After the lieutenant was excused from the witness stand, the courtroom fell back into tedious testimony from an attorney who taught finance and law in the department of Business Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He presented the deadly dull details of how Kathleen’s property would be divided since she died without a will.
The direct, cross-examination and re-direct of this witness were so mind-numbing that it prompted a quip from the judge at the end of the day. After the jury had been dismissed, he turned to the attorneys and asked, “Did you all enjoy your law school property review?”
The next morning began with evidence technician Dan George on the stand. Part of his testimony included Resusci Anne, the life-size dummy used as a CPR training tool. She was dressed for court in a red turtleneck, navy shirt and pants. She wore a blonde wig and was about the same size as Kathleen. As the demonstration began, Todd Peterson sat in the audience popping Tic Tacs like a maniac, with an amused expression across his face.
George propped the dummy on the step beside the witness box in an approximation of the position of Kathleen’s body, and pantomimed Michael Peterson’s impulsive race to his wife’s body. He demonstrated how the defendant put an arm around her, but did not hold or caress her. He then described how the combined efforts of an officer and Todd Peterson forced Michael Peterson from the stairwell and to the sofa in the breakfast nook.
Black questioned George about his interaction with other members of the police, the removal of Kathleen’s body, the gathering of evidence and the videotaping he had done throughout.
A short break in the proceedings gave the prosecution time to set up their next exhibit. When the jury door opened, laughing and giggling wafted into the courtroom. Unaware of the drama about to unfold, many of the jurors took their seats with smiles on their faces.
At the push of a button, all of that changed. The prosecution played the videotape of the crime scene. They elected to run it without any commentary. The courtroom filled with a hush so deep it echoed in the spectators’ ears.
The video opened with a shot from the circular driveway and up the brick walk toward the Kent Street door. The camera paused to zoom in on a droplet of blood on the walkway. Then, it traveled onto the slate porch and focused on the smear of blood on the doorway.
The jury was rapt. Brows furrowed, hands stroked beards, cheeks flushed. As the camera entered the house and moved ever closer to the body of Kathleen Peterson, the darkness of the jurors’ thoughts was written in their expressions and their body language.
Hands flew to mouths. A number of jurors squirmed in their seats. At times, some flinched away and then forced their gaze back to the monitor. The pale face of an older woman developed a progressive look of distaste. The lines beside her mouth deepened from shallow furrows to infinite crevices.
A young blonde juror looked on the verge of bursting into tears. Another woman sank deeper and deeper into her seat until she almost disappeared behind the rail. A young male juror held his chin against his throat, forcing him to view the video with an upward gaze as though he could not bear to face it full on. A middle-aged woman sucked her lips into her mouth and blew them out over and over again.
A gray-haired man blinked his eyes in rapid rhythm. His hand rose to his mouth, formed a fist, and his teeth latched onto his ring finger. An older man removed his glasses, wiped his eyes, rubbed his forehead and clenched his jaw with enough force to distort the line of his face.
When the tape ended, the panel looked as if their collective heart was full of an intense desire to fly away—the devout wish to be anyplace, anywhere but the jury box. When they had filed out for lunch break on previous days, they would go in pairs, chatting together, exchanging grins—the anticipation of an hour of freedom splashed across their faces.
It was a different jury that headed out of the courtroom that day. They were as somber as a hanging judge. Their eyes cast down, their movements sluggish—their mood and the ambiance of the courtroom underwent a dramatic transformation that weighed down on everyone for days.
Large cardboard boxes were lugged into the courtroom and piled on the bench behind the prosecution table. Hardin and George began to empty them of the presentation of evidence seized or collected by the evidence technician from the home of Michael Peterson. The process of revealing these items was a tedious but necessary step in courtroom procedure. It demonstrated that the chain of custody was clear and constant.
They started with State’s Exhibit 1, a brown paper bag covered with writing. George donned a pair of latex gloves and, with a small pink utility knife, sliced open the bag. From it, he removed a roll of brown paper. Spreading that open, he revealed a pair of shorts belonging to Michael Peterson. Holding the shorts, he walked before the jury displaying the blood-soaked front and the lightly spattered back.
That Friday afternoon, he also presented Michael Peterson’s blood-smeared shirt and his blood-spotted shoes. On Monday morning, he continued his introduction of evidence. When he finished, the defense battered him about evidence that was not seized—the telephone, the towels beneath Kathleen’s head, the keys in the door.
Tuesday morning, the cross-examination of Dan George was preceded by a hearing with one of the jury members. She had ridden on an elevator with Michael Peterson and his family. After determining that she had not heard anything that would affect her ability to be fair, the judge called the jury back into the courtroom. He instructed them to use the back elevator to avoid people involved with the case. At times, the unreliability of the old courthouse elevators made it impossible for the jurors to comply.
The cross-examination of Dan George continued throughout that day and into the next. Rudolf attacked his experience, the decisions he made and the contamination of the crime scene by first responders, police personnel, the defendant and others.
On re-direct, Hardin focused on the reality that crime-scene contamination is a fact of life in every investigation. “Have you ever been to a scene,” he asked George, “where everything was absolutely frozen in place? The defendant was still standing there?”
“No.”
“The weapon still in his hand?”
“No, sir, I haven’t.”
“Do you have an opinion whether that the second he moves around in the scene, that scene’s altered?”
“In every case,” George agreed, “it probably would be. Yes, sir.”
The prosecutor established that George was aware of the time line of events prior to his arrival at the scene. George admitted that he had no knowledge about the positioning of the body before he got to the scene. Hardin then walked him through a list of injuries to Kathleen’s body and George acknowledged that he only observed an injury to her eye.
“But you still processed the scene?” Hardin asked.
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“And no one whatsoever,” Hardin emphasized, “gave you any information about what Mr. Peterson was doing before EMS got there, did they?”
“No, sir, they did not.”
On re-cross, Rudolf disputed George’s previous testimony that no one had sprayed luminol in the lower stairwell. He produced a photograph that depicted a white residue in the area of the stairway that George admitted looked like dried luminol.
On re-re-direct, Hardin held up the same photo Rudolf had shown and elicited the opinion of George that it was not a photo taken by the Durham police. He told the jury that if luminol had been sprayed there during the investigation, it would have been tracked off the stairs by someone. When Hardin asked if it were possible that one of the defense experts sprayed the area, the defense went ballistic.
“Object to that as an outrageous allegation,” Rudolf shouted.
The judge upheld Rudolf’s objection, but admonished him about editorializing.
On re-re-cross, a squabble erupted between counsel over the appropriateness of questioning the evidence technician on the contents of the autopsy report. The prosecution prevailed and, to his great relief, Dan George was released from the stand.
It had been a difficult day for Candace Zamperini, too. She sought healing and strength at the Maplewood Cemetery. The day was still, the air hot and moist. No earthly conditions were present to make the chimes by Kathleen’s grave sing. However, when Candace stood by the side of her sister’s resting place, the light, bright tinkling of the chimes filled the air. It did not stop until Candace walked away.
Candace experienced this inexplicable phenomenon many times throughout the trial. Kathleen was speaking to her. And Candace was listening.