Written in Blood

by Diane Fanning

  Through his lawyer, Mike proclaimed his devotion to Kathleen and attacked Candace for ordering and attempting to install a marker that was totally out of character for Kathleen. He said he and his children were appalled.

  Candace slapped back. She told The Herald-Sun, “I have never drawn on paper any design for a monument for any grave. My sister is still in an anonymous plot, which is heartbreaking to me. She’s in a potter’s field because he did not mark it.”

  Michael signed the papers at long last.

  On February 6, 2003, Margaret and Martha Ratliff wrote a bitter letter granting the district attorney permission to exhume their mother’s body. They attacked Hardin’s character and decried his persecution of Michael Peterson. “We only hope that you treat our mother’s remains with more respect than you have treated her memory.”

  Caitlin, too, faced a sad task with her mother. She consulted with family members and purchased a black granite headstone. Because her mother loved roses, she had that flower entwined with ivy and engraved on the stone. She then added one line from “Ascension,” the poem by Colleen Hitchcock that was read at Kathleen’s funeral: “Just whisper my name in your heart, I’ll be there.”

  Stuart Johnson, Steven Hunt’s roommate at Virginia Military Institute, created a special wind chime for Kathleen. It was engraved with her name and hung in the stately branches of the tree that shaded her grave.

  The minister who had presided over Kathleen’s funeral service came to Maplewood Cemetery to lead a prayer service to bless her grave and her headstone. Nortel employees surrounded the last resting place of Kathleen Peterson for the somber ceremony. And at last, the hearts of Kathleen’s family rested in peace.

  But they would not rest for long. In two months, they would take the next step in their grief-filled odyssey in a courtroom in Durham where they hoped to find justice for Kathleen and closure for themselves.

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  In mid-April, Investigator Art Holland took the first airplane flight of his life. He flew to Texas with another investigator and a forensic technician to supervise the exhumation of Elizabeth Ratliff.

  The gravesite, undisturbed since 1985, was sprouting wild flowers. Taylor Brothers Funeral Home began the morbid task at 8 A.M. on Monday, April 14, at the Cedarvale Cemetery in Matagorda County. In the wispy remnants of a lifting heavy fog, the workers and Bay City police officers erected yellow police tape around the area and across the service road. The forensic technician videotaped the official record. Outside, television cameras and reporters recorded the event for the evening news.

  At 8:15, workers pried up the granite and bronze marker and set it to the side. An iron dowel was forced into the earth until it made contact with the concrete vault two feet below. With a small backhoe, the equipment operator dug down to the top of the sarcophagus surrounding the casket. Workers then dug the rest by hand, wrapped a chain around the two-ton container and pulled it and its contents out of the ground just before lunch.

  The tightly sealed lid was forced off the top, leaving a trail of stringy glue in its wake. The coffin was removed, wrapped in plastic and placed in the back of a blue Chevrolet Suburban. Elizabeth Ratliff and the three men from Durham traveled to Meridian, Mississippi, where they stopped for the night.

  Early the next morning, they were on the road again, determined to get their precious cargo back to North Carolina that day. The autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday at the state medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill.

  The white plastic-enshrouded silver-gray coffin of Elizabeth Ratliff rolled into the autopsy suite on a gurney at 9 A.M. on Wednesday, April 16. Yellow police tape secured both ends. When the lid of the casket was lifted, the musty smell of old news flew into the faces of the observers. Dr. Werner Spitz, a well-known and respected forensic pathologist, was present on behalf of the defense, along with Investigator Ron Guerette, who always seemed to be everywhere—many on the prosecution side of the case joked about getting him a “Where’s Waldo?” tee shirt.

  The autopsy team of Dr. Aaron Gleckman, forensic neuropathologist, and Dr. Deborah Radisch, forensic pathologist, examined the exterior of the body in its coffin. The disintegrating lace of Liz’s wedding gown added a delicate poignancy to the macabre moment. She was surrounded by an array of items sufficient to melt a seasoned and inured heart. There was a book—one well loved by Dr. Radisch’s children—The Little Rabbit, a white stuffed lamb, a stained and broken seashell, a ballet slipper charm and soft brown plant material that once shone brilliant with the color of life.

  Opening the book, the doctors discovered a metal unicorn window hanging, a card with a picture of a church in Frankfurt and inside the card, a photograph of two small girls. On Liz’s fingernails, a tired gloss of nail polish blushed in an unnatural burst of color.

  Using a mechanical winch and straps, they transferred the body to a stainless-steel table and more photographs were taken. Dr. Radisch was eager to find the answers to the questions that rose in her mind when she reviewed the original autopsy. In twenty years of experience, she had never seen a cause of death listed as a sudden unexpected death due to a spontaneous intra-cranial hemorrhage caused by von Willebrand’s disease. Her curiosity was also inflamed by the absence of any diagrams to indicate the number and location of the lacerations.

  The body itself was in an excellent state of preservation. The skin on her face had a layer of make-up and looked quite normal. When the cosmetics were removed, the pathologists uncovered bruising under Liz’s left eye and a laceration on her eyebrow. Even this late, the bruising was distinct. The embalming process preserved the bruising because, although it removed the blood from the circulatory system, it could not retrieve blood from surrounding tissue.

  In Liz’s mouth, there was an area of small bruising and a tear on her upper gums. The skin on her body was dark and leathery with a small amount of mold on its surface. Dr. Radisch found evidence of bruising on the back of Liz’s left hand and on her left wrist.

  The doctors shifted their focus to the head—Dr. Gleckman’s area of specialty. The multiple lacerations were all glued and sutured in the autopsy and embalming in 1985. He found and described seven distinct lacerations to Liz Ratliff’s head—the same number found during Kathleen Peterson’s autopsy. The number could be mere coincidence, but the biggest surprise was their location. One was on the very top of her head—its position made it more condemnatory of Michael Peterson than any found on Kathleen.

  Dr. Radisch removed the thick cotton sutures from six of the lacerations on the head with great care. She then tackled the more difficult task of the fine blue suture material on the remaining laceration.

  They observed a distinct fracture along the base of the skull that corresponded to the angled laceration on the top of her head. The fracture traveled from there down to where the spinal cord connects. Inside the skull were flecks of dried blood indicative of a pre-mortem injury.

  When Dr. Gleckman and Dr. Radisch completed the procedure, they informed the observers that, pending a neurological consult, they believed that Liz Ratliff’s death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head—the manner of death: homicide.

  Investigator Art Holland paced the halls and peered through the windows throughout the procedure. Now, he had a phone call to make. When Margaret Blair picked up, he asked her, “Are you sitting down?”

  She answered, “Yes,” but dread surrounded the word and muffled her response.

  “Your sister didn’t die from a fall down the stairs.”

  Eighteen years of sorrow, eighteen years of uncertainty, eighteen years of loss crashed down on Margaret Blair with the intensity of a Nor’easter. An intense anger at Michael Peterson and a savage lust for justice burned a hole in her heart. She would not rest until the world knew the whole truth of her sister’s death.

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  Elizabeth Ratliff’s body was back in Bay City, re-interred at her husband’s side in the Cedarvale Cemetery by the time the doctors microscopically examined s
ections of the brain.

  The conclusion in the autopsy report was unequivocal. Dr. Gleckman wrote that the injuries were inconsistent with a fall and not consistent with a natural disease process. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. The manner of death was homicide.

  Margaret Blair needed to talk to Liz’s friends in Germany. She located Amybeth Berner, who provided names and numbers of others. Margaret urged Amybeth to contact Investigator Holland. Soon after that call, Amybeth heard from Barbara Malagnino. “What kind of bloody mess have we gotten ourselves into?” Barbara asked.

  “We knew this was going to come back at some point,” Amybeth said. “We knew it wasn’t finished.”

  Defense Attorney David Rudolf demanded that the results of the autopsy be sealed. The media screamed in outrage. The decision, though, was in the hands of Judge Orlando Hudson. He sealed the records until and unless the evidence was introduced into court.

  A hearing was held to determine if the Elizabeth Ratliff evidence and the evidence of Michael Peterson’s bisexuality were to be allowed in the trial. Initially, the judge ordered it to be a closed hearing. The media screamed again, this time using a legal expert on constitutional law to argue their right to be present.

  The judge relented. And in that hearing, he also reversed his earlier decision and allowed the results of the autopsy to be released to the public. Motions arguing against the admissibility of evidence submitted by the defense that month bore a whiff of desperation. Not content to make a simple argument about his client’s innocence in the death of Liz Ratliff, they pointed the finger of responsibility at someone else.

  The document accused Barbara O’Hara Malagnino of being a prime suspect if Mrs. Ratliff was murdered. This reckless statement overlooked the fact that there was no evidence, suspicion or motive connecting Barbara to Liz’s death.

  Barbara was outraged at the allegation, but felt she knew the reason for it. The summer before, Rudolf paid a visit to her in Germany, believing that Barbara would make a good defense witness. After returning to the States, he sent her a letter asking her for an affidavit. He enclosed columns from The Herald-Sun written by Tom Gasparoli and told her how awful Gasparoli was. Barbara did not respond because she thought Rudolf would send her an affidavit to sign. Now, Barbara thought, he wanted to scare her out of coming to Durham to testify for the other side.

  But Barbara had no desire to speak for either side. All she wanted to do was tell the truth—she owed that much to Liz.

  The district attorney would not make a commitment one way or another on the possibility that he would introduce the Elizabeth Ratliff autopsy or the testimony about Michael’s sexual lifestyle into trial. Because of his equivocation, the judge delayed any ruling on the admissibility of it.

  In response to the media clamor over the autopsy report, Margaret Ratliff spoke to Sonya Pfeiffer at WTVD. “I know Dad is innocent. He didn’t kill either one of my mothers. It’s just ridiculous.” She added, “I can’t believe any jury will convict my dad after all the evidence is laid out. There’s just no way.”

  District Attorney Jim Hardin was ready for battle. His character and determination were forged and hardened in the crucible of childhood tragedy. Jimmy—as he was known to family and friends—was the oldest son of Jim and Carolyn Hardin. The couple met at Duke, which the older Jim Hardin attended on a football scholarship. They married after graduation—Jim with a degree in Engineering, Carolyn with an Education degree. Carolyn taught third grade for one year and then quit to start a family. They had four children in the span of four years—Jimmy, David, Mary Elizabeth and Carol.

  In 1971, when Jimmy was 12 years old, the family lived out in the country on a farm filled with ponies for the children and Thoroughbred horses for breeding. In the middle of the night, a fire broke out in the Hardin home. Carolyn and Jim tried to open their bedroom door to get to their children, but fire and smoke drove them back. They jumped out the window and tried to get to the children from outside. Again their efforts met with failure.

  Jimmy tied his bedsheets together and lowered himself out of his room and joined his frantic parents. In the barn, the horses, panicked by the smell of smoke, screamed and kicked the sides of their stalls. David, Mary Elizabeth and Carol did not find their way out of the home. And no one could get in to them in time. They died in the fire that night—their deaths scarring and strengthening the sorrow-filled survivors.

  As if he felt compelled to fulfill the hopes and dreams his parents had for all four children, Jimmy was driven to achieve. The bonds of shared tragedy knitted the three remaining members of this family together in a way nothing else could.

  He graduated from Duke in 1979 and after a year’s hiatus, he continued his education at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia. In his first year, he met Lori Thomas, a senior at Macon’s Wesleyan College from Annapolis, Maryland. They were married in Jim’s last year of law school.

  He went into private practice as a defense attorney when he graduated. He was not well suited for this work. If he believed his client to be guilty, he lost sleep at night worrying about the ramifications of what he had done.

  After a year, District Attorney Ron Stephens offered him a job as an assistant district attorney and he accepted the position with great relief. The focus of Hardin’s work was as a drug prosecutor. He took to this endeavor with intense fervor—riding out with the police on raids to round up dealers. When his boss took a judgeship, Governor James B. Hunt appointed Hardin to finish Stephens’ term.

  In his first election in 1994, Hardin faced stiff opposition. Support of defense attorneys and the African-American community put him on top. In 1998, he faced no opposition in his re-election. He won his third race in September 2002, besting opponent Mark Simeon. Hardin had a clear understanding of his responsibility. “Using the law to find the truth is our mandate. I believe that to my core,” he told Herald-Sun columnist Tom Gasparoli.

  Jim Hardin was not content with success in one arena; he also was a member of the Army Reserve. One weekend a month was dedicated to serving his country. He had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel a year before jury selection began. The specter of a possible call to active duty haunted the pre-trial preparations. After all, he was overdue—he had not been called up since the Persian Gulf War.

  Now Hardin faced another trial by fire. Although this one was merely figurative, it would prove just as intense.

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  Hardin’s partner before the bench was Assistant D.A. Freda Black, a graduate of Campbell University School of Law in the village of Buies Creek, less than an hour from Durham. After law school, she went into private practice as the only female defense attorney in Lumberton, North Carolina. In her court-appointed cases, she defended everything from worthless checks to first-degree murder—even two capital murder cases in her three years there.

  Black moved to Durham to work in the public defender’s office as chief assistant, then switched to the Durham County District Attorney’s Office in 1991. Her experience in domestic violence homicides and successful record in prosecuting first-degree murder cases made her addition to the prosecution team a foregone conclusion.

  Some said Freda Black had a natural persuasive ability. Others said that she was a drama queen. One thing was certain, she threw herself into her cases with a passion that resonated in the Southern soul, but often was mocked by Yankee-based media outlets. Black and Hardin were backed in the Peterson case by the ever-present David Saacks, a veteran litigator from Texas.

  On May 5, 124 citizens of Durham County—nearly double the usual number—filed into the courthouse as potential jurors. Jury selection was expected to last two weeks, with the trial beginning on May 19. However, it was May 20 before the first juror was empanelled. The selection of twelve jurors and four alternates was finally complete on June 23.

  Assistant District Attorneys Freda Black and David Saacks traveled to Germany with Investigator Art Holland to meet with German authorit
ies, visit Liz’s home in Gräfenhausen and interview potential witnesses. They asked to review police records and collided with a serious obstacle. Such a request required the approval of the Minister of Justice. In addition, German prosecutors wanted assurances that Peterson would not be charged with Elizabeth Ratliff’s murder in the United States and that he would not be subject to the death penalty on the other charge.

  Opening arguments were scheduled to begin on July 1, 2003. Satellite TV trucks circled the courthouse like a high-tech wagon train. Court TV erected cameras in the courtroom, where they would broadcast the trial live for its duration.

  The Big Top was erected. The circus was about to begin. Two disparate definitions of justice would reside on opposite sides of the courtroom. Only one would prevail.

  THE TRIAL

  “This is an adversary system. There can’t be but so much love here.”

  —Judge Orlando Hudson, September 2003

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  Durham, North Carolina, was a blue-collar city with a population of 227,000. Despite the presence of Duke University and its world-acclaimed medical research facilities, tobacco was the king in this town.

  Durham got the nickname “Bull City” when the Blackwell Tobacco Company introduced their bull’s head logo on their “Bull” Durham products. That logo was the most famous one in the world at the end of the nineteenth century. Its pervasiveness spawned additions to the American vernacular like “bullpen” and “shooting the bull.”