A Perfect Husband (28 page)

Before blood analyst Agent Duane Deaver was able to testify in open court as a blood spatter expert, he faced a barrage of questions from David Rudolf, who was challenging the expert's credentials. Rudolf tried to diminish the blood expert, he tried as best he could to rattle Agent Deaver, who had been analyzing bloodstains at crime scenes since 1988.

The defense attorney didn't want the jurors to hear Agent Deaver's findings. Rudolf used his best efforts to stump Agent Deaver, to muddy the waters, to mock the special agent, claiming that Deaver wasn't
qualified
to be called as an expert because his experiments were flawed. In fact, Rudolf's argument against Deaver's testimony would last so long, that the electric power in New York City and parts of the Northeast would have time to go out and be restored again.

David Rudolf tried relentlessly to persuade the court that Deaver was not “proficient” enough to testify in Michael Peterson's murder trial. However, after all the endless hours spent outside the presence of the jury, Judge Hudson would ultimately declare that Agent Duane Deaver, who had testified as an expert in over sixty cases, who had been involved in over five hundred criminal cases during his career, would be heard.

From the moment he took the stand, the state's star witness was bombarded with demands for credentials. In an attempt to sway the jury, to get the jury not to pay too much credence to Deaver's findings, Rudolf was able to get Deaver to admit that he hadn't published any books or scholarly articles, that he hadn't earned any advanced degrees. The blood spatter expert was put on the hot seat by both David Rudolf and Thomas Maher, and he was verbally assaulted for not having “scientifically valid” opinions.

The defense attorneys had already argued, unsuccessfully, that Deaver's opinions should be thrown out. Now, with the agent on the witness stand, they would try to make his findings appear “unreliable.” Agent Deaver would be forced to justify each of his experiments step-by-step.

When Special Agent Duane Deaver was finally able to give his opinions to the jury, he pointed out that his blood spatter findings took a great deal of work. On December 9, 2001, Deaver had spent five hours analyzing the stairway, and he showed jurors his findings, using a model of the stairway in the Petersons' home.

At the scene of a murder, bloodstains could literally point to the killer, and by analyzing their shape, size, and position, Deaver had been able to figure out, not only where the assailant stood, but also how many times he had swung the weapon. As gruesome as it was, Agent Deaver's testimony moved forward. As the blood spatter marks began to fit into the crime scene like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the SBI agent's testimony would captivate the courtroom.

This is the crux of what the jury learned:

1) Kathleen Peterson was assaulted in the stairwell by someone who was wielding a blunt object. Deaver cited a “cast-off” bloodstain on a wall nine feet above the stairwell to support that finding.

2) Kathleen Peterson was struck at least three times, and while her head may have struck the stairs when she fell at some point, there was evidence that the victim was beaten as she was standing. There was one bloodstain that indicated that her head was battered twenty-seven inches above the stairway. Deaver concluded that Kathleen Peterson was in “various positions” when the attack occurred.

3) Michael Peterson had to be standing or crouching near a blood source—either his bleeding wife or a pool of her blood—when a great force was applied. There were eight tiny drops of blood found on the inside of Peterson's khaki shorts, and drops of blood were found on his Converse All Star sneakers as well. Agent Deaver explained that tiny specks of blood could only be created by someone using a great amount of force, that only when blood is projected forcefully, does it break into much smaller drops.

4) Evidence existed that someone had smeared blood in the stairwell, that luminol testing showed an effort to clean up, that one of the steps had been wiped clean. Luminol was a reagent that reacted with the iron found in hemoglobin. A widely used reagent, luminol could locate blood that had been diluted 12,000:1. Agent Deaver testified that there was evidence that the blood on Michael Peterson's shorts was “diluted,” as if someone had tried to use water to wash the blood out.

5) Two of the steps in the stairwell contained bloodstains, transfer stains, made by something metal with a hook on the end. The blood marks had similar characteristics to the blow poke tool, the fireplace tool that could no longer be located in the Peterson house.

6) Deaver used bloody mops, wigs, and sponges to re-create the blood spatter patterns on the Petersons' stairwell. He worked with an identical replica of the staircase, and he explained his findings in the courtroom, using the perfected miniature-scale model of the back staircase to point out the exact measurements of the blood on each step and riser.

7) There was no blood found in the mouth, nose, or nasal passages of Kathleen Peterson during her autopsy. Deaver's opinion was “there was no mechanism for ex-pirated blood,” meaning there was no blood in Kathleen Peterson's passageways to support the notion that she had coughed or sneezed any blood.

8) Deaver concluded that there were three “points of impact” that were made in space. His tests proved that blood spatter patterns on the walls in the stairwell could have only been created when Kathleen Peterson's head was struck “in space,” not from hitting any surface. In order to trace the origin of the blood spatter, Deaver had used a common “stringing technique,” whereby he marked the walls with strings, to find out how far each blood source was from each wall.

9) There was “no significant alteration of bloodstains” in the area of the Peterson stairwell. In Deaver's opinion, the “stairwell was in good condition,” the scene was not contaminated, and therefore an accurate investigation was possible.

10) There was blood evidence to support that Kathleen Peterson was beaten to death while she was standing, faceup, and facedown. Kathleen Peterson's death was not consistent with a fall. The blood spatter expert had been able to trace back, from each bloodstain mark, exactly where the victim and assailant were standing when each blow was delivered. According to Deaver, the assailant stood outside the stairwell, and as Kathleen Peterson was on the twelfth step of an eighteen-step climb, the assailant began beating her with something like a fireplace tool.

Jurors were sent home early, during lunch recess, on the day Duane Deaver's testimony concluded, so that the attorneys from both sides could engage in a hearing. The defense team's battle was a concerted effort, and they were good at presenting a united front. However, the attorneys for Michael Peterson had something horrible lurking: the relevance of the death of Elizabeth Ratliff.

Rudolf and Maher had argued that the latest autopsy findings on Elizabeth Ratliff should not be entered into evidence, telling the court: “It is literally impossible at this time, eighteen years and thousands of miles removed from the death of Elizabeth Ratliff, to determine her true injuries.”

Now in a separate hearing, the subject of Kathleen Peterson's death halted for a moment. In the middle of the trial, the harrowing death of Martha and Margaret's mother—who had been properly buried, exhumed, and buried again in Texas—had come before the court. Rudolf and Maher implied that the death of Elizabeth Ratliff would only bring chaos to jurors, that jurors already had too much information to sort through. They wanted to keep the focus on Kathleen Peterson alone.

Rudolf told Judge Hudson that because it would be impossible to re-create the scene, he objected to having people brought in from Germany to try to recollect Elizabeth Ratliff's death. Rudolf doubted that any witness would be able to articulate what might have happened so long ago, and objected to the prosecution's attempts to “refresh” old recollections. Rudolf wanted to remind the court that this was a case about the death of Kathleen Peterson. There was no evidence against Peterson regarding the death of Elizabeth Ratliff. Rudolf felt he shouldn't be in the position of having to defend a whole different case.

But Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. ruled that the deaths were “sufficiently similar” for the testimony about Elizabeth Ratliff to have bearing in the trial. Prosecutors had argued successfully that the 1985 death would demonstrate “intent, knowledge, and absence of accident.” As the judge made his decision, the usual smile, the usual smug expression, completely disappeared from Mr. Peterson's face. Peterson held his forehead in his hands, shaking his head, his eyes giving away a shadow of disbelief.

It was unclear whether Peterson was acting or reacting. All throughout his trial, Peterson had been jovial. Peterson had been really good at hiding his emotions. Even during the awkward times, when his sexual e-mails were presented, Michael Peterson seemed to have his act down pat. He would enter the court each day, dressed up like a peacock, and smile to the cameras and the onlookers in the courtroom. His entourage behaved in a very smug, confident manner, often joking and laughing when the jury wasn't present. The only ones who weren't smiling very much were the Ratliff girls. During every court recess, Peterson would go over and whisper things to the girls, as if to assure them that everything was going to be okay.

The Ratliff girls would nod, they would sometimes smile at Michael's private remarks. But the girls didn't seem to grasp the pathos, didn't seem to understand the deep catastrophe of this culminating event. For most of the trial, they seemed to be under Michael's watchful eye. Even as the evidence about the death of their mother came forward, they would stare blankly at the people who had come from Germany to testify. When their mother's friends took the stand to speak of their concern for Elizabeth's “baby girls,” neither Margaret, who had turned twenty-one, nor Martha, who was just nineteen, showed any visible reaction.

Cheryl Appel-Schumacher would be the first of many to testify about the death of Elizabeth Ratliff. She and her husband, Tom, had been flown to the United States by the prosecution, and they had dodged reporters awaiting them at the airport. The couple had not wanted to be part of the media circus, but they had agreed to testify. They were not sure what they could offer, but they would provide details about the death scene, in order that the truth be known.

Occasionally wiping tears from her eyes, and often choking up, Cheryl Appel-Schumacher told jurors about the large amount of blood that she and her husband cleaned up after Elizabeth's body was moved. Cheryl testified that the blood stretched from the top of the landing to the bottom of the stairs, and she would break down sobbing as she described using a bowl of water, a rag, and some soap, cleaning each portion of the wall, bit by bit, constantly changing the bowl of water, as it turned bright red.

Cheryl testified that Michael Peterson “took charge” during that very difficult time, which hadn't surprised anyone, because Michael had “come to the rescue” after George Ratliff died, helping Liz manage all of her military affairs.

Cheryl Appel-Schumacher spoke of Elizabeth's daughters, who were then ages three and four, insisting that all of Liz's friends had felt that the Petersons were the right people to be the girls' guardians. Cheryl had vague recollections that “there was some suspicion that things were not as they seemed,” but never did she or her husband suspect Michael Peterson of any wrongdoing. Cheryl had a memory of neighbors mentioning an absence of “footprints in the snow” around the back of the house, but she testified that she herself had never questioned the authorities when they ruled Elizabeth's death an accident.

When Tom Appel-Schumacher took the stand, he confirmed his wife's statements regarding Peterson, and then went on to describe the great amount of blood in Elizabeth Ratliff's home. Tom told jurors that there was a lot of blood up and down the staircase wall, and there appeared to be blood “spattered in different places around the foyer area.” He said that he and his wife had “spent hours” cleaning up all the blood “so that the children would not see it.”

Another witness, Billie Allen, had been flown in from Germany to testify about the floor-heating system in Elizabeth's former home. Allen had become the current resident of Elizabeth's house, and she testified that the house had a special type of floor-heating system, that it had heating tubes that ran under the floors. Prosecutors later pointed out that the floor-heating system would have accounted for Elizabeth Ratliff's body being warm on the morning she was found dead.

During her brief court appearance, Billie Allen handed prosecutors a doctor's note on Karin Hamm's behalf, which stated that Hamm had recent surgery and could not travel to the United States. Jim Hardin still hoped to introduce an English translation of the statement Karin Hamm had given to Art Holland months prior—in which she reportedly saw Michael Peterson hurriedly leaving Ratliff's home the night before her body was discovered.

To the defense attorneys' chagrin, Judge Hudson ruled that Karin Hamm's written statement—about what she saw from her daughter's bedroom window on November 24, 1985—was not admissible in court. As it happened, there was no German translator available to fly into Durham, so at the last minute, Karin Hamm's statement was pulled.

Not that it mattered. The prosecution had a long list of people who came forward to tell the jury about their personal suspicions regarding the death of Elizabeth Ratliff. People flew into Durham to say that Elizabeth's death had caused them emotional pain, that they had accepted the “official report,” which ruled her death an accident, primarily because the military was involved in the investigation, and they felt it was not their place to question protocol.

Those who testified about the discrepancies at the scene, about the mistakes made, about the suspicions and the fabrications of Michael Peterson, included: Dr. Larry Barnes, former army investigator Steve Lyons, Margaret Blair, Barbara O'Hara Malagnino, and Amybeth Berner.

Amybeth Berner told jurors that she had “questions and concerns” about Elizabeth Ratliff's death from the moment she entered the house, testifying that back in 1985 she had called it “a crime scene” and wondered why the authorities hadn't investigated the sudden death fully.

In an attempt to censor any extraneous remarks from each Elizabeth Ratliff witness, the defense insisted on holding hearings outside the presence of to the jury. Even though these hearings were broadcast nationally on Court TV, witnesses would be prevented from detailing the most juicy elements to the jurors.

For instance, in one hearing, Amybeth Berner would tell courtroom observers that she had come to believe, over time, that Michael Peterson was the prime suspect in the death of her friend Elizabeth Ratliff. Berner would also testify, outside the jury's presence, that back in Germany, Peterson had once bragged to her about his “connections” in the CIA, claiming that he could have someone killed.

The statement about Peterson being in the CIA would become a theme—others would bring up the issue privately, because for years Peterson claimed he held a job as a “government consultant.” Of course, it turned out that there was absolutely no truth in Peterson's claims, that there was no evidence that the man ever held any full-time job after his stint with the marines.

However, Peterson had bragged to many folks about his “involvement” with the CIA. He had a library full of books about the CIA; he wrote novels involving fictional characters in the CIA; he was obsessed with the CIA, the FBI, and all forms of special government agencies.

Nonetheless, Amybeth Berner's testimony about Peterson's possible CIA connection was cause for laughter from the defense table, with Peterson leading the way. His defense team's reactions were clearly meant to make Amybeth Berner look like she was a dreamer, like she was just making things up.

“Michael told me he was in the CIA at some point,” Amybeth Berner testified at her hearing, “he said he murdered someone while he was in Vietnam, and that concerned me.”