Nov 17, 2007 10:31 am US/Central
Expert: Former Illinois Cop's Third Wife Killed
ROMEOVILLE, Ill. (AP) ―
Amid the search for a former police officer's fourth wife, a nationally known pathologist has examined the remains of the officer's previous wife at her family's request and determined she was killed.
Former New York City chief medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden analyzed Kathleen Savio's remains and concluded she died after a struggle, and her body was placed in the bathtub where she was found, Baden said Saturday.
"I don't think there's any possibility this was an accident, and I don't think there's any indication this was suicide," he told Fox News, which flew him to Chicago so he could examine the remains Friday with the family's consent.
Results of a separate, official autopsy conducted after Baden's review will not be available for several days, authorities said.
A coroner's jury initially ruled that Savio's 2004 death was an accidental drowning. But now, with Drew Peterson's fourth wife missing for more than two weeks, authorities are re-examining the circumstances of Savio's death.
Peterson, 53, who resigned this week as a Bolingbrook police sergeant, has not been named a suspect in Savio's death. But he is a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth and current wife, Stacy, who was last seen Oct. 28 and whose case authorities have called a possible homicide.
Peterson has an unlisted number. He has denied any involvement in either case and said he believes his 23-year-old wife left him for another man and is alive.
Savio's body was exhumed this week at the request of Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow, who has said after examining evidence he believes her death was a homicide staged to look like an accident.
The state's attorney's office allowed Baden to use the county morgue for his work and a state's attorney's investigator attended the autopsy, spokesman Charles Pelkie said.
Bruises on Savio's body "happened around the time that she died, as if she were in a struggle, as if she were beaten up," Baden said.
Anna Doman, Savio's sister, said Baden was giving his opinion without charging a fee to the family.
"She was beat up and placed in the bathtub as a cover-up for whoever done this," Sue Savio Doman, Savio's sister, told WFLD-TV, a Fox affiliate.
Documents released by Savio's family indicate she believed, at least briefly, that he would kill her: "He pulled out his knife that he kept around his leg and brought it to my neck," she wrote in a letter the family says was sent to prosecutors.
Pelkie said it remains unclear if that letter ever came to the office.
Attorney Fred Morelli, who once represented Peterson, said he never heard the knife claims about his former client.
"That's the first I've heard of that," Morelli said. "That's crazy. ... (Peterson) was a very pleasant, personable fellow. Other than that, I don't know."
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
