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Trial date set for Drew Peterson

By Steve Schmadeke, Chicago Tribune –

CHICAGO — Drew Peterson is set to go on trial — again.

The former Bolingbrook, Ill., police sergeant was first scheduled to go on trial for murder in 2010, but a last-minute appeal by prosecutors in the highly publicized case triggered two years of delays. During that time, the original presiding judge retired and a Lifetime movie starring Rob Lowe as Peterson aired on cable television.

Peterson told a Will County judge Thursday that he was on board with jury selection starting July 23. His trial on charges he drowned his third wife, Kathleen Savio, would begin July 30.

“Yes, your honor,” Peterson told Judge Edward Burmila when asked if he was “comfortable” with that date. “I’ve been in solitary confinement for three years, your honor.”

Savio’s sister Susan Doman, who along with her husband, Mitchell, wore buttons with Savio’s photo to Thursday’s hearing, said she was pleased a new trial date was set.

“It’s been a long, long wait,” she said.

With many of the major issues in the case already litigated, defense lawyers have filed a flurry of motions asking the judge to rule on brass tacks. One of the biggest questions Burmila ruled on Thursday was whether the disappearance of Peterson’s missing fourth wife, Stacy, could be mentioned at trial.

Savio was found drowned in her dry Bolingbrook bathtub in 2004, but a coroner’s jury ruled the death an accident. After Stacy Peterson disappeared in 2007, Savio’s body was exhumed and Drew Peterson was charged with Savio’s murder. He has not been charged in Stacy’s disappearance but remains the only suspect.

Defense attorneys conceded there was no way to keep all the details of Stacy’s disappearance from jurors even if it wasn’t mentioned in the courtroom. “I guess you’d have to be living under a rock to not know what’s going on in this case,” Steve Greenberg said.

Burmila ruled prosecutors can ask witnesses who testify about statements Savio made to them before her death why they had waited to go to authorities, questions that likely will elicit statements about Stacy’s highly publicized disappearance.

But, Burmila said, “there will be no mention … that she is dead, presumed dead, killed by the defendant or anything of the kind,” he said.

Greenberg — who said the murder charge is based on “fog” and “crap” — said there is no physical evidence or witnesses placing Peterson at Savio’s home around the time she died.

“They’re trying to say there was a nasty divorce, therefore he must have killed her,” Greenberg said. “I realize that’s a logical thought, but we need evidence.”

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