A prosecutor said Thursday that the death of the third wife
of a former Chicago
police officer was in fact a homicide after a second autopsy.
A pathologist determined that Kathleen Savio, who drowned four
years ago in her bathtub, was a homicide and not an accident as it was thought.
Her death came before her divorce with Drew Peterson, former police sergeant.
Since Peterson was named a person of interest in the disappearance
of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, the authorities reopened the case in November
and exhumed Savio’s body.
Peterson said that he thinks Stacy has run off with another
man, but her relatives disagree saying that she would never leave her two
children.
Will County
State's Attorney James
Glasgow said: “We have been investigating this as a murder since reopening the
case in November of last year. We now have a scientific basis to formally and
publicly classify it as such,” the Associated Press reports.
Certified forensic pathologist Larry Blum performed the
autopsy of Savio saying that new information in the case of Stacy Peterson raised
questions about Savio’s death.
Peterson, 53, a former sergeant and a 29-year veteran in the
Bolingbrook, Ill.,
police department, has rejected any involvement in either case. After he was
named a suspect in the disappearance of Stacy he resigned as police sergeant.
According to Charles Pelkie, a spokesman for Glasgow's office, he was
named suspect in Savio’s death, but both cases are under investigation.
On Thursday Savio’s relatives said that they always believed
she was murdered.
Her niece Melissa Doman said: "But it could have prevented
if people would have listened to her before she was killed."
In 2002 Savio, 40, filled for an order of protection fearing
for her life after Peterson knocked her down, leaving marks on her body.
Vicki Connolly, Peterson's second wife, said that Peterson
was very controlling with her and even threatened her about killing her and
make it look like an accident.
Peterson and Stacy have been married for four years and have
two children.
