Saturday, November 17, 2007

Forensics Casebook II: Kathleen Savio, Stacy Peterson, Dr. Baden, & the Chicago Cop

The questions are falling faster than stacked dominoes now that noted expert pathologist Dr. Michael Baden says that Drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, died as a result of a homicide. Baden, who donated his post-exhumation services to the Savio family, described his autopsy findings in a thorough interview with Fox's Greta Van Susteren.

Let's look at some key questions that didn't get answered--or in some cases, even asked--during the original investigation. To do that, we first re-visit the crime scene.

The physical background: Savio was found to be free of drugs or alcohol. She had no prior history of seizures or fainting spells. Yet she wound up drowned in a dry, blood-splotched bathtub with bruises all over her body, and a bloodied head from blunt force trauma.

Original reports said that her fingers were wrinkled from being in water. Here are some things worth questioning:

1. How long does it take for someone's fingers to get wrinkled in a bathtub?
2. Is there a difference in that time for someone who's alive and someone who's deceased?
3. The most important question of all about those fingers: why were the fingers on both hands reportedly wrinkled? Think about it--when someone takes a bath, or shower, they rarely have both hands equally submerged all the time. The dominant hand is used for bathing, washing hair, etc. Why were all the fingers on both of Savio's hands wrinkled?
4. The bathtub was dry of water when Savio's body was found. But her hair was wet. The blood, in some areas, was reportedly wet. There was blood splotched around the tub. If the tub had drained on its own, why were there splotches?
5. How long would it take that tub to drain on its own,if that happened?
6. How long do fingers stay wrinkled, ante and postmortem? There's a time correlation there that never got looked at.
7. Why was Drew Peterson allowed to clean blood out of that tub?

How did this death get classified as an accidental drowning? Even more compelling, how did Kathleen Savio's plight as an abused and terrified woman get ignored by the Bolingbrook Police Department and other authorities? And how did a cop who knew Peterson, and spoke up for him, almost as a "character reference," wind up on the coroner's jury?

Now-retired former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson threatened more than one wife, according to reports, taunting them that he could kill them and get away with it. Disturbing patterns continue to emerge about Peterson's treatment of his four wives, one of whom died mysteriously, and the fourth, Stacy Peterson, who is missing.

In an interview with the Chicago Sun Times, Dave Brown, husband of Peterson's first wife Carol, says that Peterson cheated on Carol during their brief marriage. This pattern repeated in his marriages to Vicki Connolly, and Savio.

Connolly, the second wife, said that Peterson hit her as well as spying on her, controlling her, and emotionally abusing her. The missing Stacy Peterson and her family said that Peterson was also controlled and her activities tracked by Peterson. Stacy told her family the same thing that Savio did: if something happens to me, it won't be an accident.

Savio filed 18 abuse reports on Peterson. In an ominous foreshadowing, one of Savio's ER visits was for a blow to the head, according to documents obtained by America's Most Wanted.

Dr. Baden detailed bruises on her hands, chest, abdomen, and thighs. In his interview with Van Susteren, Baden described the hand injuries as "defensive" wounds.

""There were indications then of multiple blunt force traumas, of being beaten up," Baden said. "One of the things we were able to look at today, those bruises were still there. And we could see from the naked eye they were fresh."

Even in death, Kathleen Savio is serving as witness to her own tragedy. Her family, having gone through the anguish of her death and a botched investigation and ruling, made sure that this time, they had their own expert, Dr. Baden, to perform a post-exhumation autopsy.



In one of the most poignant documents related to this case, Kathleen Savio pleaded for help. In a letter to Assistant State Attorney Elizabeth Fragales on Nov. 14, 2002 Savio said that police didn't file reports when she'd called for help.

Another foreshadowing: she detailed how Peterson secretly programmed a way to open her garage door and get into her house. She told how Peterson ambushed her, threw around his authority as a police officer, and held a knife to her throat.

This incident is significant because when Savio's body was found, Peterson made sure he told Steve Carcerano that he couldn't get into the house. Carcerano, who found the body, has been called to testify before the grand jury. One question: why did a trained, and reportedly aggressive, cop, send an unarmed civilian into a home where the cop thought something might be wrong?

I've covered crime before. I've covered multiple murders. Savio's suffering as a terrified and abused woman who saw her doom closing in on her is one of the most gut-wrenching storiers I've ever researched.

In the first article in this series, Forensics Casebook I: Kathleen Savio, Stacy Peterson, the Chicago Cop & Fox's Greta Van Susteren, I said that both the Savio and Stacy Peterson cases revolved around water. Officials have repeatedly searched for Stacy in bodies of water near the Peterson home. In Drew's Clues: Wife #2 Said Peterson Bragged He Could Safely Kill Her, Vicki Connolly speaks out and Dr. Phil weighs in.

In the next article, I'll reveal how easy it is to kill someone and make it look like a drowning.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Drew's Clues: Wife #2 Says Peterson Bragged He Could Safely Kill Her



Drew Peterson, who even has Dr. Phil worried, is quite a guy. Peterson hit his second wife, cheated on her (eventually with the woman who became his third, the one who drowned in a dry bathtub), was so controlling that he bugged their house and -- oh yes, told her he could kill her and make it look like an accident.


Funny thing, he said that to wife #3, Kathleen Savio, who wound up dead. He threatened wife #4, Stacy Peterson, with the same thing. Everyone's looking for Stacy, except Peterson, who coldly described her to Matt Lauer as "spoiled".


Where was Drew? Follow the clues; follow the money. Peterson was busy protecting his pension--about $72,000 a year-- while pleading for a free defense attorney, and, in his media work, casting slurs on his third and fourth wives. Peterson proclaimed that he married both of them because they were "beautiful" and "fun," but then later found out that both had serious "emotional problems." (Nothing to do with him, of course, if you believe him.)


According to a solid interview by Chicago Tribune writer Erika Slife, Peterson also bragged about how he could deceive people. In her interview, Slife covers a lot of ground with Vicki Connolly, who says she's still afraid of Peterson.


"... in the first interview granted by one of his ex-wives since Stacy's disappearance, Connolly, 48, said Thursday that during their marriage an increasingly controlling Peterson told her he could kill her and make it look like an accident."


Connolly peels back the covering on Peterson's second marriage. If you think you see patterns, you're right. When he moved on from Connolly, he was already involved with Savio. When he was ready to replace Savio, he was already involved with Stacy, the then 17-year-old teenager who he got pregnant.

It's 1823 Again: 2008 Presidential Candidates, Charted

In a saucy sendup of the 1823 British "The Monthly Magazine, David Brooks and Ben Schott dissect the U.S. presidential candidates for us. They look at everything from intellectual capacity to lanugage styles, temperament, and their overall effect.



Is Fred Thompson's logic "useless"? Is Hillary Clinton's overall effect one of "Every knee must bow"? Is Mitt Romnye's logic "superior"? Is Barack Obama's overall effect "self-aware and superior"?

See what you think.


Candidates in a Box


A grid outlining the gifts and deficits of the 2008 presidential hopefuls. By David Brooks and Ben Schott.



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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Forensics Casebook I: Kathleen Savio, Stacy Peterson, the Chicago Cop & Fox's Greta Van Susteren






It's time to take an analytical look at all the components of the case involving former police Sgt. Drew Peterson, whose third wife mysteriously turned up drowned in a dry bathtub, whose fourth wife is missing, and whose second wife is still afraid of him.

This case has been a poster child for the merging of media and investigation. As a long-time journalist and a former security expert, I've been taking a look at the various elements of the coverage of this compelling story.

Unequivocally, the best, fairest, and most consistent coverage has been provided by Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. Her transparent coverage, including her podcasts and her blog, have been a model of how to incisively and competently conduct journalistic business while maintaining a human approach.

Obviously, there's a lot going on in this case. So we're going to look at it in terms of a broad-based forensics, from physical to psychological to sociological. The commentary will necessarily be graphic in some parts, when the autopsy of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio (who left Peterson a millionaire-plus) is discussed.

We'll also take a look at Peterson's actions, his comments about Stacy Peterson, the missing fourth wife, his body language, and his statements during Matt Lauer's good interview with Peterson on the Today show.

I'll be using the LSI Scan technique, pioneered by international expert Avinoam Sapir. The website describes the technique like this:
"....the most effective technique available for obtaining information and detecting deception from statements of witnesses or suspects."

I was privileged to be included in the LSI Scan basic class, and am now enrolled in the advanced class. Sapir has, indeed, developed a technique for analyzing statements that is crisp, scientific, and wholly reliable.

During the interview with Lauer, Peterson made what I believe to be the most significant statement he has yet made. That single statement sums up the fates of both wives.

Caveat: Neither LSI Scan nor Sapir are involved in my commentary. This is simply my use of the technique.

The Peterson cases, which have brought so many tears to so many, actually revolves around water. Kathleen Savio was determined to have drowned, and her first autopsy noted that her hair was wet (yes, there was blood there too)--and her fingers were wrinkled, according to many reports. If her fingers were wrinkled, then at some point she had been submerged in water--in a dry bathtub.

Now to fourth wife Stacy Peterson,.The first place the cops went looking: a small retention pond near the Peterson home. The second place they went looking? Water again.

How did Savio's fingers get wrinkled? And what led police to start their search for Stacy with water?

We'll have more to say about that. Consider this an exercise in "citizen forensics," as we look at the case of the Chicago Cop and the mysteries surrounding his wives. Are we looking at a modern-day Bluebeard hidden behind a blue uniform?

That's the question, I think, that America is waiting to have answered.

A Few Seconds: Airliners Narrowly Miss In-Air Collision

In this case, when a controller made a mistake, a cockpit alert saved the lives of those aboard two aircraft over Indiana. What's even scarier than the near-miss: normally, the planes would have been flying even faster than they were.



For years, air traffic centers have been incredibly under-staffed. They have to fight for every job slot, and every new piece of equpment. It's another example of a crucial government agency which is over-tasked and under-funded.

What is "politics as usual " to the bureaucrats can be life or death to others.



A Chicago-bound jet came within seconds of a midair collision at 25,000 feet over Indiana, but a cockpit safety device alerted the pilots flying the other plane of the danger ahead, officials said Wednesday.


The near collision Tuesday evening was attributed to an error by an air-traffic controller who directed an eastbound Midwest Airlines plane to descend into the path of a westbound United Express jet, according to a preliminary investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.



Real Air Traffic Control

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