Is Stacy Peterson Dead?
BOLINGBROOK, Ill., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- The disappearance of Stacy Peterson, the fourth wife of a former Bolingbrook, Ill., police sergeant, remains a potential homicide three years later, police say.
Peterson was 23 when she disappeared Oct. 28, 2007, shortly after telling her church pastor her husband, Drew Walter Peterson -- once named the Bolingbrook Police Department's "Police Officer of the Year" -- had killed his third wife and she feared for her own safety.
Stacy Peterson's sister, Cassandra Cales, reported Stacy missing after failing to hear from her. Cales told police she suspected Drew Peterson had killed her sister, just like she believed he killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio, found drowned in a dry bathtub March 1, 2004.
Drew Peterson, now 56, proclaimed his innocence and claimed Stacy had left him for another man.
He was indicted in Savio's death May 7, 2009, with bail set at $20 million.
As he was arrested, Peterson joked, "I guess I should have returned those library books."
Peterson has been in near-solitary confinement for a year and a half while an appellate court decides what hearsay evidence can be used against him at trial.
His lawyer, Joel Brodsky, told The (Joliet, Ill.) Herald-News he doubted the state would charge Peterson with Stacy's death.
"If (prosecutors) can't convict Drew Peterson on the stronger case, they won't charge him with the weak one," Brodsky said.
State attorney's office spokesman Charles B. Pelkie told the newspaper he could not comment on any plans to indict Drew Peterson in Stacy Peterson's disappearance.
Peterson says his wife accidentally fired gun, not him
BOLINGBROOK (AP) — Former police officer Drew Peterson acknowledges a gun did go off in his home a few months before his wife disappeared but says it was his wife and not him who pulled the trigger.
Responding to a claim by his sister-in-law that Peterson fired a gun, with the bullet almost striking his wife, Peterson told the Chicago Tribune that his wife accidentally fired the gun he’d bought her as a gift.
“She had a fascination with guns,” he said of Stacy Peterson. “I bought her a Glock for Valentine’s (Day) — because nothing says I love you like a Glock. That was our joke.”
Stacy Peterson, 23, vanished in late October and her husband, a 53-year-old former police sergeant in the Bolingbrook Police Department has been named a suspect in her disappearance. Investigators say they believe the case may be a homicide.
Drew Peterson’s story is a direct conflict with the account of Cassandra Cales, Stacy Peterson’s sister.
Bolingbrook police Lt. Ken Teppel said that on Oct. 29, hours after Cales reported her sister missing, she and her father met with Police Chief Ray McGury. He said she told the chief that Drew Peterson was in an upstairs bedroom when the gun went off. Teppel said Cales told the chief that the bullet pierced the bedroom floor and struck the garage floor near where Stacy was pulling a soda from a refrigerator.
Teppel said McGury encouraged Cales report the account to Illinois State Police.
Drew Peterson suggested Stacy Peterson fabricated the story reported to Cales because “she was embarrassed about it.”
But Stacy Peterson’s family spokeswoman, Pamela Bosco, called Peterson’s explanation “idiotic” and said Cales stands by her account of what happened.
Judge says Drew Peterson’s property must be returned
JOLIET (AP) — A Will County judge says investigators must return to Drew Peterson all items seized from his home within 30 days.
The investigators took the property -- including guns and computers -- in November as they investigated the disappearance of Peterson’s wife, Stacy.
Judge Richard Schoenstedt made the ruling during a morning hearing. The only condition is that Peterson must agree not to challenge the validity of photographs of the property or documents related to them at any future trial.
The former Bolingbrook police officer has been named a suspect in Stacy Peterson’s October disappearance. He hasn’t been charged with any crime and denies having anything to do with her disappearance.
Pathologist: Peterson's ex-wife didn't die in fall
JOLIET – A pathologist who concluded that the death of Drew Peterson's ex-wife was a homicide and not an accident as first determined testified Friday that her injuries weren't consistent with a fall in a bathtub.
Dr. Larry Blum, in his first public comments since the 2007 autopsy of Kathleen Savio, said he didn't think bruises on her body and a laceration to the back of her head came from a single fall. Savio's body was found slumped forward in a dry bathtub in 2004, and Blum said that her position wasn't consistent with a fall in the tub.
Blum said Savio did drown but her death was not accidental, as another pathologist initially found.
"It was my opinion that it was a homicide," Blum said.
Peterson, a 56-year-old former Bolingbrook police officer, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of his third wife, Savio. Her body was exhumed in 2007 following the disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. Drew Peterson has not been charged in Stacy Peterson's disappearance, but authorities say he is a suspect.
Blum's findings will be at the center of the courtroom battle between Will County prosecutors and Peterson's attorneys, who argue that Savio's death was accidental.
Blum testified at a hearing to determine what hearsay evidence will be allowed at Peterson's upcoming trial. Hearsay, or statements not based on the direct knowledge of a witness, usually isn't admissible in court. But Illinois judges can allow it in murder trials if prosecutors prove a defendant may have killed a witness to prevent him or her from testifying.
There's little available forensic evidence in Savio's case, so prosecutors are expected to rely on statements Savio allegedly made to others saying she feared Peterson could kill her.
Blum, who said he laid down in Savio's tub as part of his investigation, testified the injury to the back of Savio's head may have been made shortly after her death and not as a result of a fall. He also pointed to a wound in the area of Savio's diaphragm as one that wouldn't have been caused in a fall.
"The bruise was deep, down to the bone," he said.
He also agreed with Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow's suggestion that the diaphragm injury might have been caused by what Glasgow called a "bear hug."
Blum also testified that Savio had no measurable drugs or alcohol in her system when she died — an effort to head off the argument defense attorneys have raised that perhaps Savio was in a condition that would have made a fall more likely.
Earlier in the day, Mary Parks, who studied nursing with Savio, testified about a day in late 2003 when Savio showed her red marks on her neck and told her Peterson made them.
"She told me her ex-husband had come into the house and had pinned her down," Parks testified.
Parks said Savio told her that during the incident Peterson told Savio, "Why don't you just die?"
She also said that Savio told her Peterson was intent on leaving her with nothing in the couple's divorce — but that even leaving her without any money, a share of the business the two owned, child support or custody of their two sons wouldn't have been enough for him.
"Kathy was very sure that if she gave up every cent ... that her ex-husband still would not leave her alone," Parks said.
Parks said she contacted prosecutors after Savio was found dead but was told there was no investigation into the case.
