudolf began his opening statement by playing the first 9-1-1 call that Peterson made on the night of his wife’s death. The defense attorney wanted jurors to hear it for themselves—the voice of a frantic man. Rudolf wanted them to listen to all of Peterson’s emotion on tape, asking jurors to decide whether he was evading questions or was a husband in a state of distress.

  The defense attorney took the jurors back in time—to 1988—when Michael and Kathleen first met and fell in love. He wanted them to know that in the beginning, when his client met Kathleen Atwater, she was not the high-powered Nortel executive making oodles of money. Back then, Kathleen was a newly separated single mom who was working for Nortel as a technical writer, making $37,000 a year.

  It wasn’t her money that Michael was attracted to. It wasn’t anything like that at all. Rudolf told jurors that Kathleen and Michael had connected in a way that only a few lucky people in the world ever experience. Their love had nothing to do with tangible things; they were soul mates. They were happy living together in a modest house. And when Michael Peterson sold his book A Time of War, then he was able to buy the Cedar Street home. This house was not a Hollywood mansion; it was just a very lovely, big, old house.

  Rudolf pointed to Margaret and Martha Ratliff, sitting behind his client in the first row. He explained to jurors that Michael and Kathleen had raised the girls, that with the death of Kathleen, Margaret and Martha had lost a mother, just like Caitlin had lost a mother. The attorney wanted it known that Michael and Kathleen had worked hard to build a family. They had woven together the strands out of their prior families, and they had created a strong household.

  The attorney stressed that what kept the Petersons together for thirteen years was their love and strong bond. It had nothing to do with furniture, or any earthly goods. The Petersons liked nice things, sure, but their love for each other was something so great, most people envied it. To prove his point, Rudolf read from an essay Caitlin Atwater had written in 1999, describing what Michael Peterson meant to her mom.

  “Michael stopped my mother’s tears,” Caitlin wrote. “I used to sit at the top of the stairs, leaning through the banister, and listen to my mother sob every night for a year after my father left. But Mike was able to restore her strength and confidence, and to show her that she could find true love. From the beginning, I was in debt to Mike in my heart and mind, for bringing back my mother’s happiness.”

  Rudolf continued reading Caitlin’s essay, making certain that the jury heard the loving feelings Caitlin had toward her stepdad. So, it wasn’t only that the Petersons were in love—they were also good parents. The Petersons took care of each other and their children with pride. They had the kind of bond that no one could deny. Their love couldn’t be faked. Their relationship couldn’t have been more perfect. Michael and Kathleen were so in tune with each other.

  The defense attorney painted an image of Michael and Kathleen as being very affectionate with each other. In early December 2001, the couple had already gone out and bought their Christmas tree, and the weekend Kathleen died, they had been out dancing at a holiday party, until very late on Friday night. On Saturday, December 8, they had been celebrating a call about a potential movie deal. Michael’s books had yet to be made into movies, but Rudolf explained that wasn’t unusual. That was the way things went in Hollywood. Regardless, the Petersons were still excited at the prospect of a movie production, and they had reason to celebrate.

  The two of them had decided champagne was in order, and that night they had made dinner and had settled in their cozy family room to watch a romantic movie, America’s Sweethearts. Their son Todd had stopped by with a friend at about 9:30 P.M., and he had witnessed the Petersons drinking champagne and wine. The Petersons seemed happy and content. There was nothing unusual going on.

  Not long after Todd and his friend left the house, at 11:08 P.M., Kathleen received a call from a coworker. It was Helen Preslinger calling from Ontario about a meeting that Kathleen was flying up to Canada to attend. The phone records had logged the call, Rudolf explained, and Preslinger would report that when she spoke to Kathleen, she could hear Michael in the background. Preslinger could hear no fighting going on, no tension in Kathleen’s voice.

  “Kathleen didn’t say she had to get off the phone,” Rudolf told jurors. “It was a completely normal conversation.”

  According to Rudolf, at around midnight, Kathleen and Michael had gone out to the pool, which was their habit, so he could smoke his pipe and she could sneak a few cigarettes. Then, somewhere in the vicinity of 1:45 to 2:00 A.M., Kathleen had excused herself to go upstairs to get some sleep. She wanted to be bright-eyed for a conference call she was expecting the next morning.

  And that was the last time that Michael had seen his wife alive.

  The defense attorney told jurors that on the night she died, Kathleen Peterson had a blood alcohol content of .07—just one point below the legal limit. He also pointed out that Kathleen had Valium in her system, which was not a good mix.
The two substances together had what Rudolf called “a potentiating effect,” explaining that “each one makes the other more inebriated.”

  David Rudolf told jurors, “It was a particularly bad combination for Kathleen Peterson, because she had been having headaches and dizziness for weeks. And she was wearing flip-flops, and she was climbing a narrow and steep and poorly lit stairway, a stairway that was made out of oak, hardwood, without any kind of floor covering.”

  David Rudolf would describe how upset his client was when he found his wife at the foot of the stairs. He explained that Todd and his friend Christina had pulled up to the house at the same time the EMS and the Durham Fire Department had arrived. And, as expected, Rudolf would attack the quality of the police work in the case, suggesting that Durham police had allowed the scene to become altered and contaminated, while they were “looking for red flags” at the same time.

  “Police had reason to think the worst of Michael,” the attorney told jurors, explaining, “the reason, just to put it bluntly, is because Michael Peterson had been criticizing the police for years.”

  Peterson was one of those people—for better or for worse—who said what was on his mind. In his newspaper columns, Peterson wrote about the problems he had with the way the Durham police conducted their business. Rudolf claimed there were twenty or thirty different columns Peterson had written criticizing the police. He read from a sample 1999 column, where Peterson had complained that the police were doing little to fight drug dealers, calling them “incompetent.” In that column, Peterson had written that in Durham “the chance of a criminal getting caught is only slightly better than getting hit by lightning.”