Rev. Neil Schori, a counseling pastor at a Bolingbrook church, testified that Stacy Peterson once described her husband Drew Peterson coaching her for hours on what to tell police — an account that has resurfaced as her disappearance nears two decades without resolution. Stacy Peterson vanished from the couple's Bolingbrook home in 2007 and has never been found, leaving behind a case that remains active and unsolved.
Schori recounted a conversation with Stacy Peterson from August 2007, according to nbcchicago.com, in which she described Drew warning her that investigators would want to interview her and then spending hours coaching her on how she should lie to them. Schori had counseled Stacy Peterson both alone and in a few joint sessions with Drew Peterson, and he testified at Drew Peterson's murder trial about what she told him. Drew Peterson accused Stacy of having affairs.
A Starbucks Confession Before She Vanished
Stacy Peterson spoke with Schori for two hours at a Starbucks in the late summer of 2007, shortly before she disappeared, according to CBS News. During that conversation, she told Schori that Drew had gotten out of bed around the time of Kathleen Savio's death in March 2004 and did not return until dawn, telling him, “He didn't reappear until dawn.” She said Drew returned dressed in all black and carrying a bag, and that she later saw him put the bag's contents into the washing machine — including women's clothing that was not hers, per the same account.
Kathleen Savio, Drew Peterson's third wife, was found dead in the bathtub of her Bolingbrook home in March 2004, and her death was initially ruled an accident. Stacy Peterson was told to provide Drew with an alibi, Schori testified, and she asked him to keep what she had confided to him secret. She disappeared roughly three years after Savio's death and about two months after revealing her secret to Schori.
Savio Case Reopened, Peterson Convicted
After Stacy Peterson went missing in 2007, authorities reexamined Kathleen Savio's death, and the ruling was changed from accidental to homicide, as nbcchicago.com reported. Drew Peterson was later convicted of first-degree murder in Savio's death. He was sentenced to 38 years for Savio's murder and an additional 40 years for soliciting the murder of State's Attorney James Glasgow. Schori told police what Stacy Peterson had confided to him.
Drew Peterson has long been described by police as the prime suspect in Stacy's disappearance, though he has never been charged in connection with it and has denied any involvement, according to shawlocal.com. The Illinois State Police remains the lead agency on the investigation, which the outlet confirms is still open. Accounts differ on exactly when Stacy Peterson was last seen — Yahoo News reports she vanished on October 18, 2007, while an Illinois State Police missing-persons listing states she was last seen on October 28, 2007, in Bolingbrook.
Stacy Peterson met Drew Peterson when she was a teenager, and he was roughly 30 years older than her. She was a young mother of two when she disappeared, and her sister, Cassandra Cales, said in 2011 that Stacy could not tolerate Drew's jealousy. Stacy Peterson has never been found, according to Illinois State University News.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Unsolved Cases
Stacy Peterson's case is not an isolated one in the region. The same shawlocal.com report notes that at least four cases involving wives who disappeared in Will and La Salle counties remain unsolved, including Lisa Stebic, who vanished from Plainfield in 2007 at age 37, with her husband Craig Stebic still named a person of interest. The outlet also points to Jeri Lynn Duvall, who disappeared from Shorewood in 1990 — her husband Robert Duvall was considered the sole suspect but was never charged — and Karen McGovern, who went missing from Marseilles in 2010, with foul play suspected according to NamUs.
Coercive control is a term used in discussions of intimate relationships.
