A Perfect Husband (27 page)

Someone with blood on their bare feet had walked from the hallway where Kathleen had been found dead to the utility sink in the laundry room. After hearing over eleven police witnesses testify about their findings at the scene, jurors would listen to the words of evidence technician Eric Campen, who, along with two other members of the Durham police, had documented a nearly invisible trail of bloody footprints.

Crime Scene Investigator Campen told jurors that the trail was only visible when investigators sprayed the floor with luminol, a chemical that reacted with traces of blood, a chemical that emitted a blue-green glow, showing blood that had been invisible to the naked eye.

The faint footprints led from the utility sink in the laundry room, to the kitchen sink and the refrigerator, and finally, to a cabinet where wineglasses were kept—wineglasses that were identical to the
two used glasses
found next to the sink on the night of Kathleen's death. Jurors would later learn that, regarding the two wineglasses, only one contained fingerprints—from Michael Peterson. The other glass on the kitchen counter had no identifiable fingerprints at all. Jurors would later discover that the prosecution team had found a broken crystal wineglass, which they had paid $30 for an expert to repair.

As prosecutors continued to build a case against Peterson, it was becoming clear what their theory was: Peterson had taken one or two wineglasses out of the cabinet, had poured a bottle of wine down the sink, and had tried to create the appearance that he and his wife had been drinking heavily. Rudolf would make much of the fact that there were “partial” unidentifiable fingerprints on the second wineglass. Rudolf would show the jury two liquor bottles—Chambord and cognac—taken from the Peterson home, asking why they hadn't been tested for fingerprints. But the fact was, on the night of Kathleen's death, there would have been no reason to process liquor bottles that were tucked away in another part of the house.

Rudolf would question police relentlessly, wondering why they had not checked more closely for fingerprints, implying that their work was sloppy and shoddy. But when prosecutors entered that broken crystal wineglass into evidence, it could not be explained by anyone. It was, perhaps, shattered in a struggle. But without witnesses, the broken crystal glass remained a mystery.

No matter how hard Rudolf attacked the police, arguing that the evidence was not absolute, that the bloody footprints didn't mean anything, that Peterson was caressing his dead wife, that his shoes and socks had already been off before police arrived, there was no way to get around another fact—a partial footprint from Michael Peterson's shoe was evident on the back of Kathleen's sweat pants. Peterson had stepped on his wife, and Durham police had taken photos of the footprint, which clearly showed the impression of the bottom of an athletic shoe, in blood, on Kathleen's hind leg.

After twenty-one days of testimony, and thirty prosecution witnesses, jurors heard from another special agent from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, DNA expert Mark Boodee, who testified about the mix of saliva he had detected on a can of diet Coke seized by police that night. The DNA expert would tell jurors that the Coke can, found on the patio area just outside the Peterson home, tested positive for saliva that came from the defendant. The expert would also tell jurors that
DNA from other individuals
had been found on that diet Coke can.

For jurors, the prosecution case was no longer seeming like a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Even though prosecutors did not have a weapon, even though they could not prove that anyone had helped stage the scene, prosecutors had produced the blood evidence, they had introduced photos and videotape of the bloody walls and stairwell, and graphic images showing that the victim, Kathleen Peterson, was battered. Among all of that evidence, the diet Coke can seemed less significant, yet the fact that it held partial bloody prints, and DNA with mixed saliva, seemed highly suspicious.

Of course there was no evidence to support what Todd Peterson might have known, or what he might have done, on the night of Kathleen's death. Todd Peterson had refused to give any statement to police. He was featured on Court TV and local news as being a supportive son, as someone who was fighting for his father's good name. Todd expressed his feelings of love for his dad, describing Michael as a normal, fun guy who would spend time hanging out at the house watching TV sporting events.

Reporters would later discover that Todd Peterson had his own strange Web site, which was in direct conflict with Rudolf's characterization of Michael Peterson as the role-model, as the perfect dad to a set of well-raised children. While Todd Peterson sat in court every day dressed to the nines, looking very clean-cut, very
GQ
, it turned out that he was running a web site,
www.Futazi.com
, which offered tips to high school students on everything from kissing and foreplay to ideas about bodybuilding and proper application of makeup. On the site, Todd had introduced himself as “Roman Croft,” showing before-and-after photos of himself in little boxer shorts. Todd's site had a strong emphasis on sex, and included pornographic images that were certainly not appropriate for the young teenage demographic he was targeting. Some of its content was highly pornographic and quite offensive.

 

 

It was on August 6, 2003, weeks into the trial, that things in Michael Peterson's world really began to heat up. Dr. Kenneth Snell would take the stand to tell the jury that he had made an error in his initial report. The medical examiner would testify that, because he was initially unable to see the amount of lacerations to Kathleen Peterson's head, he had misdiagnosed the cause of death. Dr. Snell would explain that he had watched Dr. Deborah Radisch and other forensic pathologists perform the autopsy at the medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill, and then had realized that “some instrument” could have created the lacerations to Kathleen Peterson's scalp.

One of the strongest witnesses for the state, Dr. Snell told jurors that he had changed his initial findings of “accident” and had ruled Kathleen Peterson's death a
homicide.
With Kathleen's matted hair out of the way, Snell had witnessed seven lacerations, and the medical examiner had changed his opinion completely. Kenneth Snell testified that, because of additional evidence, it was “routine” for information from a field report to be revised.

The same week that Kenneth Snell testified,
People
magazine had reported on the Michael Peterson murder case. Even though the case against the Durham novelist had been largely overshadowed by the sensational Scott and Laci Peterson case,
People
would report details about the mysterious Michael Peterson. The magazine presented a shimmering image of Michael and his wife on the night Kathleen died, a couple who popped champagne corks in celebration of his latest movie deal. The magazine made Peterson seem very Hollywood, very successful, and described Michael as “a doting husband who often surprised his spouse with gifts of valuable jewelry and silk scarves.” Without taking sides, the article presented Peterson in a rather positive light, noting that the North Carolina murder case had divided the members of Durham's “close-knit upper crust.”

But the
People
article missed the mark. The magazine had appeared on newsstands too soon. In fact, it appeared the very week that the most explosive information of the trial was being entered into evidence.

On August 7, Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to introduce evidence to prove that Michael Peterson was bisexual, that pornographic photos of men and suggestive e-mails retrieved from Michael Peterson's computer were relevant to show why he might have beaten his wife to death.

After objections from the defense, which argued that Peterson was e-mailing a male prostitute because he was doing research for a book about “gays in the military,” Judge Hudson ruled that the pornographic evidence would be presented. Because the defense had made contentions about the Petersons' idyllic marriage, the defense had opened the door. The e-mails were very specific regarding Peterson's intentions: he wanted to pay for sex, he was willing to have an escort come to his home while his wife was busy at work, and he wanted the business of his alternative sex life to be discreet.

When Judge Hudson made his ruling, Michael Peterson sat behind the defense table, reading an e-mail he had deleted on December 8, 2001. From the stunned look on his face, it was clear that the novelist had no idea that experts had been able to undelete all of his previously erased e-mails.

The e-mails entered into evidence contained explicit requests for sex from Michael Peterson to a male escort, who called himself “Brad.” Prosecutors had circulated Peterson's e-mails to jurors, proving that Peterson was looking for sexual relations outside of his marriage. They were able to show, through numerous e-mails to the young male escort Brad, that Peterson had spent months trying to arrange to pay for sex with the young man.

Brad, apparently, was an active member of the U.S. military, who had been called to serve after 9/11. The e-mails indicated that Peterson was willing to wait for Brad, that the e-mails from Peterson weren't just a happenstance request for sex. Prosecutors had evidence of exact prices to be paid, of exact times and dates being set by Michael, and most importantly, they were able to show that Kathleen Peterson, on the night of her death, most possibly had gained access to information about Brad because Peterson had a file in his desk with printouts of Brad's escort service, complete with nude pictures of Brad with a big hard-on.

Prosecutors were able to question Helen Preslinger, who testified that she heard Kathleen ask for her husband's e-mail address on December 8, 2001. Preslinger was aware that on that night, Kathleen had gone into her husband's office just after 11:08
P.M.
Preslinger had sent an e-mail to Kathleen, it was something Kathleen needed for their conference call the next morning, but the e-mail had never been opened.

Prosecutors would speculate that while Kathleen had waited in her husband's office that night, looking for the e-mail from Helen Preslinger, it was also possible that she might have gained access to the information on her husband's computer, which, according to state computer experts, had been deleted by someone on December 8, 2001, and again on December 11, 2001. What Kathleen Peterson might have discovered that night, in addition to the file in his desk regarding Brad, was a print-out of
hundreds
of photos of explicit male porn images, and the following list of the favorite sex sites that Michael had downloaded:

Durham assistant district attorney David Saacks presented the case regarding evidence of Michael Peterson's sexual preferences to be allowed into court. Saacks talked about the possibility of a “love triangle.” He would tell Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. that even if there weren't a financial motive to commit murder, there certainly could have been an argument between Michael and Kathleen on the night she died, because there was a folder of graphic e-mails written by Michael to another man, which could prove to be an explanation for what happened in the Peterson household on the night in question.

Saacks would make comments about the e-mails and male porn photos retrieved from Peterson's computer, asserting that it would have been easy for Kathleen to put two and two together. The Durham prosecutor stated his belief that Peterson's bisexuality “could possibly go to motive.” After the prosecution team won a victory, David Saacks later told the
Herald-Sun
that the prosecution had proof that “Peterson engaged in homosexual relations with two other men”
before
he married Kathleen Peterson.

“The fact that we brought the pornography into the trial was to corroborate that this is where Peterson's interest was,” Saacks confided. “The main thing was to show proof of marital infidelity because it was a possible motive for murder, but also because it would bust what the defense brought up in the opening statement about this being the ideal marriage and them being soul mates.”

Jurors would soon learn that Peterson had a file in his desk drawer that included a packet of e-mails to a male escort, Brad. Police had seized the file, which was somehow mixed in with Kathleen Peterson's important tax documents and her check stubs, and prosecutors had reason to believe Kathleen Peterson had found the file folder. They surmised she might have looked through her husband's desk while she was waiting for her e-mail from Canada.

Because Durham police had witnessed Michael Peterson very busy working on his computer—on the night of his wife's death—the computer was seized and an expert was hired by the state. Todd Markley would later testify that Peterson had used a program called Quick Clean to delete 2,500 pictures from his computer. The expert would testify that hundreds of Peterson's files were deleted during the week of Kathleen Peterson's death, including 216 files that were erased the day before Mrs. Peterson died, and 352 files that were deleted two days after her death.

According to the computer sleuth, during the week of his wife's death, Michael Peterson had tried to delete everything from his computer altogether, and then had selectively reloaded certain programs and e-mails back onto his machine.

The expert was an employee of an Ohio-based company called CompuSleuth. He would testify that his company not only found deleted pornographic photos and suggestive e-mails, but had found e-mails written by Michael Peterson regarding his financial worries as well. The numerous e-mails were entered into evidence, and regarding his financial troubles, Peterson's words were read aloud for jurors to hear.

In one of the e-mails, written days before Kathleen's death, Michael talked about “poor Kathleen,” who was “undergoing the tortures of the damned” at Nortel Networks. According to Michael, Nortel had already laid off forty-five thousand people. He believed that his wife was a “survivor,” and thought her job would remain intact, but he mentioned that she was experiencing “monumental stress,” having to work under such negative conditions.

In another e-mail, Michael spoke of the financial difficulties being suffered by his sons, Clayton and Todd. He informed relatives, including his ex-wife, Patricia, that Clayton and Todd were both living in debt, paying high interest on credit cards, explaining that he was “worried sick about them.” Michael expressed to one relative that he was “sorry as hell to have to come begging,” but he was hoping that the person could offer $5,000 a semester in assistance toward Martha Ratliff's college tuition. In separate pleas to Patricia, Michael requested that his ex-wife take out a $30,000 home equity loan to help with the cost-of-living expenses for their boys.

 

 

When the bisexuality of Michael Peterson was entered into the trial, the genteel ears of Southern ladies and gentlemen in the courtroom perked up. Some of Kathleen's family members weeped. It was too embarrassing, too humiliating for them to see Kathleen's private life being dragged through the mud. From the explicit nature of Michael's e-mails, it was obvious that he was not only an adulterer, but he was perhaps more homosexual than straight. The thought of Kathleen's marriage being a sham, especially when she was paying for everything, and taking care of everyone, was all the more hurtful to her sisters and to Caitlin.

Michael and Brad had begun communicating in late August 2001. They had spoken on the phone. They had discussed their likes and dislikes. And Michael had checked out Brad's Web site, which, from the looks of it, made Brad seem like a superstud. Michael wondered if Brad had ever considered going into the porn business and suggested that Brad contact a porn king in Palm Springs.

In an e-mail written from Brad, dated August 31, 2001, Brad asked Michael for more specific details about the gay porn king. The porn king apparently owned a Palm Springs resort, where he auditioned young men for possible film roles. The following morning, at 3:36, Michael had written back to offer a full report about the “major figure” in the male porn industry, who had gotten started by “paying Marines to jack off on film.”

Michael suggested that Brad go to the Internet to look up the history of the man and his resort, and was he intrigued to learn that Brad would consider the possibility of doing porn films. Because Brad was such a strapping, beautiful, blond hunk, at least from looking at pictures of him on his Web page, Michael felt Brad fit the USMC profile that the guy in Palm Springs was looking for.

Michael suggested that Brad go to Palm Springs and audition for a part in an all-male porn film. From Brad's reviews, posted on his Web site, it was clear that the young military stud would fit right in with other soldiers and sailors who had done those kind of flicks. It was good money; it was easy money. Michael thought that Brad would be perfect, that he could make it “big time.” He explained that the Palm Springs porn king took pride in “discovering macho young guys—mostly Marines.”

In the meantime, Michael wanted Brad to come up to his house. He wanted the young man to see the gorgeous place, where he could give Brad more information about the porn business, if that was of any interest. Michael said that he himself had always wondered what his life would have been like as a porn star, stating that his “Cecil B. DeMille moment” had happened many years prior, when Michael was a “poster boy” for the marines, having had his face plastered on walls in every recruit office across America.

In a subsequent e-mail, Michael said he would be happy to help Brad get started in any “career change” he might be considering, whether it was the porn movie business, or a new start in education. At one point, the young soldier had mentioned his interest in becoming a dentist, and Michael offered to introduce him to friends who could help Brad gain admission to one of the colleges in North Carolina. Michael said he had friends and connections everywhere, and he was willing to befriend Brad in any way.

Michael was offering friendship, not because he was looking for a discount. He understood that Brad needed to earn a living. Michael was happy to meet with Brad for “straight-on business,” without any strings attached. Michael said he was looking forward to meeting a “fuck machine,” and offered to fuck Brad “for the set price.”

Brad wrote back immediately, telling Michael how “cool” he sounded, telling Michael that he was used to being a “top,” but would let Michael “bang” him, assuming Michael was “man enough.” Regarding Michael's remarks about having “plenty of money,” Brad joked that if Michael had extra cash to throw around, he would appreciate Michael donating it to the “Poor Private's Foundation,” since he was still a private, “albeit, private first class.”

The two of them had plans to meet on Wednesday, September 5, 2001. Michael had a meeting to attend in the early part of the evening, and Brad was about to be flown out of the area, but Michael would be willing to meet Brad in an airport hotel to “give a soldier a send-off.”

But the meeting never happened.

Brad was unable to return Michael's message of September 2, because as it happened, the soldier's flight plans had changed and he had taken off at 6:00
A.M.
the next day. And then, without question, the 9/11 terrorist attacks had impacted Brad's life immensely. Because of the red alert, Brad had been placed on guard duty around the clock, every day. He finally wrote to Michael on September 30, explaining that he'd been so crazy on the job, he hadn't made time for any calls, and he hadn't hooked up with any clients. Brad apologized for not getting back in touch sooner, writing to say he had returned to Raleigh briefly and was now headed to Fort Bragg for additional guard duty.

Though the two men never did find the time and place to hook up, their e-mails were conclusive evidence of Peterson's sexual secret, and prosecutors called Brad to the witness stand to testify. They wanted the young soldier to identify Michael Peterson as the man whom he'd spoken to, as the man he made sexual arrangements with. Unwilling to go before the court without being given statewide immunity from prosecution, Brad had hired his own attorney, Thomas Loflin III. The media whirled into a feeding frenzy around Brad, and his attorney was insisting that Brad's identity remain veiled, since he was still on active duty, serving in the army reserve.

As it turned out, Judge Hudson refused to shield Brad's face or identity from the press. The feisty judge said that giving the young man immunity in exchange for his testimony was a big enough concession, and said he wasn't about to make any “deals” with “Brad,” who was no different from any other witness in the case.

The next day, prosecutor Freda Black questioned Brent Wolgamott, aka Brad, and asked him about his male escort business. The young man, with a crew cut and a wide smile, had worn a navy blue blazer with brass buttons; he had dressed the part for his fifteen minutes of fame. He seemed only too happy to have his say on the witness stand with national camera crews fighting to get pictures of his face.

After being granted immunity, Brent “Brad” Wolgamott waived his Fifth Amendment right, and told the court that he charged $150 an hour for his services. He bragged that his client roster included doctors and lawyers, and told Freda Black that most of the men whom he would see would have “their time” with him and then go back to their “happy-hubby lives.”

“And what type of services did you perform?” Black wanted to know.

“Oh, well, that's pretty broad,” the soldier said, smiling.

“Did it involve sexual activity?”

“Sometimes it does.”

“What types of sexual activity?” Black asked.

“Oh, well, just about anything under the sun,” the young man testified, laughing and shaking his head.

When David Rudolf had a chance to cross-examine the witness, he asked questions that tried to show how Kathleen Peterson would have been
aware
of her husband's bisexuality. Rudolf implied that Kathleen most likely
accepted
her husband's double life, that Kathleen was probably not bothered by it.

But Kathleen's family knew better. They knew Kathleen was devastated by her first husband's affair, and there was no way in the world that Kathleen would have tolerated Michael having lovers, gay or otherwise.

The twenty-eight-year-old Wolgamott had never met Michael Peterson, had never seen him face-to-face, until the day he appeared in court. The young man claimed that he was no longer a male escort, testifying that he was a college student working hard at trying to make something out of his life. Wolgamott tried looking over at Michael Peterson during his few hours on the stand, but the young man couldn't catch Peterson's eye. In terms of being able to comment about what Kathleen Peterson might have known about her fifty-eight-year-old husband's homosexual desires, the former male escort had no idea.

He described his clients as being “predominantly straight with minor homosexual tendencies,” and said that he would have no way of knowing what went on in the Peterson household, explaining things never got that personal. He testified that “there were never any romantic relationships involved,” never any highly personal exchanges with any of his clients.