Lawyer: New view of Drew

JOLIET -- Drew Peterson's attorneys vowed to flip the world's perception of the disgraced Bolingbrook cop upside down when they get a crack at the state's witnesses during an evidentiary hearing in January.

"People's assumptions are going to be turned on their head -- it's going to be 180 degrees," one of Peterson's lawyers, Joel Brodsky, said Thursday after the accused wife-killer's most recent court appearance.

Brodsky and co-counsel Andrew Abood seemed eager for their chance to cross-examine the state's witnesses during a Jan. 19 hearing to determine what hearsay evidence will be permitted at Peterson's murder trial.

Peterson stands accused of drowning his third wife, Kathleen Savio, and is also a suspect in what state police termed the "potential homicide" of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

At the January hearing, which Brodsky called a "mini-trial," Judge Stephen White will determine whether the hearsay evidence is reliable enough to be allowed at the regular trial.

"We're going to ask some very interesting questions of the state's witnesses," said Brodsky, who claimed that there will be "secrets coming out" at the hearing.

On Thursday, prosecutors revealed that they sent sealed subpoenas to at least a dozen county coroner's offices.

For his part, Brodsky has subpoenaed a DuPage County obstetric and gynecological office and Bolingbrook dermatologist Tehming Liang. Liang failed to return calls for comment.

A Chicago attorney, Bradley Levison, appeared at the hearing to represent Peter Schoonmaker, another attorney from his firm. Schoonmaker's involvement in the case was unclear, and Levison did little to clarify it.

Asked who Schoonmaker is, Levison said only, "My client" and "He is who he is."

Schoonmaker also failed to return calls for comment.

After the hearing, which was held exactly two years and a day after Stacy Peterson was last seen, Brodsky maintained that she might not have been killed after all.

"It is possible for people to disappear and still be alive, that there's no foul play," he said.

Not only has Stacy vanished, but a plaque and lilac plant placed outside the Bolingbrook Aquatic Center to memorialize the missing mother have disappeared as well.

The plant and plaque, which reads, "Stacy Peterson. Mother, sister, friend," were last seen Tuesday, said Bolingbrook police Lt. Michael Rompa, who noted that investigators are probing the crime.

Peterson's attorneys jokingly denied involvement in the theft, with Brodsky saying, "We were here," and Abood adding, "We have an alibi."