People in this chapter · Dr. Deborah Radisch

Forensic pathologist Deborah Radisch performed the autopsy. She documented seven scalp lacerations along the back and sides of Kathleen’s head, together with other injuries. Radisch attributed the death to blunt force trauma to the head, with blood loss a significant factor, and classified the manner of death as homicide. In her view, the distribution and number of scalp injuries fit a beating. She testified that an object such as a hollow fireplace tool could lacerate the scalp without fracturing the skull. This was an opinion about a possible type of object, based on the injuries. It did not establish that a particular tool struck Kathleen. North Carolina Supreme Court, medical and forensic evidence.

The defense called specialists who read the same injury and blood evidence differently. Forensic neuropathologist Jan Leestma testified that the scalp wounds were more characteristic of impacts against a relatively flat, fixed surface such as the stairs. He could not rule out an object striking her. Biomechanics professor Faris Bandak demonstrated how more than one fall and contact with several parts of the stairwell could account for the injuries in his model. Forensic scientist Henry Lee challenged the beating interpretation of the blood patterns and suggested that some droplets might have been produced by coughing. In rebuttal, Chief Medical Examiner John Butts testified that there was little evidence of blood in the airway or lungs. Biomechanics witness James McElhaney gave his own reasons for rejecting the fall sequence. North Carolina Supreme Court, defense and rebuttal evidence.

State Bureau of Investigation analyst Duane Deaver supplied a separate, consequential interpretation. He told the jury that bloodstains indicated Michael Peterson was close to Kathleen when she was injured and that Peterson had attempted to clean the scene. This was more specific than a pathologist’s conclusion that the death was a homicide. Deaver was using the patterns to infer the position and conduct of a particular person. That inference gave the prosecution a way to tie the defendant to the instant of injury. Years later, when the courts reconsidered the case, the difference between those opinions mattered. The appellate court said the other witnesses had given evidence about Kathleen’s death, while Deaver alone supplied the jury with his particular account of how the defendant inflicted the injuries. North Carolina Court of Appeals, 2013 opinion, 228 N.C. App. 339.