Page 5 - Amybeth Berner News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Accident. innocent, he asserts, but the novelist in him knows full well the irresistible appeal of the storyline he says he got swept up in. >> sex, money, murder, my god! what more could you have? >> reporter: tonight, one of the most compelling mysteries we've ever covered as you haven't heard it before. >> the people who believe in you will always believe in you. the people that don't never will. >> reporter: michael peterson in his own words. on the marriage, that fine old house. the blood spatter expert who wasn't. and the family friend found dead in another staircase far away in time and...

Drove her home. >> she got out and went upstairs. i said, "night, liz, you know, see you tomorrow." >> reporter: the next morning, michael says he was fast asleep when elizabeth's nanny came running with urgent news. >> i'm upstairs in bed. and she's saying something that, in fact, you know, liz is dead or hurt or i don't know. she's screaming. and so i put some clothes on. and i go over to the house. and, in fact, liz is dead. >> reporter: dead at the bottom of the stairs. >> bottom of the stairs. >> reporter: another good friend in their circle, amybeth berner and her husband, were summoned ...

A man once sentenced to die in prison for the commission of a homicide he has always maintained was nothing but an accident. innocent, he asserts, but the novelist in him knows full well the irresistible appeal of the storyline he says he got swept up in. >> sex, money, murder, my god! what more could you have? >> reporter: tonight, one of the most compelling mysteries we've ever covered as you haven't heard it before. >> the people who believe in you will always believe in you. the people that don't never will. >> reporter: michael peterson in his own words. on the marriage, that fine old hou...

We didn't. i was afraid not that she would leave me, she wouldn't -- that she just wasn't -- she was the most open-minded, liberal, intelligent woman. >> reporter: as for the other piece of the prosecution's motive, that the petersons were on the edge of financial ruin -- >> oh, that was bull. >> a lot of money out on cards. >> total -- >> expensive schools that were bleeding them. the wonderful house was something of a money pit. what's your reaction to all of that stuff? >> well, my reaction is exactly what the prosecution proved. >> reporter: in court, the financial expert who testified abo...

>> do you recall any case where someone died falling down steps and there were multiple lacerations? >> no. >> were you able to determine in your opinion what the manner of her death was? >> the manner of death in this case is homicide. >> reporter: injuries that were eerily similar to those suffered by the peterson family friend from germany all those years before, elizabeth ratliff. and the jury, almost in a trial within a trial, heard that story. the long-ago friends from germany testifying to their suspicions about michael peterson's involvement in another stairway death, another one with ...