but soon another bombshell and this one would blow the family apart. two months after christmas the coroner released the results of the official occupies. multiple lacerations to the back of her head. like she was bludgeoned to death. severe. long, linear. lacerations. not consistent with a fall. not consistent with a fall. if kathleen s sister candace had been harboring suspicions about what had really happened to her sister, the medical examiner s report was the thing that pushed her over the edge. i seven huge lacerations that basically scalped her. it was murder. that one picture that was it. after reading the autopsy report herself, kathleen s daughter kaitlyn agreed with her aunt. she called her step sister margaret. i said you need to read this. you need to understand that mom she did not die from falling
dripping down the walls. well that doesn t happen when you have a cerebral hemorrhage. authorities in north carolina were thinking the same thing. if foul play had been involved in elizabeth ratliff s death. it might bolster their case. but the only way to know for sure, they concluded was to dig up elizabeth s grave. former assistant district attorney greta black. we decided it probably would be worthwhile to try to exhume her body to determine whether the findings in germany were accurate or not. to do that they would have to get the okay from elizabeth s daughters, margaret and martha. the girls who believed in in their father s innocence as fiercely as they mistrusted the authorities, struggled with that decision. the hardest i ever had to do was to write off the exhumation of our birth mother. but ultimately they agreed. i signed off on it because we wanted to be like there is no way this could have happened in like please look at the
escort. but michael was about to make a stunning decision that almost no one could have predicted. with the conclusion of our story, here s dennis murphy. reporter: michael peterson s days in the mansion on cedar street were long gone. as he awaited trial number two, he passed his days in a durham condo writing about his experiences in prison. meanwhile, the prosecution was forging ahead, a new trial was scheduled for the spring of 2017. as it got closer, the reality hit daughters martha and margaret hard. and that was actually devastating for me, it was pretty much a nightmare to live the first trial, and to have to go through that a second time would be even worse of a nightmare. i can t go through that again. i can t go through another guilty verdict. reporter: kathleen s sister, candace, knew a second murder trial would dredge up all the pain again.
amy beth thought a full-fledged investigation would ensue. but as she tells it, michael peterson spoke to the authorities that day, relating that elizabeth had a hereditary bleeding disorder. perhaps she had had a stroke and fallen down the stairs. the questions amy beth expected to be asked never were. i wondered why aren t they talking to people. why aren t they asking questions. no one did. later that day, michael peterson phoned elizabeth ratliff s family in the u.s. with the terrible news. margaret blair is elizabeth s sister. he said margaret there s been an accident. liz fell down the stairs and died. what are you saying? i went numb. my sister, he s saying my sister, she died. she s young, she s got two beautiful little children, babies, really. those baby girls are martha and margaret. michael took custody of the girls after the accident in germany. and then michael, along with his first wife patty and later with
somebody s at the bottom of the stairs, you automatically response is she fell down the stairs. detective art holland was called to the cedar street mansion in the wee hours, we spoke to him more than a decade ago. first officers had already arrived at the peterson house. right, first officers arrived, ems arrived. the medical examiner was called in. he looked at the victim and said that a fall down the stairs was possible. he could see some lacerations or feel some of the lacerations on the back of mrs. peterson s head and he stated that this could be the result of a fall. by dawn news of kathleen s fall started rippling through the family. details were still vague and family members reached michael s girls, margaret and martha at college. she said something has happened. your mom has fallen down the stairs. you know it was an accident. you know you should come home. by the time kathleen s