‘Never forget my face’
Found guilty of killing his ex-wife…but who else was on his hit list?
As former police sergeant Drew Peterson was sentenced to 38 years in prison, he stared fiercely at lead prosecutor James Glasgow.
‘Never forget my face. Never forget what you’ve done here,’ Peterson yelled at him across the court, before he was taken away.
Mr Glasgow had proved to the jury that Peterson had murdered his wife Kathleen Savio, delivered the evidence to make sure he’d be locked up for life.
Kathy was Peterson’s third wife and the couple had two children together.
A rocky marriage from the start, Peterson’s colleagues at Bolingbrook police station in Illinois, USA, often heard Kathy scream at him on the phone.
But their tumultuous relationship ended when Kathy found out her husband was having an affair with Stacy Cales, 17.
It triggered a lengthy divorce battle.
Then, on 1 March 2004, Peterson arrived at his ex-wife’s house to drop off their children. There was no answer at the door so, with the help of a locksmith, Peterson and a neighbour entered the house.
As Peterson searched for Kathy, there was a shrill cry upstairs. Rushing to the bathroom, Peterson took in a horrific scene.
His ex-wife’s limp body lay in her clean, dry bathtub, her head covered in blood. Kathy was dead… Investigations began, and Peterson was considered a victim, not a suspect.
A forensic pathologist ruled Kathy’s death a tragic accidental drowning, despite the bath being dry. The case was closed, and Kathy was laid to rest.
Alarm bells
Peterson went on with his life, working hard on his relationship with his new wife Stacy.
However, just like the woman that came before her, Stacy grew unhappy. Then, in October 2007, she disappeared.
The police opened a missing-person’s case – but as a media circus descended, it wasn’t Stacy’s disappearance on which the reporters focused – it was Kathy’s death in 2004 that was ringing alarm bells.
Police records showed officers had been called to Kathy’s home 18 times to intervene in domestic fights between her and Peterson, from 2002 to 2004.
Peterson even had Kathy arrested twice for domestic violence – but she was found not guilty in both cases.
Amid mounting public pressure and almost daily scathing news reports, the police exhumed Kathy’s body, re-opening the investigation into her death.
It turned out Peterson had stood to gain financially from his ex-wife’s death. He
also had the police knowledge needed to stage a crime to look accidental.
With new forensic results from a second postmortem, the police looked again at Peterson.
Murder charge
Drew Peterson, 58, was charged with the murder of Kathleen Savio.
He denied it and, in July 2012, a contentious trial began, with lead prosecutor James Glasgow delivering damaging blow after blow.
The jury heard how bruises and marks were found on the front, back, left and right sides of Kathy’s body, making an accidental drowning ‘impossible’.
The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for 14 hours, before returning the verdict – guilty.
Peterson was jailed for 38 years. It was a triumph for James Glasgow, but fuelled a deadly fire in Drew Peterson.
He wanted revenge against the lead prosecutor, and he had the time behind bars to dwell on his resentment…
Two years later, in February 2015, Peterson was back in the courtroom.
This time, the former policeman was charged with solicitation of murder and solicitation of murder for hire.
The jury learnt of recordings made at the Menard Correctional Center, in southern Illinois, where Peterson was serving his sentence.
Fellow inmate Antonio ‘Beast’ Smith had worn a wire and recorded Peterson trying to pay him to find a hitman to kill Glasgow.
The men had formed a friendship behind bars when Smith had stepped in to protect Peterson as he was threatened by other prisoners.
Peterson had allegedly revealed his plans to get rid of James Glasgow.
‘Anger, hatred, revenge, all directed at Mr Glasgow,’ prosecutor Jeremy Walker told the jury.
Peterson allegedly believed that with Glasgow out of the way, his chance of winning an appeal would be greater.
He also apparently hoped to protect his $7,500 (around £6,000)-a-month pension.
Walker said Peterson had cried tears of joy when he believed the murderous plan was coming together.
He was seemingly no stranger to paying a hitman. A former colleague testified that, in 2012, he was offered $25,000 (nearly £20k) to hire someone to kill Kathy.
But, despite the evidence, Peterson denied everything.
And Lucas Liefer, Peterson’s attorney, said Antonio Smith had admitted in a letter that he’d lied to Glasgow’s assistants, so that he could be transferred out of the prison.
‘I lied to them,’ he’d said, referring to the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Liefer also pointed out that Peterson had not used the words ‘murder’ or ‘kill’ in the recordings, and that no money had ever been exchanged.
‘He spent more time talking about Nancy Grace [a cable TV journalist on whom he planned revenge], and running drugs from Mexico, both things that are never going to happen, than he talked about James Glasgow,’ Liefer said. Who to believe? Peterson maintained he never intended to have Glasgow killed – but instead was taking part in a scam to help Smith secure a reduced sentence.
The defence also insisted that Smith – who claimed Peterson also allegedly admitted killing his missing fourth wife Stacy – was unreliable and a liar, placing emphasis on the fact Smith was in prison for attempted murder.
‘We have these rules that these kinds of eavesdrops should be conducted in a certain way because we are trying to protect people’s rights to privacy,’ Liefer said. 'The steps along the way were all screwed up.’
So, ultimately, which criminal’s story would the jury believe?