The Advocates

Convicted murderer Michael Peterson has been waiting for a retrial since 2003—a possibility that may occur at a hearing this September, according to his attorney David Rudolf. But Peterson does not wait alone. An entourage of supporters scattered throughout the world are highly invested in his well-being. Towerview’s Sanette Tanaka delves into the lives of Peterson’s closest friends and family members to see what drives them to believe in Peterson. Tanaka’s aunt and uncle also call themselves supporters of Peterson, though she did not consult them for any part of this article.

The sun barely inched above the horizon when 72-year-old Joan Miner began the hour-and-a-half drive from Durham to Nashville, North Carolina. Since she always left her house at 6 a.m. to account for incidentals, she arrived in Nashville with an hour to spare. She turned onto an unmarked street. The complex up ahead comprised several large gray and red buildings, rather plain-looking, except for a 10-foot barbed fence that circled the premise of Nash Correctional Institution.

Miner took a moment to collect her license and adjust her hat and scarf in the mirror. Since she could not bring anything else into the prison, she liked to dress for the occasion. Prisoners can only host one visitation session per week, so Miner tried to make the affair special for her friend and convicted murderer.

In the visitation building, the prisoners, all clad in gray, sat at individual wooden tables with three chairs at each. More than 980 inmates reside in the medium-security prison, incarcerated for crimes ranging from calculated murder to bodily mutilation of minors, says Miner. Yet only a handful had visitors that day, or any day. The man Miner had come to see is different. Scattered throughout the world, he has a core group of about 30 friends and family members who visit regularly, and approximately 80 people whom he said he corresponds with through letters and phone calls.

Miner scanned the room for him, her close friend—67-years-old and still a wonder in her eyes.

“Hello, Mike,” she greeted him.

December 9, 2001 haunts Michael Peterson. Early that morning, he said he found his wife, Kathleen, in a pool of blood at the bottom of a staircase in their mansion. According to Peterson, he immediately dialed 911 and frantically reported that his wife had had an accident and was still breathing. Kathleen died before the paramedics arrived, and Peterson was convicted of her murder.

Word of Kathleen’s death spread quickly. The news shocked the community, as the Petersons, who had married in 1997 after living together for nearly a decade, were already prominent figures in Durham. Peterson, Trinity ’65, is a Duke alum, a former editor of The Chronicle, a best-selling novelist and a frequent contributor to The Durham Herald-Sun. After dabbling in city politics, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1999. Controversy over his Purple Heart medals may have impacted his bid for mayor. Although Peterson had previously made claims that he received the medals while in combat in Vietnam, he later said he received the medals from a car accident while stationed in Japan.

Equally well known, Kathleen was the first female student accepted into Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering in 1971. Before she died, she worked as an executive for Nortel Networks and served on the Board of the Durham Arts Council.

The Petersons hosted exquisite parties in their sprawling white Forest Hills mansion and were fixtures at social events. Their friends and family described their relationship as one based on love, trust and warmth.

“I liked to be around them just so I knew that someone got along well,” Miner said. “They made me feel optimistic and hopeful that some people could make it work.”

During the week that followed Kathleen’s death, Peterson had not been charged with any crime or even named as a suspect. He maintained that the fall was accidental. He told media outlets and Durham Police that he and Kathleen had been drinking wine and sitting by the pool to celebrate a movie contract for one of his books. Kathleen left to go to sleep and that was the last time he saw her unscathed.

Although the police initially deemed Kathleen’s death an accident, the amount of blood, unusual patterns of blood spillage and Kathleen’s autopsy results suggesting blunt force trauma to the head caused officials to consider foul play. The prosecution team, led by former District Attorneys Jim Hardin, Mike Nifong and Freda Black and Assistan District Attorney David Saacks, argued that someone had beaten Kathleen and caused her fall.

In addition to police and medical examiner reports, the state drew heavily on evidence of Peterson’s bisexuality and a similar incident in which his first wife’s friend, Elizabeth Ratliff, was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in 1985 while the couple lived in Germany. Peterson was the last person to see Ratliff before her death but was not a suspect in the case. The validity of some pieces of evidence such as the rumored debt the Petersons were in was contested. Officials searched the Peterson home but never found a murder weapon at the time of the trial.

Less than two weeks after the incident, a Durham County grand jury indicted Peterson for first-degree murder. On October 10, 2003, after an approximately five-month trial, one of the longest trials in state history, Peterson was found guilty of murdering Kathleen and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

“I believe my brother was in the paper every single day, at least a couple times a week, for the entire duration of the pre-trial,” said Peterson’s brother Bill Peterson, who left his position as a senior vice president of electrical facilities in Nevada for one year to work as Peterson’s attorney in 2002. “If nothing else, it was a very interesting story. It involved sex, money, violence and mystery. It also involves someone who is a person of influence.”

Coverage of Peterson was both balanced and warranted, said Nancy Wykle, editor of The Durham Herald-Sun, calling it a “high profile case.”

“I think we were very upfront in our coverage. The newspaper had had a professional relationship with Mike,” said Wykle, who was assistant managing editor at the time of the trial. “I think our reporters are professional and won’t come into something with an axe to grind.”

After Peterson was convicted, his case fell from the spotlight, his name reduced to that of Durham lore. For a distinct group of supporters, though, he cannot fade away so easily. Some, like Miner, are old friends, and some are family. About half of the people he corresponds with are from overseas—Switzerland, Belgium, England, France and Germany—and felt compelled to speak with him after seeing a documentary about the trial called The Staircase. Peterson’s supporters meet up on occasion and share news through phone calls and email threads, spearheaded by Miner, Michael’s daughter-in-law Becky Peterson and a French woman who edited The Staircase, Sophie Brunet.

The point lady

According to Brunet, age 50, she first became acquainted with Peterson through a computer screen. She sifted through more than 600 hours of film detailing the events leading up to and involving the trial to create what would become Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s eight-part documentary The Staircase.

As she watched the footage, Brunet became more and more convinced that the man on the screen was innocent. She was moved by the way he talked about his wife, their wedding and relationship. One month after the verdict, in November 2003, Brunet decided to write to Peterson and offer to send him some books. The two began corresponding regularly about novels, paintings and Paris—Brunet’s hometown.

One year later, Brunet visited him for the first time, and she now flies to the United States several times a year to see Peterson. She also talks on the phone with him almost every day and emails his friends and family regularly.

“How wonderful it is to visit him,” she said. “You get to spend two wonderful hours with a man who will listen to you and is really interested in your life.”

Brunet is the one of the few people on Peterson’s regular list of visitors who met him after the trial. But the video editor feels intimately acquainted with him, stating that her belief in his innocence stems from knowing him as a person, not from the evidence presented in court.

Although Brunet said the group of supporters provides some degree of solace, she maintains that she draws comfort primarily from Peterson. The others are “wonderful but just an addition,” she said. “[Peterson] helps us focus on how good it is to live our lives because he can’t,” she said. “Seeing the way he copes with it all makes us want to try and do so. He gives us strength.”

Counting the moments

Although Miner finds the drives to Nash Correctional Institution comforting, 34-year-old Todd Peterson—Michael’s son—finds them anything but.

A few times a year, Todd journeys from his residence in Mexico to North Carolina. During the final stretch of his trip, he maneuvers his car down the winding road as if on autopilot, staring absentmindedly ahead. He glances at his watch from time to time—no use being late.

“There’s always a bit of stress—will you even be able to see him? It always crosses your mind,” Todd said, remembering occasions when his father’s close friends and family members have been turned away at the prison. “I never think I will see him until I actually see him walk through those doors.”

Todd described a visit to the prison: his father strides through the metal prison doors. He once shared his son’s fair skin and brown hair. The father’s hair has since turned gray, and his face, now lined with age, visibly lights up as soon as he sees his son. And for a few moments, Todd has his dad back.

“The first hour is awesome, you don’t worry about time because you know you’ll see him after the lunch break,” Todd explained. “You’re talking, laughing, giving life updates, sharing funny stories about what’s going on in prison…. It’s an hour of beauty. You’re catching up with someone you love.

“The second hour is really fucked up. It’s beautiful, fun, joking—but you’re always looking at that clock. You have one hour, 15 more minutes, five minutes. If you really add up how much time I have left with my dad, it will probably be only 20 to 40 hours until he’s dead.”

That realization, Todd said, took him years to accept.

“Literally, every night, I had tears in my eyes thinking of my dad in prison and in a jail cell,” he said. “It is forever. The next time he gets out of jail, he is going to be dead. They are going to cart his body out of there. Your dad is gone forever. When you deal with that, it is much easier on a day-to-day level.”

Todd considers himself to be fairly successful in his career and personal life, but he couldn’t “break free of the chains” until he physically removed himself from the East Coast and the memories that haunt him there. He now focuses on other ventures, like his real estate business in Mexico.

Todd and his brother Clayton are children from Peterson’s first marriage. Their siblings are Peterson and Kathleen’s wards, Margaret and Martha Ratliff, the daughters of the couple’s deceased friends, and Kathleen’s daughter, Caitlin Atwater.

“I know my children were hurt, were very sad after the trial,” Michael said in an April 13 interview. “But I think—at least I hope—that the kids were also drawn closer together. I think people often become closer in sadness as much as in joy. That’s what I try to focus on.”

<p>But rather than draw his brothers and sisters closer together, Todd said the lack of a figurehead drives an unmistakable rift into the family, and that the distance is what affects Todd the most. </p>

“Kathleen and my dad were such beautiful people and fostered a beautiful family environment,” Todd said. “That happy nest doesn’t exist anymore. We kind of lost the nucleus of love…. We would be a happier family unit if my dad wasn’t in prison and Kathleen wasn’t dead.”

Todd and Caitlin have not spoken since his father was charged. Atwater has publicly denounced Peterson, claiming that the evidence shows that he indeed killed her mother. She could not be reached for comment.

No matter how routine the visits to North Carolina have become, Todd cannot shake the stress that comes with each one. The minutes tick by, indicating less and less time he has left. Although Todd cherishes every moment of his visit with his dad, he has to count each one, too—and like son, like father. Peterson, too, recognizes the limitations of time. He tries to make each minute count, particularly during visits.

“Basically, this is it—the moment we have,” Peterson wrote in a letter March 17. “Why would I choose—and it’s always a choice—to be miserable rather than happy?”

In good spirits?

Journalist David Perlmutt first got to know Peterson when the two co-authored a book published in 1998. The Charlotte Observer reporter quickly began to consider both Peterson and Kathleen his close friends. Perlmutt now visits Peterson two to three times a year, and little seems to have changed, Perlmutt said.

“It’s like we’re sitting in the kitchen of his house,” he said. “We just sort of resume where we left off—mainly just catching up with each other. He asks me about my family, my daughter. We talk about the case, the status of it, where it is.”

Sometimes Perlmutt wonders if Peterson is as content as he seems. Peterson said he refuses to get his spirits down, at least during visits.

“Since I enjoy—treasure—the visits and visitors, I always try to have a good time,” Peterson said. “How do I stay positive? Part of it is Buddhism, part is just the way I am. I am almost never down or depressed.”

If Peterson feels downtrodden, he never lets it show in front of Perlmutt.

“He looks me straight in the eye and says, ‘I am fine,’” Perlmutt said. “[His positive attitude] seems pretty genuine to me, but I have no idea how he is when people aren’t around.”

They discuss the past as well, which often revolves around Kathleen. Ten years later and Peterson is still madly in love with his wife, Perlmutt said.

“I wouldn’t visit him if I didn’t think he was innocent,” Perlmutt said. “I do this for Kathleen as much as I do Mike. I mean, Kathleen is my friend, too.”

An atypical inmate

Tom Steele, 68, knows Michael Peterson pretty well. The two roomed together at Duke in Sigma Nu’s section, and Peterson succeeded Steele as president of the fraternity. Steele was present during Peterson’s second wedding with Kathleen. Peterson was an usher in Steele’s wedding to his first wife.

Thus, several times per year, the former roommate makes the trek from Wintergreen, V.A., to Nashville. During each visit, the two gray-haired, fading men easily slip back into their usual banter.

Peterson has made the most of prison, as much as one can do in the circumstances, Steele said. For the most part, Peterson’s time is his own. He writes and reads constantly. In large, loopy cursive, he scribbles longhand on sheets of loose-leaf paper and sends them to his editor, who types them up and sends them back. He subscribes to Bloomberg Businessweek and The Wall Street Journal, and also reads The Raleigh News and Observer.

When he isn’t poring over notes and books, Peterson can be found in the work yard, Steele said. He added that Peterson is in the best physical shape of his life. Although Steele joked that he should check himself in for a gym stint, Peterson’s life is “not a way you or I would ever want to live.”

Peterson is allowed to have 18 people on his visitation list, which he can change twice per year in October and April. He can have one two-hour visit. Peterson said he can remember only two or three weeks in the past eight years when he did not have visitors.

“One time Mike told me that most people in here never get a visitor,” Steele said. “Mike fills his visitation quota every week without fail.”

Peterson’s situation is atypical, Steele said. According to the North Carolina Department of Correction’s 2010 report, 57 percent of prisoners are black and just two in 10 have completed high school. Under those parameters, Steele is acutely aware that the college-educated person sitting in front of him defies the norm.

Peterson, too, acknowledges the discrepancy. He wrote March 17 that he was “virtually the only Duke fan in here (certainly the only Duke grad).”

It is that discrepancy that hinders the chances of Michael getting a retrial, Steele said.

“He is not a poor homeless person who is convicted without evidence. He is not a sympathetic figure to most people,” Steele said. “If you asked me what my opinion is whether this will be resolved, I would say that is probably not likely to happen because the fox is guarding the chicken house. To the world, [Peterson] is another rich kid who went Duke.”

Peterson’s past attempts at securing a retrial have failed. In October 2005 one of his defense attorneys filed an appeal stating that irrelevant evidence presented by the prosecution prevented Peterson from getting a fair trial. In November 2008 another defense lawyer filed a motion alleging that prosecutors withheld evidence during the trial.

The most recent incident that offers Peterson hope involves a North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agent who was fired in January for hiding and manipulating key blood evidence. In 2003 the agent, Duane Deaver, served as a vital witness for the prosecution, stating that the blood patterning on the stairwell and on Peterson’s clothes proved that he attacked Kathleen with a fireplace poker. Based on those developments, Peterson’s lawyer David Rudolf met April 12 with the judge on the case, Orlando Hudson, who agreed to schedule a hearing for this September. During the hearing, if Hudson determines that Deaver’s testimony unfairly influenced the jury’s verdict, he may grant Peterson a new trial. Deaver’s lawyer, Philip Isley, declined to comment.

Steele said he tries to be a supportive friend to Peterson because in the end, that’s all he can do. And from Michael, Steele learned firsthand that the justice system is flawed.

“I used to wonder if a plain old person in the same circumstance could ever be found guilty,” Steele said. “Now I know.”

The road ahead

For the first few years after Peterson’s conviction, Miner tried to convince everyone she encountered that he was innocent. Now she draws comfort from the small group of supporters.

“These are articulate, honest, good people,” Miner said. “A couple have fallen away, but basically, this is just the best group of people I ever knew. I think I will remember them forever.

Petersons’s supporters wait for the day that he is exonerated of all charges, though some are more optimistic than others. Until then, they serve as mutual supporters of one another and of Peterson. Miner said Peterson gives her purpose, a reason for living.

“Would I be disappointed if he got out and my job was done? Maybe a little, and that’s wicked,” she said. “When your children are grown up, you want them to get a cold so you can take care of them. But you don’t want them to get a cold. It’s that dichotomy.”

Ultimately, though, Miner is satisfied knowing she has lived her life well and helped a friend in need.

“This has changed my life, as I am proud of myself,” she said. “I spent so many years being there for someone. I am loyal. You never know if you are or not, unless you have reason to be.”

Correction: Tom Steele attended Michael Peterson's second wedding with Kathleen. The Chronicle regrets the error.