JOLIET, Ill. — The judge in Drew Peterson’s murder trial gave the go-ahead Tuesday for prosecutors to introduce evidence that the former suburban Chicago police officer sought to hire a hit man to kill his third wife.
Prosecutors allege that Peterson, now 58, ended up killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio, himself in 2004. They want to bring up the hit-man evidence in an effort to demonstrate Peterson had planned to murder her for weeks or months.
Attorneys for the state didn’t list the hit-man allegation on appropriate pre-trial documents – apparently as an oversight – and defense attorneys had argued prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to correct that mistake now.
Judge Edward Burmila previously had not allowed the hit-man allegation to be raised in front of jurors, but he ruled Tuesday that prosecutors could introduce the evidence for a narrow purpose.
“The issue is not whether he wanted to hire a hit man,” he said. “The issue is: Did the defendant intend to kill his wife? … This evidence goes to that matter.”
When lead prosecutor James Glasgow touched on the hit-man accusation in his opening statement, the defense asked for a mistrial. At the time, Burmila agreed the state shouldn’t have strayed into that topic and he told jurors to disregard it.
Burmila’s ruling Tuesday means prosecutors can call as a witness Jeff Pacther, who worked with Peterson at a cable company where he moonlighted. Pachter previously accused Peterson of offering him $25,000 in late 2003 to hire a killer.
Savio’s body was found in a dry bathtub at her home with a gash on the back of her head, and her death was initially ruled an accident. Her body was exhumed and her death reclassified as a homicide only after Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, went missing in 2007.
Peterson, a former Bolingbrook sergeant, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Savio’s death. He is a suspect in his fourth wife’s disappearance but hasn’t been charged in her case.
At a 2010 hearing, Pachter testified that – as the two rode in Peterson’s squad car – Peterson asked if he could find someone to “have his third wife taken care of.” Pachter said he took that to mean he wanted her murdered, though Peterson didn’t use that word.
Pachter said he didn’t take Peterson’s offer seriously, saying he simply responded, “OK,” but did nothing about it.
Peterson explained to him that he asked Pachter partly because Pachter worked in a dangerous area, and Pachter understood that to mean Peterson believed he would be able to find a drug dealer or gang member to carry out the job.
At the hearing two years ago, Pachter said he hadn’t heard about Savio’s death in March 2004 until he telephoned Peterson the following July about another matter. He said Peterson said during the call, “By the way, the favor that I asked you, I don’t need it anymore.”