Infamous killer cop in prison for killing his wife chillingly jokes with vet journalist that ‘Unless you marry me, I won’t kill you’
An infamous killer cop in prison for murdering his third wife and suspected of killing his fourth joked to a veteran journalist that, “Unless you marry me, I won’t kill you.”
Drew Peterson, whose case made national headlines beginning in 2009, made the chilling wisecrack to NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield in an interview from a federal prison where he’s not due out until he’s 127 years old.
His comment came after telling Banfield he was skeptical of her because of her profession.
Peterson maintains he was railroaded because prosecutors and the public love to take down police officers.
The former cop was convicted of murdering his ex-wife Kathleen Savio in 2004 and is suspected of killing his fourth wife Stacy Peterson, who vanished from the couple’s home in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook in 2007.
She was never found and no one has been charged in her disappearance.
Despite the cloud of suspicion over Peterson’s head for the last 20 years. he said he doesn’t feel the need to convince society he’s innocent.
“It doesn’t matter if I said till I’m blue in the face: ‘I did not do this,'” he said, reiterating that he’s already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.
“So it doesn’t matter, it has no benefit to me to say anything one way or the other.”
When pressed by Banfield to come clean about what he died, Peterson didn’t deny involvement in the deaths of his spouses — but instead he doesn’t “want my children to believe that I killed their mothers.”
“I do not want my kids to think that about me,” the father-of-six told Banfield. “I want them to know the truth and believe the truth…I’m not going to say nothing that’s going to make my children believe that I killed their mothers.”
Peterson insisted he has been “honest” so far and to tell his children a “lie” that he did it would be “ludicrous” and “stupid.”
Who is Drew Peterson?
Peterson is a retired police officer who was convicted for killing his third wife and is a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth spouse.
He started out in the US Army, where he served for two years before joining the police force while married to his first wife, Carol Brown.
Peterson’s long, sordid love life became a major element of the criminal case against him. His first two marriage ended with claims of wild infidelity. He was also accused of domestic abuse by his second wife and her daughter.
In 2002, Savio got an order of protection against Peterson due to domestic violence. A year later, their divorce was finalized.
Between 2002 and 2004, 18 domestic disturbances were recorded at Peterson’s house.
Stacy would go missing in 2007 and Peterson says she left him for another man and doesn’t know if she is dead.
What do we know about his last two wives?
Peterson was convicted of killing Savio in 2012 and received a 38-year sentence for the murder. Savio was killed only a few months after the pair finalized their divorce.
In the NewsNation interview, he called Savio “very combative” and said she would fight with him at the “snap of a finger.”
“She’d just want to argue all the time,” he told Banfield.
“She was a very, what’s the word? Well, she was very Italian. She was very boisterous, very combative. It had to be her way or no way. And I didn’t really put up with that.”
His ex-wife was found dead in a dry bathtub in 2004 with a gash on the back of her head. Her death was originally ruled an accident, until Will County State Attorney James Glasgow – whom Peterson allegedly threatened to kill – reopened the case into the disappearance of Peterson’s fourth wife Stacy.
A few years after Savio’s death, Stacy vanished from their Illinois home, never to be found. Still, Peterson insists he had nothing to do with it, and claims she merely ran away.
“Her mother did the same thing and disappeared like that,” Peterson told Banfield. “Stacy always loved and admired her mother.”
When Banfield asked if Stacy was dead, he said he “doesn’t know.”
What is he saying now?
Peterson remains on the fence about revealing whether or not he had anything to do with the deaths of Savio and Stacy, but said “people enjoy seeing policemen in trouble.”
The federal inmate, who was an officer for 32 years, said he’s seen a lot of “cops get in trouble, and people enjoy that.”
“The prosecution got stuck with this thing,.” he said, referring to his profession. “They took it so far. Now they’re stuck with it, do something with it, they had to get a conviction.
“I’m tired of it all.”
To busy his days, Peterson spends time with other murderers and child molesters, but says he doesn’t “judge” them as they could be “innocent.” As an inmate, he doesn’t bother himself asking each person their situation and they don’t discuss their crimes.
“I don’t belong in here. I can’t judge whether they do or not,” he told Banfield. “I don’t judge anybody.”
