DURHAM, N.C. — When Elizabeth Ratliff died of an apparent fall down the stairs in 1985, at least one of her friends was suspicious.

Amy Beth Berner, a substitute teacher in Germany at the time, thought things did not look quite right when she entered Ratliff's house and saw blood on the floor and walls and a bloody footprint near the body.

Berner, who now lives in New Jersey, told a North Carolina jury about her concerns Wednesday although she has yet to testify about her suspicions of Michael Peterson, a friend of the Ratliffs who is currently being tried for the 2001 murder of his wife Kathleen.

Prosecutors are presenting evidence about Ratliff's staircase death to support their case that Peterson killed his wife, who also was found dead at the bottom of a staircase. The defense contends that she, like Ratliff, died from a fall.

"I said, 'Whose footprint is this?'" Berner testified, referring to her comments to people in the Ratliff house. "I said, 'This is a crime scene and someone needs to investigate. Please don't walk on the stairs.' "

Amy Beth Berner testifies about Elizabeth Ratliff's death scene.

German police and a U.S. Army investigator did very little investigating after a doctor on the scene concluded that blood in Ratliff's spinal column indicated she had suffered a brain hemorrhage and fell down the stairs. No photos of the scene were taken.

Berner, who will be back on the stand Thursday, said she learned that the footprint belonged to Barbara Malagnino, the nanny to Ratliff's young daughters and the person who discovered the body shortly before 8 a.m. on Nov. 25, 1985.

Malagnino testified Wednesday but offered little more than what she told the court outside the jury's presence Tuesday. Malagnino recalled finding the body and summoning Peterson, who lived nearby. When she arrived at his home, Peterson was with his then-wife and dressed in boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

Prosecutors have suggested Peterson was the last person to see Ratliff alive, based on witnesses who say he walked Ratliff home after dinner with his family, helped put her two girls to bed and took out the trash.

The defense did not cross-examine Malagnino. Lawyers apparently were content with the contents of the statement she e-mailed to police, which was shown to jurors after being admitted into evidence.

However, when blood spatter expert Peter Duane Deaver returned to the stand to wrap up his interrupted cross-examination of two weeks ago, defense lawyer David Rudolf challenged one of Malagnino's assertions.

Malagnino had previously identified a print depicting a large black cat that was hanging at the bottom of the staircase where Kathleen Peterson fell as coming from the Ratliff home in Germany. It was not clear why prosecutors had Malagnino testify about the print, but Rudolf proved it was not the same print by showing it to Deaver on Wednesday.

For one thing, the print has a 1997 copyright and price tag on it in U.S. dollars, not German marks.

Rudolf finished his cross-examination of Deaver by pointing out that an expert the prosecution consulted could not corroborate Deaver's conclusion about the origin of blood spatter in the Petersons' stairwell.

Deaver insists that his calculations prove that three separate blood patterns he measured came from three distinct "points in space" above the steps and away from the walls. In other words, something bloody — prosecutors contend it was Kathleen Peterson's head —was struck with great force and produced blood stains that could not be attributed to her head striking the floor or walls.

Rudolf asked Deaver about an unidentified expert who was shown crime scene photos, a video, experiments he conducted and the conclusions he reached.

"That expert was not able to confirm your points of impacts, was he?" Rudolf asked.

"No," Deaver said.

"As a matter of fact, no one can confirm your points of impacts at this point, can they?" the defense lawyer pressed.

"Yes, they can," Deaver said. Rudolf ignored the answer.

"Has anyone, to your knowledge, confirmed your points of impact?" Rudolf asked.

Deaver said no.

The defense is expected to call witnesses who will testify that blood in the stairwell can be explained by Kathleen Peterson's fall down the stairs and that blood on Michael Peterson's clothes resulted from him cradling his wife's body.

Although he testified that experiments helped him reach the conclusion that Kathleen Peterson's death was consistent with a beating, Deaver was asked about his grand jury testimony just 11 days after Kathleen Peterson's death. He had not done the experiments yet, or finished analyzing photos and clothing from the victim and the defendant.

"Based on your testimony, before you had done any of that, Michael Peterson was indicted, right?" Rudolf asked.

Deaver said he did not know when Peterson was indicted, and was shown the indictment to refresh his memory.

"You don't remember that he got indicted the same day?" Rudolf asked.

"I do not," Deaver said.

The defense has brought up the timing of Peterson's indictment and arrest several times, part of an effort to show that police may have first concluded that Michael Peterson killed his wife and then went looking for evidence to prove it.

Testimony resumes 9:30 a.m. Thursday. It is not clear whether Berner, whose testimony has not concluded, will be allowed to repeat statements jurors have yet to hear. She told the court Tuesday that Michael Peterson claimed once during the 1980s that he was in the CIA and had killed someone "point blank" while serving in Vietnam.