Missing persons group visits Bolingbrook

ABDUCTION PREVENTION DAY

BOLINGBROOK -- This week the mayor of Bolingbrook proclaimed Wednesday Abduction Prevention Day, just in time for a national group devoted to missing people to pay a visit.

Mayor Roger Claar made the proclamation right after paying tribute to the independence days of Pakistan and India. While reading the short statement during Tuesday's village board meeting, he dropped the names of Bolingbrook residents Rachel Mellon Skemp, who vanished in 1996, and Stacy Peterson, who disappeared in October.

Wednesday, the Community United Effort Center For Missing Persons stopped in Bolingbrook to raise awareness of the Skemp and Peterson cases during a 17-state tour.

Rachel was 13 years old when she was last seen alive. The day she disappeared, Rachel was home alone with her stepfather, Vince Mellon. She had a sore throat and called in sick to school. No one realized Rachel was missing until the evening, when her mother came home from work.

About four years after Rachel vanished, police picked up Vince Mellon and held him for nine hours at the Bolingbrook station house. Police then served a warrant ordering he surrender samples of his blood, saliva and body hair as part of a first-degree murder investigation.

Despite the presumption that Rachel was murdered, no one has been charged in connection with her disappearance.

State police declared Stacy Peterson the victim of a "potential homicide" soon after she vanished and named her husband, former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson, a suspect.

But as with the Mellon case, no one has been charged in connection with the young woman's disappearance.

Stacy is Peterson's fourth wife. State police also are investigating the March 2004 death of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio. State police found nothing untoward the first time they probed Savio's death, but are getting another crack at it in the wake of Stacy's disappearance.

During Tuesday's meeting, Claar said Peterson had visited his home in the line of duty but never in a social capacity. Peterson contradicted this, saying he had been to Claar's house for Christmas parties.

Peterson also explained why he would go to Claar's house while on duty.

"When you're the watch commander, and he wants answers to things, he calls you and says, 'I want this and I want that.'" he said.

Claar said that beyond proclaiming Wednesday Abduction Prevention Day, the village is not involved in the Stacy Peterson case.