The Staircase: The Murder of Kathleen Peterson

Product Information

Deaver was fired from the SBI in January 2011, after an independent audit of the agency found he had falsely represented evidence in 34 cases, including withholding negative results in the case of Greg Taylor, a North Carolina man who spent seventeen years in prison on a murder conviction based on Deaver's testimony. [30] A bloodstain-analysis team that Deaver had trained was suspended and disbanded. In the 2003 Peterson trial, Deaver testified that he had been mentored by SBI bloodstain specialist David Spittle, worked 500 bloodstain cases, written 200 reports, and testified in 60 cases. During the retrial hearing, SBI Assistant Director Eric Hooks testified that Deaver had written only 47 reports. Spittle testified that he could not recall mentoring Deaver who, since completing a two-day training course in the 1980s, had testified in only four cases, the Peterson case being the third. The SBI cited the bloodstain analysis given in the fourth case as the reason for firing Deaver. [31] Peterson is a Vietnam war veteran whose novels The Immortal Dragon, A Time of War and A Bitter Peace are centred on the conflict. He had also been an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Durham.

Pollard says: “Owls’ talons are needle sharp. They go straight through the hair until they hit the flesh covering the skull. That is what I determined to be the wounds. If that is the cause of her death, then Michael Peterson is automatically an innocent man. They’ve gone through a trial simply because they didn’t know what it was.London studio Tamir Addadi Architecture converted a loft in the city's Muswell Hill area to include steep white stairs that also serve as a cage-style bookshelf.

Peterson and his first wife Patricia lived in Germany for some time. There they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two children, Margaret and Martha. After George's death, the Peterson and Ratliff families became very close. When Elizabeth Ratliff died in 1985, Michael became the guardian of her two children. After Michael and Patricia divorced in 1987, Clayton and Todd lived with Patricia, and Margaret and Martha stayed with Michael, who then moved to Durham, North Carolina. Clayton and Todd later also joined their father. In 1989, Michael moved in with Kathleen Atwater, a successful Nortel business executive. They married in 1997, and Kathleen's daughter Caitlin became the fifth sibling in the blended family. [6] According to Pollard, had a jury been presented with this evidence it would have "materially affected their deliberation and therefore would have materially affected their ultimate verdict". Prosecutors have ridiculed the claim, and Deborah Radisch, who conducted Kathleen's autopsy, says it was unlikely that an owl or any other bird could have made wounds as deep as those on her scalp. However, Radisch's opinion was challenged by other experts in three separate affidavits filed in 2010. [22] Peterson's case is the subject of the French documentary miniseries The Staircase, which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wife's death in an independently published memoir, Behind the Staircase. [2] The Staircase, a 2022 miniseries featuring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also covers the murder case and its aftermath. Several other documentaries have been produced about Kathleen's death, including a sequel to the 2004 French documentary, podcasts, radio shows and other media.The top floor was my favourite floor as this is where the second hand books are kept. There is a huge selection on simple brown wooden shelves that are v aesthetically pleasing. If you have a staircase in your home, you should use it to advantage! A staircase isn’t only a functional piece and part of your decor, it can be also made more practical if you don’t keep it just a staircase. Use this under the stairs space in various ways: make a laundry, a powder room, a home office, a closet or even a reading nook. I can’t wait to share some gorgeous ideas of such reading nooks under the stairs, dive in! Reading Nooks Width of stairs: The width of the stairs depending on the requirements of the building. The average width of the residential building must be 1m and for public buildings, it should be 1.5m to 2m Although forensic expert Henry Lee, hired by Peterson's defense, testified that the blood-spatter evidence was consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs, police investigators concluded that the injuries were inconsistent with such an accident. As Peterson was the only person at the residence at the time of Kathleen's death, he was the prime suspect and was soon charged with her murder. He pleaded not guilty.

Zminkowska De Boise Architects inserted nooks on either side of the stairs to form more structured spaces for reading or studying. The stairs themselves serve as an informal space to gather.

Subscribe to our newsletters

The sky here is really the limit! If you’ve got really high ceilings, why not install shelving all the way up? Keeping all the cubbies perfectly aligned squares keeps this wall from looking too chaotic and can accompany a really large book collection! Keeping some of them empty also works in the favour. A mezzanine guest room and storage area are accessed via a petite geometric staircase that doubles as a bookshelf in this Barcelona apartment renovated by architect Eva Cotman.