Policeman’s 3rd wife exhumed after 4th wife goes missing

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

CHICAGO — The body of Kathleen Savio was exhumed Tuesday morning and taken to the Will County morgue, and authorities said an autopsy on the third wife of a Bolingbrook, Ill., police officer whose fourth wife is missing will be conducted later.

Results of that autopsy are not expected to be available to investigators for several days and will not be released to the public, the Will County state’s attorney’s office said in a statement.

Savio, who died three years ago, was married to police Sgt. Drew Peterson, whose current wife, Stacy Peterson, 23, has been missing for more than two weeks.

Present at the exhumation were Will County State’s Atty. James Glasgow, Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil and investigators from the Illinois State Police and the state’s attorney’s office.

Also present was the Rev. Chris Groh, chaplain for the Joliet Police Department. Savio’s family had requested a Roman Catholic priest be present, said Glasgow’s spokesman, Chuck Pelkie. Groh led a short prayer service at the grave site, Pelkie said. He was joined by the Rev. Patrick Pollard, archdiocesan director of Catholic cemeteries for the Chicago archdiocese.

A neighbor discovered Savio’s body in her Bolingbrook home March 1, 2004, face down in a dry bathtub. Her hair was soaked with blood. A 1-inch gash was found on the back of her scalp, and an autopsy determined she had drowned. A Will County coroner’s jury ruled months later that the death was an accident.