Michael Peterson and his first wife Patricia lived in Germany with their two sons Clayton and Todd for several years. She was an elementary school teacher, per Pop Sugar. She and Michael befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two daughters, Margaret and Martha. George Ratliff died of a heart attack, and in the following years, she and Michael grew closer.
The night Elizabeth died in 1985, Michael and Patricia had dinner at her house. Michael stayed behind to help her clean up and put the kids to bed. The next morning Elizabeth was found dead at the bottom of a staircase, just like Kathleen Peterson would be 16 years later, per Oxygen. Since Michael was the last person to see her alive, suspicion followed him but he was never charged with a crime.
Michael and Patricia Peterson divorced in 1987, and he went on to marry Kathleen in 1997. Patricia counted both Elizabeth and Kathleen among her dear friends. Despite this, she's always maintained that Michael is innocent. "He is innocent of any involvement in Kathleen's death. He just couldn't do it and wouldn't do it," she told News and Observer in 2014. "I knew and loved Kathleen... They would have been together forever, had she not died," Patricia said. "I suffered from losing both Liz and Kathleen."
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