Michael Peterson

Michael Iver Peterson, 59, was born in 1943 and knew from a young age he wanted to be a writer. A military brat who moved from place to place during his childhood, Peterson read Hemingway and fantasized about being a hard-drinking, hard-living writer one day, he told an interviewer in 1996.

Peterson attended Duke University in the early 1960s, majoring in political science and editing the student newspaper. He graduated from the Durham, N.C., school in 1965 with a bachelor's degree in political science. He briefly studied law but never finished. A year after graduating from Duke, Peterson took a civilian job at the U.S. Department of Defense and was assigned to research arguments in favor of increased military involvement in Vietnam. The experience propelled him into action.

Peterson enlisted in the Marines and saw combat in Southeast Asia. Although he is a decorated soldier, Peterson was forced to admit during a failed bid for Durham mayor in 1999 that his Purple Heart citation was the result of a car accident in Japan and not fighting in Vietnam, as he had long claimed.

Peterson was married twice: first to Patricia Sue Peterson, the mother of his sons Clayton and Todd. In 1997, he married Nortel executive Kathleen Atwater, who has a daughter, Caitlin, from a previous marriage.

A former newspaper columnist, Peterson is the author of three novels that draw upon his military experience in years living and traveling in the Far East, The Immortal Dragon, A Time of War: A Bitter Peace, and Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company.

Kathleen Peterson

According to the newspaper obituary published after her death on Dec. 9, 2001, Kathleen Peterson was born Feb. 21, 1953, in Greensboro, N.C.

Although prosecutors now say differently, the obituary stated Kathleen Peterson died of a "tragic accident" in her home.

Born Kathleen Hunt, she went to high school in Lancaster, Pa. In 1971, she became the first female student accepted into Duke University's School of Engineering.

After she graduated from Duke with both bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering, Kathleen's work in executive-level positions for several companies took her all over the world. When back home in Durham, N.C., she was active in community affairs, including the Durham Arts Council, the American Dance Festival and the Carolina Ballet.

She married novelist Michael Peterson in 1997 in a ceremony held at his expansive home in a woodsy section of Durham. A previous marriage produced one child, Caitlin Atwater, who is now suing Michael Peterson for the wrongful death of her mother.

Kathleen Peterson's newspaper obituary described Michael Peterson as her husband and best friend. It also noted that she was survived by her mother, two sisters and a brother.

The Defense: David Rudolf

David Rudolf is one of North Carolina's most prominent defense attorneys. In January 2001, he represented former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth at his capital murder trial. Carruth was acquitted of first-degree murder but found guilty of conspiracy and other charges. Earlier in his career, Rudolf kept a wealthy Charlotte businessman charged with killing his wife off death row by arguing that he was a battered husband. The affable, Charlotte-based attorney has said he will argue that Kathleen Peterson's death was nothing but a tragic accident and that prosecutors lack the motive, physical evidence and weapon to prove her death anything else. He will be assisted by law partner Thomas Maher.

The Prosecution: Jim Hardin

Durham County District Attorney James Hardin Jr. was an assistant district attorney before winning an interim appointment and then election to the top prosecutor's job in 1994.

He knew Michael Peterson even before Kathleen Peterson died in December 2001. Peterson, a newspaper columnist and unsuccessful city council and mayor candidate, often wrote and spoke about Durham politics and law enforcement.

Hardin, an Army reservist, almost didn't get to prosecute Peterson personally because of the prospect of being called up to active duty during the war in Iraq. He was never called.

Sitting at the prosecutor's table with Hardin is Freda Black, an aggressive assistant district attorney.

Orlando Hudson

The Honorable Orlando Hudson Jr. received his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where Michael Peterson briefly studied law. Hudson was a Superior Court judge from 1989 to 1995, when he became North Carolina's senior resident judge for the 14th Judicial District. Before serving in Superior Court, Hudson was a District Court Judge for five years, served as an assistant district attorney in Durham, served as an assistant public defender in Fayetteville and practiced law privately for two years.