Infamous
Infamous
Infamous
Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
You may be into punk rock, soft rock or classic rock RNB, hip hop, or house country, techno or techno country.
0:16
But no matter what kind of music you listen to, here's something else you should hear.
0:20
Please consider getting vaccinated.
0:22
Talk to your pharmacist today about community COVID-19 vaccine MRN, a this message brought to you by BioNTech and Pfizer.
0:31
I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline drew Peterson convicted of murdering one wife and a suspect in the disappearance of another after 14 years, there are still so many secrets.
0:43
And now drew Peterson is talking again.
0:49
My sister was my love.
0:50
My best friend Stacy told me if anything happens to me, you drew did it.
1:00
Once it Stacy went missing, of course, people start saying, well, wait a minute.
1:03
His other wife died in the bathtub.
1:07
He says, Neil, I've done a lot of bad things in my life.
1:09
I've always do my dad Either.
1:11
He has the worst luck in the world, or he's responsible for murdering two lemons.
1:15
I wanted them to know The truth.
1:17
I was talking to this lady. She's pretty.
1:19
She's pretty. It was almost as if he considered himself like a celebrity.
1:23
It didn't Do
1:25
it. You didn't do what cool Kathleen
1:26
or Stacy disappeared.
1:28
So everybody's making things up.
1:30
A lot of people are, you may be here for the rest of your life.
1:33
Maybe I may not be What
1:36
keeps me going is my love, my heart.
1:38
And I will find her and I'll bring her home.
1:41
And that's my promise.
1:55
Here's Natalie Miralis with infamous.
2:04
I just think about like, is this ever going to end?
2:06
Am I ever going to be able to find her and you know, get the closure I need In
2:13
these murky churning waters, a sister searches for answers.
2:18
Can I keep doing this every day I can. And every day I can afford until the day I die, until I can bring her home Solving
2:24
that mystery would close the circle on a notorious and sensational case.
2:29
The disappearance of Stacey Peterson, It brought the world's attention to a quiet bedroom community outside Chicago and put a megaphone in front of one of his country's most infamous fillings over here, drew Peterson.
2:49
I can sit here. Cry for you with Everybody happy.
2:51
I never covered a story like drew Peterson.
2:52
I don't think I ever will. Again, it was crazy.
2:55
I'm going to come and camp Myself
2:57
in front of your house.
2:58
You Like it. As this thing went further and further, I was shocked that he kept telling jokes.
3:03
And at a certain point you have to wonder, does he really have a lawyer?
3:08
Please leave me alone. Please don't get involved in my little world.
3:15
Why did it take someone to go missing to you to look at this, this isn't, This
3:21
is a cold-blooded murder. I'm really being portrayed as a monster here and nobody's defending me.
3:27
And now more than a decade later from inside prison, drew Peterson agreed to sit down for an exclusive new interview.
3:34
Can you understand why people may have been disgusted by the way you talked about your wives and one of them is missing.
3:41
The other one is dead. Sure, Sure.
3:43
I was being me.
3:44
And if somebody don't like it too bad, Why
3:47
should people do you think have to hear or listen to what you're saying today?
3:53
There's so much that hasn't been heard that everybody on the opposition on the prosecution gets to talk, call me names, say things, and I'm left in a cage.
4:02
And I don't get to say publicly what I need to say, what needs to be said, but Important
4:08
at the heart of it all is the story of two women.
4:12
Two moms whose lives are now forever inextricably linked.
4:16
What happened to Stacy, had everything to do with what happened to Kathleen on.
4:22
And I think that their stories will be forever told together.
4:32
The story began in late October, 2007 in Bolingbrook, Illinois, 30 miles outside Chicago.
4:40
We had dinner. We watched a movie.
4:42
Cassandra kales vividly remembers the last day she spent with her older sister, Stacy Peterson.
4:47
It was just a simple evening in, She
4:52
was going to call me when she woke up in the morning, When
4:57
she said, I'll call you in the morning, That
5:00
never happened.
5:02
It was odd to be sure, but the 23 year old mother had a lot on her plate.
5:06
Perhaps Stacy was just too busy, even for Cassandra, but after waiting hours, Cassandra picked up her phone and dialed Stacy.
5:18
Her phone's never off. I don't care if she's watching the kids or doing anything, she'll answer, Hey, I'm going to call you back.
5:23
And she does what there was, it went to voicemail and that's where I got started going As
5:33
the hours ticked by and still no word from Stacy.
5:37
Cassandra became increasingly alarmed.
5:40
She reached out to other family members like stepsister, Carrie Simmons Right
5:46
away. When she said that she couldn't get ahold of her, we knew something was wrong.
5:49
We all knew how close Cassandra and Stacy were.
5:54
And of course we all felt, you know, the panic and the anxiety of where is she Cassandra
6:01
called Stacey's husband drew a Bolingbrook police Sergeant.
6:04
He said he hadn't seen Stacy since early that morning when he got home.
6:09
After his overnight shift as day turned to night, family friend, Pam Bosco joined the efforts to try to locate Stacy.
6:19
And then it goes into the, the morning hours and stuff.
6:22
We still can find her. And I remember telling Cassandra at that point, you know, go to the police.
6:27
And she, I think she placed the report.
6:30
At that point. She didn't let up she's she went from that morning with me all the way through the next morning, trying to find Stacy Cassandra
6:40
filed a report with the state police and the family fanned out to spread the word.
6:45
Stacy Peterson was missing within days.
6:51
A massive volunteer effort to find Stacey was underway.
6:58
There was just an overflow of people that wanted to donate, wanted to bring in supplies, wanted to help search Searchers,
7:06
blanketed the area.
7:09
We have dozens of people that would come out every day.
7:12
I think we started there in Bolingbrook and then we would pick different places to meet wherever we decided we were searching calming fields and woods and rivers and take the boats and use the dogs.
7:25
As the search for Stacey continued stories began to emerge about her marriage, her much older husband, and one of her husband's ex wives stories that would soon transfixed the country In
7:42
his mid forties. When they met drew Peterson was old enough to be Stacy's father.
7:47
When we come back, We
7:49
are shocked who this man was and how lovey-dovey he was to this girl.
7:53
And he was like, what are you doing?
7:55
Just kind young. And soon, Stacey was playing house in a new apartment.
8:01
Everything that she could dream of. And I'm like, where the fuck did this come from?
8:22
If you found yourself caught in Stacy Peterson's orbit, those who knew her would tell you it was a pretty nice place to be.
8:29
She was very pretty. She was kind, she was gentle.
8:31
She was a loving mother, loving sister.
8:34
So she was just a wonderful person.
8:37
She just had the biggest heart. She would do anything for you.
8:39
Even though she had so much on her plate, she would drop everything and run to help whoever, you know, whoever needed anything.
8:48
But at the end of October, 2007, it was Stacy's family dropping everything in a desperate bid to find her the sense of urgency was almost crippling for her sister, Cassandra.
9:01
I was up for like almost three days and actually had to go to the doctor and they had to give me a shot to get me a relaxed.
9:11
The sisters shared a special bond.
9:13
I know that you guys didn't have it easy growing up, right?
9:17
No, we didn't have any as a grownup at all.
9:19
And you really looked out for each other.
9:23
Yes. Did you guys talk about your hopes and dreams?
9:25
What you wanted someday?
9:29
Not really. It was just surviving that day and you know, are we going to eat?
9:36
Are we going to be fed? You know, Cassandra,
9:41
doesn't like to talk about their childhood.
9:42
Their parents divorced when they were young and Stacy and Cassandra lived mostly with their father, their mother who suffered from alcoholism and depression was in and out of their lives.
9:53
Strangely when the girls were teenagers, she also disappeared.
9:57
And wasn't heard from again, Stacy only 17 months older kept a motherly eye on Cassandra.
10:04
So Stacy was the one who kind of took over that responsibility.
10:09
Absolutely. She was on a mission to be better than what we have.
10:13
We had gone through It appeared that Stacy was well on her way to accomplishing that mission.
10:19
She was preparing to graduate from high school early and was working at a hotel to earn enough money to continue her education.
10:26
And there was someone new in her life, a guy.
10:31
So, sorry. See, my friend drew I'm like who's drew.
10:33
It was just like, oh, he's, he's just a friend.
10:37
And she was only 16. He was, he was 16.
10:39
Yes. Cause I was 15. Yes.
10:43
Cassandra says everything changed.
10:44
As soon as Stacy turned 17 and had graduated from high school, She's
10:49
living in an apartment, fully furnished, leather furniture, everything that she could dream of.
10:56
And then here I am like, where the fuck did this come from?
11:03
No way Stacey could afford such nice things.
11:07
Next thing you know, here comes drew fully uniformed, locking it in like, Hey, I'm drew, Drew
11:12
Peterson, a Sergeant with the Bolingbrook police department.
11:15
They had met at the hotel where Stacy worked at 47.
11:20
He was 30 years older.
11:24
He was old enough to be her father she's little girl. She came to my party, a little ponytails and we are shocked who this man was and how lovey-dovey he was to this girl.
11:35
Drew was twice divorced and his third marriage was imploding.
11:38
He already had four children.
11:40
Two of whom were actually older than Stacy.
11:43
Even his brother, Paul, who was speaking publicly about drew for the first time was struck by how young Stacy was.
11:52
Actually My
11:53
oldest daughter is two months younger than Stacy.
11:56
So for me it was like, what are you doing?
11:59
Y you know, just kind of, you know, What
12:01
do you think attracted her to Just
12:03
stable person? Obviously he's a cop.
12:06
She
12:06
feels
12:08
protected. She was like looking for a father figure, you know, or just, you know, just to be taken care of a little bit.
12:17
Cassandra says drew did take care of Stacy.
12:20
He paid for her furnished apartment among other things.
12:23
But according to Cassandra, what Stacy really wanted was a family.
12:27
And in July, 2003, when Stacy was 19 years old, she and drew had a baby boy, my God Cash.
12:36
Stacy was born to be a mom.
12:39
She pretty much put us all to shame when it came to taking care of kids and stuff.
12:46
Drew and Stacy married that October and redrew his ex wife, Kathleen Savio died suddenly five months later, Stacy adopted the two boys.
12:55
Kathleen had withdrew.
12:56
Were you surprised when Stacy said that she was adopting Kathleen's two boys?
13:03
No, not at all. Stacy Stacy wanted a family, you know, they lost their mom and it's she wanted to be there to comfort them.
13:13
Stacy, Andrew had another child together, a daughter by the fall of 2007, with four kids, a home and a police officer, husband, Stacy.
13:23
Now 23 seemed to finally have what she in Cassandra had longed for.
13:29
And it was just so beautiful.
13:31
Cause we didn't have that growing up.
13:32
We didn't have that happy family.
13:36
And she was building that withdrew. Right?
13:38
But now Stacy was missing and none of it made any sense.
13:43
Stacy's
13:43
family
13:43
and
13:47
friends. Weren't the only ones to think. So local crime reporter Joe Hosey had his own questions about Stacy's disappearance because this wasn't the first time he had reported on something happening to one of drew Peterson's wives.
14:00
At this point, it's just, it's a missing persons.
14:04
It's a missing person and it, but it's the missing wife of a man whose previous wife died under what I consider it extremely suspicious circumstances Coming
14:14
up the mysterious death of the previous, Mrs.
14:18
Peterson, according to drew, Since
14:21
I actually took some sleep pills or something, drinking some wine and you know, on the bathtub When
14:28
Dateline continues, When
14:41
reporter Joe Hosey got the tip, drew Peterson's wife, Stacy was missing.
14:45
His antenna immediately went up.
14:48
I just Knew that they were both married, drew Peterson, and one was dead and one was missing.
14:54
His thoughts went back to a story he'd covered three years earlier for the local paper, the Joliet Herald news.
15:01
This guy's wife died in the bathtub. I think it was told it was suspicious.
15:03
And he's a police Sergeant saw it.
15:05
Yes, exactly. The suspicious death was that a drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, Smart
15:13
family-oriented Connie and Her
15:18
sister Sue Domin she's Is
15:20
overall a good person to never hurt anybody.
15:23
Loved her children to death.
15:26
They were her life Drew
15:29
and Kathleen had split in 2001 after a nearly decade long marriage.
15:33
Kathleen had custody of their two boys.
15:36
Drew took them on weekends and that's how it went until 2004.
15:41
When drew by then married to Stacy and living just down the street from Kathleen, try dropping the boys off after a weekend visit Kathleen didn't answer the door.
15:52
Not that night, not the following day.
15:56
It was probably 9, 9 30 in the evening.
15:58
And drew happened to come down the street and pulled up next to me in the squad car.
16:03
Steve Karsa Rano was Drew's friend and Kathleen's neighbor.
16:07
He asked me to go to the house and he's already contacted her best friend Mary to go to the house.
16:13
He thinks something might be wrong because he's been trying to drop off the kids for the past day and a half.
16:19
Drew said his ex-wife wouldn't want him inside her home regardless of the circumstances.
16:23
So he waited outside.
16:27
When we first walked into the house, it's dead silence in there.
16:31
They went upstairs and into Kathleen's bedroom, saw the unmade bed and they checked the bathroom.
16:38
I was going towards the back of the bathroom and looked into the tub.
16:40
It was Kathy laying there naked.
16:42
Mary came into the bathroom right away and she started screaming.
16:47
Drew came running up the stairs right away, ran into the bathroom.
16:50
First thing he did was check her pulse.
16:53
And then he started screaming out, what am I going to tell my children?
16:57
What am I going to tell my children?
16:58
And very distraught.
17:00
You know, I looked right into his eyes and he got very emotional very quickly.
17:03
And then he called the police department.
17:09
Kathleen was dead.
17:10
Sue remembers getting the call late that night.
17:14
It was by sister, my older sister.
17:16
And she said, Kitty's dead. Kathleen stet.
17:19
We called her kitty Family
17:21
members gathered to grieve everyone with the same question.
17:24
What happened?
17:26
Drew seemed to have the answers.
17:30
They found her in the bathtub and it looks like she drowned.
17:34
Drew told your sister that it was the same story.
17:38
Drew told his brother, Paul.
17:41
Yeah. She took some sleeping pills or something and drinking some wine and you know, found the bathtub Because
17:49
drew was a Bolingbrook police officer.
17:51
The Illinois state police took over the investigation into Kathleen staff.
17:56
What are you finding out from the police and the sources at the time about her death or Wasn't
18:02
finding out much? They weren't saying much.
18:04
Joe heard the same thing. The family heard Kathleen was found naked in her bathtub.
18:09
It appeared she had drowned, but the bathtub was dry and streaked with blood from a wound in her head, the coroner was stumped and so formed an inquest to try to get to the bottom of what happened.
18:22
And they sent this Sergeant to present evidence to the coroner's jury and in no uncertain terms that it was an accident that this wasn't a suspicious, that there was no sign of foul play in the coroner's jury deliberated and came back that it was an accident.
18:37
An accident, Kathleen must have slipped in the tub, hit her head, been knocked unconscious and drowned.
18:44
The tub was dry because the water had slowly gone down the drain in the time it took for her body to be found to the facts of what you're reporting bother.
18:55
You did any of it linger with you that this seems It
19:00
did. I mean, I remember covering stories of children drowning in bathtubs, but never an adult.
19:05
I mean that right there is a red flag that right there you would think would have caused the police to look at it a little closer than they did.
19:14
Joe says his editors didn't share his suspicions and didn't want him to keep digging.
19:18
The story went nowhere.
19:21
I had bosses that were likely to say, it's an accident.
19:23
You know, we're not writing about this anymore.
19:25
That's where it ended.
19:28
But now three years later, Drew's wife, Stacy was missing.
19:31
Joe again wrote about Kathleen's bizarre death linking the two women to drew and each other.
19:39
It wasn't much of a story, but I got it in the paper for the next day.
19:44
It may have been a small story, but it made a huge impact Coming
19:51
up. I was talking to this lady, she's pretty, she's prettier than you.
19:54
The drew Peterson show.
19:55
It was almost as if he considered himself like a celebrity In
20:12
hindsight, it's hard to believe.
20:13
But back in 2007, reporter Joe Hosey, wasn't sure the drew Peterson story had legs.
20:21
The voices that I was working for really didn't, weren't interested in pursuing it, But
20:25
his local paper was owned by the Chicago sun times, which also ran Joe's story.
20:30
This tipped off the national media, which descended on Bolingbroke.
20:36
We're also following the latest developments in the search for a missing suburban Chicago mother, Stacy Peterson vanished after leaving home on Sunday.
20:43
It was wild. I mean, true lived in a cul-de-sac in a subdivision.
20:46
It was packed with satellite trucks and cameraman and reporters.
20:52
It was shoulder to shoulder with media.
20:57
Camera's were soon documenting every aspect of the developing story from the searches for Stacy to marches and vigils.
21:05
We come here, I think United as a family, friends and as a community.
21:10
And they're usually in the background was sister Cassandra.
21:14
She didn't want the attention.
21:16
She just wanted Stacy back.
21:18
You were out helping in the searches and often in the background, but you were always there.
21:23
Oh, I'm Just
21:25
because I'm not on camera doing anything doesn't mean I'm not out searching.
21:29
Other family members were also in the background offering support.
21:32
Drew's brother Paul and Paul's wife, Norma moved into Drew's house to help with the kids.
21:40
We're trying to give them some semblance of normalcy.
21:44
Here's mom and a dad. We're going to take her of you don't mind that everything else is happening around you on this Cul-de-sacs
21:53
full. When reporters and camera crews, All
21:56
of them wanted a glimpse and a comment from drew.
22:01
Where are you? Where the Nike Police
22:05
had searched Drew's home and we're treating him as a person of interest.
22:08
He had spoken to them after Stacy went missing, but was otherwise keeping his mouth shut until one evening.
22:16
When reporters knocked on his door.
22:18
I'm sorry, sir, sir.
22:20
We can't hear you. I'm sorry.
22:23
Never again. Why? One of myself, they have overdue books, Reporters
22:27
strained to hear him as he joked about overdue library books, it was just a preview of the drew Peterson show.
22:35
I want To message you guys. He Resigned
22:37
from the Bolingbrook police department.
22:38
He began holding court in his driveway.
22:43
I can only hear one at a time.
22:45
Okay. But let me, I can't, I can't speed. Listen.
22:46
I know, but Kathleen, while I was talking to this lady, she's precious.
22:50
She's prettier than you From
22:56
day one, Joe, Hosey had a front row seat to Drew's antics.
23:01
It was almost as if he considered himself like a celebrity.
23:03
Like we were all the paparazzi chasing him around because he was famous and not because he was suspected of killing his fourth wife and his third wife.
23:12
I'm pretty well burnt out. I've lost 30 pounds to date.
23:16
So if anybody wants to go on a weight loss program, you could probably eat.
23:19
I need a big time. Where's drew.
23:21
We got them drew. Peter's finally picked up Eric
23:24
Mueller known over Chicago radio waves.
23:28
As the man cow had drew on his popular morning show.
23:32
Are you drew Peterson? And the cowardly lion, we weren't supposed to ask about the murders, you know?
23:37
And I said, well, I asked him stupid stuff.
23:41
What you think of the weather? It's cold.
23:43
I didn't really follow rules.
23:45
Did you kill your Wife?
23:47
No. It seems like every day something new comes out and he has to respond to something.
23:51
Right? Exactly. What are your thoughts about that? Well, I'm waiting for my eighth grade prom date to show up and say it was a bad kisser.
23:56
I don't think I was maybe. I don't know.
23:58
So you folks have a good day True.
24:01
Cause all of his own problems, absolutely.
24:02
Watch this laughing about it and making light of it and join the celebrity of my show and other shows.
24:10
I think it repulsed a lot of people.
24:13
Well, drew was joking around with the media. He made no effort to search for his missing wife.
24:18
There. A lot of people want to know why you're not helping him through.
24:21
People are trying to find out what happened to Stacy, searching for Stacy, trying to, you know, any, any proof of what happened to her, but Drew's there and Drew's acting out Drew
24:33
claim that Stacy left on her own.
24:35
He said she had taken cash in a bikini and abandoned her four kids and husband to start a new life with a mystery man.
24:43
But something didn't add up for sister-in-law Norma, why would you adopt her kid?
24:49
And then often leave all four for another man That
24:53
may not sound.
24:55
It made no sense to the police. Either who continued to investigate drew.
24:58
A family member told them he helped drew remove a large blue barrel from the house.
25:04
The night Stacy disappeared.
25:07
He's convinced that he helped carry Stacey's body down to True's Denali.
25:12
He never saw her body never looked in the barrel, but he was overcome with remorse from having done that Another
25:18
lead police followed Drew's phone record showed it was near a canal just miles from drew and Stacy's home that night.
25:26
There would be no reason for him to be there.
25:28
Stacey's last night that she was seen.
25:30
I know they searched the canal. I know they, they did a extensive dive that turned up nothing Still
25:37
drew was the last person known to have seen Stacy that coupled with his odd behavior in front of the cameras, led police to turn up the heat on drew.
25:47
Drew Peterson has gone from a person of interest to clearly being a suspect.
25:52
That would be enough to make most people stop talking, but not drew.
25:57
There was an investigation as there should be. So it's just like, I'm a suspect officially.
26:01
But I think it was the suspect from the beginning.
26:03
So just because you're the husband, because I'm the husband, One
26:09
family believed it was more than that.
26:11
They had been sounding the alarm for years.
26:13
It was just that nobody cared to listen Coming
26:19
up behind closed doors drew and Kathleen's disaster his marriage.
26:26
I had her by the neck with a knife and he said, I can kill you now.
26:30
And I can make it look like an accident.
26:32
And I will get away with that.
26:34
When Dateline continues, Sue
26:47
Domin was conflicted about the disappearance of Stacy Peterson.
26:50
She knew it was a nightmare for Stacy's family, but she also knew it was an opportunity for the truth to finally come out.
27:00
I saw them searching everywhere and I was hoping that someone would connect the dots.
27:08
She wanted police and the public to look at another case.
27:10
The 2004 death of her sister, Kathleen Savio, Drew's third wife, Sue never believed her sister died by accident.
27:20
And she never trusted drew.
27:24
I didn't never felt comfortable with him.
27:27
She says her sister was dazzled by drew.
27:28
When they first met in the early nineties, She
27:31
said, look, he's a police officer.
27:33
He's a good guy. And he treats me good.
27:35
I mean, it was everything that a woman would want more.
27:39
And how soon before they got Married?
27:41
I would say six months.
27:43
It was very fast.
27:46
The couple had those two boys later adopted by Stacy and moved into this house in Bolingbrook, drew, charmed neighbors like Steve Karsa.
27:54
Rono Joe came over to our house and said, you know, if there's anything that I ever need in his garage, a lawnmower tool, anything, his garage is always open to me.
28:04
So I thought that was very nice.
28:06
Very nice. Eager to please.
28:08
That was drew Peterson, except Sue says when Mr.
28:12
Nice guy morphed into Mr.
28:14
Hyde using insults to manipulate Kathleen.
28:19
He would say that she's she's crazy.
28:21
She's looking like a dog.
28:22
She was ugly.
28:24
She wasn't a good mom.
28:27
Soon. The cutting words became heated arguments.
28:29
Drew's brother and sister-in-law Paula, Norma Peterson.
28:34
They were always fighting like cats and dogs.
28:35
You saw it first to side firsthand.
28:38
They were always managed other and it was always talking to The
28:43
end of the nine year. Marriage came one day in 2001, it came in the mail.
28:49
You called me. And she said, I got a letter.
28:51
And it said he was having an affair.
28:54
And she was a laughed in stock.
28:57
The anonymous letter included this shocking tidbit.
28:59
Drew's other woman was still in her teams.
29:03
The thing that really stood out with Kathleen was that she was the baby.
29:08
She said, I don't understand why he would do this.
29:14
Come to find out that was Stacy.
29:16
Right? Right.
29:18
Stacy, the future, Mrs. Peterson, Kathleen demanded a divorce, the house and half of Drew's pension.
29:26
He okay. The divorce, not the terms.
29:29
Kathleen stood firm.
29:31
She was a fighter.
29:33
She wa you know, she wasn't gonna give up.
29:36
She wasn't gonna let him win.
29:37
She felt like she had the truth on her side.
29:40
When Stacy became pregnant, Kathleen did make one concession, a divorce that allowed drew to remarry.
29:47
While lawyers worked out the finances, things only got worse.
29:53
She would call me and say, he would be watching her.
29:56
How was he watching her? He would Spire
29:58
house and slow down and look out the police window.
30:03
Kathleen said drew was intent on terrorizing her.
30:06
Sometimes the fights turned violent when he stopped by, she told her sister that drew even sneaked into her house and threatened.
30:14
He had her by the neck with the knife and he said, I can kill you now.
30:20
And I can make it look like an accident.
30:22
And I will get away with That.
30:23
And did she tell you that?
30:26
Oh, she was hysterical. She called the police and he denied the whole thing Still.
30:32
She says, Kathleen kept calling Bolingbrook police.
30:35
After every confrontation drew, an officer was never arrested.
30:41
The, got to be aware the police would come over and they would just take drew in the corner in India would say, how's your day going into this and that.
30:48
She's crazy again. Here we go again.
30:50
They didn't take it seriously.
30:53
In fact, after one fight, it was Kathleen who was charged with domestic battery.
30:58
The record was later expunged.
31:00
A police spokesman told the associated press that officers had followed proper procedure.
31:06
But
31:06
then
31:06
Kathleen
31:06
was
31:06
found
31:06
dead
31:06
in
31:06
her
31:10
bathtub. Sue thought there would be a criminal investigation.
31:13
Instead that inquest found Kathleen's death was an accident.
31:18
When you heard that news, what did you think?
31:21
Oh my God. Oh my God.
31:23
I can't believe this is happening.
31:26
She refused to give up pestering those in power to look at the case.
31:30
Again, He got tired of me, the boom Brook police department and told me if I continued on with this, that I would be charged.
31:40
The police told you that. I mean, you're just asking for answers.
31:44
I bothered them and try to convince them that he pretty much said that he would kill her and get away with it.
31:50
Bolingbrook police spokesman said he had no knowledge of Sue's calls.
31:53
He said the department did not investigate Kathleen's death and would have referred any requests to state police.
32:00
The bottom line Sue says is that neither she, nor her sister ever felt heard.
32:06
Now Stacy was gone.
32:09
And now Sue, wasn't the only grieving relative who wanted investigators to take a long, hard look at one of their own drew Peterson Coming
32:21
up, another gathering storm.
32:24
They happened to catch a glimpse of approves.
32:26
And I'm like, what happened? What drove pushed me up against that, that TV and Stacy shares a secret.
32:34
She just blurted out.
32:36
She said he did it.
32:51
Norma Peterson had seen it. Her brother-in-law Drew's marriage to third wife, Kathleen Savio was a disaster.
32:57
Their breakup worse, which is why Kathleen sudden death never sat.
33:04
Right? So now you're going to come and tell me that there is a 40 year old woman who drown in and drive out the two weeks before you guys were supposed to settle everything in court financially, it just seemed just too convenient for me.
33:22
Then she saw the past repeat itself with Drew's next wife, Stacy, his need to control.
33:28
How early on in their marriage did she confide in you?
33:33
The problems that they were dealing with?
33:36
I knew that they were having difficulties. She didn't hide any of that.
33:39
He would just call her incessantly one time when we were out and I answered the phone and I finally just told him we're out, we're having a girl's day out.
33:50
She saw signs of violence And
33:52
to catch a glimpse of a bruise. And I'm like, what happened?
33:55
What drew pushed me up against that, that TV At
34:00
the time, Norma didn't report her concerns to police because she didn't think they do anything.
34:04
Cassandra says she didn't call them either.
34:07
For the same reason, I
34:09
remember sitting on the couch. One time she came flying out of the room backwards and landed on her back.
34:13
He threw her, he like shoved her.
34:18
Eventually Stacy sought help for her troubled marriage.
34:22
Stacy approached me after one of our church services.
34:24
And she said, Neil, I believe that you're the counseling pastor here at the church.
34:29
Right? Pastor Neil Schori says he began counseling drew and Stacy, one day he says drew approach.
34:37
He goes, what'd you ever do a ride along with me and my police car?
34:39
And I said, yeah, why not?
34:42
He says, drew drove them around, made small talk.
34:45
Then got to the point.
34:48
Yeah. You know, I really wanted to talk to you about Stacy heals.
34:51
She really gets crazy.
34:53
Well, you know that time of the month.
34:56
And I just, he could see my displeasure with this.
35:01
I, I, it felt so disrespectful.
35:05
The pastor tried to change the subject.
35:06
He asked drew about his faith.
35:08
He says, drew replied that he wasn't really.
35:12
And he says, Neil, I've done a lot of bad things in my life when I said, yeah, I mean, we, we all have drew.
35:17
He sort of looked off into the distance, looked like he went somewhere and he said, Neil, well, the difference is I've never felt bad for anything I've done in my life.
35:28
And I just thought that's, that's it the way he said it was so absent of emotion.
35:36
And I just knew, don't ask him another question.
35:41
The pastor's last conversation with Stacy was an August, 2007, two months before she disappeared, she asked to meet something urgent.
35:52
And I got there. She was already sitting there outside at a cafe, just like this.
35:55
And she looked concerned and she was quiet.
35:59
And then very suddenly she just blurted out.
36:02
She said he did it.
36:04
I
36:04
said,
36:04
Stacy,
36:04
he
36:04
did
36:08
what? And she said, drew killed Kathleen.
36:12
Stacy told the pastor what she knew about that night in 2004, she said, drew came home late.
36:18
At first. He wouldn't say where he'd been.
36:20
But eventually she said, he told her enough to make it clear.
36:24
He had just murdered his ex wife.
36:27
Did she want you to go to the, She
36:31
certainly didn't want me to cause I asked her and she said, I don't want you to do anything with my story.
36:36
I just want you to know.
36:37
I think things were really dire for her by that point.
36:41
And I think that she probably sensed that she was in grave danger.
36:47
It was the last time he saw her just before she disappeared.
36:50
Stacy also confided in her sister Just
36:55
looked up at me and she goes, how do you feel about me getting a divorce?
36:58
And that's when she told me if anything happens to me, drew did it.
37:06
Days later Stacy vanished her pastor immediately thought the worst.
37:12
I absolutely know in my heart what happened to her?
37:15
I believe that drew killed her.
37:20
He knew he had to tell someone about his last conversation with Stacy, her story about Kathleen's death.
37:25
He called a police tip line.
37:29
Oh my gosh, good. I finally get to tell this story.
37:31
So I called them two different times and I left voicemails.
37:36
Nobody ever came to question, you know, nobody, Nobody
37:38
did anything Until
37:41
fate intervened days after Stacy vanished, the pastor was serving on a grand jury, hearing evidence in a series of unrelated cases before the court, an officer with the state police took the stand and referenced drew Peterson.
37:55
And I knew I wasn't supposed to, but I raised my hand and I said, excuse me, excuse me.
38:01
That stopped. The hearing. The pastor met with the officer in the hallway, told his story and eventually went down to the station to make a formal statement.
38:11
I remember writing out my testimony and then I had a video interview.
38:15
And so I definitely knew at that moment, they finally had taken it seriously.
38:21
It was time to unlock the past and on earth, the truth Coming
38:28
up, leaks in the bathtub theory of Kathleen's death.
38:32
As soon as we pulled the pictures of her in the bathtub Were
38:35
like, this is wrong. I don't know of any case where a healthy middle-aged adult has ever drowned in a bathtub.
38:42
When Dateline Continues,
38:46
Take coloring your hair at home to the next level with Madison Reed made with ingredients, you can feel good about Madison Reed, radiant hair color is the winner of the 2021 allure best of beauty award.
38:56
And it's been used by over 2 million women.
38:58
What's amazing is that Madison Reed hair color doesn't smell at all.
39:02
And that's because it's ammonia free and made with ingredients.
39:04
You can feel good about want some guidance from experts.
39:07
You can call or chat with the colors online or take an online color quiz, answer a few questions.
39:12
And the Madison Reed colors will recommend the best shade for you.
39:15
Madison Reed even has a virtual try-on tool.
39:18
So you can see yourself in different shades of hair color, whether you're desperate to cover grays or just want to try a new whew.
39:23
Madison Reed offers over 55 gorgeous shades to choose from.
39:27
Get ammonia free, multidimensional hair color delivered to your door.
39:30
Visit madison-reed.com.
39:31
That's M a D I S O N dash.
39:35
read.com and Dateline listeners get 10% off plus free shipping on your first color kit with code Dateline that's code Dateline at madison-reed.com.
39:47
Hello, It's Al Roker from the today show and I want you to have the best holiday season ever.
39:51
So join me on my podcast, cooking up a storm.
39:54
I get together with some friends of mine, like celebrity chefs on a garden, Marcus Samuelson and more talking about their favorite family traditions and whipping up their secret recipes for a delicious holiday feast.
40:05
So grab your apron and your appetite and let's get ready to celebrate the hardwood.
40:11
The season is here, listen to cooking up a store without broker.
40:14
Now Jim
40:25
Glasgow remembers when it happened when everyone started buzzing about drew Peterson and the strange case of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
40:36
At what point did you learn of Kathleen Savio, his death?
40:40
Well, that would have been in 2007 when Stacy disappeared, ASCO
40:46
is the state's attorney for will county, but he wasn't an office when Kathleen died in 2004, You
40:52
have to understand it. It was tucked away as an accident.
40:54
So nobody mentioned it or even knew about it in my administration.
40:59
So once Stacy went missing, of course, people start saying, well, wait a minute.
41:04
His other wife died in the bathtub And
41:08
hearing that died in the bathtub.
41:10
I, well, first of all, I don't know of any case where a healthy middle-aged adult has ever drowned in a bathtub.
41:19
The prosecutor called in the old photos taken the day Kathleen's body was found.
41:24
As soon as we pulled the pictures of her in the bathtub, we're like, this is wrong.
41:27
Something's very wrong here.
41:30
Starting with the tub itself and looking at the size of this tub.
41:33
I mean, pretty small.
41:35
It's 22 inches wide at the bottom and 40 inches long.
41:40
So think about 22 inches.
41:42
I mean, it's like this. I mean, it's just just enough to barely fit in there.
41:47
Almost. He found it hard to believe anyone could have drowned in a tub that size or even slipped in it.
41:55
I had an opportunity to sit in the tub myself, how tall are you?
41:58
Well, I'm six foot, but, but I sat there and my knees were in my face.
42:03
So if you were standing up in this tub and you went to slip, your front foot would almost immediately hit the front of the tub and stop your fall.
42:14
But if Kathleen had fallen, the prosecutor would at the very least expect to see nearby soap bottles knocked over.
42:21
He did it.
42:23
You see all these toiletries, nothing has been disturbed.
42:25
So if you have a violent fall backwards, you're going to see that vendor was Or
42:31
have bloodstains inside the tub.
42:33
In 2004, investigators believed Kathleen hit her head, fell unconscious and drowned as blood oozed from her wound, the water drained away.
42:42
But the blood remained that didn't make sense to Glasgow.
42:48
That shouldn't be there. If it's filled with water, the blood is going to dilute into the water.
42:52
And by the time it drains out because the plug isn't a hundred percent, then you're not going to see blood stains on the bottom of the tub.
43:01
The position of her body also bothered him.
43:03
Her feet pushed against the side of the tub.
43:05
He thought that odd for a drowning victim here, it's like almost like there was a struggle.
43:12
And then she was, And then she's forced into that position.
43:15
Whereas when you're floating, you wouldn't there'd be no forest.
43:17
She would just come to rust. We've handed out the petition for exclamation.
43:21
That was filed today.
43:24
Later, he was in front of TV cameras saying he wanted a new autopsy performed on Kathleen Kathleen's family gave him the go ahead.
43:32
We were very, very fortunate to have a state's attorney.
43:36
Jim glass call. A very strong man wouldn't give up was very determined.
43:44
Two weeks after Drew's fourth wife, Stacy vanished workers exhumed the body of his third.
43:49
Kathleen, the pathologist's got to work.
43:53
He was able to show that there were no bruises on the backs of her arms, where if she fell backwards, you have a natural instinct to flail your arms and no bruises on her.
44:03
Back around her buttocks Undercutting,
44:05
the original finding that Kathleen had fallen just before her death, but there were bruises.
44:13
She had 16 other fresh bruises on all four planes of her body, Including
44:19
her collar bone.
44:21
There was the two bruises to her clavicle, identical bruises here in here.
44:26
How do you get those? Nobody's going to come up and punch you.
44:28
You know, in the clavicles, the Prosecutor
44:31
was convinced. Kathleen had not died by accident and she had not drowned in that tub.
44:38
And these two bruises would line up with the edge of the toilet rim.
44:41
If you put somebody's face into the toilet, He
44:45
said the bruising on Kathleen's body spoke of a struggle, her resale and overcoming, and then drowning her in the toilet.
44:52
She was likely placed in the tub and hit over the head to make it look like an accident.
44:57
You knew right away, she had been murdered and he had a pretty good idea who the killer was.
45:05
The prosecutor was building a murder case photo by photo story by story.
45:11
But then someone else was also building a case for all to hear Coming
45:20
up. Didn't you Kill
45:22
your wife, Stacy? No.
45:24
So where is Stacy?
45:26
I'd be looking at a beach.
45:28
What do you mean?
45:30
A beach somewhere, somewhere warm.
45:45
The state of Illinois was zeroing in on drew Peterson in late 2007.
45:48
Police called him a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance Because
45:54
I'm the husband.
45:55
I'm the husband.
45:57
He always looked at the husband. So While
45:59
a prosecutor was eyeing him for the murder of his third and looking harder every time drew mugged for the cameras.
46:08
I mean, obviously it was a tell to me that this is not an innocent man and he wasn't showing any remorse, But
46:14
drew couldn't stop. The worst things got the more he talked, including right here to us.
46:21
He sat down that November with today's show co-anchor Hoda, copy Veta, Dateline correspondent.
46:26
It's been a couple of weeks now since your wife went missing, correct?
46:30
He pretty much shrugged.
46:32
When it came to finding Stacy, I'd
46:35
be looking at a beach.
46:36
What do you, what do you mean?
46:38
A beach somewhere, somewhere warm, or You
46:41
think she ran off with someone and is just Enjoying herself on a beach somewhere.
46:44
I believe that, but I'm guessing.
46:48
He said he had no idea why she took off.
46:50
You didn't see the point in shedding.
46:52
Any tears dishing, the dirt that he could do.
46:58
Stacy was spoiled. Stacy wanted it. She got it.
47:00
I mean, she wanted a boob job. I got her a boob job.
47:02
She wanted to tell me talk. She got that.
47:04
Stacey love male attention.
47:05
And we did all these repairs on her and she wanted, she got it.
47:10
And what had become a pattern? He repeated offensive comments about her.
47:14
Once he'd already shared with pastor Neil Schori and other reporters, Stacy
47:20
was on an emotional roller coaster for a month, a month.
47:24
And I'm not trying to be funny here, but it seemed to go with her menstrual cycle if she was PMs and she wanted a divorce.
47:32
And if she wasn't, everything was good and romantic and happy Reporter
47:36
Joe Hosey Drew
47:38
had his own narrative where, you know, Stacy was depressed and she was medicated and erratic.
47:43
And it wasn't about him.
47:47
Drew didn't have anything kind to say about his ex wife, Kathleen, either.
47:51
She was easy, easily agitated and more demanding.
47:53
And When you say easily agitated, what do you mean?
47:56
She would snap Quickly
47:58
As for her death in that bathtub.
48:00
He didn't think it was so suspicious.
48:03
There was talking to the police department that it was done so well, it looked like it was staged.
48:07
It was like someone who knew what they were doing.
48:10
Okay. That I'm sure people will say that.
48:13
And people would say, who else would know better than you when you're a police officer with many years on the force.
48:18
Sure. What do you say to that? So
48:19
I didn't do it.
48:21
Who do you think might have been? I don't know.
48:23
And I don't know if it wasn't an accident.
48:27
If he was guilty of anything here, he said it was choosing the wrong woman more than, And
48:33
once I want you to be a hundred percent honest with me, okay, I'm gonna lie to you.
48:37
I want you be a hundred percent honest. Seriously?
48:38
Did you kill your wife, Stacy?
48:43
No.
48:43
What
48:43
about
48:43
your
48:46
wife? Kathy. Did you have anything to do with the death of Kathy?
48:50
Nothing. Nothing at all? Nope.
48:52
Someone said either you're guilty of both of these, or you have the worst luck in the world.
49:00
You just happen to marry two women.
49:04
One is missing in one who's dead.
49:06
Correct? Which is you just have bad luck.
49:09
I guess this is bad luck.
49:12
Drew Peterson the victim.
49:13
It was a theme he returned to the following year.
49:17
When he sat down with us again, by this point, a new autopsy revealed Kathleen's death.
49:23
Wasn't an accident.
49:24
It was a homicide drew.
49:27
Didn't buy it.
49:29
I don't get how someone who's healthy.
49:31
Able-bodied dies in a bathtub.
49:34
Well, it happens. And everybody says it's impossible.
49:36
But I guess if you look at statistics from the national safety council, it shows that people do that in the bathrooms.
49:47
You also didn't buy that story from pastor Neil Schori.
49:50
He said he never confessed anything to Stacy about Kathleen's death.
49:56
Tell me, just ask you flat out then. Did you ever tell Stacy that you killed Kathleen?
50:00
Never. Never. So if she told her, her preacher that she was telling a lie, If
50:06
she told them, they asked she was lying.
50:08
That's right. He said, Stacey was a liar and a cheat.
50:11
She had run out and left him in a world of trouble.
50:14
He had no choice, but to defend himself And
50:19
the longer she's gone, the more he seems to relish the attention.
50:24
I mean, he's on national television, criticizing his data and missing wives.
50:31
I mean more than anything, it just, it was hard to believe.
50:36
Do you enjoy all of this?
50:38
The television interviews, the attention, the drew.
50:41
Can I talk to you Sometimes?
50:43
Sometimes I do.
50:45
Sometimes I don't. What do you like about it?
50:47
I get to go to New York. I get to go to Hollywood and I get to meet famous, exciting people like yourself, just the traveling.
50:55
And I don't like the constant looks in the stores and stuff.
51:01
You know, that type of thing.
51:03
Are you a good con? Am I a good con?
51:05
I believe I can't be. Yeah, but I'm that kind of anybody about this?
51:10
So how do, how does one know when you're counting and when you're not, if you're good at it, The
51:15
guest should though, For more than a year, while investigators plugged away, drew Peterson spent his days telling everyone he was innocent And that the world just had to believe him.
51:28
But those days were numbered Coming
51:32
up a sister's desperate call What'd
51:36
you do to my sister matter Thing
51:38
and drew Peterson's bizarre.
51:40
Walk of shame when Dateline continues Despite
51:59
drew Peterson's claim that Stacy was probably sitting on a beach somewhere.
52:03
Her sister Cassandra continued to look elsewhere.
52:06
She focused on the dirty murky waters of a canal, a few miles from drew and Stacy's house where it had been widely reported.
52:14
Drew might have been that night.
52:17
This particular waterway was where Drew's cell phone was pinging.
52:21
So there's many thoughts that she was thrown in the canal.
52:26
Cassandra believed her sister's body was here somewhere.
52:30
She told me that if something happened to her, that drew did something to her, that drew did it and to find her.
52:39
So that was Cassandra's mission. Find Stacy, even after police stopped searching the waters, volunteers, some on the force stepped in to help her.
52:49
She was able to get sonar equipment to scour the muddy bottom of the canal in several places in a different time, she says sonar picked up images of what looked like a body.
52:59
She was convinced it was Stacey.
53:02
Police were not.
53:05
Or when stuff shifts and moves It's
53:07
are you afraid? You may never really know the answer.
53:11
Oh, I'm going to know the answer because I'm not going to stop.
53:15
And then one day in 2009, her mounting frustration turned a fury.
53:20
When she turned on the radio.
53:23
Well, different things happen through our, I
53:25
just stopped what I was doing. And I said, forget this.
53:28
It was drew joking with his go-to radio host, the guy known as the man cow and hearing him there on the radio show.
53:38
And he's joking with the DJs and it's just disgusting.
53:43
You're called in. And they're waving to me, you know, with a note Stacey sisters on the phone.
53:49
Well, of course I want to hear from her. What's it about you drew what'd you do to my sister fact, you killed her after she got off the phone in a state police know where you were and what you did, you will pay Drew.
53:58
Didn't want to hear it.
54:00
His attitude was hang up on her annoyed bored.
54:05
Take
54:05
another
54:07
call. That was Drew's reaction.
54:11
Just a few days after Cassandra confronted him, drew Peterson was making news again.
54:15
And we begin with the arrest of former Illinois police officer drew Peterson, drew Peterson was arrested, not in connection with Stacy's disappearance, but for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, three years earlier, prosecutor, Jim Glasgow knew this would be no slam dunk.
54:36
When I went to indict this case, 10 of the 12 attorneys that were with me said, don't do it.
54:41
Why They didn't approve It.
54:44
And I knew we could.
54:45
I just knew we could.
54:47
And so we went ahead.
54:52
Normally this is the walk of shame where the accused shuffles along head down, ignoring reporters questions, but not in this case.
55:00
When reporters shouted questions to Peterson, his face lit up as he joked about his current situation, Odd, bizarre, it appears it was just drew being drew.
55:15
And within no time, even from jail, he was out there again for all to hear drew.
55:23
Did you call it collect real Y
55:25
from the will county adult detention facility in Joliet, Illinois.
55:29
And how are things even behind bars? Drew Peterson continued to call into talk radio.
55:34
I think I asked him if he gets clear of all this what's he going to do?
55:37
And you know, he was enjoying the show biz side of this.
55:41
And I think he said, well, I'd like to try, stand up.
55:43
And I saw, go ahead.
55:46
He
55:46
did
55:46
some
55:46
of
55:46
the
55:46
jokes
55:46
on
55:46
the
55:52
show. Some of them were, I mean, just they're there.
55:57
They're cringe-worthy it's just creepy.
56:00
It's just weird, man.
56:01
This guy is sitting in jail.
56:03
Calling are still true, brother. These are strange days we live in.
56:06
Okay. And the fact is it doesn't matter what you've done anymore.
56:10
He was famous. Oh no, he was better than that.
56:13
He was infamous Peterson's
56:15
lead attorney. Joel Brodsky also was not one to shy away from the media.
56:20
I might need a job.
56:21
The
56:21
radio
56:21
host
56:21
says
56:21
reporters
56:21
hung
56:21
on
56:21
his
56:21
every
56:26
word. In my opinion, the lawyer, Joel Brodsky was interested in promoting his name.
56:31
Everybody knows his name in Chicago. Now we didn't, before it worked, Peterson
56:36
now had a whole team of defense lawyers.
56:38
Attorney Steven Greenberg was the last to join and says he had a very different approach to drew speaking with the media.
56:46
Once I was in the case, there was no more of the shenanigans.
56:49
There was no more calling the media or speaking to them As
56:54
both sides got ready for trial.
56:55
Prosecutors faced a major hurdle.
56:58
They wanted to use witnesses to recount things, both Kathleen and Stacy said to them about drew it's called hearsay testimony, but it's rarely allowed.
57:09
Drew Peterson knew from being a policemen, is that that would be a hearsay statement that would die with the victim Prosecutor.
57:16
Jim Glasgow was going to challenge that It
57:20
was just a waiting game. And I thought, if it's not going to be allowed, what are we going to do?
57:26
I didn't know what would happen next.
57:31
Coming up, did the missing Stacy help get justice for Kathleen?
57:37
She gave me details about the night that Kathleen died.
57:39
Drew came back into the house, wearing all black And
57:43
the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a courtroom.
57:50
Take coloring your hair at home to the next level with Madison Reed made with ingredients, you can feel good about Madison Reed.
57:56
Radiant hair color is the winner of the 2021 allure best of beauty award.
58:00
And it's been used by over 2 million women.
58:02
What's amazing is that Madison Reed hair color doesn't smell at all.
58:05
And that's because it's ammonia free and made with ingredients.
58:07
You can feel good about want some guidance from experts.
58:10
You can call or chat with the colorist online or take an online color quiz, answer a few questions.
58:15
And the Madison Reed colors will recommend the best shades for you.
58:19
Madison Reed even has a virtual try-on tool.
58:21
So you can see yourself in different shades of hair color, whether you're desperate to cover grays or just want to try a new hue.
58:27
Madison Reed offers over 55 gorgeous shades to choose from.
58:30
Get ammonia free, multidimensional hair color delivered to your door.
58:34
Visit madison-reed.com.
58:34
That's M a D I S O N dash.
58:39
read.com and Dateline listeners get 10% off plus free shipping on your first color kit with code Dateline that's code Dateline at madison-reed.com.
58:50
Roseanne Boyland hated politics.
58:51
She was shy and sweet and rarely left her home in Georgia.
58:56
But then she went to the Capitol on January 6th and never made it back.
59:01
This is American radical.
59:04
The unbelievable, true story of how one woman became a foot soldier in one of the most dangerous movements in America.
59:11
There's Coming out of her nose.
59:13
Her face is blue. Her body is blue.
59:15
One guy saying you killed her.
59:17
You can American radical the MSNBC original podcast series search for American radicle, wherever you're listening and follow Time
59:39
did not diminish the media hunger for drew Peterson.
59:42
As he went on trial for the murder of his ex wife, Kathleen, This is a complicated case.
59:47
I think that the media circus makes it harder for everybody in a case like this Defense attorney, Steve Greenberg, I think It's harder for jurors to acquit somebody where the public so overwhelmingly, wants to see that person convicted.
1:00:03
And there's no doubt that the public certainly wanted drew Peterson to get convicted.
1:00:10
It had been eight years since Kathleen Savio died and five years in Stacy went missing and prosecutors had won a big pretrial victory.
1:00:18
After the court made an unusual ruling.
1:00:21
It said the state could use hearsay witnesses to tell the jury what Kathleen and Stacy told them about Peterson prosecutor.
1:00:30
Jim Glasgow's strategy would rely heavily on that.
1:00:33
But first he would paint a portrait of drew Peterson as a controlling and violent husband.
1:00:40
He had a number of incidents, went through where he was very physical with her.
1:00:44
And then there was another time where he broke into her house and put a knife to her neck, Kathleen
1:00:50
sister, Sue recounted, some of those incidents.
1:00:52
And you told them about all the times you heard your sister being abused.
1:00:58
Yes. I didn't let drew make me uncomfortable.
1:01:02
I felt him staring at me, but I wouldn't not let him get to me.
1:01:07
I wanted them to know the truth.
1:01:11
As for motive, prosecutors say Peterson's was financial.
1:01:14
He didn't want to give Kathleen the house nor half his pension Push
1:01:19
was coming to shove with that property settlement.
1:01:21
And he did not want her to get any of his pension.
1:01:26
The big twist in the trial was that prosecutors use the words of one wife, Stacy, who was still missing to help make the case that Peterson killed his ex-wife Kathleen jurors, her blockbuster testimony from the state star witness, pastor Neil Schori about those conversations he had at a local Starbucks.
1:01:46
The coffee shop turned confessional for Stacy who told him about the night.
1:01:52
Kathleen died.
1:01:53
Drew went out of the house and then came back into the house, wearing all black and carrying a duffel bag with women's clothes that weren't hers, a dumped it in the washing machine, took his clothes off and then told her the police will be here soon.
1:02:06
And if you tell them what I tell you to tell them, tell them, then this will be the perfect crime.
1:02:14
And she did exactly what he said with the cops questioning her withdrew, allowed to sit right next to her in the same room, Controlling
1:02:25
her, even in that time where she's basically giving him an alibi Start
1:02:30
to finish The
1:02:32
pastor's story, stunned the courtroom for sure.
1:02:35
But the defense responded that a good story is not evidence insisting.
1:02:40
The state's case was purely circumstantial.
1:02:43
The prosecutors in this trial were unable to say how he got in the house.
1:02:48
When he got in the house, how he supposedly drowned her, they didn't find any defensive wounds on him.
1:02:55
They didn't find any DNA under her fingernails.
1:02:58
Like she had done anything.
1:03:00
There was just absolutely no.
1:03:02
Who, what, where, when, how, in this case, After
1:03:07
first attacking the lack of physical evidence, the defense argued, the hearsay testimony was not reliable, nothing more than rumor and innuendo.
1:03:16
The defense also denied Peterson was abusive to women as his sister-in-law had testified in all the heated confrontations between Peterson and Kathleen.
1:03:27
He was never charged with anything, but Kathleen was charged with domestic battery.
1:03:33
The record was later expunged.
1:03:35
Are you going to tell me you don't believe that a police officer calling his own police force to come investigate?
1:03:42
They're not going to say, of course we believe the guy that works with us, I'm
1:03:47
going to say that the police had a job to investigate.
1:03:49
They investigated.
1:03:50
And based on that investigation, they brought charges As
1:03:55
for the pastor, the state's star witness, the defense said his testimony rang hollow.
1:04:01
The pastor's story was, and his testimony was pretty damning, But
1:04:07
it wasn't enough. There were so many problems with that story.
1:04:12
The biggest problem defense attorney Greenberg said is the idea that Peterson a police officer would take Kathleen's clothing back to his house that night Someone's
1:04:23
clothing. And you had to take it because it was evidence.
1:04:25
You're not going to bring it into your own house.
1:04:28
If someone finds that dead person in the middle of the night, where's the first place they're going to come looking Drew's.
1:04:36
As for the credibility of these witnesses, the defense questioned their motivation suggesting it was fame, not the truth, Almost
1:04:45
all of these people who came forward after Stacy disappeared first did so by calling the media, not the police, none of them came forward.
1:04:53
None of them out of the good of their heart or out of concern for Kathleen or concern for S Stacy, none of them right down the line.
1:05:04
Then at the last minute, the defense called one more witness Harry Smith With
1:05:10
myth as a divorce attorney.
1:05:12
And he had read representative Kathleen Savio.
1:05:16
He was originally supposed to be a prosecution Witness,
1:05:19
but then the defense said, we are going to call with you, which I couldn't fathom why or on what basis they would do that Turns
1:05:27
out Smith had also talked to Stacy.
1:05:29
She had called him because she was considering divorcing Peterson, but there was something else the defense wanted the jury to hear she, I
1:05:38
said, can I get more money out of drew?
1:05:40
If we tell either the police or the cops, how Killed
1:05:45
Kathy? The reason that the defense called Harry Smith was to muddy up Stacy, that she was a gold Digger and that she was trying to plant all this phony information to get more money out of drew.
1:05:57
But the move backfired. The jury heard Smith repeat the story of drew confessing to Stacy, that he killed Kathleen.
1:06:04
And this time there was more details about drew listening in on the phone call.
1:06:11
Terry Smith said that Stacy called me and she said, she knew drew had committed this murder.
1:06:17
And I could hear drew in the background, yelling at her.
1:06:21
And that was the last I heard of Stacy.
1:06:24
It's not so much what she said, but it's him yelling in the background.
1:06:29
I think it was almost more damning Disastrous.
1:06:33
Here was a defense witness, reinforcing the pastor's story.
1:06:37
Greenburg blame lead attorney, Joel Brodsky for gambling by putting Smith on the stand.
1:06:43
Did you know he was going to save it?
1:06:46
Sure. We knew it. And I think what's widely recognized as sort of on the Mount Rushmore of legal mistakes.
1:06:53
It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a courtroom.
1:06:56
I asked for drew Peterson, the man who loved to talk, he decided not to take the stand in his own defense.
1:07:02
After
1:07:02
two
1:07:02
days
1:07:02
of
1:07:02
deliberations,
1:07:02
the
1:07:02
jury
1:07:02
came
1:07:02
back,
1:07:02
drew
1:07:02
Peterson
1:07:02
guilty
1:07:02
of
1:07:02
first
1:07:02
degree
1:07:02
murder
1:07:02
Greenberg
1:07:02
said
1:07:02
the
1:07:02
verdict
1:07:02
was
1:07:02
sealed
1:07:02
when
1:07:02
Smith
1:07:02
took
1:07:02
the
1:07:14
stand. Did you know in that moment, we just, When
1:07:18
he got called, I actually crawled under the table.
1:07:21
I didn't want any part of it.
1:07:23
It was tragic to me because frankly we were winning and then the bone head moved takes place.
1:07:32
Brodsky and Greenberg is lying.
1:07:34
He says all the defense attorneys agreed to put Smith on the stand.
1:07:38
Whatever happened with the defense prosecutor, Jim Glasgow felt his team did everything right.
1:07:49
Obviously the best verdict I've ever gotten in my career.
1:07:51
And because it was against all odds, Kathleen's
1:07:55
family had waited eight years.
1:07:58
I wanted to look at And him good for the last time and say, gotcha, babe Peterson
1:08:05
was sentenced to 38 years in prison, but it wouldn't be long before his name surfaced.
1:08:10
Again, this time in a new murder plot Coming
1:08:16
up, drew Peterson son gives his verdict either And
1:08:21
he has the worst luck in the world, or he's responsible for ordering to him And
1:08:25
growing up Peterson, We
1:08:27
been through the worst thing possible and had the odds against them.
1:08:32
When Dateline continues 2014,
1:08:44
two years after he put drew Peterson away for murder state's attorney Jim Glasgow got a letter from an inmate serving time with Peterson.
1:08:53
We sent a team Down
1:08:55
to interview him and his story just rang true.
1:08:58
His story drew Peterson was trying to hire a Hitman to kill prosecutor Glasgow.
1:09:03
They put a wire on the inmate and had him play along with Peterson Every
1:09:12
done by Christmas.
1:09:13
If you say, well, if you say it'd be basically go ahead and come up.
1:09:24
It
1:09:24
ain't
1:09:24
no,
1:09:24
ain't
1:09:24
no
1:09:24
turning
1:09:31
back.
1:09:31
If
1:09:31
I
1:09:31
get
1:09:31
some
1:09:31
blooms
1:09:31
in
1:09:31
here,
1:09:31
we'll
1:09:31
celebrate
1:09:38
Peterson was charged with solicitation of murder, tried and convicted.
1:09:42
Another 40 years added to his sentence.
1:09:45
When he was arrested, he left behind six children, including two teenage boys with Kathleen and a five-year-old son and four year old daughter with Stacy.
1:09:57
I'm not going to have them be split up, you know, during my siblings, The
1:10:03
son, Steven 29 years old with his own baby at the time stepped in to care for his younger siblings.
1:10:10
Yeah. We always thought my dad would get out and he'd beat these charges and he'd get him back.
1:10:13
So it was always like a temporary thing at first.
1:10:16
And then as time went on, it just, you know, obviously became permanent.
1:10:21
I guess I committed to it.
1:10:24
And again, they were there, my siblings and, you know, as time went on, they were my kids, you know, despite their Tori
1:10:31
is father, Steven was determined to give the kids a stable home, What
1:10:35
I wanted to do with them. And, and that was to give them the most normal life.
1:10:39
So yeah, we did travel sports, you know, girl Scouts, all that kind of thing, every kind of sport we probably played or tried at least once.
1:10:47
And then with the older ones that was college visits and, you know, making sure they had everything they needed.
1:10:53
Ironically, Steven says he had an excellent role Model.
1:10:56
I would say for the first 28 years of my life, I had a great dad.
1:11:01
Yeah. You questioned his, his decisions with women and, you know, get married quickly.
1:11:05
But if there's anything, any of his kids that I ever needed, he would do it Looking
1:11:10
back. He never could have imagined what was to come.
1:11:12
When he first met his dad's new girlfriend, Stacy.
1:11:16
And he's like, oh, there's one thing. You know, she's a little younger.
1:11:17
I'm like, okay.
1:11:19
You know, not thinking she's 17, she was a child.
1:11:22
You know, there's no way around that.
1:11:25
Yeah. She was, she was four years younger than me, But
1:11:28
they seemed happy. So Steven supported his dad then Stacy disappeared and his dad was a suspect.
1:11:35
You couldn't wrap your head around the fact that he had something to do with it.
1:11:38
It just doesn't happen. Your brain doesn't work that way.
1:11:40
Obviously things got a little crazy and more media, more press, all that kind of the whole circus started.
1:11:46
Steven Mike, much of America was not impressed by the drugs.
1:11:51
Every time you talked from the start, people just started to hate them.
1:11:54
You know, if you're talking about women's ministration, no one's going to take your side.
1:11:59
You know, no one's going to like you.
1:12:01
I said, Hey dad, it's not working. Don't do it.
1:12:03
And he, you know, his response is I don't, it's, it's helping Stephen
1:12:07
wanted to believe his dad that Stacy had walked out that Kathleen's death had been an accident.
1:12:13
But after his father's murder conviction, he began to accept the painful reality.
1:12:20
Knowing that the guy you looked up for your entire life, who did give me 28 amazing years is capable of something like that is very difficult to wrap your head around.
1:12:31
And you know, it doesn't come overnight.
1:12:34
Again, either he has the worst luck in the world, or, you know, he's responsible for murdering to limit.
1:12:43
As for his siblings, they all have different opinions about their father.
1:12:48
We don't really talk about, Hey, what do you think? You know, you think dad's guilty or innocent.
1:12:51
You know, Kathleen's
1:12:53
kids have visited their dad in prison.
1:12:55
Stacy's had been too young until now.
1:13:00
Maybe if they're at the point where they do want to go see him because they know he's getting older.
1:13:03
And I do want to maybe even ask him what happened.
1:13:05
But
1:13:05
now
1:13:05
we're,
1:13:05
I
1:13:05
was
1:13:05
old
1:13:05
enough
1:13:05
where
1:13:05
they
1:13:05
can
1:13:05
make
1:13:05
those
1:13:05
own
1:13:05
decisions
1:13:05
for
1:13:12
him. Part Steven hasn't seen his dad in years, but he talks to him on the phone.
1:13:18
I'll talk to him on the holidays. And when he calls and we pass her on the phone and everybody says, hello, and you know, but a lot of times when he talks, it's, it's not the same guy I grew up with.
1:13:29
Despite everything. Steven is proud of how the Peterson kids have thrived.
1:13:34
It's the older two, you know, they're in their late twenties and entrepreneurs and owning businesses.
1:13:39
And then the younger ones are, you know, ones just out of high school and one's still in high school and they're finding their way and what they're going to do.
1:13:45
You know, we been through the worst thing possible and had the odds against us, but we all kind of stayed together and were there for each other.
1:13:56
Drew's brother, Paul has also accepted the harsh truth about someone he wants.
1:14:01
So admired.
1:14:02
Now, you know the worst of your brother, right?
1:14:06
And to have that had to come to terms with that.
1:14:11
Yeah. What a nightmare. It's still, my brother still love him, man, but I can't forgive him for what he did.
1:14:17
Do you feel Like he is where he should be Or
1:14:20
he deserves to be absolutely.
1:14:24
What about the man at the center of all this?
1:14:26
Has he changed since his conviction?
1:14:28
We've heard little from drew Peterson, but now he's filed a new appeal and is breaking his silence.
1:14:35
Talking
1:14:35
once
1:14:35
again
1:14:35
to
1:14:35
Dateline
1:14:43
All these people are out looking for a place.
1:14:46
I know she's not drew Peter First
1:14:48
network interview. In more than 10 years, you may be here for the rest of your life.
1:14:53
Maybe I may not be.
1:15:08
Even after all these years, Cassandra has not given up.
1:15:12
She still searches these waters at every opportunity for her sister, Stacy.
1:15:18
It's just like, I'm never going to stop until I bring my sister home.
1:15:22
So just never ending.
1:15:26
Last month, the FBI sent divers into the canal to investigate a site flagged by Cassandra and her team.
1:15:32
She said, sonar picked up what looked to be a body.
1:15:36
The FBI found nothing.
1:15:38
You
1:15:38
gotta
1:15:38
be
1:15:38
frustrated,
1:15:42
Very frustrated. I know Drew's in jail, but with everything I've had since the beginning, I should add justice.
1:15:50
First.
1:15:53
In fact, drew Peterson, who Cassandra blames for her sister's disappearance.
1:15:56
So she is wasting her time at a prison.
1:16:00
We were asked not to name Peterson.
1:16:02
Now 67 sat down with us for his first network interview in more than a decade, still sticking to his story.
1:16:10
Stacey's not dead.
1:16:12
She walked out on him 14 years ago and there was never any point in looking for her now, or back in 2007, All
1:16:21
these people are out looking for a place.
1:16:23
I know she's not.
1:16:26
How do you know that then? Well, unless somebody else took her, throw her in a field somewhere then, but I didn't.
1:16:33
So why should I go look for some look?
1:16:37
How do you know she's not in a field somewhere? How do you know she's not in a canal somewhere unless you know exactly where she is?
1:16:42
I don't know.
1:16:45
I don't know for sure, but I would believe she ran off.
1:16:50
There's no evidence to show that the ticket was purchased, that she could have actually even gone abroad or anywhere.
1:17:00
The more obvious is that she is somewhere in a canal or is in a field somewhere 14 years later.
1:17:10
Nope, not really.
1:17:12
How many, how many women's show up? Years later after running off a lot, it's in the news all the time.
1:17:18
I haven't seen those stories. I haven't reported on those stories.
1:17:21
Usually it's the body is exhumed 14 years later.
1:17:25
I've seen those stories, women coming back.
1:17:26
So you're just not paying attention.
1:17:30
The fact that no one has even heard from her in all these years.
1:17:33
Not surprising to yeah.
1:17:35
Where would she go and why would she leave her kids for so long and never call the people she loved and say I'm okay.
1:17:44
She was a young girl. All of a sudden she saddled with four kids.
1:17:47
It was too much for, She
1:17:49
loved those kids. She adopted, It
1:17:53
was still too much for plus I was getting older.
1:17:56
Here's a young, beautiful woman married to an old man.
1:18:00
I asked for that haunting conversation.
1:18:02
Cassandra says she had with Stacy.
1:18:04
She said, if something happens to me, drew did it.
1:18:09
I heard that before, unless she's most recently making it up To
1:18:14
everybody's making things up. A lot of people Are
1:18:16
mostly Stacy.
1:18:19
Stacy is not here to make things up anymore.
1:18:21
She already Did her damage.
1:18:24
Or maybe you did the damage. Nope.
1:18:27
Did nothing. But take care of Her. Many have said that if Stacy hadn't disappeared, you would have gotten away with Kathleen's murder.
1:18:33
What do you say to that?
1:18:37
I'd say I didn't do it.
1:18:38
And You
1:18:40
didn't do what killed Kathleen
1:18:41
or make Stacy disappear.
1:18:43
So Stacy disappearing, I think just prompted this, this frenzy that was created by the media, kept myself in front of your house.
1:18:57
You like A frenzy.
1:18:58
He admits he helped fuel.
1:19:00
He's always made light of things, including the death of Kathleen Savio, your third wife, the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, your fourth wife, right?
1:19:11
You still in here laughing about that?
1:19:13
No, It's just, when, when you put a camera in front of an obnoxious guy, he's going to save them, access things.
1:19:20
So you believe you're, you know, you're an obnoxious guy.
1:19:22
Oh yeah. Do you regret being that guy who was in front of the cameras and parading and doing the drew side show that we all saw?
1:19:30
The thing is that was all forced by Mike.
1:19:35
Then attorney Joel Brodsky.
1:19:38
He put me out there in front of the cameras and he said to me, he said, if you're innocent, just go out and show me, you didn't do nothing wrong and be you.
1:19:48
And I was. And I got Brodsky
1:19:52
is on the record saying he never pushed Peterson to go out in front of the cameras.
1:19:56
And that courts have rejected.
1:19:58
Peterson's claims that he was ineffective at trial, still in court filings, Peterson blames his murder conviction on his attorney.
1:20:06
He also blames what he calls a tainted jury and an overzealous prosecutor at the end of the day, you're saying, then everybody else is lying.
1:20:15
Everybody else is making up facts.
1:20:17
The jury didn't do their job.
1:20:19
It seems everybody else.
1:20:22
But you is to blame yourself. Executions
1:20:24
making effects is prosecution stage a prosecution with Cathy.
1:20:33
They took an accident and stage the prosecution.
1:20:35
Everybody's twist in it to make me look bad.
1:20:41
Okay. They're twisting it to make their prosecution or what they're trying to say against me.
1:20:47
Work Peterson continues to deny he ever abused his two wives.
1:20:52
You weren't a controlling husband.
1:20:55
You weren't threatening you. Weren't abusive to both Kathleen and Stacy.
1:20:58
Correct. What kind of husband were you?
1:21:02
Awesome. The husband.
1:21:04
Okay. I was, what can I say?
1:21:07
I was a good husband.
1:21:09
Good provider.
1:21:11
If you were such a good husband in such a good provider in interviews that we did with you, you talked about Kathleen having mood swings.
1:21:17
Stacy, you said had mood swings that were tied to her menstrual cycle.
1:21:21
How about the way you talk about women?
1:21:24
How do you justify talking about these are mother, the mothers of your children, right?
1:21:30
The way you did, right?
1:21:32
You
1:21:32
don't
1:21:32
see
1:21:32
anything
1:21:32
wrong
1:21:32
with
1:21:35
that. Everybody Complains about their wives.
1:21:39
But one thing he doesn't complain about is the fact his children grew up motherless.
1:21:43
They grew up without a mother.
1:21:46
My son, Steve took over and I think he raised them pretty well.
1:21:52
They're all polite.
1:21:54
They're all good mannered.
1:21:56
They're all. We're hardworking kids.
1:21:58
So it's just like having a mother isn't it.
1:22:02
And all it's cracked up to be maybe really, really cause you could have a bad mother right By
1:22:12
the sounds of it. These two women, Kathleen and Stacy were extraordinary.
1:22:16
Mothers Depends
1:22:18
who you're talking to.
1:22:20
Peterson has just filed a new round of appeals.
1:22:22
Even brought the papers with him to this interview.
1:22:25
He's hoping to overturn his convictions for Kathleen's murder and the intended hit on prosecutor Glasgow.
1:22:32
We'll see what happens.
1:22:34
You
1:22:34
may
1:22:34
be
1:22:34
here
1:22:34
for
1:22:34
the
1:22:34
rest
1:22:34
of
1:22:34
your
1:22:34
life,
1:22:34
maybe,
1:22:39
But I may not be. Who knows?
1:22:43
As for Stacy Peterson's case, the prosecutor says it is still open.
1:22:47
And Drew's the main suspect.
1:22:49
If the prosecutor walked in right now and said, drew, I will give you a deal.
1:22:54
If you tell us what happened to Stacy, where the body is, you'll get no additional jail time.
1:23:00
What would you say to him? No, I
1:23:03
got nothing else to tell you.
1:23:04
I
1:23:04
got
1:23:04
nothing
1:23:04
else
1:23:04
to
1:23:04
tell
1:23:08
you.
1:23:09
That's no surprise to those who want to honor Stacy and Kathleen, they're focused on building a legacy from what happened to these two women, the mistakes made and the ways to avoid them.
1:23:20
I know that you've been very Frank about feeling like you in some way, failed states.
1:23:26
Oh absolutely.
1:23:28
Absolutely. I failed her because I didn't know what to do, but I know that I've honored her by doing what I've done since.
1:23:38
And I've been very blessed to be able to help women from all over the country with this new information that I have to recognize the signs of domestic violence.
1:23:50
Neil Schori works in part with drew Peterson.
1:23:52
Sister-in-law Norma, she's the executive director of a nonprofit called document.
1:23:57
The abuse. The group helps victims create written records of their abuse that can be used in court.
1:24:05
So now that becomes the legacy that I want to see for both Kathleen and for Stacy, if they not will only be true Peterson's wives, they will be the reason that other women and other victims will be able to hopefully survive these types of situations.
1:24:25
Kathleen sister, Sue Domin, also advocates for victims of domestic violence by telling Kathleen story.
1:24:32
Everybody wanted to hear her story and it gave me great relief because I wanted to help someone else in her name because it wasn't fair for her.
1:24:44
She had no voice.
1:24:46
And you still Grieve every day.
1:24:48
Your loss, Every single Day,
1:24:50
you feel her there beside you.
1:24:52
I do.
1:24:53
I feel her right there with me and I say, hi, hi kit.
1:24:57
I know you're here.
1:24:59
I got ya.
1:25:00
We got them.
1:25:03
You had a death that you could more mourn a body that you could say goodbye to, but Stacy's family and her sister, Cassandra.
1:25:10
They don't have that closure.
1:25:14
I don't. And I couldn't imagine what they're going through.
1:25:16
I just couldn't imagine that Justice
1:25:20
for one family, not yet for the other justice is something Cassandra thinks about, but is not obsessed with her.
1:25:29
Obsession is to complete the mission she embarked on almost 15 years ago.
1:25:36
You don't realize the love that I lost.
1:25:37
My sister was my love, my friend, my mom, my best friend, and I will find her and I'll bring her home.
1:25:49
And
1:25:49
that's
1:25:49
my
1:25:52
promise.
1:25:57
That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
1:25:59
Thanks for joining us.
1:26:09
Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday, sit down podcast on this week's episode, I get together with former first lady United States, Senator secretary of state and democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to get her thoughts on the state of the country and on her new masterclass, which includes an emotional reading of her would be election night victory speech from 2016.
1:26:31
You can get our conversation now for free, wherever you download your podcasts.
1:26:36
You may be into punk rock, soft rock or classic rock RNB, hip hop, or house country, techno or techno may be into punk rock, soft rock, or classic rock, r and b, hip hop, or house. Country, techno, or techno country. But no matter what kind of music you listen to, here's something else you should no matter what kind of music you listen to, here's something else you should hear. Please consider getting Please consider getting vaccinated. Talk to your pharmacist TODAY ABOUT COMMERNITY, COVID-nineteen VACCINE, MRNA. THIS MESSAGE BROCKED TO YOU BY BY ONTECK AND Pfizer. I'M LESTER HOLT. TONIGHT ON DATELINE, Drew PETerson CONVICTED OF MURDERING ONE AND A SUSPECT IN THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ANOTHER. After fourteen years, there are still so many secrets, and now Drew Peterson is talking again. My sister was in my love. My best friend Stacy Topping, if anything happens to me, you did it. Once Stacey went missing, of course, people start saying, well, wait a minute, his other died in the bathtub. He said, Neil, I've done lot about things in my life. Who always do my dad, either he has the worst luck in the world or he's responsible murder into women. I wanted them to know the truth. I was talking to this lady. She's She's pretty she's pretty, you know. It was almost as if he considered himself like a was almost is if he considered himself like a celebrity, it didn't do it. You didn't do what? Kill Kathleen or make Stacy disappear. So everybody's making things up. lot of people are. You may be here for the rest your life. Maybe. But it may not be. What keeps me going is my love, my heart, and I will find her and I'll bring her home and that's my promise. We Here's Natalie Morales with in FR3109. I just think about, like, Is this ever gonna end? Am I ever gonna be able to find her and, you know, keep the closure I need? In these murky churning waters, a sister searches for answers. Can we keep doing this every day I can and every day I can afford until the day I die? Until I can bring her home. Solving that mystery would close the circle on a notorious and sensational case. The disappearance of Stacey Peterson. It brought the world's attention to a quiet bedroom community out inside Chicago and put a megaphone in front of one of this country's most infamous fill ins. Tell me he's over here. Drew Peterson, I can I can say in her cry for you and then make everybody happy? I never covered a story like Drew Peterson. I don't think I ever will again. It was crazy. I'm gonna come myself in front of your house and see if you like it. As this thing went further and further, I was shocked that he kept telling jokes. And at a certain point, you have to wonder Does she really have a lawyer? Please leave me alone. Please don't get involved in my low world. Why did it take someone to go missing to you to look at this, this isn't, it take someone to go missing to you to look at this. This isn't an accident. This is a cold blooded murder. I'm really being portrayed as a monster here and nobody's defending me. And now, more than a decade later, from inside prison, Drew Peterson agreed to sit down for an exclusive new interview. Can you understand why people may have been disgusted by the way you talked about your wives. When one of them is missing, the other one is dead. Sure. Sure. was being me. And if somebody don't like it too bad. Why should people do you think have to hear or listen to what you're saying today? There's there's so much that hasn't been heard. That everybody on the opposition, on the prosecution gets to talk, call me names, say things, and I'm left in a cage and I don't get to say publicly what I need to say, what needs to be said. But most important at the heart of it all is the story of two women. Two moms whose lives are now forever inextricably linked. When what happened to Stacey had everything to do with what happened to Kathleen. On every level, and I think that their stories will be forever told together. The story began in Laydock tober two thousand seven in Bolingbrook, Illinois, thirty miles outside Chicago. We had dinner. We watched a movie. Cassandra Kayles vividly remembers the last day she spent with her older sister, Stacey Peterson. It was just a simple evening in. She was gonna call me when she woke up in the morning. When she said, I'll call you in the morning. That never happened. It was odd to be sure, but the 23 year old mother had a lot on her was odd to be sure, but the twenty three year old mother had a lawn on her plate. Perhaps Stacy was just too busy even for Cassandra. But after waiting hours, Cassandra picked up her phone and dialed Stacey. Her phone's never off. I don't care if she's washing the kids. For doing anything. She'll answer, hey, I'm gonna call you back, and she does. But there was it went to voicemail, and that's when I got started going. As the hours ticked by and still no word from the hours ticked by and still no word from Stacey. Cassandra became increasingly alarmed. She reached out to other family members like stepsister Carrie Simmons, right away when she said that she couldn't get a hold of her. We knew something was wrong. We all knew how close Cassandra and Stacey were. And of course, we all felt, you know, the panic and the anxiety of where is she? Cassandra called Stacey's husband drew a Bolingbrook police called Stacey's husband drew a Bolingbrook police sergeant. He said he hadn't seen Stacey since early that morning when he got home after his overnight shift. As day turned tonight, family friend Pam Bosco joined the efforts to try to locate Stacey. Then it goes into the the morning hours and stuff. We still can find her. And I remember telling Cassandra at that point, you know, go to the police. And she I think she placed the report at that point. She didn't let up. She's she went from that morning with me always through the next morning trying to find Stacey. Cassandra filed a report with the state police and the family fanned out to spread the word. Stacey Peterson was miss safe. Within days, a massive volunteer effort to find Stacey was underway. I see Stacey was the first execute. There was just an overflow of people that wanted to donate, wanted to bring in supplies, wanted to help surge. Searchers blanketed the area. We had dozens of people that would come out every day. I think we started there in Bolingbrook, and then we would different places to meet wherever we decided we were searching, combing fields, and woods, and rivers, and take the boats, and use the dogs As the search for Stacey continued, stories began to emerge about her marriage. For much older husband and one of her husband's ex wives, stories that would soon transfix the country. IN HIS MID-40s WHEN THEY MET, DRUDE PETERSON WAS OLD ENOUGH TO BE STACI'S FATHER. WHEN WE COME BACK, We are shocked who this man was and how loving doggy he was to this girl. For And he was like, what are you it was like, what are you doing? Coming home. And soon, Stacey was playing house in a new apartment. Everything that she could dream of. And I'm like, where the frick did this come from? If you found yourself caught in Stacey Peterson's orbit. Those who knew her would tell you it was a pretty nice place to be. She was very pretty. She was kind. She was gentle. She was a loving mother, loving sister. She's just a wonderful person. She just had the biggest heart she would do anything for you. Even though she had so much on her plate, she would drop everything and run to help whoever, you know, whoever needed anything. But at the end of October two thousand seven, it was Stacy's family dropping everything in a desperate bid to find her. This sense of urgency was almost crippling for her sister Cassandra. I I was up for like almost three days and actually had to go to the doctor and they had to give me a shot to get me a was up for, like, almost three days. Mhmm. And actually had to go to the doctor and had to give me a shot to get me a relax. The sisters shared a special sisters shared a special bond. I know that you guys didn't have it easy growing up. Right? No, we didn't have any as a grownup at We didn't have it easy growing up at all. And you really looked out for each other. Yes. Did you guys talk about your hopes and dreams, what you wanted some day? Not really. It was just surviving that day. And, you know, are we gonna eat? Are we gonna be fed? You know? Cassandra doesn't like to talk about their childhood. Their parents divorced when they were young. Stacey and Cassandra live mostly with their father. Their mother who suffered from alcoholism and depression was in and out of their lives. Strangely when the girls were teenagers, she also disappeared and wasn't heard from again. Stacey only seventeen months older, kept a motherly eye on Cassandra. So Stacey was the one who kind of took over that responsibility in that role. Absolutely. She was on a mission to be better than what we we had gone through. It appeared that Stacy was well on her way to accomplishing that appeared that Stacey was well on her way to accomplishing that mission. She was preparing to graduate from high school early and was working at a hotel to earn enough money to continue her education. And there was someone new in her life, a there was someone new in her life, a guy. She was like, I don't see my friend's room. Like, who's drew? And she's just like, oh, he's he's just a friend. And she was only sixteen. He was sixteen. Yes. Because was fifteen. Yes. Cassandra says everything changed as soon as Stacey turned seventeen and had graduated from high school. She's living in an apartment, a fully furnished leather furniture, everything that she could dream of. And then here I am, like, where the FR3109 did this come from? No way Stacy could afford such nice things. The next thing you know here comes Drew, fully uniformed, lock it in, like, hey, I'm Drew. Drew Peterson a sergeant with the Bolingbrook police department. They had met at the hotel where Stacey worked. At forty seven, he was thirty years older. It's old enough to be her father. She was a little girl. She came to my party with little ponytails, you know, and we were shocked who this man was. And how lovey doggy he was to this girl. Drew was twice divorced and his third marriage was imploding. He already had four children. Two of whom were actually older than Stacey. Even his brother, Paul, who was speaking publicly about Drew for the first time, was struck by how young Stacy was. Actually, My oldest daughter is two months younger than oldest daughter is two months younger than Stacy. So for me, it was like, what are you doing? Why? You know, it's kinda young. What do you think attracted her to Drew? Just a stable person. I wish he's a cop. She feels protected. She was, like, looking for a father figure, you know? Or just you know, just to be taken care of a little bit. Cassandra says Drew did take care of Stacey. He paid for her furnished apartment among other things. But according to Cassandra, what Stacey really wanted was a family. And in July two thousand three. When Stacey was nineteen years old, she and Drew had a baby boy. My gosh. Stacey was born to be a mom. She pretty much put us all to shame when it came to taking care of kids and stuff. Drew and Stacy married that October and redrew his ex wife, Kathleen Savio died suddenly five months later, Stacy adopted the two and Stacey married that October, and withdrew's ex wife, Kathleen Savio, died suddenly five months later. Stacey adopted the two boys Kathleen had with Drew. Were you surprised when Stacey said that she was adopting Kathleen's two boys? No. Not at all. Stacey Stacey won in family. YOU KNOW, THEY LOST THEIR MOM AND IT'S SHE WANTED TO BE THERE TO COMFORT THEM. Reporter: Stacy Andrew HAD ANOTHER CHILD TOGETHER, A DAUGHTER. By the fall of two thousand seven with four kids, a home, and a police officer husband. Stacey now twenty three seemed to finally have what she and Cassandra had longed for. And it was just so beautiful because we didn't have that growing up. We didn't have that happy family. And she was building that with Drew. Right. But now, Stacey was missing. And none of it made any sense. Stacey's family and friends weren't the only ones to think so. Local crime reporter, Joe Jose, had his own questions about Stacey's disappearance. Because this wasn't the first time he had reported on something happening to one of Drew Peterson's wives. At this point, it's just it's a missing person's reply. Right? It's a missing person and it but it's the missing wife of a man who's previous died under what I consider at extremely suspicious circumstances. Coming up The mysterious death of the previous missus Peterson, according to Drew. Since I actually took some sleep pills or something, drinking some wine and you know, on the bathtub asked you took some sweetened pills or salt there and drinking some wine and, you know, all the bathtub when Dateline continues. When reporter Joe Hoesy got the tip, Drew Peterson's wife Stacy was missing. His antenna immediately went up. I just knew that they were both married to Drew Peterson, then one was dead, and one was missing. His thoughts went back to a story he'd covered three years earlier for the local paper, the Joliet Herald News. This guy's wife died in the bathtub. I think it was told it was suspicious. And he's a police officer. Do you swear yes? Exactly. The suspicious death was that of Drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio. Smart, family oriented, kind. Her sister Sue Domen. She's Is overall a good person to never hurt overall a good person. To never hurt anybody. Thought to children to death. They were her life. Drew and Kathleen had split in two thousand one after a nearly decade long marriage. Kathleen had custody of their two boys, Drew took them on weekends, and that's how it went until two thousand four when drew by then married to Stacey and living just down the street from Kathleen. Try dropping the boys off after a weekend visit. Kathleen didn't answer the door, not that night, not the following day. It was probably nine, nine thirty in the evening, and Drew, happened to come down the street and pulled up next to me in his squad car. Steve Carcerano was Drew's friend and Kathleen's neighbor. He asked me to go to the house and he's already contacted her best friend Mary to go to the asked me to go to the house and he's already contacted her best friend Mary to go to the house. He thinks something might be wrong because he's been trying to drop off the kids for the past day in up. Drew said his ex-wife wouldn't want him inside her home regardless of the said his ex wife wouldn't want him inside her home regardless of the circumstances, so he waited outside. When we first walked into the house, it's dead silence in there. They went upstairs and into Kathleen's bedroom, saw the unmade bed and they checked the bathroom. I was going towards the back of the bathroom and looked in top. It was Kathy laying there naked. Mary came into the bath room right away. And she started screaming. Drew came running up the stairs right away, ran into the bathroom. First thing he did is check her pulse. And then he started screaming out, what am I gonna tell my children? What am I going to tell my What am I gonna tell my children? And very distraught. You know, I looked right into his eyes. And he got very AND THEN HE CALLED THE POLICE DEPARTMENT. CATHERINE WAS DEAD. Sue remembers getting the call late that night. It was my sister, my older sister, and she said, Kittystead, Kathleenstead. stet. We called her kitty Mupoltery Kitty. Family members gathered to grieve everyone with the same question. What happened? Drew seemed to have the answers. They found her in the bathtub, and it looks like she drowned. Drew told your sister that. Mhmm. It was the same story. Drew told his brother, Paul. Since last Yeah. She took some sleeping pills or something and drinking some wine and you know, found the bathtub she took some sweat and pills or something drinking to wine and, you know, down the bathtub. Because Drew was a Bolingbrook police officer The Illinois state police took over the investigation into Kathleen's death. What are you finding out from the police and the sources at the time about her death? I wasn't finding out much. They weren't saying much. Joe heard the same thing the family heard. Kathleen was found naked in her bathtub. It appeared she had drowned, but the bathtub was dry and streaked with blood from a wound in her head. The corner was pumped and so formed an inquest to try to get to the bottom of what happened. They sent the sergeant to present evidence to the coroner's jury and in no uncertain terms that it was an accident, that there this wasn't a suspicious that there was no sign of foul play in the coroner's jury liberated and came back that it was an accident. An accident, Kathleen must have slipped in the tub, hit her head, been knocked unconscious, and drowned. The tub was dry because the water had slowly gone down the drain in the time it took for her body to be found. Did the fact of what you're reporting bother you? Did any of it linger with you that this seems It weird. I mean, I I I'm remember covering stories of children drowning in bathtub, but never an adult. I mean that right there is a red flag that right there you would think would have caused a police to look at it a little closer than they did. Joe says his editors didn't share his suspicions and didn't want him to keep digging. The story went nowhere. I had bosses that were likely to say it's an accident, you know, we're not writing about this anymore. THAT'S WHERE IT ENDED. Reporter: BUT NOW THREE YEARS LATER, Drew'S WIFE STACI WAS MISSING. JOE AGAIN WROTE ABOUT CATHELINE'S BIZAR DEATH. Linking the two women to Drew and each other. It wasn't much of a story, but I got it in the paper for the next day. It may have been a small story, but it made a huge impact may have been a small story, but it made a huge impact. Coming up, I was talking to this lady. She's pretty she's pretty near you. The Drew Peterson show. It was almost as if he considered himself like celebrity. In hindsight, it's hard to believe, but back in two thousand seven, Reporter Joe Hoesy wasn't sure the Drew Peterson story had legs. The voices that I was working for really didn't weren't interested in pursuing it. But his local paper was owned by the Chicago Sun Times, which also ran Joe's story. This tipped off the national media, which descended on Bolingboro. We're also following latest developments in the search for a missing suburban Chicago mother, Stacey Peterson vanished after leaving home on Sunday. It was wild. I mean, Drew lived in a cul de sac in his subdivision. It was packed with satellite trucks and and cameramen and reporters. It was shoulder to shoulder with media. Cameras were soon documenting every aspect of the developing story. FR3109 the searches for Stacey to marches and vigils. We come here I think united as a family friends, and as a community. And they're usually in the background with sister Cassandra. She didn't want the attention. She just wanted Stacy back. You were out helping in the searches and often in the background, but you were always there. Oh, I'm always there just because I'm not on camera doing anything doesn't mean I'm not out searching. Other family members were also in the background offering support. Drew's brother, Paul and Paul's wife, Norma, moved into Drew's house to help with the kids. We're trying to get them some semblance of normalcy. Here's mom and a dad. We're gonna take care of you. Don't mind that everything else is happening around you. And this is when the whole de sacs filled with wooden reporters and camera crews. All of them wanted a glimpse and to comment from Drew. Kind of Where are you? Where the Nike you were the next you guys are? Police had searched Drew's home and were treating him as a person of interest. He had spoken to them after Stacey went missing, but was otherwise keeping his mouth shut. Until one evening when reporters knocked on his door. I'm sorry, sir, sir, we can't hear you. I'm one more time. Never again. I want myself to have overdue books. This is a mess. Reporters strained to hear him as he joked about overdue library books. It was just a preview of the Drew Peterson show. I wanna message you guys. He resigned from the Bolingbrook police department. He began holding court in his driveway. Their wife was, like, like, like, like, like, like, one of your time. Okay. But let me I can't just help you. Listen. I know. But Kathleen, well, I was talking to this She's precious. She's prettier, you know. That she is. Yo. Shake my hand. Shake my hand. Shake my tongue. FR3109 day one, Joe Jose had a front row seat to Drew's antics. It was almost as if he considered himself like a celebrity, like, we were all the paparazzi chasing him around because he was, you know, famous and not because he was suspected of killing his fourth wife and his third wife I'm pretty well burnt burnt out. Really? I have lost thirty pounds to date. So anybody wants to go on a weight loss program. You could probably need a big time. Where's Drew? We got him, Drew. Peter, she finally picked up. I'm here. Eric Mueller, known over Chicago Savio waves as the man cow, had drew on his popular morning show. Are you drew Peterson to the couch in line? We weren't supposed to ask about the murders You know? And I said, well, god, I asked him stupid stuff. What do you think of the weather? It's cold. I didn't really follow the rules. You kill your wife? No. Drew seems like every day something new comes on. Has to respond to something. Right. Exactly. What are you thoughts about that? Well, I'm waiting for my eighth grade prom date to show up say I was a bad kisser. I don't think I was maybe. I don't know. So you folks have a good day. Did Drew cause all of his own problems? Absolutely. What's this? Just laughing about it and making light of it and join the celebrity of my show and other shows, I think it repulsed a lot of people. III was While Drew was joking around with the media, he made no effort to search for his missing wines. Drew, a lot of people wanna know why you're not helping me to search. People are trying to find out what happened to Stacey searching for Stacey trying to, you know, any any proof of what happened to her. But Drew's there and Drew's acting out. Drew claimed that Stacey left on her own. He said she had taken cash in a bikini. And abandoned her four kids and husband to start a new life with a mystery man. But something didn't add up for sister-in-law Norma. Why would you adopt two kids and then go off and leave all four for another man? That may not made no sense. It made no sense to the made no sense to the police either who continued to investigate Drew. A family member told them he helped Drew REMOVE A LARGE BLUE BARREL FROM THE HOUSE, THE NIGHT STACI DISAPPEARED. HE'S CONVINCED THAT HE HELPED CARRY STACI'S BODY DOWN TO Drew's Denali. He never saw her body. never looked in the barrel, but he was overcome with remorse from having done that. Another lead police followed Drew's phone. Record showed it was near a canal just miles from Drew and Stacy's home that night. There would be no reason for him to be there. Stacey's last night that she was seen. I know they searched the canal. I know they they did a extensive dive that turned up nothing. Still, Drew was the last person known to have seen Stacey. That, coupled with his odd behavior in front of the cameras, led police to turn up the heat on Drew. Drew Peterson has gone from a person of interest to clearly being a suspect. That would be enough to make most people will stop talking, but not true. There's an investigation. Azure should be. So it's just like, I'm a suspect officially, but think it was a FR3109 beginning. So Just because you're the husband. Because I'm the husband. One family believed it was more than that. They had been sound the alarm for years. It was just that nobody cared to listen. Coming up, Behind closed doors drew and Kathleen's disastrous marriage. He hatter by the neck with the knife. And he said, I can kill you now, and I can make it look like an accident, and I will get away with that. When Dateline continues, Sue Domin was conflicted about the disappearance of Stacy Doman was conflicted about the disappearance of Stacey Peterson. She knew it was a nightmare for Stacey's family. But she also knew it was an opportunity for the truth to finally come out. I saw them searching everywhere and I was hoping that Someone would connect the dots. She wanted police and the public to look at another case. The two thousand four death of her cis Kathleen Savio, Drew's third wife. Soon never believed her sister died by accident didn't, and she never trusted Drew. I I didn't never felt comfortable with never felt comfortable with him. She says her sister was dazzled by Drew when they first met in the early nineties. She said, look, he's a police officer, he's a good guy, and he treats me good. I mean, was everything that a woman would want more. And how soon before they got married? I would say six months, it was very fast. The couple had those two boys later adopted by Stacey and moved into this house in Bolingbrook. Drew charmed neighbors like Steve Carcerano. Drew came over to our house and said, you know, if there's anything that I ever need, then it's garage, a lawn mower, a tool, anything. His garage is always open to me, so I thought that was very nice. Very nice, eager to please. That was Drew Peterson, except Sue says when mister NICE guy morphed into mister Hyde using insults to manipulate Kathleen. He would say that she's she's crazy. She was looking like a dog. She was ugly. She wasn't a good mom. Soon, the cutting words became heated arguments. Drew's brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Norma Peterson. They were always fighting like cats and dogs, you sought first hand. Yeah. We sought first hand. They were always mad each other, and it was always taught me. The end of the nine year marriage, came one day in two thousand one. It came in the mail. She called me and she said I got a letter. And it said he was having the fair and choose a left in stock. The anonymous letter included this shocking tidbit Drew's other woman was still in her teens. The thing that really stood out with Kathleen was that choose a baby She I don't understand why he would do this, come to find out. That was Stacy. Right. Right. Stacey, the future missus Peterson. Kathleen demanded a divorce, the house, and half of Drew's pension. He okayed the divorce, not the terms. Kathleen stood firm. She was a fighter. She want if you don't wanna give up She wasn't gonna give up. She wasn't gonna let him win. She felt like she had the truth on her side. When Stacey became pregnant, Kathleen did make one concession, a divorce that allowed Drew to remarry while lawyers worked out the finances. Things only got worse. She would call me and say, he would be watching would call me and say he would be watching her. How was he watching her? He would pass by your house and slow down and book out the police window. Kathleen said Drew was intent on terrorizing her. Sometimes the fights turned violent when he stopped by. She told her sister that Drew even sneaked into her house and threatened her. He had her by the neck with the knife. And he said, I can you know, and I can make it look like an accident, and I will get away with it. And did she tell you that? Oh, she was hysterical. She called the police. And he denied the whole thing. Still, she says Kathleen kept calling Bolingbrook police after every confrontation. Drew an officer was never arrested. They got to be aware, the police would come over and they would just take Drew in the court and then he would say, how's your day going in this and that? She's crazy again. Here we go again. They didn't take it serious sleep. In fact, after one fight, it was Kathleen who was charged with domestic battery. The record was later expunged. A police spokesman told the associated press that officers had followed proper procedure. But then, Kathleen was found dead in her bathtub. Sue thought there would be a criminal investigation. Instead, that inquest found Kathleen's death was an accident. When you heard that news, what did you think? Oh my god. Oh my god. I can't believe this is happening. She refused to give up pestering those in power to look at the case again. They got tired of me. The Bloomberg Police Department and told me if I continued on with this that I would be charged. The police told you that. Yeah. I mean, you're just asking for answers. Oh, I've got to listen to you. Bother them and try to convince THAT HE PRETTY MUCH SAID THAT HE WOULD KILL HER AND GET AWAY WITH THAT. Reporter: A BOLING BROOKS POLICE BOKESMAN SAID HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF SUE'S CALL He said the department did not investigate Kathleen's death and would have referred any request to state police. The bottom line, Sue, says, is that either she nor her sister ever felt heard. Now Stacey was gone and now Sue wasn't the only grieving relative who wanted investigators to take a long hard look at one of their own, Drew Peterson. Coming up, another gathering storm. I happen to catch a glimpse of a bruise, and I'm like, what happened? What drove pushed me up against that? TV. And Stacey shares a secret. She just blurted out. She said he did it. Nora Peterson had seen it, her brother-in-law, Drew's marriage to third Kathleen Savio, was a disaster. Their breakup worse. Which is why Kathleen's sudden death never sat right. So now you're gonna come and tell me that there is a forty year old woman who drowned in a dry bathtub two weeks before you guys were supposed to settle everything in court financially. It just seemed just too convenient for me. Then she saw the past repeat itself with Drew's next wife, Stacey, his need to control. How early on in their marriage did she confide in you? The problems that they were dealing with. I knew that they were having difficulty. She didn't hide any of that. He would just call her incessantly one time when we were out and I answered the phone, and I found they just told him, we're out. We're having a girl's day out. She saw signs of violence they happen to catch a glimpse of a bruise, and I'm like, what happened? What drove push me up against God? TV. At the time, Norma didn't report her concerns to police because she didn't think they'd do anything. Cassandra says she didn't call them either for the same reason. I remember sitting on the couch one time. She came flying out of the room backwards and laying on her back. He threw her. He like, shoved her. Eventually, Stacy sought help for her troubled marriage. Stacy approached me after one of our church services. And she Savio, I believe that you're the counseling pastor here at the church. Right? Pastor Neil Shorry says he began counseling Drew and Stacey. One day he says, Drew approached him. He goes, would you ever do a ride along with me and my police car? Mhmm. And I said, yeah, why not? He says Drew drove them around, made small talk, then got to the point. And he said, again, you know, I really wanted to talk to you about Stacy. Heels, she really gets crazy. Well, you know what? That time of the month and I just he could see my displeasure with this. I I it felt so disrespectful. The pastor tried to change the The pastor tried to change the subject. He asked Drew about his faith. He says Drew replied that he wasn't religious. He says, Neil, I've done a lot of bad things in my life. When I said, Yeah. I mean, we we all have, Drew. He sort of looked off into the distance, looked like he went somewhere. Mhmm. And he said, Neil, well, the difference is I've never felt bad for anything I've done in my life. And I just thought, that's that's it. The way he said it was so absent of emotion and I just knew don't ask him another question. The pastor's last conversation with Stacy was an August, 2007, two months before she disappeared, she asked to meet something pastor's last conversation with Stacey was in August two thousand seven, two months before she disappeared, She asked to meet something urgent. And I got there. She was already sitting there outside at a cafe just like this, and she looked concerned and she was quiet. And then very suddenly, she just blurted out. She said, he did it. I Savio, he did what? And she said, Drew killed Kathleen. Stacey told the pastor what she knew about that night in two thousand four. She said Drew came home late. At first, he wouldn't say where he'd been. But eventually she said he told her enough to make it clear. He had just murdered his ex wife. Did she want you to go to the police? She certainly didn't want me to because I asked her and she said, I don't want you to do anything with my story. I just want you to I just want you to know. I think things were really dire for her by that point. And I think that she probably sensed that she was in grave danger. It was the last time he saw her. Just before she disappeared, Stacey also confided in her sister. Stacey just looked up at me and she goes, how do you feel about me getting a divorce? And that's when she told me, if anything happens to me, did you do it? Days later, Stacey vanished. Her pastor immediately thought the worst. I absolutely know in my heart what happened to her. I believe that Drew killed her. He knew he had to tell someone about his last conversation with Stacy, her story about Kathleen's knew he had to tell someone about his last conversation with Stacey, her story about Kathleen's death. He called a police tip line. I thought, Oh my gosh, my gosh. Good. I finally get to tell the story. So I called them two different times and I left voicemails. Nobody ever came to question you. No. Nobody nobody did anything. Until fate intervened days after Stacey vanished. The pastor was serving on a grand jury, hearing evidence in a series of unrelated cases before the court. An officer with the state police took the stand and referenced Drew Peterson. And I knew I wasn't supposed to, but I raised my hand and I Savio, excuse me, excuse me, That stopped the hearing. The pastor met with the officer in the hallway, told his story, and eventually went down to the station to make a formal statement. I I remember writing out my testimony and then I had a video writing out my testimony, and then I had a video interview And so I definitely knew at that moment they finally had taken it seriously. It was time to unlock the past and on earth, the truth was time to unlock the past and on Earth the truth. Coming up, leaks in the bathtub theory of Kathleen's death as soon as we pulled the pictures of her in the bathtub, Were like, this is like, this is wrong. I don't know of any case where a healthy middle aged adult has ever drown in a bathtub when Dateline continues. Take coloring your hair at home to the next level with Madison Reed made with ingredients, you can feel good about Madison Reed, radiant hair color is the winner of the 2021 allure best of beauty coloring your hair at home to the next level with Madison Reed. Made with ingredients you can feel good about. Madison Reid radiant hair color is the winner of the twenty twenty one Allure Best of award. And it's been used by over 2 million it's been used by over two million women. What's amazing is that Madison Reed hair color doesn't smell at What's amazing is that Madison Reed hair color doesn't smell all. And that's because it's ammonia free and made with And that's because it's ammonia free and made with ingredients you can feel good about. Want some guidance from experts. You can call or chat with the colors online or take an online color quiz, answer a few you can call or chat with the colors online or take an online color quiz, answer a few questions. And the Madison Reed colors will recommend the best shade for and the Madison Reid colors will recommend the best shades for you. Madison Reid even has a virtual try on tool. So you can see yourself in different shades of hair color, whether you're desperate to cover grays or just want to try a new so you can see yourself in different shades of hair color. Whether you're desperate to cover Grey's or just want to try a new whew. Madison Reed offers over 55 gorgeous shades to choose Madison Reid offers over fifty five gorgeous shades to choose from. Get ammonia free multi dimensional hair color delivered to your door. Visit Visit madison dash read dot com. That's MADIS0N dash read dot com. And Dateline listeners get ten percent off plus free shipping on your first color kit with code Dateline. That's code Dateline at madison dash Reid dot com. Hello, everybody. It's Al Rolker from The Today Show, and I want you to have the best holiday season ever. So join me on my podcast, cooking up a So join me on my podcast cooking up a storm. I get together with some friends of mine like celebrity chefs, Inologuard, Marcus Amuelson, and more talking about their favorite family traditions and whipping up their secret recipes for a delicious holiday feast. So grab your apron and your appetite and let's get ready to celebrate. The hardwood. The season is here, listen to cooking up a store without season is here. Listen to cooking up a store without broker. Now now. Jim Glasgow remembers when it happened. When everyone started buzzing about Drew Peterson and the strange case of his third wife, Savio, At what point did you learn of Kathleen Savio's death? Well, that would have been in two thousand seven when Stacey disappeared. Glass go is the state's attorney for Will County, but he wasn't in office when Kathleen died in two thousand four. You have to understand it was tucked away as an accident. So nobody mentioned it or even knew about it in my administration. So once Stacey went missing. Of course, people will start saying, well, wait a minute, his other wife died in the bathtub. And hearing that died in the bathtub. Yes. I well, first of all, you think. I don't know of any case where a healthy middle aged adult has ever drowned in a bathtub. The prosecutor called in the old photos taken the day, Kathleen's body was found. As soon as we pulled the pictures of her in the bathtub, we're like, this is wrong. Something's very wrong here. Starting with the tub itself. And looking at the size of this tub, I mean, pretty small. It's twenty two inches wide. At the bottom and forty inches long. So think about twenty two inches. I mean, it's like this. I mean, it's just just enough to barely fit in mean, it's just just enough to barely fit in there. Like a baby tub almost. He found it hard to believe anyone could have drowned in a tub that size or even slipped in it. I had an opportunity to sit in the in the hub myself. How tall are you? Well, I'm six foot. But but I sat there and my knees were in my face. So if you were standing up in this tub and you went to slip, your front foot would almost immediately hit the front of the tub and stop your fall. But if Kathleen had fallen, the prosecutor would at the very least expect to see nearby soap bottles knocked over. He didn't. You see all these toiletries? Nothing has been disturbed. Mhmm. So if you have a violent fall backwards, you're gonna see that. Then there was the matter of blood stains inside the tub. In two thousand four, investigators believed Kathleen hit her head. Fell unconscious and drowned as blood oozed from her wound. The water drained away, but the blood remained. That didn't make sense to Glasgow. That shouldn't be there. If it's filled with water, the blood is gonna dilute into the water. And by the time it drains out because the plug isn't a hundred percent, then you're not gonna see blood stains on the bottom of the tub. The position of her body also bothered position of her body also bothered him. Her feet pushed against the side of the tub HE THOUGHT THAT ON FOR A DOWNING VICTIM. HERE IT'S LIKE ALMOST LIKE THERE WAS A STRUGGLE AND THEN SHE WAS -- AND SHE'S FORCED into that position. Whereas when you're floating, you wouldn't there'd be no force. You would just come rust. We've handed out the petition for exhumation that was filed today. Days later, he was in front of TV cameras, saying he wanted a new autopsy performed on Kathleen. Kathleen's family gave him the go ahead. We were very very fortunate to have a state's attorney Jim Glasgow, a very strong man wouldn't give up was very determined. Two weeks after Drew's fourth wife, Stacy vanished workers exhumed the body of his weeks after Drew's fourth Stacey vanished, workers exhume the body of his third Kathleen. The pathologist got to work. He was able to to show that there were no bruises on the backs of our arms where if she fell backwards, you have a natural instinct to flail your arms and no bruises on her back or on her buttocks. Undercutting the original finding that Kathleen had fallen just before her death. But there were bruises. She had sixteen other fresh bruises on all four planes of her body. Including her collarbone, there was the two bruises, two were clavical, the identical bruises here in here. How do you get those? Nobody's gonna come up and punch you, you know, in the clavicals. The prosecutor was convinced Kathleen had not died by accident, and she had not drowned in that tub. And these two bruises would line up with the edge of the toilet These two bruises would line up with the edge of the toilet rim if you put somebody's face into the toilet. He said the bruising on Kathleen's body spoke of a struggle, her resale and overcoming, and then drowning her in the said the bruising on Kathleen's body spoke of a struggle. Her assailant overcoming and then drowning her in the toilet. She was likely placed in the tub and hit over the head to make it look like an accident. You knew right away. Right away. He had been murdered. Yes. And he had a pretty good idea who the killer was. The prosecutor was building a murder case, photo by photo, story by story. But then someone else was also building a case for all to hear. Coming up. Did you kill your wife, Stacey? No. So where is Stacey? I'd be looking at a beach. What do you what do you mean? A beach somewhere somewhere warm The state of Illinois was zeroing in on drew Peterson in late state of Illinois was zeroing in on Drew Peterson in late two thousand seven. Police called him a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance. Because I'm the husband. You know what? I'm the husband. You always look at husband. So While a prosecutor was eyeing him for the murder of his third and looking harder every time drew mugged for the a prosecutor was eyeing him for the murder of his third and looking harder. Watch watch this. Every time, Drew mugged for the cameras, I mean, obviously, it was a tell to me that this is not an innocent man, and he wasn't showing any remorse. But Drew couldn't stop. The worst things got. The more he talked, including right here to us. He sat down that November with today's show co anchor Hoda Coffey. Then a date line correspondent. It's been a couple weeks now since your wife went missing. Correct. He pretty much shrugged when it came to finding Stacey. I'd be looking at a be looking on a beach. What do you what do you mean? A beach somewhere warm or You think she ran off with someone and it's just Enjoying herself on a beach herself on a beach somewhere? I believe that, but I'm guessing. Uh-huh. He said he had no idea why she took off. He didn't see the point in shedding any tears. Dishing the dirt, that he could do. Stacy was spoiled. Stacy wanted it. She got it. Mean, she wanted a boob job. I got her boob job. She wanted to tell me talk, she got that Stacy love mail attention. Mhmm. And we did all these two pairs out her if she wanted, she got it. In what had become a pattern, he repeated offensive comments about her. Once he'd already shared with pastor Neil Schori and other reporters, he'd already shared with pastor Neil Shorry and other reporters. Stacy was on an emotional roller coaster her from month to month. And I'm not trying to be funny here, but it seemed to go with her menstrual cycle if she was PMSN Exwife wanted a divorce. Mhmm. And if she wasn't, everything was good and romantic and happy. Reporter Joe Hoesy. Drew had his own narrative where, you know, Stacy was depressed and she was medicated and erratic and it wasn't about him Drew didn't have anything kind to say about his ex wife, Kathleen, didn't have anything kind to say about his ex wife, Kathleen, either. She was easy, easily agitated and more She was easily agitated and more demanding and When you say easily agitated, what do you mean? She would snap quickly. As for her death in that bathtub, he didn't think it was so suspicious. There was talk in the police department that it was done so well. It looked like it was staged. It was someone who knew what they were doing. Okay. That I'm sure people will say I'm sure people will say that. And people would say who else would know better than you? You're a police officer with many years on the force. Sure. What do you say to that? I said I didn't do it. Who do you think might have been? I don't don't know. And I don't know if it wasn't an accident. If he was guilty of anything here, he said it was choosing the wrong woman more than, If he was guilty of anything here, he said, It was choosing the wrong woman more than once. I want you to be a hundred percent honest with me. Okay. No. I'm gonna lie. want you to be a hundred percent honest. Seriously. Did you kill your wife, Stacey? No. What about your wife, Kathy? Did you have anything to do with the death of Kathy? Nothing. Nothing at all? Nope. Someone said either you're guilty of both of these or you have the worst luck in the world. Do you think? You just happen to marry two women. One is missing and one who's dead? Correct. Which is each of that bad luck? I I guess this is bad luck. Drew Peter in the victim. It was a theme he returned to the following year when he sat down with us again. By this point, a new autopsy revealed, Kathleen's death wasn't an accident. It was a homicide. Drew didn't buy it. I still don't get how someone who's healthy, able- body dies in a bathtub. Well, it happens. And everybody says it's impossible. But I guess if you look statistics from the National Safety Council. It shows that people do die in the bathrooms. He also didn't buy that story from pastor Neil Shorry. He said he never confessed anything to Stacey about Kathleen's death. Tell me, just ask you flat out to ask you flat out and did you ever tell Stacey that you killed Kathleen? Never. Never. So if she told her preacher that she was telling a liar. If she told me, yeah, she was lying. That's right. He said Stacey was a liar. And a cheat. She had run out and left him in a world of trouble. He had no choice but to defend himself. And the longer she's gone, the more he seems to relish the attention. I I mean he's on national television. Criticizing his dead and missing lives. I mean, more than anything, it just it was hard to believe. Do you enjoy all of you enjoy all of this? The television interviews, the attention, the Drew, can I talk to you? Sometimes, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. What do you like about it? I get to go to New York. I get to go to Hollywood. I get to meet famous exwife people like yourself. And just the traveling and I don't like the constant looks and the stores and stuff, you know, the type of thing. Are you a good con? My good con. I believe I can be. Yeah. But I'm not kind of anybody about this. So how do how does one know when you're counting and when you're not, if you're guiding it? Yes. You don't. I guess you don't. For more than a year while investigators plugged away, Drew Peterson spent his days telling everyone he was innocent. I'm just working through the days. And that the world just had to believe him. But those days were numbered. Coming up, a sister's desperate call. What'd you do to my sister? Not a thing. And drew Peterson's bizarre Walk of Shane. When Dateline continues, Despite Drew Peterson's claim that Stacy was probably sitting on a beach somewhere, her sister Cassandra continued to look elsewhere She focused on the dirty, murky waters of a canal a few miles from Drew and Stacey's house where it had been widely ported, Drew might have been that night. This particular waterway was where Drew's cell phone was pinging. So there's many that she was thrown in canal. Cassandra believed her sister's body was here, somewhere. She told me that if something happened to her, that drew did something to her, that drew did it and to find told me that if something happened to her, that Drew did something to her, that Drew did it and to find her. So that was Cassandra's THAT WAS KESANDRA'S MISSION, FINE STACIE. EVEN AFTER POLICE STOPCING THE WATERS, VOLUNTEERS SOME ON THE FORCE stepped in to help her. She was able to get sonar equipment to scour the muddy bottom of the canal. In several places and at different times, she says, Sonar picked up images of what looked like a body. She was convinced it was stacey. Police were not. I mean, stuff shifts and moves. It's Are you afraid you may never really know the answer? Oh, I'm gonna know the answer because I'm not gonna stop. And then one day in two thousand nine, her mounting frustration turned to fury. When she turned on the radio. Well, different things happen through our relationship. Yeah. I just stopped what I was doing, and I Savio, forget this. It was Drew joking with his go to radio host, the guy known as the Man Cow. And hearing him there on the Savio show, and he's broken with the DJs. Which is disgusting. Cassandra called in. And they're waving to me, you know, with a note, Stacey's sister is on the phone. Well, of course, I wanna hear from her. This is about you, Drew. What did you do to my sister? Not a thing. You killed her after she got off bone in a safe place to know where you were and what you did, you will pay. Drew didn't wanna hear it. His attitude was hang up on her, annoyed, Board, take another call. That was Drew's reaction. Just a few days after Cassandra confronted him, Drew Peterson was making news again. Can we begin with the arrest of former Illinois police officer Drew Peterson? Drew Peterson was arrested not in connection with Stacey's disappearance, but for the murder of his third wife, Elaine Savio three years earlier. Prosecutors, Jim Glasgow, knew this would be no slam dunk. When I went to indict this case, ten of the twelve attorneys that were with me said don't do it. Why? Because it was mostly something that you didn't approve it. And I knew we could. I just knew we could. And so we went ahead. Normally, this is the walk of shame where the acute shuffles along, head down ignoring reporter's questions. But not in this case. When reporters shouted questions to Peterson, his face lit up as he joked about his current situation. Odd, bizarre. It appears it was just Drew being Drew. And within no time even from jail, he was out there again for all to hear. Drew? Yeah. What's up? Did you call it collect real you call left through. I call collect live from the Will County adult detention facility in Joliet, Illinois, and how are things? Even behind bars, Drew Peterson continued to call into talk radio. I think I asked him if he gets clear of all this what's he going to think I asked him if he gets clear of all this, what's he gonna do? And, you know, he was enjoying the show biz, side of this. And I think he said, well, I'd like to try stand up. And I said, go ahead. I'm thinking what we should do is, like, run a Costco visit with you. Let's do that. He did some of the jokes on the show. Some of them were I mean, just they're they're they're cringe worthy. It's just creepy. It's just weird, man. This guy sit in jail and are still droopy. Rather, these are strange days we live in. Okay? And the fact is, It doesn't matter what you've done anymore. He was famous. Oh, no. He was better than that. He was infamous. Peterson's lead attorney Joel Brodsky also was not one to shy away from the media. I might need a job to go through this. The Savio host says reporters hung on his every word. In my opinion, the lawyer, Joel Brodsky was interested in promoting his my opinion, the lawyer Joel Brodsky was interested in promoting his name everybody knows his name in Chicago now? We didn't before. It worked. Peterson now had a whole team of defense lawyers Attorney Steven Greenberg was the last to join and says he had a very different approach to Drew speaking with the media. Once I was in the case, there was no more of the shenanigans. There was no more calling the media or speaking to anyone. As both sides got ready for trial, prosecutors faced a major hurdle. They wanted to use witnesses to recount things both Kathleen and Stacey said to them about Drew. It's called hearsay testimony, but it's rarely allowed. What Drew Peterson knew from being a policemen, is that that would be a hearsay statement that would die with the victim Peterson knew from being a policeman is that That would be a hearsay statement that would die with the victim. Prosecutor Jim Glasgow was going to challenge that. It was just a waiting game and I thought if it's not going to be allowed, what are we gonna do? I didn't know what would happen next. COMING UP. DID THE MISSING STACINE HELP GET JUSTICE FOR CATHELINE. She gave me details about the night that Kathleen GAMY DETAILS ABOUT THE NIGHT that Kathleen died, drew, came back into the house, wearing all black. And the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a courtroom. Take coloring your hair at home to the next level with Madison Reed made with ingredients, you can feel good about Madison coloring your hair at home to the next level with Madison Reid made with ingredients you can feel good about. Madison Reed. Radiant hair color is the winner of the 2021 allure best of beauty radiant hair color is the winner of the twenty twenty one Allure Best of Duty award. And it's been used by over 2 million and it's been used by over two million women. What's amazing is that Madison Reid hair color doesn't smell at all. And that's because it's ammonia free and made with and that's because it's ammonia free and made with ingredients. You can feel good about want some guidance from you can feel good about. Want some guidance from experts. You can call or chat with the colorist online or take an online color quiz, answer a few You can call or chat with the colors online or take an online color quiz. Answer a few questions. And the Madison Reed colors will recommend the best shades for and the Madison Reid colors will recommend the best shades for you. Madison Reid even has virtual try on tool. So you can see yourself in different shades of hair color, whether you're desperate to cover grays or just want to try a new you can see yourself in different shades of hair color. Whether you're desperate to cover gray's or just want to try a hue. Madison Reed offers over 55 gorgeous shades to choose Madison Reid offers over fifty five gorgeous shades to choose from. Get ammonia free, multidimensional hair color delivered to your Get ammonia free multi dimensional hair color delivered to your door. Visit madison-reed.com. That's M a D I S O N Dash read dot com. And date line listeners get ten percent off plus free shipping on your first color kit with code date line. That's code Dateline at madison dash Reid dot com. Roseanne Boyland hated Boyland hated politics. She was shy and sweet. And rarely left her home in Georgia. But then she went to the Capitol on January 6th and never made it but then she went to the capital on January sixth and never made it back. This is a American radical. The unbelievable, true story of how one woman became a foot soldier in one of the most dangerous movements in the unbelievable true story of how one woman became a foot soldier in one of the most dangerous movements in America. There's Coming out of her There's blood coming out of nose. Her face is her her face is blue, her body is blue. One guy saying you killed one guy saying you killed her, her. You can American radical the MSNBC original podcast series search for American radicle, wherever you're listening and follow you killed her. American reticle. The newest MSNBC original podcast series, search for American reticle wherever you're listening and follow. Time did not diminish the media hunger for Drew Peterson as he went on trial for the murder of his ex wife Kathleen. This is complicated case. I think that the media circus makes it harder for everybody in a case like this. Defense attorney Steve Greenberg. I think it's harder for jurors to acquit somebody where the public so overwhelmingly wants to see that person convicted. And there's no doubt that the public certainly wanted Drew Peterson to get convicted. It had been eight years since Kathleen Savio died and five years in Stacy went missing and prosecutors had won a big pretrial been eight years since Kathleen Savio died. And five years since Stacy went missing. And prosecutors had won a big pre trial victory after the court made an unusual ruling. It said the state could use hearsay witnesses to tell the jury what Kathleen and Stacey told them about Peterson. Prosecutors Jim Glasgow's strategy would rely heavily on that. But first, he would paint a portrait of Drew Peterson as a controlling and violent husband. She had a number of incidents went through where he was very physical with her and then there was another time where he broke into her house to put a knife to her neck. Kathleen's sister Sue recounted some of those incidents. And you told them about all the times you heard your sister being abused? Yes. I didn't let Drew make me uncomfortable. I felt him staring at me, but I would not let him get to me. I wanted them to know the truth. As for motive, prosecutors say Peterson's was financial. He didn't want to give Kathleen the house nor half his pension. Bush was coming to shove with that property settlement, and he did not want her to get any of his pension. The big twist in the trial was that prosecutors use the words of one wife, Stacy, who was still missing to help make the case that Peterson killed his ex-wife Kathleen jurors, her blockbuster testimony from the state star witness, pastor Neil Schori about those conversations he had at a local big twist in the trial was that prosecutors used the words of one Stacey, who was still missing, to help make the case that Peterson killed his ex wife, Kathleen. Durs her blockbuster testimony from the state star witness Pastor Neil Shorry about those conversations he had at a local Starbucks. The coffee shop turned professional for Stacey, who told him about the night Kathleen died. Drew went out of the house and then came back into the house wearing all black And carrying a duffle bag with women's clothes that weren't hers, dumped it in the washing machine, took his clothes off, and then told her the police will be here soon. And if you tell them what I tell you to tell tell them, then this would be the perfect crime. And she did exactly what he said. With the cops questioning her, withdrew allowed to sit right next to her. IN THE SAME ROOM. Reporter: CONTROLING HER EVEN IN THAT TIME WHERE SHE'S BASICALLY GIVING HIM AN ALLEVI. START TO FINISH. The pastor's story, stunned the courtroom for PASTERS STORY done to the courtroom for sure. But the defense responded that a good story is not evidence, insisting the state's case was purely circumstantial The prosecutors in this trial were unable to say how he got in the prosecutors in this trial were unable to say how he got in the house, when he got in the house, how he supposedly drowned her. They didn't find any defensive wounds on him. They didn't find any DNA under her fingernails like SHE HAD DONE ANYTHING. THERE WAS JUST ABSOLUTELY KNOW WHO WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, IN THIS CASE. After first attacking the lack of physical evidence, the defense argued the hearsay testimony was not reliable Nothing more than rumor and innuendo. The defense also denied Peterson was abusive to women as his sister-in-law had testified. In all the heated confrontations between Peterson and Kathleen, he was never charged with anything. But Kathleen was charged with domestic battery. The record was later expunged. Are you gonna tell me you don't believe that a police officer calling his own police force to come investigate. They're not gonna say, of course, we believe the guy that works with us. I'm gonna say that the police had a job to investigate. They investigated. And based on that investigation, they brought charges As for the pastor, the state star witness, the defense said his testimony rang Hollow. The pastor's story was and his testimony was pretty damning. But it wasn't enough. There were so many problems with that story. The biggest problem defense attorney Greenberg said is the idea that Peterson a police officer would take Kathleen's clothing back to his house that night The biggest problem defense attorney Greenberg said is the idea that Peterson, a police officer, we take Kathleen's clothing back to his house that night. If you had someone's clothing and you had to take it because it was evident you're not going to bring it into your own house. If someone finds that dead person in the middle of the night, where's the first place they're gonna come looking? Truth's house. As for the credibility of these witnesses, the defense questioned their motivation suggesting it was fame, not the truth. Almost all of these people who came forward after Stacey disappeared, first did so by calling the media, not the police. None of them came forward. None of them out of the good of their heart or out of concern for Kathleen or concern for Stacey. None of them right down the line. Then at the last minute, the defense called one more witness, Harry Smith. Harry Smith is a is a divorce attorney, and he had rep represented Kathleen Savio. He was originally supposed to be a prosecution witness. But then The defense said we are going to call with you, which I couldn't fathom why or on what basis they would do that. Turns out, Smith had also talked to Stacy. She had called him because she was considering divorcing Peterson. But there was something else the defense wanted the jury to hear. She said can I get more money out of Drew if we tell either the police or the cops how he killed Kathy? The reason that the defense called Harry Smith was to muddy up Stacey that she was a gold digger and that she was trying to plant all this phony information to get more money out of Drew. But the move backfired. The jury heard Smith repeat the story of Drew confessing to Stacey that he killed Kathleen. And this time, there was more. Details about Drew listening in on the phone call. Terry Smith said that Stacy called me and she said she knew Drew had committed this murder and I could hear Drew in the background yelling at her and that was the last I heard of Stacey. It's not so much of what she said but it's him yelling in the background, I think, that was almost more damning. Disasterous. Here was a defense witness reinforcing the pastor's story. Greenberg blame lead attorney Joel Brodsky for gambling by putting Smith on the stand. Did you know he was gonna say this? Sure. We knew it. And I think what's widely recognized as sort of on the Mount Rushmore of legal mistakes is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a courtroom. As for Drew Peterson, the man who loved to talk he decided not to take the stand in his own defense. After two days of deliberations, the jury came back. Drew Peterson guilty of first degree murder. Greenberg said the verdict was sealed when Smith took the stand. Did you know in that moment? We just lost it. When he got called, I actually crawled under the table. I didn't want any part of it. It was tragic to me because, frankly, we were winning. And then their bone head moved takes place. Brodsky insists Greenberg is lying. He says all the defense attorneys agreed to put Smith on the stand. Whatever happened with the defense Prosecutors Jim Glasgow felt his team did everything right. It was obviously the best verdict I've ever gotten in career and because it was against all odds. Kathleen's family had waited eight years. I wanted to look at him good for the last time and say, Got you, babe. Peterson was sentenced to thirty eight years in prison. But it wouldn't be long before his name surfaced again. This time in a new murder plot. Coming up. Drew Peterson's son gives his verdict. Either And he has the worst luck in the world, or he's responsible for ordering to him has the worst luck in the world or he's responsible for ordering to win And growing up Peterson, we've been through the worst thing possible and had the odds against us when Dateline continues. In two thousand fourteen, two years after he put Drew Peterson away for murder, state's attorney Jim Glasgow got a letter from an inmate serving time with Peterson. We sent a team down to interview him and his story just rang true. His story Drew Peterson was trying to hire a hitman to kill prosecutor Glasgow. They put a wire on the inmate and had him play along with Peterson. So how long before you're thinking of it? Every done by Christmas. If if you say you say Maybe a nice Christmas. Right? The only thing that you say is the good night. Right. Basically, go ahead and come up. Alright. That's what you want. Why? It ain't no it ain't no turn it back. Okay? If I get the moves in here, we'll celebrate down. Peterson was charged with solicitation of murder. Try eyed and convicted. Another forty years added to his sentence. When he was arrested, he left behind six children, including two teenage boys with Kathleen and a five year old son and four year old daughter with Stacey. I'm not gonna have them be split up. You know, during my siblings. His son, Steven, twenty nine years old, with his own baby at the time, stepped in to care for his younger siblings. Yeah. We always thought my dad would get out and he'd beat these charges and he'd get him always thought my dad would get out and he'd beat these charges and he'd get him back. So it's always like a temporary thing at first. And then we did as time went on, it just, you know, obviously, became permanent. Like I said, I'd committed to it. And again, they were doing my siblings and as time went on, they were my kids, you know. Despite their notorious father, Stephen was determined to give the kids a stable home. What I wanted to do with them and and that was to give them the most normal life. So, yeah, we did travel sports, you know, girl scouts, all that kind of thing, every kind of sport we probably played or tried at least once. And then with the older ones, there was college visits and, you know, making sure they had everything they needed. Ironically, Steven says he had an excellent role model. I would say for the first twenty years of my life, I had a great dad. Yeah, you questioned his his decisions with women and, you know, get married quickly. But if there's anything any of his kids I ever needed, he would do it. Looking back, he never could have imagined what was to come when he first met his dad's new girlfriend, Stacey. And he's like, there's one thing, you know, she's little younger. I'm like, okay. You know, I'm not thinking she's seventeen. She was a child. You know, there's no way around that. Yeah. She was she was four years younger than me. But they seemed happy so Steven supported his dad. Then Stacy disappeared and his dad was a suspect. You You couldn't wrap your head around the fact that he had something to do with wrap your head around the fact that he had something to do with it. That just doesn't happen. Your brain doesn't work that way. Obviously, things got a little crazy, more media, and more price, all kind of the whole circuit started. Steven, like much of America, was not impressed by the Drew show. Every time he talked, from the start. People just started to hate them. You know, if you're talking about women's menstruation, no one's gonna take your side. You know, no one's gonna like you. I said, hey, dad, it's not working. Don't do it. And, you know, his response is, don't know what's it's helping. Stephen wanted to believe his dad that Stacey had walked out that Kathleen's death had been an accident. But after his father's murder conviction, he began to accept the painful reality. Knowing that the guy you've looked up for your entire life who did give me twenty eight amazing years is capable of something like that is very difficult to, you know, wrap your head around and, you know, it doesn't come overnight again. Either he has the worst luck in the world or, you know, he's responsible for murdering two women. As for his siblings, They all have different opinions about their father. We don't really talk about, hey, what do you think? You know, do you think that's guilty or innocent? You know? Kathleen's kids have visited their dad in prison. Stacie's had been too young until now. Maybe if they're at the point where they do wanna go see him, because they know he's getting older and I do wanna maybe even ask him what happened. But now we're at was old enough where they can make those own decisions. For his part, Steven hasn't seen his dad in years, but he talks to him on the phone. I'll talk to him around holidays and when he calls and we passed around the phone and everybody says hello and, you know, but a lot of times when he talks, it's it's not the same guy. That I grew up with. Despite everything, Stephen is proud of how the Peterson kids have thrived. With the older two, you know, they're in their late twenties and entrepreneurs and owning businesses. And then the younger ones are, you know, ones just out of high school and one's still in high school and they're finding their way and what they're gonna do. You know, we been through the worst thing possible and had the odds against us, but we all kind of stayed together and were there for each other. Drew's brother, Paul, has also accepted the harsh truth about someone he wants so admired. Now you know the worst. Of your brother. Right. And to have that had to come to terms with that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What a nightmare. He's still my brother still love him. And but, like, can't forgive him for what he did. Do you feel like he is where he should be? Or he deserves to be he deserves to be. Absolutely. What about the man at the center of all this? Has he changed? Since his conviction, we've heard little from Drew Peterson. But now he's filed a new appeal and is breaking his silence. Talking once again to date line. Coming up. All these people are out looking for a place. I know she's not. Drew Peterson's first network interview in more than ten years. You may be here for the rest of your life. Maybe. But I may not may not be. Even after all these years, Cassandra has not given up. She still searches these waters at every opportunity for her sister Stacy. It's just like I'm never gonna stop until I bring my sister home. So just never ending. Last month, the FBI sent divers into the canal to investigate a site flagged by Cassandra and her team. She said sonar picked up what looked to be a body. The FBI found nothing. You gotta be frustrated. Very frustrated. I know Jews in jail, but with everything I've had since the beginning, I should have had justice first In fact, Drew Peterson, who Cassandra blames for her sister's disappearance, says she is way wasting her time. At a prison, we were asked not to name Peterson, now sixty seven, sat down with us for his first network interview in more than a decade. Still sticking to his story. Stacey's not dead. She walked out on him four teen years ago, and there was never any point in looking for her now or back in two thousand seven. All these people are out looking for a place. I know she's not. Well, how do you know that then? Well, unless somebody else tour tour in a in field somewhere, then but I didn't. So why should I go look for some look How do you know she's not in a field somewhere? How do you know she's not in canal somewhere unless you know exactly where she is? don't know. I don't know for sure, but I would believe she ran off. There's no evidence to show that A ticket was purchased that she could have actually even gone abroad or anywhere. The more obvious is that she is somewhere in a canal or is in a field somewhere. Fourteen years later. No. Not really. How many how many women show up years later after running off a lot. It's in the news all the time. III haven't seen those stories. I haven't reported on those stories. Usually, it's the body is exhumed fourteen years later. I've I've seen those stories, women coming those stories. Women coming back. So you're just not paying attention. The fact that no one has even heard from her in all these years, not surprising to yeah. Where would she go and why would she leave her kids for so long and never call the people she loved and say I'm Where would she go? And why would she leave her kids for so long and never call the people she loved and say, I'm okay. She was a young girl. All of a sudden, she saddled with four kids. It was too much for her. She loved those loved those kids. She adopted -- It was still -- Kathleen's kids. It was still too much for her. Since I was getting older, there's a young beautiful woman married to an old man. I asked for that haunting As for that haunting conversation, Cassandra says she had with Stacey. She said if something happens to me, Drew did it. I've never heard that before unless she's most recently making it up. So everybody's making things up. A lot of people are. Mostly Stacy. Stacy is not here to make things up anymore? She already did her damage. Or maybe you did the damage. Nope. There's nothing to take care of her. Many have said that if Stacey hadn't disappeared, you would have gotten away with Kathleen's murder. What do you say to that? I'd say I didn't do I'd say I didn't do it. And You didn't do what? Kill Kathleen or make Stacey disappear. So Stacey disappearing, I think just prompted this this That was created by the media. I'm gonna come and camp myself inside your house and see if you like it. A FR3109, he admits he helped fuel. You've always made light of things, including the death of Kathleen Savio, your third wife, the disappearance of Stacey Peterson, your fourth wife. Right. Are you still in here laughing about that? No. It's just when when you put a camera in front of an obnoxious guy, he's gonna say obnoxious things. So you believe you're, you know, you're an obnoxious believe you're you know you're an obnoxious guy. Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. Regret being that guy who was in front of the cameras and parading and doing the Drew side show that we all saw. The thing is that was all forced by my then attorney, Joel Bratzky. He put me out there in front of the cameras. And he said to me, he Savio, you're innocent to Scott and show me and do nothing wrong and be you. And I was and I think he won it. He is on the record saying he never pushed Peterson to go out in front of the cameras and that courts have rejected Peterson's claims that he was ineffective at trial. Still in court filings, Peterson blames his murder conviction on his attorney. He also blames when he calls a tainted jury and an overzealous prosecutor. At the end of the day, you're saying then, everybody else is lying. Everybody else is making up facts. The jury didn't do their job. It seems everybody else. But you is to blame but you is to blame you. The prosecution's making up facts. This prosecution staged a prosecution with with Kathy They took an accident and staged a prosecution. Everybody's twisting it to make me look bad. Okay. They're twisting it to make their prosecution or what they're trying to say against They're twisted to make their prosecution or what they're trying to say against me work. Peterson continues to deny he ever abused his two wives. You weren't a controlling husband, you weren't threatening, you. Weren't abusive to both Kathleen and weren't abusive to both Kathleen and Stacey? Correct. Kind of husband were you? I was a loving husband. Okay. I was what can I say? I was a good husband, a good provider. If you were such a good husband and such a good provider in interviews that we did with you, you talked about Kathleen having mood swings. Stacey, you said, had mood swings that were tied to her menstrual cycle. Yes. How about the way you talk about women? How do you justify talking about these are mother, the mothers of your children, do you justify talking about these are mother the mothers of your children -- Right. -- the way you did. right? You don't see anything wrong with don't see anything wrong with that? Everybody complains about their wives. But one thing he doesn't complain about is the fact his children and grew up motherless. They grew up without a mother. My son Steve took over. And I think he raised them pretty well. They're all polite. They're all good mannered. They're all were hardworking kids. So it's just like having a mother, isn't it? And all it's cracked up to me maybe. Really? Really? Because you could have a grandmother. Right? By the sounds of By the sounds of it, these two women Kathleen and Stacey were extraordinary mothers. Depends who you're talking to. Peterson has just filed a new round of appeals, even brought the papers with him to this interview. He's hoping to overturned his convictions for Kathleen's murder and the intended hit on prosecutor Glasgow. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. You may be here for the rest of your life. Maybe. But it may not be. Who knows? As for Stacey Peterson's case, the prosecutor says it is still open and drues the main suspect. If the prosecutor walked in right now and said, Drew, I will give you a deal. If you tell us what happened to Stacy, where the body is, you'll get no additional jail time. What would you say to him? No. I got got nothing else to tell you. I got nothing else to tell you. That's no surprise to those who want to honor Stacey and Kathleen. They're focused on building a legacy from what happened to these two women. The mistakes made, and the ways to avoid them. I know that you've been very frank about feeling like you in some way failed Stacey. Oh absolutely. Absolutely. I failed her because I didn't know what to do. But I know that I've honored her by doing what I've done since. And I've been very blessed to be able to help women from all over the country with this new information that I have to recognize the signs of domestic violence Neil Shorry works in part with Drew Peterson's sister-in-law Norma. She's the executive director of a nonprofit called document the abuse. The group helps victims create written records of their abuse that can be used in court. So now that becomes the legacy that I wanna see for both Kathleen and for Stacey, that they not will only be to Beaterson's wives, They will be the reason that other women and other victims will be able to hopefully survive these types of situations. Kathleen's sister Sue Doorman also advocates for victims of domestic violence by telling Kathleen's story. Everybody wanted to hear her story and it gave me great relief because I wanted to help someone else in her name because it wasn't fair for her. She had no voice and you still grieve every day. You're lost. Every single day. You feel her there beside you. I do. I feel her right there with me and I say, hi, hi I feel her right there with me. And I say, hi. Hi, Kathleen. I know you're here. I gotcha. We got them. You had a death that you could more mourn a body that you could say goodbye to, but Stacy's family and her sister, You had a death that you could mourn a body that you could say goodbye to. But Stacey's family and her sister Cassandra, they don't have that No. They don't. And I couldn't imagine what they're going through. I just couldn't imagine that. Cancer ready? Justice for one family, not yet for the other. Justice is something Cassandra thinks about, but is not obsessed with. Her obsession is to complete the mission she embarked on almost fifteen years ago. You don't realize the love that I don't realize the love that I lost my sister was my love, my friend, my mom, my best friend, and I will find her and I'll bring her home, and that's my promise. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. Hey, Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday, sit down podcast on this week's episode, I get together with former first lady United States, Senator secretary of state and democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to get her thoughts on the state of the country and on her new masterclass, which includes an emotional reading of her would be election night victory speech from Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with former first lady, United States senator, secretary of state, and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to get her thought. On the state of the country and on her new master class, which includes an emotional reading of her would be election night victory speech from two thousand sixteen. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.
From The Podcast
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.comJoin Podchaser to...
- Rate podcasts and episodes
- Follow podcasts and creators
- Create podcast and episode lists
- & much more
- Official Episode Pagenbcnews.com
- Download Audio Filehttps://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/chtbl.com/track/6D589D/pdst.fm/e/nbcnews.simplecastaudio.com/ae183fe2-c634-458a-93dd-5770f0676f77/episodes/760eb551-3880-4380-951f-fdfa67ef3d6c/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=ae183fe2-c634-458a-93dd-5770f0676f77&awEpisodeId=760eb551-3880-4380-951f-fdfa67ef3d6c&feed=HL4TzgYC
Episode Tags
Claim and edit this page to your liking.
Unlock more with Podchaser Pro
- Audience Insights
- Contact Information
- Demographics
- Charts
- Sponsor History
- and More!
- Account
- Register
- Log In
- Find Friends
- Resources
- Help Center
- Blog
- API
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More
- © 2024 Podchaser, Inc.
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
- Contact Us