Whooooooooooo knows?

November 16, 2016 10:14 AM

The 15-year-old legal proceedings against author Michael Peterson for the alleged murder of his wife, Kathleen, constitute one of the more notorious and extensively documented criminal cases of our time. It has provided fodder for two Dateline segments, a Lifetime movie, an expansive documentary film series, and dozens of true-crime television episodes and podcasts. It is lurid, tinged with drugs and alcohol, replete with an ongoing extramarital affair with a prostitute, and soaked in blood—lots of blood. It also spawned a criminal defense theory that sounds like a punch line: The owl did it.
posted by Chrysostom (67 comments total)

One of the worst ad placements I've seen in a while.
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:26 AM on November 16, 2016 [45 favorites]

A real whooodunnit
posted by puffyn at 10:29 AM on November 16, 2016 [16 favorites]

The owls are not what they seem.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:33 AM on November 16, 2016 [13 favorites]

He is officially going back on trial this spring. I mean, they HAVE to bring the owl theory in, right?? I have personally heard the hooting of owls here in Durham! Totally plausible!
posted by leesh at 10:35 AM on November 16, 2016

I'm telling you -- the birds are going to do us in. Like the corvids aren't bad enough, what with their knowing how to use tools and so forth, now we have to worry about the owls too. It isn't funny.
posted by holborne at 10:36 AM on November 16, 2016

A real whooodunnit

posted by puffyn

HMMM
posted by clockzero at 10:37 AM on November 16, 2016 [15 favorites]

Nobody ever suspects the Owl.
posted by bondcliff at 10:38 AM on November 16, 2016

"...an owl weighing less than a pound can pounce on a mouse with force equivalent to 150 times the weight of the rodent. If a 175-pound human were struck with the same intensity, it would feel like being hit by a 13-ton truck."

I, um. I'm no mathlete, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.
posted by Floydd at 10:39 AM on November 16, 2016 [79 favorites]

This was the subject of an episode of the always-awesome podcast "Criminal"
posted by RustyBrooks at 10:40 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

Can either a lawyer or ornithologist comment on how plausible this defense is?
posted by griphus at 10:40 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

One of the worst ad placements I've seen in a while.

I dunno, it's audubon.org so of course the ads are going to be bird-related. And the owl theory posits that Kathleen did successfully fight off the owl, but died after falling down the stairs.

I, um. I'm no mathlete, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

Addressed in TFA:

Of course, the truck analogy is outside the limits of a raptor’s power, but the point is clear: An owl strike can definitely cause blunt force trauma.

Fascinating article, OP.
posted by mama casserole at 10:41 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pick me! Pick me!
posted by rewil at 10:43 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

On the plus side, if it was an owl, the murderer is almost certainly dead by now: The barred owl has been known to live up to 10 years in the wild...
posted by Etrigan at 10:43 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

"If she was attacked by a bird of prey, my client must not serve another day..."
posted by splen at 10:44 AM on November 16, 2016 [24 favorites]

Addressed in TFA:
Of course, the truck analogy is outside the limits of a raptor’s power, but the point is clear: An owl strike can definitely cause blunt force trauma.

I guess saying "...an owl weighing less than a pound can pounce on a 175-pound human with force equivalent to 150 times the weight of a mouse." doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
posted by Floydd at 10:46 AM on November 16, 2016 [16 favorites]

For those of you who haven't seen The Staircase, I highly recommend it. It was one of the first true-crime style stories that really opened my eye to how "documentary" story tellers can skew a narrative to the point of blinding the audience. I was kind of in shock about the verdict, but reading other sources about the case helped me understand it. I've been kind of obsessed with this case for the past decade or so.

I still lean towards believing in Michael Peterson's innocence -- owl theory or not. The prosecution's case seemed to rest on the fact that the presumed murder weapon (something that should have existed in the Peterson home) was nowhere to be found. The defense's reasons for not properly introducing the stupid blow pipe when it was found (and incidentally didn't show any connection to the death) seemed silly.

The Audobon link also fails to even mention the anti-LGBT angle to the prosecution.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:52 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm telling you -- the birds are going to do us in.

IN CASE OF THE RAPTOR THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:52 AM on November 16, 2016 [42 favorites]

I guess I could alllllmost swallow a theory that has the Barred Owl scared into attacking her on the staircase and her falling down as a result. The idea that she was attacked outside by an owl, ripped her hair out in fighting off the bird, and then, bleeding, went up the stairs where she lost her balance and fell, while her husband remained blissfully and maybe chemically unaware, well, no.
posted by chavenet at 10:55 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Murder Most Owl.
posted by xingcat at 11:03 AM on November 16, 2016 [49 favorites]

I guess saying "...an owl weighing less than a pound can pounce on a 175-pound human with force equivalent to 150 times the weight of a mouse." doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Since America is apparently never going to convert to the metric system, I humbly suggest moving to a rodent based scale for measurement. "Better start watching what I eat. At morning weigh-in I was up to 1 capybara, 15 beavers and 4 wood mice. Not at all what I wanted to hear."
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:16 AM on November 16, 2016 [39 favorites]

Yeah, the weirdest part of the story for me was the German woman they had been close friends with who had died in an eerily similar accident (apparently falling downstairs at home alone). As I recall he was also the last to have seen her alive? I know that's totally circumstantial but it seemed pretty damning to me. I think the owl theory scratches that Encyclopedia Brown just-so theory itch, which is why it feels so compelling.
posted by aiglet at 11:19 AM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

now we have to worry about the owls too.

They've always been bad mother

SHUT YOUR MOUTH

I'm just talking about owls!

OH I CAN DIG IT
posted by maxsparber at 11:19 AM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Owls are often used as screen memories to mask recollections of alien abduction.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:20 AM on November 16, 2016 [20 favorites]

Since America is apparently never going to convert to the metric system, I humbly suggest moving to a rodent based scale for measurement. "Better start watching what I eat. At morning weigh-in I was up to 1 capybara, 15 beavers and 4 wood mice. Not at all what I wanted to hear."

*gets on scale*

"Rats!"
posted by leotrotsky at 11:21 AM on November 16, 2016 [45 favorites]

Since America is apparently never going to convert to the metric system, I humbly suggest moving to a rodent based scale for measurement.

1 capybara + 1 beaver = 1 Yogi Berra.
posted by Floydd at 11:22 AM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

As a Durhamite, I always held against him that his books were really crappy and the prosecution's story sounded straight out of his books. The owl story sounds like something out of someone else's books.
posted by hydropsyche at 11:27 AM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

The owl theory sounds plausible to me. The tearing flesh wounds had no underlying bone bruises, leading to the improbable accusation that the perpetrator had repeatedly clawed with a hooked fireplace poker.

Predators of smaller animals will sometimes try to inflict wounds on larger animals, and wait around for them to bleed to death.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:29 AM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Even if this owl theory isn't true, it seems that the case involves some sort of fowl play.
posted by exogenous at 11:35 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

The guy seemed guilty by the end of the Staircase, for whatever that's worth (maybe little).
posted by Mid at 11:37 AM on November 16, 2016

The owl theory sounds plausible to me.

It's one of those things that sounds completely nuts at first, but when you really hear the theory laid out, it's hard not to accept it as a possibility. The Criminal episode about this case (their very first episode!) really brings the story to life.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:41 AM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Look to me like we're dealing with a case of …

*puts on sunglasses*

… hoot and run.

YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAH!
posted by Kabanos at 11:48 AM on November 16, 2016 [24 favorites]

Owl exterminators was all I could think when I first heard this.
posted by wheek wheek wheek at 12:19 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

When I was kicking around at the very outer edges of the film industry a few years back, the script of mine that got the most traction was a rather dark action comedy about a trio of old men who, more or less by accident, find themselves in the murder for hire business. They're surprised to discover: a) the number of people in their retirement community who have someone they're willing to pay to see killed, and b) that they're actually really good at it because old people are basically invisible.

This thread, however, has convinced me. If I were writing that story today, I would write replace them with owls. Owls for hire. Hit owls.
posted by Naberius at 12:20 PM on November 16, 2016 [19 favorites]

If the owl theory means an innocent man spent years in prison, all these owl jokes are a bit sickening, really.

The forensic evidence mentioned seems very sparse: I thought that nowadays it would be possible to find evidence to decide between a fatal fall downstairs and a beating by a (missing) weapon.
posted by Azara at 12:23 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

From what I remembered the A Ha! moment from the prosecution side was that Peterson had affairs with men. His wife's relatives were aghast and made a big stink about how they know their sister would never have allowed that. I would counter that there are tons of marriages where openness is part of the story, but certainly not advertised to the in-laws. There was a lot of homophobia in this case, I was rooting for the owl.
posted by readery at 12:25 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

I too must cry owl on these terrible jokes
posted by Enemy of Joy at 12:33 PM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

'Owl

I saw the best wives of my generation destroyed by owls, stark hysterical naked,
hurling themselves down the carpeted stairs at dawn desperate for escape,
angelheaded tripsters rug-burned by the ancient featherly
connection to the tumbling dynamo of the machinery of night,
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:46 PM on November 16, 2016 [21 favorites]

this is kind of like reading a Reddit post about this
posted by thelonius at 12:48 PM on November 16, 2016 [12 favorites]

A bit more on the plausibility, from personal experience. Sleeping on the couch in an unfamiliar apartment, I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. In the dark, I hit my forehead on the metal edge of a spiral staircase step that was in my path in the living room.

I woke up with a two inch cut on my forehead, several hours later, lying on the floor, in a six foot diameter pool of blood. If I'd passed out in a narrow staircase, posed head down at the bottom, that two inch cut might have drained all of my blood out.

Head wounds bleed. A lot. I think the owl did it.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:57 PM on November 16, 2016 [11 favorites]

And before anyone chimes in with "eponysterical", it was a hardwood floor.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:58 PM on November 16, 2016 [47 favorites]

I binge-watched The Staircase one day a few weeks ago and was completely sure of Peterson's innocence. Then I started googling, and was less sure. There does seem to be a lot of traction to the idea that they were reaching the end of their financial rope, and that Peterson was asking his ex-wife to lend him money for their sons, saying that he couldn't go to his present wife with the request. Then I heard of the owl theory and felt like it put in place some puzzle pieces that hadn't fit under either theory, both prosecution and defense.

The Staircase did illuminate some issues, such as that Peterson might not have heard his wife's screams (I had to mute the tv at one point because I was pretty sure my neighbors were going to hear the "experiment" and call the police), and including the really sudden twist that the inlaws took (mentioned above) as soon as they heard the Peterson is bisexual. The documentary was also pretty good at showing that Peterson has a lot of emotional walls, or maybe that he's just kind of a dick, but in any event, whether or not people like you now, liked you before, or will ever like you is not the judicial standard of guilt or innocence. I feel like, although the documentary left out a LOT of the state's case, there's still reasonable doubt.
posted by janey47 at 12:58 PM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

They're surprised to discover: a) the number of people in their retirement community who have someone they're willing to pay to see killed, and b) that they're actually really good at it because old people are basically invisible.

Imagine if they'd been post-menopausal women. They could shoot somebody at point blank range and everyone'd be like, "Is there a breeze?"
posted by leotrotsky at 1:01 PM on November 16, 2016 [27 favorites]

If the owl theory means an innocent man spent years in prison, all these owl jokes are a bit sickening, really.

TBH, the owl jokes aren't any better from the point of view of making fun of a dude trying to escape justice for beating his wife to death. I understand the impulse though -- that's the trick with "true crime" empathy for Kathleen Peterson (who definitely died a horrible death*) gets buried, even though I believe that every one of the jokers does feel it.

*when I put myself in her shoes, I can't decide whether it would be worse to be beaten to death while standing up to your adulterer husband who is trying to shut you up, or to bleed to death after losing a drunken/stoned fight to a goddamned owl. Part of me leans towards the first, but I think I would be pretty pissed at being done in by something so stupid, whereas dying because I stood up for myself against an asshole is at least something to be proud of.
posted by sparklemotion at 1:04 PM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

The theory is that she was attacked outside by being hit in the head by an owl, almost certainly a Great-Horned Owl, a notorious bastard of a bird that is documented to be that aggressive. Injured, she fled into the house, was running up the steps and fell (either by passing out or slipping), which is how she injured herself further and fatally.

I'm not saying this is what happened. But I am saying it could have happened. Also, microscopic owl feathers found on her skull (owls have super tiny feathers all over their talons).

The fact that the "blood spatter expert" gave bad testimony doesn't help the prosecution here either.
posted by mcstayinskool at 1:10 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

When owls attack
posted by mcstayinskool at 1:16 PM on November 16, 2016

I think much of the impetus behind the whole "true crime" approach is precisely to build distance from horrible events so we don't have to feel them. Any episode of Dateline is replete with this. We reduce the whole thing to an intellectual puzzle and give some lip service to the emotions of the victims and their loved ones. But we don't have to actually feel it right now because we're approaching the events on a different level.

Personally, I'm capable of feeling empathy for both Kathleen and Michael Peterson - though not really of doing anything useful for either of them - and of finding the owl jokes really funny. In the case of Dances with Sneetches' Howl riff, I suspect I could actually do both at the same time.
posted by Naberius at 1:20 PM on November 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

Had the owl been eating a lot of Twinkies beforehand
posted by beerperson at 1:33 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah, I should be clear that I don't have a problem with the owl jokes (they are funny!).

I just think that if you're going to complain about them, the complaint should be focused around the fact that a woman died a violent death, whether that death was owl or man initiated.
posted by sparklemotion at 1:36 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of the worst ad placements I've seen in a while.

AWW!! Look at that little cutie!! :(
posted by grobstein at 2:18 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can either a lawyer or ornithologist comment on how plausible this defense is?

Attention any person who is professionally both: I would like to interview to be the main character in my new television series idea where you solve mysteries throughout the English countryside that will hopefully be picked up by ITV to air in the UK and then end up on American PBS and have a full long full life of being the thing people watch on Netflix when they are sad and need some nice, well-mannered science murder.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:25 PM on November 16, 2016 [17 favorites]

Can either a lawyer or ornithologist comment on how plausible this defense is?

Attention any person who is professionally both

A legal eagle, as you were.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:36 PM on November 16, 2016 [40 favorites]

Can either a lawyer or ornithologist comment on how plausible this defense is?

Ctrl+F "bird law"

No matches found

what the hell is wrong with you people
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:02 PM on November 16, 2016 [14 favorites]

Has birdsrightsactivist weighed in yet?
posted by tavella at 3:25 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hey Prize bull octorok, I am as shocked as you are.

No one has thought to consult the preeminent expert in the field?
posted by blairsyprofane at 3:41 PM on November 16, 2016

Paging Harvey Birdman. Paging Harvey Birdman.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:45 PM on November 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

As RustyBrooks notes above, the "Criminal" podcast did a piece about this theory. They also covered the history of prosecuting animals for crimes -- including the death of a medieval baby by pig -- on the theory that animals could form intent as humans can. Fascinating!
posted by gateau at 4:24 PM on November 16, 2016

The book by Aphrodite Jones about the case is really good. (She also did an episode of her ID show about the case.)
posted by SisterHavana at 4:44 PM on November 16, 2016

I always get Scott Peterson confused with Drew Peterson, another man who murdered his wife.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:15 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Apparently I also get Michael Peterson confused with Scott Peterson. Listen, just don't marry a man named Peterson.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:22 PM on November 16, 2016 [19 favorites]

I would like to cross-examine the witness's pet parrot!
posted by asperity at 8:24 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just looked up Scott Peterson on Wikipedia and apparently his nephew is someone named Thomas Bird. So what I'm saying is, there could be a much deeper conspiracy here...
posted by hazyjane at 10:21 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Thomas Bird? There's no talon how deep this really goes.
posted by Dokterrock at 11:50 PM on November 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

If it was the owl does that make Scott Peterson the stool pigeon?
posted by the christopher hundreds at 4:34 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

No "O Rly?" yet? I'm disappointed in you, MetaFilter!
posted by TedW at 5:00 AM on November 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nice wife you got there...
posted by Naberius at 6:49 AM on November 17, 2016

Read that first as "when they are sad and need some mice,"
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:33 AM on November 17, 2016

Audubon to rain on y'all's parade but these bird puns are in poor taste.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:55 AM on November 17, 2016