Original subtitles

♪♪

-This beautiful young wife of a decorated policeman

goes missing and a community goes into panic.

-She never answered her calls from me, which is not normal.

I lost my sister, my best friend.

-I asked, where did she go? Did she talk to you?

-I got a call. Stacy Peterson's missing,

and I just started sobbing.

-His third wife also died under suspicious circumstances.

-Two wives gone in, like, just like three, four years.

Hmm, that's like a little weird.

-We feel like this wasn't an accident.

We feel like Drew has something to do with this murder.

-I have no idea what anybody's talking about like that.

-They needed to stop this guy,

if indeed he was a killing machine.

-Drew Peterson, he turned into a circus again.

There was this almost carnival atmosphere.

-It had a lot to do with money, greed, sex, power.

I mean, all the elements are at play here.

-The Drew Peterson case is infamous,

but there's new information that's cropping up

about the disappearance of wife number four.

-There's a lot that I've been silent about

for the last 10 years

that I finally want to get out there.

I know a lot of secrets.

-I believe I found my sister. I'm gonna bring her home.

And when I do, all the dominoes will fall.

♪♪

♪♪

-My name is Paul Peterson, and I'm Drew Peterson's brother.

Drew was quite the character growing up.

He was six years older, but he was always there for me

as I was younger when I needed him.

I kind of looked up to him. He went in the service.

Um, he was an MP and he was a guard

and a sniper guard for President Ford,

and he was just proud of him.

♪♪

-That guy is my brother-in-law, Drew Peterson.

When I look at him here and see him as a young man,

I think he looks like a good guy there, doesn't he?

-When he got out of the army, he got a job as an officer.

Drew loved being a cop. He was very good at it.

That was his ambition in life is to be a police officer.

-Drew was doing really well. He had gotten awards.

He had gotten a commendation.

He was well thought of and very successful police officer.

-A lot of people are married to men

who have some sort of positions of authority there.

Like, what? I mean, my husband would never do that.

But he's got a problem with stability and monogamy.

He had three troubled marriages.

Carol Brown was Drew Peterson's first wife.

They were high school sweethearts.

Vicki Connolly. She was 23, he was 28.

They were married for about nine years.

They had no children.

But now all eyes are on his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

-Despite all of his personal issues,

Drew Petersen is pretty much respected in the community.

And, you know, although he does have some issues

with his current wife, Kathleen Savio,

they do have two small boys and people are thinking,

well, maybe this one,

maybe this one's the one that's really going to work.

But when he met a hotel clerk one night on his rounds

as Sergeant Peterson, all that was going to change

because they're behind the counter

was 16-year-old Stacy Cales.

-Stacy was a beautiful young girl

and had really big plans for herself.

And she worked nights at a local hotel.

Drew Peterson would come by her work at night,

chat with her as she worked at the front desk of the hotel.

And they developed a relationship.

♪♪

-Stacy turned 17.

And she's like, hey, you want to come over?

I go to her apartment. It's fully furnished.

She's like, oh, Drew's going to stop by.

You're going to meet Drew. Oh, here comes Drew.

He's older and he was married.

That's what bothered me.

Stacy did tell me that he was married to Kathleen Savio.

There was something with the monies or whatever.

That part wasn't done yet

because obviously he wasn't divorced.

I thought it was a fad,

but the next thing you know, she was pregnant.

-He was 30 years older than she was,

but from Stacy's point of view, she's out on her own.

She doesn't really have anything.

This guy's giving her a place to live.

He's giving her a car.

He's giving her financial stability.

It's understandable that she would go along with this.

-Our childhood growing up wasn't the greatest.

-Stacy's mother had her own demons.

She just like, disappeared one day.

She left the house with her Bible and never came back.

Stacy was like 14 or 15 at the time.

-The struggle we had as kids was terrible.

Me and Stacy always just stuck together.

-After dating Stacy for two years,

Drew Peterson finally divorces Kathleen Savio.

It's finalized. That's October 10, 2003.

Eight days later, he marries Stacy.

Their son Anthony was not quite three months old.

-So now Stacy is my sister-in-law.

It was kind of strange at first

to have her be a part of the family,

because here she was, so young.

-She wanted to have a family that we never had growing up.

-Later on, she had Lacey.

She named after a sister who had died when she was a baby.

And so she had two of her own children,

but Stacy had Drew Peterson's two children to raise as well.

She treated them like her own two biological children,

so she was just shy of her 21st birthday

and she is a mother of four.

♪♪

-He did try to make her happy.

We as a family really didn't get to know

Stacy until after the marriage,

but what we could see in Drew's relationships

was this pattern of behavior, abusive behavior.

Stacy was starting to see this behavior.

He ruined so many lives.

I remember this picture.

I remember being there for that picture.

This picture where she is smiling and happy,

this is what we all know. This is what we all loved.

And in that moment she was happy.

I think she thought that she could make it work out.

She told me, she says, I see you and Paul and I keep thinking,

why can't I have that with him?

Because they were brothers. Why?

She did have a dysfunctional background.

So that when my brother-in-law came around,

she didn't have the wherewithal to know to be careful of him.

During one of the family parties,

I saw a bruise on her hip

and I asked her where she got it from,

and she wasn't one to hide the things that he did.

She said Dew pushed me up against the TV

and gave me a bruise.

There were things that we were seeing,

but nothing that was so horrendous that we could,

you know, say, oh my God, you know, you need to get out.

-I did see him shove my sister one time.

Like, complete launched her across the room.

It just made me afraid.

One of the kids saw it and I just took the kids outside.

I didn't play it off like nothing happened,

but didn't want the kids to see that.

-Any kind of domestic violence is about power and control.

And that's what he did,

and he did it within the realm of his job.

There was some issues in his job that I believe

that he got a little carried away with his power and control.

♪♪

-My name is Pastor Neil Schori,

and I counseled Drew and Stacy Peterson in 2006 and 2007.

It was a large church, so I was the counseling pastor

for the whole church. I probably knew both of them

better than anybody else knew them in the church.

I recall my first meeting with Stacy

after a service one day on a Sunday.

We met at a coffee shop right down the street,

and she said that often Drew had some jealousy

but it was okay because it really just meant

that he loved her a lot.

But I knew that something was wrong.

It didn't seem like a healthy marriage.

One of the times I met with Drew and Stacy

at their kitchen table, she said

I went to see my sister who was dying of cancer,

and when she came home, Drew held her against a wall

and he forced her to take articles of clothing off

and he accused her of being with another man.

And she told me this in front of him.

And I remember thinking, I cannot believe

that I'm hearing this right now.

And I glanced over at Drew, and he just looked cold.

There was no effect. It was like looking at a reptile.

He just stared ahead.

And after she said that, she started sobbing.

He stands up and he said, "Well,

I think that's about enough for me now.

Thanks for coming."

And he reached out,

shook my hand and walked out of the room,

and he left me sitting there with Stacy at the table.

And I remember thinking

I've got to get out of this house as fast as possible.

And I remember at one point

praying with Stacy at the table,

and I literally kept my right eye open when I prayed,

which is not anything I would ever do

because I think he was trying to intimidate me in that moment.

-It is so incredibly rare

that an abused person

would describe their abuse to a third party

in front of their abuser.

So if Stacy Peterson was being abused by Drew,

this was astounding.

It just begs the question, was it a cry for help?

-Stacy never told me that she was planning to leave Drew,

but I believe that she probably was.

I remember she said, "What do you do

when you're married to a police officer?"

I think it's very, very understandable

for someone who's married to a police officer

that's 30 years older than she is,

that she would sort of feel hopeless and stuck.

She started to walk me towards the front door.

We walked down the hallway and I remember looking to the left,

and that's where Drew had a home office,

and he was standing behind his desk,

staring, and both of his hands were behind his back

and it was very odd.

And I walked up towards him

and I slowly stuck out my hand to shake it,

and he left his left hand behind his back

and he pulls his right hand out

and he shook my hand with no emotion.

And that was the last time that I saw Drew.

-So this is the situation

heading into the holidays of 2007.

Drew and Stacy have now been married for about four years,

and she is just barely out of her teens

at this point.

She is feeling very stifled,

he is feeling super jealous

and the whole thing just looks like

it's a tinderbox waiting to explode.

And all Stacy's sister Cassandra could do was sit by

and watch as the only person

who'd ever been there for Cassandra

basically had the walls close in around her.

-She goes, I'll make dinner. Come over.

I had went over there, and Stacy had asked me

How I felt about her getting a divorce.

I said I was scared.

Drew was very controlling.

I looked at her and I said, "Let's go, grab the kids,

let's get the...out of here."

And she said she couldn't

because Drew was the breadwinner

and he would take her kids.

My heart sunk. I felt helpless.

-This is something that we've heard time and time again.

Isolation, financial control, all of these things.

Stacy must have known how hard it would have been for her

to get a job and support four kids,

so she really must have felt trapped.

♪♪

-Few days after October 28th, 2007,

me and my sister had plans to paint our good friend's house.

So I had called her and, um,

she never answered her calls from me,

which is not normal.

Well, I stopped by the house.

There was no cars on the driveway.

I knock on the door.

One of the kids answers the door and said, "Mom left.

Dad's out looking for her." Didn't know what to do.

I just said F it. I want to call Drew.

Drew answers the phone. He's out of breath.

I can hear keys jingling.

He's just ranting about my sister.

I just knew something was wrong.

-Drew didn't seem all that concerned

about his missing fourth wife, Stacy.

He was like she took off with another man.

She took $25,000 from a safe at home, and she's gone.

She's on a spending spree and she's with another man.

-He had said she left with her boyfriend.

My sister didn't have a boyfriend.

She wasn't allowed to have any friends with Drew.

♪♪

-Cassandra Cales worst nightmare is coming true.

The one person who has always been there for her,

her sister Stacy, has vanished.

Worse yet, she believes that her husband,

a police officer, is behind it.

But where do you go when you suspect a cop

of committing a crime?

♪♪

-Drew was the sergeant

of the Bolingbrook Police Department.

I didn't know what else to do, and then I just drove

to Illinois State Police District Five.

-It was a Monday morning.

I had just gotten to the office and Cassandra Cales

reported that her sister, Stacy Peterson was missing.

I got to meet Cassandra Cales

and had the opportunity to talk to her.

-So I'm telling this guy Drew had did something to my sister.

-The fact that the family alleged that a police officer

was involved in her disappearance,

that made this more of a significant event.

But Stacy had not been gone that long,

so at the time it was decided that we would wait.

♪♪

-For three days I felt law enforcement

were not doing anything,

and I didn't know what else to do.

Then I said, "Call the news."

-23-year-old Stacy Peterson's family

reported her missing on Monday.

-23-year-old Stacy Ann Peterson

is the wife of a patrol sergeant here

with the Bolingbrook Police Department.

-It blows up and becomes a national news story.

-State police say they're searching specific areas

for the wife of a Bolingbrook police sergeant.

So far, no new clues have been found.

-Every national news organization was there.

People always ask why was there so much attention

to this particular case?

It's $1 million question. Stacy was beautiful.

She was young, but her husband was a police officer

and was much older than her.

And I think that that played into the suspicion.

It had a lot to do with money, greed, sex, power.

I mean, all the elements are at play here.

-After the first three or four days,

we sent investigators to Bolingbrook

to interview Drew Peterson.

He said that he had also gone out

and searched for her that evening to no avail.

We also sent crime scene technicians

along to the Peterson residence,

which Drew voluntarily gave consent for us to do.

But there was little to no physical evidence.

-At the very beginning, Drew was hiding.

-I'm sorry, sir.

He taped typing paper up over all his windows and his door.

He would only open it, you know, maybe an inch,

and peek out with one eye.

But it wasn't long after that he was wallowing in the media,

wallowing in the limelight. He loved it.

-Please go home. Please leave me alone.

Please don't get involved in my little world.

[ Laughs ]

What's going on today? -Yes.

-We went to McDonald's.

We had Happy Meals and McRib sandwiches.

How's that? And that's what's going on today.

-He come outside with his own camera.

And so while the media is filming him, he's filming them.

He just, like, he taunted. He played games with the press.

-Watch this.

[ Chuckles ]

-He loved the media attention.

-I'm going to come camp myself in front of your house

and see if you like it.

-He'd go on the morning talk shows on the broadcast networks.

He was, you know, just loving it.

-I believe I was a suspect from the beginning

when they first started talking to me.

♪♪

-My name is Joel Brodsky.

I'm a criminal defense attorney in Chicago, Illinois.

-Why did you agree to do this interview today?

-Why?

No. Um...

There's...a lot that's unknown about Drew Peterson

and a lot that's unknown about the case

and a lot I've been silent about for the last 10 years

that I finally want to get out there.

They tried to put a gag order,

but I think, uh, enough time is going by.

I don't consider myself bound by that gag order anymore.

-Do you remember where you were and what you were doing

when you first heard the name Drew Peterson?

-So I had heard about it,

but what really brought it to my attention

was when my wife downstairs, she yelled up, says,

"Joel, Drew Peterson is on the 'Today' show."

-So I think this was fabricated

as a lot of things have been.

-My first thought was, what an idiot.

I mean, the first thing you tell your client is if he's,

uh, you know, under suspicion for a crime is,

you know, shut up. -If there was

anything that happened to her,

you know, it should be found out.

-And then at the end, Drew asks for a lawyer.

I come home that evening and my wife said,

"You know what? I called the, uh, the 'Today' show,

and I left your name and number."

So I go, okay.

Um, two days later, he called me

and he gave me a corner about two blocks from where he lives.

He goes, just drive there and wait. I'll be there.

And we talked for about 45 minutes.

After that, Drew said, yep, I want you.

And from that point on, I was Drew's lawyer.

But every morning I would tell him, stay away from the media.

Don't talk. Drew was like a moth to a flame.

He couldn't stay away.

And every afternoon I would see his face on the TV

talking to the media. -Well, I think

all the people who are

pretending to be my friends that come out,

I think they were all, uh, financially motivated.

-Drew's idea was the media to him was like a toy.

He liked messing with them.

-Can you -- can you make it simple?

-Sooner or later, it became if you can't beat them,

join them.

I think it's time to let it go.

-By this time, the search for Stacy

was turning from a rescue

into a recovery of potentially a body.

And with Drew Peterson as the prime suspect,

the investigators really started to drill down

on the night of October 28th.

And by using his cellphone and the pings to local towers,

they were able to determine that he drove a little less

than 15 minutes away from his home

late on a Sunday night to the Illinois/Michigan Canal.

Now, why would anybody be out at midnight

driving to a desolate canal,

a place where you could dump anything like a body?

-We believe, based on phone records,

that Drew Peterson drove to an area near the canal.

We had teams that were actually doing extensive searches

that were searching the forest preserve,

lots that were abandoned, areas along the canal.

-Officers searched on land and by boat.

-They used dogs. They were looking for clues

in areas where investigators believe Stacy's body

may have been left.

-There was reportedly

cellphone activity from Stacy's phone in this area.

-The canal is the most unforgiving environment

in the area.

It's the perfect environment to hide a body

with all the debris that's located there,

but there was nothing.

-I talked to one of the divers who told me that it was futile.

That diver told me he thinks it was really done

for the publicity, to show people that they were

trying to do something more than anything.

-Investigators tackle a problem from all angles.

And so while the divers are down looking for a potential body,

the investigators are actually looking at Stacy's

last movements before she disappeared.

And lo and behold, they discover

that a few months before she vanished,

she'd been in contact with a guy that she liked in high school.

-Investigators pull the phone records,

and Stacy had several phone calls

and text messages to a Scott Rossetto.

-Scott hadn't heard from her in a long time.

And then all of a sudden, in the fall of 2007,

he hears from Stacy, she's not happy in her marriage.

They start texting a lot and they meet up a couple times.

-Drew suspected that there might be

something more to the relationship,

and Drew was probably correct on that.

[ Chime ]

[ Tweet ]

♪♪

-Scott Rossetto was interviewed several times by investigators.

-The initial theory was that Drew

discovered these racy text messages

between Stacy and Scott Rossetto.

[ Chime ]

[ Tweet ]

In the fall of 2007, like August, September 2007.

♪♪

-Scott said that Stacy

reached out to him out of the blue,

that she found his number and gave him a call.

They went out to a Denny's for lunch together.

He said Drew showed up, which was strange in itself.

He was very likely tracking Stacy's movements.

-They really were flirtatious, but Scott never went there.

He says he had a girlfriend, right?

But Drew, he's surveilling her. He's stalking her.

He's in uniform, and he kind of stares at Scott.

He was very intimidating.

He asked for some identification.

-So you have to picture this from Scott's point of view.

Uh, he's sitting across from this beautiful girl.

And sure, there had been some text flirting,

you know, going on. But then suddenly,

in walks this cop, service pistol and everything,

and he demands I.D.

What does he want I.D. for?

And then he realizes, terrific. This guy's now got my address.

-Stacy was very upset.

She walked out with Drew

and then came back in very upset.

The last time they texted was like 11:00

or so that Sunday morning,

and she didn't answer any texts after that.

But when Stacy disappeared, Scott Rossetto was at work,

so he had an alibi.

He was at work on Sunday, October 28, 2007.

-Investigators don't have much to go on.

They don't have tips and leads,

and this is starting to look like a dead end

when out of the blue, of all places,

they get a heads up from the Chicago field office of the FBI.

It turns out a tip was called in

about a guy who might know something.

And it turns out the guys in the hospital

after having tried to kill himself.

-Another person that we were interested in talking to

was Drew Peterson's stepbrother Thomas Murphy.

The first interview was done from a hospital room.

He needed medical help,

and he felt very guilty about what he had done.

-Tom Morphey was so upset

over what he believed he had assisted in that

he actually tried to kill himself the next day or so.

He took a lot of pills and landed in the hospital.

-And according to Morphey,

he helped Drew Peterson remove something from the bedroom,

down the stairs and into the four-wheel-drive SUV.

♪♪

-Tom Morphey honestly knows he helped after the fact,

carried my sister out of that house.

That's why Tom tried killing himself.

-So now we might actually have something.

Stacy was petite, 5'2", 100 pounds, soaking wet,

so she easily could have fit into a container

like the one Tom Morphey was describing.

At the same time,

the media is out there like a hungry pack of tigers,

and suddenly there's this raw piece of meat.

Every reporter out there wants to know more

about this blue container.

-Drew Peterson denies reports that a relative

helped him move a container that held his missing wife's body.

-The media laser-focused in on the blue container

because we had nothing else to go on.

It was the only clue we had.

-Everybody is talking about this blue container,

but Drew Peterson vehemently denies

Morphey's account.

-Relative of yours saying he helped carry

a rectangular container

out of your home on October 28th.

-I have no idea what anybody's talking about like that.

-Warm to the touch? -Nope.

-He says he believes that he helped you

dispose of your wife's body.

Can you at least respond to that?

-No.

-Not at all?

-Drew Peterson had motive to kill Stacy Peterson

because of an imminent divorce where he could lose his home,

and he felt she was having an affair with Scott Rossetto.

-Stacy was a very sexy, you know,

at that point, 24-year-old woman,

and Drew was jealous.

I think there was just something really

bizarre and dangerous about Drew.

-We learned after looking into the background of Drew Peterson

that he had been married several times before.

We learned that Drew was sometimes violent

and that there was definitely marital issues.

♪♪

-Carol Brown was Drew's first wife. She was great.

I was a freshman in high school and she was a senior,

and she sat at the cool table.

So that first freshman year of school was very cool

because I was Carol's future brother-in-law,

and it was sad to see them get divorced

because she was a really good person.

-In 1974, The last thing that anyone would think

is that Drew Peterson would become a household name.

There are almost no photos of Drew and Carol together,

but in their wedding photo,

which was later published by the Chicago Sun-Times,

they certainly do look happy.

-There was no indications of any kind of domestic violence.

But in my opinion, when you're speaking

with someone of Drew's nature, a narcissist at their core,

they're not going to really pay any attention

to what other people think.

As long as he was happy, that's truly all that mattered.

With narcissists, it's almost like they can tell

that someone is -- is open to their manipulations,

either through trauma or upbringing.

♪♪

-Drew Peterson's second marriage was to a woman

who at the time was a Victoria Rutkiewicz.

She was 23. He was 28.

They were married for about nine years.

They had no children.

-Drew was incredibly controlling with her,

but she had a big personality, which was a little bit different

than some of the other women that he had married.

So I think that there was a lot

of contention in that relationship

because Vicki stood up for herself.

♪♪

-She just wanted out.

She didn't want anything from him.

I think that's what allowed her to walk out of the marriage.

And before he's even done with his divorce from Vicki,

he meets Kathleen Savio.

And they're already together,

and he's introducing her to the family.

And he doesn't tell her he's married.

He makes it seem like he's single.

-I am Nick Savio,

the youngest brother of Kathleen Savio.

♪♪

I remember her going on dates with him,

and I remember the day that she told Dad she was

going to get married to him.

And I remember Dad saying

I'm not walking you down the aisle.

Dad didn't care for Drew.

He said you never bring him around,

and all of a sudden you're marrying him.

Why are we such in a rush here?

And I guess, come to find out, that she was pregnant.

And I think she was just in a rush

to have kids to start a family,

and I think Drew was able to give that to her.

They have two children, but Kathleen became isolated,

became not the person that we knew.

♪♪

♪♪

It's, uh, it's a hard picture to swallow.

♪♪

And she would say things. It's not that bad.

Oh, it definitely is.

She would go to parties with black eyes,

try to cover up her makeup, and maybe say I hit a curb.

We all knew what was going on.

You don't get a black eye from just falling down.

It doesn't work that way.

♪♪

♪♪

-Drew Peterson claims that he never hit

any of his four wives,

that it would have put his job as a police officer in jeopardy,

but there are studies from that time period

that suggest 40% of law enforcement have families

or wives who actually experience domestic abuse.

So it's a little hard to take that argument seriously.

But that's the exact case that he brings to the media,

and a perfect example of that is his appearance

on CNN's "Larry King" in 2008.

-If I get involved in a domestic

situation where I'm physical with a wife,

I'll lose my job, and I would never even care to

even come close to risking that.

-People have to think, well, what is going on

with his family that they couldn't do anything?

Drew had different categories of people in his life,

and he kept them separated.

And so because we weren't all part of one group,

we couldn't compare notes.

And in going through all of this,

we learn all of these things

that had been going on that we weren't aware of.

-I think she lost all hope and everything.

We believe that the people he worked with covered up

for him for a lot of years there.

-Kathleen Savio and Drew Peterson's marriage

certainly had its ups and downs like many marriages,

but they had two beautiful boys.

They had a nice house on a street

in a safe Chicago area suburb, he had a good job.

So it's sort of odd how you could just be

going about your life

and then something so incredibly random

just comes in and upends it.

-Stories came out that my sister was being cheated on.

Uh, the anonymous letter.

Somebody cared enough to actually send this to her.

"You are probably well aware that your husband

is having an affair.

You may already have all this information,

but if not, you will need it

to prevent any further embarrassment

and disgrace to you and your family.

This affair has been going on for several months.

Because of her age, 17,

and because of Drew's age and his occupation,

he holds a position of authority over her.

Drew couldn't be charged criminally

for this intimate involvement with this minor."

My sister's worst fears come to fruition,

but it had to be confirmed from an anonymous letter,

that her marriage is basically over, falling apart.

I think she was like 32, 33

and this girl was 16 years younger than her.

And that was really bothersome.

-My name is Harry Smith and I was Kathleen Savio's

prior family law attorney.

That letter she received incited Kathleen to confront him.

She asked me to represent her against Drew.

The Savio/Peterson divorce was extremely acrimonious.

There would be fights every time

there was a handover of the children.

Once Drew began slamming on the horn

and screaming for Kathleen to come out

and get the boys from his truck.

Stacy, very pregnant, is in the front passenger seat.

Kathleen comes out, Stacy gets out

and the fight begins with his children

watching from car seats.

Kathleen wasn't perfect.

She would not back down from a fight.

Kathleen attacked a pregnant woman.

And mind you, Drew is a police officer during this time.

So he grabbed Kathleen, put her in an arm bar

and held her face down on the front lawn of the driveway

until Bolingbrook Police showed up and arrested Kathleen.

She was convinced that Drew Peterson

was manipulating the system

and that her voice wasn't being heard.

-Here's the thing. Sometimes divorces are so messy

that judges will actually grant the divorce

and allow people to move on with their lives,

get married again, move across the country, et cetera,

and then deal with the financial part afterwards.

And as was the case for Drew Peterson

and Kathleen Savio,

They were divorced, Drew married Stacy,

but the finances with Kathleen weren't settled.

And if things go the way many divorces go,

Drew knows he's about to lose his shirt.

-On March 1, 2004, Drew Peterson

is expected to drop the children off

at Kathleen Savio's house.

He arrives at the house, knocks on the door.

There's no answer.

The neighbors arrive as well to unlock the door.

He allows the neighbors to rush in.

The neighbors find Kathleen Savio

dead in the bathtub.

-Drew heard screams from inside the house.

So he ran in, ran up the stairs, saw Kathleen dead in the tub.

Grabbed her, got his DNA all over her

and they called the police.

-That evening, Illinois State Police investigators

were sent to the Peterson home.

There were crime scene photos taken of that scene,

and her body was found laying in that bathtub.

It was believed that she had slipped

and hit her head on the bathtub, and she died from drowning.

[ Phone rings ]

-I remember our older sister

calling me at about four in the morning,

and I remember her saying, uh,

your sister -- sister's gone. What?

What?

She's gone. They found her in a bathtub.

I'm like, "What?"

I just remember sitting there like she's too young,

not like this.

♪♪

♪♪

-By his account,

there's Drew looking down at his dead wife in the bathtub,

while at the same time, let's not forget,

he is still in a lawsuit where he has to pay

child support, pay alimony, split the house

and probably split his pension for the 11 years

that they were married.

Now he doesn't have to write those checks anymore.

-As we finally prepare for trial,

which Drew has avoided on two occasions,

Kathleen has an accident and is now dead.

-So when he told us Kathleen had died,

we thought, well, isn't that convenient for you?

♪♪

-When Stacy disappeared,

law enforcement immediately took another look

at Kathleen's death.

Because two wives gone in like, just like three, four years?

Hmm, that's like a little weird.

So they took a look back at that third marriage to say, hmm,

maybe there is something here that we missed.

-I think that the most important document we had

was the autopsy report.

I went to my expert, who's Dr. Michael Baden,

and I said, "Dr. Baden, please take a look at this."

The fact that she was found in a dry bathtub.

There was no evidence of water.

And if you look statistically at the number of people

who die in bathtubs, it's almost zero.

All of these factors together, this looks suspicious.

He said, "Steph, this is not an accident."

Dr. Baden believed that Kathleen Savio

had been murdered,

and literally all hell broke loose.

There was pressure to exhume Kathleen Savio's body

and perform an additional autopsy.

-In consultation with the prosecutor's office,

We reopened the Kathleen Savio investigation

and have a second autopsy completed.

During the investigation of Stacy Peterson,

new information concerning the Savio

death investigation came to light.

And that is being looked at in great detail,

which has caused the reopening of the Savio investigation

by the States Attorney's Office and the State Police.

-When I heard that they reopened this case,

I had my own little anxiety attack.

I remember August 31, 2007 was my last meeting with Stacy.

We met at the Starbucks down the street from the church.

She looked very serious and very scared,

and she just blurts out Drew killed

Kathleen Savio in 2004.

Stacy told me that there was one night when Drew walked in

and he was wearing all black head to toe,

and she looks at him and she said,

"Well, where were you?"

And he looked at her and he said,

"You know where I was." And he didn't say anything else.

He just started taking his clothes off

and put them -- putting them in the washing machine.

He sat her down and he said, "Stacy,

in a few hours the police are going to come,

and if you tell them what I tell you to say,

this will be the perfect crime."

I was still pretty new in my career.

I had no idea of what to do in this situation.

I asked her, "What do you want me to do with this?"

And she said, "I don't want you to do anything.

I just want you to know."

I think she was very, very concerned

that the same thing was going to happen to her.

-Drew had both a military background

and then he had the police background.

I think regarding Kathy, he took months to plan everything out.

But how can a guy that, uh, meticulously plans

everything out make these two mistakes?

The mistake of not having Kathy cremated

and not sending Stacy away for the weekend.

♪♪

-The family clearly was concerned

because the first time they had classified the death

as an accident.

So they came to me and said, well, we don't trust them,

we don't trust the decision they're going to make,

because clearly the first time

they didn't make the right decision.

So I circled back around with Dr. Baden and I said,

"Would you consider doing an autopsy

privately on behalf of the family?"

And he said yes.

The family agreed, and that's what happened.

Was my first time being in on an autopsy.

[ Clears throat ]

And I remember...

they brought her body out.

So I stood with my pack,

and I remember the smell.

♪♪

I stayed laser-focused on Dr. Baden.

I wouldn't even look down because I had a job to do.

♪♪

He concluded that Kathleen Savio had been murdered

based on simplistic things like there

was scratches and marks on her chest, on her back

and there was a big blunt force trauma on the back of the head.

Then they were forced to conduct a state-authorized autopsy

for their own purposes.

The state had their own autopsy

and came to the exact same conclusion.

This became the autopsy that people really relied upon.

-Somebody listened, finally.

Somebody cared enough to make the right decision.

Finally something went our way.

-Drew hasn't been charged yet with Kathleen's murder,

but it's not looking good for him.

He felt like he was Teflon.

He has committed the perfect crimes.

I can kill you and make it look like an accident.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

Now it was a homicide.

♪♪

♪♪

-Drew Peterson was not charged yet

for the murder of Kathleen Savio.

We believe we had the right guy now.

We now had to prove it. We did have a body.

And the second autopsy determined

that Kathleen Savio died by homicide,

and we had the records of domestic violence.

-If the state's attorney had what I would call huevos,

he would have brought a charge on Stacy.

But knowing the state's attorney, Jim Glasgow,

if there was going to be a charge that was going to be

with Kathy Savio because there was a body.

-Now, mind you, he hadn't been charged yet.

Drew is appearing on these radio shows

and TV shows at the same time

a grand jury is deciding his fate

and whether or not he is going to be charged

with the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

It was pitched to a radio station in Chicago

to win a date with Drew.

Can you imagine?

-Drew was certainly having a good time with all of this.

In fact, he'd become a regular on

Mancow Mueller's top-rated Chicago radio show.

It's a shock jock morning zoo show,

but I don't think that Drew Peterson at any point

was betting on Stacy's family listening in.

-I was working and I just heard him talking on the show.

I got sick of it, and I just, like, I'm calling in.

He was making it out to be some kind of amusement

for himself.

It was just disgusting.

-Well, I never heard of accused murderer

going on the radio to joke about things,

much less the family calling up to confront them.

I mean, this was all new to everyone I think.

It was very surreal.

-A mother of two has been missing.

Friends and relatives say they're convinced

she's the victim of foul play.

-We knew that the arrest was imminent

and that we had to make sure

that this was handled the right way.

♪♪

-I had gotten tips that Drew was going to be arrested.

They said be at his house early in the morning.

-Drew had to have known the hammer was about to fall.

-The police had orchestrated a very careful arrest.

They pulled him over, they got him out of the car.

They handcuffed him, but he knew where the cameras were.

He knew where to look.

And as he was being taken off into the car,

screaming and yelling things to the media.

-There's a famous video of him in a red jumpsuit,

and he's shackled and he's got,

you know, his wrists are also cuffed.

And he's, like, looking up. He's looking up at, like,

some cameras and he's like not taking it seriously.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

♪♪

It was like, oh, my God, what's wrong with this guy?

-You don't take this serious yet?

-I recall Drew's arrest.

Happy moment. Happy, Happy.

But yet he's here smiling when he's arrested.

Another shot to us.

He thinks he's above the law,

he's going to walk away with this.

It's not -- not acceptable to us. It never was.

-Let's give them out, folks.

-I had planned to do an appearance on all three

major morning shows in New York.

The point to get across was, look it,

whatever you think may have happened,

there's no evidence.

Hearsay is not evidence. It's unreliable.

That's why they usually don't let it in in court.

So, you know, that's it. You know?

That was our -- that was all we were trying to get across.

I got a call just as the plane was on the runway

Drew had been arrested.

So I went to New York, did the shows.

First of all, somebody else accused

doesn't have to prove their innocence.

The state has to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

And everybody that's ever been found not guilty

was initially indicted.

So being indicted is not evidence of anything.

I think the main point in this case

is going to be forensic.

And then get on the plane back.

He needs a lawyer.

-You know, I love him, you know?

If you had a family dog that was out biting

all the neighbor kids, you may love it dearly,

but you got to help put it away, put it down.

And that's kind of how I felt with Drew.

-Bail for Drew Peterson is set at $20 million,

which is effectively the judge saying

you're not going anywhere until this thing goes to trial.

And that's where the really hard part began,

because from the time that Drew Peterson was arrested in 2009,

every single legal wrangling and complex maneuver,

that just ate up the next five years.

-Now, Drew Peterson's been charged,

and the state is getting ready for trial.

They've got to get their evidence lined up.

The question is, is it proved beyond a reasonable doubt,

and will 12 jurors be convinced?

♪♪

♪♪

-It was going to be an uphill battle

to prosecute Drew Peterson for Kathleen Savio's murder.

At the time of her death, the state police

didn't collect any evidence.

At the time of his trial, there was no evidence,

no physical evidence,

fingerprints, a smoking gun, I mean, DNA.

They had none of that.

-This was not a slam dunk case by anybody's standards.

There were several challenges in the case.

One was that the jury could never learn

or become knowledgeable in the fact

that Stacy Peterson was missing.

I think it was the elephant in the room.

-But so much of the prosecution of Drew

for Kathleen Savio's death

was related to Stacy's disappearance,

because that's why it was reopened,

because she disappeared.

And jurors can't know that, right?

The two were so intertwined

that it had to have been a huge challenge for the prosecution.

You can't always get jurors who have been living

under a rock and know nothing about the case

when it's high profile like this.

♪♪

♪♪

-On July 24, 2012,

a jury is actually seated for the Drew Peterson trial,

and it starts to look as though

this might actually be a normal trial.

But this is Drew Peterson.

Anything can happen, and the media goes hog wild.

♪♪

-Turned into a circus again.

There was this -- this almost carnival atmosphere.

-Are they trying to hassle you for this?

-Who you been? [ Indistinct conversations ]

-I remember the trial beginning and us getting there,

and it was like a scene out of a movie.

Um, you never think you're going to be this close to cameras,

all this stuff.

You realize how national it really was.

They were holding lottery drawings out there

for people that could be at that case.

-One of the most anticipated witnesses at this trial

was Neil Schori.

He was Stacy's pastor and friend,

and he was also one of the only people

that Stacy had told about the night Drew came home

and told her he killed Kathleen Savio.

-Drew Peterson's defense team did not want me

to be able to testify, and it was this long,

drawn out thing trying to keep my testimony out.

They said, oh, it's just hearsay, it's hearsay.

But the judge at the time

ruled that most of what I had to say wasn't hearsay,

because what he said is that based

on a preponderance of the evidence,

it's very likely that Drew killed Stacy

so that she couldn't testify about Kathleen Savio's murder.

It was extremely strange for me

to be testifying on Kathleen's behalf.

I think my testimony was pretty important.

-I believe Neil Schori is not lying,

but I can't question the person that told him.

So, uh, look it.

Um, trying to say -- trying to be careful here.

Um...

I -- I believe that Pastor Schori wasn't lying.

That's what Stacy told him, right?

What I'm saying is that as a lawyer,

I couldn't cross-examine Stacy

on what her motivation was to say that.

-In all, the prosecution calls 81 witnesses,

But then in a surprise move, they decide to waive their right

to call the attorney who was involved

in both the divorce for Kathleen and for Stacy.

It's an attorney named Harry Smith.

-We didn't want to call Harry Smith, but Drew insisted.

He Drew wanted us to call him.

And if we don't call a witness the client wants us to call,

I can guarantee you, if he's convicted,

he's going to call us out.

He's going to say, you guys didn't call a witness

I wanted to call that could have give good evidence.

And that's how that happened.

♪♪

-I testified that Stacy called me.

She told me that she was considering leaving Drew

and she wanted advice from me as a divorce attorney.

I told Stacy Peterson that I suspected

it was a conflict for me to represent her against Drew,

considering my representation of Kathleen Savio.

She said that was okay.

She just wanted to ask me a couple of questions.

And then I testified that Stacy told me within two minutes

of asking for a divorce consult that Drew killed Kathleen.

I could see the reaction of the jury when I testified.

I can't believe we got the opportunity to offer

that evidence to a jury.

-The burden of proof is, of course, on the state,

and as their list of witnesses gets smaller and smaller,

the nation is on the edge of their seat,

and the cameras are there to capture

every moment of this drama.

-It was a long trial,

and then the judge gives the instructions to the jury

and the jury goes back.

So it's just sitting and waiting,

and what's going through your mind is, um,

well, if you've done enough trials,

nothing because you realize that there's no way to predict

what a jury is going to do.

-And I remember sitting outside,

and there was a lot of buzz going on with the case.

All of a sudden, I remember sitting around

after getting lunch, we have a verdict.

You got to get up to the courtroom.

I remember that agonizing 15 to 20 minutes

just waiting for the judge to come.

Agonizing and waiting for the jury to show up.

You see these 12 empty juror seats,

and you're just like the fate is all in their hands.

You're just sitting there with this ball of anxiety.

One of the worst feelings I've ever had in the world.

♪♪

-Jury comes back.

Judge comes in and says "All rise.

Have you come to a verdict?"

Jury says, "We, the jury find

the defendant, Drew Peterson,

guilty.

Immediate tears.

Immediate tears. It was like eight years.

Somebody finally heard her.

♪♪

Justice may have been served, but again, it's a shame

that Stacy had to disappear for this to happen.

♪♪

-I don't disagree with the verdict.

And not long after the guilty verdict, I withdrew,

resigned from the case.

[ Cell door clanging ]

-As if the walls weren't closing in enough,

Drew Peterson had yet to learn how many years

he was going to spend in prison for this murder.

His little house of cards that he'd been building all his life

certainly coming crashing down.

-So in February 2013, Drew Peterson is sentenced

and the judge gave him 38 years.

Drew had an outburst in the courtroom.

This is a guy who was always so jocular and jovial

and joking around,

but the reality had to have sunk in.

It's like, wow, Buster,

you're going away for the rest of your life.

-The Savio family could rest easy

that Drew Peterson was going to pay for the murder of Kathleen.

But what about Stacy?

She'd been missing five years by this time.

Was anyone ever going to be charged in her case?

Cassandra must know by now that she's dead.

But in our society, it's important to have a place

to be able to mourn.

And not only do they not know how Stacy died,

they don't even have a place to lay a wreath or a flower.

Drew Peterson's original trial attorney

says this has gone on long enough.

He says it is time for the truth to come out.

And yes, lawyers and clients have a sacred bond,

but so do humans to each other.

-I feel very bad for Cassandra.

I want her to have closure.

I don't want to, uh, you know, go too far across the line.

I want to go as far as I think I can and should.

To try to show, you know, people need to read

between the lines to get the closure they need.

Let them read between the lines.

I'm doing as much as I feel I can.

-The big mysteries in Stacy's case

have always been no body, no weapon,

and now Brodsky seems to be giving us real clues

about both of these mysteries.

-They did a interview of Drew's --

of Kathy's children.

And during that interview, one of Drew's children, Kris,

talks about Drew practicing in the basement of the house

with a firearm with a silencer.

♪♪

If I'm investigating what I believe to be a homicide,

and then somebody who lived in that house

talks about the person I think committed this homicide

firing a silenced pistol in the basement,

target shooting...

-So, what are you telling us about the relevance of the gun?

-Well, I mean, you can, from that evidence,

I think you can infer how, if Drew killed Stacy,

how he would have done it

because their kids were home.

And if he was going to do anything, a silenced weapon

like that would be probably the best way to do it.

♪♪

Also Tom Morphey was there when Stacy disappeared.

He helped Drew carry a container out of Drew's house

that he believed had Stacy's body in it.

Morphey later on went to the authorities

and told them what had happened.

You know, he gave an interview that was, um,

pretty compelling evidence, really.

And if the police would have done

a thorough search of the house,

they might have found a couple of blue containers.

You know, it's -- it's all circumstantial.

Very circumstantial.

I don't know that there was enough, you know,

but you start piling these things up.

Enough circumstantial evidence is enough to get a conviction.

♪♪

-Following Drew Peterson's conviction,

the usual back and forth ensues, appeal after appeal.

But, you know, this is Drew Peterson.

He does not give up and he doesn't know when to stop.

And there is still one major shoe

to drop in this wild tale.

♪♪

-A story and a name you likely remember.

A former Illinois police officer

convicted of killing his third wife

expected to appear in court today.

A judge agreed to hear Drew Peterson's motion

to vacate his conviction.

-Drew tried to make the case that he had ineffective counsel,

and that ineffective counsel was Joel Brodsky.

-It's almost like clockwork, the hail Mary.

Someone who's not winning enough appeals

goes after the lawyer always.

Ineffective assistance of counsel,

and that's exactly what Drew did.

And Brodsky was having none of it.

-I'm more afraid of my 1-pound dog

than I am a Drew Peterson.

He's a blowhard [bleep].

You know, for all his swagger,

he only hurt defenseless women.

-Drew Peterson hadn't factored in that his one-time attorney

might one day leave the profession of law.

And in June of 2019,

something happened that changed everything.

The Illinois Supreme Court suspended Joel Brodsky's

license to practice law for two years.

It was about a bunch of unprofessional conduct charges

that had nothing to do with Drew.

-I'm doing consulting now.

I'm doing private investigations now.

I'm doing okay.

I really don't want to go back to that.

I don't want to go back to that sewer, as I called it.

-So with this new freedom in 2022,

Joel Brodsky makes a surprise announcement.

-I had gotten a call from a reporter,

and then at the end of the interview,

I mentioned to him, I said, you know,

I've been thinking for a while that maybe it's time

I end the mystery about what happened with Stacy.

Maybe, you know, revealing what happened to Stacy

and what -- where she is.

-Lawyers keep secrets. That's their job.

And when they don't, that's news and that's my job.

So when Drew Peterson's lawyer told NewsNation yesterday

that he just might commit the biggest

lawyer sin there is, ratting out his client,

we sat up and took notice.

-There's no criminal law that says

that you can't talk about it.

I think I have a lot more leeway than I would

if I was practicing law.

On one hand -- On the other hand,

I still want to be careful because I know a lot of secrets.

I don't want people to think that, oh my God,

now Brodsky's going to say everything he knows

about everybody he's ever represented.

Drew is never getting out of prison.

His case has been looked at by 12 different judges,

all who have unanimously affirmed the conviction.

Drew is going to die in prison.

I think he knows that he's not getting out.

It's time for him to do the right thing.

I think I could have a decent shot of getting him

to do the right thing.

I'd really like to try that.

This is one thing about Drew.

Just to do the right thing, that's not true.

I think if it would benefit his children,

I think he would do it.

But if he won't, somebody's got to.

-After Brodsky's interview airs on WGN,

the judge slaps him with a gag order,

and that's at the request of Drew Peterson's new attorneys.

But even that isn't permanent.

So we're going to find out at some point

whether Brodsky is all bluster,

or if he really does know something

that can help put Stacy's family at rest and give them closure.

-I have a First Amendment right, the law is clear.

I no longer consider myself bound by this gag order.

So I told Cassandra as much as I could.

I think that she knows that her sister is not missing.

Am I willing to go to jail?

I prefer not to.

You know, we should put an end to this.

-It could be months or even years

before the rest of the story is told.

But in the meantime, Cassandra is more determined

than ever to bring her sister home.

-If you think you know where my sister is, then let me know.

Stop holding it back.

He just thinks he knows.

But I'm already way ahead of Joel.

I already have it all anyways.

I believe I found my sister.

-I don't know if Drew Peterson will ever be prosecuted

for Stacy Peterson's murder without a body.

-You can prosecute people when there's no body.

It's not like you can't.

No body cases and convictions occur fairly routinely.

But what happens, if Drew was charged

with Stacy's disappearance and the jurors are like,

yeah, he probably did it but we didn't feel like there

was proof beyond a reasonable doubt

so we can't vote guilty and they acquit him.

And then she's found, you can never retry him.

-I don't think there's any doubt in anybody's mind

that Stacy is deceased and is out there somewhere.

Cassandra has put a credible effort

into trying to locate her and search on her own.

♪♪

-You don't understand the connection we had.

I felt this whoosh go through my body.

I knew Stacy was murdered. It was her telling me.

That's when my mission started to go for Stacy.

-Going all the way back to the time when Stacy went missing,

Cassandra was really instrumental in organizing

all the ground searches for her sister,

but then she shifted her focus to the place 14 minutes away

from Stacy and Drew's home, the place where police suspect

Drew might have actually dumped Stacy's body --

the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

-It's a big canal. I mean, it's a very --

I don't know if you ever saw it. It's big.

I don't want her spending any more money

that she can't afford.

You know, I'd like to be able to do this for her,

if at all possible.

And I hope it becomes possible.

-I don't know how often I've gone out to the canal.

In this past year, I have been on the canal

searching approximately six times with sonar and divers.

I believe I found my sister. I know it's my sister.

After all these years.

There are some amazing people out there

that would show up if we needed it.

It's very heartful and amazing to me.

The best one I've had was a half million dollar ROV

brought in, only one in the world.

It had all the bells and whistles and the sonar

and high viz cameras, lights, all of that.

But just being on the canal is just even more difficult.

It's not easy to fight for my sister and keep her name alive.

♪♪

-The mystery keeps a lot of people

going because they want to find her, there behind Cassandra.

Like, we want you to find your sister,

and I hope that she is found someday.

So that mystery and Stacy's disappearance

keeps the story alive, if nothing else.

-Where my sisters remains are in the canal,

it's not accessible, but me and my team are recovering her.

So not only will I get my sister,

I'll get the last laugh.

Lockport is 35 miles southwest of Chicago.

It's the I&M canal that runs through there.

Literally sucks the life out of me

because I know she's there.

♪♪

So this is the bottom of the canal.

We were searching with sonar and we got the live video.

And if you look underneath the grabber claw,

you can see a human skull upside down,

the two eye sockets right underneath it

filled with silt and the lower jawbone fell off.

You can totally see a female mound,

hair waving, whole body form.

♪♪

It's somebody.

Whether it's my sister or not, they need to be brought home.

-She had the exact place of this.

What's that black thing?

Is that from the camera or something.

♪♪

Oh.

Wow, that's like right there

underneath the whatever that black thing is, right?

It's a skull.

Is it hers, though?

♪♪

-In looking at this video,

that potentially could be a pelvis with a little bit

of spine, spinal column, femur bone.

It almost looked broken.

Jagged edges there, skull.

I'm actually shocked that they were able to get

the photos they did of this

because of the movement of the stuffed down there,

but yeah, here, too.

See? More bone.

It's a pretty clear picture.

It's a lot different than the technology back in 2007.

This was not available back then.

I would say somebody should go and take a look at this.

♪♪

-I want everybody to remember my sister

as the most amazing woman, mother, friend --

gosh -- wife.

Aunt, cousin, she's just -- daughter.

Amazing.

I want people to remember her body form,

not skeletal remains on the bottom of the canal.

-The Illinois State Police say that this case is far from over,

and that they may actually return to search

for Stacy's remains.

But retrieving her body would bring

so much closure to her family

and might even push Drew or someone else

to confess to the murder.

But in the meantime, friends and family

of both Stacy and Kathleen

are working to honor their memories with an organization

that helps women who were in the same position

that Stacy and Kathleen were in.

-Going through this with Stacy

and not knowing what to do has definitely created

so many moments for me

to help other victims all over the country.

-Document The Abuse came about

because of what happened with Kathleen and with Stacy.

-So what it does, a victim sits down

and they, basically, they tell their story

so that if something happens to the victim,

their story is heard in their voice

if they're incapacitated or murdered.

-If something happens, I can now come to court

with everything in a comprehensive, cohesive manner

and be able to work on their behalf.

-Projects like these allow for the names

of Kathleen and Stacy to live on.

They also help prevent further suffering for other families

who may be in the same boat,

and the families of Kathleen and Stacy

have both said they don't want anyone to ever go through

what they've gone through,

because there can always be another Drew Peterson.

-On the surface, Drew Peterson seemed like a very nice guy,

and he was, to his children, a good dad on one hand.

On the other hand, in reality, he's a monster.

He is probably one of the most evil people I've ever met.

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