Drew Peterson offers up a $25,000 reward

SEEKING STACY

It might be throwing good money after bad, but Drew Peterson says he will pay $25,000 to get his wife back.

Peterson has claimed all along his missing wife Stacy stole $25,000 from his safe when she grabbed her bikini and absconded with another man in late October. Now he is doubling this investment for her "safe return."

"It's just another ruse on his part by his PR department," Stacy's best friend and next-door neighbor, Sharon Bychowski, said of the reward, which was in fact trumpeted by Peterson's Florida-based publicist, Glenn Selig.

"We have had a $35,000 reward for her since the holidays, and (Peterson) laughed at us," said Bychowski, who is skeptical of Peterson's bikini story and believes her friend has met a much more dire end.

Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, explained that he and his client came up with the reward six months after Stacy disappeared because they believed police were not doing their job.

"It's been a while and nobody's looking," Brodsky said. "We figure we have to do it ourselves."

One person the state police are looking at is Peterson. The agency has named him the sole suspect in Stacy's disappearance, a case they call a "potential homicide." Brodsky insists the state police are misdirected.

"The police and the Stacy Peterson Web site people, they've fallen down on the job," Brodsky said. "We're hoping this will give us good leads and we'll be able to find her."

Besides investigating the fate of Stacy, who is Peterson's fourth wife, the state police have revisited the mysterious March 2004 death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. The state police first concluded Savio accidentally drowned in her bathtub, but in the wake of Stacy's disappearance, a forensic pathologist contradicted this finding by determining she was the victim of a homicide.

Bychowski said she is sure there will be closure to the mystery surrounding her friend's disappearance.

"We know that in this case, an arrest is imminent," she said.

Peterson referred questions to Brodsky, but also had his PR man, Selig, making statements on his behalf. Selig said the former Bolingbrook police sergeant "had hoped that by this time Stacy would've contacted him or their four children. But she hasn't. He says he too can't fathom why. He says he hopes that this reward will bring her home."

Selig directed tips to the e-mail address stacytips@yahoo.com.

"Brodsky says the tips will be opened and read by a team of investigators hired by Peterson, not by Peterson himself or his attorneys," Selig said. "He says all legitimate leads will be forwarded to law enforcement authorities."

And Selig, quoting Brodsky, warned that e-mails containing "harassing, obscene, or threatening messages ... will be forwarded to law enforcement for prosecution."

Brodsky said it does not matter if the tips lead to Stacy coming home again. In fact, that is of no concern at all.

"We don't care if she comes back," he said. "We just want to find her."