— Freda Black, who served as assistant prosecutor in Mike Peterson's 2003 murder trial, was found dead in her Durham home Sunday, police said Monday.

A caller to 911 requested that authorities check on Black because family and friends hadn't been able to contact Black since last Thursday.

Black worked with then-Durham County District Attorney Jim Hardin to convict Peterson, a novelist and one-time Durham mayoral candidate, of first-degree murder in the death of his wife. Kathleen Peterson was found dead in a pool of blood at the bottom of a staircase in the family's upscale Durham home in December 2001.

Peterson's conviction was overturned in 2011 after Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ruled that a former State Bureau of Investigation analyst misled jurors about blood evidence found in the Peterson home.

Last year, Peterson entered an Alford plea to a charge of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to time served. Under an Alford plea, a defendant can maintain his or her innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction.

The case has gained renewed attention in recent months with Netflix's release of an updated version of "The Staircase," a documentary of the 2003 trial.

Black was in her 50s. Authorities did not release any information on the cause of her death.