Alyssa Smith

Contributor

Alyssa Smith is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. She is a historian of 20th-century US culture; violence; crime; social movements; race and racism; gender and sexuality; emotion; and historical memory. Her research focuses on how the fear of violent crime influenced American life during the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.

Killing Clio

Evidence Written in Blood: Forensic Science and the True Crime Consumer

By Alyssa Smith • September 12, 2019

According to reports, in December 2001 Michael Peterson found his wife, Kathleen Peterson, dead at the bottom of a set of stairs in their Durham home. While locals like me remember the hullabaloo that followed, true crime fans became familiar with the case through a multipart French documentary, The Staircase, which Netflix renewed for five… Read more →