CHICAGO (WBBM) -- With the media camp growing outside his Bolingbrook home, Sgt. Drew Peterson took his case to Geraldo Rivera.
Off-camera, he insisted he had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance and complained to the Fox Network broadcaster that stress caused by media coverage has caused him to lose 25 pounds.
Volunteers on Sunday — not including Drew Peterson — were to once again scour forest preserves and ponds looking for his missing 23-year-old wife, Stacy
After Drew Peterson talked briefly with Rivera, the broadcaster stepped outside to relay denials of any role in his wife’s Oct. 28 disappearance or the 2004 death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Rivera quoted Peterson as saying. “I’ve been cooperating fully with police.”
Police have said Peterson hasn’t offered them any help in more than a week.
• In another twist, two of Stacy Peterson’s relatives entered the couple’s home and removed the ashes of Stacy’s deceased sister, who died last year of cancer. Drew Peterson did not stop the removal.
• Texas EquuSearch, the professional recovery tea, from Texas, took Sunday off to review aerial photographs which may lead them to new search areas.
Saturday morning, sources told WBBM Newsradio 780's Mary Frances Bragiel that something that resembled or what was suspected to be a shallow grave was found by search teams from the professional search group Texas Equusearch, which has had members searching for Stacy Peterson for the last week. But by evening's end, that discovery turned out to be the remains of a buried dog.
When searchers found the suspicious grave, they cordoned off the area until law officials could formally investigate.
• State Police Capt. Carl Dobrich said Drew is no longer merely a "person of interest" in the disappearance of the 23-year-old but "clearly" a suspect. He said the case is now a potential homicide investigation. Prosecutors have labeled him a suspect in her potential homicide.
"We're sad, but we needed to move on, and this is something we've needed to hear for a long time," said Pamela Bosco, Stacy Peterson's adoptive stepmother.
Peterson has said that his wife phoned him and told him she had left him for another man. His attorney, Fred Morelli, has not returned calls seeking comment.
Authorities said that during their initial visit to the Peterson home after Stacy was reported missing, Drew gave his consent for a search, but limited the number of officers and the area.
The family of Stacy Peterson, who was studying nursing at a nearby junior college, has said she feared her husband, was making plans to divorce him and would not have willingly left her children with him, ages 2 and 4.
•Kathleen Savio, Drew Peterson's third wife, tried to get someone to believe that her life was in danger. She told authorities, who charged her with domestic battery instead of her husband Drew Peterson. Savio told her family that if she died, no matter what it looked like, her death would be no accident.
And three years after she was buried, prosecutors now plan to exhume Savio's body in the hopes it will give them clues to how she died.
There's no doubt in my mind it (Savio’s death) wasn't an accident," Will County state's attorney James Glasgow said.
Glasgow's petition to exhume Savio's body argues the "evidence is consistent with the staging of an accident to conceal a homicide."
A coroner's jury ruled the 2004 death of Savio an accident, even though there was no water in the bathtub where the 40-year-old's body was found face-down, her hair soaked in blood from a head wound.
Investigators theorized the water had slowly drained.
Glasgow said his office has reviewed photographs of the crime scene and autopsy, the autopsy protocol and police reports.
They determined the blood evidence was not consistent with water slowly leaking out of a tub, that the one-inch gash on the back of Savio's head was not sufficient to render her unconscious, and that abrasions on her body were not consistent with falling on a smooth surface like a bathtub.
Glasgow took office more than nine months after Savio's death. He also said Savio had sought a domestic violence complaint against her husband.
Peterson was never charged, but Savio herself was twice charged in 2002 with battery and domestic battery, Glasgow said. She was found not guilty both times.
Jeff Tomczak, the state's attorney at the time that domestic violence charges were filed against Savio and when she died, did not return calls seeking comment.
Savio's niece, Melissa Marie Doman, said family members support the exhumation. She said relatives have long suspected that Savio didn't drown accidentally.
"Something just was never right," said Doman. "I can't really say who, but someone did something."
According to court records, Savio had gotten an order of protection in 2002, alleging a pattern of physical abuse and threats. Drew Peterson has denied involvement in his ex-wife's death.
Savio's sister, Susan Savio, told the coroner's jury that her sister feared Drew Peterson.
In a transcript of the coroner's inquest, Susan Savio told the six-person jury that her sister told family members "if she would die, it may look like an accident, but it wasn't."
• The Bolingbrook Police Department announced Sgt. Peterson has been relieved of duty and placed on suspension without pay pending completion of an internal affairs investigation and hearing.
E-Mail Story
Print Story
