A Perfect Husband

by Aphrodite Jones

  “Sitting here today, I have no idea who Mike Peterson is, none whatsoever,” she testified. “Who he held himself out to be, and who he’s turned out to be, I have no idea who he is.”

  Fifty

  It would be ten weeks into the trial, after jurors heard testimony about “thousands” of blood spatters at the scene, after they had been shown haunting photos of the Peterson stairwell, that the defense team would make a curious decision. David Rudolf, Michael Peterson, and the rest of his group thought it would be best for jurors to head to the mansion; this way, they could see the blood in the stairwell for themselves.

  The jurors were getting much more than they bargained for. Having given up their summer vacations, having listened to cross-examinations and all kinds of varying opinions, suddenly this group of good citizens found themselves being driven over to Forest Hills, escorted by bailiffs and attorneys from both sides. The eight women and four men of the jury, along with their four alternates, became solemn as they were driven up the long and winding driveway. They surely would have been impressed with their immediate surroundings, if it weren’t for the fact that they were being led directly to the back stairway of the Peterson house. At Rudolf’s request, this staircase had been kept boarded up, and preserved since December 14, 2001.

  As the stairwell was being opened, no one could have anticipated the mystic vapor that would exude from behind the plywood. There was that smell of death, that smell of decay, dull and faint, but discernible. No one said anything at the time, but the odor, which the jurors endured, just seemed incomprehensible.

  Even though everyone remained silent, even though not a word was spoken at the house, the scene in the stairwell looked like a horrible nightmare. The jurors scanned the narrow staircase, which, until then, had disturbance from external air only once, when Dr. Henry Lee had examined it. As the jurors looked at the scene in person, the totality of the blood was disturbing. There was blood on the woodwork, on the walls, and on the famous black-cat poster. It was blood that had rotted over time, it had turned brown, yet the blood made its way down the wall in so many unusual patterns.

  It was a stark contrast from the front stairwell of the house, which was a white spiral work of elaborate architecture, sitting in the middle of a room that was large and lofty. Jurors would catch a glimpse of the beautiful antique tapestry hanging beside the front stairwell—a medieval print that had been purchased by Elizabeth and George Ratliff on their honeymoon—which they had heard some brief testimony about.

  But it would be in the back staircase—that the jurors hesitated. It was there that the phantasm of Kathleen in crimson blood, the image of her mangled body, had become all the more accessible. From within the house, the stairwell lent itself to a sense of bitter struggle. It had become eerie—like a vault that entombed Kathleen Peterson’s shrieks—her death cries.

  Yet it must not have occurred to Peterson or anyone in his camp that the jurors would be struck by the inconsistency they faced. In Peterson’s view, the amount of dried blood seemed to support the claim that his wife had fallen down the stairs. And Peterson’s lawyers had anticipated that jurors would agree. Rudolf and Maher were convinced that once the jurors saw the actual scene, they would observe the physical confirmation of Kathleen’s tragic fall.

  But the odors in the place were oppressive and the sight of all that dried blood conjured images of torment. The scene was morbid. To some, the mansion seemed like a haunted place, and the echoes of Kathleen and Elizabeth, both tortured spirits, no longer seemed to be so completely abstract.

  Fifty-one

  In a demonstration for the jury, famed expert Dr. Henry Lee dropped red ink on a white poster to show how the diameter of blood spatter could increase with velocity. The arrival of Dr. Henry Lee had brought out additional media, the courtroom was jammed, and jurors seemed mystified by Dr. Lee’s grace, by his easy smile. Dr. Lee’s opinion covered two days of testimony, September 15 and 16, during which time the forensic expert found many things wrong with the state’s case.

  Henry Lee, with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, had built the Connecticut State Police an internationally recognized laboratory. His fame had gone global with his 1995 testimony in the O.J. Simpson trial, and he would be deemed America’s top forensic scientist. People had driven from all parts of the Research Triangle hoping to have a chance to meet him.

  Dr. Henry Lee signed copies of his books. His signed autographs.

  The man was a legend.

  The crime scene analyst would spit up gobs of ketchup to underscore his point that Kathleen may have coughed up blood, testifying that there was “too much blood” for anyone to be able to make exact determinations about what happened in the stairwell. He testified that it was possible that the bloodstain patterns had been caused by Kathleen Peterson shaking her hair, by any variety of motions.

  “We have to look at the totality, everything, before we jump to the conclusion that this was a beating,” Dr. Lee told jurors. “To reconstruct, you have to look at the totality. You cannot look at one isolated pattern and make a picture.”

  According to Henry Lee, Agent Duane Deaver’s blood spatter experiments were nothing more than “child’s play.” Dr. Lee found Deaver’s work to be rather useless, stating that it would be impossible for anyone to re-create the stairway scene in a laboratory.

  “In your opinion,” Rudolf asked, “is the bloodstain evidence consistent with a beating death?”

  “No,” Lee said. “Inconsistent with.”

  Dr. Lee focused on the outside of the stairwell. He testified about the three “points of origin” in space, saying that the blood source could have come from anywhere, from someone’s head hitting a surface, from someone coughing. Lee explained that, in his view, a point of origin was not necessarily a point of impact.

  He testified that anything could have created the blood spatter, that the three points of origin did not mean that a beating had occurred. Dr. Lee disagreed with Agent Deaver’s opinion that the particular spatter on the wall—in the corner of the stairwell—came from someone beating Kathleen Peterson with some sort of blunt object.

  Dr. Henry Lee disagreed with all of Duane Deaver’s opinions. Looking at an enhanced photo of the crime scene, Lee recognized a “swipe mark” in the stairwell, but claimed the swipe mark didn’t indicate any cleanup of the area. If there had been an attempt to clean up, Lee testified, the person had done “a lousy job.”

  Regarding the blood droplets found inside Peterson’s shorts, again, Dr. Lee had a different view. Henry Lee stood up in front of the jury to illustrate the possible ways blood spatter had gotten in the inside leg of Peterson’s shorts, pointing out that Michael Peterson was “a skinny guy, with not too much meat.”

  Dr. Lee testified that because Mr. Peterson was wearing “baggy shorts,” because there was a lot of space between the flesh and the fabric, “any configuration” could have caused the drops of blood. Mr. Peterson’s walking on a step, his sitting down—Lee said there were a lot of possibilities.

  “Based on your education, and your training, and your experience, and your own observations and findings in this case,” Rudolf asked, “do you have an opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty as to whether the totality of the evidence in this case from the scene is more consistent with an accident?”

  “It’s more consistent with an accident,” Lee testified.

  Later that afternoon, under cross-examination, Jim Hardin was able to get Henry Lee to admit that the “points of origin” that Agent Deaver located were each origins for blood that were created “out in space.” Nevertheless, Dr. Lee would contend that locating a point of origin did not necessarily equate a beating.

  Prior to Lee’s testimony, a neuropathologist, Dr. Jan Leestma, had testified on behalf of the defense. Dr. Leestma told jurors that he believed Kathleen Peterson’s death had been the result of an accidental fall. Like Dr. Henry Lee, Dr. Jan Leestma was being paid $500 an hour to testify about his opinion. In
essence, Dr. Leestma told jurors that Kathleen Peterson had suffered two falls, causing four impacts. However, when Jim Hardin asked the hired expert to explain exactly how that might have occurred, Leestma told Jim Hardin to ask a blood spatter expert, or a biomechanical engineer, for that answer.

  “So I’m asking you, since it was Dr. Leestma’s opinion that she had two falls and four impacts,” Hardin said to Dr. Lee, “as the blood spatter expert, can you please explain to this jury the sequence of events about how that happened?”

  “With all due respect,” Dr. Lee answered, “I can’t really give you the sequence of events. I cannot. I don’t know exactly which one fall is first or second.”

  “Well, in fact, Dr. Lee, you can’t even say that all those lacerations were caused by falls, can you?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “Well, that’s what I want to understand,” Hardin pressed, “you can’t say?”

  “I cannot say that,” Lee responded.

  “You can’t say that all of those lacerations were caused by falls?”

  “I don’t know,” Lee testified. “That’s outside the area of my expertise.”

  By the time Jim Hardin finished with his cross-examination, Dr. Henry Lee’s testimony wasn’t seeming quite as worthy as his reputation. A recently retired commissioner of public safety in Connecticut, a coauthor of definitive books on forensics, Dr. Henry Lee had spent hours on the witness stand, had been a showman, had flung ketchup and red ink, but he hadn’t convinced the courtroom observers. He was smooth. He was fun to watch. People gawked at Dr. Henry Lee. But not everyone was sure he had the right opinion.

  Regardless, the forensic man was still treated like a star. The folks in Durham read articles about him with fascination. The local papers drew cartoon caricatures of him. Dr. Henry Lee had been so comfortable on the stand, so confident in front of the TV cameras, he had even brought some levity to the situation. Throughout his testimony, he had managed to crack a few jokes.

  Caitlin Atwater, however, would later confide that Dr. Lee’s attitude bothered her. She couldn’t understand Lee’s theory that there was “too much blood” for the death to have been a beating, yet not too much blood for a fall. She realized that the man was highly respected, but Caitlin felt his opinion didn’t make sense. Caitlin was upset and offended by Dr. Lee’s courtroom performance.

  “I understand he was trying to be personable,” she later confided. “But the people in the courtroom were laughing about my mother’s blood.”

  Fifty-two

  The “Perry Mason moment” of the trial happened just days after Hurricane Isabel hit the East Coast, which had created disaster areas in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. It had shut down the trial proceedings, having caused power outages and uprooted trees in Durham. In the aftermath of the storm, as people in North Carolina were trying to get their lives back on track, the Peterson trial came back into session, and David Rudolf called Detective Art Holland to the stand to introduce a striking piece of evidence.

  “Did you ever ask us if we had located the blow poke?” Rudolf wanted to know.

  “No, I didn’t,” Holland testified.

  “Did you just assume that it was gone?” Rudolf asked.

  “Gone, or put up somewhere,” Holland told the court.

  Unbeknownst to Art Holland, David Rudolf had held an exparte meeting with Judge Hudson on a Sunday, whereby Judge Hudson was brought to the Peterson mansion, in order that Rudolf could show him a blow poke that was lying against an obscure wall in the garage. Judge Hudson signed an order allowing the attorney, along with photographers and the French documentary crew, to film the blow poke in the condition and location that it had been found. He told them they could move it, and ordered them not to destroy the item.

  Judge Hudson, however, had no way of knowing that David Rudolf had brought the blow poke into the courtroom had hidden it behind the defense table. When the defense attorney brought out the long, cylindrical item, whipping it out in front of the jury in a clear plastic wrapper, the prosecution had no chance to object. Even though no foundation had been laid as to who found the item, even though there was a question as to the authenticity of the item, Rudolf shrewdly insisted in a bench conference that he couldn’t reveal the circumstances under which it had been found. Rudolf said it would violate attorney-client privilege.

  Durham police had pulled three search warrants looking for the murder weapon. They had combed the Peterson house and property, inch by inch, looking for that blow poke. But now, prosecutors were in a position. Jim Hardin decided not to argue in open court, he did not want to give any weight to the newly found piece of evidence. The courtroom had gone numb when Rudolf had produced the blow poke—everyone was visibly shocked—but Jim Hardin decided to just let the testimony go forward.

  As the defense attorney wielded the brass tool, which had no drop of blood or dent mark on it, he would point out the cobwebs and insects that were covering the fireplace instrument.

  “Have you ever given any thought to what would happen to an item like this,” Rudolf asked, “if it were used to beat someone to death?”

  “Probably be mangled up,” Holland responded.

  “See any dents in there? Even like a tiny indentation?”

  “It doesn’t appear to have any dents,” Holland admitted.

  The stealth unveiling of the blow poke was allowable under North Carolina law. Judge Hudson had signed an order allowing the defense team to take it into custody. But Rudolf’s attempt to enter it into evidence appeared to surprise Judge Hudson, who had stated in his order: “In the event the Defendant wishes to introduce the blow poke into evidence, or conduct any forensic testing on the blow poke, the Defendant shall inform the State of the existence of the blow poke.”

  David Rudolf had not abided by the rules of “reciprocal discovery.” The defense attorney claimed that his decision to bring the missing blow poke into court was something he had thought of “last minute.” Rudolf claimed that he hadn’t shown it to prosecutors beforehand, because he just wasn’t sure that he was going to present it.

  The newly discovered blow poke, revealed just as the defense was wrapping up, would threaten to unravel the state’s case. Suddenly the state’s theory that Peterson had killed his wife with a blow poke made less sense to everyone. Here was a blow poke that the Durham Police department had overlooked, the supposed murder weapon in the case, and it was there for everyone to see, in perfect condition.

  Even though the origin of the blow poke remained a mystery, both sides knew that when the case would go to the jury for deliberation, there would be this fireplace tool they would have to deal with. It was an exact match to Candace’s blow poke, which prosecutors had claimed was the murder weapon.

  Perhaps David Rudolf had pulled off more than a “Perry Mason moment”; perhaps he’d pulled off an “O.J. moment.” With the existence of the blow poke, everything that had come before, even the testimony of Dr. Henry Lee, with his ketchup and blood spatter analysis, didn’t seem relevant. The presentation of the blow poke, which had been missing for twenty-one months, was very much like the famous glove from the O.J. Simpson trial, which, unfortunately, didn’t fit O.J. Simpson’s hand.

  To the courtroom audience, to the members of the media, the entry of the brass blow poke into evidence, complete with cobwebs and bugs, made things look quite bad for the prosecution. In the circumstantial case, the state had gambled on what they thought had been the murder weapon. For months, the prosecution had hung their hats on the “missing” blow poke, repeatedly indicating that the hollow item was the perfect tool for murder. But suddenly it seemed that the prosecution’s theory was bogus.

  Facing a full-capacity crowd in the gallery, David Rudolf made the most of the turnaround in the case, grabbing the “missing” brass blow poke as he launched into a 3½-hour closing argument. As part of his impassioned speech, Rudolf played a tape of Jim Hardin’s opening statement, reminding jurors that Hardin had boasted
that the state had pinpointed the murder weapon.

  Rudolf argued about the state’s “tunnel vision.”

  Rudolf attacked the state’s motive, telling jurors that the prosecutors had “trotted out the old standbys” of sex and money, claiming that, in reality, the Petersons’ five-year marriage was in great shape, both financially and romantically. He claimed that the combined net value of the Petersons at the time of Kathleen’s death—the mansion, other income, and rental properties—was almost $2 million. He told jurors that at the time of Kathleen’s death, not even her sisters had a negative word to say about Kathleen’s relationship with Michael.

  In terms of the physical evidence linking Michael Peterson to a homicide, Rudolf insisted that, while he couldn’t explain exactly how Kathleen sustained lacerations to the back of her head during a fall, it wasn’t necessary to know how a “freak accident” might have happened. All the jury needed to focus on was the belief that a freak accident could have happened.

  As for Elizabeth Ratliff, Rudolf reminded jurors that Judge Hudson had ruled that before the jury could consider her death, they first would have to find that her death was a homicide, and also have to find that Michael Peterson was the perpetrator. Then, with a great sense of spirit and pride, David Rudolf stated that there were at least ten reasons to acquit Michael Peterson. “In this age of David Letterman,” Rudolf told jurors, there was a “top ten list” for them to consider. Jurors could acquit his client if they believed even one of the items on the list, and he flashed his list on a big screen. The jurors were free to read along as Rudolf stated his reasons as to why they should acquit his client.

  Here was David Rudolf’s “Top Ten” list:

  1) The missing murder weapon wasn’t missing—and it wasn’t used to commit a murder.

  2) There was no credible motive—and you don’t decide to kill your wife for no reason.