Michael Peterson

Michael Peterson's lawyer David Rudolf gave Newsweek an update on some of the big things that have happened since Peterson entered his Alford Plea in 2017.

They separated in the 1980s and divorced in the early 1990s. I think he dismissed it at first, but again, I think like with me, gradually over time, you start to take it a little bit more seriously, given all the other information that exists. Speaking to Newsweek, Rudolf gave an update on Michael Peterson's whereabouts: "He's [Michael Peterson] living in Durham and has an apartment. The injuries to Kathleen's head also mirrored the marks of an owl's talon. He continued, "He [Peterson] was like the rest of us. I couldn't afford to live in Paris and my children, and grandchildren were in America. And [Sophie] said, well, if you can't commit to live with me all the time, let's end it and it was a great blow to both of us.… In conversation with French publication L'Express, The Staircase documentary director de Lestrade shared: "This is one of the incredible things that happened during those 15 years. You know, I think he's just done with it. In 2003, after a lengthy legal trial, Peterson was convicted of killing his wife Kathleen Peterson on December 9, 2001. But she never let her own feelings affect the course of editing." Whether this argument happened in real life is unknown but it is true that their romance did not last. I could not give her what she really needed and deserved."

Michael Peterson's lawyer David Rudolf told Newsweek his issues with "The Staircase" on HBO Max's accuracy, describing it as "outright false" at points.

In the end, Lestrade and Brunet won and the scene with Clayton Peterson was included in the documentary instead. Like Peterson, Ratliff was found at the bottom of her stairs with injuries to her head. I talked to the witnesses, I got the German police report and the DA's file. So much so, that the court in Durham ordered the exhumation of Ratliff's body from her grave in Texas. It is true that Peterson and Brunet did date, with Peterson confirming to The News and Observer they went their separate ways in 2017. In the fifth episode, Brunet and Lestrade are seen arguing with their producer over which clip to delete from the documentary. He continued: "In other words, by that point, Michael didn't have any assets and the court appointed us to represent him on appeal and paid U.S. court-appointed rates. "It was a great blow to both of us, for which I feel not guilt, but sorrow," he continued. I couldn't afford to live in Paris and my children, and grandchildren were in America," he said. He did meet with Michael Stuhlbarg who portrayed him in the series and even lent him his real glasses to wear during the film. To begin with, he said that the scene where he was introduced to Michael Peterson (played by Colin Firth) in a diner while eating pastrami did not happen in real life. Since his guilty conviction, much has happened in Michael Peterson's case, from a retrial in 2011 to being officially released from prison in 2017 after entering an Alford Plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter.

Lawyer David Rudolf's thoughts on Episode 8 finale of HBO Max series The Staircase, Michael Peterson case, Sophie Brunet, Antonio Campos, Michael Stuhlbarg.

But for anybody who watches this, and then goes and watches the documentary, they know that a lot of the HBO series is false. But she still doesn’t want to believe Michael killed Kathleen. “He didn’t. He couldn’t,” Brunet says, as de Lestrade’s eyes fill with tears and he sighs, with a shake of his head and the slightest shrug. She gets up to leave, but before she does, she asks him, gently, “Why didn’t you tell me?” As he tries to calmly explain, he says, “People don’t actually know who they’re with.” Michael closes his eyes as he reclines in his chaise lounge by the pool, and Kathleen is seen — this time with tears in her eyes and clearly distressed — mouthing what appears to be the same line: “Why didn’t you tell me?,” as the musical score swells. “I haven’t recommended it to anybody,” Rudolf says of HBO’s show. “The problem is that a lot of people who watch this HBO series will just accept it as truth, and won’t even bother going and looking at the documentary. Did he not do it?’ Bringing people back and forth through that, the ambiguity of what happened, and the complexity of the characters, Michael and Kathleen and the kids — that’s fair. As seen on TV: Having spent multiple previous episodes telling Rudolf that he wouldn’t say the word “guilty” as it pertained to killing his wife, Peterson finally says it — as part of an Alford plea deal at his final court date in 2017. As seen on TV: De Lestrade shows Brunet the footage of Peterson explaining that he lied about having told his wife of his sexuality and his affairs. But despite the fact that he is finally free to move from Durham, alone together in his apartment Peterson tells Brunet (Juliette Binoche) that he’s not ready to go to Paris with her. “I think he was legitimately interested in learning about me, and about what made me do the things I do,” Rudolf says of Stuhlbarg. So no, I would treat him exactly the same way. It just struck me as sort of not who I am.” I would have hoped that he would have been able in some way to say to Antonio, ‘Wait a minute.

The truth about Michael Peterson and Sophie Brunet's relationship compared to how 'The Staircase' on HBO Max portrays it.

However, in reality, Brunet and Peterson’s relationship began after she stopped working on the documentary to work on other projects. And again: I had absolutely no dog in the fight for the first eight episodes. As de Lestrade, The Staircase’s producer Allyson Luchak, editor Scott Stevenson, and Peterson’s lawyer David S. Rudolf told Vanity Fair, the HBO Max series got one significant aspect of Peterson and Brunet’s relationship incorrect. According to de Lestrade, Brunet’s relationship with Peterson never impacted her work. HBO Max’s The Staircase dramatizes Kathleen Peterson’s death and Michael Peterson’s case that followed. On Dec. 9, 2001, Kathleen reportedly fell down the stairs to her death.

HBO Max's dramatization of 'The Staircase' has rested its case — but did it answer all of our questions? Read our finale recap.

“It just wasn’t the whole thing.” In 2017, Michael calls his kids and tells them he’s not going to Paris and that he hopes to see them soon. He finally admits he’s not coming to Paris, and when she gets upset, he finally explodes: “I don’t want to live with women anymore!” He also admits he doesn’t know if he ever loved her (ouch), and Sophie runs off in tears. Margie is now working on a documentary of her own, and she wonders if she should’ve gone to his plea, but her siblings agree that it’s “still hard to be around him.” Candace fumes that he’s free and blames herself for not warning Kathleen about him earlier: “I had a feeling.” Plus, we also flash back to the night of Kathleen’s death; she bemoans the fact that they have to give up Paris and Aruba, but Michael is happy to settle for “pasta and Blockbusters.” On the way home, he tells Sophie he’s broke, but she vows to take care of him, and they share an intimate moment in the bedroom. He celebrates with his family in 2011, though he’s fitted with an ankle bracelet and given a 10 pm curfew. In 2017, Michael pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter and is free to go.

HBO Max's new series “The Staircase” is a dramatic retelling of the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson and the Durham murder trial of her husband, Michael.

He puts out photos of Kathleen all over the apartment — him with Kathleen, Kathleen with the kids — and then sits down on his bed. De Lestrade asks him who he means and he says “the shortstop.” She tells him he’s the one who was always talking about “Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris” and he mutters, exasperated, “Shut up” and she screams at him. She says Martha has a dance recital and Margaret is there with her, the way she should be. De Lestrade turns off the video and Brunet says: “This man, this man is a liar. Clayton calls to make a reservation and the owner gets on the line and says “We don’t seat convicted killers” and hangs up. He calls her controlling, says that she and Kathleen both always tried to control everything. Todd offers to go with him and Michael snaps at him, telling him he’s still able to (use the bathroom) on his own. Kathleen is soaking in the tub and Michael sits beside her and asks what she’s thinking about. In 2011, he allows the hearing to go forward, and this is where we pick up again, on the 10th anniversary of Kathleen’s death. Candace notices Brunet and whispers to Lori: “That’s the girlfriend, poor stupid woman.” Margaret tells her she never said anything to her (about her sexuality) and Martha says: “You never asked, no one ever asked me.

Both actors were given autopsy photos and trial documents to prep, and they both spoke to Peterson's real defense attorney David Rudolf ahead of shooting.

STUHLBARG It’s funny because with what I remember David saying about how he practices his profession, when he’s in it, he’s in it, and when he’s not, he’s not. MICHAEL STUHLBARG I heard about it when I was in the middle of making another project, and I had worked with Antonio before, on After School. It was a really provocative and interesting piece for its time, and very personal for Antonio. When I heard about The Staircase happening, and he wanted me to be a part of it, I jumped at the opportunity. I have rarely seen two people just absorb so much about each other so well and so thoroughly, and you were both so perfect for those parts. We just loved the charm and the brutality of being able to portray this kind of exhaustion and darkness in their friendship. I remember looking over at Michael and he just looked at me and he gave me a thumbs up, and it just meant so much. So by the time we got to the courtroom scenes — we shot those in five days — I was a bit nervous when I had to do things alone. Antonio gave us this massive stack, two huge envelopes, with autopsy photos and all the papers that the defense would have had during the trial and left it to us to either look at them or not. I was also a fan of the documentary and, oddly, I had seen it a second time even before I knew that we were going to be making a show. Antonio had been in his 20s and he reached out to me and befriended me at some little cocktail party, and we just started talking and he invited me to his first film, After School. I was really impressed at how much of a vision he had as a filmmaker. I just kept listening to Freda’s voice and her accent and got to watch her on Court TV. And that’s when I heard that Michael Stuhlbarg, who’s been a favorite actor of mine since [Martin McDonagh’s play] ThePillowman, was in touch with David Rudolph, the real guy! I would just listen to David’s voice over and over again and just sort through it. I’d heard that Parker and Colin [Firth] and Toni [Collette] were all going to be a part of it.

The HBO Max series doesn't know, and as Maggie Cohn explained to IndieWire, the show is about making viewers comfortable with not knowing.

We had concurrent timelines, we had the multiple depictions, [as a way of] slowly letting you become, as a viewer, comfortable with the idea that this is just a story and that we can never fully know anything. I can relate to the idea that there’s something you desperately want to communicate about yourself to the world, but you’re not quite sure how to do it, and that people do pick up on it, and sense you don’t know how to talk about it. When Michael says, “At the end of the day, will you ever fully know anyone?” That’s the risk we were taking, hope that people who are more familiar with and fans of the true-crime genre are willing to go on that ride with us. That’s unsettling to give into, that we don’t have all the answers about this and about many things in life. In the first episode of the documentary, Michael talks about how Kathleen knew about that. Maggie Cohn: We knew Episode 7 was going to be that catharsis not only for Kathleen. The exorcism of these bats is a metaphor for their relationship, just festering and not dealt with. Antonio and I always felt the same way of “you don’t get to say what she knew,” because we don’t know everything fully about a person. It has to be expelled, she has to get it out of her. The foundation that we set in 7 allowed Episode 8, our final episode, to be slightly more ethereal and ambiguous, while creating that feeling of making people feel OK with the unknown. The show’s very last moments handle this with an eerie sleight of hand, the sound cutting out on Kathleen’s voice as she shouts at Michael, “Why didn’t you tell me?” and smash cut to him alone, by the pool, in his truth. The series, as Cohn explained to IndieWire in an interview, is all about ambiguity and being comfortable with not knowing the truth. IndieWire spoke with Cohn about these accusations and some of the finale’s big leaps — including depicting a much-debated plausibility that Kathleen actually knew about her husband’s bisexuality, despite his eventual confession that she never in fact did.

It just wasn't to the question they'd asked. When Michael Peterson (Colin Firth), the dissembling author accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen (Toni Collette) ...

It was a loop: the characters kept coming back to that fateful 2001 night, the audience to the first episode. “It just wasn’t the whole thing.” Was that omission or deceit? The technical rigour of the storytelling was acute. The audience was always aware of how stories were being assembled, told and retold so that they competed for ascendancy. Trying to pin down a truth nearly broke her, as she uncovered confirmation of Michael’s male lovers he’d previously denied, and their dissolution was harsh as she refused to allow him to prevaricate. The triumph of Colin Firth’s performance was his emotional fluidity. Campos’ drama was inspired by the previous Staircase, the ground-breaking true-crime documentary (currently streaming on Netflix). Watching a fictionalised version of it being made – with shots of the crew embedded with Michael and his lawyer, David Rudolf (Michael Stuhlbarg) – added another layer to the narrative. But within the remnants of his family the adult children struggled to stay afloat. This was a deeper, solemn exploration of the true crime genre. An early sequence of the Peterson clan driving in a convoy of cars to a police station had the camera moving from vehicle to vehicle in a seamless shot, turning upside down like the family’s reality. The Staircase built with inexorable dread to three moments: Kathleen’s death in 2001, the judicial decision in 2011 as to whether Michael should get a retrial, and his struggle to accept the Alford plea in 2017. The case had twist after twist, including revelations of Michael’s bisexuality and the lost and then somehow found status of the blow poke, a fireplace tool that had been designated by the prosecution as a murder weapon Michael repeatedly struck Kathleen with.

It's been more than 20 years since Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the foot of a staircase in the Durham, North Carolina mansion the 48-year-old Nortel ...

In the last few minutes of the series, we get one last look at Michael Peterson. After spending time with him at a distance, now we zoom in for a close-up. Whatever we’ve seen, it’s clear that what we do know about the Petersons is just so many stories, stories that implicate the storyteller and the viewer too. “This man is a liar,” Sophie cries, though she can’t quite make the leap to murderer: “He didn’t. He couldn’t.” Love may be a process of editing. His answer is long and tedious, a philosophical indulgence about whether we ever really know the one we love. If we got a lot of Michael in the docuseries, the drama attempts to correct that too, countering his gravitational pull by bringing Kathleen to life. Brunet’s love for Peterson is bound up with her work and she fights to preserve her loving vision of him even at the expense of the overall story’s more complex reality. The series’ portrait of the Peterson union doesn’t square with the defense’s depiction of them as soulmates, but neither does it look like the sham union presented by the prosecution. Not only does the drama show us Kathleen dying by fall, and by brutal beating, but it also depicts the late-stage “owl theory”—that she neither fell nor was beaten but bled out as a result of an owl attack. And so, in addition to the familiar cast of main characters—Michael and Kathleen (Toni Collette), their kids and the legal team—we meet director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (Vincent Vermignon), producer Denis Poncet (Frank Feys), and editor Sophie Brunet (Juliette Binoche), who appears in the first few episodes as an enigmatic woman dressed in white. Kathleen Peterson’s life ended that night in December 2001, but the true crime story that grew out of her absence was just getting started, unfolding mostly as a sensational did-he-or-didn’t he? To that conflict were added some savory plot points guaranteed to stoke public appetite: the couple’s affluence and evidence that Michael Peterson had engaged in sexual encounters with men during their marriage—not to mention the fact he had known another woman who took a fatal tumble, and that he was raising her two children. It’s been more than 20 years since Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the foot of a staircase in the Durham, North Carolina mansion the 48-year-old Nortel executive shared with her husband, novelist Michael Peterson. The circumstances of her death have always been the mystery in need of solving.

The real-life main subject of both 'Staircase' series – Michael Peterson – is speaking out in an exclusive series of emails to Variety.

He is the individual responsible for what happened to us, and while I am sorely pissed at Campos for all the liberties he took with the truth (and for stealing from my book Behind the Staircase — the only source for his prison scenes, and for which I of course was not compensated), I am angrier at Jean who should have had our interests in mind when he sold our story. It is disingenuous and hypocritical for Jean to talk about his integrity being challenged when he sold himself to Campos, and showed no integrity or sense of responsibility to us. Peterson continues: “He is the individual responsible for what happened to us, and while I am sorely pissed at Campos for all the liberties he took with the truth (and for stealing from my book “Behind the Staircase” — the only source for his prison scenes, and for which I of course was not compensated), I am angrier at Jean who should have had our interests in mind when he sold our story. “I like and respect Jean, but no matter how he tries to spin it, he received somewhere around $75,000 for our story, a paltry sum, certainly in light of the horrific damage my family suffered,” Peterson says. We feel that Jean pimped us out — sold OUR story to Campos for money — what word other than pimped describes what he did? Sounds harsh—but look at the result to our family for what he did.” “In a way I thought I was protecting Michael and his family by being involved, but I was wrong.” He says that when he met with Campos over a decade ago to discuss fictionalizing the “The Staircase,” the eventual showrunner made it clear to him that Peterson and his case were in the public domain. Ultimately de Lestrade decided to sell Campos the rights to his materials, the actual amount of which is disputed by de Lestrade and Peterson. “We feel that Jean pimped us out — sold OUR story to Campos for money — what word other than pimped describes what he did?” “There are egregious fabrications and distortions of the truth in the HBO series, well beyond what may be considered ‘artistic’ license.” Antonio Campos’ depiction of documentary filmmakers Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and Sophie Brunet in HBO Max’s “ The Staircase” has led to a public dispute over their portrayal in the miniseries adaptation.

American novelist has always maintained his innocence after his wife Kathleen was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in 2001.

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Peterson, played by Colin Firth in the series, is angry both at showrunner Antonio Campos, and original Staircase documentarian Jean-Xavier de Lestrade.

There are egregious fabrications and distortions of the truth in the HBO series, well beyond what may be considered “artistic” license. It’s starting to sound like nobody involved in the events depicted in HBO’s new fictionalized crime series The Staircase is especially happy about how the series has turned out. “What word other than pimped describes what he did?”

Peterson is an American novelist who was convicted of killing his wife Kathleen and sentenced to life in prison in 2003, despite maintaining she had died after ...

“Jean should have known that when you sell your a**/property, you assume the risk of getting f***ed/betrayed,” Peterson said. “He released his archive to Campos who then created a fictional account of events,” Peterson said. Peterson is an American novelist who was convicted of killing his wife Kathleen and sentenced to life in prison in 2003, despite maintaining she had died after falling down the stairs.

With the release of episode 8, HBO's drama series based on true crime, "The Staircase," comes to an inconclusive end. This inconclusiveness, though, is not ...

Not through a long-drawn court trial, not through a detailed and praiseworthy documentary series, and definitely not through a fictional dramatic retelling of the incident. On the day of the Alford plea in 2017, none of the four children were present in court or even with their father afterwards. The inclusion of the documentary crew and its various characters in the narrative of the show can be looked at as just following the objective truth of what all happened and who all were present at the time. It is to be remembered that “The Staircase” is not just about the court trial and what happened to Michael, but also about the various interpretations of truth. In 2017, before the Alford plea, Michael calls upon this close friend to seemingly reveal something worrying, something that he had carried within himself for a very long time and was acknowledging for the first time to anybody. Throughout the trial, Michael defended the potential motive presented by Jim Hardin regarding his sexuality, saying that his wife had known all about his experimentations and was in complete support of it. This triggered a pathetic reaction from the father, as he brutally hit Michael for his actions, to the extent of getting the young boy a black eye. Sophie and Michael had planned for a long time to leave Durham and settle together in Paris when the novelist would finally be allowed to live somewhere else. This approval of a retrial is soon celebrated by the whole family, including all of the Peterson children, Michael’s brother Bill, David Rudolf, Michael’s first wife, Patricia, and the newest member introduced to the family, his current lover and ex-editor of the documentary show, Sophie Brunet. The theme of family remains important in this final episode, too, as changing dynamics and relations are stressed on. However, owing to the findings of investigators about the corruption of the SBI only a few months back, the judge turned down such a request and opened the hearing for a retrial of the case. This plea was based on the defense’s understanding that, in the event of a retrial, the jury would once again find Michael guilty of the crime, based on the evidence presented by the prosecution. Now, we get to witness the procedures of this hearing as family from both sides, Michael’s children in support of the defense, and Kathleen’s sisters in support of the prosecution, all gather in court.

Peterson said that Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, the original director of "The Staircase" documentary, "pimped us out" by selling access to his files.

"In a way I thought I was protecting Michael and his family by being involved, but I was wrong." In an interview with Variety, de Lestrade said that he never looked at Campos' scripts and did not take part in the adaptation creatively, despite his co-executive producer credit. De Lestrade gave Campos access to documentary footage to make the adaptation and was a co-executive producer on the HBO Max series.

Michael Peterson is speaking out against HBO Max's The Staircase and documentary filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, who sold director Antonio Campos ...

Peterson also took issue with de Lestrade's complaint that The Staircase implies he and his documentary team hid incriminating footage of Peterson to make him look innocent. Peterson and his daughter, Margaret Ratliff, who is also a documentary filmmaker, are both participants in the film. Peterson claims de Lestrade never told him or his family about the HBO series in advance of its release, a fact de Lestrade disputed but later walked back, saying he doesn't recall. However, Campos allegedly made it clear to de Lestrade that the series would have been made with or without his approval, reminding the filmmaker that Peterson and his case were in the public domain. "There are egregious fabrications and distortions of the truth in the HBO series, well beyond what may be considered 'artistic' license." De Lestrade was paid for allowing Campos to use Peterson's story for the series, and he received a co-executive producer credit on the adaptation.

Colin Firth plays convicted killer Michael Peterson in HBO Max's true crime series "The Staircase." Now the real Peterson weighed in.

“A lot of that came from the transcripts. “We had concurrent timelines, we had the multiple depictions, [as a way of] slowly letting you become, as a viewer, comfortable with the idea that this is just a story and that we can never fully know anything. It is disingenuous and hypocritical for Jean to talk about his integrity being challenged when he sold himself to Campos and showed no integrity or sense of responsibility to us.” The author added, “He released his archive to Campos who then created a fictional account of events, most of which trashed me (which I really don’t care about) and my children — which I really do care about. “Jean should have known that when you sell your ass/property, you assume the risk of getting fucked/betrayed,” Peterson said. “The Staircase” centers on North Carolina-based novelist and would-be politician Michael Peterson, played by Colin Firth, who is accused, convicted, and then cleared of killing his wife Kathleen (Toni Collette), who died bloodily and presumably alone at the foot of their staircase.

He continued, “There are egregious fabrications and distortions of the truth in the HBO series, well beyond what may be considered 'artistic' license.” Peterson ...

We are the ones who were betrayed, falsely depicted as fighting among ourselves (which NEVER happened), and with made up story lines that denigrate all of us in the eyes of millions.” “Jean should have known that when you sell your ass/property, you assume the risk of getting fucked/betrayed,” Peterson told Variety. “Every hooker knows this. Peterson, whose murder trial is depicted in both the 2004 Jean-Xavier de Lestrade documentary and this year’s Staircase crime drama, didn’t hold back with his brutal comments.

We feel that Jean pimped us out,” Peterson said of The Staircase director, ”sold OUR story…for money—what word other than pimped describes what he did?”

“I thought that it would be better to cooperate, and be involved in the process, than to stay totally outside as a stranger,” he said. He released his archive to Campos who then created a fictional account of events, most of which trashed me (which I really don’t care about) and my children—which I really do care about. “But we didn’t sell our story to Campos—were never even consulted or informed that Jean had done this,” continued Peterson. “We are the ones who were betrayed, falsely depicted as fighting among ourselves (which NEVER happened), and with made up story lines that denigrate all of us in the eyes of millions.

The son of subject Michael Peterson claims that parts of the HBO true crime series "The Staircase" get his family completely wrong.

Todd goes on to say in the video that he has no reason to lie about this, because he does not have a good relationship with his father now. He claims that de Lestrade sold out his family by "[selling] OUR story to Campos for money," though de Lestrade says that he received less than $10,000 as a fee. On June 9, Variety published emails sent to the publication by Michael Peterson regarding the HBO show. The HBO series also makes it seem as though Sophie Brunet, the editor played by Juliette Binoche and who eventually became Michael's girlfriend, was corresponding with him as she edited the first eight episodes of the documentary. Though Michael has maintained that he found his second wife Kathleen unconscious at the bottom of a staircase in Durham, North Carolina home, he was convicted of her murder in 2003. The documentarians are characters in the adaptation, and the series shows them debating whether to edit their film to make Michael look more sympathetic. In late May, Vanity Fair published an interview with Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, director of the acclaimed documentary series, and other filmmakers, in which he said that he felt "betrayed" by the drama series' director, Antonio Campos, to whom he'd given access to his archives of footage related to the Peterson case. He had already served enough time to cover the new sentence and has been a free man since then. This occurred because it had been discovered that one of the prosecution's key witnesses, a purported blood spatter expert, had given false testimony and greatly exaggerated his credentials. After Ratliff's death, Patricia and Michael began raising her two daughters, Margaret and Martha. And while Ratliff's cause of death was originally listed as a brain hemorrhage, it was changed to homicide after her body was exhumed and reexamined. One major presence is Todd Peterson, one of Michael's children from his first marriage, who is played by Patrick Schwarzenegger in the HBO show. Across eight episodes, the HBO Max limited series The Staircase dramatizes the true events surrounding the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson. Colin Firth stars as writer Michael Peterson, who is accused and eventually convicted of his wife's murder, though he has always maintained that her death was an accident.