Where The Staircase’s Michael Peterson Is Now—and What He’s Doing Next
Years after Kathleen Peterson’s death and the twists immortalized in Netflix’s The Staircase, the case’s central figure has slipped far from the courtroom spotlight. So where is Michael Peterson now?
If you watched The Staircase doc on Netflix and lived through the endless twists, you probably still have the same question: so what is Michael Peterson doing now?
Where he is now
He is in Durham, North Carolina, living in a ground-floor apartment that, yes, deliberately has no stairs. After everything, that detail is not subtle.
"He is in a ground floor apartment with no stairs - that was a really important accommodation."
That line came from his defense attorney, David Rudolf, speaking about Peterson at CrimeCon in New Orleans.
Before that, Peterson had been staying with his ex-wife, Patricia, for two years. She died of a heart attack, and he now lives alone.
How we got here
- 2001: Kathleen Peterson is found dead at the bottom of the staircase in the couple's Durham home.
- 2003: Michael Peterson is convicted of killing Kathleen and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
- 2011: A judge overturns the conviction after finding the prosecution's blood-spatter evidence was misleading.
- 2017: Peterson takes an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter. In plain English: he did not admit guilt but acknowledged the state had enough evidence to convict. He received a sentence of 86 months, and because he had already served longer than that, he was released the same year.
The house
After the long legal grind, Peterson sold the Durham house where Kathleen died. If you were somehow hoping to browse the listing out of morbid curiosity, you are out of luck now. The property is off the market.
So that is the current status: after years of courtroom drama and a documentary that turned the case into a true-crime fixture, Peterson is keeping a low profile in Durham, in a place picked for the most obvious reason imaginable.