Will Drew Peterson's Crazy Sentencing Rant Come Back to Haunt Him?

CHESTER, IL — When Drew Peterson screamed in a Joliet courtroom that he did not kill his wife, then ranted and rambled about how he had been railroaded by police and prosecutors, he probably never imagined he’d ever have to hear it again, much less in another courtroom on the other end of the state.

But that’s what happened Thursday afternoon on the fourth day of his trial for allegedly plotting from behind bars to have Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow killed.

Prosecutors called Will County court reporter Karen Moser, who transcribed the February 2013 hearing, to produce a recording of Peterson’s monologue.

Before the judge sentenced Peterson for the 2004 murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, Peterson was allowed to speak. He took the opportunity to bellow, “I did not kill Kathleen!”

“I jumped out of my chair,” Moser said as she recalled Peterson’s outburst.

Peterson, 62, went on to taunt Glasgow, saying he “must have been woozy,” mocking the state’s attorney’s complaint of illness when the trial wasn’t going so well for him. Peterson then complained about how he had been done wrong by police and prosecutors.

“All aspects of my life have been destroyed,” Peterson said. “Everything from my personal life to my professional life to my social life.”

Peterson also said he was the target of the “most extensive, expensive, and obsessive investigation probably known in the United States” and that Glasgow “perpetrated the largest railroad job that ever took place in this country.”

Prosecutors plan to rest their case tomorrow. When Peterson’s defense is presented he will be short at least one witness.

Convicted killer Shelly McGree, 47, was listed as a defense witness but told Randolph County Judge Richard Brown he will not answer any questions from either Peterson’s attorney, Lucas Liefer, or prosecutors.

“Yes sir, he knew that coming in,” McGree said of Liefer.

“It’s in my interest to stay out of that,” he said.

McGree is serving a life sentence at Menard Correctional Center — the same prison from which Peterson was supposedly trying to orchestrate Glasgow’s murder, and where he was secretly recorded by another inmate who wore a wire for the FBI. McGree was convicted of a Cook County murder in 1999.

While he was adamant about refusing to testify, McGree did admit to the judge that he had spoken to Liefer about Peterson’s case — but insisted it was “off the record.”

“I already told him, off the record, that Drew Peterson was set up and he didn’t do this, but I’m not going to testify to it in court,” McGree said.

Liefer asked Judge Brown to compel McGree to testify. Brown declined.

“Here we have a person who’s serving a natural life sentence and you’re asking me to compel him to testify,” the judge said. “What’s my remedy?”