West Suburban Bureau

JOLIET, Ill. (CBS) ― Drew Peterson tried to hire someone to kill his third wife because he thought a pending divorce settlement would financially ruin him, just months before she was found drowned in her bathtub with a gash to the back of her head, prosecutors said Friday.

Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow says Peterson offered to pay someone $25,000 to kill Kathleen Savio. But prosecutors say ultimately, Peterson did it himself.

And just three weeks before Kathleen Savio was slain, Peterson, then a Bolingbrook cop, allegedly said to a fellow officer: "My life would be easier if she [Savio] was just dead," Glasgow alleged in court.

The information came out in a hearing in Will County Criminal Court on Friday, where Judge Carla J. Alessio-Policandriotes refused to reduce Peterson's $20 million bond.

A source tells CBS 2 that the new judge's husband is an investigator with the Will County Sheriff's office. 

Peterson is known for making smart-aleck remarks in the media, but he was much more subdued in court Friday. Glasgow said Peterson finally understood the seriousness of his situation.

He "realizes there is no way out," Glasgow said.

Peterson hung his head as he left Friday's hearing, and got into a van to go back to jail.

Glasgow told the judge that Peterson was a flight risk because he knew how to disappear and knows he faces 20 to 60 years in jail if he's convicted.

Peterson attorney Joel Brodsky said he wanted the judge to reduce his client's bond to under $500,000, arguing that since police named Peterson a suspect in Stacy Peterson's disappearance in late 2007, he has traveled to such places as Mexico, California and Florida without ever trying to flee.

Brodsky said that he had heard talk about Peterson hiring someone to kill Savio, but said it was "nothing substantive." He added that they would investigate the prosecutor's allegations on the murder plot.

Brodsky talked with his client shortly after the accused murderer learned he wouldn't be getting out of jail today.

"He was, I think, a little bit taken aback," Brodsky said. "He felt, as a lot of people did, that the $20 million was exceptionally high."

The families of Kathleen Savio and Stacy Peterson were jubilant. Henry Savio believes the former police sergeant killed his sister Kathleen.

"The streets are safer, and we're ready for a bottle of champagne right now," Henry Savio said. "It's a small start."

"We have a long ways to go," said Kathleen's sister Sue Doman.

Cassandra Cales is the sister of Stacy Peterson.

"I'm going to sleep good tonight knowing that he's paying for what he's done," Cales said.

Glasgow said allowing Peterson to bail out would in essence allow him do so using Kathleen Savio's blood money.

"We're obviously very pleased with Judge Policandriotes' ruling today to keep the bond at $20 million," Glasgow said. "I believe it's appropriate in keeping with other bonds set in this county."

Glasgow said Savio was murdered by Peterson in a crime staged to look like an accident.

"These types of cases always cause people to come forward out of the woodwork to try to inject themselves into a high-profile situation," Brodsky said.

Sue Doman argued in vain five years ago that Peterson had killed her sister Kathleen. Today, she had this message for the sister she always called Kitty.

"I love you, Kitty," Doman said. "It took five years. I put a note in your coffin, you finally answered my prayers. I love you and I miss you. And we're gonna get him."

Peterson is charged with first-degree murder in the 2004 drowning of Kathleen Savio. Her death was initially ruled an accident but was reopened after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, disappeared in 2007.

Peterson is also a suspect in Stacy's disappearance, but hasn't been charged with a crime in that case.

Savio's body was found by a friend of Peterson after the police sergeant called him to say he was worried because he had not talked to or seen Savio for a few days. The couple had recently divorced and a financial settlement was pending.

The friend, Steve Carcerano, has said he went to the house and went upstairs while Peterson waited downstairs. When he found Savio's body in the bathtub, he called to Peterson, who has said he then ran upstairs, took Savio's pulse, but found none.

Savio's death initially was ruled an accidental drowning, but authorities reopened the investigation after Stacy Peterson disappeared. They ruled Savio's death a homicide after exhuming her body and completing a new autopsy. Peterson was arrested May 7.

Peterson was 47 and married to Savio when he met his fourth wife -- then-17-year-old Stacy Cales -- at a hotel where she worked, and the two began having an affair. Savio and Peterson divorced in 2003 after Savio found out that Stacy was pregnant.

Later that year, Peterson and Stacy married and the couple had two children, a boy and a girl.

In August of 2007, Stacy Peterson told a pastor of her church that she was afraid of her husband, the pastor said. In a wrongful death lawsuit, her family says she also told the pastor that she knew her husband killed Savio.

Glasgow said Friday that Peterson is the only suspect in Stacy Peterson's disappearance. He also said Savio's own statements would be used against him at trial.

State lawmakers last year passed legislation, sought by Glasgow, that allows a judge to admit hearsay evidence in first-degree murder cases if prosecutors can prove the defendant killed a witness to prevent them from testifying.

Possible evidence includes letters of protection in which Savio said Peterson would kill her to shut her up and her sister's testimony to a coroner's jury that Savio told her family it would be no accident if she died.

Peterson's attorneys have vowed to challenge the constitutionality of admitting such evidence, and said one of Peterson's sons with Savio has "provided a lock-tight alibi" for his father. In an appearance on CBS' "The Early Show" last month, 16-year-old Thomas Peterson appeared alongside his father and said Peterson was with his children when Savio was killed.

In court Friday, Brodsky asked the judge if she was considering recusing herself from the case because of her past involvements in Peterson's divorce case from Kathleen Savio. The judge chose to stay onboard.

The defense has nine more days to decide if they want to have her removed from the case.

CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli and the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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