Prosecution: In a very real sense, this case is about pretense and appearances. It’s about things not being as they seem.

The prosecution, through its crime-scene and forensic evidence, had described a violent confrontation between the novelist and his executive wife on the back staircase of their million-dollar home.

Michael Peterson was accused of savagely bashing his wife in the head with a fireplace tool, then bludgeoning her again as she regained consciousness.

Blood splattered everywhere.

The medical examiner had testified to horrific lacerations to Kathleen Peterson’s scalp.

Now the prosecution was going to tell the court WHY the murder happened.

A contributing factor, according to the prosecutor, was money. Despite appearances, the Peterson’s were cash poor, living month to month on vapors.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: What did you find on the credit card debt?

Jim Hardin, prosecutor: $143,000 worth of credit card debt.

Murphy: So they were living on plastic?

Hardin: Yes.

With three children in top-ranked private universities, with his books returning only piddling royalties. They were getting by on Kathleen’s monthly salary and a big chunk of that was deferred for taxes. What’s more her job security was tenuous, at best.

But if Kathleen were dead from an accident her company insurance policy would pay Michael, the beneficiary, about $1.8 million dollars.

Mike Peterson the creative thinker, the writer of fiction, was able to figure out the perfect solution. That solution was to make it appear that Kathleen fell down her steps and died.

Checkbook problems may have been the gasoline of the murder, but the state theorized that something else was the match:

Hardin: It wasn’t a storybook marriage. It wasn’t monogamous and that we believe that there was a trigger that evening.

That trigger, according to the prosecutor, just may have to do with Michael Peterson’s sexuality, a desire for men.

The “Other Man” was about to be a sensational revelation in this trial.

Though Peterson’s brother thinks it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who really knows Michael Peterson.

Bill Peterson, Michael Peterson’s brother: I’ve known about my brother’s sexual orientation since I was a teenager.

Murphy: So this is no secret to you and your family?

Bill Peterson: No, no.

According to Peterson’s brother, Michael Peterson is, and always has been, bisexual. But, importantly, did his wife Kathleen know?

Murphy:  Do you think your mother knew anything about that aspect of him?

Caitlin, Kathleen Peterson's daughter: I genuinely cannot believe that she could know anything about that.  I know—from every value that she’s taught me, from every—from the way that I was raised, that’s not something that she would have been willing to accept.

And on the night of the murder, the prosecutor believed Kathleen stumbled upon something explosive on the Peterson’s home computer: downloaded images of naked men—2,000 of them.

Hardin: There were liaisons outside the marriage that Kathleen didn’t know about.

And there was more: a series of e-mail exchanges between Michael Peterson and a local male prostitute he’d found through the Internet.

His name was Brad, a 26-year old former soldier. His website pic was a come-hither beefcake pose complete with dog tags.

The college student bragged about his endowments and pitched himself as clean-cut “jock-masculine...I am definitely dominant.”

The assistant D.A. quizzed a confident, upbeat, Brad on the stand.

Prosecutor: What type of services did you perform?

"Brad": Oh well, that’s pretty broad. Basically, it’s companionship for other males of legal age.

Prosecutor: Did that involve sexual activity?

Brad: Sometimes it does.

Prosecutor: What type of sexual activities, sir?

Brad: Oh, just about anything under the sun.

So here was the state’s motive for murder: the prosecutor arguing that Michael Peterson killed in a rage after being confronted about this sexual secret and dalliance with a male prostitute. Brad told the court that Peterson had first contacted him by e-mail in August 2001, four-months before the murder.

Brad: I believe it was just, conversations back and forth on an e-mail correspondence, trying to get to know me a little bit better and a little bit of friendly jabbing at me.

Prosecutor: You all contacted each other back and forth approximately how many times by way of the computer?

Brad: I am guessing about 20 different e-mail correspondences by either myself or in person.

Prosecutor: Did you all discuss anything other than getting to know each other?

Brad: As far as I can recall, it was basically the same as many other clients who would contact me. They’d want to get to know me, about my life, about they want to be safe, so they want to get to know me to make sure that I am a “straight” guy.

Prosecutor: Did you send him a picture of yourself

Brad: Yes, m’am. I did.

Prosecutor: What purpose?

Brad: Usually anyone who is contacting me likes to know what they are getting.

The prosecutor showed jurors a steamy collection of e-mails that Michael Peterson had sent Brad in the weeks leading up to the proposed rendezvous:

"You have great reviews and I would like to get together"

"I’ve never done escort but used to pay to f--- a super- macho guy who played lacrosse..."

"I’m very bi and thats all there is to it"

According to the prosecutor, by late summer 2001, four months before Kathleen’s death, Michael Peterson, the action-war novelist and former marine, had agreed to get with Brad, another former military man, for sex at Peterson’s home.

Brad: We were to hook-up, I believe on Sept. 5, 2001.

Prosecutor: During your conversations with Mr. Peterson, did you all actually even  discuss a price for your services?

Brad: I believe we did.

Prosecutor: And what was the price you quoted him?

Brad:  I believe it was $150 per hour.

Prosecutor: Ok was that your normal price that you would have for most of your clients?

Brad: In the beginning of my short career, yes.

Prosecutor: The prostitution career...

Brad: Yes...I do prefer to call it "escort."

Prosecutor: Escort I am sorry.

Prosecutor: Did you all have any type of communication, whether it be by computer or by phone, about how it was that you all were going to hook-up together without his wife knowing it?

Brad: I don’t remember any discussions about whether his wife would or would not know. It may be in the e-mails, but I do not recall that.

Here was humiliating testimony for Michael Peterson.

His sweatiest secrets tumbling publicly out of the closet in televised sworn testimony.

The prosecution hammering out its motive for murder.

And yet sitting in court taking it all in, his face was an unreadable mask.

Prosecutor: Did you all actually discuss what you were going to do when you were to get together on Sep. 5, 2001?

Brad: Yes Ma’am

Prosecutor: What were you all planning on doing?

Brad: Having sex.

But Brad told the court when the appointed day came around he was tired and canceled the sexual tryst.

Prosecutor: So you just simply didn’t contact him back at all?

Brad: I do not think I contacted him that night.  I have found out that I contacted him about 25-days later to apologize for not showing up.

Prosecutor: After you contacted him to apologize for not showing up, did you have further communication with him?

Brad: No ma’am.

Prosecutor: Why not?

Brad: I believe he did not e-mail me back.

Brad testified that he and Peterson had never met until here in court. For the prosecutor the Brad episode showed a couple of things: that the marriage of Kathleen and Michael was anything but rock-solid and as important was the trail of e-mail messages that resulted, the “trigger” the state talked about.

Hardin: If you read those e-mails, it’s pretty plain about what they intended to do.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: Do you have any reason to believe that Kathleen knew about this side of her husband and accepted it?

Hardin: None whatsoever. She had already been through a previous marriage where infidelity was an issue and she didn’t tolerate it. And why would she tolerate it now?    There was a trigger, and we’ve contended all along that she must have found something out about this life style that caused it.

Let’s go back to the night of Kathleen’s death. The prosecutor sets out this theory of what happened. After an innocuous evening at home, Kathleen takes that call from a colleague and then goes to the study to wait for an e-mail about her morning business meeting. Idling on the computer, did she come across the open file e-mail messages with Brad the prostitute? Did she see a print out of it in the desk drawer? Whichever, the state believes, Kathleen lit into Michael about his secret life.

Murphy: She found something?

Hardin: Confronted him about it. And from that point, we know what happened.

So there it was. The prosecution’s case for conviction: blood evidence, odd behavior by the defendant at the crime scene, money woes and the trigger, the violent confrontation between husband and wife that resulted when a secret homosexual appetite was exposed.

And not a bit of all that made any sense, the defense was about to tell the jury.

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