Bill Bickel’s Crimeweek

(Press release, October 28, 2008) Responding to reporters’ inquiries seeking comment on the one year anniversary of Stacy Peterson’s disappearance, Drew Peterson released the following statement:

“There is not a single day that goes by that I don’t think about Stacy, so to me Tuesday is just another day of her being away. I realize this may be a significant event for the media, but it is not for me or my family. I won’t be participating in any vigils. Instead, I am giving one interview and then I will be far from the media spotlight spending quality time with my kids who need their dad now more than ever.

“For those who are concerned about my children, I thank you. But there’s no need for worry. I am taking good care of them though I have to admit acting as both dad and mom takes a lot of work and patience. My son Thomas is first in his class at one of the largest and finest high schools in Illinois. His brother Chris is also doing exceptionally well in school and is involved in wrestling and other activities. My youngest kids, Anthony and Lacy are too young to be in school but both are happy and healthy and adjusting normally.

“I have consistently and steadfastly maintained that I had nothing to do with Stacy’s disappearance and the death of Kathy Savio, my third wife. I hope that Stacy returns home or reveals herself, and that I am one day cleared of any wrongdoing in both cases. Until then, I remain strong thanks in no small part to my family and especially my kids who believe in their dad.”

Media Note: Drew Peterson is not available for further comment. He is scheduled to make only one media appearance on Tuesday on NBC’s Today show with Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira.

• Related Crimeweek articles and additional information

According to a statement Will County (Illinois) State’s Attorney James Glasgow gave to local media this week, investigations into the disappearance of Stacy Peterson (Drew Peterson’s fourth wife) and the apparent murder of Kathleen Savio (Peterson’s third wife) have been “highly productive,” and he expects “a resolution in at least one of these investigations in the near future.”

So far, almost a year after Stacy Peterson’s disappearance (she’s been missing since October 28 of last year), this is what the investigations seem to have produced: Nobody knows what happened to Stacy Peterson, and nobody has been charged in either her disappearance (though Drew has been named “a suspect”) or Savio’s murder.

There are two possibilities here: The first has Drew Peterson, whom just about everybody is convinced is guilty, cheerfully flaunting the fact that he’s gotten away with two murders. He’s being treated by the media as more a celebrity than a suspect, he has a publicity agent handling his new-found fame, and at one point a local radio station staged a “Win a Date With Drew” contest.

The second possibility is that Drew Peterson is innocent; and investigators have been spending a year trying to find evidence against  him, to the exclusion of seriously exploring any other leads.

• Related Crimeweek articles and additional information

(Press release) Even before he did a single interview for the new book Drew Peterson Exposed, author Derek Armstrong insisted that Drew Peterson take a polygraph. He was not the first person to make that request, but he was the only one able to convince Peterson to take one.

That polygraph, which has become the latest twist in the case of Peterson, a former Chicago-area police sergeant accused in the disappearance of his fourth wife Stacy, has been referenced on NBC’s Today show, CBS’ The Early Show, Nancy Grace and many others.

Now Armstrong, who tape-recorded his exclusive conversations with Peterson, is available to talk about the lie detector test, discuss his observations of Peterson and will even release audio excerpts from never-before-heard broadcast quality recordings.

In unguarded moments, in grueling 12-hour sessions, Peterson is heard to say things such as “…post-mortem depression” relating to Stacy and “…She comes up dead or something, they’re going to be looking at me.”

Author Armstrong says, “I had Drew Peterson’s full cooperation in writing this book—unprecedented access he and his lawyer now regret—and spent more time with him than anyone outside his inner circle,” says Armstrong. “Polygraphs, timelines and now audio tapes of unguarded moments with a suspect in a sensational crime allowed me to form an opinion on some important questions. Is he a killer? A sociopath? Can he fool a polygraph?

“The discrepancies in the timeline, the deceptive answers in the polygraph and these audio clips are compelling reasons for him to remain the main suspect.

“I was sort of a fly on the wall and now I’m buzzing.”

• Additional Crimeweek coverage of this case

In an interview televised today on CBS’s The Morning Show, Drew Peterson said he had no idea why three of the questions he answered during a recent polygraph test (taken at the request of Derek Armstrong, author of the upcoming Drew Peterson Exposed) registered as “deceptive”:

• When he was asked whether the last time he saw his wife Stacy was before he went to bed the night before she went missing
• When he was asked whether he knows where she is
• When he said Stacy phoned him after her disappearance to tell him she was leaving her

Analysis of other polygraph questions supported Peterson’s claim of innocence.

• More about this morning’s interview (CBS News article)
• Earlier updates

Nobody knows what happened to Drew Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, who disappeared the last week in October last year. Peterson hasn’t been charged either this case or for the apparent 2004 murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio (see earlier updates). Nonetheless, a second book about Peterson and his wives, Drew Peterson Exposed (by thriller-author Derek Armstrong), hits the bookstores on October 1 (preceded on September 1 by Joseph Hosey’s Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson).

According to a press release from the publisher, Kunati Inc., “we’ve guarded the contents of Drew Peterson Exposed, working under strict non-disclosure agreements …The facts and testimony assembled here presents new evidence, sheds new light on the details of the existing police investigations, the possible timelines, and the motives ascribed to Peterson. Conflicting witness accounts, false leads, widespread rumors, and red herrings that have dogged the case are analyzed and 140 photographs and documents (including many private family photos published here for the first time) go beyond the headlines to the heart of this sensational story.”

Peterson gave Armstrong “many hours of exclusive interviews;” and according to the press release, Peterson reveals for the first time his complete timeline for October 28, 2007, the day he says Stacy disappeared.

According to Joel Brodsky, Drew Peterson’s attorney, the police have an affidavit from a college friend of Stacy Peterson’s — identified publicly so far only as “Mike” — in which he claims to have met with Stacy on October 27 of last year, the day before her disappearance. At the time, she told him that she wanted to leave her marriage, and he advised her to “take the cash money and not use her credit cards to preclude being found.”

Brodsky claims he received a copy of this affidavit during discovery for the gun possession charge against Drew Peterson.

A spokesperson for the state’s attorney would not comment.

Brodsky contends, of course, that this backs up Drew’s claim that Stacy didn’t meet with foul play, but rather left on her own and deliberately covered her tracks. Assuming Mike’s story is true, the alternate interpretation, of course, is that Stacy’s plan to leave was the catalyst for her murder.

Though Drew Peterson has not been charged in either Stacy’s disappearance or for his previous wife Kathleen Savio’s murder, the first book about these cases will hit the stores on September 1:

• Background information and earlier updates

According to the website Drew Peterson’s publicist set up to disseminate press releases about this case — yes, Peterson has had a publicist for several months now, and now there’s a website set up to disseminate press releases about the case — this is Peterson’s version of his neighbors’ claim that they wore wires to record him making incriminating statements (see earlier articles):

After a week of hearing their names on local and national news coverage, Drew Peterson says he wants to set the record straight on the couple referred by the media as his “friends,” “long time friends,” and “close friends.”  These descriptions of Len Wawczak and Paula Stark, he says, are far from accurate and he wants to the record straight, according to his publicist, Glenn Selig. 

Drew Peterson released the following statement:

“I first met Len Wawczak about 16 years ago.  As a Bolingbrook police officer I was involved in Wawczak arrests for multiple various petty offences, such as drunk and disorderly, misdomeanor gun charges, and battery.

“After that, as an officer, I would see Len Wawczak and Paula Stark while I was on neighborhood patrol in my police car. I would stop and talk to them. It was in the capacity of police work, but the contacts were friendly in nature.  I would see Wawczak and Stark about once or twice a month in this capacity, and we would engage in friendly conversation.  However, I never entered their house, and neither Wawczak or Stark ever came to my home.

“After Stacy left, and the Illinois State Police (ISP) towed my cars as ‘evidence,’ many of my police offier friends abandoned me, and the media surrounded my home. At that point Len Wawczak and Paula Stark showed up and offered to let me use their car when I needed it.  They also offered that I could come over to their home to get away from the media, and that they would help me by watching my kids when I needed. I took them up on their offers.  Len Wawczak and Paula Stark suddenly started to come over to my house quite often, and engage me in conversation, and now, looking back,  pretended to be supportive and friendly so they could record conversations to give to police. Len Wawczak and Paula Stark suddenly began to pay a great deal of  attention to my children and put effort into developing a close and loving relationship with the kids apparently in an effort to gain even more access to me.

“Len Wawczak and Paula Stark were never my close friends or long-time friends.  Further, they are people who we now know took advantage of my children and myself when he I was most vulnerable and needed help.”

In response to yesterday’s report that two of his friends recorded their conversations with him between November of last year and June of this year, Drew Peterson said today that he never made the comments they claim he made, and “if they recorded me for seven months it’s going to clear me more than it’s going to hurt me.”

Peterson suggested that since the neighbors, Len Wawczak and Paula Stark are having financial problems — Wawczak is unemploed, they’re losing their house, they’d asked Peterson for thousands of dollars and were angry when he turned them down, and they’d once sold a hat he’d signed and given them on eBay — they might be motivated by the hope of selling their story.

An Illinois State Police spokeman would not comment on whether the tapes exist. Joel Brodsky, Peterson’s attorney, said there’s “no way” the police would allow the neighbors to speak with the media if they had in fact secretly recorded their conversations with Peterson.

Wawczak and Stark are apparently the friends to whom Peterson gave one of his guns before the police seized the other guns in his home (see earlier story). When word of this “missing gun” came to light last month, Peterson and Brodsky denied that any such gun existed. Now Brodsky says that Peterson had indeed given guns to Wawczak and Stark (as well as to other people) after his gun owner’s permit was lifted, and never tried to conceal the fact that he’d done so. (more…)

Len Wawczak and Paula Stark, a married couple and long-time friends of Drew and Stacy Peterson, told the Chicago Sun-Times that last November, a few weeks after Stacy’s disappearance, they grew suspicious of him and agreed to wear surveillance wires to gather information for the police.

The Sun-Times quoted a number of comments Wawczak said that Peterson made, though it isn’t clear whether these are comments that appear on the recordings. Certainly the comment Peterson made in 2004 following the death of his ex-wife Kathleen Savio, in which he mocked the investigators saying “She was in a dry bathtub, what a bunch of f****** idiots,” came from Wawczak’s recollections alone — though it does beg the question of why, when Peterson’s subsequent wife disappeared three years later, it took Wawczak several weeks to begin suspecting him.

After Stacy’s disappearance, after Wawczak began wearing the wire, when Savio’s body was exhumed and a new autopsy determined that she had in fact been murdered rather than drowned accidentally, Drew said “I should have had the bitch cremated. It would have cost me less and I wouldn’t be going through this trouble.”

According to Wawczak. Which might or might not be on the tapes.

Wawczak also told the Sun-Times that Drew “said he wasn’t worried about them finding Stacy’s remains down the road because he figured by that time he would have been tried and acquitted, and you can’t be tried for the same case twice because of double jeopardy or something.”

Stark reports that she was afraid Peterson would discover the wire when he hugged her, tried to kiss her, “rubbing up against me, whispering in my ear, ‘I love you,’” and when he asked her to try on Stacy’s bikinis.

She also claims Peterson asked her to run off with him.

There is either a lot less or a lot more to this latest chapter than is immediately obvious.

• Additional information and previous updates

A former friend of Drew Peterson – the prime suspect in last year’s disappearance of his wife, Stacy Peterson – says that when Illinois State Police searched the Peterson home a few days after Stacy’s disappearance, and seized several guns, they missed one that Drew had hidden. Another friend confirms that Drew sold her a gun this past February, which she believes is the gun in question. That gun was subsequently seized by police after permit was suspended because of inaccurate information.

Drew Peterson, through his attorney Joel Brodsky, denies that any such gun existed.

• Earlier articles and additional information about this case

A new state law, awaiting the signature of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, could impact the Drew/Stacy Peterson case: The law would allow a judge to accept hearsay testimony if it’s proven that the defendant murdered the witness. This is all rather specific, and of course the Peterson case was the impetus for the law.

Under this law, if Drew Peterson is convicted of murdering Stacy Peterson (his fourth wife, missing since October), her comments to her pastor that Drew told her he’d murdered his third wife, Kathleen Savio, could be admitted into evidence in a trial for Savio’s murder.

The questions remain whether this law could be applied retroactively, and whether third-hand hearsay (the pastor would testify that Stacy had told him that Drew had told him…) would even be covered.

On April 30 of last year, Lisa Stebic, a Chicago-area mother of two, disappeared. Before long her husband, Craig Stebic was named — and still remains — a “person of interest.”

In July, Amy Jacobson, an on-air reporter for Chicago television’s Channel 5, who was covering the case, was taking her two children to a local swim club when she ran into Craig Stebic’s sister (with whom she was acquainted), and accepted an invitation for the three of them to swim instead at Craig and Lisa’s home. Rival television station Channel 2 filmed her spending the afternoon with the Stebics (see last year’s article, reprinted below), which led to her dismissal.

Now, almost a year later, Jacobson is filing a million-dollar-plus lawsuit — not against Channel 5 for firing her, but for Channel 2 for filming her and airing the video. The suit alleges that the video subjected her to “enormous public humiliation and disgrace,” and portrayed her as “an adulteress and disreputable reporter.”

The lawsuit does not seem to be holding Channel 2 responsible for the loss of her job: Sources suggest that the swim party was just part of a pattern of unprofessional behavior, such as briefing the police about her contacts with Craig Stebic without informing her producers, so making that claim might be difficult to prove and ultimately embarrassing. (more…)

Police detectives, anticipating its importance as evidence in the eventual trial for the 2004 murder of Drew Peterson’s third wife Kathleen Savio (her death was initially ruled accidental, a ruling that was reversed after an autopsy following the October 2007 disappearance of Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy), have taken custody — from the home the Petersons used to own — of the bathtub in which her body was found.

Peterson is a suspect in both Savio’s murder and Stacy’s disappearance, but hasn’t been charged in either case.

Friday, Candace Aikin, Stacy’s aunt, told a grand jury investigating Stacy’s disappearance that “she wanted out” of her marriage to Drew. This can be spun two ways, of course: To the prosecution, it’s a sign of a bad marriage and a possible motive for murder. To the defense, it’s confirmation of Drew’s claim that Stacy left him, possibly for another man.

• Earlier articles

Shortly after his wife Stacy Peterson’s October disappearance, police searched Petersons home and seized 11 weapons. One of them, according to police, was a semiautomatic assault rifle with a barrel too short under Illinois law, which means a felony gun charge punishable to up to five years in jail (after the arrest warrant was issued earlier today, Peterson turned himself in and was subsequently released on bail).

This weapon is legal for a police officer to own, though, and Peterson was still a police officer — he has since retired — at the time the weapons were seized.

His attorney, Joel Brodsky, suggested that all this was just an attempt to harass Peterson, since authorities aren’t able to prosecute him either for Stacy’s disappearance, or for his previous wife Kathleen Savio’s 2004 death. I’m with Brodsky on this one.

• Previous articles about this case

“[Drew Peterson] knowingly possessed a rifle, namely a Colt model Sporter Lightweight, 223 Remington rifle, Serial #SL025365 with attached EOTech electronic sight, with a barrel less than 16 inches in length.”

Press release distributed by Joel Brodsky, Drew Peterson’ s attorney:
When Stacy Peterson disappeared, the FindStacyPeterson.com blog became a hub for information for concerned family, friends and members of the community.But in the months since, her husband Drew Peterson, a suspect in her disappearance, has complained that the site has done little to find his missing wife, and instead, had become a vehicle to spy on him, discuss plans to harass him, and to reveal his personal comings and goings.

The site, he says, had intruded on his personal life and Peterson filed two complaints against the blog–one with the FBI and one with local authorities.

While the information Web site is still online, the popular blog has now been taken down.

A message on the site reads: We are restructuring our site to become an information based only site. Thank you to all who have have contributed to the forum.

“I’m not certain if the complaints we made caused the authorities to take the blog down or if it was something else,” says Joel A. Brodsky, Peterson’s criminal defense attorney, “but they crossed the line with the site there’s no doubt about it.”

Drew Peterson says he’s pleased the blog has been dropped and he hopes the focus can now shift back to finding Stacy.

“I hope people start focusing on finding Stacy instead of my personal life,” says Peterson.

Peterson says Stacy spoke with him before she disappeared and told him that she was leaving with another man. He says he too can’t understand why she has not been located when so many people are looking for her.

And Peterson now says he is growing increasingly worried and fears someone, perhaps the man she ran off with, has harmed her or is preventing her from making contact.

“I wasn’t that worried for a long time,” says Peterson. “But now I am.”

He says he hoped a $25,000 reward he offered last month for information leading to Stacy’s safe return would’ve produced some productive leads. But it hasn’t.

“My children miss their mother,” says Peterson. “Yes I’m mad that she left me for another man and caused the world to suspect me in her disappearance. But I am now also very concerned.”

He says he hopes that with the findstacypeterson.com blog dismantled, maybe the focus will shift back to finding Stacy rather than wasting time watching his every move.

Based primarily on November’s exhumation and autopsy of Drew Peterson’s third wife Kathleen Savio — which came about because of the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson — a judge has re-opened Savio’s estate. This means that Savio’s family can sue Peterson to recover the proceeds of her estate, which included a million-dollar insurance policy, all of which was awarded to Peterson when her May 2004 death was initially ruled an accident.

Peterson hasn’t been charged in either Stacy’s disappearance (though he has been named a suspect), or Savio’s death.

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March 7, 2008: Divorce attorney Harry Smith said today that shortly before Stacy Peterson’s disappearance (she was last seen October 28 of last year), she consulted him about obtaining a divorce from her husband, Drew Peterson (though she ended up not retaining Smith). This backs up Stacy’s family’s claim that she was going to leave Drew, which sets up Drew’s alleged motive for murdering her.(Of course, a defense attorney could argue that it also backs Drew’s claim that Stacy simply left him)

Why Smith is announcing this more than four months after Stacy’s disappearance is unclear.

Smith represented Drew Peterson’s previous wife, Kathleen Savio, in her own divorce from Drew. Savio had agreed to expedite the divorce so Drew could marry Stacy, who was pregnant at the time and needed to be married in order to benefit from Drew’s medical insurance.

• Additional background information

The inevitable other shoe has dropped: Ellen “Treffly” Coyne is suing the police officers who arrested her for child endangerment, claiming false arrest and malicious prosecution. (more…)

“I wish to personally thank Sharon Bychowski and her son Roy. Their recent public statements, Internet postings, their call for a boycott of Tailgaters tavern, and the fact that they are strategically placing signs in positions to annoy Drew, only proves that they are psychologically obsessed with tormenting Drew, rather than with finding Stacy” -Joel Brodsky, Drew Peterson’s attorney, claiming that Peterson’s neighbors have a “vendetta” against him and that any testimony they might be asked to give about Stacy Peterson’s disappearance will be tainted.

Think what you will about Brodsky — I don’t think there’s any doubt that he seems to be enjoying all this way too much, just as Peterson himself is — but he’s doing one heck of a job spinning this case in the media and assuring that prosecutors will find it difficult if not impossible to find twelve jurors willing to convict his client.

Twenty-three-year-old Stacy Peterson was last seen October 28, and was reported missing by her sister on October 29. Drew is a suspect in her disappearance, but has not been charged.

Bychowski and her son, Roy Taylor, are part of a group calling for patrons to leave Tailgaters, a local bar, whenever Drew comes in.

Divorce attorney Harry Smith said today that shortly before Stacy Peterson’s disappearance (she was last seen October 28 of last year), she consulted him about obtaining a divorce from her husband, Drew Peterson (though she ended up not retaining Smith). This backs up Stacy’s family’s claim that she was going to leave Drew, which sets up Drew’s alleged motive for murdering her.

(Of course, a defense attorney could argue that it also backs Drew’s claim that Stacy simply left him)

Why Smith is announcing this more than four months after Stacy’s disappearance is unknown.

Smith represented Drew Peterson’s previous wife, Kathleen Savio, in her own divorce from Drew. Savio had agreed to expedite the divorce so Drew could marry Stacy, who was pregnant at the time and needed to be married in order to benefit from Drew’s medical insurance.

Savio died in May of 2004 and an autopsy performed shortly after Stacy’s disappearance indicated that she was probably murdered. Drew has not yet been named as a suspect in her death.

• More on Stacy Peterson, Drew Peterson, and Kathleen Savio

Greta Van Susteren of Fox News reports that Drew Peterson and Kathleen Savio’s sons, ages 15 and 13, will testify today before a grand jury investigating Savio’s 2004 death (see earlier stories)

The Drew Peterson/Stacy Peterson/Kathleen Savio case has crossed over to the political arena: In May of 2004, Will County (Illinois) coroner Patrick O’Neil, signed off on the inquest finding that Kathleen Savio’s drowning death two months earlier was an accident. Savio (photo, right) was Drew Peterson’s third wife, whose divorce from Peterson was still being finalized, and a November 2007 autopsy — performed shortly after Peterson’s fourth wife Stacy went missing — indicated that she had in fact been murdered and the murder was staged to look like an accident.

“He could have stopped [the inquest] and investigated it,” charges funeral director and embalmer Chuck Lyons, a challenger for O’Neil’s elected position (though in fact, under Illinois law, coroners did not have this right before January 1, 2007).

• more about Kathleen Savio

“We have been investigating this as a murder since reopening the case in November of last year. We now have a scientific basis to formally and publicly classify it as such.” -Will County (Illinois) State’s Attorney James Glasgow, in an official statement released today.

Kathleen Savio’s March 2004 death was originally ruled an accidental drowning, but he body was exhumed this past November, shortly after the disappearance of Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

Stacy Peterson remains missing. Drew is considered a suspect, but no charges have been filed.

Joel Brodsky, Drew Peterson’s attorney, claims to have received photos from a retired police officer, taken in Thailand, of a woman who resembles Drew’s missing wife Stacy (who has been missing since the last week in October).

Brodsky turned the photos over to Fox News — “exclusively,” Fox News reports — because, you know, why would it occur to him that perhaps the police would be interested?

• Earlier “sightings”

Drew Peterson is seeking a divorce from his wife Stacy, who has been missing since late October and is widely presumed to be dead. This is being reported as “another bizarre twist in the Peterson case,” but… I’d say the bar has been set pretty high for “bizarre twists” in this case, and I don’t see anything all that odd about this report: It’s entirely consistent with Peterson’s claim that his wife ran off with another man.

Meanwhile Peterson’s attorney, Joel Brodsky, is refuting a Fox News report that Peterson has agreed to appear on the Fox Network’s “Moment of Truth” program and submit to a lit detector test. Lie detectors, Brodsky insists, are about as accurate as “coin flips.”

The decomposed body of a woman was found about 2pm today near train tracks in southwestern Chicago. An autopsy is planned for tomorrow (Saturday) morning, and police are not saying whether they believe this is the Illinois woman who was last seen the end of October.

Joel Brodsky, the attorney for Stacy’s husband, Drew Peterson, said to Nancy Grace of CNN Headline News, “I can tell you, it is not Stacy.”