welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin prosecutors in the michael peterson murder trial presented an explosive theory of the crime. they claimed michael was secretly bisexual and beat his wife to death after she discovered salacious e-mails arranging a rendezvous with brad the escort not true, said michael and he wanted to speak to us, facing our questions to tackle the accusations directly here s dennis murphy reporter: prosecutors were laying out their case against michael peterson for themurder of his wife kathleen but if kathleen was bludgeoned to death as they thought, prosecutors hadn t found the murder weapon. prosecutors believed it was a murder tool here it had been given to kathleen by her sister candace as a gift
but what about those ghastly lacerations on kathleen s head which the state s medical examiner attributed to a beating? defense attorney rudolf notes what he didn t find. though the cuts were deep, there were no skull or bone fractures. there was absolutely no fractures anywhere. no fractures to her fingers, to her arms to her skull. and there was absolutely no injury to the brain. and that s just almost an impossibility if what you re doing is beating somebody with a metal object. and for a final exclamation point, the defense had a perry mason moment up its sleeve. the prosecution had insisted throughout the murder weapon used to bludgeon kathleen peterson was the fireplace blowpoke, only police never found it. almost three months into the trial, one of michael s sons made a stunning discovery in the peterson s basement. he immediately runs up to margaret who was at the house and said, margaret, i think i i i think i found the
and when the trial began, the prosecution introduced them to the man behind the professorial mask, the person they saw as the real michael peterson. this case is about pretense and appearances. it s about things not being as they seem. scratch beneath the glossy veneer, the beautiful house and sparkling dinner parties, and prosecutors would tell the jury they d find a marriage in shambles. more than the couple s money problems, more than the loss of social standing after michael got caught out lying about his military record, there was what investigators found when they searched his home office. it was just so so different than what everybody that knew michael peterson believed him to be, as far as a family man, a happily married man. it was jaw dropping. while kathleen toiled away at her executive job to pay the couple s mounting bills, michael s writing career was hitting a wall. he had some free time on his hands. and we believed that he, somewhere along the way, began
exactly. exactly. we got him. got you gotcha moment. when peterson s brother bill saw the experiment videos, he couldn t believe it. it s all reverse-engineered stuff. it s all designed to get a result. to me, it s not scientific at all. for michael s defense, the implication was clear. the jury had been duped. after all, in its closing argument, the state had even played on deaver s credibility to try to secure a conviction. then you re just going to have to believe that duane deaver is just a liar. and he has no reason in the world to come up here and lie to you. who are you gonna trust? duane deaver? of course, he would never lie. well, it turns he had he did lie. defense attorney rudolf filed a motion asking for a new trial. and the judge, this time, was ready to listen. coming up, yet another jolt for michael s children. i was weeping with shock. and a critical decision that could change everything. well, that s just not going