Meredith Kercher. Sister Cathy Cesnik. María Marta García Belsunce. These names may not sound familiar, but fans of true crime are probably aware that these women are at the center of a number of popular true-crime documentaries that have been uploaded to streaming services in the past few years. For those who consume the genre, it is glaringly apparent that women are often the victims of these stories, but the spotlight is usually turned to the people who were accused of killing them.
This brings us to The Staircase. This French docuseries, which was released in 2004, recounts the death of Kathleen Peterson, a mother and successful businesswoman who was found covered in blood at the bottom of her stairs by her husband, Michael Peterson. Soon after, Michael was thrown into a multi-year case, where he was tried for the murder of his wife. And over a decade later, the French miniseries was uploaded to Netflix, where three new episodes followed further developments in the case.
Now, almost twenty years after the events of Kathleen's passing, HBO Max is telling the story once again, in a fictionalized limited series based on the documentary, also titled The Staircase. And while you may be wondering why there's a need to tell this tragic tale yet again, this series is valuable in that it offers one major perspective that has never been provided in the past: Kathleen's.
