September 18, 2012
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Drewed To Death
Remember Stacey Peterson or Drew Peterson? With America’s fast paced forget you yesterday news cycle, people tend to forget certain news stories or people. Hell, I’m sure a lot of people have a faint memory of George Zimmerman or Trayvon Martin. Shit, some people have forgotten all about the Todd Aiken legitimate rape comment and that was just last month. We have become a society of short attention span theatre. I don’t expect everybody to remember the Petersons, but I’m sure some of you do. For me though, I remember them very vividly because, for one I have a ridiculously stupid memory. And also, I live in the town right next to where they lived in Bolingbrook, Illinois. So not only is it a local story here in the Chicagoland area but it is also a very local story here in my community.
But let me back up a bit. Bolingbrook cop Drew was some 30 years older than his fourth wife (yeah that’s right his FOURTH fucking wife) Stacey Peterson. In October 2007, Stacey went missing and has not been seen or heard from since. Drew said she ran off with another man. The rest of the world naturally assumed that he murdered her because, well, it is very very very very very very very very very very very very very likely that he did. See his previous wife, Kathleen Savio was found dead in a bathtub and her death was ruled an accident. But, after Stacey went missing, people started to think that maybe Savio’s death was not an accident. The investigation into her death was reopened and yadda yadda yadda, he was charged with her murder. And a few weeks ago, he was found guilty of Savio’s murder, mainly based on heresay. Of course he is appealing and very well might have the case overturned on appeal as there were quite a few problems with the trial and the evidence. But for now, he is guilty of murder. And meanwhile, Stacey has never been found. Which begs the question, if she ran off with another man as he so arrogantly suggested, than wouldn’t it be logical to think that maybe she might reemerge now that he has gone away, especially since she has kids that she hasn’t seen in five years? Oh wait. She very well might not be able to reemerge since her remains are in all likelihood stuff in a blue barrel quite possibly buried in cement in the new extension for I355 that was being built at the time not more than a few miles from my house.
This case is literally, very close to home for me. For example, every day I drive past the subdivision where the Petersons lived. And when they were searching for Stacey, they looked in a river that is walking distance from my house. The jail that Drew currently calls home is about a 10 minute drive from where I live. One of the last people to see Stacey alive, a friend of her’s named Scott, is an acquaintance of mine from about 15 years ago. The Denny’s that they met up at in which she told Scott that she feared for her life just weeks or even days before she went missing is the very same Denny’s that I hung out at until all hours of the night back in the 90s. In fact, it is the same place where I met Scott and the same place that Drew patrolled when he was a 3rd shift Bolingbrook cop. Hell, I’m quite certain that I had seen Drew come in there a time or two during my time there. Follow me here, but my brother’s brother in law’s father was also a Bolingbrook cop who knew Drew a bit. While normally I don’t pay too much attention to stories like this, because it was so close to home, I kinda paid close attention to it, especially since there were missing person signs of Stacey up everywhere over Bolingbrook and my town, Romeoville.
Still I have to wonder though, will Drew Peterson always be remembered as an infamous and notorious wife murderer? Hell, Lizzie Borden is still remembered for killing her parents and she was acquitted in the 1892 murders. Leopold and Loeb are still remembered nearly 90 years after they committed in their words “the perfect crime” when they murdered a 14 year old boy. More recently, people remember Susan Smith for killing her own children back in 1991. And another infamous Peterson, this one named Scott, was convicted of killing his wife and unborn child in 2002. My guess is that no matter what happens, Drew Peterson will always be remembered as the wife killer and years from now people will think he was convicted of killing Stacey and not Kathleen Savio. Either way, I hope the motherfucker never sees the light of day again.
