they visited their dad whenever they could. i would just sob every time i left. you hold it together for dad because why would you cry in front of dad? that s not gonna help him. but then, when you leave, you know, you re sobbing in your car. reporter: they watched his lawyer file a series of failed appeals. we would have hope for every single appeal. and every single time, it would get beaten down. reporter: his case went all the way up to the north carolina supreme court, and was rejected. but michael says he never lost hope. i told everybody. i am not going to die in prison. reporter: the odds were certainly stacked against him. but then, life can take some very strange twists and turns. coming up, a wild, new theory about what happened to kathleen. the owl flew down and landed on kathleen s head. and the fresh evidence backing it up. you have to magnify them 400 times just to see them.
cameras. everybody s a little bit older, but there s so much that s the same. the emotion, the tension, the anger, all of it was still there. how does mr. peterson plead to charge of voluntary manslaughter? he enters a plea of guilty pursuant to alford. mr. peterson you re pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. that s a class d felony. do you understand, sir? yes, sir. and do you now personally plead guilty pursuant to the alford case? yes, sir. that s was the most difficult decision i ever made in my life was to take the alford plea. and that s gonna give kathleen s family an opportunity for what they call the victim impact statement right. michael peterson you are pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. you will be treated as guilty for murdering my sister kathleen. and you will be a convicted felon forever. it was very cathartic to say,
no it s not. and then why he thinks kathleen most likely fell after a recent injury he says she was on major meds. when dateline continues. get it! get that butterfly! you know those butterflies aren t actually in the room? hey, that baker lady s on tv again. she s not a baker. she wears that apron to sell insurance. nobody knows why. she s the progressive insurance lady. they cover pets if your owner gets into a car accident. covers us with what? you got me. [ scoffs ] she s an insurance lady. and i suppose this baker sells insurance, too? progressive protects your pets like you do. you can see the secret life of pets 2 only in theaters. the secret life of pets 2 by finding the best deals on paint and stain. lowe s knows you do it right
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a staircase. reporter: but to martha and margaret, the whole thing seemed absurd. the fact that michael was being accused of killing kathleen, the woman they called mom, was bizarre enough. but now, their birth mom, too? what would their father have gained by killing elizabeth ratliff? he would ve gotten two screaming little ragamuffin kids out of it and that s it? like, there s nothing there s no reason for it. reporter: for the investigators in north carolina, though, the death in germany became a strong building block in their circumstantial case for murder. and what s more detectives learned that michael peterson had a secret life. secrets tawdry ones were about to spill out in the durham courthouse. coming up enter brad, the male escort. what types of services did you perform? oh, wow. that s that s pretty broad.