Michael Peterson trial

Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. In 2011, after eight years in prison, Peterson was granted a new trial and released from prison after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony. In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed.

Peterson's case is the subject of the French documentary miniseries The Staircase, which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wife's death in an independently published memoir, Behind the Staircase. The miniseries The Staircase, starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also covers the case and its aftermath. Several other documentaries have been produced about Kathleen's death, including a sequel to the 2004 French documentary, podcasts, radio shows and other media.

Personal and professional life

Michael Iver Peterson was born near Nashville, Tennessee, the son of Eugene Iver Peterson and Eleanor Peterson (née Bartolino). He graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in political science. While there, Peterson was president of Sigma Nu fraternity and was editor of The Chronicle, the daily student newspaper, from 1964 to 1965. He attended classes at the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.