Drew Peterson Calls Missing Wife 'Little Girl' on Dr. Phil

The husband and suspect in the disappearance of a suburban Chicago mom called his missing wife "a little girl" in an appearance on the "Dr. Phil" Show to air Monday.

Drew Peterson sat down with Dr. Phil McGraw last month in Los Angeles to speak about his 23-year-old wife Stacy Peterson, who vanished on Oct. 28, 2007, from her Bolingbrook, Ill., home. Drew Peterson has been named a suspect in her disappearance, and in the months following, police exhumed the body of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, and reclassified her death as a homicide.

Nobody makes it easy for her to reappear," Drew Peterson said of Stacy in a video clip posted to Dr. Phil's YouTube site. "I mean why would anybody want to come back to this hellstorm that's been created or to possibility of some sort of criminal prosecution? She's a little girl and why would she want to come back to that."

In the promotional clip, Dr. Phil asks Drew Peterson why he's appeared so emotionally distant during the yearlong search for the missing mom.

"We've definitely looked for her with private investigators," Drew Peterson said.
But shown emotion? I've been a policeman for 32 years."

"But this isn't about a case, this is about your wife," Dr. Phil said.

"It has to do with how you are, what you grow into. And being a policeman for 32 years, you're trained and you live life not showing emotion," Drew Peterson responded. "It's rare that anybody sees emotion out of me, and there's really no book written anywhere that you can read and tell you how to act or how to be when this type of thing happens."

The former police officer's publicist said in a news release Sunday that Drew Peterson's decision to sit down with Dr. Phil is perhaps "the boldest move yet to prove his innocence."

Glenn Selig, Drew Peterson's publicist, maintained his client's innocence in both Stacy Peterson's disappearance as well as Kathleen Savio's death.

Last month, Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow issued a statement about the Savio and Stacy Peterson cases, indicating that a special grand jury is still weighing evidence in both.

"I fully expect there to be a resolution in at least one of these investigations in the near future," Glasgow said.

Drew Peterson currently faces felony charges in connection to illegal guns found in his home.