Where Is Drew Peterson Now? Inside the Former Cop’s Life More Than 20 Years After He Murdered His Ex-Wife By Alex Gurley

Drew Peterson still maintains his innocence in the murder of his ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, and the disappearance of his wife, Stacy Ann Peterson.

The former police officer had been married to Savio, his third wife, for almost a decade when their relationship came to an end. Savio discovered her husband was having a sexual relationship with Stacy, then a 17-year-old hotel receptionist, and filed for divorce in October 2001, per CNN. In just a few years, Drew and Stacy got married.

Relations between Drew and Savio became increasingly hostile, with the police being called to intervene in disputes on numerous occasions. In March 2002, Savio even filed a petition for an emergency order of protection, claiming in court papers that Peterson “restrained me, held me down, knocked me into a walls, come after me.” Months later, he held Savio hostage at knifepoint, one of her coworkers, Issam Karam, alleged in Drew’s trial. On March 1, 2004, Savio was found dead in her bathtub.

Savio’s death was initially ruled an accident and life continued for Drew and Stacy, who had welcomed two children. But as time went on, their relationship grew tense; by 2007, Stacy was considering divorce, her sister shared in a 2015 episode of Murder Made Me Famous.

Then Stacy vanished on the morning of Oct. 28, 2007. Drew became a prime suspect in her disappearance — and the mysterious circumstances motivated investigators to reopen the case surrounding Savio’s death. Not long after, Savio’s death was ruled a homicide.

So, where is Drew Peterson now? Here’s everything to know about what happened to his wives.

Who is Drew Peterson?

Drew was born in 1954 in the suburbs of Chicago. While attending Willowbrook High School, he met his first wife, Carol Brown. Upon graduation, Drew joined the military and shortly after, Drew and Brown got married.

The couple eventually moved to Virginia, where Drew trained as a military police officer. When they returned to Illinois, Drew became an officer with the Bolingbrook Police Department. The couple later welcomed two children: Stephen and Eric. In 1980, Drew and Brown divorced after she discovered he had been having an affair.

“Before my father was Drew Peterson, the national headline, he was my father. He was a good guy. He was great to us. He took care of his kids. He was a funny guy. He taught me a lot. He was always there for us,” Stephen shared on A&E’s Monster in My Family. “But basically everything you knew — we were wrong.”

Following the split, he began dating and was briefly engaged to a woman named Kyle Piry. Looking back, she says she ended the relationship because Drew had become controlling, among other concerns. After calling off the engagement, Drew allegedly harassed her and even arrested her on false charges, she told ABC News in February 2009. At one point, Piry filed domestic abuse charges but Drew’s colleagues at the police station allegedly persuaded her not to pursue them, she told Today.

Eventually, Drew met Vicki Connolly and, in 1982, the couple got married. Connolly told the Chicago Tribune that the couple operated a bar together while raising their children from previous relationships. She claimed Drew was cheating on her and alleged that he could be violent at times, but even when the police were called, no reports were filed.

Around that time, Drew was fired from his police job after he was found guilty of misconduct, disobedience, failure to report a bribe and self-assigned police action, per the Chicago Tribune. He was reinstated the following year, but Connolly says things at home began to grow worse. Drew allegedly bugged the house to monitor her activity and at one point reportedly told her that he could kill her and make it look like an accident, she told the outlet.

By 1992, Connolly had allegedly witnessed Drew’s affair with Savio and filed for divorce.

What happened to Drew’s wife Kathleen Savio?

During his marriage to Connolly, Drew began an affair with Savio after meeting on a blind date. Just a few months after his divorce from Connolly was finalized, Drew and Savio wed in May 1992. Shortly after, they welcomed two children: Thomas and Kristopher.

Savio’s sisters later said that they believe she was physically abused throughout the marriage, claiming to CNN’s Married to a Murderer that their sibling once ended up in the hospital with a cut to the head and bruises.

Things came to a head in 2001 when someone anonymously placed a note in Savio’s mailbox that warned her of Drew’s illegal alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl, per Chicago. When Savio confronted Drew, things allegedly became physical, which he has denied, according to the outlet.

The couple separated soon after but their relationship grew even more strained amid divorce proceedings and arguments over child custody. Between 2002 and 2004, police were called by the couple on 18 different occasions. Drew has denied ever having “laid a finger on her.”

In July 2002, Drew allegedly broke into Savio’s home and held her hostage at knifepoint, threatening to kill her, per CNN.

On March 1, 2004, Savio’s bruised, nude body was found face-down in an empty tub in her bathroom. There was a gash on her head and bruising on her body. At the time of her death, she was set to receive part of Drew’s pension, according to CNN.

After a short investigation by the state police and the coroner, Savio’s death was ruled an accident. It would be several years before the truth behind her death was uncovered.

“The investigation was very fast; it was 1-2-3,” her sister Sue Doman told PEOPLE in December 2007. “But my sister always told everyone that he would kill her and make it look like an accident.”

Who is Stacy Ann Peterson?

While Drew was still married to Savio, he met his future wife Stacy, who was just 17 at the time. Drew and Stacy eventually bought their own home nearby and moved in together. After several years of dating, Drew and Stacy married in October 2003. They went on to welcome two children together: Anthony and Lacy.

Throughout their marriage, Stacy was allegedly subjected to verbal and physical abuse, according to friends and family. Her aunt, Candance Aikin, told Married to a Murderer that Stacy was often “under a lot of stress” and admitted to her that Drew would frequently “accuse her of all these different things, and she couldn’t really go anywhere or do things.”

By October 2007, Stacy was considering divorce.

“Stacy looked at me and she goes, ‘So how do you feel about me getting a divorce from Drew?’ ” Stacy’s sister, Cassandra Cales, said on an episode of Murder Made Me Famous. “Her face turned pale white. She told me, ‘If anything ever happens to me, Drew did something.’ My heart stopped, and I said, ‘Let’s go. Let’s go right now.’ She said, ‘I can’t.’ She said, ‘If I take the kids, he’s the breadwinner.’ ”

What happened to Stacy?

Stacy went missing on the morning of Oct. 28, 2007. According to the Center for Missing Persons, she was supposed to help a friend paint their house, but didn’t show up.

It was later discovered that in the days leading up to her disappearance, Stacy had spoken to a divorce attorney and attempted to pack up Drew’s belongings to kick him out of their home, per the Chicago Tribune. A close friend and neighbor said she witnessed Stacy crying outside of her house and told her that she was having a hard time getting Drew to leave.

Stacy had no prior record of disappearing, and friends and family believed that it would have been completely uncharacteristic of her to abandon her children.

“There is no way she would leave her children. She wanted to leave Drew, not the kids,” Cales told the Chicago Tribune.

As the search for Stacy continued, Drew became a primary suspect. He claimed that Stacy left him for another man and that he had found her car at a local airport. Drew claimed that he later drove the car back to their home — but allegedly did not allow investigators to completely search the vehicle, per the Chicago Tribune. Investigators later found that none of Stacy’s clothing was missing and no money had been withdrawn from her bank account, making a planned disappearance unlikely.

Despite the suspicions surrounding him, Drew became a fixture in the media, making television appearances to discuss Stacy’s disappearance. He maintained that she had been having an affair.

“Stacy loves male attention. She could [have] ran off with a guy and she could be dancing somewhere. I don’t know,” Drew said on Larry King Live in April 2008, claiming that the day she went missing, she called him. “She told me she found somebody else and she was leaving.”

Was Drew charged in connection with Savio’s murder?

After Stacy’s disappearance, investigators decided to reopen the case surrounding Savio’s death. In November 2007, Savio’s body was exhumed for reexamination by a coroner on the grounds that the evidence was “consistent with the ‘staging’ of an accident to conceal a homicide,” per NBC News. On Feb. 21, 2008, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announced that Savio’s accident had been reclassified as a homicide.

In March 2009, Drew was indicted by a grand jury and was officially arrested on two counts of first-degree murder in the death of Savio, per ABC News. He was held at Will County Adult Detention Facility on a $20 million bond until the trial began.

As the trial unfolded, several key pieces of information were revealed. According to Married to a Murderer, it was revealed that the initial lead investigator had never dealt with a homicide before and a crime scene tech had collected almost no evidence from the bathroom where Savio was found. There were no fingerprints and no DNA.

Additionally, when Drew was interviewed shortly after Savio’s death, it was done in the break room of his own police department. Drew shared that he had been at home with Stacy at the time of Savio’s death — but when Stacy was interviewed about her husband’s alleged alibi, Drew was in the room monitoring the conversation.

Later, many people close to Savio took the stand, testifying that she had been terrified of her ex-husband and believed that he wanted to kill her. One former coworker alleged that Drew had offered him $25,000 to find someone to kill Savio, per Fox News.

On Sept. 6, 2012, Drew was found guilty of murdering Savio, per CNN. Several months later, he was sentenced to 38 years in prison.

Was Stacy Ann Peterson ever found?

Stacy is still considered a missing person to this day. Her family has continued the search in the Chicago area, although Cales believes she knows the location of Stacy’s body. In a 2018 Facebook post, Cales wrote that she believes Drew disposed of Stacy’s body in the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal.

Shortly after Stacy went missing, authorities took sonar images in the canal, in which Cales says she can see Stacy’s remains. While divers were sent to recover the body, it has never been retrieved. Cales is currently raising money on a GoFundMe for the costs to send divers to locate and obtain the remains.

Meanwhile, Drew’s former defense attorney, Joel Brodsky, has also claimed to know Stacy’s whereabouts, but cannot reveal them to due to attorney-client privilege.

“I know everything about both of his wives — everything,” Brodsky told WGN9 in May 2022. “I feel bad about Drew still not taking responsibility and Stacy still being missing.  I’m thinking about maybe revealing what happened to Stacy and where she is.”

As a result of that interview, a judge issued a gag order, per the Chicago Sun Times. Brodsky was later charged with indirect contempt of court, per WGN9; as of February 2025, he was appealing that charge, according to Shaw News.

Additionally, Drew allegedly told fellow inmate Antonio Smith that Stacy was a “dead woman” and he killed her, Smith testified in May 2016.

Where is Drew Peterson now?

While incarcerated, Drew attempted to recruit Smith to hire someone to kill Glasgow, the attorney who successfully prosecuted him in Savio’s death.

In court, Smith testified that Drew approached him in the prison yard and told him that he needed to “have someone kill James Glasgow.” Smith contacted authorities about Drew’s request and was instructed to continue to lead the killer on while wearing a wire. In recordings, Drew said he “despised” the lawyer and appeared to blame Glasgow for his incarceration and the loss of his police pension.

Drew was eventually charged with solicitation-for-murder and was sentenced to an additional 40 years in prison, per Today.

He’s currently serving his 78-year prison sentence. After numerous appeals — which have been unsuccessful — Drew began campaigning for a new trial; In April 2024, his request was denied by a judge, per NBC Chicago.

Throughout his imprisonment, Drew’s children from his marriages to Savio and Stacy have been in the custody of one of his older children, Stephen. He raised them in the home Drew left behind and Thomas even graduated high school as valedictorian, per ABC News.

In a recent interview from behind bars, Drew shared that he does not want his children to believe he is a murderer.

“I’m not wanting my children to believe that I killed their mothers,” he told NewsNation in February 2024. “I don’t want them thinking that of me … I didn’t do that. I want them to know the truth and believe the truth.”

Meanwhile, Stephen told the Chicago Tribune in February 2017 that he believes his father “probably” killed both Savio and Stacy.