Fifty-seven

THE VOICE OF FREDA BLACK

 

“When the family first came into our offices, they basically expressed their disbelief that this really was a homicide and that Michael committed the crime. Candace and Lori were the first to have a discussion with us, and they made a specific request to know what evidence we had. We were leery to tell them all our evidence, because they didn’t know us, and they weren’t in our corner yet.

“Jim and I told them some things about the blood spatter evidence, and offered them an opportunity to look at the autopsy pictures. And when Candace looked at them, she cried. A few weeks later, she had a conversation with Art Holland, and with Dr. Radisch, and Candace called to let us know that she felt satisfied that her sister had been murdered.

“A friend of Lori’s, a guy named Dennis, had told her that he had sexual relations with Michael. And Lori wasn’t sure if it was true, but she was hopeful that if it was true, that maybe it was just a onetime thing. She told me she didn’t want to worry Kathleen about it, so she made the conscious decision not to tell Kathleen. When we contacted this fellow, he said he would refuse to testify. He had hired a lawyer, and we decided he wasn’t going to be worth it. It was going to be a big ordeal to get him up here, and we had Brad, who would cover that category.

“Their suggestion that this was some type of revenge, because Peterson had been critical in his newspaper articles, that people would have framed him out of revenge, the average citizen would find it hard to believe. Most of the people who testified didn’t even know who Michael Peterson was. How would they come up with an idea to frame somebody that they don’t even know?

“Mr. Peterson is not O.J. Simpson. He’s simply not that important of a person. They tried to use the idea that we framed him, you know, that there was contamination of the scene. Peterson was so arrogant that he thought we would risk everything by framing him. But why would we want to do that? It’s an unbelievable allegation to think that people from all these different agencies would risk everything they work for in the legal process.

“The only picture that we consistently got of Michael Peterson was that he and his wife appeared to have a solid relationship. We heard that from all the people who knew them, which made us believe that if there were really bad things going on in that home, it was going on behind closed doors, that Kathleen was not telling friends and family everything, which was not surprising to me.

“Kathleen was the type of woman who would have found it embarrassing and humiliating to admit she was being mistreated. A woman of her stature and position, to be willing to put up with what she was probably having to put up with, whether it was the anger, whether it was the demeaning comment. I would think that because his ego was so big, Peterson didn’t fathom that this woman was supporting him and his children. He probably didn’t let his mind go there.

“Kathleen probably didn’t confide in anyone. We tried to find someone who was her best girlfriend, but we never found that person. We tried to find out who her best friends at work were, but we kept coming up on a dead end. I think Michael mesmerized what little spare time she had. And if you think about the lifestyle she had, you know, if she wasn’t at work, she was either at home cooking or just doing all the things that it takes to run a household that big. There were the parties that she hosted, and she took care of the girls. So where was she going to have any extra time to even have a best girlfriend?

“Rudolf showed different pictures and videos of items in their house, trying to prove that they weren’t poor, that they weren’t hurting for money. Rudolf showed the video over and over again, he showed still pictures and certificates of authenticity, trying to show that all of the Petersons’ material possessions were worth a lot of money.

“One of the items they showed was something that dated back like a zillion years ago. It was a figurine or something supposedly from an ancient Chinese Dynasty. And they showed a certificate of authenticity, which stated the object was purchased in May of 2002. But all I could think was, why is he buying expensive artwork when he’s supposed to be paying lawyers? To me, it’s just a show of his selfishness. Here he’s going to go to trial for first-degree murder, and he’s got bills to pay, but Peterson goes out and buys a luxury item.

“When we were executing the final search warrant, I went into the house with the men from the police department, and, I mean, the house was not kept up well. There were trash cans overflowing with garbage. There were items of linen just laying in the closet. It was definitely not very tidy, and he’d been living there with the children since he’d gotten out on bond. I really don’t believe he wanted to clean the house. I don’t think that he cared about anything in the house, and whether it was clean or not.

“We were there in June, and the primary reason we were there was so we could take measurements to have a carpenter reconstruct a portion of the staircase. We also had FBI come with us to take some fiber samples, because there was a fiber in front of one of Kathleen’s fingernails. We believe that she had her hands on her head, to try to fend off blows, and in the process, some of her own hair came out, and some other fiber ended up under her nail. But as it turned out, we weren’t able to match that fiber.

“We always believed that Mr. Peterson got rid of the weapon. One key reason was because of this perfectly round spot of blood that was found outside the front door of the house. Now, according to what Mr. Peterson told EMS when they got there, he had not really gone outside, except perhaps to look out the door. But Duane Deaver explained that because of the roundness of that spot, it had come from a source that was perpendicular to the pavement. As opposed to something coming off clothes or shoes, it was a blood drop that came off an item.”