PASTOR: STACY WAS FEARFUL
BOLINGBROOK -- Stacy Peterson told a clergy member two months before she disappeared that she feared her husband, a Westbrook Christian Church official said Thursday.
The clergyman made a routine check to see why Stacy Peterson and her husband, Drew Peterson, were no longer attending church. The troubled young woman asked for an opportunity to meet for a longer, face-to-face talk with the unidentified man of the cloth, Pastor Rob Daniels of Westbrook Christian Church told The Herald News.
"She feared for herself because of her husband," Daniels said.
Asked whether Stacy Peterson was afraid her husband would kill her, Daniels would only say she feared "bodily harm." He would not say if Stacy Peterson said her husband confessed to killing his former wife.
The church official made a "judgment call" not to alert authorities and did not consult with other church staff, Daniels said. The church's clergy are only legally mandated to alert authorities of allegations of child abuse or if someone threatens to harm themselves or others, he said.
Daniels would not identify the clergy member who met with Stacy Peterson.
Peterson wanted to pull stakes and get herself and her children away from husband Drew, the disgraced former police sergeant with a dead third wife and a missing fourth one, said Bosco, who is acting as the spokeswoman for Stacy Peterson's family.
Bosco said Stacy Peterson asked Cales about taking her children and moving in with Bosco's brothers who live in California.
"Why at that point? Obviously she had concerns right around the fall," Bosco said.
"Is it just a suspicion?" she said of the family's collective mind set. "Why (weren't) the authorities saying something? If there's suspicions, why aren't the authorities doing something?"
The authorities did convene an inquest into Savio's death. At the inquest, a state police investigator testified Savio apparently drowned after accidentally falling and hitting her head in the bathtub.
"There was nothing to lead us to believe that anything else occurred," said Special Agent Herbert Hardy. "There was no other evidence that shows that anything else occurred."
In the ensuing three and a half years, authorities have determined something else may have occurred. Savio's body was exhumed from its grave for further postmortem testing. The official results of these tests have yet to be released, but a forensic pathologist working privately on behalf of Savio's family concluded she was the victim of a homicide.
State police also have declared the missing Stacy the victim of a "potential homicide" and identified her husband, the recently retired Drew, as a suspect in the case.
"I always say, Drew, take a lie detector test," Bosco said. "If you stand by what you say, take a lie detector test."
Bosco went on to volunteer Cales as a subject for polygraph testing concerning her claims of spotting a blue barrel at the Peterson residence.
Recent reports have Drew Peterson and his stepbrother, Thomas Morphey, hauling a warm, blue barrel from the house to Peterson's Denali hours after Stacy Peterson was last seen alive.
Morphey reportedly attempted suicide the next day. For the last several weeks Morphey has been in "therapy" at an undisclosed location, according to his girlfriend, Sheryl Alcox.
A police source said Morphey may be of little use to police.
"They don't want to use him in front of the grand jury because he has blackouts and they think he will hurt their case," the source said. "He's very unreliable."
"They call it peacocking. He's strutting around like a peacock because he thinks he's gotten away with it," the source said of Drew Peterson, adding, "They're never going to find her."
Contact Joe Hosey at (815) 729-6054 or e-mail him at jhosey@scn1.com
