The Staircase on Netflix

100%

The person in me who secretly loves weird shite wants to believe that an owl did it. Now, do I believe it? I don't know. I think that he probably did it but the documentary, as I remember it, did enough to muddy the waters enough to have this conversation.

I may need to go back and watch it because I remember there being some great moments in it.

Most likely he did but the state fumbled their job and trampled on his right to due process by concealing evidence and using phoney paid off scientists to work their way backwards to a result they wanted under one of the most corrupt AG departments in the country who have had countless cases from that time period thrown out for similar evidence frickery and fixed trials


Undoubtedly someone will come in here saying the doc is extremely one sided and if you read the facts on the case then it’s much more clear he’s guilty, but they will willfully ignore the fact that even if that’s true, it’s hard to trust that evidence at face value given the other shite they did in that trial to secure a victory

quote:

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Watched it for the second time

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You may have issues.

Innocent.

I’m all in on the owl theory.

This has been covered a lot in prior threads, but calling the Staircase a documentary is generous. I remember watching it and thinking that there had to be more to the story. I mean, the prosecution presented evidence and testimony for months, but that got maybe 3 minutes of airtime, so I looked into it myself. They left out huge pieces of evidence that favored guilt including the fact that the police found bloody footprints that matched the defendants shoes that lead from the body to the laundry room. They could only see them with under black light because someone had wiped them up. Oh, and Peterson was shoeless when they arrived, and those shoes that he had taken off had the soles cleaned, but still had spots of blood on them.

They also left out info on the blowpoke found by the Peterson family much later. They did an investigation into it found out michael Peterson had called around to places in the northeast looking for an antique blowpoke. In fact, a month before it was “found” by the son in the garage, Peterson’s credit card had a payment from an antique shop in like Vermont where someone using his credit card bought an antique blowpoke.

And that is just few of many facts that were egregiously absent from the “documentary,” but a guy being clearly guilty doesn’t make for a good story. It also probably didn’t help the film makers objectivity that one of the producers started dating Peterson right after filming.

There was definitely bad science going on and some awful/immoral police work done by that one investigator, but Peterson absolutely killed his wife.