Stranger Than Fiction

Time Line -- Michael Peterson Murder Trial

An Hour to Kill

Based on official testimony and available outside information, a time line of the events surrounding the Peterson's tragedy may be constructed that reveals about one hour that cannot be accounted for. Missing from the time line is the hour of activity between 12:30 and 1:30 AM.

Certain documents and bits of testimony suggest Elizabeth Ratliff died near 12:30 A.M. on November 25, 1985. Considering the novelist's love of book-ends, it's reasonable to speculate that Michael Peterson killed his wife, Kathleen, on December 9th, 2001 around 12:30 AM.

time of death

Friday -- December 7, 2001
afternoon	Kathleen takes the day off from work. The Petersons go Christmas shopping.	Defense
evening	Petersons attend N.C. Independent party	Defense
Saturday -- December 8, 2001
3:30 P.M.?	Hundreds of files are deleted from Peterson's PC with a disc-purging program called "Quick Clean."	Lawson
4:41 P.M.	Michael arrives at gym	Y.M.C.A.
6:00 P.M.?	Michael speaks to Kathleen about renting a movie	Defense
6:59 P.M.	Michael rents "America's Sweethearts"	Blockbuster Video
?	Kathleen eats dinner	autopsy
9:45 P.M.	Christine Tomassetti arrives to take Todd to a party. She sees Kathleen and Michael sharing a bottle of wine.	Tomassetti
10:20 P.M.	Christine and Todd leave for the party.	Tomassetti
10:40 P.M.	Password "Atwater" logs onto Peterson PC	Lawson
11:08 P.M.	Co-worker Helen Prislinger speaks with Kathleen by phone. Agrees to mail file.
11:53 P.M.	Prislinger's e-mail arrives. (The blank e-mail's attachment is never opened.)	e-mail records/ Lawson
Sunday -- December 9, 2001
Midnight ?	Petersons drink and talk outside near pool (50°)	Michael Peterson
12:30 to 1:30 A.M. .	?	?
1:45 or 2:00 A.M.?	Kathleen leaves pool area, headed inside for bed	Michael Peterson
?	Kathleen suffers multiple deep, complex lacerations and avulsions to the scalp, multiple small abrasions and contusions on the face, early acute ischemic neuronal necrosis, and a fracture with associated hemorrhage of the thyroid cartilage in the neck	Debra Radisch
2:30 A.M.?	Peterson leaves pool area	Michael Peterson
2:41 A.M.	Peterson calls 9-1-1	Pierce and Allen

2:48 A.M.	Paramedics James Rose and Ron Paige arrive, followed by Todd Peterson and friends. Kathleen Peterson is found dead in a hallway.	Rose and Paige

3:00 A.M.	Police and detectives begin to arrive.
3:24 A.M.	Investigators secure the scene.	Art Holland
between 4:15 and 5:00 A.M.	Peterson logs on to his office computer and mumbles to himself about e-mail.	Officer A.D. McCallop
5:00 A.M.	Peterson phones attorney	Kerry Sutton
5:20 A.M.	Sutton arrives at Cedar St.	Sutton/ Barry Winston

What's missing? Footprints...

LUMINOL TESTING revealed bloody footprints leading from Kathleen Peterson's body -- into the laundry room -- then going to the kitchen refrigerator and sink -- then moving to a wineglass cabinet (which also had blood on it).

The footprints mysteriously stop there at the cabinet. They just stop -- as though the person with bloody feet somehow flew up and out of the kitchen like a bat.

What's missing? E-Mail...

Nortel Networks co-worker Helen Prislinger testified that she talked to Kathleen Peterson at 11:08 p.m. and that Kathleen did not sound intoxicated and did not seem abnormal in any way. She did not sense that Kathleen and Michael Peterson were fighting and heard Kathleen ask her husband for the home e-mail address.

Ms. Prislinger said Kathleen needed a document for a tele-conference scheduled for 10 a.m. the next day, and was expecting an e-mail with that document attached. The e-mail was, in fact, sent to Michael Peterson's e-mail address but there is no evidence the e-mail was ever read, and the "PowerPoint" attachment to Helen Prislinger's letter was never opened.

The attachment was named "Readiness."

What was found? Red Neurons...

"The earliest I've ever seen them is two hours after a documented period of loss of bloodflow or decreased bloodflow to the brain -- so in my experience, I would anticipate that the decreased blood flow to the brain was at least a couple of hours prior to death."

-- Dr. Thomas Bouldin

Thomas Bouldin

Party People -- Christine Tomassetti

News & Observer

In a surprising moment, the prosecutor asked Sgt. Fran Borden a question that seemed to jolt the courtroom. Was he aware, Freda Black asked, that Todd Peterson was having an affair with a woman described in police reports as his girlfriend?

The judge struck the question from the record after the defense objected that no evidence had been presented that indicated Todd Peterson and the married woman, Christine Tomassetti, were anything more than friends who went to a party with a large group of people.

Christine Tomassetti

Black said outside the presence of the jury that Todd Peterson told members of Kathleen Peterson's family that he intended to have sex with Tomassetti at his father's home that night. Todd Peterson sat forward in his chair in the front row of the gallery but did not otherwise react to the salacious exchange.

"It shows the dire straits the prosecution's case is in," Todd Peterson later remarked.

Ben Maynor and Heather Wittsome

Soon after Todd and Christine Tomasetti returned from their party, other friends arrived at 1810 Cedar. Todd called his friend Ben Maynor, who was apparently drunk, and Ben's girlfiend, Heather Wittsome.

"That's been one of the tragic losses, not only for the family, but for the community," Ben Maynor would later comment, "Mike and Kathleen were involved with the Arts Council, the American Dance Festival and, as far as I know, Mike is not involved in those causes anymore; and I would think their advocacy is greatly missed."

America's Sweethearts -- Billy Crystal stars as Lee, a studio publicist desperately trying to keep several facts secret from reporters during a high-profile motion picture's press junket. Among the developments that Lee is trying to obscure from view . . . the film's high-profile, real-life married co-stars Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) who have acrimoniously split since filming.

12:50 A.M.

Grafenhausen

Karin Hamm

Elizabeth Ratliff's neighbor Karin Hamm claims she saw Peterson hurrying away from Ratliff's house the night she died.

Hamm said in an interview that the sound of a slamming door drew her to her bedroom window at 12:50 A.M. November 25, 1985. She looked out the window and saw Mike Peterson hurriedly leaving Liz Ratliff's home.

Hamm said: "I can still see him in front of me. I see his face."

Peterson and Mahar react to Hudson's ruling on Hamm's affidavit.

Link to . . .

And Murder Makes 60:
A Killer Chronology

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