http://www.post-trib.com/news/1147165,FATAL907.articlePeterson case results in new book
September 7, 2008Recommend
Sun-Times News Group
Last October, Stacy Peterson disappeared.
And with her disappearance, a national spotlight fell on Bolingbrook, Ill., the previously tranquil southwest suburb where the 23-year-old woman lived with her husband, Drew Peterson, then a Bolingbrook police sergeant, and their children.
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Stacy Peterson (right) and her sister, Cassandra Cales, decked out in Drew Peterson's SWAT uniform and toting his infamous AR-15, are shown in never-before-seen photograph.
Joe Hosey, a reporter for the Herald News in Joliet, Ill., has written "Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson."
Suspicion centered on Drew Peterson, who has steadfastly maintained that the missing woman — his fourth wife — ran off, probably with another man.
Peterson has not been charged but has been identified by investigators as a “suspect” in the still-unsolved disappearance.
Adding intrigue: Peterson’s third wife, Kathleen Savio, had been found dead in the bathtub of the couple’s home in 2004 — a death that initially had been ruled accidental.
But, amid questions raised by Stacy Peterson’s disappearance, Savio’s body was exhumed for a second autopsy. As a result of that newly reopened investigation, in February Savio’s death was ruled a homicide.
In a new book, “Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson” (Phoenix Books, $25.95), Joe Hosey, a reporter for the Herald News in Joliet since 1999, draws on interviews with the family and friends of the missing woman and with Drew Peterson himself to examine the bizarre case, which Hosey has covered for the Herald News and the Chicago Sun-Times.
What follows are two excerpts from the book. The first recounts the inquest by Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil into Savio’s death. The second excerpt begins with Stacy Peterson’s friend Sharon Bychowski’s surprise at not being able to reach her by phone last Oct. 28.
Editor’s note: Two excerpts from “Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson” by Joe Hosey follow. The first recounts the inquest by Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil into Kathleen Savio’s death. The second excerpt begins with Stacy Peterson’s friend Sharon Bychowski’s surprise at not being able to reach her by phone last Oct. 28.
(Will County Coroner Patrick) O’Neil ran the show at (Kathleen) Savio’s inquest, but the star player at the proceeding was Special Agent (Herbert) Hardy of the Illinois State Police.
Hardy was dispatched to testify, even though he only played a small role in the investigation of the woman’s death. He did not talk to (Drew) Peterson or Stacy (Peterson), and he never met with friends or family of Peterson and Savio. He also did not attend Savio’s autopsy and never made an appearance in the second-story bathroom of 392 Pheasant Chase Drive to inspect the death scene.
Yet he was the representative the state police selected to attend the inquest of a police sergeant’s former wife, who died mysteriously in the midst of an acrimonious divorce, and who had at one time filed an order of protection in which she alleged he had threatened to kill her.
Hardy did question some of Savio’s neighbors, but ... “I didn’t talk to the ones that were really close to her,” Hardy testified at the inquest.
“Myself and (another agent) did what we call a ‘neighborhood canvas,’ and we did speak to quite a few of the neighbors in the general area of the residence.”
It came as little surprise that Hardy did not get much information out of those neighbors.
“Did anyone hear or see anything unusual, see any squad cars or anything, any suspicious activity in that area?” O’Neil, the coroner, asked Hardy.
Hardy said they had not.
“Did you find any signs of foul play during the course of your investigation?” O'Neil asked.
“No, sir,” Hardy said. “We did not.”
There were no indications of a burglary or home invasion, no weapons in the house and, according to Hardy, no signs on Savio’s body or in the home that a struggle had taken place.
“Everything seemed to be in order,” he said.
The only possible exception was an unmade bed with some books and magazines on it.
“Nobody related to us that they saw anything unusual in the neighborhood those last few days.”
The only unusual thing was the dead woman in the dry bathtub.
“There was no water (in) the tub when our agents arrived,” Hardy said. “It must have drained out after setting for such a long period of time.”
Savio’s hair was still wet, the special agent noted, her fingertips were pruned, and her skin was wrinkled. She had a cut on the back of her head, and a small amount of blood was in the tub.
“We think that the laceration from her — that she sustained to the back of her head — was caused by a fall in the tub,” Hardy said. “There was nothing to lead us to believe that anything else occurred. There was no other evidence at this time that shows that anything else occurred.”
Hardy never laid out a specific scenario about what state police believe immediately preceded the fall in the tub.
Had Savio, at the end of her bath, stood to unplug the drain but slipped before she could do so? Had she slipped getting in to the tub?
State police didn’t say; perhaps it was not something that could be determined. The tub stopper was down — that was confirmed at the inquest — but there was no mention of having tested the stopper to see how fast a tubful of water could seep away.
Would a plugged-up tub drain and dry out in less than two days, the amount of time between Savio’s phone call with her boyfriend and the discovery of her body?
Would a body lying in a tub trap some water underneath it that wouldn’t evaporate in that time?
If any of these questions factored in to the state police’s deliberations, the public never knew of it.
Savio, state police concluded, had fallen and drowned in the tub while water slowly drained away; she died from an accidental drowning.
“And at the point we’re at now,” Hardy said, “we’re still waiting ... All alibis, all stories were checked as to where people were, and if I remember ... if I recall correctly, the only thing we’re waiting for now is some phone records to find out if certain calls were made when they said they were made. So at this point, that’s where we’re at.”
And it’s at that point that they pretty much stayed for the next three and half years.
In stark contrast to Hardy’s confidence in how Savio perished, her family testified at the inquest that they never for a moment believed her death was an accident. Rather, they told the jury that Savio lived in terror of Peterson.
Savio’s sister, Susan Savio, said Kathleen even predicted that, if she died, “It may look like an accident, but it wasn’t.”
“And it’s just very hard for me to accept that,” Susan continued, “what had happened. His reactions to this were a laughing matter — cleaning everything out, ready to get rid of the house. It’s very hard.”
Peterson did not attend the inquest.
Family members also brought up financial issues between Kathleen Savio and Peterson.
In the divorce settlement, Savio was to get the house. Once she had it, Susan Savio said, “She was going to sell the house and move away.”
But Peterson had other plans, according to Savio family members.
Around 2 p.m., (Stacy Peterson’s friend Sharon) Bychowski called Stacy’s cell phone. The call went straight to voice mail, which struck Bychowski as odd.
“When she’s gone, she never turned her cell off, ever.”
Bychowski did not hear from Stacy for the rest of the day.
At about 8:30 a.m. the next morning — Monday, Oct. 29 — her doorbell rang. She expected it to be Stacy, who usually rang the bell and walked right in. This time, though, it was Peterson.
He grabbed Bychowski by the arm and, saying he needed her, took her to his house. She didn’t even have time to put on her shoes.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God, what’s wrong?’ My heart is pounding, that kind of pounding when you get pulled over by the cops? ... ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ ‘Just come, come.’ He wouldn’t tell me. I see that there’s both cars in the driveway.”
Once she was inside Peterson’s house, he dropped what he must have thought was a bombshell, only Bychowski knew it was coming.
“He says, ‘She left me,’ ” Bychowski said.
“I go, ‘Yeah’ ... I’m thinking, ‘And?’ ’Cause I know how unhappy she is, and I know she wants to leave him. I thought she left for sure.
“I said, ‘Where are the kids?’ And he says, ‘They’re upstairs.’”
With this revelation, she knew something was amiss.
“He goes, ‘I know this is really difficult for you. I know you thought she was your bud and all.’ I’m like, ‘Now what do I do?’ I’m in the house alone with him, basically. And you know what else was odd? Everything was perfect. Like, we have the same flowers. They’re always on her kitchen table. Gone. There’s nothing on the kitchen table. No kids’ placemats. No sippy cups. Nothing. Odd.”
Peterson then complained of Stacy looting their safe and going on a spending spree.
He said she took $25,000 from their safe at home, Bychowski said, but Stacy had told Bychowski the week before that she had transferred $25,000 to pay off a home-equity line of credit so they would only have to divide up assets and not liabilities.
“But he doesn’t know that I know that,” Bychowski said. “So I just said, ‘Oh.’ ”
Peterson said Stacy also took passports and car and house titles and bought herself new clothes and a bikini. The list gave Bychowski further cause for concern.
“Well, I also know that she has a favorite bikini. She’s not going to give that up. I know she has these fabulous bras that she bought herself as a treat after she had her liposuction. I said, ‘She’s not giving up those bras.’ I know her. She had favorite bras. She’s not giving up all those bras.”
Bychowski was in disbelief.
She figured Stacy would leave Peterson sooner or later, but she could not swallow that the young woman would abruptly depart without taking her children.
When she got home and briefed her husband, she said he had a similar sense of dread.
“I said, ‘Bob, the kids are there.’ He sits up and he goes, ‘OK, that’s not right.’ I said, ‘You don’t think I’m being a drama queen to tell you that I think that there’s something wrong with this?’ And he goes, ‘One thing I know about her is, she’d never leave her kids.’
“My husband’s not involved with a lot of stuff,” Bychowski said, “but he knows her well enough to know those kids are always with her.”
Soon after Bychowski returned home, Stacy’s sister, Cassandra, and Bruce Zidarich were at her door.
Zidarich asked Bychowski if she’d heard about Stacy; Bychowski said she had.
Stacy’s sister, Bychowski said, was crying.
Cassandra had apparently had a sleepless, stressful night. After not hearing from Stacy all day Sunday, around 11 that evening she had gone to her sister’s house.
The driveway was empty. She said she spoke with her nephew, Kristopher, who told her his parents had fought that morning, then Stacy had left, and his father was out looking for her.
Cassandra left the house and called Peterson on his cell phone. She was sitting in the parking lot of a nearby Meijer department store when he told her that Stacy had run off, and he was trying to find her.
She said Peterson also told her he was home, which she found difficult to believe, considering she had just been there.
Cassandra then went to the Downers Grove Police Department. She did not want to trust the matter to the Bolingbrook police, and might have chosen the Downers Grove police because she had grown up in the town, but they sent her to Bolingbrook anyway.
From the Bolingbrook Police Department, Cassandra drove by her sister’s home again.
This time, both the Denali and the Grand Prix were parked there.
Cassandra then headed to the nearby District 5 state police headquarters and, in the early hours of Monday, Oct. 29, reported Stacy Peterson missing.
By the time Cassandra showed up at Bychowski’s house, she had an awful feeling about what had happened to her sister.
“She said, ‘He killed her. He killed her,’ ” Bychowski said.
