GUILTY NC - Kathleen Peterson, 48, found dead in her Durham home, 9 Dec 2001

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Izzybit said:
I thought the same thing! How would he know she fell down the stairs when first looking at that scene? I feel like she found his emails, she brought it up and they got in a fight outside, they both went inside during the fight, and both went upstairs. Maybe he actually pushed her down the stairs and then finished her off (with what I’m still not sure), and then restaged the scene which would explain why the blood was dry.
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Good post, @Izzybit! Makes total sense. Argument, fight, and bad, bad blows to her head.
No way, IMO, could she have gotten that bloody and injured from a fall down those stairs.
I have fallen down stairs two different times (and no, I don't even drink alcohol -- it was slick-soled shoes, and I was carrying stuff with both hands each time). I got a big bruise on my hip but absolutely no blood. The stairs were not carpeted, and it was a tough fall. At church...
On the second fall, I was in my home and fell down half a flight. Again, no blood, but I did bruise three ribs badly and also got a small pneumothorax. I was so glad that my DH wasn't at home so that I could say about one million "Ooh's," "Ouch's," and "Owie's" -- what could DH have done to help, really -- other than try to make me feel better -- and he did, bless him. Nothing really helped except ibuprophen and time! And the recovery was weeks. And there was no carpeting on those oak stairs, either.
Just saying that I didn't then, and still don't, buy one bit of the falling down the stairs alibi from her very weird and IMO murderous husband. Nope, nope, and nope.

And one more thing,

Welcome to Websleuths,
Izzybit !!​
 
The house was sold to a family that wants to restore it and keep the grounds intact. I'm very surprised but very pleased. The grounds are beautiful but overgrown. I understand that the house needs a lot of work.
 
Skittles said:
Colin Firth tapped to play Michael Peterson in HBO Max adaptation of 'The Staircase'
Colin Firth tapped to play Michael Peterson in HBO Max adaptation of 'The Staircase'

This is a longer article with a long list of TV and book projects about the Peterson case, but it may be behind a pay wall.

Colin Firth playing Michael Peterson? HBO announces cast change for ‘Staircase’ drama.
https://www.newsobserver.com/entert...0341906.html?ac_cid=DM418536&ac_bid=-64497861
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The case is going from a Tragedy to a Disaster
 
Skittles said:
Colin Firth tapped to play Michael Peterson in HBO Max adaptation of 'The Staircase'
Colin Firth tapped to play Michael Peterson in HBO Max adaptation of 'The Staircase'

This is a longer article with a long list of TV and book projects about the Peterson case, but it may be behind a pay wall.

Colin Firth playing Michael Peterson? HBO announces cast change for ‘Staircase’ drama.
https://www.newsobserver.com/entert...0341906.html?ac_cid=DM418536&ac_bid=-64497861
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I remember reading about this at the time.

Look, I've no idea how good or awful such a project would turn out, but can I just say one thing? If you're going to cast someone as Peterson, it has to be John C. McGinley.
 
Dan Cooper said:
I remember reading about this at the time.

Look, I've no idea how good or awful such a project would turn out, but can I just say one thing? If you're going to cast someone as Peterson, it has to be John C. McGinley.
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I remember him from the movie Intensity.He's a good choice!

For some odd reason when I look at Daniel Radcliffe I think him and Michael P have the same mouth/smile.Weird I know.
 
image

90
 
Can I just say, this is my first time on this thread and I am so glad to see most of us WS folks are not buying the owl theory.

As a side note, every time I've heard Michael refer to having "made love" with Kathleen the night she died, it makes me want to projectile vomit for the rest of my life.

borndem said:
Good post, @Izzybit! Makes total sense. Argument, fight, and bad, bad blows to her head.
No way, IMO, could she have gotten that bloody and injured from a fall down those stairs.
I have fallen down stairs two different times (and no, I don't even drink alcohol -- it was slick-soled shoes, and I was carrying stuff with both hands each time). I got a big bruise on my hip but absolutely no blood. The stairs were not carpeted, and it was a tough fall. At church...
On the second fall, I was in my home and fell down half a flight. Again, no blood, but I did bruise three ribs badly and also got a small pneumothorax. I was so glad that my DH wasn't at home so that I could say about one million "Ooh's," "Ouch's," and "Owie's" -- what could DH have done to help, really -- other than try to make me feel better -- and he did, bless him. Nothing really helped except ibuprophen and time! And the recovery was weeks. And there was no carpeting on those oak stairs, either.
Just saying that I didn't then, and still don't, buy one bit of the falling down the stairs alibi from her very weird and IMO murderous husband. Nope, nope, and nope.
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Can I just expand on this? I am the clumsiest person alive, and I have fallen up and down so many sets of staircases, on flat surfaces, and more. Heck, just a few hours ago, I slipped and fell (dead sober, might I add) on a perfectly level floor, hitting my elbows and knees on the way down. I constantly bump and walk into things, hit my limbs on various household objects, and am just a general chaotic klutz. I also bruise pretty dang easily. A few years ago, I had an incident and fell, HARD, face-first on a hardwood floor. Let me tell you...not a drop of blood in sight. Not one. I had a black eye and very horrifically-bruised chin (among other bruises), but I didn't get so much as a few blood drops from my nose. Now, this is anecdotal, but I fell directly on my head, VERY HARD, and not a drop of blood. I've fallen up and down flights of staircases and always just ended up with just leg bruises. I cannot see any single way that a fall down a normal-sized staircase could result in a scene that probably had some resemblance to the Black Dahlia murder pre-cleanup. Even if she was, in fact, pushed. That scene looked like a haunted house with walls soaked in fake blood, almost comical in its violence. That just does not happen with falls down stairs, imo. Even if she did, say, hit her nose, or mouth and teeth, whether she was pushed or just tripped and fell on her own, why would the walls be so completely saturated in blood? Even if Michael wants to use the excuse of "well, she was drinking"...she was well under the legal limit. Didn't she have the equivalent of a glass or two of wine? Even a lightweight wouldn't fall down the stairs, have her blood saturate the walls, and tragically die as the result of a glass or two of merlot. I was honestly shocked by Michael's audacity to bring out the two bottles of wine to suggest that they'd been drinking a lot more than they, or at least Kathleen, had. But I think both of them were at least mostly sober if not fully.

lonewanderer said:
The lacerations cause my head to spin about what really happened.

I think there is no way on earth that the lacerations were caused by the blow poke. I also find the blow poke to be a very specific and very bizarre choice of nominated murder weapon.

Laceration.....basically a splitting of the skin due to traumatic force. What was the force behind it though? As mentioned, something like a blow poke would be sure to leave bruising, fracture, etc.

So what could cause the laceration? On one hand, it could be argued that her head was split in certain places when met with the force of falling down the stairs, which still seems like a lot of bruising would be there. So if it was not a blow poke type weapon, could it have been a belt?

Whipping her on her head with a belt would not only hide bruising, but would more than likely cause laceration.

Last semi-idea....if she coughed blood at the bottom of the staircase, could it be because of internal injuries caused before she was pushed, or fell, down the stairs?
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I am not an expert on this case, but I believe the blowpoke had nothing to do with the murder, and Michael is just acting weird and put it back in the garage for LE to find it because he's a revolting weirdo (sorry...it's hard for me to reign in my emotions). I believe the tire iron found in the Mitchell's yard was the murder weapon. I need to do more research on this, though.

LunaticFringe, I totally see what you mean about the Daniel Radcliffe resemblance. Michael looks like he could be his dad.
 
Skigirl said:
To be fair, there was a feather which is why this story ever got any attention at all. Apparently it's really common to have feathers in our hair if we've been outside. They never ruled out any type of feather, it could even have been a feather from a pillow. A friend of mine in the office that did the investigation says that finding feathers is so routine that no one ever bothers to mention it. Ever since this story broke, I've become super conscious of feathers drifting down from trees, and now I notice them all the time.
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Ok, lets say I buy wholeheartedly into the common feather theory. Lets even say there was feathers galore.

Even with that, there was no mention of chunks of her hair found at any place in the house, nor was there any reports of chunks of her hair missing from her scalp. I find it very hard to believe that an owl could have specifically attacked her scalp , lacerated her head seven times, and managed not to make her lose any hair at all.

Picture an owl perching on your own head, or someone elses, and violently attacking them with their talons. At some point, the person is going to try and remove the owl from their head. I don't see how she could have had her head lacerated by an owl and still not have any hair missing, at all.
 
lonewanderer said:
Ok, lets say I buy wholeheartedly into the common feather theory. Lets even say there was feathers galore.

Even with that, there was no mention of chunks of her hair found at any place in the house, nor was there any reports of chunks of her hair missing from her scalp. I find it very hard to believe that an owl could have specifically attacked her scalp , lacerated her head seven times, and managed not to make her lose any hair at all.

Picture an owl perching on your own head, or someone elses, and violently attacking them with their talons. At some point, the person is going to try and remove the owl from their head. I don't see how she could have had her head lacerated by an owl and still not have any hair missing, at all.
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As the post you quoted said, finding tiny, microscopic feathers in one's hair seems so common and benign that it's weird that it was mentioned. She was outside, she liked to garden, there are owls in the Durham area (albeit not homicidal ones), it doesn't seem like a stretch that feathers would land on her head. I never understood this theory as portraying North Carolina owls with a thirst for human blood and suffering. It also seems questionable at best to me, the idea that an owl would swoop in, violently attack a woman, and then leave only one single microscopic feather behind as a clue. And to emphasize what you said - At some point, the person is going to try and remove the owl from their head. I don't see how she could have had her head lacerated by an owl and still not have any hair missing, at all. Was she supposed to just be chilling while an owl was using its talons to try to tear her scalp apart, while also sneakily leaving her hair intact? I just don't get it...

borndem said:
Excellent post, @Springrain!
I now feel that I have a clumsy (is that the word?) sister, and she is you!! In jest, of course! :)..:D..:rolleyes:
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Sisters in clumsiness!
 
lonewanderer said:
Ok, lets say I buy wholeheartedly into the common feather theory. Lets even say there was feathers galore.

Even with that, there was no mention of chunks of her hair found at any place in the house, nor was there any reports of chunks of her hair missing from her scalp. I find it very hard to believe that an owl could have specifically attacked her scalp , lacerated her head seven times, and managed not to make her lose any hair at all.

Picture an owl perching on your own head, or someone elses, and violently attacking them with their talons. At some point, the person is going to try and remove the owl from their head. I don't see how she could have had her head lacerated by an owl and still not have any hair missing, at all.
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All very good points -- an owl, as you explained in your post, can do serious damage to their prey --

talons and beaks:
upload_2021-7-28_16-17-23.jpeg

upload_2021-7-28_16-19-29.jpeg

If, and a big, big if it would be, IMO, her body -- head, face, eyes, neck, arms, hands, and whatever else, would have been badly injured by an owl if the owl wasn't too freaked out about being inside or near a house. Owls attack prey that is smaller than they are -- owls don't go after deer or cattle -- and they are single hunters -- they don't travel in groups. And IMO, the owl would have been getting the he!! outta there rather than attacking this person.
Nope, not buying it -- is the owl story the best he could do? He was a writer -- this story gets a "D" grade from me.
 
Springrain said:
As the post you quoted said, finding tiny, microscopic feathers in one's hair seems so common and benign that it's weird that it was mentioned. She was outside, she liked to garden, there are owls in the Durham area (albeit not homicidal ones), it doesn't seem like a stretch that feathers would land on her head. I never understood this theory as portraying North Carolina owls with a thirst for human blood and suffering. It also seems questionable at best to me, the idea that an owl would swoop in, violently attack a woman, and then leave only one single microscopic feather behind as a clue. And to emphasize what you said - At some point, the person is going to try and remove the owl from their head. I don't see how she could have had her head lacerated by an owl and still not have any hair missing, at all. Was she supposed to just be chilling while an owl was using its talons to try to tear her scalp apart, while also sneakily leaving her hair intact? I just don't get it...



Sisters in clumsiness!
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borndem said:
All very good points -- an owl, as you explained in your post, can do serious damage to their prey --

talons and beaks:
View attachment 306323

View attachment 306326

If, and a big, big if it would be, IMO, her body -- head, face, eyes, neck, arms, hands, and whatever else, would have been badly injured by an owl if the owl wasn't too freaked out about being inside or near a house. Owls attack prey that is smaller than they are -- owls don't go after deer or cattle -- and they are single hunters -- they don't travel in groups. And IMO, the owl would have been getting the he!! outta there rather than attacking this person.
Nope, not buying it -- is the owl story the best he could do? He was a writer -- this story gets a "D" grade from me.
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Both of these posts also made me realize something that should have been obvious before.

I would imagine that fighting off an owl on your head would leave some kind of scratches from talons or peck marks from the beak all over your hands at the least. Not to mention the flurry of feathers that magically did not appear.

Not only was no hair reported missing, it was never reported that her hair was a ragged mess at all.

As noted from all of us, its bogus to think an owl made its way into the house, violently attacked a woman who wound up downstairs, and then found its own way out of the house as quickly as it came in.
 
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