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  1. #1

    Netflix True Crime Drama: The Staircase

    https://www.netflix.com/title/80233441
    I believe a lot of you will find this series interesting as a good bit of it takes place in Durham. Of course, I had to get over the Mike Nifong sightings.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, NC
    Isn't this the one really biased towards him? I preferred Mystery on Cedar Street, a Dateline that NBC aired years ago. It was the only truly unbiased production.

    My $.02, he did it. Or his son Todd did it and he was covering for him. But the whole thing in Germany was just too much for a coincidence, so, yeah, he did it. And leave the owls out of it!

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by aimo View Post
    Isn't this the one really biased towards him? I preferred Mystery on Cedar Street, a Dateline that NBC aired years ago. It was the only truly unbiased production.

    My $.02, he did it. Or his son Todd did it and he was covering for him. But the whole thing in Germany was just too much for a coincidence, so, yeah, he did it. And leave the owls out of it!
    I have tried to watch this...and frankly, zzzzzz....really really slow moving. So far (I've seen a few episodes, dozed off some) it is clearly biased in his favor.

  4. #4
    I think there was an episode of the podcast "Criminal" on this case as well, and they made a rather convincing argument that an owl was involved. People assume the idea of an owl killing a human is too ridiculous to consider. But it is quite possible.

    If you like true crime, "Criminal" is a nice, short podcast that is produced in NC. Many of the stories have NC roots.
    "There can BE only one."

  5. #5
    Watching it now and find the first few episodes pretty interesting. Interviews with the film's producer (French academy award winning filmmaker) indicate that after it all he's not convinced one way or the other, but he certainly was surprised with the verdict as he thought there was reasonable doubt and that the prosecution didn't come close to proving their case, including allowing certain information to prejudice the jury (like Michaels bisexuality) which the judge himself said he regretted 16 years later. Might be biased because it's filming the defense more, but the filmmaker says he wanted to film the prosecution more, but they refused. Here is what he had to say in an interview:

    "It’s difficult to be an objective observer, especially when the other side doesn’t want to participate. We kept trying to shoot with the prosecution and with Kathleen’s family. I really wanted them to be in the film. But because they refused, we were much more close to Michael Peterson. It’s more his point of view, yes, but I really tried to be objective."

    And his general feeling towards the case.

    Q: "Jean, is it fair to say that that you were not necessarily convinced of his innocence, but that you think he’s not guilty — that he didn’t get a fair trial?JXL: Yes, that’s fair. To me, there was huge reasonable doubt. I am not saying that I think Michael Peterson is innocent. What happened that night is still a huge mystery. But during the five-month trial, his guilt was not proven to me. You could feel it standing there every day, that maybe it was not totally fair. Maybe the prosecution did a very good job, but they didn’t play fair."

    http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/the-s...interview.html

    Seems similar to the conclusion of the Serial podcast producer: not convinced of innocence but reasonable doubt seems to exist.

    I guess these documentaries wouldn't be as interesting if the truth was clear...

    Overall, seems like a very bizarre scene based on what the prosecution described and also a very bizarre scene based on what the defense described, so where does that leave it? In my mind, that typically leads to an acquittal.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Bluedog View Post
    Might be biased because it's filming the defense more, but the filmmaker says he wanted to film the prosecution more, but they refused. .
    It's too bad they didn't participate more...because this unbalance ruined it for me. I watched I think 3 episodes...and heard the prosecutors say on several occasions that the story painted of a big happy family was simply not true. And yet, I never heard why it wasn't true. The imbalance was tiresome for me.

    And I swear I saw a Mike Nifong sighting...

  7. #7
    I loved it! Super fascinating and I couldn’t help but continue to the next episode each time I had the chance. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a documentary take you through so much of what happens during a trial, even the crime scene photos.

    Spoiler alert!!! I won’t go as far to say he is innocent either, but I just can’t get past the fact that she didn’t have any brain injuries. How can you beat someone to death without injuring their brain?

    In the end, our justice system is set up to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to keep innocent people from going to jail, even allowing for sometimes guilty people to beat the system, it’s not setup to get 100% or guilty people found as such. And In this case, innocent or not, there was definitely reasonable doubt, so he should have been acquitted the first time. It’s definitely scary to know that cops/prosecutors will do anything to get a conviction. This could happen to anyone and it does all the time!

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by aimo View Post
    Isn't this the one really biased towards him? I preferred Mystery on Cedar Street, a Dateline that NBC aired years ago. It was the only truly unbiased production.

    My $.02, he did it. Or his son Todd did it and he was covering for him. But the whole thing in Germany was just too much for a coincidence, so, yeah, he did it. And leave the owls out of it!
    Owl theory definitely seems more plausible than the prosecution’s theory.

  9. #9
    I saw an episode of the original one. Interesting, but clearly biased.

    https://www.spin.com/2018/06/the-sta...etflix-review/

    Bolstering the murder theory is the revelation that Peterson’s friend Ratliff was also found dead and awash with blood at the bottom of a staircase in Germany 16 years prior. That death was originally ruled accidental, but during the Kathleen Peterson murder trial Ratliff’s body was exhumed and her death determined to have been caused by blunt force trauma. Michael Peterson was the last person to see each woman alive...

    Of course, law enforcement can be corrupt and Michael can be a murderer—the two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, no matter how biased The Staircase is in Michael’s favor. And Lestrade tips his hand when it comes to the facts he obfuscates, or leaves out entirely, like the motive inherent in Kathleen’s 1.4 million dollar life insurance policy weighed against the couple’s six-figure credit card debt and the anxiety Kathleen, as the couple’s primary breadwinner, felt over her seemingly imminent layoff.

    Then there’s the matter of Michael’s love affair with the show’s editor, Sophie Brunet, a relationship Lestrade claims had no influence over the flattering edit, though it was never revealed in the series itself. “This is one of the incredible things that happened during those 15 years. Life is really full of surprises,” Lestrade told the French publication L’Express. “They had a real story, which lasted until May 2017. But she never let her own feelings affect the course of editing.” Nevermind the complicated ethics of it all, that the viewer never knows about the romance feels like an odd and purposeful omission from a docu-series. If anything, it can only call to question what other worthwhile information might be lingering behind the scenes

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