Anyone else watch "The Stair Case" on the Sundance channel?

[livetohike]

I watched some of them. It was about the Mike Peterson trial. This happened in NC. He was found guilty of murdering his wife. The defense claimed she fell down the stairs.

Here is a page of links regarding the case. I never heard of it before this.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/peterson/

[Lex]

1. I saw The Staircase and this murder happened in my hometown

and where I live now. I know some of the people involved in the trial and followed it closely (CourtTV broadcast the trial in its entirety when it happened).

Frankly, I'm amazed at the evidence the State offered at trial that was simply left out of The Staircase.

I enjoyed The Staircase but found it to be highly sympathetic toward the defendant, even to the point of leaving out major evidence that the State put before the jury.

For instance, the State showed that there was high velocity blood spatter on the inside pant leg of the defendant's shorts that he had on that night. The shorts had large leg openings and the defendant would've had to have stood over the victim assaulting her in order to get that blood spatter in that place on his shorts.

Also, the State showed that the victim had no other bruises on her body (not on her butt, knees, legs, back) even though the defendant claimed she fell down the stairs and got back up and fell back down, causing her death. I'm sorry but I think a few other bruises would've had to be on her body for a series of falls to have caused her death.

Every first responder there said that the victim's blood was dry when they arrived and that she didn't just fall down the stairs a few minutes before he called. Given the amount of blood and the fact that it was already dry doesn't add up to the story the defendant was telling.

Lots of stuff like that was just plain omitted by the documentarians.

[livetohike]

2. Thanks for all of this!

I wonder why the documentary was so sympathetic to the defendant?

I didn't see the first installments.

[Lex]

4. The defendant's lawyer knew the documentarians

beforehand and the defendant and his lawyer gave full access to them during the trial, so it has bent towards the defendant.

The prosecutors declined to have that involvement with making of the documentary, which I think I would've been a little weird about doing too.

[XanaDUer]

3. I really wanted to, but I don't get Sundance.

...

[Lex]

5. It just came out on DVD if you want to rent it

or if you have Netflix or something like that.

[myrna minx]

6. I went to rent this DVD and came home with disk #2.

:silly: It appears to be a 2 disk set. I don't have cable so I didn't realize what an epic documentary this was. I now have to dash back to the store for disk 1.

[Lex]

7. Did you watch it, myrna?

Did you get both discs?

:hi:

[myrna minx]

8. Yes I was able to rent disk 2.

:silly: I found the documentary compelling, but having read your posts about this film, I watched this film with much skepticism. I feel bad for feeling incredulous, especially since the film maker did such an incredible job with Murder on a Sunday Morning.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=262276

Had I not read you posts, I would have thought a travesty of justice had happened. I wish that I had all of the facts of the case, instead of a one sided "defense."

I enjoyed the segments that showed how insane Court TV appears to be. Is Court TV just a hotbed of wild speculations? :shrug:

I thought it was interesting how the Asst. DA was overwhelmed with the fact that he was bi-sexual. You could tell that her disgust was figuratively oozing from her pores.

How is it that most of his children stood by him? I have more questions after watching this mini-series. What are your thoughts? :hi:

[Lex]

9. OMG--so much to tell about this case.

First, let me start with the fact that lots of people's disgust with the defendant wasn't just the "bi-sexual" liaisons he was having behind his wife's back, but the fact that he was downloading tons of porn, he had no job (hadn't had an income in years), and had basically put them in the hole to the tune of $145,000 in credit card debt alone.

Meanwhile, the (now dead) wife was working like 15 hour days at her job.

I think the children stood by him because he's one of these people who has an overwhelming personality--you are either loyal to him or you are disowned and worthless.

I agree that "Murder on a Sunday Morning" was fabulous, but I think the film-makers thought initially that Peterson was innocent and wanted to work from that angle, even after the first "staircase death" came to light--the woman in Germany. I don't think the documentarians knew coming in to the film about the 1st staircase death, or about the sexual escapades the defendant was having outside the marriage, about the debt they were in, or about the victim's blood spattered up on the inside of the defendant's shorts.

Anyway, a good book to read that tells a more balanced story is Diane Fanning's "Written in Blood.' She has a lot of the details in her book.

[myrna minx]

10. I find it interesting that Peterson's lawyers

lose their footing several times due to the surprises that Peterson never reveals to them on his own i.e the first stair case death and his extra-marital activities/porn. I had the feeling that his attorneys were always wondering what other bombshell was coming. Wow, if as a defendant you're not going to be forthright with the people who are trying to save you from life in prison or death, well that speaks to your character imho. The documentary does a good job at showing the bombshells, then showing how the defense team leaps into spin mode. We the audience learn of these new revelations at the same time as the attorneys which I found quite fascinating.

One question...When the EMT's arrive, most of Mrs. Peterson's blood is dry. Ok. I'm not clear as to what the time lapse is when he last saw her alive to when he discovered her body. I never had that question satisfied by the documentary. Was it an hour or several hours? I can conclude that it wasn't enough time for blood to dry, but I am curious. Thanks!

Oh. Another question. Since the blow-poke was not the murder weapon, how did the prosecution handle this? While I enjoyed this film, upon reflection, I really have no idea that the prosecution's case was. Was their case that his wife discovered and subsequently confronted him with his peccadilloes and then he shoved her down the stairs? Then did they suggest that he crushed her skull with the blow poke? Did they contend that she fell down the whole staircase or just part of it? Wow Lex, I think a viewer should know that the prosecution's case was.
The more I consider this film, I shouldn't be billed as a documentary about the case, it should be billed as behind the scenes of a defense. I am shocked that the filmmakers chose to omit the high velocity spatter contained within his shorts. That to me is a huge piece of evidence that could be the key to a conviction.
Thanks for clearing up some of my questions. The more I think about this film, the more I believe that it played to the viewers emotions rather that hard facts. Hmm...Thanks again.

I look forward to CSI tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up.

[Lex]

11. Let's see . . .

1. The condition of the blood. When Peterson made his phone call to 911 at like 3:15 in the morning, he said his wife "had fallen down the stairs" and she was "still breathing." (Interestingly, he never mentioned the volume of blood that was on the stairs or on his wife, which that amount of blood even to the EMTs was shocking.) The EMTs figured that the "still breathing" statement indicated that this had just happened recently, but when they got there, blood was dry and it was clear it had happened hours before. Peterson never gave a formal statement about what he was doing while she lay bleeding on the stairs. At trial, a neurologist testified that the victim had bled out over a substantial period of time because she had "red neurons" present in her brain, which only occurs if your brain is starved for oxygen over a long period of time.

The Prosecutor showed evidence at trial that there was "blood over blood" evidence indicating 2 attacks on the victim. Blood dried, then was wiped or smeared, then other blood spattered on top of that. Also the victim had blood on the bottoms of her feet as if at some point she stood up in her own blood. They theorized that he must've attacked her, thought she was dead or dying, then she regained consciousness and stood up, and he had to attack her again.

2. The blowpoke. There isn't conclusive evidence that the blowpoke wasn't the murder weapon. The blowpoke that was "found" in the Peterson's garage was "found" by Peterson's older son who at 25 had already served time (4 years) in the Fed Pen for trying to fire-bomb a building at Duke University. I personally think he (the son) found a blowpoke that matched the one the Prosector claimed was the murder weapon and stashed it in the garage so he could show it to his father later. I don't think the defendant, Peterson himself, knew that his son did this. It is an interesting part of the "The Staircase" because Peterson himself acts weirded out by the "finding" of the blowpoke.

3. The State's case. The filmmakers of "The Staircase" didn't show the Prosecution's entire closing, so people really don't have an impression of what the State's case was.

This was it: The victim (the wife) didn't know about Peterson's "other life" of hooking up with guys and downloading male porn. She was working long days at her job (and probably about to be laid off--she was on a list for it) and just didn't know what her husband was up to while she was at work everyday. The night of the murder there was uncontroverted evidence that she was expecting a work email from a co-worker and she'd left her laptop at work, so she told the co-worker that she could send it to her husband's email address. (The co-worker verified all this.)

The Prosecution contends that she went into Peterson's study to await the email and found the porn and evidence of his hooking-up with other guys and she confronted him with it and a fight ensued. They think he chased her into (or dragged her into) the stairwell because he was going to make her death look like a fall because in that way he could collect insurance (double-indeminity for accidental death), plus he had successfully gotten away with the "fall" in the Germany case. I think that he had been planning this for awhile and that night the circumstances just exploded and he did it.

The 6 things that clinched it for me were:

--the blood spatter of her blood up the inside pant leg of his shorts
--the lack of bruising on her legs and buttocks (if it really had been a fall)
--the "red neuron" evidence showing she bled out over hours
--the fact that she had a crushed thyroid cartilidge in her neck (most often occurs in strangulations where someone pushes hard in on the middle of your neck with a thumb)
--the spattered blood over wiped dried blood (indicating an attempted clean-up and 2nd attack)
--the 7 lacerations to the top (almost the crown) of her head

[myrna minx]

12. Thank you so much for your thoughtful and informative posts.

The evidence that you presented convinces me that he is indeed guilty. Wow. I had forgotten about the 911 call stating that she was still breathing. After considering the evidence of the State's case, this murder was incredibly cold and cruel. My god. To imagine her lying there in her own lake of blood, trying to get up only to have come husband return to finish the job is so chilling.

Since this all took place in your hometown, do you recall reading any of Peterson's columns in the newspaper? Prior to the murder, was he a controversial character in the community as the the film suggests? The impression that I got from the film was that he felt that he was David v Goliath against local governmental corruption. I'm curious if he did take on "city hall" or if that was just part of his over-inflated sense of self.

After all of the info that you provided me, I am looking forward to see how CSI presents their (albeit fictional) case.
:hi: Thanks.

[Lex]

13. I read some of his newspaper columns . . .

and they were okay--never struck a chord one way or the other to me.

After his son Clayton was arrested & convicted for trying to firebomb a building at Duke University a few years before, he particularly got nasty about how stupid he thought our police department was. It seemed sour grapes to me--and I doubt that *any* of the first responders that night knew who Peterson was (just a white guy in a nice neighborhood).

He wasn't well-known in the sense that everyone, or even most, people knew him.

Also, the other thing that turned him particularly nasty in columns was that when he ran for Mayor (in 1999 I think), someone uncovered the fact that he had LIED about receiving a PURPLE HEART in Vietnam. He had been lying about that for years, apparently, and even his family members thought it was true.

In my opinion, the cops had no more of a vendetta against Michael Peterson than the cops in LA had against OJ: None. And certainly the State Bureau of Investigation people (SBI) had no reason to try to 'frame' Peterson in any way. They testified about the blood evidence and the autopsy results. They didn't know him at all.