Novelist maintains innocence despite plea
Novelist Michael Peterson agreed to a plea deal Friday that enables him to maintain his innocence even as he acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him of manslaughter in his wife’s death. The district attorney, for his part, insisted that he’s guilty.
Wearing a dark suit and flanked by his defense team, Peterson answered questions from Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson and agreed to the terms of his Alford plea.
But before he could leave, he got a scolding from Candace Zamperini, whose sister Kathleen’s body was found at the bottom of a staircase in their North Carolina mansion on Dec. 9, 2001.
Zamperini described Peterson’s accounts of his wife’s death as a “fictionalized story” and berated her former brother-in-law, telling him “Kathleen was the best person you ever had in your life.”
“This hearing is as close to justice as anything that can be found,” Zamperini said. She called the wording of the Alford plea “meaningless.”
Peterson, 73, still maintains that he didn’t kill his wife. His initial murder conviction and life sentence were overturned after questions arose about the reliability of a key witness, among other things.
“Right now, I can live with this. It’s not fair, It’s not right,” he told reporters after the hearing. “I’m innocent. This deal is not a good one for me . . . It is a great deal for the district attorney.”
Peterson said making this plea was his most difficult decision.
“The second most difficult thing I ever did in my life was to sit through that trial and listen to lies, perjury, fake evidence, madeup evidence, withheld evidence, unconstitutional searches so many times, I wanted to jump up and scream, ‘Liar! This is not right,” Peterson said.
Alford pleas are treated generally the same as guilty pleas by criminal courts, but some defendants prefer them psychologically or believe they may offer advantages if they later face a civil lawsuit, according to a blog written by University of North Carolina legal scholar Jeff Welty.
Durham District Attorney Roger Echols said his office maintains that Peterson is responsible for the death of Kathleen Peterson.
Peterson’s fictional works include “The Immortal Dragon,” “A Time of War,” and “A Bitter Peace,” novels centered on the conflict in Vietnam, where he served as a Marine.