DURHAM, N.C. — Did Kathleen Peterson fall down a staircase after a night of drinking, or did her husband, novelist and former newspaper columnist Michael Peterson, beat her to death and make it look like an accident?

These were the two scenarios presented to jurors during opening statements Tuesday in Peterson's murder trial.

"They say it was an accident that was caused by a couple of falls in the staircase. We say it was not," said Durham County District Attorney Jim Hardin Jr. "We say it was murder."

Kathleen Peterson, 48, was lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs when paramedics arrived at 1810 Cedar Street at about 2:50 a.m. on Dec. 9, 2001. But Hardin said her death wasn't the result of a fall, as her 60-year-old husband claims.

Prosecutor Jim Hardin delivers his opening statement.

The victim was likely struck with a fireplace poker that has "mysteriously" vanished, Hardin told jurors on the opening day of this long-anticipated trial that could last three months.

To send Michael Peterson to prison for life, Hardin will have to prove not only that Kathleen Peterson was murdered, but that she was killed at the hand of her husband.

To do that, Hardin said, he will show that seven lacerations in Kathleen Peterson's scalp could not have resulted from a fall. He also intends to prove that her marriage to Michael Peterson, whom she met in 1988 and wed in 1997, wasn't the "storybook marriage" the defense has portrayed in the media.

Prosecutors also plan to call experts to prove that the amount and locations of blood were more consistent with a beating with a blunt object than with a fall.

"This case is about appearances and pretenses," Hardin said. "It is about things not being as they appear."

But defense lawyer David Rudolf argued that prosecutors were single-minded in pursuing Michael Peterson as a suspect. After forcing him to miss his wife's wake while they executed a search warrant, prosecutors rushed to convene a special grand jury just before Christmas 2001. In a matter of hours they had the indictment they needed to lock Peterson up over the holidays.

It was only after the indictment, Rudolf said, that the investigation began in earnest. He noted that prosecutors didn't begin collecting most of the Petersons' financial records until after jury selection began May 5. Prosecutors have argued that Peterson may have had financial reasons for wanting his wife dead.

Defense lawyer David Rudolf gives his opening statement.

But Rudolf said the records will show that the Petersons' net worth was nearly $2 million and that Michael Peterson would have had to split a $1.8 million life insurance policy with his wife's daughter from a previous marriage.

"[Money] wasn't important to them. They liked it, but it wasn't important," Rudolf said.

The defense lawyer also accused Durham police of having a vendetta against Peterson because of numerous newspaper columns he had written criticizing them. In one, Peterson noted the department had the worst rate of crime solving in North Carolina. In another, he wrote — prophetically, as it turned out — "The chance of a criminal getting caught is only slightly better than getting hit by lightning."

"Michael Peterson had been criticizing the police for years," Rudolf said. "There's no doubt it affected the way Durham police viewed him."

Rudolf started his multimedia opening statement by simply hitting the play button on a digital recording of Peterson's frantic call to 911 (video) at about 2:40 a.m. on the morning of his wife's death. He could be heard on the tape sobbing, muttering and breathing heavily.

Peterson told the female operator that his wife had an accidental fall down the stairs. She asked him how many steps there were.

"Fifteen? 20? I don't know," Peterson stammered. "Get someone here, please. Please. Please."

Rudolf said he would leave it to jurors to determine whether Peterson was faking his emotional reaction.

During his 90-minute opening statement, Rudolf raised a major issue that the prosecutor bypassed during his own 30-minute remarks. Rudolf brought up Elizabeth Ratliff, a family friend who was also found dead at the bottom of a staircase in 1985.

During jury selection, most panelists said they were familiar with news accounts about the death of Ratliff, a 43-year-old schoolteacher who was a close friend of Michael Peterson and his first wife, Patricia, when they lived in Germany.

Although Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. has yet to rule on whether prosecutors can introduce evidence about the Ratliff case, which has recently been reopened after being initially declared an accident, Rudolf took great pains to point out how the death of Kathleen Peterson and Ratliff differed.

Ratliff's daughters, Margaret and Martha, are standing by Peterson, who became their legal guardian after their mother's death. They sat in the front row of the courtroom Tuesday with Peterson's adult sons from his first marriage, Clayton and Todd.

On the other side of the courtroom sat Kathleen Peterson's mother, two sisters, brother and a daughter from a previous marriage, who believe Michael Peterson is guilty of murder. The daughter, Caitlin Atwater, who is suing Peterson for wrongful death, said she is confident the jury will return a guilty verdict after hearing all the evidence.

"I respect that people have their own opinions, but those who persevere are those whose opinions are based on the truth," Atwater told reporters after court recessed. "I have faith in the evidence that will convict Michael Peterson."

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.