THE STAIRCASE MURDERS

THE STAIRCASE MURDERS (2007 telefilm). Director: Tom McLoughlin.

Real-life novelist Michael Peterson (supposedly successful and supposedly bisexual) was put on trial for the murder of his wife, who was found bloodied and dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home in Durham, North Carolina. During the trial it turned out that another woman in Peterson's past also died in the exact same manner. This case was covered by Dateline, on a two hour ABC special and other programs, and was also the subject of a foreign documentary called The Staircase. In this fictionalized version of the story -- which includes the documentary filmmakers -- Peterson is played by Treat Williams. Although he gives a good performance, the more down-to-Earth Williams is an odd choice to play the glib, superior, vaguely epicene sociopath, Peterson. Based on the book "A Perfect Husband" by Aphrodite Jones, this is an absorbing and fairly fascinating study of a murder case that apparently a great many people found riveting. Whether it increased the sales of Peterson's books is another matter.

Verdict: If only he'd just come happily out of the closet and left these poor women alone! ***.