we didn t. i was afraid not that she would leave me, she wouldn t that she just wasn t she was the most open-minded, liberal, intelligent woman. reporter: as for the other piece of the prosecution s motive, that the petersons were on the edge of financial ruin oh, that was bull. a lot of money out on cards. total expensive schools that were bleeding them. the wonderful house was something of a money pit. what s your reaction to all of that stuff? well, my reaction is exactly what the prosecution proved. reporter: in court, the financial expert who testified about their debts also noted that in the end the petersons were still worth $1.5 million dollars. i had money. and it s not a matter it was not a financial problem. reporter: but what about that dramatic trial-within-a-trial the jury had seen? michael, implicated in not one murder, but two that friend, elizabeth ratliff s, death long ago in germany. so there you are in the court of public opinion this g
in the early 1980 s, michael peterson was living with his first wife near a u.s. air force base outside frankfurt. their good friend, elizabeth ratliff, a widow, lived nearby. liz has two children. and she s teaching school, has a great many friends who are, you know, all there. reporter: on november 24th, 1985, elizabeth went to the petersons for dinner. later, michael peterson says he drove her home. she got out and went upstairs. i said, night, liz, you know, see you tomorrow. reporter: the next morning, michael says he was fast asleep when elizabeth s nanny came running with urgent news. i m upstairs in bed. and she s saying something that, in fact, you know, liz is dead or hurt or i don t know. she s screaming. and so i put some clothes on. and i go over to the house. and, in fact, liz is dead. reporter: dead at the bottom of the stairs. bottom of the stairs.
reporter: in court, the financial expert who testified about their debts also noted that in the end the petersons were still worth $1.5 million dollars. i had money. and it s not a matter it was not a financial problem. reporter: but what about that dramatic trial-within-a-trial the jury had seen? michael, implicated in not one murder, but two that friend, elizabeth ratliff s, death long ago in germany. so there you are in the court of public opinion this guy with two important women in your life and they re both dead in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. exactly. absolutely. has to be guilty. you re a writer of fiction. your editor would probably take that kind of coincidence out of the book. well, he would say, well, you know, come up with another one. she died in the bathtub or something. but no. but you re not immune to the irony of this, huh? no. of course not. but at the time because in in the course of this investigation didn t even occur to me.
no. my sons no. it s not. it s not. was it known to kathleen, michael? i think it was one of these things that was not discussed but known. it was don t ask, don t tell? yeah. exactly. and of course, when i was growing up, there wasn t any don t ask, don t tell. it was don t, period. had she known that there were assignations, that there were hookups, what did how do you think she would ve taken it? i wish i had told her. i mean, that s one my regrets regrets. i wish i we had discussed it. we didn t. i was afraid not that she would leave me, she wouldn t that she just wasn t she was the most open-minded, liberal, intelligent woman. reporter: as for the other piece of the prosecution s motive, that the petersons were on the edge of financial ruin oh, that was bull. a lot of money out on cards. total expensive schools that were bleeding them. the wonderful house was something of a money pit. what s your reaction to all of that stuff? well, my rea
problems. i sensed it. i sensed the stress of that. reporter: and when investigators looked at the couple s credit reports they saw just what kathleen s sister candace feared. it was living above their means. i mean, you know, if he wasn t writing a book or had any royalties coming in, he had no income. reporter: and, according to kathleen s sister, michael s dabble in local politics had brought even more stress to the marriage. when he ran for mayor, he d been called out publicly if a lie a whopper of one. the war action novelist claimed to have been awarded a purple heart, only he hadn t. he got hurt, not by taking hills in vietnam, but in a car accident in japan. when it became public about his lies, it did cause kathleen these friendships. she had to decide whether to stand by michael or keep these friendships, and these friendships were lost. reporter: so if the true state of the petersons marriage was murky, investigators thought the story told in blood was becoming