Savio inquest juror, Jim Pretto: If we had known…

Jim Pretto told ABC News back in February of 2008 that if they had known all the facts about the case in 2004, he would have called Kathleen Savio’s death a homicide.

“There was no evidence at all to point toward it being a murder,” Pretto said. “There was nothing presented at all.” Pretto said that though the jurors on the coroner’s inquest were suspicious, they did not have enough evidence to call Savio’s death anything but an accident.

“We had no other alternative,” he said. “I think more evidence should have been presented, more investigation should have been done at the time.”

We’ve all seen the complete inquest transcript now.  Yes, there was no testimony or evidence presented to the jurors to indicate that foul play might be suspected.  In fact, ISP Officer Herbert Hardy said otherwise.  One panel member (Dennis Pratl) made it personal, and said Drew Peterson was a good guy.   Yet, Jim Pretto wishes they had listened more to Kathleen’s family. The jurors did not hear about Savio asking for a restraining order against Peterson, and they were told by the ISP officer that there were no insurance policies involved. They did not hear about the police being called eighteen times to intervene in their disputes.

Several questions arise about these claims made by Pretto.  Who exactly was responsible for making sure these important issues were presented to the jury panel?  Or, in the alternative, who was responsible for making sure they were not presented to the jury panel?   Oversight or out-of-sight.  Which is it?

At the time of this juror’s interview, Anna Doman said:  “I think we’re closer” to justice. “I just wish it was four years ago.”

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Remembering Stacy Ann Peterson

October 28, 2009: Today marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of Stacy Peterson.

Let’s try to remember this today and mark it in some way in our own lives. Her passing has meaning. Her absence is felt. Her family and friends mourn her, yet they have no closure and no justice.

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On October 28, 2007, after ending a phone call with a friend, Stacy Ann Peterson was never seen nor heard from again. She’s lovingly and fondly remembered by her sister, family and friends as a wonderful, devoted mom, someone who loved to be with family, especially when gathering to celebrate a happy occasion, and someone who wouldn’t hesitate to help another, if needed. Stacy’s disappearance and ensuing story touched many people, including strangers who never knew or met her–strangers who devoted week after week to search for her, who became friends with her sister and family members, and vowed to keep looking for her until she was found.

Tuesday, October 27, the WE network show: “Secret Lives of Women” is airing an episode called “Loved & Controlled” which will feature three stories, one of them the Drew Peterson cases. Anna Doman and Cassandra Cales , will be talking about their sisters, Kathleen Savio and Stacy Peterson and what life was like living with Drew Peterson.

In the clip below, Cassandra looks back at Stacy’s life, and her disappearance.

And Anna Doman talks about the mysterious death of her sister.

Upcoming Air Dates:
Tuesday, October 27 at 10pm | 9c
Tuesday, November 3 at 11pm | 10c
Tuesday, November 10 at 4pm | 3c
Tuesday, November 24 at 8pm | 7c
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Suffer the Consequences, Drew Peterson?

Some of us have discussed how we have perceived the defense’s motions as being silly, at times. Such as asking for a change of venue when the defendant, and Joel Brodsky (scroll down slightly to his 5/3/2008 thoughts on media exposure), have done anything but avoid the media, making it difficult, so the defense says, to seat an unbiased jury in Will County. Some of us may also be wondering if they should suffer the consequences of their actions, as if it’s fair to expect the Judge to grant their request, when it was their own doing.

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Karen Conti was able to answer some questions for us involving pretrial motions. In the end, the obvious is noted. Regardless of how and why this defendant currently finds himself in unfavorable situations, the defendant is, and should be, entitled to a fair trial process.

Q: Of course, it’s understood that credibility with the judge and/or jury is important. In the case of pretrial motions and oral arguments, what will the Judge be looking for? Are case cites only part of what he’ll base his rulings on? If not, what other factors does he consider in pretrial motions? If there are case law cites that support each side’s legal position, how does the judge make a final determination? Does attorney credibility weigh-in in determining whose case law cites are more on point?

CONTI: In ruling on pretrial motions, the judge relies heavily on what the statutes and cases decided in the past interpreting the law say. The judge, in deciding some issues, has great discretion. It depends on the issue. Attorney credibility does not weigh in except that judges will tell you that when an attorney is not honest in interpreting a case or misstates facts, the judge loses confidence in the integrity of the pleadings and will question whatever that attorney files. But, for the most part, it is up to the judge to check the attorneys’ research and make sure that both attorneys are accurately and fairly making their arguments.

Searching for Stacy Peterson

The effort by today’s searchers was a sight to behold. There were men and women who heard about the need for volunteers on the news and decided to help. One man told me he was having his coffee when he heard about it, and decided to come out. Another man heard the call for volunteers on the news also. He said he wanted to be involved in trying to find Stacy, even though he said she is now in a better place. He lost his own son, only in his 20’s, when he was home from the Service on leave. He was senselessly shot and killed, so he fully understands the anguish of Stacy’s family.

It was a trying search, to say the least. The area to be covered is a Wetland Preserve. About the only way I can explain how it feels to go into something like that is to liken it to walking into a cornfield. Only, the growth is marsh and cattails, and the ground is muddy, mucky. The further you go in, the more water you encounter, sometimes more than knee deep. Sometimes I’d take a step, sink further into the muck, and find it hard to get my foot up and out to take another step. If you’d lose your footing, there was nothing to grab onto. To be safe, people had to stay in groups, because it was like being in a maze, without knowing which way to go back out.

There were a couple of places of interest, one a mound that didn’t match the area around it, as though something could have been buried there. Searchers used their hands to dig further into the ground, but it turned out to be nothing. Another time, searchers actually found a large boulder, with rope tied around it, in a waterway. As though it were an anchor to weigh something down. A group of searchers then volunteered to go back to the area where the rock was found, in water that was thigh high, with sticks to poke at the bottom. Nothing was found in the area where the rock was discovered.

All I can say is I was amongst an awesome group of people. Family, friends and strangers who want only to find Stacy and bring her home.

~ Rescue

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Drew Peterson Trial Questions? Ask a Lawyer!

Karen Conti and Greg Adamski

You may remember Karen Conti as the attorney who presented the prosecution’s closing arguments in The People v. Drew Peterson, the WGN-hosted mock trial of Drew Peterson for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. 

Karen Conti and her husband, Greg Adamski, of the law firm Adamski & Conti, host the radio show Legally Speaking on WGN-AM 720, where every Sunday they give their legal insights on current news stories, argue with each other about controversial verdicts, and interview interesting lawyers and litigants.

Karen Conti has appeared on Fox News to comment on the Peterson case, and others. In fact, Ms. Conti was recently featured on the Fox News Chicago morning show discussing Peterson waiving his right to a speedy trial.

Ms. Conti has very graciously agreed to answer the legal questions that we have from time to time. So, if you have a question about the change of venue, the jury, any motions that may be presented, or anything about legal procedure involving this case, just be sure to post it or email it to petersonstory@gmail.com. We’ll send them along and post the answers.

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Christina Raines’ Lawyer: Peterson’s fiancée not “hit on” by cop

Christina Raines

UPDATE July 17:

Chicago Sun-Times
State’s attorney: Cops did not hit on Drew Peterson’s fiancee
July 17, 2009
BY JOE HOSEY jhosey@scn1.com

…Brodsky said he planned to file a motion regarding the state police detective’s supposed romantic overture.

Charles B. Pelkie, the spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office, refuted Brodsky’s accusation, calling it “preposterous and disingenuous.”…

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It seems that Ms. Raines is not on the same page as Joel Brodsky when it comes to the definition of “being asked out on a date”, as evidenced by this email sent out on behalf of Christina Raines by her lawyer, Gloria Allred.

Source: Gretawire

From: Gloria Allred
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:02 PM
To: Miller, Jeffrey; O’Connor, Kerry
Subject: Chrissie Raines

Dear Jeff and Kerry,

Last night Greta ran a story about my client Chrissie Raines who is the fiancé of Drew Peterson. Unfortunately before the story was run no one contacted me for a response. I represent Chrissie Raines in the criminal case of People v. Drew Peterson and I am her spokesperson. Enclosed please find my response to the allegation that Greta ran on her show involving Ms. Raines. I hope that Greta will be able to run my response. Thank you very much.

“Chrissie has not had dinner with or gone to the movies with any police officer other than Drew Peterson and she has no interest in doing so. She does not feel that she was “hit on” by any police officer.

We do not think there is a basis for filing a complaint against any police officer and we have no plans to file such a complaint.”

Very truly yours,

Gloria Allred

Allred, Maroko & Goldberg

Thanks to Harleyjoey for the link!

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Drew Peterson and Empathy

Dr. Keith Ablow, psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author.

by Dr. Keith Ablow

When Drew Peterson was brought into court on charges that he murdered his third wife Kathleen Savio, he was in a good mood. He yelled jokes to reporters about how “spiffy” his red prison jumpsuit was and called his shackles “bling.”

Peterson is, of course, also a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of Stacy Peterson, his fourth wife. He insists he is an innocent man.

Think of how you’d respond to being dragged into court on murder charges, especially if you were wrongly accused. You might be terrified or confused or enraged at the injustice of your plight, but you wouldn’t be all smiles, spewing one-liners.

So how can Drew Peterson do it?

To have any hope of understanding Drew Peterson, one first has to understand human empathy. Empathy is the ability to resonate with the feelings of others to such an extent that one actually experiences some of their joy or grief or anxiety. It is a remarkable and inexplicable quality that we too often take for granted. The fact that a friend can be brought to tears by a loss of yours, that you can intuit and share the worries or hopes or pride of your partner in life, or that the hunger of children thousands of miles away could spur you to action on their behalf is a tribute to this miraculous force.

Empathy does even more, though. It helps us contain our anger and our destructive impulses, because we can imagine how it might feel to be the object of that rage. It also helps us gauge what is appropriate language and behavior in various situations, again because we can imagine how others are likely to respond to us. We can put ourselves in the shoes of our friends or neighbors or loved ones.

TruTV/True Crimes ~ Drew Peterson: Wife Killer?

From the Tru-TV Crime Library

Death Foretold

By: Chuck Hustmyre
 

Kathleen Savio

BOLINGBROOK, Ill.—Kathleen Savio predicted her own murder. She told her sister it would be made to look like an accident. She even named her killer, her ex-husband, police sergeant Drew Peterson. Not long afterward, Kathleen Savio, 40, was found dead—drowned in a bathtub, her long dark hair matted with blood from a one-inch gash on the back of her head. The county coroner ruled her death an accident. She was Drew Peterson’s third wife.

With Kathleen’s death, Drew Peterson got control of a million-dollar life insurance benefit for the couple’s two sons, and he inherited all of his ex-wife’s money and property, including her suburban Chicago home and her half of their joint business investments. Kathleen’s dire prediction to her sister was not the first time she foretold her own murder. In November 2002, two years before her death when her divorce from Peterson was at its nastiest, Kathleen wrote to the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office, begging the prosecutor to charge Peterson with breaking into her home and holding a knife to her throat.

Kathleen wrote that her police sergeant ex-husband was furious over having to pay her child support. “He knows how to manipulate the system, and his next step is to take my children away,” Kathleen wrote. “Or kill me instead.” In the end, prosecutors now say, he did both. Three years later, Drew Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy, disappeared.

Peterson lawyers want help with discovery

By:  –Steve Schmadeke – Chicago Tribune

Attorneys for Drew Peterson, charged with murder in the 2004 drowning death of ex-wife Kathleen Savio, were in court Thursday seeking help as they sift through more than 30,000 pages of investigative reports and hundreds of hours of audio recordings turned over by prosecutors.

Joel Brodsky argued six motions before Judge Stephen White, essentially asking that prosecutors be required to give more details about their theory of how Peterson killed Savio as well as “Cliff’s Notes” versions of the 9,470 investigative reports he has received.

“Are they saying my client held her underwater or knocked her unconscious or hit her over the head with a blunt object?” he said, later adding: “How did he do it? The state certainly has to prove that.”

John Connor, chief of the Will County State’s Attorney’s major crimes unit, argued that all that information was detailed in the reports given to Peterson’s lawyers.

“I’ve never seen a request like this in any homicide case I’ve participated in,” he told the judge.
White denied or continued the motions. He did tell prosecutors to give Peterson’s attorneys an estimated time that Savio was last seen alive as well as an estimated time her body was discovered in the bathtub of her Bolingbrook home.

Prosecutors also agreed to reveal whether any money or other consideration was given to Lenny Wawczak and his wife Paula Stark, former acquaintances of Peterson who Brodsky said in court Thursday wore wires and also videotaped his client.

Stacy Peterson Searchers – “We Will Find Her”

Over these many, many months, there remained, and still does, a dedicated group of searchers who were steadfast in their belief that Stacy would be found. They quietly used their bonds of friendship to organize when they could, set out on ground and water, and continued to be steadfast in their belief that they could make a difference. They wanted to help Stacy’s sister through a difficult time and be supportive in any way they could, especially if they could bring her beloved sister home.

Yesterday, this very dedicated group of searchers set out to do a water and land search, yet again. They are united in hoping that the remains discovered last week are Stacy, but felt they wanted to continue to search until they are assured that Stacy has, in fact, been found.

While doing a ground search near the area where the remains were discovered last week, a bone fragment was sighted. After verifying that they had, indeed, found a piece of human skeleton, they contacted law enforcement regarding their discovery. This was overwhelming for them, as they had to come to grips with finding a skeletal portion of a human being. The searchers do not consider this discovery as being by any one particular person, because they do this as a group. However, for the searcher that did make the initial, unnerving discovery, it was a moment of distress and utter sadness.

We are told the bone fragment is significant, and will, no doubt, be important in making an identification.

We hope their kind actions and months of dedicated searches bring closure, someday, to Stacy’s family and friends.  They are the quiet warriors.

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