Netflix - The Staircase...innocent or guilty?

[CoRhona]

YABU - it was an unfortunate fall

YANBU - guilty as sin

(If you've not watched it but plan to, read up more about it afterwards...I was )

@BusterGonad 🤣🤣

😂

Definitely guilty, even ignoring the death in Germany.

Been a while since I watched it but from recollection:

• he initially said he only popped out to turn the pool lights off before coming back to find her like that. When red neuron evidence (which I don’t understand but develop once someone suffers blood loss, and means she was alive for 2 hours after the injury) came to light, he changed his story and said he lounged by the pool with a cigarette.

-She was found lying on her back and had his bloody footprint on the underside of her shorts.

• he claimed they had been drinking wine a bottle of wine together, but her fingerprints were not on the wine glass that was meant to have been hers.

• the blood spatter pattern required the defence to say she coughed up blood, but only trace blood in her lungs

• no sign of any bruising or injury to her lower limbs, which is odd for a fall down the stairs

• looking at the photos of how she was found; even if she had fallen down the stairs and obtained these bizarre injuries, someone who hasn’t observed it (such as her husband) wouldn’t come upon that bloody scene and assume that is what had happened, with blood spatter all around. Yet that’s what he told 911.

• his family were in financial difficulties. He had no income at all and kathleen’s well paid job was under threat. He was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy.

Oh and this was not an owl. The owl theory has her being attacked by this malevolent bird outside, and running inside (quite why she would run for those poky back stairs to go up instead of the main stairs I don’t know but let’s go with it).

Look at the copious amounts of blood around where she was found, these lacerations went down to her skull - yet only droplets of blood on the door frame and none between the door and the stairs where she was found.

And actually that’s reminded me there were luminol footprints (show where blood has been) found. The scene was cleaned up by someone.

@BusterGonad

If you look further into it, some kind of criminal expert has read his statements and his wording is of particular interest. Also he actually dated the producer of the stair case at the time of production. All very very strange.

From around the time of his first trial until shortly after his Alford Plea

A suspicious mind would be supicious of that timing...

Although they were at great pains to say that it never influenced her editing of the show (yeah right!)

- his family were in financial difficulties. He had no income at all and kathleen’s well paid job was under threat. He was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy.

Their home was also solely in her name.

And then years later they find that poker stick thing, I couldn't believe that his lawyer and family were allowed to move it themselves. Surely it should've been checked out by someone impartial. I don't see how he couldn't have done it tbh.

The famed blow poke.

I’ve just remembered his 911 call too. Very bad acting.

Did anyone hear the BBC podcast Beyond Reasonable Doubt about the case? That was good. Must see the tv version.

Incidentally I can't find the podcast now.!

If you like The Staircase may I recommend The Keepers.

I think having watched documentaries about Chris Watts and Mick Philpott and Helen Bailey’s killer, it was so obvious that they were guilty from the very beginning. I think Michael Peterson is a narcissist but I never got a strong guilty vibe from him. I can’t say for sure, but I think freak accident. They explained the bloody footprint as her trying to get up and standing in the inside of her trouser leg. It seemed plausible enough.

I thought the series Exhibit A was very interesting too. It’s also on Netflix.

Is this the podcast @tobee ?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3VlSV4bMVv9qpgn5DmmYLm0/beyond-reasonable-doubt-the-story-of-michael-and-kathleen-peterson

Guilty! His 911 call.. its all in his voice... totally fake and unrealistic

If it was a jury trial and I was on the jury, I couldn't have found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt (obviously I am basing that only on the information available to me!) despite the fact so many things seem incredibly suspicious. It's a really tough one and one of the biggest issues was the prosecution hinging so much on the blow poke - if they hadn't pursued that so much perhaps they would have had a more robust argument.

Guilty , I'm currently watching Carmel on netflix , similar vibe it's in argentina but is subtitled

Guilty as sin. At the start of the film he's walking around the house and describing their last night in way too much detail. That's what liars do. He never mentioned Brad the Male Escort or the death in Germany to his lawyers, and played it down when they did.

His first wife and children have all been groomed by him it's like they're in a cult. His sister saw through him when he tried to manipulate their very frail elderly father into giving him money for the trial. She thinks he is guilty.

The cat poster that was on the wall above where Kathleen died was taken from the house in Germany. It was on the wall above where the first body was found. He's either guilty or unlucky.

I watch this 2 years ago and it played on my mind for quite some time.

I concluded that he was guilty but that right from the start, just after it happened, he went through a psychological episode that made him convince himself that it wasn't him. He fueled his mind with that belief until he truly believed it wasn't him. I do think though that at times, the truth filters in and deep inside he knows he did it.

@SadSack39

Guilty! His 911 call.. its all in his voice... totally fake and unrealistic

His voice and way of speaking drove me mad the whole series as it reminds me so much of someone else and I just can't remember who

I don't think it's fake as such, it's sort of typical of a certain type of person.

I don't think it was premeditated though. I think she challenged him on his affair, she then left him not wanting to talk about it, he kept insisting she listened to his excuses, he grew angry and scared and when she went up, he pulled her down with force. I do believe she fell but that he made her fall.

I watched a couple of years ago and found it absolutely fascinating! I never could make up my mind if I thought he was guilty or innocent. I think I swayed towards innocent as if he was guilty I think he would have jumped at any way to get out of prison - but he really didn’t want to take the Alford Plea. I remember I really liked his lawyer.

But he did take the Alford plea, he could have stayed in prison and protested his innocence but chose not to. That's what Adnan Syed has done, he turned down the Alford plea as he refuses to admit guilt. He is the subject of Serial podcast, another guilty man who would have you believe he is just a victim of unlucky coincidences.

His voice and way of speaking drove me mad the whole series as it reminds me so much of someone else and I just can't remember who

I don't think it's fake as such, it's sort of typical of a certain type of person.

I thought his voice was similar to Tony Curtis’ but his delivery is just plain insincere.

The family dogs. Why has no one is looked at this? - they would have gone ballistic and why no paw prints anywhere? Were they put somewhere else? Forget owls, these dogs are the clue.

@bagelbaby

The family dogs. Why has no one is looked at this? - they would have gone ballistic and why no paw prints anywhere? Were they put somewhere else? Forget owls, these dogs are the clue.

It's been years since I watched it so don't remember anything about the dogs, why would they hold the key?

I saw it a while ago- fascinating documentary!
They tried to make him look sympathetic (understandably if he was shagging one of the producers) but his true nature kept shining through.
He was hideous towards his dead wife's grieving sister and daughter, and seemed more upset about his reputation than his wife dying.

For me the problem was that the prosecution stuck to a beating and a crime weapon. As it was shown that the injuries were consistent with a fall backwards I assumed they would have thought a firm push down the stairs was how she died?
Were there any physical evidence of a weapon?
That really muddled the burden of proof for me.