Sitting inside the Will County jail this afternoon, Drew Peterson watched an advance copy of a made-for-TV about his life and, according to his lawyer, had one overriding response to Rob Lowe’s  portrayal of him while sporting a mustache: “Hysterical.”The movie, “Drew Peterson: Untouchable” is set to air at 7 p.m. tonight on the Lifetime  cable TV network.It depicts the retired Bolingbrook police sergeant as a loutish misogynist who killed his third wife,Kathleen Savio, and caused his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson,  to disappear.As with any Hollywood production, the film has a few fabricated parts, including a now-infamous scene where Lowe’s Peterson character opens his neighbor’s garage, stares her down and declares: “I’m untouchable, bitch.”
 
“He thought it was hysterical,” said Joel Brodsky, Peterson’s lead defense attorney. “He chuckled at all of the inaccuracies and things that never happened.”
 
Brodsky showed Peterson the movie for legal reasons, saying it could play an important role in jury selection and whether the defense petitions for a change of venue.Prosecutors also have said they have a professional obligation to watch it tonight, and plan to do so.
 
Brodsky was adamant earlier this week that Peterson’s legal team would ask for the trial to be move outside Will County. But, following the movie’s airing, he said Saturday that he may reconsider after conferring with his co-counsel.

Two other Peterson attorneys told the Tribune that they were more concerned with Peterson’s own pre-trial antics — including a win-a-date-with-Drew contest on a local radio station — than they were about the movie.
 
Peterson also did not seem overly worried about the movie’s impact on prospective jurors, Brodsky said.
 
“Obviously he is concerned people might be influenced by the movie’s inaccuracies,” Brodsky said. “But we agreed that anyone who thinks a Lifetime movie is factual shouldn’t be on a jury in the first place.”
 
Brodsky said Peterson did not comment on Lowe’s acting, but he did object to the one-time Brat Packer’s brushed-back hairstyle.

SOURCE: ARTICLE BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE JANUARY 21, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

DREW PETERSON TIMELINE  ====>  My Suburban Life, Bolingbrook, IL —

On Oct. 18, Stacy and Drew Peterson would have been able to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary together, maybe slipping off on a romantic Caribbean getaway as they had in the past.

Only Drew Peterson has been locked up since 2009 on charges he murdered the woman he left for Stacy. And the last anyone saw of Stacy was exactly four years ago today.

That’s because she took off on a tropical trip of her own with some other guy, never to be seen again. At least that’s the way Drew Peterson told it. Not that anyone — particularly the police — seemed to buy his story.

Instead, within weeks of Stacy’s disappearance, Illinois State Police Capt. Carl Dobrich declared that the missing mother was the victim of a “potential homicide” and that Drew Peterson was the sole suspect in a massive criminal investigation.

But four years later, Stacy remains missing and Drew Peterson, though jailed on charges he murdered his previous wife, Kathleen Savio, faces no charges in connection with harming Stacy.

The state police did not respond to a request for an update on the case, but Pam Bosco, a friend of Stacy’s family and their spokeswoman, said the family is in regular contact with investigators.

“We have our meetings with the Illinois State Police,” Bosco said. “They’re very active and sincere in this being an active investigation.”

Early romance

Stacy was only 17 when she and Peterson started sleeping together — occasionally in the basement of his Bolingbrook home while Savio, who was his third wife, and their children slept upstairs.

Stacy gave birth to their first child together in July 2003 while Peterson was still married to Savio. The courts granted them a peculiar “bifurcated divorce” which cleared the way for Peterson to marry Stacy but still allowed him and Savio to continue their bitter struggle over property and money.

That struggle looked to be wrapping up with Savio coming out way ahead of Peterson when she mysteriously turned up drowned in her dry bathtub in March 2004. Mysterious to some, but apparently not the state police.

Accidental death

Since Drew Peterson was a Bolingbrook cop, and Savio died in his jurisdiction, the state police took over the investigation. The state police quickly determined Savio perished in a freak bathtub accident and effectively closed the case.

Drew and Stacy — who provided her husband with the alibi that he was with her and could not have killed anybody — went on to have another child and live in suburban anonymity in their home on a cul-de-sac less than a mile from the bathroom where Savio died.

But after Stacy vanished, the state police suddenly developed an interest in Savio’s death. Her body was exhumed from its grave and new autopsies were performed. Then, a year and a half after Stacy supposedly abandoned her two children and the two Savio bore whom she adopted, the state police arrested Peterson in connection Savio’s death.

Peterson’s trial was supposed to start in July 2010 but was postponed due to a last minute prosecution appeal of which hearsay statements can be used as evidence. Peterson’s self-proclaimed lead attorney, Joel Brodsky, has repeatedly failed to get the accused wife-killer released while the appeals are sorted out. Another of Peterson’s attorneys, Joseph “Shark” Lopez, said it is impossible to tell when — or if — Peterson will go to trial.

“We’re all waiting for the (Illinois) Supreme Court to say something, yay or nay,” Lopez said. “When the Supreme Court’s ready to decide, they’re going to decide.”

When told that today was the fourth anniversary of Stacy disappearing, he asked, “Are you buying the cake?”

“Where he needs to be”

Bosco said Stacy’s family does not derive any satisfaction from the thought of Peterson languishing in jail, but are glad he’s there.

“I think that’s where he has to be for safety. We all feel safer,” she said.

“That’s where he needs to be until this goes to trial,” Bosco said. “It’s just a very logical decision. One (wife’s) dead, one’s missing, supposedly dead.”

And while Stacy’s family lives with the uncertainty of whether she ever will be found, they wait to see what happens with the case of the wife before her.

“The two of them are tied so closely together,” Bosco said of Stacy and Savio. “We’d be happy if the Kathleen case goes ahead like it should.”

NEWS SOURCE:  ARTICLE BY SHOREWOOD PATCH BY JOSEPH HOSEY

 

 This is a rush transcript from “On the Record ,” November 16, 2007. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. 

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Dr. Baden joins us here in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Dr. Baden, your day started today speaking to the family of Kathleen Savio?

 DR. MICHAEL BADEN, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Yes. Yes, speaking to Kathleen’s father, who was next to me, and the rest of the family and going over what their concerns were and what they wanted to learn from the autopsy and how I was going to proceed. 

VAN SUSTEREN: What did you hear from them? What did you learn from them before you did the autopsy? 

BADEN: Well, what I had learned was that the family had certain concerns because the way that Kathleen was in the bathtub and that she hadn’t been heard from for some 36 hours before she — before the body was discovered, that her habit was to take off her jewelry and put her in her up before she took a bath, which wasn’t done that time. So they had certain concerns that there were suspicious things in that bathtub.

 VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, after meeting with the family — how long did that meeting take? 

BADEN: About an hour, a little over an hour. 

VAN SUSTEREN: OK. Then where did you go? 

BADEN: Went — we met in the coroner’s office. The corner was very helpful, this O’Neil. We gave us all his facilities. We went from there, drove over to the morgue where the autopsy was done. And everybody was very helpful.

 VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, this — there was an autopsy done when she died in March 2004. 

BADEN: In 2004.

 VAN SUSTEREN: Then there was one done yesterday, right? 

BADEN: The day before, yes. 

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. And so then yours — your autopsy today was the third.

 BADEN: Yes. 

VAN SUSTEREN: How many people were in the room today? 

BADEN: There were five Illinois State Troopers who came down. One of them took photographs, took notes. We exchanged some information. There was a coroner, an administrative coroner, who was there, very helpful. We went over the X-rays. There was Steph Watts from your office who was there, who was very helpful.

 VAN SUSTEREN: He’s the one who videotaped you…

 (CROSSTALK) 

BADEN: He did the videotape, and he was very helpful in taking notes and helping out. And it was a big, very nice autopsy room. They do about 500 autopsies a year in that room, so it’s not a small operation. And when the autopsy was done two days ago, about 13 X-rays were taken, which I was able to review. They have an X-ray view box. They had the X-rays. No fractures. And when I did the examination, there were no fractures on the body.

 VAN SUSTEREN: All right. And so the viewers know that, Steph Watts, when he videotaped you, we were very careful not to videotape the remains and being… 

BADEN: That’s right. 

VAN SUSTEREN: … respectful of the seriousness of the situation… 

BADEN: Yes.

 VAN SUSTEREN: … and for the family and the dignity of Kathleen Savio. Now, just as background, how many autopsies have you done?

 BADEN: I’ve done, over the past 45 years, over 20,000 autopsies. 

VAN SUSTEREN: And how many post-exhumation? Because that’s a little different type of autopsy. 

BADEN: Much different. Over 200 exhumation autopsies. And exhumations are always done because some information arises that was not known at the time of the first autopsy, and the exhumations can be a year later, three years later, even 30 years later, when additional information comes up not know initially.

 VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, we’re going to get to your conclusion in a second, but I first want to know is, were there any particular challenges presented to you today in doing that autopsy? 

BADEN: Well, there’s always a challenge in doing an exhumation autopsy because there always is some deterioration of the body. But the advantage is we have more information when we’re doing the exhumation than was known at the time of the first autopsy, so it’s a more focused autopsy. That is, there was various information that was gathered that led to the exhumation in the first place that wasn’t known initially.

 VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, the condition of the body, I understand, wasn’t an ideal situation because the casket hadn’t been sealed. 

BADEN: Well, the casket may have been sealed, but a lot of water got in. It wasn’t effectively sealed. A lot of water had gotten in and there was a lot of deterioration of soft tissues. 

VAN SUSTEREN: Did that inhibit you from reaching a conclusion — which we’ll get to in a second, but the soft tissue damage from the water, would that — did that inhibit you from reaching a conclusion?

 BADEN: No, because there was enough information there, together with all the other information that’s been available from the other two autopsies, that permits me to arrive at a conclusion as to cause and manner of death. 

VAN SUSTEREN: One of the things that we read about in the autopsy report that was done back in 2004 is that there was a lot of blood in Kathleen Savio’s hair. Was that a determination you were able to make today, whether or not that — or had she been — you know, did the funeral home clean that up or — could you make that determination?

 BADEN: Any blood in the hair was already cleaned up by the funeral home. At the time of the first autopsy and when the exhumation was done, there was no more blood in the hair. 

VAN SUSTEREN: What conclusion did you reach as to the manner of death after doing the autopsy today? 

BADEN: That was a homicide. 

VAN SUSTEREN: Any doubt in your mind whatsoever that it’s a homicid? 

BADEN: To a reasonable degree of medical certainty is the standard we usually use. It’s my opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that it’s a homicide, and that’s what I would have put down on the death certificate.

 VAN SUSTEREN: Had you been the initial medical examiner doing the autopsy in… 

BADEN: Even initially, there was enough information that it was a homicide because of the fact that she was an adult, healthy, hadn’t been drinking or anything, found dead in a bathtub. It does not happen accidentally. No history of seizures or illness. And in addition, there were indications then of multiple blunt force traumas, of being beaten up. And one of the things we were able to look at today is those bruises were still there, and we could see with the naked eye that they were fresh….