Formerly smug and seemingly narcissistic former Bolingbrook police sergeant Drew Peterson, 59, was sentenced yesterday after conviction in September 2012 for murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio. A jury in Joliet, Illinois found Peterson guilty of killing his third wife and, after trial testimony, closing arguments, jury deliberation, a returned "Guilty" verdict, and then yesterday's sentencing, focus is now on the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.
Police officials, after the October 2007 disappearance of Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, sparked suspicions, had Kathleen Savio's remains exumed. Thus a re-examination subsequent to the exumation ameliorated the medical examiner's findings, reclassifying the death from an accidental death to a homicide.
It is believed Drew Peterson's motivation for murdering Kathleen Savio was based on their property, to be considered in an upcoming divorce proceeding between them. Post-exumation re-examination by the medical examiner determined that physical injuries were caused by Drew Peterson during a violent attack he constructed upon her and not sustained from an accidental fall in the tub, as initially believed. And, with his violent attributes failing to kill her, he reconstructed his attentions on drowning her. Sadly, he succeeded, yet baked a story and bloviated for many months.
After a freshly-launched investigation into Savio's death, and eventual establishment of probable cause, Drew Peterson was arrested in May 2009 and held on a $20 million bond. Will County State Attorney James Glasgow intimated how the significant $20 million bond request was granted immediately by the judge, without question.
Uniquely, Glasgow had utilized evidence in the course of prosecuting Drew Peterson described as the metaphorical allowance of Savio "to testify from the grave" via third-party statements recorded during the police investigation.
The Court ruled for the prosecution declaring "an exception to hearsay rules if they are proven in a pre-trial hearing to be reliable, probative and relevant", Glasgow intimated. Stemming from the Savio and Stacy Peterson cases, this legal tenet is now a state law in Illinois, after precedent was set by Glasgow's peremptory legal arguments for the prosecution.
The jury had to weigh this "testimony", however via third-party revelation, and factor it into the totality of circumstances. Jury post-verdict interviews revealed how significantly this aforementioned "from the grave" testimony played in the overall jury responsibility and considerations of the case. Unanimous verdict was returned in September 2012.
In a crowded courtroom in Will County, Illinois, Drew Peterson, shackled and donning orange-colored jail garb, exclaimed his "innocence" in the 2004 drowning death of Kathleen Savio.
Kathleen was found dead, a gash on her head, in the couple's otherwise dry bathtub, in their Bolingrook, Illinois home. Via trial testimony, it was determined that Drew Peterson had cleaned the tub one day after his wife died in it.
Kathleen Savio was discovered face down in the tub in the master bathroom of the couple's home. Savio's sister, Anna Marie Doman, testified she visited the house one day after Savio’s body was found and observed Drew Peterson scrubbing the tub, per Chicago Sun-Times reports. This, too, propounded alternate theories, away from accidental references.
Playing up the media attention for many consecutives months leading into a few years, Peterson consistently distanced himself from Stacy Peterson's disappearance and, for a spell, derisively, jocularly, and overindulgent in hubris declared his wife must've run off with another man, believed to be a manufactured predicate so as to allay police officials' investigatory focus.
A former police sergeant with the Bolingbrook Police Department, Peterson exhibited character traits akin to narcissism, perpetually with an air of cockiness, self-absorption, smugness, repugnance, depravity. In fact, upon his arrest while awaiting a traffic light at an intersection and as police officials closed in, surrounded his car, excavated him from it, and arrested him for murder, Drew Peterson intimated with his typical pomposity, "I guess I shoulda' returned those library books!" Laced and dripping with his typically-jocular banter, as well as innunedo as it would perceptively relate to the basis of his arrest, Drew Peterson never failed to remain replete with brouhaha.
Savio's sister, Anna Marie Doman, on the stand in open Court, bravely confronted Peterson and opined her observations of him, rebuking his actions and declaring him a "typical sociopath".
Illinois does not have the death penalty among its sentencing statute guidelines; the minimum is set from 20 years to a maximum of 60 years.
Before declaring official sentencing, Judge Edward Burmila ruled that a motion for a retrial for Peterson would be denied.
Emboldened no more, "I did not kill Kathleen!" were the resounding words screamed by Peterson upon learning his fate read by Judge Burmila: 38 years' incarceration in prison. A Savio family member (sister) retorted loudly "Yes, you did! You liar!", and was escorted from the courtroom, per Chicago Tribune reports.
Judge Burmila scolded Drew Peterson for attempting to incite anger and "aggravate people" after which Peterson apologized: "I'm sorry, your honor. I must have been woozy".
Peterson's sentence also stipulates a mandatory full-term of 38 years, therefore, he will be ineligible for parole or release of any kind. Once his entire sentence is matured, Peterson will be released, however at the age of 97, if he endures that long. Plenty of time to settle from wooziness.
Ironically, and perhaps somewhat dubious as to coinciding events, the Lifetime movie "Drew Peterson: Untouchable" starring Rob Lowe as Drew Peterson, is currently airing on the network.
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