Case file 0011
Kathleen Savio and Stacy Peterson: Two Cases, Different Outcomes
A murder conviction followed the re-examination of one death. A separate disappearance remained unresolved.
Kathleen Savio was found dead in her Bolingbrook, Illinois home in March 2004. The initial inquest classified her drowning as accidental. After Stacy Peterson disappeared in 2007, Savio's body was exhumed and further examinations concluded that her death was a homicide. [S1]
The two women had both been married to Drew Peterson, a Bolingbrook police officer. Their cases intersected, but a conviction concerning one did not become a verdict concerning the other.
The case that reached a murder verdict
The Illinois Supreme Court's account describes the 2009 indictment, the 2012 trial and a jury finding Drew guilty of Savio's first-degree murder. He received 38 years. Its 2017 opinion affirmed the judgment, after considering issues including statements admitted under the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing doctrine and challenges concerning defense counsel. [S1]
The earlier accidental classification therefore does not describe the final criminal outcome. A case once understood one way was reconsidered, prosecuted and decided by a jury. The later appellate judgment left that murder conviction and sentence intact.
Stacy's disappearance was a different event
The Cook County Sheriff's missing-person listing gives October 28, 2007 as Stacy's last-contact date and Bolingbrook as her last-known location. It records that she had been expected to meet a friend to paint a house. The listing continues to identify her as a missing person and provides a route for information. [S2]
Stacy's name also appears in the evidence and litigation concerning Savio's death. That connection does not make Savio's murder trial a trial establishing how Stacy disappeared. The scope of the judgment matters precisely because the stories are so often told together.
What the combined narrative can conceal
A later disappearance prompted renewed attention to an earlier death. That sequence is important, but it contains two different losses: a woman whose death became the subject of a murder conviction and another woman whose whereabouts remained the subject of a missing-person appeal.
Kathleen's identity should not be reduced to an earlier chapter in a case about Stacy. Stacy's disappearance should not be treated as solved simply because a related prosecution ended. Keeping their names and outcomes separate gives both records their proper meaning.
The dated court outcome recorded here is the 2017 affirmation. The available sheriff's record has an older update date; its continued public presence is a missing-person listing, not proof of a newly announced investigative breakthrough.