Drew Peterson’s ex-wife family want suit against convicted killer revived
The lawsuit, filed in 2009, has sat dormant for years while Peterson’s conviction for the murder of the woman, Kathleen Savio, was on appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court declined late last year to hear the appeal.
In April, Will County Judge Raymond Rossi dismissed the wrongful death lawsuit for “want of prosecution” after the family’s attorney, Martin Glink, failed to appear for a court date. Glink promptly filed a motion to vacate the judge’s decision, noting he had been ill with “stomach pains” and as a result had missed previous court dates, according to court documents.
The motion was set to be argued before Rossi on Monday, but Glink requested to have the motion stricken from the court call. When reached late Monday, Glink said he had another matter in court in Cook County and was unable to make Monday’s hearing. He also noted he filed a request on July 3 to have the hearing before Rossi rescheduled to July 24.
One of Peterson’s attorneys, John Heiderscheidt, considers the case closed for now.
Heiderscheidt also said he still has “deep reservations” about his client’s criminal conviction.
“The record established at trial was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed,” said Heiderscheidt, who was an attorney for Peterson in both his criminal appeal and the civil matters. “It may have been popular at the time to pursue the prosecution, but it’s worth remembering, there was a time in the United States that it was also popular to accuse and condemn women of witchcraft without evidence.
“There are significant unresolved issues of evidentiary and procedural law that will, hopefully, never be used in another modern-day criminal proceeding.”
Savio’s bathtub drowning in 2004 initially was ruled an accident, but after the October 2007 disappearance of Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, authorities exhumed Savio’s body and ruled Savio’s death a homicide.
Stacy Peterson remains missing. The Illinois State Police long ago named Drew Peterson, a former sergeant in Bolingbrook, as a suspect in her disappearance. No one has been charged in that case.
Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow rebuffed Heiderscheidt’s concerns about the criminal case and finding of guilt.
Glasgow pointed to “voluminous records” and lengthy evidentiary hearings that eventually led to Peterson’s conviction and the decision by both an appeals court and the Illinois state Supreme Court to uphold his conviction.
Peterson also was convicted of soliciting someone to kill Glasgow and was sentenced to an additional 40 years in jail on top of his 38-year sentence for killing Savio.
Peterson, 65, is being held in a maximum-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
He was moved to the federal prison from a southern Illinois state prison in early 2017 for security reasons following the murder-for-hire plot, Illinois correction officials said at the time.
Peterson is eligible for parole on May 2081.
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