The defense opened its case on Monday, September 8. Their first witness was Dr. Jan Leestma, a forensic neuropathologist. At the request of the prosecution, he was first questioned outside the presence of the jury.
“With regard to Kathleen Peterson, do you have an opinion whether or not injuries she sustained both externally and internally are consistent with a beating?” Rudolf asked.
“Yes, I do have an opinion.”
“What is that opinion?”
“That they are not consistent with that scenario,” Dr. Leestma said.
Rudolf waved the blowpoke around in the air. Dr. Leestma examined it and declared he disagreed with Dr. Radisch’s testimony that it could inflict the wounds of Kathleen Peterson.
“Dr. Radisch also testified that, in her opinion, the injuries, both internal and external, on Mrs. Peterson were not consistent with an accident in that stairwell. Do you agree or disagree with that?”
“I disagree with that interpretation.”
While the district attorney cross-examined, boisterous laughter and loud voices emerged from the jury room. The noise had begun as a distant murmur, now it was the dominant sound in the courtroom. Judge Hudson stopped the proceedings to have the jurors moved to the jury pool room upstairs.
Broadcast pundits seized on this incident. Some thought it indicative that the jury did not take the case seriously. Others expressed the opinion that if the jury was in a good mood at this point of the trial, they would never convict Michael Peterson.
After lunch, the jurors were seated again in the courtroom. Dr. Leestma reiterated his disagreement with the opinions of Dr. Radisch in both autopsies. He expressed the view that there were four lacerations on Kathleen’s head—the result of two falls causing two impacts each.
When Rudolf asked, “Could Radisch and Gleckman, with just half a brain, overrule the decision of AFIP and Dr. Barnes?” the doctor said, “No, I think she had a stroke.”
He claimed that there were abnormalities in Kathleen’s heart tissue that could account for dizziness. He concluded by repeating his assertion that Kathleen Peterson’s injuries were inconsistent with a beating—that they were not typical wounds from a round object and that they were not consistent with blows of any sort. He insisted that there was, “robust and reliable evidence that her injuries were the result of a fall.”
After the defense portion of Leestma’s testimony, Rudolf and Michael Peterson looked at each other and grinned hard. Michael Peterson slapped Rudolf on the back. They were certain of victory.
Jim Hardin took the offensive when he began the cross-examination. “How much do you charge per hour for sworn testimony in the courtroom?”
Leestma testified that his in-court testimony rate was $500 per hour. He charged $350 per hour to review records and $75 per hour for travel during a normal workday. He had billed for services two or three times since inception of the case—for a total of about $10,000.
Next, Hardin attacked his conclusions in Kathleen Peterson’s death. Leestma equivocated about the number of falls and in his certainty that all of her injuries had been caused by those falls.
When asked about the injuries to Kathleen’s face, he said, “One possibility I considered, and I have no way to go with it any more than saying, ‘Well, maybe something like this happened,’ is that she ended up somehow on her hands and knees trying to get herself up after one of these falls and somehow either she fainted or she slipped and her face went down on the stairs. I really can’t do much better than that, and that borders on speculation on my part.”
“Well, how many times would she have to do that to cause these?”
“Uh, it could be one or two times. I don’t know.”
“Could it be more?” Hardin pressed.
“That’s possible.”
“Can you say with certainty that she wasn’t struck with some instrument to cause them?”
“Those don’t look like, uh, blows with some instrument. There’s virtually no pattern to them—they’re just bruise-like things. Could there be some instrument of some sort that could do that? Sure, there could. I just don’t know what the impacting surface is.”
Asked about what surfaces would cause the injuries to her left shoulder and down to her left hand, he replied, “These look like blunt impacts to something. The floors, the stairs, the wall, who knows?”
“[…] At least it’s possible that each of them is individually caused?”
“I suppose it is possible. I think that’s unlikely,” Leestma said.
Dr. Leestma stated his belief that original 1985 Elizabeth Ratliff autopsy results were correct. “So, are you eliminating completely the possibility that Elizabeth Ratliff was struck by some instrument?” Hardin asked.
“I think it’s unlikely,” Leestma said. Then he blathered about the wounds, trying to avoid giving a direct and definitive answer.
“Okay. So—But at least it’s possible that Elizabeth Ratliff was struck by some instrument?” Hardin pressed.
“I’ll never say never and never say always. So, it’s there. It’s a possibility.”
The defense next called Major Timothy Palmbach to the stand. He was an employee of the State of Connecticut Department of Public Safety. He also worked part-time for Dr. Henry Lee’s Forensic Research Training Center.
The whole purpose of his arrogant testimony was to slash and burn the Durham Police Department and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. He criticized the collection of evidence and the length of time it took to tape off the scene and restrict movement near Kathleen’s body. But he saved his most vicious attacks for Agent Deaver. He disputed Deaver’s conclusions and ridiculed his technique.
When questioned about Palmbach’s testimony, some state police officers across the country expressed dismay. They insisted that there is a procedure to follow if another officer suspects wrongful conclusions by a crime scene analyst. There is an official protocol for cleaning up concerns between jurisdictions. Regardless of the merit of his opinions, they professed, revealing this information as a witness for the defense in a murder trial is not one of the methods members of the police force would ordinarily use. However, in the State of Connecticut, there is no official policy and no existing law that prohibited or discouraged Palmbach from presenting this testimony. Due to scheduling difficulties, Palmbach’s cross-examination was reserved for a future date.
Following his testimony, the judge ruled that a statement from Christina Tomasetti could be read into the record. Christina was Todd’s companion on the night of Kathleen’s death. Now she lived on the West Coast, was pregnant and, according to the defense, her doctor did not want her to travel. Many suspicions were raised about the real reason for her absence in the courtroom.
Nonetheless, a member of David Rudolf’s staff read her description of the early morning hours of December 9, 2001. Her statement concluded: “Mr. and Mrs. Peterson were in good spirits and very happy when Todd and I left the house at 10:20 P.M., Saturday night. I gave this statement of my own free will.”
In response, the prosecution read the following statement into the record: “On January 8 at 1600, I, Art Holland, interviewed Ms. Christina Tomasetti. Ms. Tomasetti said she did not see Ms. Peterson while she was in the house.”
Then Ron Guerette, the investigator for the defense team, took the stand. He explained how he had ordered the boarding-up of the stairwell and the additional actions he had taken there. He said that he was present every time the plywood was removed for a defense expert to view the stairwell.
With the judge’s permission granted, it was now time for the jury to inspect 1810 Cedar Street for themselves. A journalist from the Raleigh News & Observer was selected as the press representative at the scene. In his report, he said that the jury members went into the house in two groups of eight. Jury members went one by one to the staircase. Some of them walked all the way up the stairs and down—others walked halfway up. Some walked three steps up and looked back to see what it would look like to fall from that position—some made swinging movements as if the blowpoke were in their hand. Many of them crouched down to look more closely at the blood spatter in the lower level.
The defense hoped that the jurors would perceive that the space was too tight to swing a blowpoke. And they did. But some of them came to another conclusion as well—that the space was too small for someone to sustain such massive injuries from such a short fall.