Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was located guilty in 2003 of killing his second spouse Kathleen Peterson on December nine, 2001. Peterson was granted a 2d trial after a decide found that a key prosecution witness had given fake testimony. Peterson pleaded guilty to manslaughter underneath the Alford statute in 2017. He became launched after serving out his term.
The Staircase, a documentary miniseries approximately Peterson’s case, started out filming shortly after his arrest in 2001 and followed his story till his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he wrote Behind the Staircase, a self-posted book on his lifestyles when you consider that his spouse’s death. This murder case is also the point of interest of The Staircase, a 2022 miniseries starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette.
Peterson became a author for a nearby newspaper, penning an opinion piece, similarly to his employment as an author. His subsequent writings, however, were less popular, and he divorced. Kathleen Hunt Atwater, a lifelong neighbor, and divorced Nortel govt fell in love with him in 1997.
Michael Peterson identifies as a bisexual guy. Detectives observed pornographic photographs of men on Michael’s computer, revealing his sexual orientation. They also found Michael’s e-mails purportedly asking for sex from a male escort.
Michael claims that he first identified he changed into bisexual while he become smitten with the aid of his baseball group’s shortstop. “It changed into a part of who I turned into attempting to keep hidden.” […] And I found out for the time being that I had a strong appeal to each ladies and men,” he stated in Jean-docuseries Xavier’s “The Staircase.”
Michael concealed his sexual orientation while he entered the military and continued to accomplish that till Kathleen’s death. Kathleen turned into privy to his bisexuality and “comfy” with it, he stated in the docuseries. However, the prosecution’s case towards him become heavily prompted through his sexual orientation.
“According to folks who understand [Kathleen] well, she would have been furious to research that her husband, whom she simply loved, become bisexual and having an extramarital relationship no longer with any other girl however even with a person, which could had been humiliating and embarrassing to her,” stated then-ADA Freda Black.
“We suspect there was an argument and a homicide while she learned this facts,” Freda continued. As a result, the prosecution viewed Michael’s bisexuality as a element in Kathleen’s assassination.
@Jasonman94 What’s your take on killer Michael Peterson? The guy got away with it all because of a fraudulent blood spatter expert https://t.co/JYzEbxYhuW
— Daniel Bond (@cool4ever18) September 24, 2022
According to Michael, the reality that he’s bisexual had an effect on the murder jury. “Of positive [Michael’s bisexuality] had an impact!” Why does this suggest homicide? In the identical docuseries, he said, “It made no feel at all, however it went, there it is within the juror’s head.” Judge Orlando Hudson, who presided over Michael’s homicide trial, agreed that testimony about his sexual orientation was probably damaging.
“If the trial have been in 2017, there are some matters I could have changed.” “All of the gay fabric, regardless of how it become used, would were overly unfavourable to the defense,” Hudson stated.
The homicide trial has used and handled Michael’s bisexuality in an expansion of ways due to the fact his disclosure. While the prosecution noticed it because the “cause” for the homicide, Michael believed it become unfairly exploited towards him at some point of the trial, which ended in his conviction for Kathleen’s murder. He entered an Alford plea to a price of voluntary manslaughter in 2017 and obtained a sentence of time served plus no extra jail time.