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Drew Peterson, Convicted For Wife’s Killing, Faces New Trial Regarding Murder-For-Hire Charges

By Cia Young
Published on: 13:56 PST, May 22, 2016

On Monday, convicted murderer Drew Peterson goes on trial, accused of attempting to hire someone to eliminate the prosecutor who sent him to prison for his wife’s death.

According to Fox 32 Chicago, Peterson, a former Bolingbrook, Illinois, police sergeant, is charged with trying to hire someone to kill Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, who was instrumental in Peterson’s conviction for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

In 2012, a jury found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder in the 2004 drowning of Kathleen, according to NBC 5 Chicago. During the trial, jurors heard testimony of alleged conversations Kathleen had with family and friends in which she claimed Peterson threatened her, used a knife to force her to stay at home, and told her he could murder her and then make it look as if she’d had an accident.

She reportedly told one witness that she was so scared of her husband that at night she would sleep with a knife under the bed, NBC 5 Chicago reports.

Peterson was not suspected of killing Kathleen, 40, when she died, however, in 2007, after his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, vanished, authorities took a second look at Savio’s drowning.

Stacy, just 23 when she went missing, had two children with Peterson, but knew she had made a mistake by marrying him, her aunt, Candace Akin, told CNN. She was also helping Peterson raise the sons he had with Kathleen.

The Joliet Patch notes that Stacy was 30-years younger than Peterson.

“I could tell that she was under a lot of stress… She said she couldn’t really go anywhere and do things. That he was constantly calling her,” Akin further stated to CNN.

Peterson claimed Stacy took off with another man and left her two children and two stepchildren behind, the Patch reports.

It appears Stacy had planned to divorce Peterson, as in 2007, she telephoned a divorce attorney. Just days later, she vanished, according to NBC 5 Chicago.

In 2008, after further investigation, authorities reclassified Kathleen’s death as a homicide and in 2009 Peterson was arrested and charged with murder, CNN reports. At trial, his defense team argued that Kathleen fell and hit her head causing her to drown in the bathtub, however, Glasgow asserted Peterson murdered his wife, Kathleen.

The Patch reports the bathtub in which Kathleen died was dry, therefore, her death was considered to be under “…very suspicious circumstances – although the police didn’t seem to care much at the time…” of the initial investigation in 2004.

Stacy’s call to a divorce attorney was presented as evidence to jurors at Peterson’s murder trial, along with its contents, NBC 5 Chicago reports, although her disappearance was barred from being discussed at Kathleen’s proceeding.

According to CNN, jurors agreed with Glasgow and Peterson was found guilty of Kathleen’s murder. The presiding judge sentenced the former police officer to 38 years behind bars.

The new trial is related to allegations that while incarcerated, Peterson, 62, told another inmate, who “supposedly wore a wire and recorded him,” according to the Patch, that he planned to find a hit man to kill Glasgow.

The Randolph County Herald Tribune reports he told the fellow Menard Correctional Center inmate he was going to get someone to “take care of” Glasgow.

The News-Gazette reports Peterson’s public defender has already tried to bar the wiretap recording, arguing the judge who authorized the secret recording met with the informant improperly. His argument, however, was unsuccessful.

Despite his conviction, Peterson has maintained his innocence in both Kathleen’s death and Stacy’s disappearance. The News-Gazette reports he appealed his 2012 murder conviction, but an appeals court ruled in November of 2015 there was enough evidence to indicate he killed Kathleen. Peterson is currently appealing the conviction to the Illinois Supreme Court.

The Randolph County Herald Tribune reports opening statements in Peterson’s murder for hire trial begin at 9 a.m. Monday morning.

[Photo by Sebastian Duda/Shutterstock Image]

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