The man behind everyone’s latest Netflix obsession had some strong opinions.
First worked on back in 2004, The Staircase has been revisited by director Jean Xavier De Lestrade two more times since then, most recently just in the last week, when additional episodes were added when the show was added to the Netflix library.
Since then, it has become one of the most talked about things this week, as everyone had an opinion on what they think really happened to Kathleen Peterson when she died in December 2001, and whether or not her husband Michael Peterson murdered her.
One of the latest theories is something known as The Owl Theory, and we’ll let this Netflix clip explain it better than we could:
Clip via Netflix
JOE had the opportunity to speak to De Lestrade about The Staircase’s release on Netflix, and we had to ask the director’s opinion on this admittedly out-there theory:
“When I first heard about The Owl Theory, I thought it was ridiculous. I laughed.
“But… but I started thinking… maybe I might have to look at it. I started to look at it. I met with [a neighbour of Larry Peterson], and he is a lawyer, and he is a very serious guy. And he had done a lot of research on this, and when I started hearing what he had to say, so I thought maybe there was something there.
“So I met with people who know a lot about owl attacks, a lot of people who know a lot about the behaviour of owls, and I met with different medical examiners and… maybe it was a more possibly way to explain the kind of injuries that Katherine Peterson had suffered.
“It might be the best way to explain these injuries.
“The lacerations she had at the back of her head. Because at the beginning, I thought ‘If this is a murder, how can you kill someone in that way with these kind of injuries?’ There was no skull fracture, no brain haemorrhage. If it was a murder, the killer would have hit her many times on the head… Wow… I’m not sure it is really possible.
“How would you have these kinds of lacerations, these v-shaped lacerations and cuts? And if she fell down the stairs? Wow, very strange. How would get these injuries from falling down the stairs? And the defence tried to do a very good job of saying she fell down the stairs, but I didn’t buy it.
“So, to me, so far… and I’m not saying this was the solution, that this is what happened, because I don’t know what happened. But it might be the best way to explain the injuries that she suffered.
“And I worked with many people who worked on this theory – not just people on the internet – but people who really worked on this theory, and it might be the best way to explain what happened.”
The Staircase is available to watch on Netflix right now.
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