The Drew Dumpster: 0 for 2; One Judge Nixes Guns Returns; Another Ayes Kathleen Savio Estate Changes

The odor from the Drew Dumpster just got a brief blast of air freshener as former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson didn't get his guns back from one judge, but did get a big money change from another--and finally, he faces liability for lawsuits from the family of third wife Kathleen Savio.

Peterson, you may recall, seems to have what he calls "bad luck" with women. Savio, who Peterson dumped after he impregnated a teenager he met on the job, wound up dead, and Peterson wound up with a seven-figure profit. Fourth wife Stacy Peterson, who confessed to a minister that Peterson killed Savio, has been missing for months.

Savio was repeatedly ignored by local authorities even though she had filed multiple abuse reports against Peterson. Despite a plea for help to a prosecutor, and her prediction that Peterson would kill her and get away with it, no one helped Savio, even though Peterson reportedly broke into her home and terrorized her.

A bruised Savior wound up "drowned" in a dry bathtub. Her death scene was one of several that Peterson, swinging his nightstick as a cop, took over when people who had displeased him wound up dead.

In November, 2007, as part of a series on this bizarre case, we told you how easy it is to kill someone and fake drowning. Out of respect to Dr. Baden's work, we held off on publishing that article, and the entire series, including this list of questions that should have been asked about Savio's death, but weren't asked despite her mysterious death.

Not, of course, that Peterson has been charged with anything, even though Stacy Peterson has been missing since November, 2007. Her family has led a sustained effort to find her. Eerily, Stacy, echoing Savio, had warned her family Peterson told her he could kill her and get away with it, because, as a cop, he knew how. His second wife, Vicki Connolly, said the same thing--and that she's still afraid of him.

Thanks to Fox News and expert Dr. Michael Baden, Savio was exhumed and two new autopsies, one by Baden, proved that her death was not an accidental drowning. Earlier this year, Savio's death was ruled a "wrongful homicide." This week, a judge appointed legal guardians for Savio's children, a move that's been long overdue, and changed the executors of the estate to Savio family members.





Really, it's hard to keep up with all the twists and turns in this dirty tangle. A former fiancee told of Peterson stalking and threatening her, using his badge to do so. Peterson was once fired as a cop for, among other things, outing an undercover cop to a known killer.

He was under investigation again for alleged improper conduct when he hastily resigned. Now represented by hoping-for-a-TV-movie mouthpiece Joel Brodsky, Peterson has been playing peep show teaser with the media. He's a regular on media circuits, talking about his "Mr. Mom" duties and oh yea, the women who are hot, hot, hot for this baggy-eyed, paunchy, Lothario of loathing.








However, he won't answer relevant questions about the fate of his wives. Most recently, he and Brodsky, in yet another Charlie McCarthy performance, finally went back to the Greta Van Susteren show--with of course, "no talk" rules.

Peterson bluntly said he'd take the Fifth Amendment if he's called to court in any civil action from Savio's family. Coyly, he giggled and said that he would do and say whatever Brodsky told him to say. Then Peterson, good buddy of media stars, reminded Greta that she's overdue for a tea party with Stacy's daughter.

At least he's still got one weapon: his mouth. But that's all he has, other than his Charlie McCarthy sidekick Brodsky. Peterson has again been blocked from getting his guns back.

Earlier this year, Brodsky asked the court to return Peterson's guns, and place them in the custody of Peterson's Oak Brook cop son. Judge Richard Schoenstedt agreed, if Peterson had a valid Illinois Firearm Owners Identification Card. Authorities immediately revoked Peterson's firearms card.

This time around,Brodsky asked that the weapons be returned to Peterson's adult son Stephen Peterson, an Oak Brook police officer. This dance-around idea, another entry in the growing pile of Brodsky-Peterson weirdness, made no sense. If Peterson needed *a* (not nine) guns for self-defense, then how would they be useful at Stephen his son's house? If he wanted them back because of their monetary value and he wanted them to be safe, why did he and Brodsky believe that police custody was an unsafe place for them to be?

This time, Schoenstedt ruled that the guns were evidence in an ongoing investigation of "possible criminal conduct," The Peanut crew wonders if the discovery of an illegal, hidden weapon at Drew Peterson's home may have swayed the judge about Peterson's reliability.

Not that the public is buying what Peterson is selling. A MediaCurves study of audience responses to Peterson's first interview with Today Show's Matt Lauer on TV showed that the audience believed only one thing Peterson said.

When Lauer asked Peterson if he could present anything that would clear him in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy, or or the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, Peterson said "no." For the record, Peterson has continously said that Stacy ran off with another man--leaving her two children behind with no communication.

The search for Stacy Peterson goes on. Ditto the search for truth and justice for Kathleen Savio, Stacy Peterson, their children, and families.

Searching for Truth: The Peterson Follies

After decades of covering many types of news stories, one thing I've learned is that truth is always stranger than fiction. But even given that axiom, the Drew Peterson case has soared into galaxies of previously unexplored weirdness.

As I write this, the Peterson home is again being searched by law enforcement, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. It's the fourth time the house has been searched--including a sweep by cadaver dogs--since Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, went missing in October.

Meanwhile, attorney Joel Brodsky has alleged that the entire Bolingbrook, ILL police department, where Peterson was a career cop, routinely uses police databases to conduct illegal investigations for personal reasons. Brodsky, who once lost his law license for signing a dead man's checks, declared that his client should be excused for using those databases for stalking his wife (or wives), because everybody does it.

It's the first time I've ever seen a defense attorney admit that his client has committed what Police Chief Ray McGury says is a felony-level offense. McGury, who inherited the entire Peterson mess from his predecessor, told Brodsky to provide details about officers routinely commiting these offenses.

Brodsky, whose media performances have become the equivalent of an amateur rhinestone-spangled trapeze act in a very low-rent circus, fired back that he doesn't have to prove his allegations. Question: what happens if McGury launches an investigation and calls Brodsky as a witness? It would be "put up or shut up" time for Brodsky.

Brodsky, upset over his less-than-stellar showing during Fox News' Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record" last night, fired off a rambling, angry email to the veteran lawyer-journalist. In it, he announced "Secondly, as to the chief’s challenge for me to provide him with the names of people that have misused the databases, and the times of the acts of misuse, this makes no sense."

Let me translate this into everyday terms. "Officer, yes I saw someone rob the jewelry store. Yes, I called you to report it. You want a description of the suspect? That makes no sense."

If this were a circus, the number of smear attempts on everyone in pop-gun firing range and the increasingly bizarre comments spewed by Brodsky and Peterson would be like the rickety, never-ending clown car act.. Just when you think you've seen more nutsy things crawl out of the car than is realistically possible, out pops one or two more.

Theme song for this act: "a little song, a little dance,a little seltzer down the pants."

Meanwhile, the real issues include: what happened to Stacy Peterson, now missing for more than a month after asking Peterson for a divorce? And what happened to third wife, Kathleen Savio, who drowned in an empty bath tub? Presiding at the processing of the "accident"--Drew Peterson, then St. Peterson, who inherited more than one and a half million dollars in various assets.

From money to malice, this story has more twists and turns than a stripper working a pole. There's the truckers who say Peterson and a sidekick tried to bribe an off-the-record load outta town, a suicidal step-brother who's afraid he helped lug Stacy's body out of the home at Peterson's behest, and then the decades of women who Peterson was a stalker and abuser.

Plus Savio's pleas for help, including 18 domestic disturbance calls and a head injury after Peterson knocked her into a coffee table during a fight. And women who say that Peterson bragged he could kill them and make it look like an accident.

Massive searches for Stacy by volunteers, 64 Illinois law enforcement investigators, and the FBI have continued for weeks. Peterson's focus, however, has been his love-hate relationship with the media, from People Magazine's cover to his childish filming of the media to strike back at them.

Then there's Peterson's attempt to derail a prayer vigil for Stacy last weekend. As law enforcement announced a new focus on searching a specific nearby canal, Peterson's still doing the "poor me" soft shoe. His story is that he's an abandoned spouse whose nutsy, "spoiled" wife ran off with another man. Just in case we don't buy that, an anonymous message detailing a sighting of Stacy in Peoria was sent to Peterson--rather than to a tip line offering a $25,000 reward. Afterwards, Peterson made sure he was photographed checking his mailbox.

The archives tell the many tales of Drew Peterson. With questions now being raised about other bodies linked to Peterson, this story, at its core, asks: was there a Bluebeard with a badge on the prowl?

No one really knows yet, just as we don't know what really happened to Stacy or Kathleen Savio. But we do know this: there are four children in a house with a man who at least one ex-wife says was abusive to his older children. The most recent two, of course, are dead and missing.

If this were a play, it would be Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author." As the master crafter of the balance between reality and fiction declared: "Yes, but haven't you perceived that it isn't possible to live in front of a mirror which not only freezes us with the image of ourselves, but throws our likeness back at us with a horrible grimace?

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.