A best-seller writer sipping wine and smoking a pipe in his 14 room mansion in North Carolina, his dead wife down the stairs and a 911 call. All on TV.
With this scenario one would expect lieutenant Columbo entering the room one moment or another. But no, this is real life. Real life and death.
The six part CBC documentary “Death on the Staircase, 2004”, by award winning Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (Murder on a Sunday Morning, 2002) shows the investigation of the death of Michael Peterson’s wife.
From Peterson’s desperate call to 911 on December 9, 2001 at 2:41 a.m. explaining that his wife had fallen down a flight of stairs, to the verdict of the jury in October, 2003.
Its all there, videotaped. The story has so many dramatic twists and turns that you keep wondering if you’re watching a real life documentary or a court movie. At some point the story goes back 17 years and travels to Germany to investigate a similar staircase accident in which Peterson might have been involved. At this turn the deffence attorney turns to the camera and tells the cameraman: “now you’ve got a much better movie”.
Again TV blurs the limit between fiction and reality.
More info at CBC’s website.
Videos and additional material from CourtTV.
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