All language subtitles for The Staircase - Chapter 2 - Secrets and Lies

This is ABC11
Eyewitness News at six.

Caitlin Atwater knows
a year can change a life forever.

It's too much to even really say.

One year ago today, her mother,
Kathleen Peterson, died.

At first, Caitlin believed she fell
down the staircase, as she was told.

Now, she believes Michael Peterson
murdered her mother

and she's certain Peterson
will be convicted

in a criminal trial next spring.

Why do you think Michael would
want to kill your mother?

I think that the Michael that I knew

would not want to kill my mom.

I think that...

..I didn't know him
in the way that...

I think that I couldn't
tell you why,

because I didn't know the person
who killed my mom.

You know, that's not who
he held himself out to be.

It doesn't change
any of my memories,

it doesn't change the fact that
I thought they were happy together,

but you don't end up at
the bottom of the stairs...

..under those circumstances

if your life was what
everyone thought it was.

From what we found, every aspect
of Mike Peterson's life is a lie.

He's...

He wasn't wounded in Vietnam.

He obviously served and I'm sure
that he served bravely,

but when he came back from
serving in Vietnam

to Okinawa

and injured in a jeep accident,

he comes back to the States
or wherever he lived -

he told everybody that
he was injured in the war.

That's just absolutely not true.

There's obviously other
aspects of his personality -

he wanted to give the appearance
that this was a wholesome, blended,

functioning family.

That simply is not true.

The evidence is going to show
that he was having

an illicit relationship

that we believe she
likely found out about that,

based upon information that
we found near the computer

and was contained in the computer.

The evidence is going to show
that he is bisexual

and that he was having
a relationship with

a man outside of this county.

We both believe that after she had
a phone call from a person that

worked at Nortel about an upcoming
trip that she was going to take,

that some time,
perhaps after that phone call,

which could have been anywhere
between 10:30 and 11:00,

she discovered this information
on the computer,

which according to the persons
that know her well,

they've told us that, including
most especially her sister,

that she would have been infuriated
by learning that her husband,

who she truly loved,

was bisexual and having an
extramarital relationship,

not with another woman,
but even with a man,

which would be humiliating
and embarrassing to her.

We believe that...

once she learned this information,
that an argument ensued

and the homicide occurred.

Yes, I've known about
the bisexuality

since I was about -
I can't remember -

13 or 14 years old.

And I learned about it
from a friend.

And my parents knew.

And, um...

it's just part of his life
since that time.

I felt from the beginning that the
prosecution was going to go there,

that this would be an important
theme for them.

The reason I believe that
is because,

when they executed
the search warrant,

the police,

the second search warrant - the
first was December 9th, or 10th -

the second was the evening of
the wake the following Wednesday.

They were here for several hours
and then they left,

but when they left...

..the house and we came back
into the house,

they left a picture...

..on a table in the den.

The table was completely clean,

nothing on it except one picture.

The picture was from his computer,
which they had taken.

They had downloaded or
printed off this picture

and it was pornographic.

It was a message,
I knew that was a message,

that they left it there on purpose

so that we would see it
and we would find it

and what the message was
to me and to him -

"We know what you're like,
we know this secret life of yours.

"We don't like it and we're going
to do something about it."

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

I was looking at here, dealing
with photographs that were taken

from his computer and most of them
are homosexual military men.

They're all different types of
things that they're doing,

multiple partners,

but they're all portrayed as being

gay military men...

..performing sexual acts
on each other.

And part of, um...

One of the persons that we believe
he had had a relationship with,

um...

..we believe he met this person
from a website that once again

was designed for homosexual
military men and this individual

that has been interviewed
and that we know about...

that we believe had some type
of relationship with Mr Peterson

contemporaneous with the time period
that we've been talking about,

he fits right into this mould.

It's not the type of thing
your typical, average juror

or typical, average citizen
would want to access,

nor would want to play out
in their personal lives.

Not if they want
to portray themselves

as someone that has
this perfect marriage,

or however he wants to make
his life seem so perfect...

..with his wife.

But it's obviously very...

powerful information
that he wants kept from...

..the public, in particular,
but certainly the jury.

Because it could be very damaging,
from a lot of perspectives.

You got his statement?
Mm-hm. What did he say?

He said you had sex with him.
Oh, you're shitting me!

Four or five times.

Where?!

Uh, I don't know all the details,

cos I was skimming through
all the stuff

and when I came to his...

You're kidding me! Unh-unh.

That's what he's claiming.

PETERSON SIGHS
That's what he's claiming.

HE CHUCKLES

Oh, my God.
Everybody wants a piece of you.

Jesus Christ!

Or everybody claims to have
a piece of you.

One of the two.

And you have a statement? Yeah.

We copied it. Send me a copy of that
statement, I'm dying to see that.

I'll get it tomorrow.

Was it a short statement,
a long statement?

About a page and a half. OK.

Handwritten.

Handwritten? OK.

He didn't indicate where this
great love affair took place?

Yeah, but, Mike,
I cannot remember it.

Rather know now than later.
I'll say.

God, I'll say, for sure.

So I talked to Dave about Denis
and we're going to rethink,

we're going to digest the statements

and then rethink as
to how to approach it.

OK, all right.

Jesus, right.

God.

Hmm.

OK, well...

if you say "relationships",
that would mean...

That would imply more than...

..sex, for instance.

And that never happened.
I'm a very...

I'm not that multifaceted

that I could have more
than one relationship.

I'm a monogamous person in the sense
that I don't... There was Kathleen.

She took up my whole life.

Could I have sex? Yes.

That could exist,

but not a relationship,
I could not go to dinner or have...

No, it would be inconceivable, that,
because she fulfilled all of that

and actually fulfilled...
certainly sexual,

but there was this other aspect

of me that just existed...

..and I...

..yes, did have sex.

No injuries to Mike Peterson -
good fact.

Search of vehicles finds
nothing - good fact.

And what else?
And number of lacerations.

Good relationship between
Mike and Kathleen.

Bad - imprecise statement from
Mike Peterson about what happened.

Good - no motive at all.

Well, that's not a fact. Well, OK.

"No intimate" says bad marriage.

That's true, and no affairs,
no current affairs. No intimate...

Good fact - apparent
happiness that evening.

Bad fact - Mike ignoring
911 operator's questions.

Good fact - he called two times.

Right. Bad fact -
he said she was breathing.

First call.
Good fact - said she was breathing.

He said she was breathing.

Good and bad? Yeah.

Bad - e-mails.
What does this mean, e-mails?

Gay e-mails.

Bad - affair during marriage.

Gay affair.

Bad - nobody knew about the
bisexuality. Bisexuality hidden.

Good fact - she knew.

Who can testify that she knew?

She knew what?

Who is the witness that can say that
she knew that he was bisexual. Mike.

Anybody besides Mike? Yes, Todd.

Todd and Mike are
the only two people.

That is a negative,
negative, negative.

That is a big, huge
negative, I think.

Is there anybody in this
room that believes

that she probably didn't know?

Let's go back to the truth
for a second, reality.

The relationship was
a beautiful relationship

and a loving relationship
and I think we can prove it.

We know that there is a bisexual
hidden life here, we know that.

Is it possible...?

I'm sitting there as a juror -
is it possible

that a marriage can
function that way

and the answer is, it can, and
marriages do function that way.

Do you think that merely
because he was bisexual

would make it more likely
to you that he would murder?

That's the right question.

What the state is trying to do here

is prejudice the jury
against this guy. Right.

It's got nothing to do with the
evidence of guilt or innocence

in this case, because
they want to attack him

for his personal lifestyle
or what have you.

If that's all you've got, folks,
if that's all the state's got,

we know you're going
to acquit in this case.

Let's assume that all this
bad stuff comes in -

we've got to ask ourselves,

what can Mike do to counteract that
versus making it worse?

I think that if all he's going
to do is get out and say,

"I wasn't having an affair at the
time and she knew I was bisexual,"

that will not have any
credibility at all.

My approach has always been, I'm not
going to put my client on the stand

unless it becomes
absolutely essential,

unless there is something he can do

that I have to have done
that I can't do myself,

unless I'm convinced that
we're going to lose the case

unless he gets on the stand.

I think Mike can come across
pretty well on direct.

Whether he stands up to cross
is a different issue,

but I think he can be taught on that

and some of the bad stuff we
may have to deal with anyway.

Mike gets on the witness stand
and a good cross-examiner

is going to be able to make
his actions seem unreasonable.

And once he gets on the stand too,
they can start bringing up

to impeach him, can't they,
all the stuff about the...

Oh, God, let's get into that.

That, "Sir, you don't always
tell the truth, do you?"

"I try to."

"I understand you try to, but
sometimes, when it doesn't suit you,

"you lie about certain things,
don't you?"

"What do you mean by that?"

You know? "Well, for example,
your mayoral race.

"It wouldn't have helped you
very much to admit

"that you had actually gotten your
injuries in a car accident, right?

"In a book jacket, you painted
yourself as having gotten

"these injuries in Vietnam, right?"

"This is true." "And you kept that
lie going for years, didn't you?

"Right?"

Without Michael on the stand,

whatever gay stuff gets in,

I can argue they have
so little real evidence here

that they're getting into
his private sex life.

Even if we have to concede it...

..what does it have to do...?

I can sort of get into it
as gay bashing.

You know? And sort of...
Yeah, I like it.

As opposed to it becoming
a credibility thing

with Michael having to admit, "Yeah,
I've had homosexual relationships,

"but not with him."

What good does that do us?

Michael's the only one who can deny

an active current homosexual
relationship. You know what?

THEY TALK OVER ONE ANOTHER

Oh, my God, come on.

His denial will have no credibility.

We have to suppress...
Let's talk about that for a second.

"Mr Peterson, you claim that Denis
Rowe is lying, making this up?

"Is that what you're saying?

"Well, Denis Rowe didn't make up

"those e-mails on your computer,
did he?"

"No, but those e-mails..."

"Sir, my question was, Denis Rowe

"didn't make up those e-mails,
did he?

"You wrote those e-mails, did you?"
"I did."

"You wrote the e-mails
saying you wanted to suck

"so-and-so's dick, didn't you?"
"No, no."

"Are there e-mails saying that?"
"Yes, sir."

"To two different people,
Brad and..."

"Have you forgotten?"

"Didn't you want to suck their
dicks?" Can we take a moment?

Yeah.
LAUGHTER

Did you have to swallow hard?

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

Can you say for him

what your goals are
for this session? Yeah.

And certainly, if things come up in
terms of testimony that David wants

to spend time with, he may veer in
a million different directions,

but just in terms of us together
and using this time for the space

and configurations of the courtroom.

Yeah, I'm not so interested, Mike,
in particular substance right now.

What I'm really interested in is
getting you up in a witness chair,

talking with a jury

and not going into some role

that's designed to shield

what's inside. OK.

What I'm hoping is that the role
you play up on the jury...

up in the witness box is the role
that you played with Kathleen...

..in terms of just who you are.

I want the jury to see the same
person that Kathleen saw.

OK, you sing around the house
to yourself, don't you?

I thought I heard you... Hum.

Hum. I hum. What's a song you hum?

I don't think it is a song,
I just hum. What's a song you know?

Look for a way in, not a way out.

It is a sort of a dum-dee-dee,
dee-dee-dee.

It used to be Kathleen's joke -

is this the dee-dee-dee song,
or the dah-dah-dah song?

♪ Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah... ♪

Now, let the hands
out of the pockets

and just walk, just easy.

♪ Bam-ba-dum...
Da-da-da-da... ♪

Louder.

HE HUMS TO TUNE OF "Do-Re-Mi"

♪ Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam

♪ Bah-bah-dah-dah follows So... ♪

Now send it to that seat
in the jury box.

THEY HUM TO TUNE OF
"The Lonely Goatherd"

♪ Blah. ♪
♪ Blah. ♪

Right to a specific place.

♪ Blah... ♪

Good. Widen stance, relax the body.

Blah-blah.

♪ Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah

♪ Blah,
blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah

♪ Blah,
blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah

♪ Blah-blah-blah-blah-
blah-blah-blah. ♪

Good. I'm going to have
to go back to Do-Re-Mi.

♪ Doe, a deer... ♪

Go to Happy Birthday,
go to America The Beautiful,

but we're going to be asking you
about your sex life, my friend,

so just let's get some... That
might be easier than singing it.

Add some sound, come on. Uhhh. Ahhh.

I slit a sheet.

I slit a sheet.

A sheet I slit.

A sheet I slit.

Upon a slitted sheet, I sit.

Upon a slitted sheet, I sit.

I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit,
upon a slitted sheet I sit.

Don't protect yourself.

I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit,
upon a slitted sheet I sit.

Do it, please. I shut a sleet, a
sheet, I sat upon the slitted sheet.

Now, I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit,
upon a slitted sheet I sit.

I shit a sleet.

Good, and that's just the deal.

You may misspeak,
a word like shit may come out,

you may make a mistake.

Big deal.

Mr Peterson, I want
to read you something

and I'm going to ask you after
you've heard it if you recognise it.

"Did your friend die for anything?"

"I hope so, if only because there is
something in him that lives in you.

"Every man who dies can
live on in us."

I think I wrote that.

I hope I did.

Do you believe it to be true,
as you sit here today? Yes.

What parts of Kathleen
live on in you?

Mm...

Good. We don't need to hear
the answer now... OK.

..just your willingness
to go there...

..was enough.

Good.

OK, Mr Peterson,
you're under oath, correct? Yes.

And you expect this jury
to believe you.

Yes. Treat you
as an honest person. Yes.

But the truth is, there have been
times in your life where

you have lied because it
has benefitted you.

I...

would say probably that's
a good characterisation,

although I might say...

..it's easier. It was just easier
sometimes, to let the lie...

..come out.

And for example, now,
you married Tricia Peterson in 1966,

isn't that correct? Correct.

And during your marriage,
you had a number of affairs.

Yes. They were not all women,
were they? No.

And you did continue to
have affairs,

even after your relationship
with Kathleen began?

That's a word...
Affairs, to me, mean... Sex.

How do you describe,
one incident or affairs?

You have... The word "affairs"
is confusing to you?

Yes.

Let's make it simple then, sir
- you had sex with

other people after your relationship
with Kathleen began?

That's correct. Men?
That's correct. And women?

No. Just men? Yes.

So, now, this was different
from when

you were married
to Patty Peterson.

Yes. OK. In fact, you never talked
about that with Kathleen.

Well, we did talk about...

That you were having sex with other
men during the marriage?

In the sense that yes,
she understood that.

She understood it was with men?
Oh, yes.

I think there was enough awareness
on her part of me

as a person and who I was.

Which is what made this
relationship so good.

That, yes,
she understood these aspects

about me and was not bothered by
that, because I loved her.

That, yes,
I did have sex with other people,

but that had absolutely nothing to
do with not loving Kathleen or...

loving her less.

Mike, what do you think?

How are you feeling
compared to, say,

what we did earlier in the office?

I would have no clue.
Honestly? Honestly.

My sense is that you are
not parsing,

you are not trying to win
on any technicalities... No.

I saw nobody who was being tricky,

someone who assumed responsibility
and someone who within the...

No, and I told you this, guys,
from the beginning.

My ass, life, totally is
in your hands, and I know that,

and I'm not going to outsmart you,
I'm not going to outsmart Hardin,

outsmart anybody,
and I'm going to tell you.

At one point you actually even
leaned into the wind, physically.

Mmm. And it was a cold wind,
so I thought,

"OK, he's going to be fine."

Hey. Hey. We're late.
That's fine, that's fine.

All right.

Hey. Number one, I want to talk
about additional survey stuff,

to give us more insight and what I
would call triggers, key questions.

So... Well, how do you approach
the bisexuality issue?

Since we didn't do it last time.

For the reasons you expressed. Seems
like that reason still applies.

We're not doing it,
but it's a big issue in the case.

You would hide it in
a list of questions, like,

"What are your views
about heterosexuals?"

You'd have a whole list of...

I really think probably we're
going to have to pick

a topic like marriage. Right.

What are the kind of reasons, what
can be accepted within a marriage?

That kind of thing,
rather than just go on the issue.

No, but I do think we're going
to need to

find out their attitude
towards homosexuality.

Well, we will,
or we could do it that way.

And then you've got to ask
it of at least

400, 500 people to have
a statistically meaningful sample,

and so, we're talking about
a significant expenditure,

but in my mind, if you were
choosing between this

and a mock trial in this case,
I'd choose this.

A survey,
and then analysing the data,

and then coming up with
some conclusions,

which is going to cost what?

It's probably going to be in the
35,000, 40,000 range. OK.

So that's a total of, like, cash we
have to come up with

to carry this case through trial,
of 385,000. That's...

Look, you guys are
spending the money,

and Mike, it's your life...
Right.

..but I'm just telling you that
sometimes what you find out

is intuitive, and sometimes what you
find out is counterintuitive.

And it's the counterintuitive stuff
that you just would never know.

You find out one thing that's
counterintuitive in that survey...

Mm-hmm... for 35,000,

and it's mighty cheap.

It's mighty cheap, when you stack it
up against the rest of your life.

Mm-hmm. OK.
We have our... schedule down.

So what we're going to have, it's
going to cost six-five, six-seven,

700... We know for a fact,
between 750,000 to 800,000.

HE DROPS PEN ON TABLE

I think we were originally
thinking 500, 550,

something like that.

So that's cost us another 250.
300,000 more.

Over budget. Over budget.

If we were a business,
we'd be out of business.

Then again, what do people do who
don't have money?

"The rich get off."

Well, that's the only reason
the rich get off,

because they can afford to
defend themselves.

The damn poor go to jail because
they can't afford

to defend themselves - period.

I mean, not in every case of course.
But that's pretty much it.

What would somebody do in my case?

First off, they wouldn't have
prosecuted like this,

but the other thing is,

they'd be hopeless.
Hopeless, in hiring experts.

For somebody to come in and prove
that, "No, this didn't happen."

Yeah, I think the state budgets
and allocates a certain amount,

but it's nowhere near.

No, nothing. Yeah, yeah,
the American justice is...

..very, very expensive.

At the end of this light, this is
the end of the white neighbourhood.

All up in here, everything is white,
everybody is white.

And then starting across this
street, everything is black.

This is the biggest scandal
in Durham, right here.

They've put in millions of dollars
to build these houses

that they were going to be for poor
people, and it's just crooked,

and it was never developed
of course,

the houses are not occupied,
it's in bankruptcy.

They built these apartments
- look at that.

These are only a few years ago.

They're falling apart.
They're just, it's just a travesty.

And it's a beautiful -
as you can see -

it's a beautiful piece of property.

It overlooks the city.
This is one of the nicest areas.

This is the story of Durham -
promises and promises,

and corruption, and theft.

And lies.

When I came to Durham for
the first time,

in 1961, over 40 years ago,

I just couldn't believe that
blacks couldn't go to school

with white people,
they couldn't eat in restaurants,

they were not much better
than in slavery times.

And after 40 years, there are
definitely some rich blacks,

and certainly society has gotten
better, but in many regards,

it's just as bad,
and in some cases, it's worse...

than it ever was.

And all we do in this town is...

..not deal with the real problems.

The real problems are
crime, drugs, ignorance.

And nobody wants to talk about that.
I find that, for instance...

..in my case, every day, my God,

pounds of newsprint, ink, paper,

all the media,
everybody is focused on my trial.

It's a diversion, it's something,
it's an entertainment,

it's a show, and if one tenth,

ONE TENTH of that amount of time
or media exposure,

if it were given to what's real
and what's true,

the problems,
things would get better.

It was four years ago, 1999.

I was writing about Rolling Hills,
that place we just saw,

I was starting with that.

It's mostly about corruption.

"Cops solve 5% of crimes. Why?"

"Despite an onslaught of publicity
on how crime is down,

"streets are safer,
drug traffic reduced,

"one figure remains truly alarming
- the clearance rate of crime.

"Police solve about 5% of
reported crimes,

"while ticket collection is,
by comparison, an impressive 33%."

Then there's this one.
I didn't attack the DA very often.

And it says, basically, "The DA's
got a hard thing for bingo,

"so he sends the cops out to close
down the bingo parlours. Why?

"Because he can't get anybody for
anything else.

"My God, there's more crime in
City Hall than in southern Italy.

"The DA and cops can't catch
any real criminals

"in City Hall, so they go after
underage voters and bingo players."

So it was just a commentary and
I didn't attack him personally,

I didn't say anything negative
about his personal life,

I don't know anything about his
personal life and I never

would say anything about anybody's
personal life anyway,

but everybody knows - and I should
have certainly known better

- that when you make fun of people,
they don't like it,

it's just that simple.

And, eh, if you make them look silly
or ridiculous, they remember that.

Speed it up...

Pants are 34, shirt's 33.

This is on top of the blood smears
and blood spatter.

That's basically the last one.

And here, this
has to be after the urine deposit.

Smaller ones,
1mm to approximately 4mm.

Three inches by two-and-a-half inch.

Blood spatter, radial, out from
the centre.

See now, I looked at those and
I thought, OK, bloody pants.

I would have spent three minutes
looking at them.

But Henry's a whole different story.

You can see, these blood stains,

basically you have
multiple deposits.

You have blood spatter
underneath it,

you have under blood stain and you
have additional blood stain.

That tells me it's not coming out
one time, it's multiple deposits.

And that's consistent with what
Werner is saying,

about the fact that she wouldn't
have lost consciousness

for some extended period of time?

She has to be conscious, can't get
up or sit up, with the moving...

So the pants themselves can tell us
the story,

she was up.

And there was time...
Half-an-hour time lag in between.

So essentially you got less blood on
the bottom than here.

Is there any chance that she's on
her knees, slouched over -

because there's more blood on this
side than there is on that side -

against the wall?

This person probably just put the,

when they initially put the towel,
maybe her body was up here.

I'm sure that's right.

Do you see what I mean, Ron?

That's the position when they took
the picture. Right.

We have to look at the scientific
fact and base

our interpretation purely on the
scientific fact.

The first thing,
I look at the scene,

I notice there a tremendous amount
of blood spatter.

Ordinary beating up scene, we don't
see that much blood spatter.

The second thing I notice,

all of those blood spatter come from
different directions.

If you're beating in the same
direction and repetitively,

in theory, we should see most of the
spatter come from one direction,

goes to other direction.

The third area I feel strange is,

I examined the upper wall,
the ceiling, carefully,

inch by inch.
In the staircase area,

I did not see a single blood
spatter on the ceiling

constituting, say, cast-off blood.

Mr Lee seemed to, um,

the only thing he wanted to prove
was that it wasn't a beating.

He never even wanted to consider
that it could be.

Never even wanted to think that it
was possible. Mm-hmm.

He only wanted to prove
that it wasn't.

I personally think Lee was trying
to, was acting like

he was being paid to try and
convince somebody of something.

That's the impression
I got from him.

I thought that Lee, he was terribly
difficult to understand,

and as a result I found
my mind wandering,

so that there
were a lot of questions that

he might have answered,
but I don't remember!

And I felt that he just took the
evidence and stretched it

to fit whatever he needed to
counteract what the defence

was saying.

When I first heard him I thought,

"Man, this guy reminds me of my
junior year calculus teacher."

I couldn't understand him either.

LAUGHTER

But, you know,
I think he's really qualified,

I actually think he really knows
what he's talking about,

but he comes off kind of hokey
because I couldn't understand him,

but I think if he had been
given a little more latitude,

he may have been able to convince
me a little more about what

he was talking about. OK.

But he didn't come up with
anything that really made

a plausible other explanation
for what happened.

It still didn't make
a very good case for it being

just a fall down the stairs.
So I was left kind of wondering,

"Well, if he doesn't think it was
a beating, what was it?"

OK, thank you.

I'm just very freaked out.

One of the things we've got to think
about when we think of Dr Lee is,

this is not California,
this is not New York City,

this is "the South", and I think
part of what we're hearing here

is a reaction
to ethnic differences.

Partly, but I think...
It's difficult.

The substantive part of it is that
it's very overwhelming evidence

of the blood and the wounds
that we're going to see,

but I think, for me, the most
important things were

he's a hired witness,
he's not clear,

he talks with an accent,
he's too general...

He doesn't provide an
alternative explanation.

He doesn't provide an
alternative what happened.

So I'm not sure we're going
to be able to

come up with a good explanation.

I think even if we spent an hour
with Henry talking about

the limits of the science and...
No, it's not, no.

They look at all this blood and say,

"In the right case, maybe,
but not in this case."

Right. Here, you have to be able to
know something about what happened,

there's just too much blood,

too much movement to not have
some information.

Because people have this image that
we're saying she fell

from the very top, so why aren't her
bones broken? Right.

And if she fell that far,
how could she possibly get up again?

Somehow we have to paint the
scenario that this happened

three or four stairs up,
she fell back and hit her head,

started bleeding,
slipped and fell again.

I think Henry is not really
comfortable doing

a lot more than poking holes.

So we need to think about that.

Cos that's clearly, at least in this
context, the big question for them.

The state has a theory,
the defence doesn't,

all the defence has is critiques.

I've got a theory that if she's,
for example, if she's on the floor

leaning against the chairlift, and
she goes up and her feet slip out...

She never actually stood up at all,
she just got her feet...

Right, right.

Feet under, slip back again.

She's got a 0.7 alcohol, she's got
Valium, there's blood

on the floor, you've got this thing,
so every time she falls...

..she's hitting her head from about
the same distance,

right on that metal thing.

WATER TRICKLES

So what's the overall, bad news,
good news, what?

Well, the overall bad news is,
again... We don't have any...

We got no explanation to tell
them what happened.

David and I talked about doing an
animation to reconstruct

exactly how these injuries might
be inflicted by a fall...

Right, right.

BARKING

That the dog? Yeah. I haven't heard
it, and I don't want to hear it.

Come on, guys, come on.
Where's Wilbur? Hey, Wilbur!

What'd you do with him, huh?

The other bad thing
I didn't mention,

of course the autopsy photos are
so visceral... Oh, Jesus, yeah!

..people just react to them
immediately. Yeah.

Are they that gruesome? I've not
looked at them, are they that awful?

Yeah, they're pretty bad. You look
at them initially,

you think, "Man..."
Your initial reaction

from looking
at the autopsy photos is,

"You can't get that from a fall."

Mm. Which is one of our problems,
because we can't precisely

explain how you do and can get
them from a fall.

Right. All we can say is they

definitely didn't come
from a beating either, right?

Definitely did not come
from a beating,

and we're very strong on that.

They got the burden of proof, so...

Yeah, but that burden of proof is
sort of like... No...

It's like innocent
until proven guilty,

which we all know is horseshit.

You're guilty the
minute that they...

Don't be such a cynic,
people get off on that all the time,

you just don't read about it.
MICHAEL LAUGHS

No, I AM a cynic on that.

Innocent until proven guilty I think
is, the overwhelming thing is,

hey, if the police arrest
you, you're guilty.

This is what people believe.

Well, that's why our main theory of
the case is, and the blow-up,

how did this case get transformed
from accident -

as reported by them initially -
to murder?

And David is thinking about taking
the original report

from Dr Snell, medical examiner,

where he concluded that
in his opinion...

That it was a fall, right?
He actually offered an explanation.

That she fell on the third step and
hit her head somewhere else.

Oh, really? It's fairly detailed.

The medical examiner says it's
an accident, he was here, right?

Exactly.

The single thing that Holland had to
go on, right? Nothing.

And yet within...

..hell, 30 minutes of that son of
a bitch coming in here,

it was a crime scene and I was
guilty - and that was it.