TREAT WILLIAMS WALKS THE STAIRCASE MURDERS

The real life trial of New York Times best selling author Michael Peterson accused of murdering his wife by pushing her down a flight of stairs was headline breaking news on CNN in 2003.

Treat Williams stars as the North Carolina novelist in the Lifetime movie The Staircase Murders based on the behind-the-scenes documentary Peterson commissioned to prove his innocence in the sensational case.

“I don’t know of any other trial where the person who was indicted said, ‘sure go ahead and bring the camera crew into my home and into my life.’ This camera crew made this six hour documentary film about the Michael Peterson case and his family and there were interviews with him and his brother. And as things were revealed, they weren’t revealed in the courtroom; they were revealed to us beforehand in the Peterson home which made that film fascinating to me.”

The Peterson family rallied to Michael’s defense except his stepdaughter who turned against him and pronounced him a murderer. Treat talks about what else was revealed at the trial.

“In the trial it was revealed that his marriage was not monogamous, that he had a homosexual side that was a secretive side. No one knows whether his wife knew or not. It was revealed later on that there had been another murder 18 years earlier and that his next door neighbor had died exactly the same way as his wife with exactly the same injuries to the head. And he was the last one to see her. That didn’t help much. And there’s Michael Peterson himself who is this enigmatic, interesting, strange, hard to read guy.”

Kevin Pollock plays David Rudolf, Peterson’s defense lawyer who begins to doubt his client’s innocence as evidence unfolds in The Staircase Murders airing Sunday, April 15 at 8PM on Lifetime.