Michael Peterson was charged with murdering his wife Kathleen in their Durham home in December 2001.
The story of Kathleen’s death and Michael’s trial have been told in a Netflix documentary called “The Staircase” and a 2022 HBO Max scripted series of the same name. HBO’s series released on May 5. In the HBO series, created and written by Antonio Campos, he is portrayed by Colin Firth.
Peterson was convicted in 2003, during one of North Carolina’s longest trials, and spent eight years in prison before his conviction was overturned because of improprieties at the State Bureau of Investigation.
