Durham, N.C. — A New York psychic has purchased the Durham home where one of the area's most notorious murders occurred.

Biond Fury, a self-described metaphysician, music and film producer and publisher, bought the 9,200-square-foot house at 1810 Cedar St. last month for $1.3 million, according to real estate agent Lynn Hayes.

Mike Peterson, a Durham novelist and one-time mayoral candidate, killed his wife inside the home in December 2001. Kathleen Peterson, an executive with Nortel Networks, was found in a pool of blood at the bottom of a stairwell.

Mike Peterson insisted his wife fell down the staircase, but police and prosecutors maintained that he had beaten her to death because of financial concerns and because she learned he was bisexual.

After a sensational two-month trial that attracted national attention, a jury convicted Mike Peterson of first-degree murder in October 2003. He is serving a life sentence at Nash Correctional Institution, and the state Supreme Court has denied his appeal of his conviction.

A local couple bought the Cedar Street house in 2004 for $640,000 and did extensive repairs on the house. They put it on the market 16 months ago and were initially asking $2.1 million for the property.

Fury, who has a call-in show on a New York cable station and the Internet, said he was unaware of the house's history and had never heard of the Peterson case.

He said he has ties to the Triangle after attending graduate school at Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and he was attracted to the house because of its architecture and layout.