Owls are not what it seems

The American was given life for the murder of his wife. The crime may have been committed by a bird

American Caitlin Peterson died on December 9, 2001. Her husband Michael thought that a 48-year-old woman fell from the stairs, mixing alcohol and valium. The court decided that Caitlin killed his husband - since he was unhappy in marriage and for the sake of insurance - and sentenced him to life imprisonment. There is an alternative version of what happened: an ordinary owl could attack a woman. Now the case is on a revision, and Michael Peterson is awaiting a new process at large. "Medusa" tells about this mysterious business.

Death

On the evening of December 9, 2001, Caitlin Peterson and her husband Michael sat by the pool in the courtyard of his house in North Carolin and drank wine. Closer to the night, Kaitlin left, and Michael remained on the street. About three in the morning he went into the house and saw that his wife was lying unconscious on the floor. Peterson called the salvation service and said that his wife, apparently, fell from the stairs.

As the forensic examination established, Kaitlin Peterson found signs of damage to a dull object on his head. She died from blood loss about one and a half to two hours after she was injured. Experts suggested that the cause of injuries could be blows on the head with a slight stupid object - for example, a poker that her sister gave Caitlin. At first, the police could not find the poker at first - and in the case the specific gun of the murder did not appear at all.

Michael himself was sure that his wife stumbled on the stairs because she mixed alcohol and Valium. A blood test showed that she really drank a little, but was not very drunk and, for example, could, according to the laws of North Carolina, get behind the wheel. The body also found a small amount of Valium.

Michael and Caitlin maintained relations since the late 1980s, and in 1997 they got married. Kaitlin by that time held a leading position in the Nortel telecommunications company, and Michael, who had fought in Vietnam in the past, wrote novels and articles to different publications. In particular, he was known as a consistent critic of the police of North Carolina - including the prosecutor, who later conducted the case of the death of Caitlin. The couple had five children: daughter Kaitlin from a previous marriage, two sons of Michael from his ex-wife and two more daughters, whom Michael and his first wife took under guardianship in the mid-1980s.

Suspect

As the initial examination established, Kaitlin Peterson's death led to the head of the head injured by a blunt object. Her husband Michael became the first and main suspect - there was no one in the house at the time of the death of a woman.

When examining the place of death, several suspicious details were discovered: for example, the Caitlin slippers were neatly laid next to the body, the blood was on the walls, as well as under the feet of a woman - as if she tried to stand after one of the blows, but then fell again. The fact that Michael did not immediately come to the aid of his wife, although he was in the courtyard of the house - when she, according to him, fell from the stairs.

There were other indirect signs of Michael Peterson's possible involvement in his wife's death. Firstly, according to the prosecution, they did not go very well with Caitlin: the couple allegedly scandalized, including because of the sexual preferences of Michael, who had lovers. A significant part of the trial was devoted to Peterson's correspondence with his partners and his communication on sites for gay dates. Michael claimed that he and Kaitlin were happy in marriage, their relationship was open, and she knew very well that he was sleeping with men - and had nothing against.

Another possible motive is money for insurance. Caitlin's life was insured by more than a million dollars, and the couple has accumulated debts - about 140 thousand dollars on a credit card. However, as Peterson's defense claimed, the spouses had assets worth more than a million dollars - so it is impossible to call them in need of money. Moreover, on the day of the death of Kaitlin, the couple noted the sale of rights to the film adaptation of one of Michael's books.

At the trial, Peterson was also remembered by his past. In 1985, he lived with his first wife in Germany and was the last person who saw their alive their common girlfriend Elizabeth Retcliffe, mother of the adoptive daughters of Peterson. Elizabeth, like Caitlin, died, falling from the stairs. Ratcliffe on the day of death was visiting Peterson, Michael took her home with her daughters.

Initially, this death was recognized as an accident, but Caitlin Peterson's body Elizabeth Ratcliffe exhumed and conducted a second examination that recognized her death by the murder. They did not put forward accusations against Michael Peterson in this case, but it was used in the court in the case of Kaitlin Peterson: prosecutors noted the similarity of two deaths and suggested that there could be a staging. Why did Peterson need to kill Elizabeth Ratcliffe, and then take under the care of her daughters, is unclear.

In fact, as supporters of the version of the innocence of Michael Peterson noted, the investigation did not provide either an unambiguous motive or a murder. The very poker that Caitlin received as a gift from the sister - and which was originally considered the missing tool of the crime, already during the process was found by representatives of the protection of Peterson. The poker, as it turned out, simply did not notice the investigators in the garage of the house of St. Petersburg; There was no reason to believe that it was the man who scored his wife to death to death.

The jury on October 10, 2003 found Michael Peterson guilty of the murder of his wife. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to release.

Owl

Peterson and his lawyers in court adhered to the version that Caitlin fell after alcohol and Valium, and her husband simply did not hear this and continued to sit by the pool, believing that his wife was sleeping. Then they switched to the version of a possible attack, arguing this by the fact that robbers climbed into the house of Peterson shortly before the incident.

Neighbor Petersonov, lawyer Larry Pollard knew both Michael and Caitlin. He did not believe in Michael’s guilt and decided to study the evidence himself - and found a detail that neither defense nor police noticed. This detail was a microscopic pen of owl. Pollard suggested that Caitlin could go outside (probably on the other side of the house - so that Michael did not notice her), and at that moment an owl attacked her.

Owls really sometimes attack a person, and they can cause serious injuries. Almost always, owls hit the upper right side of the head from the occipital side - Kaitlin discovered a trauma in this place. According to Pollard, after the owl attacked Kaitlin, she grabbed her head, ran inside the house, stumbled on the stairs, hit her head and died. The injuries that forensic experts took for blows with a dull object could actually be inflicted by the owl.

In the area where Petersons lived, owls are nesting - and sometimes attack people. It happened that five attacks were recorded in a day, according to the Criminal podcast series dedicated to the case of Peterson. The version of Pollard is supported by some specialists in bird behavior - or at least do not think that it is very fantastic.

Revision

The defense of Michael Peterson does not comment on the version of the Ivy. The man managed to release in 2011: after a series of appeals, his lawyers proved that one of the key witnesses, expert Daane Daer, lied to the court about his qualifications, and also repeatedly hid the evidence in other cases and distorted the results of his research.

The saber was engaged in the analysis of traces of blood at the scene of death Kaitlin Peterson. From his testimony it followed that Michael was trying to replace the evidence, it was they who became one of the key arguments in favor of a man’s guilt and pronouncing such a strict sentence.

Now Michael Peterson is under house arrest, his business will be revised. The court has already refused to cancel the consideration at the request of the accused. The first hearings are scheduled for May 2017.