The investigation into Kathleen Peterson's death caused officials to reexamine the death of her friend, Elizabeth Ratliff, who had died in a similar manner in Germany years earlier. Margaret Blair, Ratliff's sister, began questioning the official story of a cerebral hemorrhage and reached out to Ratliff's old friends, who revealed that there was blood on the walls at the scene of her death, leading police to exhume Ratliff's body for further investigation.