1. Description
In December of 2001, Michael Peterson says he found his wife, Kathleen, at the bottom of their staircase, bleeding profusely and barely breathing. He claims she fell down the stairs, but he was ultimately charged with her murder. This week, we review The Staircase—both the documentary and the miniseries—and the case itself. Was it murder or just an unfortunate accident?
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3. Additional Resources
4. Merchandise/Support the Show
5. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
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6. Credits
1. Description
In December of 2001, Michael Peterson says he found his wife, Kathleen, at the bottom of their staircase, bleeding profusely and barely breathing. He claims she fell down the stairs, but he was ultimately charged with her murder. This week, we review The Staircase—both the documentary and the miniseries—and the case itself. Was it murder or just an unfortunate accident?
2. Topics
3. Additional Resources
4. Merchandise/Support the Show
5. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
6. Credits
[00:00:00] Jeff: This week, a murder, an accident, or an owl attack? Welcome to Subpar Talks.
Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
[00:00:30] Chris: And I'm Chris.
[00:00:32] Jeff: Thank you so much for joining us for another episode here. And as always, before we get to our topic this week, we have our standard disclaimer, listener discretion advised. There will be profanity, maybe a lot of it. And we do tend to touch on some mature subject matter. And if none of that sits well with you and the fact that we inject humor into all of this, then maybe this is not your cup of tea. And that's OK. For the rest of you, sit back and relax, or maybe be on the edge of your seat as might be the case. Because here we go with this week's topic.
We are reviewing The Staircase. So The Staircase is, it's actually two things. The first was a documentary, and the second is a miniseries on HBO Max. And I have seen both the documentary and the miniseries. I saw the documentary years ago. Chris has recently watched that and I just got done watching the miniseries on HBO Max.
So we're gonna review both of those, and we're gonna talk about the case, which is riveting for a lot of different reasons. And so Chris, you want to give people a rundown of what this case is all about?
[00:01:59] Chris: Sure. And I'll just start with the obvious. This is a huge, massive spoiler alert. If you have not watched these and you intend to watch them and don't want the spoilers, stop this now, go watch it, then come back. Cuz we'll be talking all through it. So the premise is this guy, Michael Peterson is married to Kathleen Peterson. They've both been married before, both had kids from previous marriages. So they're this blended family, supposedly very happy. Lots of people, and of course, brings up the question for anyone, what goes on behind closed doors, but everyone is at least saying that they are a happy couple, no major issues, not seeing violence, arguments, things like that. In December of 2001, Michael and Kathleen had been out at their pool at their house late at night. She says she's going in to go to bed. They had been drinking wine, but apparently not a lot. And that was based on autopsy report as well.
But anyway, he goes into his house later. This is his story. He goes into his house later, finds her at the bottom of the stairs, bleeding profusely. I mean, ton of blood, lots of cuts, lacerations on her scalp, top of her head. She is barely breathing at the time. He calls 911. Um, for some reason he gets off the phone from them, but calls them back.
You hear the 911 calls. He admittedly, I would say sounds frantic. And, you know, paramedics show up, short amount of time. She ends up dying. He is ultimately charged with her murder saying that it was a beating, a homicide. He is claiming the whole time that he had nothing to do with any of it, that he was outside, had no knowledge of what was going on, he came in and found her. So the defense is saying that she fell down the stairs. Um, she had a 0.07 alcohol content. She had, I can't remember the quantity of Valium. It wasn't a lot, but there was some Valium, some alcohol, and you know, just a question of, hey, this was an accident, she fell down the stairs, hit her head, and, and that was it. The prosecution obviously claiming that it was a beating. So there's the documentary, you know, all of that ensues in terms of the discovery of evidence, how the prosecution is attacking the case, how the defense is actually working to defend him.
And, you know, it carries out over years. Of his even his defense, before it goes to trial and before the, uh, the first verdict is even rendered.
[00:05:15] Jeff: Yeah. That's a good, that, that's the gist of it right there. And, and we'll get into to the specifics about the case and the defense and, and all of that. As far as just the, um, presentation of the miniseries compared to the documentary, I thought the documentary was better. The, the, the miniseries was good, but I thought it was better. And if you don't know, the miniseries stars Colin Firth. I mean, famous actor, but I know him from, I, I know he is been in a ton of stuff, but I know him from Love Actually and The King's Speech. Do you know of anything else that he's done? I mean, I, I know he is been in a ton of stuff.
[00:05:55] Chris: No, not that's coming to my mind right now.
[00:05:56] Jeff: Yeah. And then Toni Collette.
[00:06:00] Chris: Right.
[00:06:01] Jeff: She was, I don't know her from a lot. I know she was the mom in The Sixth Sense.
[00:06:06] Chris: Oh, see, I forget about that because that was...
[00:06:09] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Chris: So long ago and she obviously looks different, but yeah.
[00:06:12] Jeff: Right. Uh, she was also the mom in Little Miss Sunshine, which is one of my favorite movies. Good movie. And have you seen, um, Knives Out? Have you seen that movie?
[00:06:25] Chris: I have not. No. I wanted to, I haven't gotten to it yet.
[00:06:29] Jeff: It's really good. It's a mystery. It's got comedy in it. It's got a lot of, of stars you'll recognize in it, but yeah, she's, um, she's in it as well.
[00:06:39] Chris: There was a movie that was out not too long ago. I think it was a, I say a movie. It, it was a, a limited series really. Um, I think it was on Netflix a couple of years ago called Wanderlust and, she was in that where she and her husband decided that they were going to have essentially an open relationship.
[00:07:03] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:07:03] Chris: And you can imagine how that went
[00:07:08] Jeff: Is it based on the movie? Because there's a movie Wanderlust with Jennifer Anniston and, uh, Paul Rudd.
[00:07:17] Chris: I don't know, because I didn't know about that when I saw the series. Then I saw that title as well. And I don't know if they're connected or not.
[00:07:27] Jeff: OK. She is also in a series called, uh, I mean, it was a limited series thing, but it was, uh, it's called Unbelievable. I think it was on Netflix. She plays a detective. That was really good. Uh, and I think that's based on a true story. But anyway, um, yeah, I thought the documentary was better. I mean, Toni Collette and Colin Firth, they, they do, they do great. They give good performances. But one thing, I, I'll say that I got tired of in the miniseries is their whole family drama.
And I don't remember how much of that comes out in the documentary because it's been a while since I've seen it. But all the drama and, and they depict a lot of stuff that happens before the night of her death, which I wasn't really that interested in. I mean, as the series went on, I just got more and more tired of it.
I was way more interested in the night of her death. And I think most people are. What happened that night and then the aftermath of that. Like the whole legal process and the trial, all that goes along with that. That was one thing I was more interested in. One of my favorite things though in the miniseries is they go through all of the three possible scenarios of her death, which is accidental fall, she just fell down the stairs, that was that. Or it was a murder. So in, in different episodes, they depict all this, like, this is how it would've gone down. And then they also do the owl attack. That's like episode six, I think. And they show how that whole thing...
[00:09:06] Chris: Really?
[00:09:06] Jeff: Would've unfolded. Yeah. Yeah, so I thought that was, was really interesting. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the, the whole owl attack doesn't play a prominent part in the documentary at all, right?
[00:09:20] Chris: No, I'm trying to think. I, I wanna say, I'm trying to remember if the last episode it was mentioned. But they did a, like a three or four minute standalone thing that, you know, where you've got the documentary and it's got its 13 episodes. Then there's a trailer and whatever. There's another three or four minute thing that is just dedicated to that. But it was not part of the actual documentary. I think it was mentioned in the last episode, but given very little attention.
[00:09:55] Jeff: Yeah. And I mean, you, you warned about spoiler alerts. Um, so people have had their fair warning, but, uh, they never, the defense never even presented that because his case was ultimately overturned, right. And then he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
[00:10:15] Chris: Right.
[00:10:15] Jeff: And so they never, they never even got a chance to, to bring it up. But it's a wild theory that an owl, I, I say wild theory, it is certainly plausible. But it is that an owl attacked her, uh, when she was outside. And then that, you know, she had blood from that and then that caused her to be disoriented and then fall down the stairs, uh, once she got inside. But, this case is, is, as I said, riveting from a lot of different standpoints, but man, the whole time I was watching the documentary and when I was watching this miniseries, I just kept going back and forth.
[00:10:56] Chris: Yeah.
[00:10:56] Jeff: I would be like, yeah, I think he did it. Well, no, I don't think he did it at all. You just go back and forth. You drive yourself crazy. If you just end up concentrating on it.
[00:11:05] Chris: You really can thinking about, number one, the guy was on trial, and literally on trial for his life. It wasn't death penalty, but it is the rest of his life in prison. And you in good conscience, being on that jury, have to give a reasonable verdict. It can't just be based on your emotion. It's gotta be based on the facts presented. And is there a reasonable doubt or not. Given all of that, I do have to say I can't see myself, and obviously we didn't see it all, you know, they're, they're showing parts of the trial in the documentary, but of the parts that we saw and of other parts that we heard, that we didn't see, I can't see not having a reasonable doubt.
[00:11:58] Jeff: Same here.
[00:11:59] Chris: That doesn't mean he didn't do it. That doesn't mean I can't personally think that he did it. But I can't see convicting him as a member of the jury, just because there were so many things that were exactly what you said, those questions in my mind.
[00:12:16] Jeff: It seems like that is the case. And I love true crime documentaries. Um, I've watched a ton of these and a lot of 'em are good. Some of them are complete shit, but, um, it's become a big deal on these streaming platforms, true crime documentaries. And in all of these where the, where it's close, I find myself saying, I don't know. I don't know if he did it.
I mean, it's not like an open and shut case, like Ted Bundy, or John Wayne Gacy, or somebody like that. Like, you have some actual doubt here. And if you say you don't know if he did it, then it's a not guilty verdict.
[00:12:53] Chris: Right.
[00:12:53] Jeff: So I watched these and, and they are, just from the dramatic aspect, they're really interesting to watch, and from a legal aspect too. Just from the, from the fact that there's a murder, like, ooh, that's salacious and all that. But there's gonna be a legal aftermath. And, and just that in and of itself is really interesting. And one of the problem that the prosecute or problems that the prosecution had in this is they had no motive. Right. They had a theory.
[00:13:27] Chris: Yeah.
[00:13:27] Jeff: That she found out about the fact that he was bisexual and he was emailing these men. And he had gay porn on his computer. And that was the, the prosecution's theory that she eventually found out about that, and he didn't want that to come out because he was running for political office, right. He was running for, um, city council? Is that what he was running for?
[00:13:53] Chris: Uh, mayor. He, he ran for mayor before.
[00:13:56] Jeff: Oh, he was, I was thinking it was just a city council position, but OK. So he is running for mayor of Durham, North Carolina. And, if you're in North Carolina in the south, and this is the early 2000s, you can't be gay. Sorry. You're just, not gonna work. Right. And maybe even today, I don't know. But...
[00:14:13] Chris: Yeah.
[00:14:14] Jeff: But can't have that come out. So their whole theory was, um, that, you know, he was gonna lose it all and, and, um, if this came out. So he had to try to keep her quiet. That was their theory. But now, the government never has to prove a motive, right. You don't have to, but it makes it easier for juries because people wanna know why. Like, why would this person do this,
[00:14:39] Chris: Right.
[00:14:40] Jeff: OK. Now, you sent me a piece from Variety Magazine. And it had an interview with Michael Peterson and this is pretty recent.
[00:14:50] Chris: Right.
[00:14:51] Jeff: And he, he did his fair share of slamming this HBO Max miniseries. But he said, and this didn't come up unless I just forgot, this didn't come up in the documentary, and I don't think it came up in the miniseries. But he says there was forensic evidence that his computer had not been turned on after four o'clock that, that day.
[00:15:16] Chris: Yes. I saw that in that interview and it was not in the documentary for sure.
[00:15:21] Jeff: OK. So we have to take him at his word, and there might be some issues there with the, the type of person that he is. But if that is true, it's not like she confronted him that night and then he blew up. Because in the miniseries, she goes inside the house from the pool and finds the porn on his computer, and then confronts him. And then that's, you know, one of the, the scenarios. So that's a problem in and of itself. They didn't have a motive.
Also. I know this came up in the documentary. She didn't have skull fracture, right. There was, there was not a skull fracture.
[00:16:01] Chris: Right. There was no skull fracture and there were no brain contusions. They had one person that was testifying in the original trial that said of the, I wanna, I think it was 200 and something beating deaths that they had investigated, none of those had lacerations without also having either brain contusions or skull fractures.
[00:16:30] Jeff: Yes, that's exactly right. And the medical examiner testified that it was blunt force trauma, right? Like she had blunt force trauma to the head.
[00:16:42] Chris: Right.
[00:16:42] Jeff: But, and, and here's another issue. This is another problem with, for the government here, with what? Like they never, they had a theory that it was the blow poke, which I never even heard of a blow poke before this documentary.
[00:16:56] Chris: No, I had not either.
[00:16:57] Jeff: It's like a specialized fireplace tool. I don't what the hell you do with it. I mean, I know what a poker is, but...
[00:17:04] Chris: Well, OK, so...
[00:17:05] Jeff: What's the blow part?
[00:17:06] Chris: Yeah. So in one of the parts of the documentary, they actually showed that. So it does look like a longer version of a poker, but it actually has a hole in the end that you're holding so that you could blow through it, like that, you could, you know, get air into the fire. Essentially to kind of stoke the fire with oxygen blowing into it. But I had never heard of or seen one of those things.
[00:17:36] Jeff: Every time I hear the word poker, I think of the George Carlin bit. Sorry, this will be a little sidetracked. But he, uh, he did a bunch of great stuff on the English language and just language in general. But he, he found it fascinating, and I do too, that you can, you can utter a sentence that is guaranteed, that you are the first person in the history of the world to utter that sentence. Like nobody has ever said those combinations of words. And his example is, "Nobody's ever said, let me stick this hot poker up my ass while I cut my dick off."
Nobody's ever said that. He was the first ever. Anyway....
[00:18:16] Chris: I would imagine that's true.
[00:18:20] Jeff: Right. They had the supposed murder weapon, but then they found the blow poke later on in the garage. Right. And it had cobwebs all around it. So that couldn't have been it because it, there was no way it had been cleaned off.
There was no evidence of blood or anything.
[00:18:40] Chris: Right. Yeah. So there's a couple of big issues around that I think. Number one, the whole idea of whether it was the blow poke was a theory, exactly like you said. There was zero evidence that that's what it was. They just said, oh, this blow poke was given to them by her sister years ago and now we can't find it. Well, then that must have been the murder weapon because he used it and got rid of it and that's why we can't find it anymore. But then, what was it, a year, year and a half beyond that, and it was while they were still in the trial, it was located in their, it was garage, I think.
[00:19:30] Jeff: Garage..
[00:19:30] Chris: Yeah. And it was located kind of in a corner by itself, yes. It had cobwebs on it. It was dirty, as in having been used in a fire, you know, just like things get black soot on them. They tested it. No blood, but also acknowledged that there was no evidence that it had been cleaned. So if you've got this thing standing up there with no evidence of having been cleaned, has no blood on it, has cobwebs so it wasn't just recently put there, then that's all kinds of holes in their theory. But then at the very end of the documentary, it comes out that there had been pictures of them, of the prosecution, finding that blow poke way back when, putting it back where they ultimately found it, you know, a year and a half later, and yet the prosecution came into court and said it was missing. That the whole time it was missing.
[00:20:39] Jeff: That's ridiculous.
[00:20:41] Chris: Yeah. That's, that's just one example of so many things that the prosecution did and said that, and, and it was said so many times throughout the documentary, it's exactly right, they made up their mind of what happened, and then they went backwards to try to make everything fit that.
[00:21:01] Jeff: To reconstruct it.
[00:21:02] Chris: Right. The, the tests that they did, the blood spatter tests, were all of, hey, can we make it look like this? And the fact is, sure. If you know that this is the end result you're trying to produce, you can approach it in that way to make it look like that, if that's what you're after. But as they said, that's not scientific. Scientific is you just do something and see what comes from it.
[00:21:34] Jeff: Yes. And, and it's amazing, like, OK. So when they were conducting a search of the house and, and the area around it and all that, when they determined that, OK, this is a homicide, so they did come across the blow poke, right. They came across the blow poke. So if she was murdered, there has to be something that he killed her with.
[00:21:59] Chris: Right.
[00:21:59] Jeff: So where is that? Right?
[00:22:01] Chris: And, and that was, yeah, at the very end, when it was acknowledged, hey, OK, they found the blow poke all these years ago, hid that fact that they did know that it here, made up the story that it was missing as though that was the discarded murder weapon. And that's exactly what his attorney said then is OK, clearly now we know, even after we found it, that that was not the murder weapon. So what's their answer to that? If he killed her, what did he kill her with? And where is that thing?
[00:22:37] Jeff: Right. Very good question. And I remember, uh, and, and I don't know who the actress is that plays the assistant district attorney, but I remember watching the documentary and I could not stand that woman.
[00:22:55] Chris: Yeah. She's pretty horrific.
[00:22:57] Jeff: The way she talked. So she, I mean, we're in the south, North Carolina, so it was all her accent and her tone. And boy, she harped on the bisexual stuff. Like she's all over the porn and just like ramming it.
[00:23:17] Chris: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Jeff: Ramming it down their throats.
[00:23:19] Chris: Yeah. Man. I, she, she got a little too excited about all the, the gay porn stuff.
[00:23:27] Jeff: Yes. I think so too.
[00:23:28] Chris: Like what's going on with that?
[00:23:29] Jeff: I don't know. Yeah. um, but speaking of that, like she, the actress does a really good job at portraying her because I had kind of forgotten about that woman from the documentary. And then when I'm watching this miniseries, like, oh God, I remember that woman. And she's harping on the, all the gay porn, and she does the same thing and in the miniseries. And...
[00:23:53] Chris: So that was something that bothered me so much in the documentary, is all of that coming up about his bisexuality, the gay porn and all of that. And what bothered me about it was their intention and building that as part of the motive and the case.
[00:24:16] Jeff: Yes.
[00:24:16] Chris: It's like, that has nothing to do with any of it. That, now what I could say could have something to do with it, if this theory held true, is if Kathleen had found out about him having any sort of extramarital relationship and that led to the violence, the motive, etc. But...
[00:24:42] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Chris: It doesn't matter at that point, whether it's bisexual, heterosexual, homosexual, it doesn't matter.
[00:24:50] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:24:50] Chris: And they made such a big deal about that in the trial, as that going to his character and particularly his character in terms of being dishonest and hiding it. But he could be that way whether it were gay, bisexual or not.
[00:25:12] Jeff: See, they were cuz you can't bring up his character, right. But you can go in the back door to use another, use another reference. But you, you can't harp on his character. But you can put that as part of the motive. And if your theory of a motive is she found out about all this stuff that he was doing, then you can present it to the jury.
And they're hoping your everyday average Walmart shopper on that jury is gonna say, well look what he's doing. He's doing all this gay stuff behind closed doors and all that. So yeah, he must have killed her. Like that's the leap in logic that the government wanted them to make. And I wonder, that was 2001, I wonder now, if it would be different, even in Durham, North Carolina, I just, I don't know.
[00:26:04] Chris: I don't know. Now one other thing, and, and this could be true for anyone given years passing, your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, all of that change. But the judge in the case admitted in the last episode, that if this had gone to trial again, he would not, he would've likely not allowed all of the bisexual evidence to come into play. And also very likely would not have allowed the evidence of the friend in Germany to come in, who was also found dead at the bottom of the stairs. And he acknowledged that both of those were probably prejudicial in how the jury was looking at him. It's like, well, they argued at the time not to have that brought in.
[00:27:00] Jeff: Yes. That, that's kind of a rundown of, of what I thought were the prosecution's problems. I mean, if you have anything else on that front chime in, but I think those were the major issues as far as the, the government's, the obstacles they had to try to overcome. Which I think is a big reason you and I said, well, you know, I just don't know. I don't know if he did it or not. But the defense had problems, obviously. They're trying to defend a guy who has been charged with murder. And one thing they had to overcome was the, the sheer amount of blood, right. There was tons of blood. In fact, that that ended up being her cause of death.
[00:27:44] Chris: Right.
[00:27:44] Jeff: Like she bled out. So there's so much blood and the everyday average person on a jury when they see those, those photos and there's all that blood and there's blood spatter on the wall and a pool of it underneath her, like, it's really hard to convince somebody that, well, that was just a fall down the stairs.
[00:28:08] Chris: Yeah. The one thing I, I mean, I've heard this multiple times. I've had some very minor experiences with it is that if you have a head injury, there is a lot of blood. I mean that, it's, it's a massive amount of blood from a head injury versus bleeding from other parts of your body.
[00:28:29] Jeff: What did you think about, so you did talk about his 911 call earlier. What did you, what did you think about it? Like, did you think it sounded normal for somebody who discovered their wife at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of blood or, or what?
[00:28:43] Chris: Yes, I thought it did, but it's so hard to put yourself in that position when you're talking about, let's just assume right here that everything that he said is true. He walks in the house, he finds that scene. What is going to be your reaction? First of all, people are going to react differently. I, uh, everybody's gonna go into some kind of shock. But you're going to react differently. Some people can be very calm during a shocking time. Other people go into complete hysterics. Anyway, I didn't think it sounded fake. I would say that, but...
[00:29:27] Jeff: Yeah, when I first heard it, and they play it in the documentary, of course. And then they, they do it at the beginning of the miniseries. It's just, it's Colin Firth's voice as opposed to Michael Peterson's. But it's exactly the, the same word for word. And, uh, that's one thing about Colin Firth in this, like he's got Michael Peterson's mannerisms down perfectly, his whole way of talking, like it's, it's flawless. It's, he's, because he's such a good actor, but... Yeah, when I heard the 911 call again, I was like, it sounds kind of over the top, you know, like he's trying to portray that he's really freaked out or whatever, but I just don't know.
And as you said, you don't know how anybody's gonna react. And you really can't win. Like if you're on trial for your life, under suspicion of murder, people are gonna dissect your 911 call and you just can't win in that regard. I mean...
[00:30:26] Chris: Exactly.
[00:30:26] Jeff: People are gonna say, oh, it's over the top, you know. But what if he would've said, uh, my wife is at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of blood. I need you to send an ambulance. Then people would say, see, you're clearly guilty. It sounds like you don't even care. So...
[00:30:39] Chris: Right.
[00:30:39] Jeff: Yeah. You just, I don't think you can read a lot into it. But I will say this. There's one thing about that 911 call that I found, I, I don't know what the right word is, uh, peculiar or, or, uh, curious or whatever, but he says my wife has had an accident. And if I saw a body with that much blood under them, on them, and around them, I don't know that my first, the first word that jumps to my mind is gonna be accident. You see what I'm saying?
[00:31:14] Chris: Yeah.
[00:31:14] Jeff: Like it, it, my first thought I think would be somebody just attacked her.
[00:31:21] Chris: She's been attacked, right.
[00:31:22] Jeff: Yes. Yeah. But he says accident, but I, you know, who knows? So you brought up Elizabeth, uh, Ratliff was the woman's name. So for those of you who don't know, Michael Peterson was living in Germany. I don't remember why they were living in Germany. I've, I don't know, but they were friends, he and Elizabeth Ratliff. I can't remember, I lose track of which kids come from which family and all that. Do you remember who she was, like...?
[00:31:50] Chris: Martha, um, Martha and Margaret? Was that the other one's name, I think? Those were her two girls that he ended up adopting after...
[00:32:01] Jeff: Yes.
[00:32:02] Chris: She died. But she was a family friend, like...
[00:32:05] Jeff: OK. So that's all, that's what she was.
[00:32:07] Chris: Yeah.
[00:32:07] Jeff: But OK. They had always been told that their mom died of, uh, an aneurysm and fell down the stairs. And Michael Peterson was the last person to see her alive. This happened in Germany. He was the last person to see her alive. They did an autopsy and they determined that yes, that was the cause of death. Right? Like that's what it was. It was a, it was natural, that it was not a homicide, not an accident or whatever. It's just, it was a brain aneurysm. Well, once the prosecution gets word of this, then now, they're like, oh, we got him because similar circumstances, right? Somebody at the bottom of the stairs, Michael Peterson's the last person to see her alive.
So they go to Texas and exhume the body, and drive it back to North Carolina. I had a massive problem with this in the documentary. Did you? Like how, that's gonna be so prejudicial.
[00:33:09] Chris: Right.
[00:33:09] Jeff: To a jury.
[00:33:10] Chris: Well, the biggest problem I had with it is that they had the same person perform the autopsy then after she was exhumed as the one who performed the autopsy on Kathleen. And it had been suggested by the defense to just get anyone who was impartial in Texas to do it.
[00:33:35] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:33:36] Chris: Well...
[00:33:37] Jeff: Why do you even have to drive it back to North Carolina?
[00:33:39] Chris: Right. But now you've got the person who did the autopsy on Kathleen examining the same body. And here's something else that came out though in the, this was in the appeal or, or when they were trying to get him out of having a second trial, was that the medical examiner, whatever her name was, she had originally thought and said that she bled out, that Kathleen.
[00:34:12] Jeff: Yes.
[00:34:13] Chris: Then she changed it in testifying in court to say that it was blunt force trauma. And that was due to someone else asking that that be changed. See, there were so many things about that, where they changed wording and direction, again to fit the theory that they had and make it sound like they wanted it to sound. Which, hey, if he did it, if he really did it, then absolutely he should be punished through the legal, through the justice system for that. But he is entitled to the fair trial. And for all of the things that were coming out about this, it wasn't fair. There were so many things that were not fair. And now exhuming that woman's body, bringing her into the same medical examiner where that medical examiner now is looking for evidence to support what she already found on the other person.
[00:35:19] Jeff: Yes, to support her contention, yeah. And I can't believe, I remember thinking this when I watched the documentary, I cannot believe that judge allowed any of that in.
[00:35:27] Chris: I can't either.
[00:35:28] Jeff: That's gonna be so prejudicial. And, and not only that, I can't believe that the appeals court upheld the conviction and the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Like how, how can you present that evidence? Because you know it's so prejudicial. A jury's gonna think, well, see it happened before, so this must have happened and that's, we want juries basing their decision on what they think happened in this case and you just, you can't do that. And yeah, big surprise, the same medical examiner does, uh, the autopsy on this woman. And, oh, look at that, blunt force trauma.
[00:36:10] Chris: Same thing.
[00:36:11] Jeff: Yeah. Amazing, right? Amazing. Um, so I, I couldn't believe that, but...
[00:36:16] Chris: I feel like I have to say this every time I start a sentence about this is, assuming that he didn't do it, but it's, it's the whole idea that it just should have been fair. That's it. And so there were so many things that these weren't even theories. These were facts, that people stated something here, and stated something different over here. And this person influenced that person to change this, things like that. There's so many things about that that were put out there. And one of the things that I had forgotten, because I think it was said early on in the documentary, but I read it after the fact too, was that Michael Peterson had written a lot being critical of the DA, and specifically that DA, not the DA's office. But this particular DA who was overseeing this case and he had been so about the police as well.
Well, that, I mean, in my mind, and again, this is going back to, OK, it's still a question of whether he did it, but with all of these things being changed, all of these things being misrepresented, represented differently from one time to the next, it certainly doesn't look good that the prosecution was presenting those things in that way when they had a beef with him.
[00:37:48] Jeff: And we had an email from a listener in a previous episode, um, about the owl attack, the supposed owl attack, the owl theory. For those of you don't know, it is a theory that an owl, I mean I mentioned it earlier, but an owl attacked her, and that caused the lacerations on her head. And, and she was disoriented after that and then fell, hit her head on the stairs, and so that's how she died. But I mentioned this in that previous episode, like she had a clump of her own hair in her hand, and she had pine needles in her hand, and she had owl feathers in her hand. Like learning that...
[00:38:32] Chris: That's huge.
[00:38:32] Jeff: Like why in the hell would that even be in her hand? And it's exactly like she was reaching up to her head to get the goddamn bird off of her.
[00:38:41] Chris: Right. Protect herself. And...
[00:38:43] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Chris: And why was, I mean, even if there's not this owl theory yet, why was that not even brought up? Like, hey, can we just acknowledge that this is weird?
[00:38:57] Jeff: Yeah. Right. And so they focus on that a lot more in the miniseries than they did the documentary. And, I think I said this before in that previous show, but when the medical examiner is, is conducting the autopsy, they list every single item in a body, on a body. And as good as the defense attorney was for Michael Peterson, like I think it was top notch work from that defense attorney, he was really good.
[00:39:30] Chris: Absolutely.
[00:39:30] Jeff: Uh, you know, sometimes you just, you miss stuff and if it's just one single item and, hindsight's 20/20, but think about all the stuff that they're dealing with in mounting a defense. I guess I can see how that just went by the wayside.
[00:39:46] Chris: Yeah, that's true. Seeming insignificant enough. I guess. I mean, because, like I said, if you don't have that theory already, then well, she was outside and...
[00:39:58] Jeff: Yes.
[00:39:58] Chris: Who knows? It's all, the whole thing is just so fascinating from so many aspects. You look at how the prosecution approached it, how the defense approached it. What's, what's the true story? Is the defense correct? I mean, I, I said this to you, is Michael Peterson, he's not the most likable person.
[00:40:24] Jeff: No.
[00:40:25] Chris: Uh, he's strange. He's, he's socially awkward. I, I feel like there were times just like you, there were times where I felt like I wanted to believe him.
And then there were times I was like, the guy's a writer, the guy makes up stories for a living. Now, whether he can present that in his own life and, and verbally and all of that and still be believable is a different question.
[00:40:54] Jeff: Yeah. And I think there's some narcissism there.
[00:40:58] Chris: Yeah.
[00:40:58] Jeff: You know, I, I think there's some narcissism there. Obviously that requires an actual diagnosis. But just from watching the documentary and then watching Colin Firth portray him, I think there is some narcissism. And the thing about narcissists is, they will lie. They will lie. Donald Trump is a perfect example. Can't deny he's a narcissist and they will lie through their teeth because they have that reputation to maintain. They have that idealistic world that they live in. They have to maintain that and lying through their teeth is one way to do that because they're constructing their own reality.
And I mean, you think about it from that standpoint and you know, who knows what to believe. But again, that's speculation on my part. We don't wanna get sued by Michael Peterson because , he is outta money after, after all that defense, like...
[00:41:49] Chris: Yes.
[00:41:50] Jeff: He, his savings were, were wiped out for sure.
[00:41:54] Chris: And that's, that's just another thing to bring up more in general. And he, he said this kind of early on in the documentary, is how in the world does a normal person, a normal American, mount a defense like that? It was, they said in the documentary, it was gonna cost him in the seven to $800,000 range. And that was then. Nevermind that then he had appeals and this kind of stuff later on. But they hired a PI. He had his main attorney, uh, a second chair attorney, and, and whoever all was involved that we probably didn't even see or know about, and adding up to that kind of money. And if you don't have the means that he did, well, what do you do? You, you get...
[00:42:45] Jeff: You're fucked.
[00:42:46] Chris: Yeah. You get a lawyer who's nowhere near as good as the one that he had, that doesn't have that kind of a team, or you're subject to a public defender.
[00:42:57] Jeff: Yeah. And, and what kind of expert rebuttal are you gonna get from what the prosecution puts up there on the stand? Like you, you're just, it's not gonna happen.
[00:43:06] Chris: Right.
[00:43:07] Jeff: You're going to prison.
[00:43:08] Chris: Yeah.
[00:43:08] Jeff: And that's that. Yeah. And it shouldn't be that way, but, but it is.
So here's what happened for those of you who don't know. He, his conviction was overturned because they, they found out that the SBI, the State Bureau of Investigation, so this is in North Carolina, they had been concealing, uh, exculpatory evidence. So evidence based on, uh, blood spatter analysis and all that, they had been concealing any kind of information over a ton of cases that would have pointed to a defendant's innocence and presenting to the jury only the, the blood spatter stuff that showed that a defendant might be guilty. And I know there was, there were a bunch of cases overturned. I don't remember how many. But in Michael Peterson's specific case, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was one individual who he lied about what he had worked on, lied about his credentials.
[00:44:07] Chris: Yeah. The number of cases he had been involved in that were similar, he, he talked about into the hundreds and it turned out it was in the teens. And...
[00:44:17] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:44:18] Chris: And that was over about as many years. Meaning I, I wanna say it was like 15 or 17 cases over about 15 or 17 years, where he had made it sound like it was in the hundreds over that same amount of time.
[00:44:35] Jeff: Wow.
[00:44:35] Chris: Nevermind the fact that they didn't do certain tests. They did do certain tests that they hid. And so, yeah, that just called all of that into question.
[00:44:46] Jeff: I don't know, maybe this is a broader topic that we'll touch on later. But if you are a, if you're a prosecutor or anybody working for the prosecutor, any kind of investigative team or whatever, if you are concealing exculpatory evidence, which is against the law, if you're doing that, knowing that people are gonna get convicted on false testimony or not having all of the facts, you are an asshole of assholes. Like you, those people need to be locked up and put away for a really long time.
[00:45:24] Chris: Yeah.
[00:45:24] Jeff: Uh, you're talking about people's freedom. Jesus Christ.
[00:45:27] Chris: Well, and the only reason you would do that is to think, oh, well, our case isn't strong enough otherwise, so we've gotta do this. But if your case isn't strong enough, then that's it right there. See that, that's exactly where you can go to, you can have your personal beliefs, yeah I think this person did it or no, I don't think this person did it. But you've gotta go with what the evidence is that you have.
And that makes it unfortunate that people who are truly guilty may not, let's say, pay the price for it. But I would say that the reverse of that is so much worse.
[00:46:07] Jeff: Absolutely.
[00:46:07] Chris: Is that you've got an innocent person, a truly innocent person that goes to prison, I'm gonna say for any amount of time, but nevermind if it's for so many years or the rest of their life, or as we talked in another episode on death row,
[00:46:27] Jeff: Yeah, the whole, and, and I hear people say this when people are, you know, have their convictions overturned, people say, well, see the system worked. Like we uncovered the fact that, that, you know, they didn't actually do it. So they got out and ...bullshit. No, the system didn't work at all. And these documentarians wanted to film this because they wanted to give people a taste of the American justice system. Like they're French, they're French documentarians. They wanted to give people a taste of what the American justice system is like. And I think there are a lot of good examples in this case of what the American justice system is like, and no, the system didn't work. It didn't work at all because you had somebody lying on the stand from the government and he misled jurors and a guy ended up spending, how long was he ultimately in prison?
[00:47:17] Chris: Eight years.
[00:47:18] Jeff: So eight years of his life. That's aside from the fact that did he really do it or did he not? It's just the fact that they voted based on misleading testimony, which should never happen.
[00:47:30] Chris: Right.
[00:47:31] Jeff: As I've gotten older, I have been, gotten older and also having kids. Uh, when you have kids, the, the frequency of which you watch movies will dwindle considerably. Right? And so...
[00:47:46] Chris: Yeah.
[00:47:47] Jeff: I have a lot less tolerance now for stuff that I will watch and waste two hours watching. So my point there is, I tend to rely on IMDb a lot to see what the ratings of, of movies or shows are.
[00:48:02] Chris: Sure.
[00:48:02] Jeff: Um, so if anybody's keeping score at home, the miniseries on HBO Max has a rating of 7.2. Pretty good, right? That's high.
[00:48:13] Chris: That's pretty good.
[00:48:14] Jeff: The documentary has a rating of 7.8. So that's kind of where I am. I think the documentary is better. I, I'm not calling the miniseries bad by any means, but I think the documentary is better. So if you're looking to watch one or the other, I think the real life stuff is, is the way to go. And, and the way it's presented, I thought it was, was a really good, really good documentary
[00:48:36] Chris: It's fascinating that it's all real footage. So many documentaries you see are recounting things and re-enactments, and the fact that this was truly real, so interesting.
[00:48:48] Jeff: All right, there you go. That is a review of The Staircase and our thoughts on the case. And what's crazy is we will never ultimately know exactly what happened, right? We'll never know. Unless he comes out and, like on his deathbed and says, oh, guess what? I actually did it.
[00:49:05] Chris: Yeah.
[00:49:10] Jeff: If you like this kind of stuff, um, then our material is right up your alley and we would love for you to follow us. Whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on, go ahead and subscribe, follow us. You'll get new episodes delivered to you automatically each and every week. And while you're there, go ahead and rate us if you are so inclined. We would love for you to give us five stars and go ahead and write a review. It doesn't matter what you say, just write something. That's how you can get more people to, uh, discover the show. And so, that'll help, uh, drive us up the chart, so to speak. So go ahead and write something there. We would love that. If you wanna find out more about the show, more about me, Chris, whatever, anything, and everything related to the show, you can go to our website, subpartalks.com.
There you can email us. You can even leave us a voicemail. Do either one of those or both of those. We love hearing from our listeners and reading what you wrote, so go ahead and do that. If you wanna follow us on social media, we would love for you to do that too. On Twitter, we are @subpartalks. On Facebook we are Subpar Talks. And while you're there, you might wanna follow our personal accounts. On Twitter I am @independentjeff.
[00:50:25] Chris: And I am @chrisbradfordtx.
[00:50:29] Jeff: You can find other social media links on our website. And finally, share this with your friends, get the word out. Share it on social media, talk to people you know. Family, uh, friends, enemies, acquaintances, colleagues, people on the street. Just get the word out about Subpar Talks. The more listeners we have, the easier it is for us to get you this content each and every week. And I think we said pretty much all there is to say about The Staircase.
[00:51:02] Chris: Yeah.
[00:51:02] Jeff: But do you have any final thoughts? You wanna ram anything else down somebody's throat?
[00:51:09] Chris: You know, one thing I thought about with all of this is the shame of not having cameras inside a house at the time. You know, as long as you're not actually killing people, then it might be to your benefit.
[00:51:24] Jeff: Right. But if you fly off the handle then, and, and actually do it, then you might have a problem. So...
[00:51:29] Chris: Yeah.
[00:51:30] Jeff: When you're considering that people, should I put cameras in my house, consider whether you think you're the person who might fly off the handle one night.
[00:51:37] Chris: If you're inclined to do that.
[00:51:39] Jeff: If you are, yes. If you have a predisposition to losing control, uh, in a fit of rage, then, then maybe you should hold off on the cameras.
All right. That is Subpar Talks. And we will be back next week. Until then, so long.
