Drew Peterson Pretrial Heresay Hearing – PM Update<\/p>\n
Prosecutors plan to call Fox News Contributor, Dr. Michael Baden, a well known forensic pathologist, to testify Friday morning at the pretrial hearing for Drew Peterson. \u00a0 Peterson’s defense team only called two witnesses today, including a forensic pathologist expert from the University of Michigan’s School of Medicine, who believes Kathleen Savio’s death in 2004 was an accident. (read more about Dr. Jentzen’s testimony below)<\/p>\n
Will County State Attorney, James Glasgow, told the judge the prosecution plans to call one rebuttal witness, Dr. Michael Baden, before closing arguments begin Friday.<\/p>\n
Dr. Baden is the former chief medical examiner of New York City and contributes regularly to various programs on Fox News Channel. \u00a0After Kathleen Savio’s body was exhumed in 2007, Dr. Baden performed an autopsy, at the request of Savio’s family. Based on his own exam and evaluation of past evidence, Dr. Baden determined Savio’s death was a homicide. Savio’s death was initially ruled an accidental drowning by the Will County Coroners Office in 2004.<\/p>\n
This is week three for the pretrial hearing in the case of Drew Peterson, accused of killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio. The evidentiary hearing is being held to determine what – if any – hearsay testimony regarding statements Kathleen Savio made to friends or relatives about Peterson can be used at Peterson’s upcoming trial. Nearly 70 witnesses have testified for the prosecution. Today Peterson’s defense team’s called two witnesses.<\/p>\n
Forensic pathologist, Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen, from University of Michigan, testified for more than two hours about the medical examiner’s report related to Kathleen Savio’s death in 2004. Dr. Jentzen maintains Savio died from blunt head trauma, most likely caused by hitting her head after she slipped and fell in her bathtub. \u00a0“All injuries she sustained could’ve been sustained by a simple fall,” Jentzen testified. Savio’s death was originally ruled an accidental drowning in 2004. Savio’s body was exhumed in 2007 after \u00a0Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared. Police named Peterson the main suspect in Stacy’s disappearance.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jentzen also testified Savio had an irregular heart beat that could have caused heart failure, but there was no evidence of cardiac arrest in the autopsy report after her death. \u00a0During cross examination, Dr. Jentzen said, \u00a0When asked if an adult can drown in a bathtub, Dr. Jentzen replied, “Yes.” \u00a0He added, an adult can drown in a very small amount of water, “in some cases less than an inch.” \u00a0When asked if it was possible Savio’s death was the result of a homicide, Dr. Jentzen replied, “Homicides in a bathtub are very rare. It’s extremely rare…in my opinion it’s an accidental death.” \u00a0Jentzen went on to say, “it’s possible, but unlikely. There’s not enough evidence to determine it was (a homicide).” Dr. Jentzen also referred to the gold necklace Savio was wearing at the time she was found in the bathtub. The necklace was still in tact, which he says is not typical during a “hostile struggle.”<\/p>\n
After court broke for lunch, Drew Peterson’s attorney, Andrew Abood, spoke about Dr. Jentzen’s testimony. “Everything he (Jentzen) said was convincing.\u00a0He examined the case objectively The prosecutor (John Connor) tried to beat him up and in end he (Jentzen) walked away standing.\u00a0They (prosecutors) don’t have any evidence she (Savio) didn’t die by accidental cause. We are stuck in this case with accidental death.”<\/p>\n
Abood\u00a0believes the hearsay ruling by the judge in this hearing will not be an endorsement for either side in this case. Once the judge issues a ruling regarding hearsay testimony, it’s likely it will be placed under seal – meaning only the judge and the attorneys in the case will know the ruling. \u00a0An actual trial date for Drew Peterson’s case is not set yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Drew Peterson Pretrial Heresay Hearing – PM Update Prosecutors plan to call Fox News Contributor, Dr. Michael Baden, a well known forensic pathologist, to testify Friday morning at the pretrial hearing for Drew Peterson. \u00a0 Peterson’s defense team only called two witnesses today, including a forensic pathologist expert from the University of Michigan’s School of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4756,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4756"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}