Bond Hearing Offers Inside Look At Peterson Case

RALEIGH, N.C. — Former mayoral candidate, novelist and murder suspect Mike Peterson is spending his first full day of out of jail after his bond hearing on Monday. The hearing did provide some new insight into the case and the main suspect.

Peterson is charged with killing his wife, Kathleen, who was found at the bottom of the staircase in their home last month.

At Monday's bond hearing, Peterson's friend and former Congressman Nick Galifianakis described Peterson's version of what happened.

"She proceeded to go to bed, using the back steps to go upstairs and the next thing, he finds her there and finds and believed that she had fallen down the stairs and had struck her head against a metal base of an elevator," he said.

A source close to Peterson said that Peterson was sitting at the edge of the pool on the far end of his property the night of his wife's death. The source also claims the narrow staircase where Kathleen died was at least several hundred feet away, probably not within earshot.

Peterson's attorneys contend Kathleen was either attacked by an intruder or fell in an accident.

The District Attorney says the evidence does not support that account.

"There are at least eight or nine huge tearing laceration wounds to the back of Miss Peterson's head. There is no question that this wasn't an accident. At the appropriate time, the state will prove that there wasn't a mystery intruder," Hardin said.

The Durham County D.A.'s office said if the case follows the regular court calendar, a hearing will be held Feb. 19 to set a schedule for the trial.