Drew Peterson Case: Trial, Hearsay Law, and Appeals

The Drew Peterson case centers on a former Bolingbrook, Illinois, police sergeant who was convicted in 2012 of murdering his third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, convicted again in 2016 of plotting from prison to kill the prosecutor who put him there, and who has never been charged in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. He is serving consecutive sentences totaling 78 years.

Who Drew Peterson Is

Peterson spent 29 years with the Bolingbrook Police Department, retiring in November 2007.¹ He married four times. The third marriage, to Kathleen Savio in 1992, drew 18 police service calls involving custody disputes and mutual battery allegations before the couple divorced in October 2003.² Eight days after that divorce was finalized, Peterson married Stacy Cales, whom he had begun seeing when she was 17 and he was still married to Savio.³

Savio had told people she feared Peterson would kill her. In November 2002 she wrote to a Will County prosecutor saying so directly.³ Friends later testified that Savio said Peterson had held her at knifepoint, choked her, and warned her, “I could kill you and make it look like an accident.”⁴ After the separation, she slept with a knife under her mattress.⁵

Kathleen Savio’s Death

On March 1, 2004, Savio was found dead in an empty bathtub in her Bolingbrook home, face-down with a head wound. She was 40. A court hearing on unresolved property, pension, and child support issues from the divorce had been set for the following month.⁶ The Will County Coroner’s autopsy attributed the death to drowning, a coroner’s inquest ruled it accidental, and no charges were filed.⁷

Peterson, still an active officer, used his position at the scene. The Bolingbrook Police Pension Board later found that he had requested “professional courtesy” from responders, sat in on the police interview of his fourth wife Stacy, and personally arranged the wellness check that led to the discovery of the body by contacting a locksmith while in uniform, a task dispatch would normally handle.¹

Stacy Peterson’s Disappearance

On October 28, 2007, Stacy Peterson, then 23, was reported missing after failing to arrive at her sister’s home. She had told Peterson she wanted a divorce two days earlier, and she had told friends and her pastor, Rev. Neil Schori, that she was living with a murderer and feared Peterson would kill her.² Peterson told investigators she had left him for another man.⁸

Peterson’s stepbrother Thomas Morphey testified that on the day Stacy vanished, he helped Peterson carry a large blue barrel, warm to the touch and weighing up to 150 pounds, from the master bedroom into Peterson’s SUV. When Morphey asked about a smell, Peterson said, “It was in a sealed container,” then drove him home and told him, “This never happened.” Morphey also said Peterson had earlier asked him, “How much do you love me? … enough to kill for me?”⁹¹⁰ Morphey attempted suicide by overdose after the incident.

The barrel has never been found, and neither has Stacy. Illinois State Police have identified Peterson as the only suspect and describe the investigation as active and ongoing, but he has never been charged.¹¹ Her sister Cassandra Cales has continued independent searches, including of a canal in Lockport where she says sonar identified potential remains; police searches have not confirmed her findings.¹² The family considered but declined to seek a legal declaration of death, partly out of concern it could let Peterson collect her life insurance.¹³

Reopening the Savio Case

Stacy’s disappearance prompted Illinois State Police to look again at Savio’s death. A judge signed an exhumation order on November 9, 2007.³ Two independent forensic pathologists — Dr. Larry Blum for the state and Dr. Michael Baden for the Savio family — separately concluded the manner of death was homicide, citing bruises, abrasions, and a scalp laceration inconsistent with an accidental fall.⁶ Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow formally reclassified the death as a homicide on February 21, 2008.⁷

Peterson was arrested during a traffic stop near his home on May 7, 2009. A Will County grand jury indicted him on two counts of first-degree murder. Bond was set at $20 million.¹⁴¹⁵

Drew’s Law and the Hearsay Problem

The initial investigation had produced almost no physical evidence tying Peterson to a crime scene, so the state’s case depended on statements Savio and Stacy had made to others about Peterson’s threats and behavior.¹⁶ Ordinarily those statements would be barred as hearsay.

In 2008, the Illinois General Assembly passed 725 ILCS 5/115-10.6, popularly known as Drew’s Law. It let a judge admit out-of-court statements by a witness the defendant had murdered to prevent from testifying, provided prosecutors showed by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant killed the witness for that purpose, that the statements were reliable, and that admitting them served the interests of justice.¹⁷ The defense argued the statute was unconstitutional, both as an ex post facto law and as a violation of the Sixth Amendment confrontation right.¹⁸

The trial court admitted six statements under Drew’s Law and barred eight others. On appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court found that Drew’s Law was actually more restrictive than the pre-existing common-law doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing, codified as Illinois Rule of Evidence 804(b)(5), which allows hearsay when a defendant has made a witness unavailable and does not require the extra reliability showing. The appellate court admitted the previously excluded statements under the older doctrine.¹⁷ The Illinois General Assembly repealed Drew’s Law in 2015.⁶

The 2012 Trial

The seven-week trial began in July 2012 in Will County before Judge Edward Burmila. Prosecutors, led by James Glasgow, argued Peterson killed Savio to keep her from collecting a divorce settlement that would have caused him financial ruin, involving a $300,000 home and his police pension.¹⁹

Kristin Anderson testified that Savio told her Peterson had held her at knifepoint and said he could kill her and make it look like an accident. Pastor Neil Schori testified that Stacy told him Peterson left the house in the middle of the night around the time of Savio’s death and later coached her on what to say to police. Former co-worker Jeff Pachter testified that roughly four months before Savio’s death, Peterson offered him $25,000 to find someone to “take care of” Savio, and later told him, “That favor I asked you — I don’t need it anymore.”¹⁹

On the forensics, the prosecution argued that a two-inch gash on the back of Savio’s head combined with bruises on the front of her body could not come from a single accidental fall. Defense pathologists testified the injuries were consistent with a bathtub fall. Dr. Gene Neri, who had treated Savio for cervical vertigo, testified for the defense but acknowledged that people with the condition tend to be more careful and less prone to falling.²⁰ Trial testimony also established that on the night of Savio’s death, Stacy saw Peterson dressed in black, putting women’s clothes that were not hers into the washing machine.⁶

The jury found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder on September 6, 2012.³ On February 21, 2013, Judge Burmila sentenced him to 38 years, denying a defense motion for a new trial that argued lead attorney Joel Brodsky had botched the defense.²¹

The Plot to Kill the Prosecutor

At Menard Correctional Center, Peterson tried to have James Glasgow killed. In August 2014, fellow inmate Antonio Smith wrote to Glasgow saying Peterson had asked him to find someone to carry out the murder. Smith agreed to work as a confidential informant, and from November 13 to December 3, 2014, he wore a recording device supplied by the FBI and the Illinois Department of Corrections.²²

On the recordings, Smith told Peterson his “uncle” was ready and asked whether it was a “green light.” Peterson answered, “Go.” He called the planned killing “a nice Christmas present.” Told the uncle had the go-ahead, Peterson said, “OK, all right, I’m in. From the first time we talked about it, there was no turning back.”²³²⁴

A jury convicted him on May 31, 2016, of solicitation of murder and solicitation of murder for hire.²⁵ On July 29, 2016, he received 40 years, to run consecutively with his 38-year murder sentence.²⁶

Where the Appeals Stand

In the Savio case, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the conviction in 2015, and on September 20, 2017, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed both the conviction and the 38-year sentence, upholding admission of the hearsay statements under forfeiture by wrongdoing.⁶

Peterson has since pursued a separate ineffective-assistance-of-counsel challenge, claiming Brodsky refused to let him testify. Co-counsel Steven Greenberg had called Brodsky “delusional, ineffective, incompetent and inept” in a memorandum during the original case.²⁷ In April 2024, a judge ruled Peterson mentally competent to proceed with his motion for a new trial.²⁸

In the murder-for-hire case, Peterson filed a post-conviction petition in October 2021 claiming actual innocence, alleging that he and Antonio Smith had run a “scam” in which they faked the murder plot so Smith could secure a transfer to a federal facility and a reduced sentence. The petition included an unnotarized declaration purportedly from Smith. The circuit court dismissed the claim as procedurally defective, but in December 2024 the Fifth District Appellate Court reversed, finding that Peterson’s post-conviction counsel had failed to remedy the defect, and sent the case back for appointment of new counsel to file an amended petition.²²

Pension and Wrongful Death Fallout

The Savio family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Peterson in April 2009, seeking more than $100,000 in damages.²⁹ The suit was dismissed in 2019 after the family’s attorney failed to appear at two hearings; according to the attorney, Savio’s two adult sons did not wish to pursue the case.³⁰

Peterson had been drawing a police pension of $6,068 per month. On July 7, 2016, the Bolingbrook Police Pension Board terminated it, finding a sufficient connection between his murder conviction and his service. The Board concluded he had used his police training, his relationships with first responders, and his knowledge of evidence handling to commit the killing and avoid prosecution for over a decade.¹

Where Peterson Is Now

In December 2019, Peterson was transferred from a federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, to a state prison outside Illinois.³¹ Now in his early 70s, he is serving 78 consecutive years and faces the prospect of dying in prison. Post-conviction challenges remain pending in both cases, and Stacy Peterson is still missing.

1
Illinois Courts. Peterson v. The Board of Trustees of the Bolingbrook Police Pension Fund
2
The Columbus Dispatch. Peterson Case Timeline
3
Peoria Journal Star. Timeline in Drew Peterson Case
4
ABC News. Drew Peterson Choked Wife, Asked Why Don’t You Just Die, Friend Testifies
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NBC News. Ex-Cop Drew Peterson Found Guilty of Murdering Third Wife Kathleen
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Justia Law. People v. Peterson, 2017 IL 120331
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ABC News. Savio Death Reclassified as Homicide
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A&E. What Happened to Stacy Peterson
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NBC News. Peterson Stepbrother Testifies About Blue Barrel
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NBC Chicago. Peterson’s Brother-in-Law Testifies in Hearsay
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Court TV. Stacy Peterson’s Sister Believes Her Remains Have Been Found
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NewsNation. Stacy Peterson’s Sister Says Found Remains in Illinois Canal
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CBS News Chicago. Stacy Peterson’s Family Won’t Have Her Declared Legally Dead After All
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Time. How Hearsay Evidence Could Help the Case Against Drew Peterson
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ABC News. Drew Peterson Arrested and Indicted
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CBS News. Drew Peterson Threatened Third Wife Kathleen Savio Weeks Before She Died
17
UIC Law Review. Analyzing the Role of Drew’s Law in the Murder Conviction of Drew Peterson
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CNN. Drew Peterson Hearsay Evidence
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ABC7 News. Drew Peterson Murder Trial Verdict
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NBC Chicago. Drew Peterson Murder Trial
21
New Haven Register. Drew Peterson Sentenced to 38 Years for Murdering Ex-Wife
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Illinois Courts. People v. Peterson, 2024 IL App (5th) 220530-U
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CBS News Chicago. Drew Peterson Convicted in Murder for Hire Plot
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ABC7 Chicago. Tapes Played in Peterson Murder-for-Hire Trial
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CNN. Drew Peterson Convicted of Soliciting Murder of Prosecutor
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CBS News Chicago. Drew Peterson Gets 40 Years in Glasgow Murder Plot
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Courthouse News Service. Killer Cop’s Attorney Sues Co-Counsel
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ABC7 Chicago. Judge Rules Drew Peterson Mentally Competent to Stand Trial
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San Diego Union-Tribune. Family of Drew Peterson’s Late Wife Files Lawsuit
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WGN-TV. Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Drew Peterson Dismissed
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CBS News Chicago. Drew Peterson Transferred From Federal Prison to State Prison Outside Illinois