A Perfect Husband

by Aphrodite Jones

  In September 2000, Peterson had accused the Durham police of manipulating the crime statistics. In March 2001, Peterson had criticized the police for minimizing gang problems in Durham. The list went on.

  And because of all the years of criticism, Rudolf asserted, the Durham police had developed what he called “tunnel vision” against Michael Peterson. Rudolf would argue that it wasn’t hard for them to look at all the blood at the scene, the altered and contaminated scene, and assume the worst about Michael Peterson. His client became the suspect, Rudolf asserted, merely because he had blood on him. But Michael Peterson had been holding his deceased wife. Of course there would be blood on his clothes. Yet the police took him, like a suspect, and put him away in a room, and they wouldn’t let him talk to his own son.

  “Can you imagine?” Rudolf asked.

  The police conduct was particularly offensive, in Rudolf’s view, after Dr. Kenneth Snell, the state medical examiner, had arrived, and had then formed an opinion about what he personally observed at the scene. The medical examiner had found that Kathleen Peterson’s death was a result of her head hitting the stairs, that it was an accident. And to impress jurors, Rudolf read aloud from Dr. Kenneth Snell’s report:

  “Probable cause of death, closed head injury, due to blunt-force injury to head, due to a fall down the stairs” was what Snell had written.

  In Rudolf’s opinion, because of the tunnel vision of police, because of the bias they were operating under, the die had already been cast against Peterson from the moment police arrived on the scene. The defense attorney would virtually tell jurors that once the indictment was obtained, the police went on a witch-hunt, looking for evidence that supported their view, ignoring any evidence that didn’t. Rudolf would state that the Durham police had indicted first—then had gone out looking for evidence to support their indictment.

  But Rudolf’s view seemed out of sync. There were many things Jim Hardin had talked about in his opening statement, things that, with common sense, added up to murder. Hardin had said that when EMS had arrived at the scene, they had seen Michael Peterson standing over his wife, covered all over with blood. Hardin had said that Peterson was barefoot, that his shoes were bloody, sitting next to his dead wife. And he would offer a reason as to why Peterson would have taken his shoes off—the luminol testing, done by Durham police as they processed the scene, showed there were bloody footprints leading from the stairwell, through the kitchen, to the laundry room.

  Durham investigators would later testify that Peterson’s bloody footprints—had been invisible to the naked eye. The luminol, a chemical used to highlight the presence of blood, had picked up Peterson’s steps, and they had documented a path that went through the dining area, to the kitchen counter, into the laundry room, and back to the stairwell. Those invisible bloody footsteps, the investigators would testify, looked like “rabbit tracks.”

  Hardin had also spoken about the massive amount of blood all over the walls. Some of the blood in the stairwell was over six feet high. And there was cast-off spatter outside the stairway that was ten-feet high. Hardin had shown the jurors the crime scene photos, and he had described all the blood that was on Kathleen, under Kathleen, and below Kathleen—blood that was all dry.

  Based on the evidence, the jurors learned that Kathleen Peterson had been dead for some time, that there would be evidence to prove that she had been deceased long before EMS workers had arrived.

  When David Rudolf addressed that issue, he would assert that after Kathleen Peterson had fallen, she had been lying at the bottom of the steps for some period of time. But Rudolf would contend that no one could say exactly how long Kathleen had lain there.

  Her head had hit the steps and had split open “like a pumpkin,” Rudolf contended, which caused the massive loss of blood. The drawings and diagrams made by Dr. Deborah Radisch, he would tell jurors, were misleading. Rudolf explained that Dr. Radisch hadn’t done it on purpose, but she had drawn diagrams of the splits in Kathleen’s head that made them look wider than they actually were.

  In short, Rudolf wanted jurors to know that his team of experts, including Dr. Henry Lee, would testify that the lacerations on Kathleen Peterson’s scalp were more consistent with a fall. The defense attorney would assert that because Kathleen Peterson had suffered no brain contusions, because she had suffered no brain swelling, no internal hemorrhages, no skull fractures, the physical evidence supported his client’s innocence.

  “I mean, can you imagine somebody beating somebody over the head, whacking them as hard as they can, trying to kill them,” Rudolf asked, “and there’s no skull fracture, there’s no brain contusions?”

  Rudolf went on to talk about the blood spatter, about the expensive replica Durham police had built of the bottom of Peterson’s stairwell. He asserted that the tests conducted by Agent Duane Deaver, the blood spatter expert of the State Bureau of Investigation, were inaccurate. Rudolf took cheap shots at Deaver’s work, going so far as to point out that the tests Duane Deaver conducted were done with blood from the Red Cross.

  The attorney never mentioned that the blood Deaver obtained from the Red Cross was already dated, that the blood had a shelf life, that Duane Deaver hadn’t used any blood that could have possibly saved a life.

  Rudolf showed a video of Deaver’s tests in which the expert used a sponge, putting blood on it, to discover how the cast-off blood might have gotten into such strange places along the Peterson stairwell. The defense attorney attacked Deaver’s methods, and he contended that the amount of blood in the stairway, as horrific as it might seem, wasn’t consistent with a beating. Rudolf had a completely different explanation as to how all that blood splattered along the Peterson stairwell.

  “You all have seen dogs shake water off, and it goes all over,” Rudolf told jurors. “Well, that’s what happens with blood as well. Hands or clothes coming in contact with the wall. Or coughing up blood. Or sneezing blood. That’s what causes all the blood spatter that you’ll see.”

  Regarding the autopsy photos, Rudolf insisted that photos could be “misleading,” that they could express a point of view “designed to show something.” He implied that prosecutor Jim Hardin had tried to shock people by showing them such gruesome photos. He told jurors that with his display of harrowing photographs, Jim Hardin was trying to haunt them.

  Forty-five

  Someone with blood on their bare feet had walked from the hallway where Kathleen had been found dead to the utility sink in the laundry room. After hearing over eleven police witnesses testify about their findings at the scene, jurors would listen to the words of evidence technician Eric Campen, who, along with two other members of the Durham police, had documented a nearly invisible trail of bloody footprints.

  Crime Scene Investigator Campen told jurors that the trail was only visible when investigators sprayed the floor with luminol, a chemical that reacted with traces of blood, a chemical that emitted a blue-green glow, showing blood that had been invisible to the naked eye.

  The faint footprints led from the utility sink in the laundry room, to the kitchen sink and the refrigerator, and finally, to a cabinet where wineglasses were kept—wineglasses that were identical to the two used glasses found next to the sink on the night of Kathleen’s death. Jurors would later learn that, regarding the two wineglasses, only one contained fingerprints—from Michael Peterson. The other glass on the kitchen counter had no identifiable fingerprints at all. Jurors would later discover that the prosecution team had found a broken crystal wineglass, which they had paid $30 for an expert to repair.

  As prosecutors continued to build a case against Peterson, it was becoming clear what their theory was: Peterson had taken one or two wineglasses out of the cabinet, had poured a bottle of wine down the sink, and had tried to create the appearance that he and his wife had been drinking heavily. Rudolf would make much of the fact that there were “partial” unidentifiable fingerprints on the second wineglass. Rudolf would show the jury two liquor
bottles—Chambord and cognac—taken from the Peterson home, asking why they hadn’t been tested for fingerprints. But the fact was, on the night of Kathleen’s death, there would have been no reason to process liquor bottles that were tucked away in another part of the house.

  Rudolf would question police relentlessly, wondering why they had not checked more closely for fingerprints, implying that their work was sloppy and shoddy. But when prosecutors entered that broken crystal wineglass into evidence, it could not be explained by anyone. It was, perhaps, shattered in a struggle. But without witnesses, the broken crystal glass remained a mystery.

  No matter how hard Rudolf attacked the police, arguing that the evidence was not absolute, that the bloody footprints didn’t mean anything, that Peterson was caressing his dead wife, that his shoes and socks had already been off before police arrived, there was no way to get around another fact—a partial footprint from Michael Peterson’s shoe was evident on the back of Kathleen’s sweat pants. Peterson had stepped on his wife, and Durham police had taken photos of the footprint, which clearly showed the impression of the bottom of an athletic shoe, in blood, on Kathleen’s hind leg.

  After twenty-one days of testimony, and thirty prosecution witnesses, jurors heard from another special agent from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, DNA expert Mark Boodee, who testified about the mix of saliva he had detected on a can of diet Coke seized by police that night. The DNA expert would tell jurors that the Coke can, found on the patio area just outside the Peterson home, tested positive for saliva that came from the defendant. The expert would also tell jurors that DNA from other individuals had been found on that diet Coke can.

  For jurors, the prosecution case was no longer seeming like a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Even though prosecutors did not have a weapon, even though they could not prove that anyone had helped stage the scene, prosecutors had produced the blood evidence, they had introduced photos and videotape of the bloody walls and stairwell, and graphic images showing that the victim, Kathleen Peterson, was battered. Among all of that evidence, the diet Coke can seemed less significant, yet the fact that it held partial bloody prints, and DNA with mixed saliva, seemed highly suspicious.

  Of course there was no evidence to support what Todd Peterson might have known, or what he might have done, on the night of Kathleen’s death. Todd Peterson had refused to give any statement to police. He was featured on Court TV and local news as being a supportive son, as someone who was fighting for his father’s good name. Todd expressed his feelings of love for his dad, describing Michael as a normal, fun guy who would spend time hanging out at the house watching TV sporting events.

  Reporters would later discover that Todd Peterson had his own strange Web site, which was in direct conflict with Rudolf’s characterization of Michael Peterson as the role-model, as the perfect dad to a set of well-raised children. While Todd Peterson sat in court every day dressed to the nines, looking very clean-cut, very GQ, it turned out that he was running a web site, www.Futazi.com, which offered tips to high school students on everything from kissing and foreplay to ideas about bodybuilding and proper application of makeup. On the site, Todd had introduced himself as “Roman Croft,” showing before-and-after photos of himself in little boxer shorts. Todd’s site had a strong emphasis on sex, and included pornographic images that were certainly not appropriate for the young teenage demographic he was targeting. Some of its content was highly pornographic and quite offensive.

  It was on August 6, 2003, weeks into the trial, that things in Michael Peterson’s world really began to heat up. Dr. Kenneth Snell would take the stand to tell the jury that he had made an error in his initial report. The medical examiner would testify that, because he was initially unable to see the amount of lacerations to Kathleen Peterson’s head, he had misdiagnosed the cause of death. Dr. Snell would explain that he had watched Dr. Deborah Radisch and other forensic pathologists perform the autopsy at the medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill, and then had realized that “some instrument” could have created the lacerations to Kathleen Peterson’s scalp.

  One of the strongest witnesses for the state, Dr. Snell told jurors that he had changed his initial findings of “accident” and had ruled Kathleen Peterson’s death a homicide. With Kathleen’s matted hair out of the way, Snell had witnessed seven lacerations, and the medical examiner had changed his opinion completely. Kenneth Snell testified that, because of additional evidence, it was “routine” for information from a field report to be revised.

  The same week that Kenneth Snell testified, People magazine had reported on the Michael Peterson murder case. Even though the case against the Durham novelist had been largely overshadowed by the sensational Scott and Laci Peterson case, People would report details about the mysterious Michael Peterson. The magazine presented a shimmering image of Michael and his wife on the night Kathleen died, a couple who popped champagne corks in celebration of his latest movie deal. The magazine made Peterson seem very Hollywood, very successful, and described Michael as “a doting husband who often surprised his spouse with gifts of valuable jewelry and silk scarves.” Without taking sides, the article presented Peterson in a rather positive light, noting that the North Carolina murder case had divided the members of Durham’s “close-knit upper crust.”

  But the People article missed the mark. The magazine had appeared on newsstands too soon. In fact, it appeared the very week that the most explosive information of the trial was being entered into evidence.

  On August 7, Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to introduce evidence to prove that Michael Peterson was bisexual, that pornographic photos of men and suggestive e-mails retrieved from Michael Peterson’s computer were relevant to show why he might have beaten his wife to death.

  After objections from the defense, which argued that Peterson was e-mailing a male prostitute because he was doing research for a book about “gays in the military,” Judge Hudson ruled that the pornographic evidence would be presented. Because the defense had made contentions about the Petersons’ idyllic marriage, the defense had opened the door. The e-mails were very specific regarding Peterson’s intentions: he wanted to pay for sex, he was willing to have an escort come to his home while his wife was busy at work, and he wanted the business of his alternative sex life to be discreet.

  When Judge Hudson made his ruling, Michael Peterson sat behind the defense table, reading an e-mail he had deleted on December 8, 2001. From the stunned look on his face, it was clear that the novelist had no idea that experts had been able to undelete all of his previously erased e-mails.

  The e-mails entered into evidence contained explicit requests for sex from Michael Peterson to a male escort, who called himself “Brad.” Prosecutors had circulated Peterson’s e-mails to jurors, proving that Peterson was looking for sexual relations outside of his marriage. They were able to show, through numerous e-mails to the young male escort Brad, that Peterson had spent months trying to arrange to pay for sex with the young man.

  Brad, apparently, was an active member of the U.S. military, who had been called to serve after 9/11. The e-mails indicated that Peterson was willing to wait for Brad, that the e-mails from Peterson weren’t just a happenstance request for sex. Prosecutors had evidence of exact prices to be paid, of exact times and dates being set by Michael, and most importantly, they were able to show that Kathleen Peterson, on the night of her death, most possibly had gained access to information about Brad because Peterson had a file in his desk with printouts of Brad’s escort service, complete with nude pictures of Brad with a big hard-on.

  Prosecutors were able to question Helen Preslinger, who testified that she heard Kathleen ask for her husband’s e-mail address on December 8, 2001. Preslinger was aware that on that night, Kathleen had gone into her husband’s office just after 11:08 P.M. Preslinger had sent an e-mail to Kathleen, it was something Kathleen needed for their conference call the next morning, but the e-mail had never bee
n opened.

  Prosecutors would speculate that while Kathleen had waited in her husband’s office that night, looking for the e-mail from Helen Preslinger, it was also possible that she might have gained access to the information on her husband’s computer, which, according to state computer experts, had been deleted by someone on December 8, 2001, and again on December 11, 2001. What Kathleen Peterson might have discovered that night, in addition to the file in his desk regarding Brad, was a print-out of hundreds of photos of explicit male porn images, and the following list of the favorite sex sites that Michael had downloaded:

  www.hardnstraight.com

  www.MarineMeat.com

  www.smutserver.com

  www.sleazydream.com

  www.youngstuds.com

  www.pimpserver.com

  www.fistingzone.com

  Forty-six

  Durham assistant district attorney David Saacks presented the case regarding evidence of Michael Peterson’s sexual preferences to be allowed into court. Saacks talked about the possibility of a “love triangle.” He would tell Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. that even if there weren’t a financial motive to commit murder, there certainly could have been an argument between Michael and Kathleen on the night she died, because there was a folder of graphic e-mails written by Michael to another man, which could prove to be an explanation for what happened in the Peterson household on the night in question.

  Saacks would make comments about the e-mails and male porn photos retrieved from Peterson’s computer, asserting that it would have been easy for Kathleen to put two and two together. The Durham prosecutor stated his belief that Peterson’s bisexuality “could possibly go to motive.” After the prosecution team won a victory, David Saacks later told the Herald-Sun that the prosecution had proof that “Peterson engaged in homosexual relations with two other men” before he married Kathleen Peterson.