Elizabeth Ratliff’s Mysterious Death and Its Connection to the Staircase Tragedy
Elizabeth Ratliff was a close friend of Michael Peterson, living in Germany with her husband, George Ratliff, and their two young daughters in the 1980s. The Ratliffs grew close to the Petersons after George’s sudden death in 1983, during a military mission. In the wake of George’s passing, Peterson frequently visited Elizabeth and began spending nearly every evening with her, according to friends and the 2004 documentary The Staircase, which is available to stream on Netflix. Despite claims that their relationship was platonic, this friendship would soon turn tragic.
On November 25, 1985, Elizabeth Ratliff was found dead at the bottom of her stairs, aged 43. The initial cause of death was ruled as a cerebral hemorrhage, which led to her falling down the stairs and striking her head. At the time, Elizabeth’s close friend Cheryl Appel-Schumacher testified that Elizabeth had been suffering from headaches, but there were no photos or evidence gathered during the investigation. However, Appel-Schumacher later revealed the disturbing sight of blood splattered up the stairs when Ratliff’s body was moved.
Ratliff’s two young daughters, Margaret and Martha, were just 2 and 1 years old at the time of her death. Afterward, Michael Peterson took in the girls and raised them as his own. He later adopted them and brought them to North Carolina when he married Kathleen Peterson in 1997.
But nearly two decades after Elizabeth’s death, Peterson’s life would take another devastating turn. He found his wife, Kathleen Peterson, unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, and was accused of killing her in a similar manner. This prompted authorities to re-examine Elizabeth Ratliff’s death. In 2003, during Peterson’s trial for Kathleen’s murder, a second autopsy was performed on Elizabeth’s exhumed body, which concluded that her death was actually a homicide, not an accident.
The second autopsy performed by Dr. Deborah L. Radisch revealed that the injuries Ratliff sustained were inconsistent with a fall down the stairs. Instead, they were consistent with multiple blunt-force impacts to the head. The pathologist’s report confirmed that Ratliff’s death was caused by blunt-force trauma, possibly from being struck by a blunt object or her head being slammed against a hard surface. This raised suspicions about Peterson’s role in both deaths.
Despite the new findings, Michael Peterson was never formally charged in connection with Elizabeth Ratliff’s death. The prosecution, however, argued that Peterson had modeled the death of his wife Kathleen after the incident with Ratliff, using the same method of staging a fall down the stairs. This theory helped sway the jury in Peterson’s conviction for the first-degree murder of Kathleen in 2003, where he was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2017, after serving several years in prison, Peterson was granted a new trial due to false and misleading testimony from a key prosecution witness. In February 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter for Kathleen’s death, acknowledging that the evidence against him was strong but without admitting guilt. He was sentenced to time already served and released from custody.
Elizabeth Ratliff’s death, once considered an unfortunate accident, remains a haunting chapter in Michael Peterson’s life story.
