The defense’s expert witness Dr. Henry Lee, the medical-examiner of O.J. case fame, had told the jury the copious blood-spatter on the back staircase convinced him Kathleen Peterson had died of a fall, not a beating.

Dr. Lee, it turned out, wasn’t the only echo of the Simpson trial. Defense attorney Rudolph was about to take on the competency of the police, just as the Dream Team lawyers had.

The defense started by going after a supervising officer for letting unauthorized traffic into the crime scene.

Dave Rudolf, defense attorney: You were a little concerned about who all these people were at the scene weren’t you?

Det. Borden: Yes.

The defense would challenge the cops on what they didn’t do in the Peterson house in the wee hours as family, neighbors, paramedics converged on that back staircase.

Rudolf: The police didn’t tape off the area of the stairwell until 3:34 a.m., almost an hour after the call came in. And by then, it was just too late. The blood in that area had been completely altered, the scene at the house had been completely contaminated.

Murphy: This was not a pristine preserved crime scene was it?

Rudolf: No the truth of the matter is it was not preserved at all for about an hour.

Peterson’s lawyers had criticized what they called sloppy police procedures from day one.

Why did the cops allow Peterson to step in and embrace the body of his dead wife?

Why did they let Peterson’s son Todd, who’d arrived at the house shortly after the paramedics, walk to the kitchen to get a soda, transferring blood as he went?

Rudolf: Michael goes up to Kathleen- with the police watching, hugs her, Todd takes him- puts him on the couch where there’s blood transfer. And then Todd says, “Can I get some soda and a glass? And the police say ‘Sure.’ And here goes Todd, walking around the kitchen with blood on his hands.”

Remember, the first responders at the house said traces of blood here and there beyond the stairwell itself had made them suspicious. Didn’t look right.

Rudolf: When you went into the kitchen area there, you noticed some blood, I think you said, on a kitchen cabinet?

Borden: Yes.

But under cross-examination the police investigator who’d declared the house a crime scene admitted he’d been unaware of people traipsing about, like Peterson’s son.

Rudolf: Of course, you didn’t know anything about Todd Peterson being permitted to go get soda in a glass and that sort of thing?

Borden: No, I did not.  I was not aware of that.

Rudolf: And had you been aware of that, that might have at least factored into your thinking about how suspicious that was?

Borden: You’re right, yes, I agree with you.

Rudolf: The blood in the kitchen area, for example, was a complete irrelevancy once you established that there was contamination there in the kitchen with the police standing right by.

It became a defense theme: things that looked suspicious at first, on closer examination turned out to not to be suspicious at all, just sloppy police work.

Take the testimony of the police investigator who’d thought there was something suspicious about how Kathleen Peterson’s body had come so neatly to rest in the stairwell—her head and neck aligned straight up and down with her spine. The officer conceded under defense cross-examination that he’d made that judgment before learning the husband had cradled his wife’s body and placed her down as police watched.

Borden: I had no knowledge of that.

Rudolf: And of course, that info would have been helpful to you in determining whether or not that was really a red flag or not right?

Borden: That information would have been helpful.”

But the biggest lapse of the police, as the defense saw it, was going to allow defense attorney Rudolph to dress-up his case with a showy flourish.

All along the prosecution had insisted the murder weapon used to bludgeon Kathleen Peterson was a metal fireplace tool called a “blowpoke.” More than thirty police officers had scoured the Peterson’s house and grounds but they never found it. There had been ominous testimony from Kathleen’s sister that the blowpoke she’d always seen in the kitchen by the back staircase was missing, the suggestion being that Michael Peterson made murderous use of it then hid it someplace in the two-plus hours he had before finally making the 911 call.

Now—in one last big swing for the fences to make the police look inept clueless and therefore unreliable witnesses, the defense called to the stand the state’s lead police investigator. Attorney Rudolf had something to show the detective.

It was a moment out of “Perry Mason.”

What was labeled exhibit 280 was nothing less than the long missing blowpoke—the state’s alleged murder weapon—an undamaged old fireplace tool with only a tip missing at the end.

Rudolf: Mow this 280 thats a blow poke isn’t it? Is that what it appears to be?

Detective: Appears to be a blow poke.

Rudolf: If we look at the handle, for example, its pretty much the same thing right?

Detective: Appears to be.

Rudolf: This doesn’t appear to you to be mangled, does it?

Detective.: It’s not mangled, no sir.

Rudolf: It’s not even dented is it? See any dents? Even a tiny indentation?

Detective: It doesn’t appear to have any dents in it.

Rudolf: Do you know where ex 280 it has been for the last 20 months?

Detective: No I do not.

Where?  In the Peterson garage, that’s where.

The defense attorney claimed it had been found there just days before, covered with cobwebs and dead insects, implying that police and everyone else had overlooked it. Not hidden, said the defense, because it had never been a murder weapon in the first place.

Rudolf: Does this appear to you, 280, to be the blow poke that Mr. Hardin has been talking about being mysteriously missing since this trial began?

Prosecutor: Objection to the characterization!

Rudolf: There’s no smoke and mirrors about that. That was the blowpoke. Well if it is, then what was the murder weapon?

Lawyer Dave Rudolf thought he’d peppered reasonable doubt all the way through the state’s circumstantial case... from the bloodwork that described a fall as persuasively as a bludgeoning—to the marital “perfect storm” that wasn’t, to the murder weapon that wasn’t missing at all and was no more than a dusty fireplace tool.

Peterson’s lawyer elected not to put him on the stand.

But maybe as important as any evidence his team put on was the sight of one of writer’s two boys and the adopted daughters Martha and Margaret sitting prominently in support of him throughout the gruesome testimony?

But the prosecution wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot. The judge had just made a ruling that was going to allow the jury to hear something absolutely flabbergasting.

Something that occurred four thousand miles away, almost 20 years before.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

Mystery in Manson Tunnel   Crossing The Line   Stories of economic struggles in St. Petersburg, Florida A mom's quest: Saving her twin daughters' lives   A block party by the Apollo Theater Where There's Smoke... Secrets in the Box Slideshow: The yacht murder Vegas Undercover The many faces of Clark Rockefeller Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: