The Staircase (Soupçons)

Durham Police this morning are investigating the death

of a prominent city resident.

The officers were called early this morning to the home

of Nortel executive Kathleen Peterson,

who was found dead in her Forest Hills mansion,

after apparently falling down the stairs.

Kathleen Peterson's husband is novelist Michael Peterson,

well known for his books on the Vietnam War.

He is also a former columnist for the Durham Herald Sun,

and ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign in 1999.

Durham Police have refused additional comment on the death.

Kathleen and I were in here watching a movie.

I had gone to Blockbusters and rented a video,

and we were watching American Sweethearts,

and I think it was probably around 11 o'clock

that the movie ended

and we took our glasses, left the dinner plates,

as a matter of fact, on there.

We would clean up the next day. Went into the kitchen.

We would talk for hours. Kathleen and I, at nighttime,

would talk two, three hours. Talk about the movie, or...

the kids or what we were going to do,

and we came in here.

I think there was...

I'm not sure. We probably had another bottle.

I know we were drinking two bottles that night.

It was a nice night.

I guess it was 55, 60 degrees. Very nice night.

Uh... and I had gone outside,

and we were talking here...

for...

a fair amount of time.

And then what we would usually do on a nice night,

we would go down to the pool,

which I always, you know, think is about the nicest place on the property.

I don't know if the chairs were like this or not,

but I mean, they were probably something like this,

and she was-- We were both right here.

You know, the dogs would come over,

and we were just talking,

and finishing our drinks.

And then she said, "I got to go in,

because I've got the conference call in the morning."

And she started walking out that way,

and I stayed right here.

Don't think I said anything special to her.

Certainly not thinking this was the last time I'm going to see her.

I said good night, and I'll be up a little bit later,

and I stayed here, and she walked...

And the last I saw her was...

when I was sitting there, and she was just...

walking, walking here.

That's it. That was the last I saw Kathleen.

Alive. No.

She was alive when I found her, but...

barely.

Durham 9-1-1, what is your emergency?

- 1810 Cedar Street, please! - What's wrong?

My wife's had an accident. She's still breathing.

- What kind of accident? - She fell down the stairs.

- She's still breathing. Please come. - Is she conscious?

- What? - Is she conscious?

No, she's not conscious. Please!

- How many stairs did she fall down? - What? Huh?

- How many stairs? - The back stairs!

How many stairs?

Calm down, sir.

- Calm down. - 15, 20. I don't know.

Please! Get somebody here right away!

Okay, somebody's dispatching the ambulance while I ask you questions.

It's off of, uh-- It's in Forest Hills.

Okay? Please, please!

It was just such a shock

when I drove into the driveway.

Seeing ambulances, just like, "Oh my God.

Did somebody have a heart attack?" Never in your wildest dreams,

would you think of anything-- You wouldn't know what to think.

My first thought, of course, was my dad had a heart attack.

He's a little older than Kathleen.

So when I ran in there, and I saw my dad alive,

I was, quite honestly, a little relieved, thinking, "Oh, phew."

And then he was able to mutter the word,

something along the lines of,

"Kathleen, Kathleen! Oh, my God, this-- this--

Oh, God, Kathleen."

And he was motioning in the direction of the staircase.

Sir, somebody else is dispatching the ambulance.

- - Okay, is she awake now?

Hello?

Hello?

Oh, God.

I can vividly remember finding Kathleen,

I can remember opening the door. I can remember calling 9-1-1.

I can remember... I particularly remember

Todd just...

holding me as tight as possible, I think to contain me,

and I can remember Heather,

the doctor, Ben's girlfriend,

taking my pulse.

And then I can remember, and it must have been very early,

while I was still in the kitchen,

that a cop was on me instantly, everywhere I went,

a policeman was there.

I went outside with Ben,

and a policeman was there, and I remember walking down there,

and a policeman was there. There was always a policeman with me.

I knew for a fact that

no way in this world my father ever would have hurt Kathleen.

But...

the realism of their investigating it did seem real.

While it was completely unfounded in my mind,

the way that they were behaving,

the way that they were barking orders at us,

restricting us from talking to one another,

they truly drove home the point that they were investigating this as a crime.

We came up Sycamore,

and you come up, and it kind of dead ends into our house,

and you just see the yellow tape across the whole house,

and it was horrible. It's like, our house.

You want to go home, the yellow tape is right there,

and you can't go home and...

It was the worst thing in the world and then, um...

I remember Dad actually explaining it to us,

and he was just like, he was in shock, kind of,

and he was kind of shaking, and he was like, "I didn't do it."

You know, "You have to believe me."

We're like, "Dad, we believe you," you know?

"This is horrible, like, how can we not believe you," you know? It's...

We didn't even know any details yet

and we were just like, "We believe you. We know it's not true,

and this is horrible," and it was just so upsetting.

I couldn't believe it, but it was so hard to think about that,

because at the same time,

we were thinking about our mother, you know? And...

it was... It was like two bombshells, I guess, hitting us.

When I first entered the house,

I noticed...

what appeared to be two legs,

just kinda sticking out of a doorway or hallway to my left,

and once I approached the victim,

there was just a...

very...

abundant amount of blood

on her, on the floor, on the walls,

that just was not...

consistent with somebody falling down the steps.

Well, obviously we can't know exactly what happened.

We have to piece together what we believe happened,

based on the circumstantial evidence that we've uncovered.

The only people that know are Mike Peterson and Kathleen Peterson,

and obviously, Mr. Peterson's not going to enlighten us about what he knows.

We believe the evidence, at least our evidence, is gonna show

that she was beaten, that she was stunned,

and was bleeding,

that she probably recovered,

and had-- And struggled,

in the door frame with Mike Peterson to a degree,

and that he then had to bludgeon her...

on multiple occasions after that, and that she basically bled to death.

Live, local, up to the minute. This is ABC 11 Eyewitness News at six.

Michael Peterson's supporters can't believe he's charged

with the murder of his wife, Kathleen.

Kathleen was my life.

I whispered her name in my heart 1,000 times.

She is there,

but I can't stop crying.

But a special grand jury decided today

there was sufficient evidence gathered by police

to warrant a trial in this case.

First-degree murder.

Now, 11 days after frantically calling 9-1-1,

seeking help for his wife,

Michael Peterson must spend the night inside the Durham County Jail.

My mother and Mike had an absolutely loving relationship,

and there is no way that either of them

would ever wish any sort of harm on the other one.

Kathleen Peterson's biological daughter, Caitlin Atwater,

served as the main spokesperson for the Peterson family.

She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Peterson's biological sons

and their sisters, adopted by Kathleen and Mike Peterson.

This is going to be the most unbelievably heartbreaking Christmas

we could ever imagine.

We've already lost one mother, now the state has taken away our father.

In my mind, you know,

if Mike finds Kathleen at the bottom of the stairs,

it's a reasonable assumption on his part that she fell down the stairs.

Peterson's attorney, David Rudolph,

says the authorities seemed to have jumped to conclusions about Kathleen's death.

For us, if in fact the police are right, that this was not a fall,

that should be the beginning of the investigation,

not the end of the investigation.

So far...

you know, what I've been saying to the Press, basically, is...

we think it's an accident,

but until our experts look at it,

we really can't say whether it's an accident or an intruder.

What we know for sure is it has nothing to do with Michael.

The benefits of the Intruder theory is it's simpler.

There's no debate over the forensics, for the most part.

The real problem with the Intruder theory is lack of evidence that there was one.