Kathleen Savio -- Found Deceased 3/1/04

Drew Peterson Arrested in Kathleen Savio Murder

Posted on: May 8th, 2009




Drew Peterson, 55, a retired police officer from Bolingbrook, Illinois was arrested on Thursday night at 5:30 p.m., just hours after a grand jury handed down a two-count indictment in the 2004 murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

The suspect was arrested a short distance from his home (see video below) and was taken into custody. He is being held in Will County on a $20 million bond. The charges are that Peterson intentionally killed Savio and knowingly performed an act to cause great bodily harm.

Savio, 40, and Peterson were divorced at the time of her death, and she was living with their two children just three blocks from where Drew was residing with wife number four Stacy Peterson. Savio was found dead in a bathtub, and though there were signs of body trauma, the coroner’s report ruled the death an accidental drowning.

Stacy Peterson provided an alibi for her husband but at some point told her minister that Drew Peterson had killed Kathleen Savio and had made it look like an accident. She said she was afraid of her husband.

Stacy Peterson, 24, disappeared on October 28, 2007 and has not been heard from since. Two weeks later, Kathleen Savio’s body was exhumed and a second autopsy performed. The finding was that the body had been battered and the cause of death was changed from accidental death to a homicide.

Drew Peterson’s four underage children have been placed in the care of Stephen Peterson, a relative and police officer in the Chicago suberb of Oak Brook, Illinois.

http://www.bittenandbound.com/2009/05/08/drew-peterson-arrested-in-kathleen-savio-murder-video/


Judge to allow public access to Drew Peterson hearing

Steve Schmadeke, WGN News
January 8, 2010

CHICAGO - The public will have access to a first-of-its-kind hearing later this month at which prosecutors are expected to lay out much of their case against Drew Peterson, the former Bolingbrook police officer charged with drowning his third wife in 2004.

Peterson's attorneys took the rare step of asking a judge to seal the courtroom for a Jan. 19 hearing required under a new state law on hearsay evidence.

Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow and an attorney representing the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press argued this morning that the hearing -- which could last more than two weeks and feature testimony from 60 people -- should be open to the public.

"In the United States of America, we don't do that," Glasgow said of barring the public from court proceedings. "We do it out in the open."

Prosecutors want Judge Stephen White to allow hearsay statements from 15 people to be heard by a jury. They must first convince White at the upcoming hearing that a "preponderance of the evidence" shows Peterson killed ex-wife Kathleen Savio.

Peterson attorney Joel Brodsky said publicly airing "sensational" statements that may never be heard at trial would undoubtedly prejudice jurors. He gave the judge five possible options - ranging from closing the hearing to all but certain Savio family members to sealing his findings on whether Peterson likely killed her.

In the end, White decided there was no reason to keep the hearing closed.

"Transparency in legal proceedings is essential," Brodsky said in court this morning, before White's ruling. "But there is a right of the defendant...and right of the state to have an impartial jury hear the case."

Glasgow told White that there must be a "substantial probability" that the jury pool would be tainted and that there was no other way -- such as through the normal juror selection process -- to address it.

Seth Stern, a lawyer for the newspapers, said sealing a court proceeding like the one planned for Jan. 19 should only be a "last resort" that is typically only used in cases involving national security.

http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-peterson-hearsay-ban-jan10,0,3954188.story


Peterson pretrial hearing will be open to public

January 9, 2010

BY JOE HOSEY Herald-News

The bid by Drew Peterson's lawyers to bar the public from a landmark hearsay hearing failed Friday, setting the stage for potentially explosive testimony to air in a proceeding that could last longer than a month.

Judge Stephen White rejected the arguments of Peterson's attorneys Joel Brodsky and Andrew Abood that keeping the hearing open might bias potential jurors against their client, who is accused of drowning his wife.

The hearing will determine what, if any, hearsay evidence will be allowed at Peterson's murder trial. Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow countered Peterson's lawyers and called sealing the hearing un-American.

"You've all heard of the Spanish Inquisition," Glasgow said. "You close the doors, and bad things happen. We don't do that in America."

Brodsky pointed to the child pornography case of R&B sensation R. Kelly as his reason for keeping the public out of Peterson's hearing. Some of those proceedings, which included the playing of a videotape of Kelly allegedly having sex with an underage girl, were closed to the public.

"There was some sensational evidence," Brodsky said. "It was because of the sensationalism, and [the judge] didn't want any potential jurors hearing anything about that tape."

At the upcoming hearing, Peterson could face up to 60 prosecution witnesses -- ranging from a man he allegedly solicited to kill his third wife, Kathleen Savio, to his stepbrother Thomas Morphey, who claims he was asked by Peterson to kill his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, and that he later helped carry her body out of the family home in a blue barrel.

Peterson is charged with drowning Savio in 2004. State Police suspect he also might have killed Stacy Peterson, who vanished in October 2007. Peterson has not been charged in connection with her disappearance.

"We're just pleased the court weighed the importance of the First Amendment considerations at issue and made the right decision," said Seth Stern, an attorney appearing on behalf of Sun-Times Media and other media outlets.

Brodsky said the testimony he wanted kept from the public is "rumor, innuendo and gossip."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1981608,CST-NWS-drew09.article

This is something I hope is telecast...if not at least you've provided links to keep us updated...The Smug SOB is right where he belongs....wonder if he's in gen pop, and how he likes it...

Here's a link to a lot of different articles regarding this case if you are interested:

http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Drew+Peterson

wow! 2 at once...

ANyone know if this will be broadcast on a live feed? Will Drew be there (with his bling in tow)

Now this will be interesting.. once this one is over, maybe they can plea for his life by telling everyone where he put Stacey....

Glad this is gonna happen today....after a DEPRESSING day yesterday, today is looking up...Don't know how I'm gonna juggle this and work...The latest at the Sun Times site says this could last a month...

Didn't see anything about telecast at Sun Times or WGNTV...so maybe I'll just have to read the updates...

Stacy Peterson and Kathleen Savio’s voices to be heard
The Drew Peterson case: 2 wives to have major roles in pretrial hearing into drowning

By Steve Schmadeke
Tribune reporter

January 17, 2010

Former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson is charged with drowning estranged wife Kathleen Savio, but much of the information likely to be presented at a unique pretrial hearing that starts Tuesday will involve the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy.

For Stacy’s family, the hearing will provide their first detailed look at what was uncovered during the massive investigation launched after she vanished in 2007. Her disappearance and the exhumation afterward of Savio’s body and reclassification of her death as a homicide helped turn the case into national tabloid fodder.

Stacy’s family immediately feared the worst. She had talked of divorcing Peterson, and on the Saturday night before she disappeared, her sister Cassandra Cales said, Stacy leaned over the kitchen table in the Peterson home and whispered: “If I go missing, come find me.”

Kathleen Savio’s family also is hoping for more answers. After her sister drowned in 2004 while going through a bitter custody battle with Peterson, Sue Doman placed a note in her coffin asking her to tell her how she’d died, Doman told the Tribune last year.

When the body was later exhumed, Doman added a flower and a new note that read: “I’d been waiting four years and you still haven’t told me — so please tell me what happened to you,” she said.

For prosecutors and defense attorneys, the hearing that starts Tuesday and is expected to last a month will be a high-stakes marathon.

Prosecutors must prove by a “preponderance of evidence” that Peterson made Stacy or Kathleen “unavailable” to testify against him. If they succeed, Judge Stephen White has the option, under a new state law championed by State’s Attorney James Glasgow, of allowing certain statements to be heard at a jury trial.

One of the linchpins of the government’s case may be hearsay statements that Stacy and Kathleen allegedly made to others.

“Drew Peterson has told me he’s going to kill me and make it look like an accident,” is how Glasgow in court described the statement Savio allegedly made to “trusted friends and relatives.”

Peterson attorney Joel Brodsky last week said the hearsay statements were “rumor and innuendo and gossip” from “out-and-out unreliable people.”

As part of their case to essentially prove, under a lower standard than required at trial, that Peterson killed his wife, prosecutors have subpoenaed records of “bathtub-related fatalities” from 14 Illinois counties, including Will, DuPage, Lake and Cook, for the years 2003 to 2005, according to court records.

Prosecutors will likely use them to argue that the circumstances of Savio’s death — the 1-inch gash on her head, along with bruises and cuts elsewhere — are so singular that she could only have been murdered.

Glasgow has said Savio’s death was “staged to look like an accident” and that Peterson knew facts about the manner of death only the killer could have known.

Brodsky agrees that the autopsy results are straightforward — but that they clearly point to an accidental drowning.

It may be a daunting task for Judge White. Prosecutors have turned over lists of hundreds of pieces of evidence in Savio’s death and Peterson’s disappearance.

There are hundreds of potential witnesses, including two former acquaintances of Peterson who wore wires and also videotaped him, Brodsky has said in court, asking that prosecutors reveal whether they were paid.

It’s not clear how or when prosecutors will address their own handling of the Savio case. Glasgow expressed frustration with his predecessor at a hearing last spring, noting that a letter Savio wrote to prosecutors alleging that Peterson sneaked into her home in 2002 and held a knife to her throat did not result in battery charges being filed.

Prosecutors have said in court that in Savio’s original autopsy, the pathologist was not asked to rule on the manner of death. A coroner’s jury ruled it accidental.

http://petersonstory.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/stacy-peterson-and-kathleen-savios-voices-to-be-heard/

FYI.... from what I've read, cameras are not allowed in Illinois courtrooms. So, if you are interested, you may want to keep up with the case at the link I provided in the previous article.

i'm gonna check out news @ 1p on WGN...I'm surprised that HLN and TRUTV doesnt have a reporter there...

Drew Peterson hearsay hearings start today