Crime or Accident

On December 9, 2001 at 2:41 a.m. the rescue squad of the city of Durham, North Carolina got an urgent call from a man who had a hard time explaining that his wife had fallen down a flight of stairs.

He said she was bleeding profusely but still breathing. When the medical team arrived five minutes later, it was too late. The victim was dead. Her husband had traces of blood on his hands and face.

For the inspector in charge of the inquiry, the facts spoke for themselves: there was too much blood and too many wounds on the victim. It was not an accident, but a murder.

A week later Michael Peterson was arrested.

This is a murder mystery like no other by the Academy Award-winning director of Murder on a Sunday Morning. After winning the Oscar, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade set out to make a documentary investigating another alleged murder, a story that quickly developed more twists and turns than a script for CSI.

With unprecedented access to all the central characters, the result is the first-ever docu-thriller series Death on the Staircase: Crime Scene or Accident?