Lovefraud could have written about Drew Peterson at any time since he was declared a suspect in disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, who vanished on Oct. 28, 2007.
Drew Peterson, who at the time was a sergeant in the Bolingbrook, Illinois police department, didn’t seem to be at all concerned about his wife’s whereabouts, claiming that she probably left him for another man. He cheerfully talked to the media, despite sordid allegations about his past.
After Stacy disappeared, Peterson became a suspect in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in a bathtub. While they were married, police were called to the home they shared 18 times for domestic disturbance calls. She was going after his pension as part of their contentious divorce when she died.
Peterson’s second wife, Vicki Connolly, alleged a history of abuse during her 10-year marriage to him.
So why am I writing about Drew Peterson now? Because recent events in the saga seem to reveal the role that he relishes the most: Puppeteer.
Engagement and interview
On December 17, 2008, news broke that, even though Peterson was a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife and the murder of his third, he was engaged again. The news was confirmed by Peterson’s lawyer, Joel Brodsky, and publicist, Glenn Selig.
Publicist? Why does a murder suspect need a publicist?
Well, probably to arrange interviews on national television. Peterson was interviewed by ABC’s Martin Bashir about his most recent engagement to Christina Raines, a 24-year-old unmarried mother of two. The interview ran on January 29, 2009 on Nightline, and on January 30, 2009 on Good Morning America.
If you want to see a grandiose, self-entitled, remorseless psychopath in action, watch how Peterson talks on the video.
- He acknowledges that the friends and family of his young fiancé are right to be concerned.
- He described his five years as an undercover cop as “working a con,” which was a lot of fun.
- He admits being unfaithful to all his wives. “The big joke was that you had to lie to your girlfriend to go home and see your wife,” he said.
- He described his reaction when he found his third wife dead in a bathtub: “It was kind of emotional. But what can you do? Life goes on.”
- About getting involved with Christina Raines, Peterson said, “I don’t say I tricked her, but I sure romanced her real good.”
- He admitted enjoying the early stages of romance, getting married, then losing interest in the relationship and looking elsewhere. He wants the excitement. “Why should I live without it?” he asks.
Both Peterson’s lawyer and publicist termed the portrayal of the former cop, now a suspect, as accurate.
Engagement a “stunt”
Good Morning America reported the latest twist in the story on Saturday, January 31. Because of the interview, Peterson’s fiancé, Christina Raines, had broken off the engagement. Peterson told the reporter, Martin Bashir, that “she called him a liar, packed her bags and left.”
Last week, the story got even more bizarre. On Monday, February 2, Christina Raines and her father, Ernie Raines, went on The Early Show. Although Christina dated Peterson and moved in with him for several weeks, she said it was never really an engagement—it was a stunt. “He told me that his lawyer had wanted him to be in the media and wanted to propose to someone at a restaurant,” Christina said.
Then, on Friday, February 6, Christina Raines testified before the grand jury that is investigating the disappearance of Peterson’s fourth wife and the death of his third.
Puppeteer Peterson
My guess is that Drew Peterson doesn’t really care what happens to him—if he gets indicted for murder, if he is found guilty, if he goes to prison. Right now, he’s having a great time as Puppeteer Peterson, pulling the strings and watching everyone else dance.
He convinces a naïve and vulnerable girl to date him, and watches her father go ballistic, calling the state police, who can do nothing. He’s spotted at a dance club with a woman who is not his new fiancé and it’s reported as news. He decides to do an interview, the reporter brags about an “exclusive,” and he sees himself on prime time TV and the morning talk shows.
Who cares about the future? Who cares about the truth? Right now, Drew Peterson is probably living his dream, manipulating people in front of a live national audience.
Dear Tilly and No more,
Oh, yes, they ALWAYS have an “excuse”—everything EXCEPT “I did it because it felt good.” My favorite excuse is the guy who used the “twinkie” defense. He became a murderer because he ate too many twinkies! Now, boy THAT is a stretch.
The P is teh original who threw himself on teh mercy of the court because he was an ORPHAN—at the trial for killing his parents! the mendez brothers are the perfect example of that one!
Tilly, learning to recognize the RED flags is a time consuming job, and since we have been “programed” to accept excuses, we tend to see the GRAIN of truth in them and give them the benefit of the doubt…or hell, even blame ourselves.
They tell us that everything would have been perfect if we had just not cone X, or if we had done Y….
They are INCAPABLE of the normal bonding that goes on between couples, families and friends. We, however, because we CAN Bond adn DO Bond, end up with a TRAUMA bond which is stronger than even a “normal” bond. Stockholm syndrome.
Dear OxDrover,
I have so much work to do on studying RED flags. I thought I knew them all, but I don’t spot them when they are disguised with socalled “logic” and the “poor me, I’m not good enough” act, or the role of victim. My P used to do the “I’m not good enough for you” act all the time. Even when I responded to it, I would know deep down that he didn’t believe that at all, yet I couldn’t NOT boost him up. My mother groomed me to automatically blame myself for EVERYTHING that was wrong. I never ever experienced normal bonding from my parents or my brother.
I will look up Stockholm syndrome, ( so much to read, so busy!)
Tonight I keep flashing on certain instances in my past when my daughter abused me and how I felt so guilty because I thought I hadn’t loved her enough. Some instances where she was insanely jealous of me over nothing and I was ashamed for thinking it….WHEN SHE DEFINITELY WAS! I was told all my life by my parents and brother that what I saw (eg. the night my mother’s neck was broken, her attempted “suicide”, the night she set the house on fire, etc) wasn’t real. That I was crazy. I was shamed for telling people the truth, even when the ambulance or fire engine or neighbours saw the consequences.
So it is slowly unravelling..this “daughter” of mine. Very slowly, because I can’t cope with it more than a fraction at a time, YET.
Thankyou God for putting OxDrover in my path and everyone else. If you hadn’t been through what you went through OxDrover, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I am grateful to God from the bottom of my heart that I have heard your story and seen your recovery with my own eyes. I am so grateful for the support on this site. Its so desperately needed, it is truly lifesaving.xoxo
Dear Tilly,
“It is an ILL WIND that blows no one good” and I am glad that God has turned my experiences into something that can help someone else escape from SATAN’S clutches. I firmly believe that these people, these Ps, have sold their souls to SATAN by whatever name you want to call “evil.” They have turned their backs on God/Goodness and embraced EVIL.
Tilly, I know it hurts to recognize the truth that the people we thought loved us, that should have loved and protected us, like our parents, DIDN’T LOVE US, and instead abused us.
Jesus and St. Paul, both, tell us that if someone (“a brother”) embraces evil land “sin” and refuses to change and stop that behavior we should warn them, then take witnesses and warn them, then go to the church (our closest companions) and if that doesn’t work to treat them like a heathern, and “not to eat with them.” If that is not the definition of NC I am not sure what is. the purpose of this is to 1) get them to see the error of their ways and 2) to get US out of their target range.
Tilly, many of these people (my egg donor) used the FOG, and twisted God’s words to “honor your parents”—meaning put up with anyting yiour parents do. I see now, that “honoring” our (abusive) parents is done by our becoming the kind of good wise individuals that WOULD BRING “Honor” on a parent, not by allwing ourselves to be continually abused by these monsters.
My egg donor insisted that :”forgivness” was “let’s pretend it didn’t happen”—that never felt right to me, and now I know it IS NOT RIGHT. Forgiveness doesn’t mean “pretending it didn’t happen” or forgetting that it happened, but GETTING THE BITTERNESS OUT OF MY HEART ABOUT IT, but it does NOT include “trusting” them ever again. Even if they repented (which of course they will NOT) it doesn’t mean immediate and total restoration of trust!
I can now read God’s word in the Bible without the twisting influence of Satan’s angels telling me that only THEY have the true interpretation of God’s Word. Many times they hide behind the obligations we supposedly owe our parents—but we are NOT obligated to allow our parents to abuse us.
Even for people who do not believ ethat the Bible is God’s Word, it has much wisdom in how to live our lives for peace and happiness. Proverbs is filled with good advice to us for this. the entire Bible shows us that a GOOD HEART and kindness and caring and doing good to others brings happiness and peace. But it never tells us to put up with abuse. We aren’t, I think, to START trouble, or even respond too quickly, (turn the other cheek) but yet these words of wisdom have been twisted by many to “mean” that we are to just let peopole abuse us and do it over and over and over.
I have an entirely different view of “forgiveness” and :”honor they father and mother” now than I did before. I honor egg donor by becoming the kind of person that would bring honor to a parent. I forgive by getting the bitterness for the evil she has done me, and continues to do, out of my heart, but I do NOT trust her nor pretend it iddn’t happen, or isn’t happening.
My favorite Bible verse says “ALL things work ktogether for GOOD to those that love the Lord.” I can also see how many of the evil things done for me hav eturned out for MY benefit in the end. My loss in getting my mother committed turned out to be a VICTORY because if it had happened, my X-DIL wouldn’t have tried to kill my son after getting caught in her affair, and my good son would still be in that woman’s clutches. It was the ONLY thing that made him see the light—the barrel of a gun! So at the time I ithought it was a LOSS, but I had lost a Battle, but GOD WON the war!
Tilly, you have a right to be angry! But at the same time, you don’t want to let that anger eat your soul like a cancer. I suggest that you go back through ALL the old archived articles and read the ARTICLES, print them out and put in a binder even and reacd and reread them until you can spot these RED FLAGS. These articles are a gold mine of information to make us POWERFUL WITH KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge=power. APPLYING that knowledge is the kicker. I had the knowledge but I DENIED its truth, I tried to depend on MYSELF and my own wisdom and my “wisdom” was twisted by my upbringing.
I’m still human and make mistakes, react poorly sometimes, etc but you know, I am in a better place mentally and emotionally than I have EVER been, because I used the new application of the knowledge to strengthen myself. It is a life time process, we can’t ever let our guards down, but it is now CAUTION, not terror! Getting TOTALLY asway from these EVIL people (NC) is the first step. We have no obligation to them, and with new strength, no FEAR of them any more, and no guilt for protecting ourselves from their EVIL. It FREES us to be happy and have peace and contentment. I firmly believe that this is the ONLY way to acheive that. god bless you Tilly. (((hugs))))
New developments on the case of Drew Peterson.
Savio, Peterson’s 3rd wife who was found dead in her bathtub, was going though a custody battle. She was asking for full custody of their children and 1/2 of what they owned together as her settlement. She dies six days before her case was settled in court. Then somehow her will was revised, drastically different from her previous will. Yeah, obviously a pure coincidence! (sarcastic laugh)
Has anyone heard the statement Peterson did this morning? He said
“There’s no book written on how I’m supposed to act,” he said. “Would it be better if I hid my head down and tried to hide my face and hunched over and had tears in my eyes? No, that’s just not me.”
Wow, he is digging his own grave, he just cannot look like a sociopath even if he tried.
It’s interesting that if one survives a sociopath and pugrges him form one’s life, the s will find a new prey pretty much right away.
The funny and pretty predictable pattern is that the preys get younger, prettier, meeker and more naive down the line. The s gains more and more experience from previous preys, incorporates his/her new knowledge into seducing/stalking his new prey. For example if he learns that his previous prey liked dates and walks in the botanical gardens, he will try that on his new prey, since it makes sense to him that all women are simplistic and can be groomed and seduced by similar things.
I have seen this over and over. I think this might the pattern of non-s abusers.
What scares me about Drew Peterson is that he was a police officer!!
And my brother’s psychopath wife is a nurse!
They definitely choose professions for themselves where THEY will be the one who is trusted/believed.
Hey Rosa,
Scares me too. Do you think that it’s a possibility that peterson has been killing since his 20’s but had the ability to wipe everything clean?
Also, nurses can have a lot of power in their hands. All it takes is a small injection of the I.V. at a late hour when nobody is around.
I was just reading an article on msnbc. It’s an interview with a woman named Kyle Piry who was engaged to Peterson 26 years ago. I wish she could come onto LoveFraud and share stories.
If I may just quote some of the things she said:
“To look back, I don’t think at that time I would have thought he was capable of it,” she said. “But after I’ve heard the stories and things that have occurred with previous wives, they’re just very, very similar to the things that occurred with me. It seemed like it started with me. I heard his first wife said there was no abuse of any sort and maybe snowballed with each woman got a little worse.”
Piry is 46 now and married with a family of her own. She had met Peterson while she was working at a gas station and Peterson, seven years her senior, had come to investigate a crime.
“He was attractive. He was funny. He had a good wit about him,” she told Vieira. “He was complimentary and that sort of thing. He was charming.”
Peterson had already been married once and divorced and had children by that marriage. But Piry was smitten and soon accepted his proposal to marry.
“We hadn’t set dates or that sort of thing, but we were engaged for about four months before I decided there were too many things that just made me really uncomfortable,” Piry said.
None of the things that troubled her were major issues, she said. Rather, it was a cumulative feeling that gave her a gut sense that this was a future she did not want for herself.
“There wasn’t anything great happening or flashing red lights,” she said. “There were little things that just made you think, ’Hmmm, something’s wrong here.’ If I wanted to go out with my friends on the weekend, he didn’t like that, he was upset with that. As the relationship went on, it got to be worse and worse.”
Jealous and possessive
He grilled her about places she went and people she saw, and, she discovered, he sometimes followed her when she went out. When he got angry, he called her names and was verbally abusive, but he never threatened her physically until she had broken up with him and went back to his house to pick up some of her things.
“It turned into an argument,” she said. “He pushed me over the cocktail table, got me on the ground, straddled me with his arms put my arms against the ground with his legs. That upset me. I had never had anyone treat me like that before.”
Piry even filed domestic abuse charges with the Bolingbrook police, but, she said, his friends on the force encouraged her not to pursue them. “I can’t say they were covering up,” she said. “They just wanted it to go away.”
For a time, she continued, Peterson continued to harass her, following her when she went out on weekends and pulling her over to write what she called frivolous traffic tickets for such violations as having bald tires.
But Piry said she didn’t think of Peterson as dangerous. “Hearing all the details now, it’s a different person than I knew,” she said.
Piry is a private person and when the news of Stacy Peterson’s disappearance first broke, she didn’t feel it was important for her to speak out. “I didn’t think it would help find Stacy or help with Kathleen,” she told Vieira.
But she came forward because she believes there is a lesson for other young women in her own experience. She followed her gut instinct to break off an engagement that many others might have gone through with, she said.
“I just think it really is important that girls pay attention to the little signs,” she said. “There was no big flashing red lights, but there was all these little things that in a different circumstance I could have ignored, but I didn’t because something didn’t feel right.”
If she hadn’t listened to her gut, she said, she realizes now as she watches the continuing coverage of the case, “That could have been me.”
Greenfern:
What I see in Drew Peterson, is that he abused his first 2 wives and cheated, etc.
But, when he got to wife #3 (Savio) , he decided it would be better to “up the stakes” by killing them. Less problems for him. And, he was a cop. He knew how to do that and make it look “accidental”.
I definitely think he knew that he was a disordered individual very early in his life. That is why he chose the profession of police officer. The perfect cover.
Just like my sister-in-law chose the profession of nurse. What better profession to “appear” caring and nurturing? The perfect MASK.
P.S. I have already made it known that if anything should ever happen to me, I do NOT want my brother’s wife anywhere near my bedside!!!!
Rosa,
Sounds like you know that keeping away from your SIL is a good idea!
Yes, I think I agree with upping the stakes with wife #3. In his eye they were getting too pesky and demanding. They needed to be put into their place.
Has anyone know what Peterson’s background is. Early life and his relationship to his parents, especially his mother?