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Get caught up on The Staircase as new eps hit Netflix

Photo credit: Sundance Channel
Photo credit: Sundance Channel

From Digital Spy

After the phenomenal hype of Serial and The Jinx, audiences' morbid thirst for true crime stories is nowhere near sated. The 'good' news is that there will always be another story to tell, because the world is a terrible place, where people continue to do terrible things.

There's also the notion that with true crime series, the story is never over. There are always follow-up investigations, or catch-up interviews to be conducted, and sometimes even new evidence emerges, and they become ongoing, Truman Show-style living stories.

2004's Death on the Staircase, or just The Staircase (Soupçons in French) – is one such story that just keeps unravelling. The initial eight-episode series about the conviction of American author Michael Peterson for killing his wife Kathleen was followed up by a sequel film in 2013. Now Oscar-winning creator Jean-Xavier de Lestrade is returning for a third look at the elaborate case.

With the series now available to watch on Netflix, including three new episodes exclusive to the streaming service, let's get caught up.

Who is Michael Peterson?

Photo credit: Sundance Channel
Photo credit: Sundance Channel

Michael Peterson is an American author who wrote several novels about his experiences in the Vietnam war. In a hint of the controversy to come, he once claimed he had won two Purple Heart medals; one for being shot, and the other for being hit by shrapnel from a land mine.

Peterson has since admitted that the shrapnel wound was actually from a car crash after the war, and there was no evidence at all that he was ever awarded a second medal. Peterson also wrote a newspaper column that was heavily critical of his local police force, something that would come back to bite him in later years.

Peterson was married to Patricia Sue Peterson and the pair lived in Germany for a time, becoming close to neighbour Elizabeth Ratliff and her family. When Ratliff died in an accident in 1985, Peterson even adopted her children. And how did Ratliff die? Why, she fell down the stairs...

The death of Kathleen Atwater

Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

Decades later, in December 2001, Michael Peterson called the emergency services to report that he had found his second wife, Kathleen, unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, having apparently fallen while drunk. However, the medical autopsy found that Kathleen had sustained a litany of severe injuries, including a fracture of the thyroid neck cartilage and multiple lacerations to the top and back of her head.

The injuries were consistent, it was concluded, with blows from a blunt object. Kathleen died from blood loss at the bottom of the stairs around two hours after sustaining the injuries.

Michael Peterson was the only other person present, and was charged with her murder.

The trial

Photo credit: Sundance - Netflix
Photo credit: Sundance - Netflix

The trial of Michael Peterson brought with it many complications and even more theories about what really happened. Peterson's misrepresentation of his time during the war was used to attack his credibility, while the reveal that he was bisexual and apparently engaged in affairs with other men poured further fuel on the fire.

The prosecution alleged that Kathleen had found out and wanted to end their marriage. That Kathleen had a $1.5million life insurance policy was also a factor. And then, of course, there was Elizabeth Ratliff, who had also been found dead at the bottom of some stairs years before, with Peterson the last person to see her alive.

The similarities saw Ratliff's body exhumed and re-examined, with medical experts overturning the original cause of death and suggesting that she, too, had been murdered. While Peterson was never charged with Ratliff's murder, it was implied that the scenario had given him the idea of how to off his wife, and the verdict was guilty.

Michael Peterson was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole.

Hoo dunnit?

In what is surely one of the more bizarre twists in any true crime story, one surprisingly convincing theory around Kathleen's death is that she was killed by an owl.

Owl feathers were found at the scene, and the lacerations on her head were consistent with talon marks. Drops of blood were found outside, and Kathleen's own footprint in the blood suggests she was bleeding before she fell.

The idea posits that an owl attacked Kathleen, who then rushed inside and in her injured panic, fell down the stairs, hitting her head on the way down. Numerous experts have asserted that an owl is more than capable of inflicting Kathleen's injuries, and they are known to be aggressive in the North Carolina area where she lived.

Retrial

Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade made The Staircase II: The Last Chance (seems somewhat crass to name a true crime story like a straight-to-DVD Blumhouse horror sequel, but okay) to chart the Peterson family's attempts to secure a retrial. Their attempts were successful thanks to explosive new evidence, and Peterson was released to house arrest pending his retrial.

There are several reasons the retrial was granted. Firstly, the admissibility of the evidence and testimony of those surrounding the Ratliff case came into question, while Duane Deaver of the State Bureau of Investigation – one of the principal witnesses whose testimony led to Peterson's conviction – was found to have misrepresented evidence in dozens of cases. Deaver was fired, and pretty much any evidence after his arrival on the scene was deemed inadmissible.

Alford Plea

In February 2017, Michael Peterson entered an Alford Plea to the voluntary manslaughter of Kathleen. What is an Alford Plea? It's when you don't officially admit guilt, but you accept that the court has enough evidence to convict you anyway so that you can finally go free and the State can say they won.

It's sort of like saying, "I'm still saying I didn't do it, but… I see where you're coming from". Peterson was sentenced to a maximum of 86 months in prison. Having already served longer than this, Peterson was free to go, albeit branded as a felon for the rest of his life.

The Staircase III

With Peterson now a free man – he is, in fact, writing another novel – de Lestrade has returned to film a new mini-series catching up with Peterson to explore his life post-release. Will there be another twist in the tale? Will Peterson accidentally implicate himself, Robert Durst-style? Or will this be an affecting look at a man wrongly accused? As ever with true crime, anything's possible...

The Staircase is available to watch now on Netflix.


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