whats been cracking nerds of AF? Havent been on here for a minute but I wanted to get your guys take on that new documentary Staircase. That bro is guilty as sin if you ask me. What say you? I do like the defense lawyer though. That guy is a wolf.
I think it was the owl she had microscopic feathers and hair in her hand.
Oh boy… i just finished the whole series last night. Very good!!
If you use the common sense approach of 2 dead women, lay dead in similar circumstances, lots of blood everywhere all up the walls and stuff… Then yeah, he’s as guilty as sin.
The issue is - is there doubt? Did the police officers do everything properly, keep all the data safe, conduct fair experiments, produce credible scientists. No, they did a crap job… it was a hatchet. .they thought he was guilty and did everything they could to make him appear guilty.
I don’t know if he was guilty or innocent- all i know there is doubt, coz the police are shlt at their job. If there is reasonable doubt, then i’m ok with a not guilty verdict.
I read some about hte case and the series left a lot out.
The neighbor noticed her cuts were trident shaped like talons and they found microscopic feathers and hair splinters in her hands. Going theory is owl attack.
I don’t want to fact check this. This must be true.
Watched it last week. It was fine but the Making a Murderer people are so biased it’s hard to take them seriously.
"Ah yes, the other chief suspect. The “owl theory” might sound like a hoot, but it’s actually pretty convincing when you dig into the specifics.
The theory goes that an owl attack was the cause of Kathleen’s head injuries, with the bird of prey’s unexpected assault landing her at the bottom of the staircase.
Larry Pollard, a lawyer who lived next door to the Petersons, is believed to be the originator of the owl theory, insisting that Kathleen’s head wounds – which formed a trident pattern – looked as though they were inflicted by claws or talons.
What’s more, microscopic feathers were found in Kathleen’s hand, along with some of her own hair – evidence, Pollard says, that she yanked out some of her own hair while attempt to dislodge the owl.
Owl attacks aren’t actually all that uncommon, either. As Vulture notes, while covering the Peterson case, NBC’s Dateline interviewed a local man who had definitely been attacked by an owl – the incident was caught on surveillance cameras, leaving the man with extensive bleeding.
The theory is barely touched on in The Staircase, with de Lestrade explaining that, since the idea of an owl attacking Kathleen was never presented in court, he didn’t feel the need to address it in his series."
There was evidence of a strangulation why wasn’t this touched on in the documentary
There was very little and tangential evidence, not conclusive. It was basically a bruise near an artery but depending on the fall it is still possible it occurred during the fall, hence why it was given such little time in the case. It’s funny that some circumstantial speculation grade evidence is reason to flat out ignore the fact that she had hair and bird feathers in her hands. Plus strangulation was not cause of death and there were no other damages despite one minor part of one injury. Typically you’d see a host of things if strangulation was involved.
https://www.romper.com/p/the-owl-theory-on-the-staircase-is-surprisingly-plausible-9316612
An attorney and former neighbor of the Petersons’ named T. Lawrence Pollard first put forth the theory. Barred owls were native to the Durham suburbs where they lived and, according to Crime Feed, attacks on joggers were not uncommon. There was possible evidence on Kathleen’s body, too. Some of her hair had been torn out and found grasped in her hands. Microscopic feathers were discovered in her hair as well as wood splinters and cedar needles. Theory believers felt that the wounds on her head could have been caused by talons.
The speculation is that Kathleen was attacked by an owl outside, where it became somewhat tangled in her hair. There was allegedly an indication that she had bled outside the home, then she stumbled inside where, frantic and injured, she took a spill down the stairs. The News & Observer quoted Dr. Patrick T. Retig as saying, upon viewing Kathleen’s medical records:
In my professional opinion, the hypothesized attack to her face and back of the head resulting in the various punctures and lacerations visible in the autopsy photographs is entirely within the behavioral repertoire of large owls.
Michael’s defense attorney at the time, Mary Jude Darrow, found the theory credible, telling Audubon, “When you look at her injuries, they do appear consistent with being made by an owl’s talons.” However, that didn’t mean she would plunge ahead with it in a trial, as she added, “But I would hate to risk my client’s life or future on that argument.”
Burns me up knowing the real murder is still out there on the loose lurking around that town at night probably eating mice and stuff.
Watched this over the last couple of weeks. I have no idea if he did it or not but I thought it was a really interesting study of the US judicial system. I still cannot get my head around plea deals or how such a thing as an Alford plea even came into existence without someone somewhere realising how totally illogical it is.
There also doesn’t seem to be any rigour whatsoever around the use of expert witnesses and the general conduct of the prosecution is appalling. They seemed to pluck their theory that Kathleen had accessed his computer and discovered his extra curricular dickings which had then led to him killing her to cover his tracks out of thin air. I think it was proven that nobody had accessed the computer that night. All of that evidence was hugely prejudicial for the jury and should never have been admissible. The same is true for the previous death in Germany.
The media access is also totally insane for a non-American. The fact that the media are present in the courtroom and then come out and report on the case, stating things that they have misinterpreted as hard facts and speculating on the innocence or guilt of the accused. How is anyone ever going to get a fair trial without strict rules around media access.
On the surface of it David Rudolf seemed like a great lawyer but he was really quite foolhardy. How can they possibly think that finding the blow poke mid trial and then whapping it out in the court room. Surely you phone the police the minute it’s found?
Overall I think there was reasonable doubt though and I was shocked at the original verdict.
I want to read the replies but I’m only halfway through… Started slow but got good
I listened to a speaker named Ray Krone once in college who had been on death row for years from when he was about 18 years old. He was a hippy drifter type when some girl was killed in a murder rape in which there were apparently bite marks and he became a suspect. So they asked a few dental experts to examine his dental records versus the bite and everyone said it was not even close, they kept going until they found a guy they could pay a large sum as an “expert witness” to say it was a match, selected him as the prosecution witness and got him convicted. Years later DNA overturned it. Lost his whole youth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Krone
There are countless stories like this of District Attorneys being sleezy as f*ck as they’re basically do goods on a warpath that failed to get into a good law firm but yet still think they’re infallible. The Duke Lacrosse story is another great example and there was another movie called The Hurricane that’s a great true story about a boxer that experienced a similar series of race driven events.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/16/fantastic-lies-10-appalling-moments-from-the-duke-lacrosse-case/
Anecdotally, I had a DA go rogue on me under a law that hadn’t been in place when I was arrested (ex post facto), he’d been using this to basically screw hundreds of people most of whom were too poor to fight it. So a friend of mine and I lawyered up and when we made our case the judge tore into the guy asking him at one point “Are you arguing the DA of ___________ town supercedes the Constitution of the United States??!?” and the DA was indignant to the end with his assistant making huffing and puffing noises supporting him. So the judge tells him he has to vacate all of the prior cases using that method and his assistant says all of them or just from today? The DA quietly says, “just today”. Which was clearly wrong and illegal but I took my victory and left.
DAs are universally total scumbags leaching off of people who can’t afford to fight back while unbelievably managing to make television pastors and defense lawyers look like model citizens.
The article I posted for the Duke case should be mandatory reading.
I don’t get the whole DA culture of winning at all costs. Where I’m from evidence from expert witnesses is gathered and brought before the judge before the evidence goes before the jury. There’s no way that either side could just go out and find their own experts until they get someone who says that they want and then just put them on the stand.
I hadn’t really heard about that Duke lacrosse thing but that’s pretty scary stuff.
Out of interest, what did you do? Was it related to your GTA car chase phase?
It was just tied to being in college and drinking / partying. I’m actually not 100% sure which exact circumstance it was that I was in court for that time but do remember it was an alcohol related offense or series of events.
Just like we get performance bonuses for beating benchmarks (ok, I actually don’t get any type of bonus…), they get bonuses for winning convictions. And it’s quantity over quality type of thing.