THE PETERSON CASE: A TIMELINE December 9, 2001: Kathleen Peterson, a Nortel executive and Durham Arts Council board member, is found dead at the base of a staircase in her home. Her husband, novelist, Herald-Sun columnist, war veteran, and former Durham mayoral candidate Michael Peterson, had called 911 and said Kathleen was injured when she fell down the stairs. December 13, 2001: Kathleen is buried in Maplewood Cemetery. December 18, 2001: Michael Peterson, who has not yet been charged in his wife’s death, hires defense attorney David Rudolf, an attorney who helped former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth avoid the death penalty in 2001 for his role in the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. December 20, 2001: Peterson surrenders to police after a grand jury indicts him for first-degree murder. January 14, 2002: Peterson’s bond is set at $850,000, and he is released from jail. February 18, 2002: Kathleen’s autopsy is released to the public. It reveals that she suffered several deep cuts to the back of her head and that there were signs of a struggle. March 18, 2002: Peterson, for the first time since his wife’s death, talks to the press. He proclaims his innocence. May 10, 2002: Durham County District Attorney Jim Hardin presents in court the autopsy of Elizabeth Ratliff, the mother of Peterson’s two adopted daughters, who died in Germany in 1985. Ratliff was found at the bottom of a staircase with several deep cuts to her scalp, but her cause of death had been listed as a stroke. Peterson was allegedly the last person to see her alive. October 29, 2002: Caitlin Atwater, Kathleen’s daughter, files a wrongful-death lawsuit against her stepfather. February 18, 2003: Elizabeth Ratliff's two daughters, Margaret and Martha—now Mike Peterson’s legal wards—give the District Attorney’s Office permission to exhume their mother’s body from her Texas grave, saying they want to clear Peterson’s name. April 14, 2003: Officials exhume the body of Elizabeth Ratliff and bring her remains to Chapel Hill for an autopsy. On April 29, the state medical examiner’s report states that Elizabeth Ratliff died of blunt-force
Michael Peterson PROMOTIONAL IMAGE FOR
THE STAIRCASE 2: LAST CHANCE
trauma to the head. Her injuries are similar to those sustained by Kathleen, according to prosecutors. May 5, 2003: Jury selection begins. Jurors are seated in June. October 10, 2003: After four days of deliberation, a jury finds Peterson guilty of first-degree murder. He is sentenced to life in prison. January 16, 2004: Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson rules in favor of Caitlin Atwater in her wrongful-death lawsuit. June 14, 2006: Peterson files for bankruptcy. September 19, 2006: A three-judge N.C. Court of Appeals panel, with one judge dissenting, rejects Peterson’s argument that he did not receive a fair trial. February 1, 2007: Peterson and Caitlin Atwater agree to a $25 million settlement. November 9, 2007: The N.C. Supreme Court rejects Peterson’s appeal. January 11, 2011: Duane Deaver, a State Bureau of Investigation blood analyst who testified in the Peterson trial, is fired after a review of the state crime lab showed he was negligent in dozens of tests he performed on the state’s behalf. February 15, 2011: Peterson files a motion for a retrial based on Deaver’s termination. December 14, 2011: Judge Hudson grants Peterson a new trial and places him under house arrest. The retrial is eventually scheduled for May 2017. February 7, 2017: News breaks that Peterson, now seventy-three, will plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in his wife’s death, in exchange for a sentence of time served. Sources tell the media that he’ll enter an Alford plea, in which he acknowledges that the state has enough evidence to convict him but still maintains his innocence. February 22, 2017: In a memorandum in support of Peterson’s Alford plea, attorney Rudolph defiantly proclaims his client’s innocence: “He did not kill Kathleen Peterson. He did not attack Kathleen Peterson. He is not responsible for her death in any way.” February 24, 2017: Peterson pleads guilty, bringing this saga to a close.
her grave,” she said. “Closure is for a door. Not for my murdered sister.” Atwater, in an exclusive interview with the INDY published Friday morning, said there would never be closure. But she didn’t want to discuss the trial or her mother’s killer or her feelings about the Alford plea. “The only thing that I have to say about the trial and all the subsequent fallout is that, if there was any closure to possibly come from all of this, it came after sitting through the entire trial and listening day after day to all the evidence—on both sides,” she said. “And after the closing arguments, when all was said and done, I felt confident that I knew what happened. I knew what happened to my mom. While there’s no true closure that can ever come for an event like this, for a loss this deep, I was ready to walk away and start moving forward with my life.” Nothing that’s happened since the trial— the appeals, the infamous “owl theory” (in which a neighbor of the Petersons suggested that an owl had flown into the home and caused Kathleen’s death), the SBI fiasco— has changed how she feels. So she chose to talk about the woman she lost, to ensure that the millions who have followed the Peterson case for all these years didn’t forget that there were many victims in this case, one of them a mother who would do anything to make sure her loved ones, especially her daughter, were provided with special memories to cherish for a lifetime. She talked about her fifth or sixth birthday, how Kathleen—despite her long hours at Nortel and her role as a prominent Durham socialite—went to great lengths to ensure her little girl had the perfect tea party. And she talked about how she used to keep a list, several pages of things Kathleen
wasn’t able to experience with her daughter, and said she found that the milestones were easier to get through than the routine. “Of course, there are the clichés, but I think the big days, like getting married and having kids or buying a new home, the big things in your life, the anticipation of those, of not having my mom there, those weren’t as bad as I thought because I was so dreading it,” Atwater said. “When those moments finally arrive, you’ve already been through so much emotionally, that, yes, it’s still hard, but at least you know why it’s hard.” It’s the constant fear of losing her connection to Kathleen that will forever make Atwater a victim. “When your memories start to fade some, and they have started to fade, it’s hard,” she said. But it also drives her “to live the way I think I would if she were here with me.” At her house, Atwater displays just one picture of her mother. The image embodies the way she sees Kathleen more than fifteen years after her death. In it, Caitlin, perhaps five years old, sits on her mother’s lap at the top of a mountain. They’re looking out over water, their turned faces revealing no discernible details. But it brings back a feeling: the freedom of the wind and the beauty of their surroundings, a mother wrapping her arms around her daughter. And it’s that warmth—that instinct to live for her family—that defines Kathleen all these years later. “I’ve tried to be the person I think I would have been if she were here,” Atwater said. “And hopefully, that’s a part of her legacy I can pass on to my own kids.” backtalk@indyweek.com Additional reporting by Meagan Howard. INDYweek.com | 3.1.17 | 17