The Wire: Did Drew Peterson Plot Top Prosecutor's Murder?

CHESTER, IL — In less than five years, Drew Peterson traded in his blue police uniform for a red county jail jumpsuit, then exchanged that for state prison scrubs.

He was a veteran police sergeant with a wife 30 years his junior, one whose disappearance attracted attention to the bride before her.

That wife, Peterson’s third, was found drowned in a dry bathtub under very suspicious circumstances — although the police didn’t seem to care much at the time. The wives turned out to be Peterson’s downfall, and he fell far, all the way to prison, where after a three-decade career as a cop he is doing 38 years in maximum security.

Now Peterson stands the chance of falling even farther.

His trial for allegedly plotting the murder of Will County’s top prosecutor, the man he demanded look him in the eye before he was handed a veritable life sentence, is poised to start Monday, May 23.

Peterson and that prosecutor, James Glasgow, will get a chance to lock eyes for the first time in more than three years Monday. They likely will face each other in tiny Downstate Chester’s Randolph County courtroom, where Glasgow is expected to testify on the trial’s first day.

Peterson’s last criminal trial — back in 2012, about six hours from Chester at the Will County courthouse in Joliet — didn’t go so well for him. He was found guilty of murdering third wife Kathleen Savio.

The Third District Appellate Court upheld the conviction in November but Peterson is not without hope. The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal.

2 Wives Gone, 1 Big Mouth Still Talking

Peterson killed Savio, 40, in March 2004. After her body was discovered by neighbors who were sent into the house by a supposedly concerned Peterson, the Illinois State Police — without actually putting much effort into a criminal investigation — quickly determined she perished in a freak bathtub accident.

Neither Stacy nor her unnamed supposed lover have ever been heard from since.

No charges were filed in connection with Stacy’s disappearance but her disappearance and evidence gathered during the investigation prompted police and prosecutors to take another look at Savio’s death. Her body was exhumed from its grave and two new autopsies were performed, one by celebrity pathologist Michael Baden, with Fox News footing the bill.

State police investigators worked for more than a year and a half to build a case against Peterson but the intense scrutiny seemed to cause him little concern. Peterson wasn’t shy about appearing on television or speaking with the media, making the rounds of local bars where he posed for photographs, and was even on the verge of negotiating his appearance on a reality show set in a Nevada brothel when he was finally arrested in May 2009.

Peterson’s brazen, boorish behavior may have rankled no one more than Glasgow.

Glasgow Felt Pressure to Get Peterson Behind Bars

The year after Stacy disappeared, the state’s attorney fought his way through yet another election, defeating an opponent who used the slogan “Kill County” to suggest Glasgow allowed wife-murderers go unpunished.

When Peterson was finally to stand trial, another election loomed, one whose outcome seemed to hang on Peterson’s guilt or innocence.

The stakes were so high Glasgow actually set foot in the courtroom for the Peterson case and participated in the prosecution — an extremely rare circumstance — at least to that point in his administration’s second incarnation.

Even though Peterson was finally charged with Savio’s murder, more than three years would pass before his trial. The month-long proceeding ended with the jury deliberating for a day and a half before handing down a guilty verdict.

When he was sentenced, Peterson mocked Glasgow, accused him of corruption and dared the state’s attorney to look him “in the eye right now.”

"I'll never forget what you've done here," Peterson said.

Con Says Peterson's 'Kindness' Hurt Him

After Peterson was sent to prison, another convict supposedly wore a wire and recorded him discussing his plan to find a hit man and have Glasgow killed. Peterson was hit with the murder-for-hire case in February.

One of Peterson’s attorneys from the murder case, Steve Greenberg, has dismissed the matter as entrapment.

“To me, it’s a setup,” Greenberg said. “That would be my guess. I can’t imagine Peterson would get caught saying or doing anything like that.”

After news broke of the murder solicitation case, a gay-hating rapist locked up in state prison came forward and claimed Peterson was merely “taken advantage of because of his kindness” by another convict who recorded Peterson for the feds, according to letters the prisoner wrote to former Peterson attorney Joel Brodsky.

The letter-writing convict, 28-year-old Adrian Gabriel, wrote that a fellow prisoner, Antonio Smith developed a close friendship with Peterson but then betrayed him by wearing a wire and recording him.

“The evidence that will come out against Mr. Peterson will mainly be recorded conversations obtained by recording devices provided by the FBI,” Gabriel said in a letter.

Peterson's Past 'Hitman' Talk

Maybe Peterson was set up by a scheming convict, but this alleged attempt to have Will County's prosecutor taken out isn’t the first time he has been accused of trying to enlist a hit man to do his dirty work.

A former co-worker from a side job Peterson worked at a cable company testified in 2012 that he was offered $25,000 to hire someone to kill Savio. The co-worker, 42-year-old Jeffrey Pachter, said Peterson told him that if he could get the job done for less than $25,000, he could keep the difference.

"He told me she had a drug problem and worked at Red Lobster," Pachter recalled, telling how Peterson confided that Savio had something on him and was going to the police about it.

Peterson’s trial is expected to last four or five days. If he is found guilty of soliciting Glasgow’s murder, he could be sentenced to 22 more years than he got for actually killing Savio.

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