Bolingbrook, IL—Over four years ago Stacy Ann Peterson vanished. It was no secret that she had been complaining of marital problems with her much older police sergeant husband, Drew Peterson. Peterson who had a noted preference for younger female companionship was in his fourth failed marriage. His third estranged wife, Kathleen Savio died in her bathtub in the safety of her own locked home. That death was investigated and ruled as an accident. Savio had recently changed the locks and Drew Peterson had no keys to Savio’s home.
After Stacy Peterson disappeared the investigation of Savio’s death was re-opened and re-classified as a murder on paper-thin evidence. Drew Peterson has been jailed on a $20 million bail bond for over three years. Peterson has been locked up without trial in the style of some rogue, Fascist government rather than a nation with a Bill of Rights.
Will County State’s Attorney, James Glasgow successfully lobbied the dull-witted folks that make up the Illinois General Assembly for a new and special law. The law was aimed at allowing long-banned hearsay testimony to be heard in an American courtroom. This new law was passed and has the moniker of the Drew Peterson Law. I guess whatever worked for the People’s Court of the Third Reich (1933-1945) is now somehow good enough for Illinois.
Hearsay evidence is fun because it automatically doubles the chance that the statement produced is a lie. Did the person being quoted lie or is it the person providing the hearsay making it up? Additionally if everyone was telling the truth or is the person providing the quote mistaken about the line? Hearsay does not belong in an American Courtroom but more hearsay exceptions are allowed just as all our hard won freedoms have slipped away over the years.
Is the Savio murder allegation against Drew Peterson really more about the missing Stacy Peterson? Stacy allegedly confided in several people telling them she wanted to leave her husband. According to Mike Kurdenok of Coal City, IL, Stacy told him during an after school date that she wanted to, “Slip away before Drew woke up.” Kurdenok made it clear that Stacy did not want to be found! Of course, I have serious questions for this man who was out drinking with Peterson’s young bride.
Is Stacy Peterson alive? They have written her off as dead long ago. Many have bolstered that argument with suggestions that Stacy would have never voluntarily left her children. None of us know for sure where Stacy is today. We can only guess.
People disappear from the radar all the time. They avoid friends, family and even their young children. Fugitives have been found often many decades after authorities that have diligently searched for them. Some are never found.
Take the recent resurfacing of a Stanwood, WA woman, Judith Bello. Bello left her three year-old, son vanishing in 1993. Police, friends and relatives searched for the woman in vain. The presumptions were that she was murdered since they all concluded she’d never leave her little boy.
The reality was she skipped out on her former life and child moving to California. After seeing a television "cold case" spot about her disappearance and presumed death due to foul play Bello called authorities ending the two-decade old mystery. The Bello case is just one of many.
As a private investigator I search for missing people and have found that women can hide much easier then men. Women often take the name of male companions without marriage ceremonies. Often in relationships one partner will borrow the identity of the other for employment purposes. Marty Ryan has a Social Security number and hooks up with Mary. Mary applies for and gets work as M. Ryan using Marty’s Social Security number. Marty may even get a significant boost in benefits as a result of the scam.
Women get significantly less police attention then men in our world. Stacy Peterson could easily be alive and happy to have shed the responsibility that her children brought. We don’t know for sure about Stacy and to assume Peterson murdered her is wrong.
Those who have judged Peterson most harshly are unhappy with his penchant for much younger women and his failure as a husband. Does that somehow make Peterson a cold-blooded killer?
Keeping any citizen locked up without a trial is un-American. Using hearsay evidence to secure a conviction is a sign that America has become a Police State.
Comments
Have you given any coverage to another missing mom from this area named Lisa Stebic? I still wonder what happened to her even though she doesn't get nearly as much media coverage as Stacy Peterson.
That being said, nobody has offered up diddley-squat to support an arrest, let alone a murder charge, yet dumbass Drew languishes in jail.
Free the arrogant asshole now and drag Glasgow out of office by his tiny shriveled scrotum.
I believe that no matter how the Appellate Court decides (since the Ill. Supreme Court sent the case back to them) the hearsay issue will be appealed and appealed again, until it reaches the US Supreme Court. A trial in this case is highly unlikely; a conviction even more unlikely.
And, as to Stacy's disappearance, isn't it strange, that when Stacy was quite young, her own mother disappeared without a trace, and, to my knowledge, has never been heard from again-- which begs so many questions.
And yes, question the living daylights out of every witness.
I really think his Constitutional Right to a Speedy Trial is being ignored, illegally.