All Episodes Discussion

[Enigma X]

I came here to bitch about the lawyers, but you guys beat me to it.

[Lovecat]

They were spending so much time on the defense team, I was afraid they were setting us up for an acquittal.  Somewhat surprised (pleasantly) when the dude was convicted.

[Ina123]

That scene of the lawyers in the conference room with the wife jumping up and screaming was so staged. They were attention whores.

[bubbls]

 I already hate these lawyers, and I haven't seen the episode yet. Regarding the gun, there are hidden waist band holsters available. It would look like the gun is shoved in the pants, but it's secured in a holster you don't see. I recently learned this because I spend too much time on crime forums. 

[EtheltoTillie]

My husband is an attending in a university pathology department, and this episode really gave me the creeps!  I don't think he's fired any residents lately . . .

Edited March 22, 2017 by GussieK

[One Tough Cookie]

OK--did ANYONE see the Sunday evening show on ID about a woman and her daughter poisoning the rest of the family? Antifreeze was their weapon of choice. I won't say anymore, but it was one of the best Datelines I've seen in a long time. I wasn't able to delete it, I want to have my husband watch it, mainly because I want to watch it again.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Social Piranha

[walnutqueen]

11 hours ago, Social Piranha said:

OK--did ANYONE see the Sunday evening show on ID about a woman and her daughter poisoning the rest of the family? Antifreeze was their weapon of choice. I won't say anymore, but it was one of the best Datelines I've seen in a long time. I wasn't able to delete it, I want to have my husband watch it, mainly because I want to watch it again.

Yes - that was the second time I'd seen the story, and it was just as sickening as I remembered.  The callous attitudes of the mother & daughter bothered me as much as their lame motives for murder,

[Stampiron]

On 3/23/2017 at 10:07 AM, Social Piranha said:

OK--did ANYONE see the Sunday evening show on ID about a woman and her daughter poisoning the rest of the family? Antifreeze was their weapon of choice. I won't say anymore, but it was one of the best Datelines I've seen in a long time. I wasn't able to delete it, I want to have my husband watch it, mainly because I want to watch it again.

I don't have ID, but I just watched 20/20's episode on the case. Worth watching if you haven't seen the case elsewhere:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/mom-daughter-describe-killing-family-members-anti-freeze/story?id=38029438

Great moment when the reporter asks "What is wrong with these people??" And props to the pastor for alerting police.

[saber5055]

Did anyone watch last night, the two episodes, House in the Woods and Frantic? The first one creeped me out that police arrested the husband based on the little girl saying the killer looked just like daddy (even though it was not daddy). But I fell asleep during the second one. Did they find the missing girl? If so, or not, what happened? Last I saw they took swabs off the trunk of the car of the guy who walked with her to the parking garage, but I saw no more than that.

[patty1h]

They never found the girl, unfortunately.  The swabs tested positive for the girls DNA, and that evidence was used to convict the guy who was last seen with her.  I wish I could give you more info, but I watched this while half asleep and I deleted it from my DVR.

[biakbiak]

He was convicted of Aggravated Kidnapping because they never found her body or a crime scene so didn't want to risk trying him for murder but he still got life in prison.

I never read the descriptions for Dateline because often they are blank so I kept expecting some huge twist as the first hour was coming to a close to justify the two hours.

[Stampiron]

1 hour ago, saber5055 said:

Did anyone watch last night, the two episodes, House in the Woods and Frantic? The first one creeped me out that police arrested the husband based on the little girl saying the killer looked just like daddy (even though it was not daddy). But I fell asleep during the second one. Did they find the missing girl? If so, or not, what happened? Last I saw they took swabs off the trunk of the car of the guy who walked with her to the parking garage, but I saw no more than that.

What patty1h and biakbiak said. Also, the boyfriend was ruled out because it turned out he was selling drugs at the time, which is why he didn't want to hand over his phone. This alibi was confirmed because the person he was selling the drugs to was an undercover police officer. Good news/bad news for him, I guess.

The evidence against the guy charged was the DNA found in his trunk, his changing stories and the fact that both his and the girl's cellphones pinged in the same locations for a while after he drove out of the parking lot, suggesting that she was in the car with him. Prosecutors speculated that he made a move on her, she rejected it and things got violent.

----

Regarding the first episode: $10,000 to commit murder. It always amazes me how little money it costs to get someone to commit murder for you. Leaving morality aside and the off-chance that there's a Hell you're going to burn in, I do not understand how someone is willing to risk their freedom for so little (though I think about this even when there's a million dollar insurance payout.) 

Forget committing murder. Let's say all you have to do is spin a wheel. On 75% of that wheel is $1 million, but on 25% is Life In Prison. Would you want to spin that wheel? I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to get near it. But this guy spun it for 10 grand. Crazy.

[patty1h]

Yeah, the money for murder thing always gets me too.  I always shake my head in amazement when it comes out that a spouse decides to kill rather than divorce - the excuse "the wife/husband will take everything".  These dollar-hungry fools risk capital murder charges just so as not to pay alimony or support.   I can't comprehend the notion that divorce is not an option because you don't want to shell out a couple hundred per month, but cold-blooded murder seems reasonable.

The other standby scenario in spousal murder - kill for a big insurance payout.  That one really gets me when these shows highlight a case and it's shown how the killer planned out the deed out beforehand, and continues to live with their spouse like normal, knowing that this poor person has only X time left.   

[Guest]

Am I the only one who thinks Dateline and 48 Hours is crazy predictable?

I can tell in the first five minutes who did it by a few tips - either the person they're interviewing is in prison garb, or when the camera people try to hide the prison garb or you know who did it if the spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend isn't interviewed yet they show their picture umpteen times.

The other thing - I don't think a true SOB has ever died.  The deceased is always beautiful, friendly, the life-of-the-party, caring, without fault and always, always leaves family kissing them goodbye and telling them they love them.

Then, after all that we hear of the numerous affairs, the porn videos, the drugs, alcohol, the penchant for pushing people off cliffs while hiking, the wife swapping stories....all the things that make sense as to how this person died because in reality they weren't the saint the left behind family believes.

I did chuckle recently when they were discussing a female victim.  Apparently she lived a 'colorful' life.  Her family described her as all of the above mentioned then added that she was "feisty".  It later came out she and her live-in boyfriend got into "squabbles" and she took a gun and aimed it at his head and then shot the ceiling.  Feisty indeed.

And to add to all of this - I am in no way suggesting that anyone deserves to be murdered.  It just seems that sometimes the family left behind describes the deceased in saintly terms when in reality they were much more human than saint.

[saber5055]

Thanks everyone for filling me in on the end of Frantic. I cannot imagine the devastation of having a loved one disappear and never finding the body or any remains. I'd be for letting "someone" take the guilty party into a locked room to "ask" him about that. And patty1h, Hockey Puck sat at that poker game with all his best friends (and wife's best friends) knowing she was being beaten to death 15 minutes away. That murder was brutal, she was beaten near beyond recognition, and that attack went from upstairs to downstairs, all watched by the little daughter. I guess Dad should have hired someone who wasn't the same size as he, and wore a totally different mask than one he owned. And he should have called his office VM after he erased the call to the killer on his friend's phone. Lesson learned for next time, I guess. Plus, if you are going to kill your wife, don't tell family members about your affairs and wanting a divorce.

[ElleBee]

39 minutes ago, PsychoKlown said:

The other thing - I don't think a true SOB has ever died.  The deceased is always beautiful, friendly, the life-of-the-party, caring, without fault and always, always leaves family kissing them goodbye and telling them they love them.

Had to laugh when I read this. I've become grateful that I'm not the type to "light up the room!" every time I walk through a door, since that trait apparently puts a big target on your back. 

And I've also started to second guess whether, unbeknownst to me, I was born into an evil, uncaring family because our everyday farewells are in the vein of "ok, see ya" accompanied by a lazy half-wave. Can't imagine what the Dateline viewers would think of us... 

[LakeGal]

I often doubt they really said I love you and kissed them goodbye the last time they saw them.  It is the remark always made by the family.  I think it is how they want to remember it.  Also the victim always is the one that everyone notices when they walk in a room.  Sure...

I was suspect of the niece when she said her uncle Tom told her about all his affairs and how he wanted to divorce his wife.  Why would he tell his wife's niece this?  I wondered if she was not embellishing what he had said so there would be a motive for the murder.  It was her word against his.  I don't know if I believe her.

I miss Keith Morrison.  We haven't seen him in ages.  But it looks like he is back next week. 

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, ElleBee said:

And I've also started to second guess whether, unbeknownst to me, I was born into an evil, uncaring family because our everyday farewells are in the vein of "ok, see ya" accompanied by a lazy half-wave. Can't imagine what the Dateline viewers would think of us... 

Well this Dateline viewer would think that you and your family are completely normal.   I don't tell my husband I love him when we hang up from a call.  We're more of a "drive carefully" kind of couple. 

 

8 minutes ago, LakeGal said:

I was suspect of the niece when she said her uncle Tom told her about all his affairs and how he wanted to divorce his wife.  Why would he tell his wife's niece this?  I wondered if she was not embellishing what he had said so there would be a motive for the murder.  It was her word against his.  I don't know if I believe her.

I miss Keith Morrison.  We haven't seen him in ages.  But it looks like he is back next week. 

That is odd isn't it.  Now why would he tell her?  My (dirty) mind went to thinking that maybe he was hitting on her.  But I think if he so much as hinted at that she'd blab it on the TeeVee.  Did you also get a load of the faces on last night's show?  Jeez-o-pete the make-up person must have been trying to unload a case full of foundation, white eye shadow and jammy lip gloss.  They looked like clowns.

And as far as Keith Morrison is concerned I am going to look into his voice for my waze app.  I'll have that doggone thing on all the time.

[UsernameFatigue]

I was shocked when the husband in the first murder was arrested based on a 7 year old saying the 'robber' looked like daddy. I was wondering if he wished he had used a burner phone  rather than his friend's wife's phone to contact the ex-employee-turned-murderer. Though I would imagine once the ex employee was arrested the connection and murder for hire plot would have been discovered anyway. Or at least if nothing else the ex employee would have spilled the beans.

Regarding the second case, I am still amazed that the boyfriend not once in the 4 days or so his girlfriend was missing picked up the phone to try to locate her, thereby alerting others to that fact that she was missing. He just assumed that she was with family? And this is someone she had been friends with for many years. Wow. I am also amazed at these cases when a seemingly unplanned murder happens and the murderer is able to hide the body. One would think it would show up eventually but apparently has not as yet. Yikes. 

[ridethemaverick]

I can't figure out what to make of that poor little girl saying the eyes, height, and mask were just like daddy. Was she subconsciously implicating her dad because she had a notion or was she just an unreliable little witness who associated all men with daddy? Probably the latter but it was still extremely chilling.

I don't think I'll ever understand killing a spouse outside of self defense, but I'm especially stumped at the folks who set up the murders to happen where the kids can witness it or find the body. 

[cooksdelight]

12 hours ago, ridethemaverick said:

 

I can't figure out what to make of that poor little girl saying the eyes, height, and mask were just like daddy. Was she subconsciously implicating her dad because she had a notion or was she just an unreliable little witness who associated all men with daddy

 

Could be she's seen Daddy hitting Mommy on previous occasions and figured it had to be him. And the guy could have been wearing a mask Daddy gave him to hide his identity. I'm glad the husband was convicted, for nothing else beyond the murder, but he knew his kids would be there when it happened. He's below scum.

[saber5055]

"They looked like clowns." That made me laugh given your avatar, PsychoKlown. Meanwhile, it was never said why the murder-for-hire guy was fired from Hockey's business. The partner fired him? So if there were partners, why would Hockey's wife get the business if they divorced? And good point about hubby beating wife in the past so the little girl associated it with daddy. I wonder if they ran DNA on the red truck. You'd think Hockey would know that CC cameras would film murder guy driving back to the shop, then riding away on the bike he was given ... by Hockey. As for the boyfriend not noticing his girlfriend was missing, that's easy. He was a deadbeat using her to support him, he didn't give a care about where she was as long as she paid the rent and bought groceries. Plus, he was a druggie, so there's that too. He was probably glad girlfriend wasn't there to nag him.

[cooksdelight]

I don't think the wife would get the business in a divorce, but I think he was afraid she'd get the house/kids and he'd be paying through the nose. Greed always does people in.

[JudyObscure]

4 hours ago, saber5055 said:

As for the boyfriend not noticing his girlfriend was missing, that's easy. He was a deadbeat using her to support him, he didn't give a care about where she was as long as she paid the rent and bought groceries. Plus, he was a druggie, so there's that too. He was probably glad girlfriend wasn't there to nag him

I agree about Hunter.  They had, had a fight, he thought she had gone home mad to her family, and as long as he was comfy, getting high and watching TV, in the house she paid for, he had no desire  for her to come home and remind him what a loser he was.  I hated Hunter about as much as the murderer so I'm glad they're both in prison. I'm left wondering how the forensics team could have done such a bad job the first time they went over Enrique's car.  It's a murder case and yet they don't seem to have looked very hard at the trunk?

22 hours ago, PsychoKlown said:

The deceased is always beautiful, friendly, the life-of-the-party, caring, without fault and always, always leaves family kissing them goodbye and telling them they love them.

 And their mothers are always psychic and appear to think they're in some sort of contest for most loving mother ever.  "Frantic" girl's mom says that when someone called and said she'd been missing for three days and hadn't shown up for work, "I felt something in my stomach that I had never felt before and I knew instantly that something was wrong."  (Ya think?) Then she needs to tell  us she didn't sleep at all that night.  I have mountains of sympathy for the mothers, but they don't need to keep telling us how much they loved their kids.  We know.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

And their mothers are always psychic and appear to think they're in some sort of contest for most loving mother ever.  "Frantic" girl's mom says that when someone called and said she'd been missing for three days and hadn't shown up for work, "I felt something in my stomach that I had never felt before and I knew instantly that something was wrong."  (Ya think?) Then she needs to tell  us she didn't sleep at all that night.  I have mountains of sympathy for the mothers, but they don't need to keep telling us how much they loved their kids.  We know.

Excellent point JudyObscure. 

Unfortunately we have no children.  And as a side note let me say that as you get older - the void is felt much stronger.  Anyway, of course they love their children!  And you are so right, it's as if there's a contest and the mother who expresses her grief the best "wins".   There was an episode of a missing girl on Unsolved Mysteries.  The mother - who let her 15 year old girl go out at 11:30 pm to buy a paperback book at a supermarket on the sketchy side of Las Vegas said in her interview that she woke at 2:00 am, felt what she describes as a "hit on her head" then a feeling of peacefulness.  I don't know if this actually occurred but she would be at the top of the list for contenders of grieving mothers. 

I do wonder though, if there was some sort of competition with Frantic's mom and Frantic's stepmom.  As I recall the victim lived with her dad and stepmom.  I suspect there could be a twinge of guilt (justified or not) that her child didn't live with her.  Stepmom seemed very involved and concerned for welfare so perhaps something like that could be in play.

And since I have never been a mom I am suspecting that there are all sorts of intuitive happenings when it comes to a mom and her children.  I also realize that these shows go for maximum impact. 

21 hours ago, saber5055 said:

"They looked like clowns." That made me laugh given your avatar, PsychoKlown. 

LOL.  I should have written "they looked like Klowns" but I wasn't thinking along those lines.

Good catch because it went right by me.

[cooksdelight]

Did anyone watch this last night? He's walking around free, two women in his life are dead from a "fall" down the staircase. I find it hard to believe an owl did it....to both women. Same pattern of lacerations on the back of their heads.

https://www.lovebscott.com/news/exclusive-phaedra-parks-fired-real-housewives-atlanta-details

[Pickles]

I watched last night. I live in the area and there has been so much publicity about this creep over the years. Yes, what a coincidence that Mike Peterson's wife and another "close friend" both died by falling down a staircase. I thought it was pretty creepy how much the woman from 20 years ago (cannot remember her name!) and Kathleen Peterson looked alike! They could have been sisters. Mike Peterson definitely has a type. And then the woman's two daughters whom he adopted--the youngest looked like Mike Peterson in drag to me. Bizarre. I have wondered if that is his child.

The Petersons had huge financial problems at the time of her death. Big, big debt and she was going to be laid off from her high paying job. They lived way beyond their means. Mike Peterson has always been a big blowhard. Really arrogant. I'm sure in his mind HE didn't kill them. The fall, coupled with whatever he beat the women to death with, killed them. 

[cooksdelight]

2 hours ago, Pickles said:

I have wondered if that is his child.

I also wondered the same thing. 

[JudyObscure]

Why oh why was the victim's sister so pleased that he pled guilty?  He could  risk going back to jail or plead guilty and go home, so he pled guilty.  Most people would, particularly a creep who had no problem lying to everyone about having a purple heart.  What possible satisfaction did she get from that bogus plea?  Then there was her silly rant in the court room about how now he not only had a scarlet "A" for adultery but a "G" for guilty. Not an "M" for murder, mind you, but a "G" for guilty. 

Everyone had changed so much for the worse.  The daughter with the green hair and nose ring, the daughter who was turning into her scrawny red eyed step-father.  It just infuriates me that this creepy, lying, braggart is going free just for allowing his lawyer to say a few get-out-of-jail-free words.   I hated even giving  Petersen the chance to be on television because you could tell he loved it.  He was really getting into his story about "The moment I knew I was bi-sexual," and could have rambled on about that all day if he hadn't got cut off.

Edited April 8, 2017 by JudyObscure

[CelticBlackCat]

2 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

Why oh why was the victim's sister so pleased that he pled guilty?  He could  risk going back to jail or plead guilty and go home, so he pled guilty.  Most people would, particularly a creep who had no problem lying to everyone about having a purple heart.  What possible satisfaction did she get from that bogus plea?  Then there was her silly rant in the court room about how now he not only had a scarlet "A" for adultery but a "G" for guilty. Not an "M" for murder, mind you, but a "G" for guilty. 

Everyone had changed so much for the worse.  The daughter with the green hair and nose ring, the daughter who was turning into her scrawny red eyed step-father.  It just infuriates me that this creepy, lying, braggart is going free just for allowing his lawyer to say a few get-out-of-jail-free words.   I hated even giving  Petersen the chance to be on television because you could tell he loved it.  He was really getting into his story about "The moment I knew I was bi-sexual," and could have rambled on about that all day if he hadn't got cut off.

You said it!  The sister, who I thought was very attractive given her age and hairstyle, makeup, were right on the mark.  However, I think she loved her sister so much (which is totally understandable, of course) that when she died, she went through the process of grief and got stuck in the anger phase, when she realized her brother-in-law could have killed her.  I didn't like her courtroom rant either, too over the top and still filled with anger, not sorrow.

I'm thrown by the owl theory.  If it weren't for the owl feathers found entwined in the strands of hair, I would think it was bogus, but how do you explain owl feathers in your hair?  Did they just fall from the sky and land there?

You're right, bisexual Peterson could have waxed poetic about his awakening and adventures all day long.  That paid escort was a hoot (no pun intended) although the fact that it was a murder trial made it sad.

6 hours ago, Pickles said:

I watched last night. I live in the area and there has been so much publicity about this creep over the years. Yes, what a coincidence that Mike Peterson's wife and another "close friend" both died by falling down a staircase. I thought it was pretty creepy how much the woman from 20 years ago (cannot remember her name!) and Kathleen Peterson looked alike! They could have been sisters. Mike Peterson definitely has a type. And then the woman's two daughters whom he adopted--the youngest looked like Mike Peterson in drag to me. Bizarre. I have wondered if that is his child.

The Petersons had huge financial problems at the time of her death. Big, big debt and she was going to be laid off from her high paying job. They lived way beyond their means. Mike Peterson has always been a big blowhard. Really arrogant. I'm sure in his mind HE didn't kill them. The fall, coupled with whatever he beat the women to death with, killed them. 

Peterson discounted the financial probs with his allegation that he was worth so many millions of dollars.  But that was probably on paper.  I noticed the two wives looked alike too!  

[cooksdelight]

The German woman wasn't his wife, she was his friend. With benefits, I suspect. 

He LOVED being on TV. He has the biggest ego of anyone I've ever seen on these shows.

[CelticBlackCat]

11 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

The German woman wasn't his wife, she was his friend. With benefits, I suspect. 

He LOVED being on TV. He has the biggest ego of anyone I've ever seen on these shows.

Oh, right.  It looks like his "friend" may have provided more than just friendship though!

[UsernameFatigue]

I was wondering who the father was of the daughters of the "friend"? Was he dead? If not why would he not have custody of his children when the mother died? Or was she a single mother with the "father" never in the picture? I thought both adopted daughters looked like Peterson. Also what happened to the wife he was married to when the friend died? Odd that he ended up raising the two sons, though I guess if they were old enough when he and first wife split they may have made that decision. 

I thought it was rather creepy that wedding pictures were taken of Peterson and Kathleen on the bottom of stairs, with Kathleen crouching and looking up at Peterson who is looming over her. If for no other reason that his supposedly good friend and mother of his two adopted daughters died at the bottom of stairs. Cold. 

I find the owl theory rather hard to believe if only because would she not be screaming if she was hurt that badly? And wouldn't she run to where her husband was, or at the very least to maybe her bedroom. Why would she run downstairs? Why would she not get a towel to try to stop the bleeding? And she did not have much alcohol in her system so why would she be banging around on the staircase. Then there is the staged wine glasses on the counter, but none of her fingerprints. I definitely still think he is guilty.  If he remarries (which seems doubtful but you never know) I hope his new wife insists on a home with no stairs. 

[biakbiak]

8 minutes ago, UsernameFatigue said:

 

I was wondering who the father was of the daughters of the "friend"? Was he dead? If not why would he not have custody of his children when the mother died? Or

 

Yes their father was dead.

[UsernameFatigue]

1 minute ago, biakbiak said:

Yes their father was dead.

Ah, I missed that. Did they say how? The girls seemed pretty young when their mom died. 

[biakbiak]

8 minutes ago, UsernameFatigue said:

Ah, I missed that. Did they say how? The girls seemed pretty young when their mom died. 

I didn't see the show, I just remembered from The Staircase. It was two or three years before their mom died. According to this he He died in Panama, he was in the military.

[JudyObscure]

3 hours ago, CelticBlackCat said:

I'm thrown by the owl theory.  If it weren't for the owl feathers found entwined in the strands of hair, I would think it was bogus, but how do you explain owl feathers in your hair?

I agree.  How do you account for those feathers?  The two men who had been knocked down by owls were convincing, too.  I thought the scenario they were painting was that she was just outside the door to the house when the owl hit her head, so she ran into the house as the quickest way away for it and then started up the stairs, bleeding, heading for her bathroom, and then got dizzy and fell backwards down the stairs.  If it wasn't for the first dead woman I might actually believe Petersen.  That and I don't want to believe him because he's such a jerk.

[Lizzing]

What's always struck me weird about the 2 daughters Peterson adopted after their mother died was that they refer to their mother as their "biological mother".  On one hand, that's absolutely true, but on the other, it's  not like she intended for her kids to be adopted.  Peterson was a backup if she died, she didn't just drop them off one day with him and skip town.  Since the girls were young, I totally can buy them thinking of either Kathleen or Peterson's first wife as "mom," but there was just something about the way they said "biological mom" that seemed disrespectful to her.  I will say that if Peterson was the bio dad of one or both girls, that makes much more sense on (a) why he was the guardian in the mom's will and (b) why he murdered the mom.

[UsernameFatigue]

According to the link above regarding the adopted girls' bio dad, the older girl was born in 1981 and the younger in 1983, the same year the dad died. Their mother died (I'd like to say was killed) in 1985, so the girls were 4 and 2. So quite likely they didn't remember either their bio dad or bio mom growing up since they were so young when they lost them. Kind of explains their devotion to Peterson. Still odd though that there would not have been relatives on either side of the girls' bio parents that their mother would have wanted to place them with, rather than a friend. 

I wish they had shown better pictures of the stairs. Where all the blood was was a landing, then the stairs turned to the left. The showed the body at the bottom of the stairs but from what looked like maybe an office. Hard to tell if there were a lot of stairs from where the landing was, to where she ended up? I do remember the police saying if she had fallen down the stairs, she would not have ended up in the position she was in. 

Regarding the feathers, maybe Peterson placed them in her hand? Was there a stuffed owl somewhere, or feathers in the house otherwise? Wasn't the owl defense floated the first time around but discounted? I thought I heard that the police were making fun of the idea by posting a wanted picture of an owl? And were the feathers identified as owl? Can't remember - or just some type of feather but not id'd as to which type. 

Edited April 9, 2017 by UsernameFatigue

[biakbiak]

1 hour ago, UsernameFatigue said:

Still odd though that there would not have been relatives on either side of the girls' bio parents that their mother would have wanted to place them with, rather than a friend. 

They have at least one maternal aunt who has been part of their lives. She is friends with Michael's sister who both believe he is a murdering asshole.

[biakbiak]

Tonight was a repeat of "In Cold Blood"  which I forgot that I had seen until I saw Andrea's ugly ass wardrobe choices and her implying to the tv repair guy that the husband had instantly told the police that he was a suspect when in actuality the husband had naked two other people, one who was actually the killer, and only mentioned the tv dude when they found  a porn in the dvd player that wasn't his and his wife couldn't operate the electronics well which reminded him that a stranger was alone in the house with her the day before her murder.

[JudyObscure]

Re owl feathers: The way I remember it, the feathers were imbedded in her scalp wounds and were the type of tiny feathers that owls have under their talons.

[cooksdelight]

The guy with the microscope said the owl feathers were with her hairs in her hand. Not in her scalp, unless I missed that. As if it had hit her, she reached up to swat it away and got her and it's hairs in her hand in the process.

For what it's worth, an owl swooped down and attacked my dad here in NC. He was wearing a cap, he'd been hunting at the time. He shot the owl as it came at him, it now sits on a nice perch on a shelf in dad's home. :)

Maybe we have crazy owls here, who knows.

[JudyObscure]

13 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

The guy with the microscope said the owl feathers were with her hairs in her hand. Not in her scalp, unless I missed that. As if it had hit her, she reached up to swat it away and got her and it's hairs in her hand in the process.

Ah, that's right, Cooksdelight.  I remembered her hair being with it but not where it was all found. Good for your dad! I was just reading about a rogue owl terrorizing some town in the Netherlands.  We must be ever vigilant!

[cooksdelight]

Funny story about the owl.... he was in the freezer, in a plastic bag, for a couple of months until Dad could get him to the taxidermist. One day Mom asked my little brother to grab something out of the freezer for dinner....guess what he brought to her? HAHA

I'm beginning to think the two girls are Peterson's, while their father was away on military duty. They look too much like him.

Add to that, why would she entrust a neighbor with her kids, and not her sister?

[JudyObscure]

That reminds me of another thing I despise about the guy.  He said he felt sure his wife knew he had affairs with men and just looked the other way.  I've heard men say versions of that, "Oh I'm not really cheating, we have an open marriage, we've just never said so out loud." They just tell themselves that, but the wife really has no clue and would divorce him in heartbeat if she did.

[teebax]

5 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

That reminds me of another thing I despise about the guy.  He said he felt sure his wife knew he had affairs with men and just looked the other way.  I've heard men say versions of that, "Oh I'm not really cheating, we have an open marriage, we've just never said so out loud." They just tell themselves that, but the wife really has no clue and would divorce him in heartbeat if she did.

Those same men would have a problem if their wives were having affairs; I guarantee you. It's not exactly an open marriage if it's only open for one of them!

[partofme]

13 hours ago, Lizzing said:

What's always struck me weird about the 2 daughters Peterson adopted after their mother died was that they refer to their mother as their "biological mother".  On one hand, that's absolutely true, but on the other, it's  not like she intended for her kids to be adopted.  Peterson was a backup if she died, she didn't just drop them off one day with him and skip town.  Since the girls were young, I totally can buy them thinking of either Kathleen or Peterson's first wife as "mom," but there was just something about the way they said "biological mom" that seemed disrespectful to her.  I will say that if Peterson was the bio dad of one or both girls, that makes much more sense on (a) why he was the guardian in the mom's will and (b) why he murdered the mom.

I felt this way too, it's not unique to them, I've seen other kids on these shows where the dad kills the mom referring to the mom as the "birth mom", it just seems so disrespectful to her memory when she loved them and didn't chose to give them up.   I think Peterson probably hit on the woman in Germany when he drove her home that night and she either threatened to report him to the police or his wife.   It wasn't clear to me what happened to Peterson's first wife and why she wasn't in the kids life.  

Edited April 9, 2017 by partofme

[cooksdelight]

I also wanted to know about his first wife and why the two sons never mentioned their mom.

[Ohmo]

Quote

I came here to bitch about the lawyers, but you guys beat me to it.

For some weird reason, I can't like any posts on page 14, but I like this post.  Even if some of the defense lawyer interactions were staged, I still loathed both of them.  i just finished this episode, and I wanted to harm my TV.  Thank goodness those two didn't get their client off because there's no doubt in my mind that Garcia did it.  Alison of the defense team says that different people could have done the murders?  My ass.  All doctors from the same department, and you have two murderous students five years apart?  No way.

Garcia killed a child in his own home while he had been playing video games and having an after school snack.  I hope that man never sees the light of day again.