Drew Peterson offers reward for wife's return

BOLINGBROOK, Ill. - A former suburban Chicago police officer suspected in his wife's disappearance offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to her safe return.

Drew Peterson said in a statement Wednesday that he had hoped his wife, Stacy, would have contacted him by now. He said he "can't fathom why" she hasn't.

Peterson's attorney Joel Brodsky said investigators hired by Peterson, not Peterson himself, will read submitted tips.

Peterson remains a suspect in his wife's October disappearance and police call the case a possible homicide. Peterson denied any involvement and suggested his wife may have left him for another man.

Also uder investigation, is the 2004 death of Peterson's ex-wife, Kathleen Savio. Peterson has not been charged in either case.

Marital troubles
Peterson, 54, retired last year from the Bolingbrook, Ill., police department as a sergeant after 29 years of service. The retirement came shortly after Stacy Peterson disappeared, and Peterson reportedly collects a $5,800 monthly pension.

He has been married four times. His first wife, Carol Brown, divorced him in 1980 after six years of marriage, partly because he was unfaithful, media reports say.

His second marriage, to Vicki Connolly, ended after 10 years. Connolly later told reporters that he had physically abused her during the marriage.

His next wife was Savio, with whom he had two sons, now in their mid-teens. The union began to disintegrate in 2002, when Savio said that her husband took up with the 17-year-old girl who would become his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

During a two-year period at the end of the marriage, police were called to the home 18 times because of domestic disturbances, and in 2002 Savio got an order of protection against her husband, charging him with threatening to kill her and physical abuse. No formal charges were ever brought against him.

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