Welcome to the first installment of the Bolingbrook Reporter’s and Suburban Life Publications’ new regular blog post: The Reporter’s Notebook.

The idea behind this reporter’s notebook is simple: As news comes in, we’ll update you on what’s going on behind the scenes in the investigations of Stacy Peterson’s disappearance and Kathleen Savio’s death and the larger scope of the Peterson case. This is also a way for us to take you “behind the scenes” and let you, the reader, see what we’re working on and how we’re gathering information during the many twists and turns of this case.

As always, you can find the latest news from your community at mysuburbanlife.com or for the latest on the Peterson case, visit here.

To start off, we’ve posted a video from findstacypeterson.com that contains the last voice message Peterson left for her father at 12:37 p.m. Oct. 17. Stacy’s sister, Cassandra Cales, added some visuals to go with the audio.

As you’ve probably noticed, the news coverage of this case is slowing down but there’s still a lot of activity going on with the investigations.

On Thursday, we got word that lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit claiming Drew Peterson used excessive force and broke an arrestee’s thumb were supposed to meet Friday morning to view a videotape that police say proves Peterson was not involved. After a good deal of time waiting with no sign of plaintiff Timothy Brownlee or his lawyer, we decided to pack up and head back to the office. It’s still unclear whether we missed them or there was a miscommunication.

Regardless, Brownlee’s lawyer told us earlier this week that he expected to view the tape by the end of the month. If the police are right about the tape, Peterson could soon have one less thing to worry about.

Also, we’re working on setting up a new forum page for all of you to share your thoughts, so check back soon.

That’s it for now. In the meantime, feel free to e-mail me, Danya Hooker, at dhooker@mysuburbanlife.com with questions, requests, tips, story ideas or anything else that happens to be on your mind … within the limits of this case, of course.

You can also leave your comments below.