What happened on that back staircase?

Was it the violent culmination of a perfect storm of domestic stress, as the prosecution argued?

Or was it really something more mundane? Something unfortunate, but perfectly understandable.

Defense attorney: The truth is that Kathleen Peterson, after drinking wine and champagne after taking some valium tried to walk up a narrow poorly lit stairway in flip-flops and she fell and she bled to death.

Dave Rudolf, lead defense attorney: In my mind this was a case about reasonable doubt.

Dave Rudolf the lead defense attorney was now putting on his case, telling the jury that Kathleen’s death—gory as the pictures may be—was a simple, fatal, accident.

Nothing else made sense.

Rudolf: Well, I think there’s no doubt that the weakest part of the state’s case was motive.

Despite the prosecution’s portrayal of Michael Peterson as a closeted bisexual, the defense argued the Peterson’s were an extraordinarily happy couple.

Rudolf: Everywhere they went, people noticed Michael looking at Kathleen with the kind of pride that you just don’t fake.

And money problems? Hardly. Contrary to being on the brink of financial disaster, the couple’s net worth—assets minus debts—was a tidy pile. The state’s financial analyst admitted as much in cross-examination by a member of the defense team.

So, the defense said the idea that Peterson would have killed his wife to collect the insurance didn’t make sense. If it wasn’t about money, then what about the prosecution’s theory that a violent confrontation took place after Kathleen stumbled upon her husband’s e-mail solicitation of a male prostitute?

To be sure, no defense attorney welcomes a problem like Brad but Rudolf tried to undo the damage done by the escort in his cross-examination, first by getting the prostitute to say that contact with men like Peterson was far from unusual.

Rudolf: Was that an unusual occurrence for you to have, or plan to have sexual relations with married men?

Brad: To the contrary. I mean, married men are in the majority of most of the clients that I saw when I was an escort.

Rudolf: With regards to the kinds of men that you tended to have escort relationships with, can you give us some indication as to their professions for example?

Brad: Sure, usually they are professionals because my fees were quite high. I saw doctors, attorney’s, one judge (laughter)...

Judge: It was not this judge! (laughter)

Remember the prosecution theorized that the discovery of  steamy e-mails between Peterson and Brad was likely what triggered the violent confrontation between the writer and his wife. Now the defense wanted the jury to think about this from the other way around: maybe Kathleen did know about her husband’s bi-sexuality but didn’t push him on it. A domestic “don’t ask, don’t tell’ arrangement. If so, there went the state’s explosive trigger.

Rudolf: Did a number of the men, the married men, that you had sexual relations with have wives that knew they were bi-sexual?

Brad: I believe most of them did from my experience.

Rudolf: In your experience, was it unusual for a wife married to a bi-sexual man, to know that he was bi-sexual?

Brad: Not at all.

Rudolf: Was it unusual for a bi-sexual man using your services to be in a happy marriage?

Brad: Not at all. Most of the men who would see me would have their time with me and then go back to their happy, healthy lives.

And the male prostitute added it would all be physical. No romantic or emotional entanglements allowed.

Rudolf: Was there any kind of personal relationship involved between you and Michael Peterson?

Brad: No sir.

Rudolf: Was that even on the radar screen?

Brad: No sir. I believe in one of the emails it was very explicit that there would be no emotions involved no personal relationships involved it would be strictly physical.

So did Kathleen know about her husband’s bisexuality or not? If she were aware and tolerated his homosexual interests, then there went the prosecution’s so-called trigger, the flashpoint for its fatal confrontation scenario. The defense argued Peterson certainly wasn’t going out of his way to hide his flirtation with Brad. Jurors were shown the household telephone bill, which was in Kathleen’s name. There on the September 2001 statement, were three short telephone calls to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to Brad’s number. If this were all a secret, shameful activity would Peterson have used the home phone so openly?

Rudolf: Show me one piece of evidence, one person who says that Kathleen was upset because Mike was bisexual. Or Kathleen was upset because michael was seeing other people outside the marriage. Not one shred of evidence. Not one.

The defense even used the male prostitute as an unlikely witness to the strength of the Peterson marriage.

Rudolf: Did Michael Peterson ever do or say anything either on the phone or by e-mail that indicated that he was not in love with Kathleen Peterson?

Brad: To the contrary, in his e-mails unlike most of my clients he indicated that he had a great relationship. Most clients don’t want to say anything about the relationship. He said he had a warm relationship with his wife and nothing would ever destroy that.

The defense showed the jury Peterson’s own words in an e-mail to Brad:

“I am married. Very happily married with a dynamite wife.”

Rudolf: Why would someone in an email like that say something like that if it wasn’t coming from their heart? So in my mind, that’s as credible a statement as you can get about how he really felt about Kathleen.

Murphy: Undercutting the state’s theory of motive?

Rudolf: Oh, absolutely.

Consider that Michael Peterson and Brad the prostitute never DID get together. The defense raised doubts as to whether Peterson really intended to follow through on the sex date with Brad. If it were all just a sexual fantasy, the defense argued there was even less of a motive for murder.

Rudolf: On September 30^th, you sent him an e-mail?

Brad: Yes I did.

Rudolf: And you explained in that e-mail why you hadn’t come up to meet him?

Brad: Yes

Rudolf: And he didn’t respond to that?

Brad: No he didn’t.

Rudolf: Are there some percentage of the people that you have e-mail correspondence that you just never hook up with for one reason or another?

Brad: That happens quite a bit.

Rudolf: Sometimes they’re more interested in the communication than meeting?

Brad: Certainly, a lot of guys are interested in hooking-up, but others just want to get to know a military man, and find out about him and get information about me, and it never goes beyond cyberspace.

Rudolf: After that email on 9/30/01 that you sent to him, did you ever have any further contact with michael Peterson?

Brad: No sir.

Rudolf: Sir, do you know anything about the death of Kathleen Peterson?

Brad: I know diddly.

With Brad stepping down from the stand, the defense now had to take on the Mount Everest of the case: the forensics, accounting for all that blood and those appalling injuries.

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