60 Minutes: July 10

60 Minutes on Sunday features Tara Brown interviewing Michael Peterson, the man behind The Staircase mystery.

Road to Ruin
By her own admission, 36-year-old Melissa Oates did something truly terrible. Late one night, agitated and highly intoxicated, she got behind the wheel of her car, and speeding at 110 kilometres an hour ploughed into a man walking along a suburban street. He was killed instantly. But Oates didn’t even stop. Later she claimed to the police there was nothing she could do to avoid the crash because the man had jumped out in front of her car. Oates was punished for her crime and spent eight months in prison for dangerous driving. But the dead man’s family is furious. They say there is much more to this story for one simple reason: the victim, Jari Wise, was also Melissa Oates’ boyfriend. In a 60 Minutes special investigation, Tom Steinfort commissions former homicide detective Gary Jubelin and forensic pathologist Dr Tony Thomas to re-examine the police evidence. The findings of their expert analysis will surprise and shock.
Reporter: Tom Steinfort
Producer: Laura Sparkes

The Staircase
There’s one mystery millions of armchair detectives around the world are right now trying to solve. Just how did 48-year-old Kathleen Peterson end up dead at the bottom of the staircase in her family home. Did she fall? Was she beaten to death? Or bizarrely, is an owl to blame? The case has attracted so much interest it has been the subject of an award-winning documentary as well as a recently released drama series. On 60 Minutes, Tara Brown interviews Kathleen’s husband, Michael Peterson. He is the novelist who was convicted of his wife’s murder, sentenced to life without parole, and then, intriguingly and unexpectedly, released.
Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Thea Dikeos

9pm Sunday on Nine.