Peterson faces first-degree murder charges in the March 2004 bathtub drowning death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. He also has been named a suspect in the unsolved October 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, who authorities contend was slain. <\/p>\n
On Friday, Dr. Michael Baden testified that he thought Savio was murdered based on bruises and injuries she suffered. Baden is a celebrity medical examiner who is a consultant for the Fox News Channel. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors are trying to win the judge’s permission to use indirect hearsay statements allegedly made by Savio and Stacy Peterson against Drew Peterson, 56, later this year when he stands trial for Savio’s death. A new state law allows such statements from murder victims if prosecutors can show they were slain to prevent them from testifying against their killers. <\/p>\n
During the monthlong hearing, prosecutors repeatedly argued that Peterson killed both women, beginning with Savio, whom he is charged with drowning in a bathtub to end a costly bitter divorce. <\/p>\n
They contend that he killed Stacy and disposed of her body because she also was threatening divorce and knew he had killed Savio. <\/p>\n
“He couldn’t let her out of his sight because she knew he killed Kathleen Savio,” State’s Attorney James Glasgow said. <\/p>\n
White on Friday deferred a ruling on what, if any, hearsay statements he will allow to be used at Peterson’s murder trial, though he indicated he plans to seal his ruling because he fears it could prejudice potential jurors. White also said he plans as early as next week to set a trial date for Peterson, who remains at the county jail under a $20 million bail. <\/p>\n
Despite the lengthy hearing, defense attorneys said prosecutors had not shown that the 40-year-old Savio was killed or that Peterson was involved in her death. <\/p>\n
“They didn’t prove Drew is guilty of Stacy’s disappearance or Kathleen’s death,” said attorney Joel Brodsky, who said he was confident the hearsay evidence sought by prosecutors would be excluded from Peterson’s upcoming trial. <\/p>\n
“We’re going to have a good outcome,” he said. “We’re all more confident than ever.” <\/p>\n
Savio’s death originally was investigated by Illinois State Police and was ruled an accidental drowning. Her case was reopened and her body dug up after Stacy vanished, and her death later was ruled a homicide. <\/p>\n
The hearing highlighted the “very strong” evidence that authorities have compiled against Peterson, a spokesman for Stacy’s family said. <\/p>\n
“I think they had a very strong case all along,” Pam Bosco said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Drew Peterson killed his third wife to avoid a financially disastrous divorce settlement, then murdered his fourth wife to keep her silent about his previous wife’s slaying, Will County prosecutors argued Friday. Each woman earlier had expressed fears to family and friends that Peterson would kill her if she crossed him, prosecutors said at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342560","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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