North Carolina Court of Appeals – rejected on September 19, 2006
North Carolina Supreme Court – affirmed appeal on November 9, 2007
Subsequent action(s)
Motion for new trial denied by Durham County Superior Court on March 10, 2009
New trial granted on December 16, 2011
Entered Alford plea on February 24, 2017, sentenced to 86 months with credit for time served
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting
Orlando Hudson
Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony.[1] In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed.
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] Miniseries The Staircase starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also covers the 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.
^"Novelist Michael Peterson, Convicted of Wife's Murder, Is Released From Prison and Will Get New Trial". ABC. 2011. Archived from the original on December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2001.
^Cain, Brooke. "Hollywood just can't seem to get enough of the Michael Peterson 'Staircase' story". www.charlotteobserver.com. The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
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