Drew Peterson was a sergeant in the police department of Bolingbrook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb in Will County. On September 6, 2012, a jury in the Will County Circuit Court at Joliet convicted him of the first-degree murder of Kathleen Savio, his third wife, who died in March 2004. On February 21, 2013, he was sentenced to 38 years. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the conviction and sentence on September 21, 2017.
In 2016 a second jury, in Randolph County, convicted him of solicitation of murder for hire and solicitation of murder. The target was the Will County State's Attorney, the prosecutor who had brought the murder case. He was given a further 40 years, to be served after the first sentence, and the Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed that conviction and sentence in December 2020. His fourth wife disappeared in 2007; he has never been charged in connection with it.
The murder case was unusual for what it did not contain. Prosecutors had no physical evidence and no eyewitness placing him at the scene, and they relied largely on statements made by his third and fourth wives to other people before one died and the other disappeared. Whether a jury could hear those statements was the central legal question from 2010 until the Supreme Court of Illinois answered it in 2017.
Peterson served as a Bolingbrook police officer and rose to sergeant. At the time of his 2012 trial he was described as a former sergeant with roughly three decades of law enforcement experience. The trial record shows that he received a certificate in evidence handling in 1981, an appointment as an evidence technician in January 1984 and a crime scene training certificate in April 1988. A police lieutenant who identified those documents at trial could not say how long the courses were or whether Peterson had ever worked an investigation in that role. He was 58 when the jury returned its verdict and 59 at sentencing.
Peterson and his third wife married on May 3, 1992. Both of them filed for dissolution of the marriage in early 2002, and the two cases were consolidated. The marriage was dissolved in a separate proceeding on October 10, 2003, and the questions of custody, support, maintenance and property were set for a hearing on April 6, 2004.
His third wife died in early March 2004, before that hearing took place. A coroner's inquest determined that the manner of her death was accidental, and a final judgment resolving the remaining divorce issues was later entered in Peterson's favor, settling the financial questions. Life insurance proceeds exceeding $1 million were paid. Prosecutors at the 2012 trial said he had feared that the pending divorce settlement would leave him financially ruined, and that he did not want any of his police pension to go to his wife.
In October 2007, after his fourth wife's disappearance, attention returned to the 2004 death. Two pathologists, one retained by the State and one by his third wife's family, each concluded in November 2007 that the manner of death was homicide, the first on November 13 and the second on November 16. The death was reclassified accordingly.
Peterson has never been charged in connection with his fourth wife's disappearance.
A Will County grand jury returned a two-count indictment in May 2009, under sections 9-1(a)(1) and 9-1(a)(2) of the Criminal Code, charging Peterson with the first-degree murder of his third wife, about a year and a half after his fourth wife disappeared. He was charged on May 7, 2009, and arraigned that month. The case was originally set for trial in July 2010 but was held up by disputes over which evidence a jury could hear.
The case turned on hearsay. Beginning in January 2010 the trial court heard 73 witnesses at a pretrial hearing and received more than 200 exhibits and numerous stipulations, to decide which out-of-court statements of the two women a jury could be told about. The State had asked to admit 14 statements, 11 by his third wife and four by his fourth wife, one of which it withdrew at the hearing. The statements of the third wife concerned threats and a letter she had written to the State's Attorney; those of the fourth wife concerned his conduct on the night of the 2004 death. The court found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Peterson had murdered his third wife and acted with the intent to make both women unavailable as witnesses. On that footing it admitted six of the statements on May 18, 2010, and excluded the other eight as unreliable. The State moved on June 30, 2010, to reconsider and asked for admission under the common law as well; the court denied that motion on July 6, 2010, and later said that its ruling rested solely on the statute. The ruling was made to settle admissibility; it was not a verdict on any charge relating to his fourth wife.
The State appealed the exclusion of the remaining statements in five consolidated appeals. On July 26, 2011, a panel of the Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District, held that it lacked jurisdiction over the exclusion appeal. It reasoned that the 30-day period to appeal ran from the May 18 order and that the State's motion to reconsider was filed 43 days later and its notice of appeal 50 days later; it rejected the argument that a 2010 decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois on the same doctrine was a material change in the law. In the same decision the panel found no abuse of discretion in excluding evidence of earlier incidents as too remote and dissimilar, and in barring a divorce lawyer from predicting how the divorce judge would have ruled, which it called speculation. The presiding justice dissented in part, arguing that the exclusion appeal was timely and that the trial court had erred in law.
On November 30, 2011, the Supreme Court of Illinois denied the State's petition for leave to appeal but, in the exercise of its supervisory authority, directed the appellate court to vacate its dismissal and decide the merits. On April 12, 2012, the same panel held that section 115-10.6 of the Illinois Code of Criminal Procedure, a 2008 statute, did not codify and supplant the common-law doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing. The doctrine, recognized in a federal decision of 1878 and written into the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1997, requires no showing of reliability; the Supreme Court of Illinois had adopted it in 2007 and confirmed in 2010 that admitted statements need no further indicia of reliability. Illinois Rule of Evidence 804(b)(5), effective January 1, 2011, codified it. Because the statute made reliability an element, it conflicted with the rule, and under the separation of powers the Supreme Court's rule controlled. The court added that the statute was narrower than the common law, covering only the intentional murder of a witness, and held that the eight excluded statements were admissible under the rule unless the trial court found them otherwise inadmissible. Its disposition read: "The judgment of the circuit court of Will County is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings." One justice specially concurred, declining to join the parts of the opinion that commented on the conduct of the State's Attorney's office. The case then went to a jury trial before a different judge.
Jury selection began in the week of July 23, 2012. On Tuesday, July 24, a jury of seven men and five women was seated, with four alternates chosen the same day. Opening statements were set for the following Tuesday. The defense team at trial numbered six attorneys, led by the attorney who had represented Peterson since November 2007.
The trial lasted more than seven weeks by the court's count. On July 31, 2012, the prosecution opened by arguing that the death was not an accident and that Peterson had a financial motive, with a divorce settlement pending and a second household to support. The defense opened by describing a household accident and a public servant. Both openings were interrupted by objections. When the prosecutor began to tell the jury that Peterson had offered a former colleague $25,000 to find someone to take care of his third wife, the defense objected and moved for a mistrial. The judge excused the jury, sustained the objection because the State had given no notice of the evidence under the rule on other-crimes evidence and the pretrial ruling did not cover it, and denied the mistrial motion. He said he would rule on each evidentiary question as it arose.
The prosecution's case came from several categories of witness. Neighbors and friends of Peterson's third wife, the first of whom took the stand on the opening day, testified to the state of the marriage and to what she had told them about threats. Emergency responders, investigators and the coroner's staff described the events of March 2004. Pathologists for the State, treating physicians, insurance and telephone records, relatives of the dead woman and friends of the fourth wife followed, among them a pastor and a divorce lawyer who each gave evidence about what the fourth wife had told them. The former colleague testified that during a ride-along in the winter of 2003 Peterson had asked whether he knew someone who could take care of his third wife and mentioned $25,000. On cross-examination he conceded that Peterson never gave him a name, a photograph or any payment, that he owed back taxes, and that he had come forward only after seeing a television program.
The court admitted his testimony on August 21 as evidence of intent, after finding good cause for the State's late notice, which had been filed on August 2. He testified the next day, 20 days after the notice, and the judge gave the jury a limiting instruction. The defense asked for no continuance and cross-examined him at length. The parties also read stipulations to the jury, including a letter written in November 2002, a report dated 2004, television interviews given by Peterson in 2007 and 2008, and telephone records between Peterson and his wife. The court barred the State from making an argument that would have commented on his right not to testify.
The defense called a neighbor who described Peterson as respectful and good-natured, a police sergeant, the insurance adjuster, state investigators and a federal agent, who testified about the reinvestigation and about calls made to the State Police in 2004 that were never returned. The defense also called the divorce lawyer, a decision that proved central on appeal. He testified that in late October 2007 the fourth wife had asked whether she could get more money from Peterson by threatening to tell the police what he had done. Peterson did not testify. In rebuttal, pathologists for the State and the defense gave opposing medical evidence. Much of the testimony was hearsay: friends of Peterson's fourth wife testified to what she had told them about his third wife's death and about her own account to the police. The defense argued that there was no physical evidence of a crime and nothing linking Peterson to the scene.
The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for 13 hours and 52 minutes over two days. At one point jurors asked the judge what "unanimous" meant; he told them that the verdict must be unanimous and signed by all. They sent four questions in all. On September 6, 2012, they found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder. Illinois has no death penalty and the maximum term was 60 years. The prosecution had conceded that its case was filled with holes; defense counsel said hearsay was the big issue and that Peterson would appeal. Sentencing was first set for November 26, 2012.
Sentencing took place on February 21, 2013, in Joliet. Earlier that week the court had heard two days of testimony on a motion for a new trial in which Peterson's new defense team argued that his former lead attorney should not have called his third wife's divorce lawyer as a defense witness and that the testimony of a pastor was hearsay that should have been excluded. On the day of sentencing the court denied the motion, saying that the former lead attorney had been out of his depth but that Peterson had had five other attorneys who each brought something to the table, and that he had received effective assistance of counsel. The sentencing range was 20 to 60 years. Before sentence Peterson addressed the court and denied responsibility, saying that he had been convicted by rumors, gossip, outrageous lies and unreliable hearsay. The court did not impose the maximum, citing his military and police service, and imposed 38 years, with credit for about four years already served. Defense counsel said they would appeal.
In November 2014, while Peterson was serving the 38-year sentence, a fellow inmate told authorities that Peterson had approached him about arranging the killing of the Will County State's Attorney, the prosecutor who had brought the murder case. The inmate then recorded conversations with Peterson at the authorities' request. The Federal Bureau of Investigation ran the operation with the cooperation of the prison, and the recordings were made under court-ordered authorization in two periods in late 2014.
The charges, two Class X felonies, were brought in Randolph County, the venue of the facility where Peterson was held, and alleged conduct between September 2013 and December 2014. On March 3, 2015, Peterson waived a preliminary hearing and pleaded not guilty before the Randolph County judge. The court granted the State a protective order limiting public disclosure of discovery for the life of the case, to protect the identity and safety of an individual referred to as "Individual A". The Illinois Attorney General's office and the Randolph County State's Attorney prosecuted. The trial was postponed in September 2015.
The trial began on Monday, May 23, 2016, in Chester and lasted six days. The prosecution called the targeted State's Attorney and the informant on the first day. Prosecutors told the jury that Peterson had offered $10,000 to the informant's relative to carry out the killing, and argued that he had acted because he believed his removal would help his appeal of the murder conviction. On the second day the jury heard the recordings, made over several days in November 2014. Much of their content was conversation about the 2012 trial; the passages the prosecution relied on were often indirect until Peterson gave the go-ahead, and the words "kill" and "murder" were never used. The defense called the recordings exaggerated prison boasts and said that Peterson had never asked for a killing.
On the fourth day the defense cross-examined the informant about letters in which he had written about how he would benefit from helping the authorities. He told a fellow inmate that he had reached agreements for early release and had been promised $110,000; he had in fact received $3,200 from the FBI to replace property lost after his transfer. The defense rested on Friday, May 27, after calling three fellow inmates; the judge limited their attempts to describe conversations with Peterson and with the informant, a ruling the prosecution defended on hearsay grounds. Peterson waived his right to testify. After the holiday weekend, closing arguments took about two hours on Tuesday, May 31. The prosecution said the recordings were Peterson's own words; the defense said a case built on words required proof that the defendant had said the words in question. The jury deliberated for about an hour and found Peterson guilty of solicitation of murder for hire and solicitation of murder. The offenses carried 20 to 40 years and 15 to 30 years respectively, and prosecutors said they would seek close to the maximum.
On July 29, 2016, the Randolph County court sentenced him to 40 years plus three years of supervision, to follow the 38-year term. Peterson spoke for about 25 minutes. He told the court that there had never been any intent that the prosecutor be harmed, a statement prosecutors objected to; the court did not accept it. The State's Attorney who had brought the murder case called the plot a moral outrage. Before the new sentence his projected release date was 2047. The second count merged into the first, and the motion to reconsider the sentence was denied on December 15, 2016.
The Third District Appellate Court at Ottawa heard the appeal from the murder conviction and filed its opinion on November 12, 2015, with rehearing denied on December 16. Peterson raised five issues: that the evidence did not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, that several evidentiary rulings were wrong, that his trial counsel had a per se conflict of interest, that counsel was ineffective, and that the errors together denied him a fair trial. The panel, one justice writing and two concurring, affirmed on every issue. It held the evidence sufficient, pointing to motive in the divorce and the property, repeated statements of intent, the approach to the former colleague, opportunity and admissions to his fourth wife; it called this more than a case of mere opportunity. It held that Peterson had invited any error in the divorce lawyer's testimony by calling him over the State's objection, and that the clergy privilege did not apply because the pastor's conversation took place in a public setting with others nearby and no church rule barred disclosure. It declined to revisit the hearsay question, citing the law-of-the-case doctrine, and rejected the due process argument. It found no abuse of discretion in admitting the former colleague's testimony 20 days after notice, no per se conflict in a media contract signed in December 2007 that expired in December 2008, and no ineffective assistance; calling the divorce lawyer was a strategy that Peterson himself had chosen after hearing conflicting advice, and his testimony was largely cumulative of the pastor's. The disposition was: "we affirm defendant's conviction and sentence." The Supreme Court of Illinois allowed Peterson's petition for leave to appeal.
The court's opinion, written by one justice and joined by the six others, was filed on September 21, 2017. It held that section 115-10.6 imposes a reliability requirement that cannot be reconciled with Rule 804(b)(5), and that because the conflict touched a matter within the court's own authority the rule prevailed. The law-of-the-case doctrine did not bind the Supreme Court, which reviewed the question itself. It held that the State did not have to identify the particular testimony a defendant meant to prevent; intent could be inferred from circumstances, and it was enough that preventing testimony was at least in part a motive, so that other motives such as financial gain did not defeat the doctrine. It held that the doctrine did not require a pending legal proceeding, and that it could apply to an effort to prevent a witness from reporting to the police. It held that statements made by his fourth wife to a divorce lawyer, after the lawyer had declined to represent her, were not privileged, and that her conversation with a pastor in a public coffee shop was not protected by clergy privilege. It reviewed the trial court's findings under the manifest-weight standard, because admission under the doctrine is not a discretionary call, and upheld them.
On the ineffective-assistance claim, the court held that calling the divorce lawyer was a reasonable strategy: counsel had said before trial that the aim was to attack the fourth wife's credibility by showing a motive to fabricate, and the defense argued in closing that she was lying for money. A strategy is not unreasonable simply because it failed. It declined to treat a pre-indictment media contract, signed in December 2007 with a 15 percent commission to a media agency and producing about $15,900, as a per se conflict of interest, noting that its terms did not clearly violate the professional rules and that any violation was for the disciplinary commission, and it found a claimed actual conflict forfeited. It found no abuse of discretion in admitting evidence of prior acts through the former colleague: Peterson already knew the substance of that testimony from the pretrial hearing and, like the defendant in a federal case it cited, had not asked for a continuance. It did not reach the claim of cumulative error. The disposition read "Affirmed." The opinion was modified when rehearing was denied on January 19, 2018, and the United States Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal on October 1, 2018.
In February 2017, before the ruling, Peterson had been moved from an Illinois state facility to federal custody in Indiana.
Peterson appealed the 2016 conviction to the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District. In an order filed on December 11, 2020, one justice writing and two concurring, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. It held that the solicitation statute requires only the defendant's intent and no agreement, so the State did not have to prove that the informant intended to carry out the killing. It affirmed the refusal to suppress the recordings: the statute has no conflict-of-interest requirement, so the targeted prosecutor's part in signing the application was not a violation, the remedy would have been a special prosecutor and not suppression, and an independent judge had reviewed the application. The judge's interview of the informant before the application did not make him a participant in law enforcement, and the application had to name only the officer making it. Counsel was not ineffective for failing to move to reconsider, since the motion would have failed.
The trial court had asked jurors whether they accepted certain principles of law, not whether they understood them, as Illinois Supreme Court Rule 431(b) requires. The court held that Peterson had forfeited the point by not objecting, that plain-error review was limited to cases where the evidence was closely balanced, and that this evidence was not. It held that evidence of other conduct had been properly admitted to show motive and intent, not propensity, with a limiting instruction and without becoming a mini-trial. It rejected the claim of cumulative error: the opening statement accurately previewed the recordings, testimony about the implication of his statements had been invited by the defense, the State's Attorney's evidence that he took the threat seriously was proper lay opinion, and some irrelevant content had reached the jury only because the defense asked for the full recordings. Its final paragraph read: "we affirm the conviction and sentence of the Randolph County circuit court." The Will County State's Attorney said in a statement on December 14, 2020, that the appeal had been denied.
On October 19, 2021, Peterson filed a handwritten petition asking the Will County Circuit Court to vacate the murder conviction. It alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective, including by not allowing him to testify, that other attorneys who contradicted counsel were threatened with removal, and that prosecutorial misconduct occurred. The State moved to dismiss, arguing that the ineffective-counsel claims had been raised and rejected on appeal and that a partial trial transcript showed Peterson confirming that it was his decision not to testify. In February 2022 the judge who had presided at trial, by then retired from that post, allowed the petition to proceed to the second stage on the gist of a constitutional claim, gave the public defender's office 90 more days to investigate and set a hearing for May 18. Peterson did not attend and has not appeared in person at any of the hearings. A new judge took over the case in 2022, and in October 2022 directed the Department of Corrections to provide reliable telephone access between Peterson and his attorneys.
By November 2023, 22 hearings had been held without a ruling. The public defender's office planned to file an amended petition, and the prosecutor said the discovery filled almost a hundred boxes. In February 2024 the court ordered a psychological evaluation at county expense. On April 4, 2024, the judge denied a request for a further examination, finding no bona fide doubt about Peterson's fitness to take part in the proceedings. The judge retired at the end of April 2024 and the case was reassigned. In February 2025 the defense again asked for a specialized evaluation and a motion to reconsider was filed; defense counsel argued that a post-conviction defendant has a right to be fit to take part and that the earlier finding was clearly in error. On June 25, 2025, the new judge ordered a psychological evaluation, with a status date of August 11, 2025. The petition itself had not been decided.
Two related rulings came in 2022. On August 11 the Third District upheld a Will County ruling supporting the decision of the Bolingbrook police pension board to terminate Peterson's pension benefits, the board having found that the offense was connected with his police service. On December 2 it upheld a May 19, 2022, order, sought by his current counsel, barring his former lead trial attorney from discussing his representation of Peterson with the media; the attorney was a potential witness in the post-conviction case. A special prosecutor was appointed in March 2024 to handle a contempt allegation that the attorney had violated the order in a 2024 television interview. On April 4, 2024, the court denied his motion to dismiss the petition, and in November 2024 it declined to lift the order. An appellate court later rejected his request to move the case away from the assigned judge. In August 2026 the contempt case was set for a jury trial beginning November 30, 2026.
As of March 2026, Peterson, then 72, was serving both sentences, 38 years for the murder of his third wife and 40 years for soliciting the murder of the prosecutor.
Forfeiture by wrongdoing is a common-law doctrine under which a court may admit the out-of-court statements of an absent witness when the defendant's own conduct kept that witness from testifying. The Supreme Court of the United States recognized it in 1878 and again in 2008, when it held that the doctrine applies only where the defendant intended to prevent the witness from testifying. The federal rules of evidence codified it in 1997, in Rule 804(b)(6), and the Supreme Court of Illinois adopted it as state law in 2007 as coextensive with that rule. Illinois placed it in its own rules of evidence as Rule 804(b)(5), effective January 1, 2011.
The 2008 statute, section 115-10.6 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, also governed such statements. It was narrower: it covered only the intentional murder of a witness, required reasonable written notice, a pretrial hearing under the preponderance standard and specific findings, and added a requirement that the statements be reliable. The General Assembly repealed it in Public Act 99-243, effective August 3, 2015. The Illinois courts' resolution of the conflict between statute and rule was what allowed the jury in 2012 to hear what Peterson's third and fourth wives had said to others.
Solicitation of murder for hire and solicitation of murder are Class X felonies in Illinois. Under the Illinois statute the offense is complete when the defendant, with intent that a murder be committed, commands, encourages or requests another to commit it; as the Fifth District held, no agreement by the other person is required.
Peterson has not admitted responsibility for either woman's death. At his 2012 trial the defense argued that there was no physical evidence of a crime and none linking him to the scene; on appeal he challenged the admission of the out-of-court statements, which the Supreme Court of Illinois rejected. At sentencing in 2016 he said he had never wanted the prosecutor harmed, an account the jury and the court rejected. His post-conviction claims, that his trial attorney was ineffective and that prosecutors committed misconduct, are unproven and were still undecided in mid-2025. The pretrial finding on intent to make witnesses unavailable was made on the preponderance standard in a hearing on admissibility, not at a criminal trial of that matter.
May 3, 1992: Peterson and his third wife marry.
Early 2002: Both file for divorce.
October 10, 2003: The marriage is dissolved; remaining issues set for April 6, 2004.
March 2004: His third wife dies; a coroner's inquest finds the manner of death accidental.
October 2007: His fourth wife disappears.
November 2007: Two pathologists conclude the 2004 death was a homicide.
May 2009: A grand jury indicts Peterson for first-degree murder; he is arraigned.
January 2010: Pretrial hearing on the admissibility of statements begins; 73 witnesses.
May 18, 2010: Six of 14 statements admitted; eight excluded.
July 26, 2011: The appellate court dismisses the State's appeal for want of jurisdiction.
November 30, 2011: The Supreme Court of Illinois directs the appellate court to decide the merits.
April 12, 2012: The appellate court holds the rule of evidence controls over the statute and remands.
July 24, 2012: Jury seated; July 31: opening statements and a denied mistrial motion.
September 6, 2012: Guilty of first-degree murder.
February 21, 2013: Sentenced to 38 years; motion for a new trial denied.
November 2014: A fellow inmate alerts authorities to the plot against the Will County State's Attorney.
March 3, 2015: Pleads not guilty in Randolph County.
November 12, 2015: The appellate court affirms the murder conviction.
May 23 to 31, 2016: Six-day trial in Chester; guilty on May 31 of solicitation of murder for hire and solicitation of murder.
July 29, 2016: Sentenced to a further 40 years plus three years of supervision.
February 2017: Moved to federal custody in Indiana.
September 21, 2017: The Supreme Court of Illinois affirms the conviction and sentence.
January 19, 2018: Rehearing denied and opinion modified.
October 1, 2018: The United States Supreme Court declines review.
December 11, 2020: The Fifth District affirms the solicitation conviction and sentence.
October 19, 2021: Petition to vacate the conviction filed.
February 2022: Petition advances on the gist of a constitutional claim.
August 11, 2022: The appellate court upholds the termination of his police pension.
April 4, 2024: Judge finds no bona fide doubt about fitness for the proceedings.
June 25, 2025: A psychological evaluation is ordered; next status date August 11, 2025.
March 2026: Peterson, 72, is serving both sentences.