Peterson Trial: Defense drops a bomb - a blow poke turns up in Peterson garage

Defense attorney David Rudolf picked up the blow poke Tuesday, hefted it, shook it once, twice. Throughout Mike Peterson's trial, the fireplace tool stood in for the device that the prosecution believed was the real murder weapon, the one no one ever found.

Rudolf stood in the middle of Courtroom No. 1 to address police Detective Art Holland, who led the investigation into the death Dec. 9, 2001, of Peterson's wife Kathleen. Rudolf again held up the blow poke then asked, "Have you ever given any thought as to what would happen to an item like this if someone hits somebody over the head three, four, five times, hard enough to cause lacerations on the scalp?"

With heavy-lidded eyes, Holland peered at Rudolf and replied, "Probably would be mangled up."

Well, the handyman never saw it, right? Kathleen's daughter did not remember seeing it, right? The police never located it, right? Each time, the detective agreed.

"Did you just assume it was gone?" Rudolf asked.

Slowly, Holland said, "Gone -- or put up somewhere."

Rudolf turned to his table. He pulled out a long sheath of heavy plastic, with a long tube inside. He labeled it defense exhibit No. 280.

"See that?" Rudolf asked. "Yes sir," Holland replied.

"Now, this 280: That's a blow poke, isn't it?"

Someone in the Peterson house came across it Saturday night in a dark basement garage, covered with dead bugs and spider webs. But Tuesday's unveiling did more than produce another piece of evidence. Rudolf put in bold face for the jury his overarching theme in arguing for Mike Peterson's acquittal of first-degree murder: Peterson's tough newspaper columns so annoyed Durham County's political infrastructure that when the love of his life took a terrible fall on the back staircase of their home, authorities seized the moment.

The Petersons spent the evening of Dec. 8, 2001, at home, then after 11 p.m., Kathleen Peterson went to bed. Mike Peterson went out to the pool and stayed there some time. When he came back in, he found his wife lying at the foot of the mansion's back staircase in a pool of blood.

But paramedics, firefighters and police officers who were first on the scene saw the blood and jumped to the conclusion that her death was not an accident. Police botched the evidence collection, neglecting to bag, among other things, Kathleen Peterson's sandals and the towels under her head. When Peterson's son Todd, some friends and neighbors came by, police illegally detained them.

The medical examiner who came to the house ruled the injuries were consistent with a fall. The state pathologist in Chapel Hill who performed the autopsy overruled that assessment and instead checked the box on the form marked "homicide."

The afternoon of Dec. 9, SBI Agent Duane Deaver arrived at Cedar Street to study the bloodstains. Before doing his own tests, Deaver informed Holland that he saw a homicide.

Twelve days after Kathleen Peterson died, District Attorney Jim Hardin convened a special grand jury, which indicted Peterson for murder. Over the next 18 months, Hardin dug into the Peterson finances. He hired a company to crack the hard drive on Peterson's computer.

Dr. Deborah Radisch, the pathologist, told prosecutors that because Kathleen Peterson did not suffer a skull fracture, the lacerations were mostly likely caused by a cylindrical object, something with enough mass to cut skin but not enough to break bone.

In early 2002, Kathleen Peterson's sister Candace Zamperini remembered that she had given her sister a blow poke, a long, thin cylinder used to tend fires. Zamperini gave Holland her own blow poke as an example.

When the trial began, the first thing Hardin showed the jury was that blow poke.

Rudolf often waved the blow poke around the courtroom, showing that the brass tube could flex easily. But Rudolf also let the jury in on just how much the prosecution invested in the case, including the construction of a $7,700 replica of the staircase .

So against an all-fronts prosecution, Peterson had no choice but to pay for the best forensic scientists he could find, including the celebrated Henry Lee. The unanimous conclusion: When she was five steps up the back staircase, Kathleen Peterson fell backward, hitting her head on a sharp edge of a crown molding then on the wall. She tried to stand, getting blood on the bottoms of her bare feet, but slipped and fell again on the crown molding, where she bled to death.

The scientists said her injuries were not consistent with a beating from a blow poke.

Hardin persisted in telling the jury that what killed Kathleen Peterson was something just like Zamperini's blow poke, even after Kathleen's daughter Caitlin Atwater said she did not remember the tool and when the Cedar Street handyman said he had never seen it, either.

On Tuesday morning, Peterson's supporters, anticipating the surprise ahead, packed the gallery behind the defense table, whispering and exchanging smiles as they watched Rudolf detonate his bombshell.

Equally satisfying to them was the vision of Hardin, staring into space, twiddling a pen.

After Holland identified the recovered tool, Rudolf offered it into evidence. Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson looked at Hardin for five full seconds, expecting an objection. Finally, Hudson said, "It's allowed."

In October, Rudolf said, he brought two of his experts to Durham police headquarters to look at the evidence -- but even though Holland had brought Zamperini's blow poke into the room for inspection, the defense team did not know of its significance. Not until jury selection began in May did Hardin inform Rudolf of his theory.

At his turn to question Holland, Hardin, now in ill humor, asked, "Was this item among those that could have been looked at by Mr. Rudolf if he had chosen to look at it?"

Rudolf objected. "I didn't choose to look at anything ..."

Hudson sent the jury out. Hardin argued, "Your Honor, Mr. Rudolf has tried to suggest to this jury in a very strong fashion that the police department or somebody connected with law enforcement withheld this so that they couldn't look at it." Two property-room clerks could testify otherwise, he said.

Rudolf tweaked the sarcasm meter of his voice: "It wasn't made available in the sense of it was brought out to us, and we said, 'Oh, we don't really want to see that.' That didn't happen."

Finally, at 2:35 p.m., Rudolf stood at his table and said, "On behalf of Mr. Peterson, the defense rests."

Hardin opened his rebuttal case by putting Holland back on the witness stand. The detective testified that as part of a massive search of the Cedar Street home on the day Kathleen Peterson died, he himself went into the basement garage, cutting the darkness with a flashlight. He said he never saw anything that looked like a blow poke.

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The Peterson trial

DAY 50

SUMMARY: The defense team rested its case with a dramatic flair, producing what it said was the missing fireplace tool that prosecutors have suggested Mike Peterson used to beat his wife to death. The "blow poke" was discovered in Peterson's garage , according to defense attorney David Rudolf, who alerted Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson.

The judge came to the house to see the poker and signed an order allowing a defense investigator to take custody of it as possible evidence.

The defense team encased the tool in plastic tubing in case the state wanted to test it for DNA or fingerprints. But District Attorney Jim Hardin said he wouldn't do that, because it was so late in the trial and it would take too long to test.

QUOTABLE: "There are spiderwebs and cobwebs and bugs in there," defense attorney David Rudolf, about the blow poke inside the tube.

This story was originally published September 23, 2003 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Peterson Trial: Defense drops a bomb - a blow poke turns up in Peterson garage."