On Tuesday, five months later, investigators came to the scene — but found nothing, Cales said. She said she was told the area was clear. Stacy Peterson disappeared in Not long after the divorce, Savio and Peterson married and eventually had two sons together, Thomas and Kristopher. The union did not remain happy for long, however. Savio got an order of protection from Peterson in , claiming that he had physically abused her. The couple divorced in , without finalizing their financial arrangements.
That October, Peterson married for the fourth time. He wed Stacy Cales, who was 30 years younger than him. Peterson and Cales had been having an affair during his marriage to Savio. Peterson and Savio were set to resolve their outstanding issues regarding their divorce in April But Savio never made it to the hearing. She was found dead in her bathtub on March 1, Her hair was damp, but the bathtub was dry.
At the time, Savio's death was ruled an accidental drowning. Many of her family members, however, believed that Savio had been murdered. She was supposed to go to her sister's place to help do some painting that day, but she never showed up. Drew Peterson said that he received a phone call from his wife that night, claiming that she had left him for another man.
Her family reported her missing, insisting that Stacy would never have abandoned her two children. Friends also said that Stacy had been preparing to leave her husband. Authorities and volunteers conducted an extensive search, but they found no trace of Stacy Peterson. Meanwhile, Drew Peterson quickly became a suspect in the case. He seemed unconcerned about his wife's disappearance, joking around with the media and making flippant remarks about Stacy.
On the Today show, he brushed off any talk of Stacy wanting to leave him. The next day, the man was hospitalized following an apparent suicide, having overdosed on pills washed down with alcohol. After the Tribune reported on that development, family spokeswoman Pam Bosco said the volunteers who'd been on the lookout for Stacy would start searching for that container. Peterson denied the whole story, his lawyer telling the paper that the relative had "serious psychological issues.
All the circumstances point to it. He said that Peterson had told him Stacy was cheating and something needed to be done, and asked if Morphey loved him enough to kill for him. When Morphey demurred, Peterson asked if he would rent a storage locker for him instead. He didn't have his ID on him, so he didn't, Morphey said. But, he added, he thought Peterson was talking about killing the other guy. In response to Morphey's story, Peterson's attorney Joel Brodsky told reporters, "If [prosecutors] found him credible, he would have been one of the first witnesses they would have brought in and they would have based the entire investigation and the entire case on his testimony.
A grand jury investigation was convened, but Peterson has never been arrested or charged in connection with Stacy's disappearance. However, Kathleen's death had officially been reclassified as a homicide following the release of the official autopsy findings in February While both investigations were ongoing, year-old Christina Raines , a mother of two, moved in with Peterson.
His camp claimed in December that they were engaged, but the following month Raines told CBS News that was never the case, that she let him say that for publicity, so he "could be in the media.
That being said, they did date, and she did believe him initially when he told her he had nothing to do with Stacy's disappearance, Raines explained on Court TV's In Session. But "seeing her pictures in the house, seeing how she was with her kids, and all her pictures, I kind of think, 'Wait, just wait a minute. Also in May , Peterson was arrested on a felony weapons charge, investigators having found that one of the guns confiscated from the suspect's home in the wake of Stacy's disappearance was of an illegal size.
He pleaded not guilty and flashed a smile at reporters after posting bail. But he was indicted and arrested for Kathleen's murder on May 7, First, a hearing was held in to determine if dozens of witness accounts of Drew's alleged behavior and threats, comprised largely of comments made by Kathleen or Stacy to others, could be admitted as evidence at trial despite being hearsay. A former colleague of Kathleen's testified that she had told him that her husband had threatened to kill her while holding a knife to her neck.
Eric Peterson, one of Drew's sons from his first marriage, testified that in he witnessed his dad dragging an intoxicated Kathleen down the stairs as she screamed for help. Morphey testified about his whole exchange with Drew. A divorce attorney named Harry Smith testified that, a few days before she disappeared, Stacy Peterson had told him that she knew her husband had killed Kathleen and she was thinking of leaving him.
But on appeal, citing a law passed in by the Illinois State Legislature that allowed hearsay testimony in first-degree murder cases if the prosecutors could prove that a witness had been killed to be prevented from testifying—nicknamed "Drew's Law because it passed in the wake of Stacy's disappearance"—eight statements, including the one relayed by Smith, were allowed into testimony.
The law allowed victims to "testify from the grave," said Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow, who had championed the legislation. The trial got underway in but not before Rob Lowe and Kaley Cuoco played Drew and Stacy in the Lifetime movie Drew Peterson: Untouchable , the case against Peterson largely circumstantial but also now featuring a number of statements that strongly implicated Peterson in the deaths of two of his wives.
The deputy coroner and others who processed the scene when Kathleen died testified that they didn't collect physical evidence or treat her death as suspicious because investigators had already told them was an accident. The defense accused him of fabricating the entire exchange. But thanks in no small part to the hearsay, in September Peterson was found guilty of murder. Having conveyed little emotion during the trial, he surprised the court at his sentencing in February , shouting, "I did not kill Kathleen!
You liar! He continued with his statement, tearfully saying, "I loved Kathy. She was a good mom. She did not deserve to die. One month after his transfer to the federal prison, Peterson was attacked by another inmate with a food tray. He is the sole suspect in her disappearance, authorities have said, but he has not been charged with a crime related to her case.
Greenberg said Peterson had not been in any trouble at the federal prison.
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