This is

This is exactly right.

This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised. This is one of the strangest and most bizarre cover-ups in the history of American criminal justice.

Something really strange happened here, much stranger than fiction. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a non-fiction author and journalism professor in Austin,

Texas.

I'm also the host of the Historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More Wicked, and the co-host of the

podcast Buried Bones on exactly right. I've traveled around the world interviewing people for the show and they are all excellent writers

they've had so many great true crime stories and now we want to tell you those

stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More Wicked Presents, Wicked Words,

is about the choices that writers make good and bad.

It's a deep dive into the stories behind the stories.

One of the most studied murder trials in recent history is the case of Kathleen Peterson,

which was featured in the TV series The Staircase.

Author Tiddy Smith recounts the story in his book, Death by Talons, and he focuses on the most controversial part of the case,

The Owl Theory. For the 1% of our audience who doesn't know anything about this case,

can you give me the shorthand of what happens in December of 2001 in North Carolina with the Peterson's at their home.

So on December 9, 2001, a 911 call was made by Michael Peterson at 240 a.m.

And the 911 operator hears Michael saying,

quick come my wife's had an accident she's still breathing

and the operator says what kind of accident? And Michael

says, she fell down the stairs, she's still breathing, please come. Now that was at 240 a.m.

...