Drew and Stacy Peterson (AP)
A creepy ex-cop and suspected serial wife killer — whose case long riveted the nation and inspired a TV movie — is finally facing justice.
Drew Peterson is on trial, accused of killing his third wife, Kathy Savio, 40, whose bloodied body was found naked in an empty bathtub in 2004 in their suburban Chicago home.
The silver-haired Peterson, 58, is also the chief suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy, in 2007. The 23-year-old has never been found.
Wives No. 1 and 2 — high school sweetheart Carol Hamilton and Victoria Rutkiewicz — divorced him after alleging that he was abusive and a serial philanderer.
Prosecutor James Glasgow yesterday told jurors in a packed Joliet, Ill., courtroom that Peterson had threatened to murder Savio in 2004 and used his police know-how to make it look accidental.
“Just weeks before her death, he told her he was going to kill her and she would not make it to a divorce settlement and would never get his pension,” Glasgow said in his opening statement.
After a judge ordered Peterson to pay Savio’s divorce lawyer $15,000 in 2003, Glasgow said, the defendant “snuck into the victim’s home, grabbed . . . Savio by the throat and said, ‘Why don’t you just die? I could kill you and no one would know.’ ”
Defense lawyer Joel Brodsky said his client is innocent, insisting that Savio was “bonkers” and that her bizarre behavior was to blame for their bitter breakup.
Brodsky claimed Savio cooked up abuse allegations only so she could get her mitts on Peterson’s $6,000 monthly pension from his 30 years on the Bolingswood, Ill., police force — which named him “Officer of the Year” in 1979.
He claimed that Savio’s death was an accident and Peterson’s arrest had more to do with a “media circus” that pressured authorities to make an arrest after Stacy vanished.
Wearing a charcoal suit, crisp white shirt and striped tie, the ex-lawman — whose real-life drama inspired the movie “Untouchable,” starring Rob Lowe — yucked it up with his lawyers before the trial began and then took notes during testimony.
The prosecution’s first witness was Savio’s friend Mary Pontarelli, a neighbor who discovered her body in the bathtub, her wrists and arms bruised and hair soaked with blood.
Pontarelli said she and her husband, Tom, their son Nick and another neighbor entered the home March 1, 2004, after Drew told her he couldn’t locate his ex.
A locksmith got them inside, and Pontarelli said she and the neighbor went to Savio’s bedroom and bathroom while her husband and son checked the downstairs. Peterson waited near the front door, she said.
“I saw Kathleen in the tub, ran out, threw myself on the floor and started screaming,” a tearful Pontarelli said.
When Peterson came into the bathroom, he checked Savio’s pulse.
“I asked, ‘Drew, is she dead?’ ” Pontarelli said. “He said, ‘Yes, Mary, she is.’ ”
Pontarelli said she wanted to cover Savio with a towel.
“I didn’t want people to see her like that. But he [Peterson] said we weren’t supposed to touch anything and we couldn’t do that,” she said through more tears.
Outside court, Savio’s mom, Marcia, blasted Brodsky for attacking her late daughter.
“It seems like they’re trying to make Drew the victim instead of Kathy,” Marcia Savio told the Chicago Tribune. “Kathy was always a strong girl, and the problem is she wasn’t strong enough. The only thing we can do is hope and pray, and hopefully Kathleen’s going to get some justice.”
Glasgow said Stacy’s disappearance was the key to reopening the investigation into Savio’s death, which was first classified as an accident.
That was changed to a homicide after her body was exhumed and re-examined by coroners.
The prosecutor admitted there was no physical evidence linking Peterson to Savio’s death and the case will rely on hearsay and other circumstantial evidence.
After Stacy’s disappearance in 2007, neighbors told cops they saw Peterson and another man hauling a 55-gallon barrel — large enough to hold a person — out of the house.
As Glasgow began alleging that Drew once asked about hiring a hit man to murder Savio, defense attorney Steve Greenberg leapt to his feet to object.
Judge Edward Burmila told jurors to leave the room and Greenberg moved for a mistrial.
Burmila eventually denied the request, saying Glasgow was just a few words into the allegation before the defense objected.