A Perfect Husband (19 page)

“There's been an accident.” Michael called Elizabeth's family to report. “Liz fell down the stairs and died.”

Michael was on the phone with Margaret Blair, Elizabeth's sister, making arrangements to meet her in Bay City, Texas, where Elizabeth Ratliff would be buried next to her husband, George. The news came as a total shock to Margaret, who could not understand how such a thing happened to her responsible and loving sister.

Margaret was aware that Liz suffered from an odd hereditary ailment called von Willenbrand's Disease. Margaret also knew that Liz had hospital workups done in Germany regarding the disease, having been told that her bleeding disorder would be impossible to cure. Elizabeth's normal blood-clotting agents were deficient. Any cut or injury could cause a serious internal hemorrhage. Von Willenbrand's was like hemophilia. There was not much the doctors could do. They advised her to stay away from blood-thinning agents such as aspirin.

When Margaret asked if Liz's fall had caused much blood, Michael supposedly lied about it. He didn't want to alarm Margaret; she was so upset already. So Michael reportedly told Margaret that her sister only had “a little bit of blood behind her ear.” He said he had been at Elizabeth's house, that he and Patricia were looking after the girls, who were doing fine, and said they were waiting for the authorities to come back with an autopsy report.

Michael explained that because of the military protocol, Elizabeth's autopsy results would probably take time. Having suffered with Liz about the secrecy behind George's death, Margaret Blair already knew the drill. Elizabeth was a Department of Defense teacher. There would be all that red tape again. Michael told Liz's sister how sorry he was about the accident, and mentioned that the investigation by the German police had indicated that Elizabeth's cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage. He thought Elizabeth might have suffered a stroke.

Earlier that day, when the German police had arrived on the scene, Michael Peterson had given them an explanation of what might have happened. The German authorities hadn't seen anything suspicious, so when the Germans heard Michael Peterson's account of Liz Ratliff's medical history—learning of her bleeding disorder, learning that Liz Ratliff had been complaining of severe headaches two weeks prior to her death—it seemed obvious that her demise was due to the fall. They hadn't determined anything technically, but the German authorities were handling the matter.

Because Elizabeth's death did not occur on a military base, the German authorities had jurisdiction. Even though the American authorities would respond to the scene also, sending an army criminal investigator, Major Steve Lyons, to take notes on the death, it was the German authorities who were calling the shots. When Major Lyons appeared, asking what he could do to help, he was informed that the death was probably an accident, that the investigation was already under way.

There was a German emergency doctor on the scene who had found bloody spinal fluid in Elizabeth's spinal column. The German doctor's findings were consistent with cranial bleeding
sustained by a fall down the stairs.
The German doctor noted that Elizabeth Ratliff had scalp lacerations, but these lacerations were considered to be secondary to her terminal fall.

Once the German police had arrived asking questions, once the American authorities had arrived to follow up, Amybeth and Bruce Berner were convinced that the teams of police were doing a thorough job. They had waited around in the living room, expecting to be questioned, but to their amazement, they had been politely introduced to the police by Michael Peterson, and were never spoken to again.

Major Lyons had seen Elizabeth Ratliff lying on the floor in a pool of blood, but the Berners noticed that Lyons didn't walk up the entire staircase to look for other evidence. The Berners weren't told that Major Lyons's presence was strictly cursory. None of the civilians at the scene were sure about what kind of backup the American military was providing to the German police.

On the day Elizabeth had been found dead, Bruce and Amybeth Berner, Tom and Cheryl Appel-Schumacher, had all witnessed the police doing their jobs. They had witnessed a German doctor using a syringe to take spinal fluid out of Liz's body. But Tom and Cheryl were too upset by the gruesome scene. They wanted to stay clear of Elizabeth's body, and became involved with calming down Barbara, and making sure that other neighbors stayed away.

As for Bruce and Amybeth, however, they really had suspicions. They believed that further testing and autopsy results would come back to prove something other than a natural death. Neither one of them could be sure who might be held responsible, but they believed there had been an intruder.

The Berners had checked all the windows and doors, but, with the exception of the front entrance, they were all tightly locked. Bruce and Amybeth had also checked around the outside of the property, noticing that, aside from Barbara's prints on the fire escape, there were
no other footprints in the snow.
The Berners had looked outside everywhere, around the laundry area and the back patio—but all they could see was fresh, untouched powder.

While she was still at the scene, Amybeth found a moment to talk to Barbara on the side, and she asked Barbara about the strange location of Elizabeth's body. It seemed weird that Liz was positioned as if she were
resting
at the bottom of the stairs. It didn't look like the natural result of a fall. Amybeth continued to press Barbara about it, and Barbara finally alleged that Elizabeth's body had been moved. Barbara claimed that earlier that morning, when she had first arrived at the house, Elizabeth's body was in a different position. According to Barbara, Liz's body was facedown on the stairs, her head down, her feet up, practically in an upside-down vertical position, leaning against the staircase.

Amybeth couldn't figure out why someone would have moved Elizabeth off the staircase. It made absolutely no sense, so she kept harping on Barbara, insisting that the nanny provide more details. Barbara finally blurted out that she thought Michael had moved the body, but of course Amybeth wouldn't hear of it. Michael had become Elizabeth's dearest friend. He was her main support system. Amybeth couldn't believe it would be in Michael's character at all—he loved and respected Liz too much—to do such a thing.

Amybeth didn't want to think anymore about it. She knew Barbara was hysterically upset, and she thought the nanny could be imagining things. For most of that day, Barbara was blathering. Half of what she said had ended up in a stream of tears. At one point, when Amybeth asked Barbara about how strange it was that Liz's breakfast table setting wasn't there, Barbara had no answers. The cute little Peter Rabbit bowls, the girls' special place mats—none of that had been arranged. Barbara agreed that it was odd, knowing that Liz usually set those things out at 10:00
P.M.
. But Barbara was focused on the fact that Elizabeth's body was still warm. Even though Liz's body had been covered fully by a blanket, the nanny remained in a state of denial, hoping that someone would come forward to say Liz's death wasn't real, that Liz could be saved.

When the German police had first arrived, as they were trying to determine whether Elizabeth Ratliff had already been dead before she hit the floor, Amybeth Berner decided to listen to their conversations. She could speak fluent German, and she overheard them discussing the spinal fluid. She also overheard Michael telling the Germans that they were not needed there, insisting that this was an American matter, that the American military police were on their way. Amybeth wasn't sure who was really in control of the scene. The German police hadn't been there long before the American authorities arrived, and the teams of men seemed to be working together.

Major Steve Lyons had remained at the scene long enough to recall that there was one man on hand, who seemingly wanted to dominate the situation. The man seemed to be in control of the flow of information to police, voicing his belief that Mrs. Ratliff may have
blacked out
at the top of the landing and then fallen down. But Lyons couldn't recall, when asked years later, if that man was Michael Peterson.

In all the confusion, no one was sure what had happened. Amybeth remembered that as she overheard the investigators talking, she had grown increasingly concerned and nervous, worried that the German police were listening to Peterson's information, and not processing the death as a crime scene. She recalled that the Germans
did not
seem to be studying the stairwell carefully.

She recalled that when the Americans got there, the military police seemed to be taking directions from the Germans. She recalled thinking that all the authorities on the scene had rushed through their business. They had breezed up and down the stairway without taking pictures or measurements. Amybeth wasn't sure whether anyone had focused on the tiny spots of blood spatter that she and her husband had noticed.

But Amybeth Berner really had no right to interfere in the official police investigation. The authorities were doing their jobs, and they didn't want any civilians in their way. Amybeth was disturbed that the teams of police had come and gone so quickly; it felt as though they had finished their reports within fifteen minutes. But Amybeth was assured by her husband that the police teams would come up with their own interpretations, in time. She and Bruce had discussed the situation, and they each felt that the authorities would eventually recognize that a crime had taken place.

When the German police completed their investigation, they told Major Steve Lyons that they believed the cause of death was natural. The German police had seen no signs of struggle. There were no personal effects removed from the home, and no evidence of an intruder. Major Lyons concurred, but in accordance with autopsy protocol, just to make it official, Elizabeth Ratliff's body would be sent to an American military hospital for further testing.

“I thought these guys were special investigators,” Amybeth recalled. “The military police who were there were supposed to be one notch above everyone else. They were supposed to be brighter and quicker.”

Elizabeth Ratliff, a forty-three-year-old mother of two, had been examined by a doctor at the Armed Forces Institute 97th General Hospital, and her autopsy results had been stamped out by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC. Elizabeth Ratliff's autopsy protocol, her slides, blocks, and tissue, had been reviewed and coded—and the chief of the Division of Forensic Pathology had signed off on the report, in agreement with the findings of Major Larry Barnes from the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, who had performed the autopsy on November 27,1985.

Elizabeth Ratliff's autopsy report had come back with the following diagnosis: sudden death due to spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage, complicated by von Willenbrand's Disease; natural.

“We had some trained Germans come in there, we had a group of Americans who called themselves investigators, and we had a coroner,” Bruce Berner reflected. “We were told that they were all doing a job separate from the others. We were told that they were all looking into it. And we figured we knew what the outcome was going to be. But that's not the outcome we got.”

At the time of Elizabeth Ratliff's death, Amybeth Berner had recently discovered she was pregnant. Having a difficult pregnancy from the start, Amybeth had already suffered miscarriages, so even though she harbored suspicions, her husband insisted that Amybeth focus on her own health. The military protocol had cleared any ideas that the Berners might have had regarding foul play. Amybeth's suspicions—that some spy or unknown love interest might have killed Elizabeth—would lead to nothing more than idle gossip.

In the final analysis, the experts had deemed that Elizabeth Ratliff's death was the result of an accident. Their friend had taken a horrible fall, and because of her rare blood disorder, she bled quickly, before any adult could get her to a hospital.

There was much grief in the months that followed Elizabeth's funeral. Margaret and Martha Ratliff were old enough to realize that they had lost their mother, and the girls were extremely upset. All of Elizabeth's friends mourned for the children. But the guardianship of Margaret and Martha had been willed to Michael and Patricia Peterson, and people took comfort in knowing that the girls were in good hands.

Everyone agreed that the Peterson family would watch out for the Ratliff girls' best interests. They trusted Elizabeth's instincts, and her last will and testament, written just months after George's death, had expressed her desire to have Michael and Patricia Peterson become the guardians of her two little girls. Elizabeth was adamant about wanting Margaret and Martha to be raised in Europe. Before Elizabeth signed her will, the Petersons had promised that, should anything happen to Liz, they would honor that wish.

As for everyone's individual sorrow, there was nothing people could do or say to bring Liz back. They would have to come to terms with Elizabeth's death, and find peace in the memory of her beautiful spirit. Friends and family would now have to try their best to focus on sweet little Margaret and Martha Ratliff. It was such a tragedy—the girls, so young, had been left complete orphans.

On December 12, 2001, sixteen years after Elizabeth's death, Detective Art Holland received a phone call from Margaret Blair. The Durham police paged Holland with an urgent message from a woman in Rhode Island. The call had something to do with Margaret and Martha Ratliff.

“That's when it all started. She told me who her sister was, and that she died in Germany in 1985, found at the foot of the steps, ” Holland confided. “Now I've got two women dead at the foot of a flight of steps, and both women know the same man.”

The call from Elizabeth's sister came just days after Kathleen Peterson's death, at a time when all of Michael Peterson's friends and neighbors were telling Holland about the good character of Michael Peterson, and what a perfect husband he had been to Kathleen.

The day after Kathleen's demise, Blair had spoken to both of her nieces to express her sympathy for the loss of their stepmom. The girls were in shock. Both of them knew the history of their mom, Elizabeth, who had died from a fall down the stairs. Margaret and Martha both thought it was just a horrible coincidence.

Even though she was their same blood, by the time of Kathleen Peterson's death, Margaret Blair had become a virtual stranger to her nieces. There was nothing she felt she could say to them. It was obvious that they both believed their dad, Michael, was completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Her nieces thought that Michael Peterson was being taunted by the local media and Durham police. The Ratliff girls had clearly fallen under Michael's spell. Over the years, there were problems that Michael Peterson had created between Margaret and her nieces. There were sticky situations, some fights over the girls, but Michael had won those battles. He had managed to make Margaret Blair feel unnecessary.

Back in 1985, when Margaret Blair had first learned that Michael Peterson was legally in control of Elizabeth's daughters, she was surprised that her sister had left the care of her children to someone outside their family. There had been a time in the early 1990s, when Margaret Blair had tried to adopt Margaret and Martha. It was a time when the girls were spending their summers with Blair at her home in Rhode Island, and Margaret and her husband had become very attached to Elizabeth's daughters. Even though her sister's will had specified that Michael and Patricia Peterson be their guardians, Margaret Blair hoped that the Petersons might relinquish their legal rights.

Margaret Blair fought to become their legal mom.

But those years had become a difficult period for everyone. As it happened, Margaret and Martha Ratliff felt torn between two households. Margaret Blair ran a very strict Christian home, and the Ratliff girls, very young and impressionable, were led to believe that because Michael Peterson and Kathleen Atwater were living together, because Michael was still technically married to Patricia, they would be better off living full-time in Rhode Island.

It wasn't merely the fact that Michael and Kathleen were living in sin, it was the reality that the Ratliff girls were being shifted around from place to place. They had lived with Michael and Patricia in Durham, they had lived with Michael and Patricia in Germany for a while, and then they wound up living with Michael and Kathleen and her daughter Caitlin in a kind of makeshift family.