DURHAM, N.C. — A jury convicted novelist Michael Peterson Friday of bludgeoning his wife of five years in the stairwell of their Durham mansion.

Peterson's face blanched as the court clerk read the verdict aloud, prompting a stacatto of camera clicks from photographers crowded into the courtroom.

Margaret and Martha Ratliff, sisters Peterson raised from a young age, sobbed quietly behind him on the front row, comforted by Peterson's sons, Clayton and Todd Peterson. 

Martha and Margaret Ratliff react to the verdict Friday.

Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. asked Peterson if he wanted to comment before receiving his mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

"I just want to say to my children," said Peterson, swiveling to face the gallery, "It's OK."  Peterson turned to each of his children and repeated the phrase.

Defense lawyer David Rudolf announced that he would file an appeal, and the novelist was sentenced, handcuffed and led out of the courtroom. On the way out, he again voiced words of comfort for his family. 

"It's all right," he said, as the Ratliffs' cries filled the courtroom.

Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty for Peterson, 59, after receiving strong community support for the author and one-time newspaper columnist.

Prosecutors Jim Hardin and Freda Black congratulate each other.

Kathleen Peterson was found dead in the stairwell of the couple's home on Dec. 9, 2001, after Michael Peterson made a frantic 911 call to police. Citing the sheer volume of blood at the scene and a coroner's report that singled out several lacerations on the victim's head, investigators soon made Peterson a suspect.

At trial, prosecutors told jurors that Peterson concocted a "fictional plot" to make it look like his wife fell down the steep rear stairwell.

Nonetheless, the guilty verdict came despite several missteps in the prosecution's case, including an expert witness whose testimony about the mechanisms behind Kathleen Peterson's injuries was thrown out. Hudson determined that the man had committed perjury about his academic credentials.

"Trying to find out more about Dr. [Saami] Shaibani and his circumstances will be something that I am going to do," said prosecutor Jim Hardin Jr. Friday at a press conference in his office.

Another chief concern was the discovery of the so-called "missing" murder weapon, the "blow poke" fireplace tool that prosecutors claimed Peterson used to bludgeon his wife to death.

Two days before ending his case, defense lawyer David Rudolf brought out the blow poke, which prosecutors contended had gone mysteriously missing after Kathleen Peterson's death. The defense said it had been found leaning against a wall in Peterson's garage, though when it was found and by whom didn't come out in court. 

Kathleen Peterson

Lead homicide investigator Art Holland admitted on the stand that the tool wasn't "mangled," as it would have been if it were used in a beating.  But on Friday he said the jury's decision had vindicated police and prosecutors.

"This verdict shows that we are not idiots, that we know how to do our job, and we do it well," said Holland. "I am convinced that that blow poke was not in that garage."

One juror, Shirley Ferrell, reached by phone Friday, said the panel dismissed the blow poke theory entirely.

"We didn't feel that the blow poke was necessarily what was used in this case, or possibly anything like it," Ferrel, a nurse, said.

Prosecutor Freda Black said she was grateful for the verdict, but that her heart was with the Ratliff and Peterson families. "I feel for them because they truly feel what they believe about their loved one," said Black. "It's going to be a difficult day for them."

Defense lawyer David Rudolf said he was "very, very, very disappointed" with the verdict.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse Friday, defense lawyer Rudolf said, "I frankly don't understand the verdict. I am very, very, very disappointed." But he announced his intention to file an appeal, saying there were "major, major issues in this case," including a male escort who was allowed to testify about his e-mail correspondence with Peterson and evidence about another death in Germany in 1985.

Prosecutors alleged that Peterson was also responsible for the death of his then-neighbor, Elizabeth Ratliff. After her death, which also occurred at the bottom of a staircase, Peterson became guardian of her daughters, Martha and Margaret, who have supported him throughout the trial.

"It's not a final defeat and the war isn't over," Rudolf said. "This battle is over and there will be another one."

Citing the need to look over the appeals evidence, Rudolf said he did not ask for a bond hearing for his client, who remained free on $850,000 bail during the trial but is now behind bars.

Peterson's three-month trial featured 65 witnesses, and included more than 800 pieces of evidence. The jury of five men and seven women deliberated 15 hours over five days before reaching the decision.

When they first began deliberating Monday, they were not all in agreement, according to the juror, Ferrel. "We did take a vote at the beginning and we took several votes, and the dynamics kept changing," she said.