Pastor says Stacy Peterson told him she feared her husband

The missing wife of a former police officer told a clergy member two months before she disappeared that she feared her husband, a church official said Thursday.

Stacy Peterson requested the late August meeting with a member of the Westbrook Christian Church pastoral staff when the church made a routine call to see why she and Drew Peterson had not attended services in recent months, Rob Daniels, the church's pastor of spiritual formation, told The Associated Press.

"She feared for herself because of her husband," Daniels said.

Asked whether Stacy Peterson was afraid her husband would kill her, Daniels would only say she feared "bodily harm." Authorities say Drew Peterson is a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance and have called her case a possible homicide.

Drew Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, did not immediately return messages Thursday from The Associated Press.

The church official made a "judgment call" not to alert authorities and did not consult with other church staff, Daniels said. The church's clergy are only legally mandated to alert authorities of allegations of child abuse or if someone threatens to harm themselves or others, he said.

"Anything that would come up in a conversation that maybe one of our guys was having with someone in Stacy's situation, it would be a situation where it would be a judgment call," Daniels said.

The Illinois State Police did not return messages left late Thursday.

The clergy member made his decision based on several circumstances, Daniels said, "in particular, the fear she had for herself, not to alert any kind of authorities."

Daniels would not identify the clergy member who met with Stacy Peterson or say where the meeting took place, other than it was not at the church. Daniels also would not reveal specific details of the conversation, but he said church officials only learned of it on Thursday.

Daniels did not address a report Thursday in the Chicago Sun-Times that Peterson told a clergyman in August that her husband had confessed to her that he killed Savio and made it look like an accident. The newspaper cited an anonymous source close to the investigation and did not identify the clergyman or the church.

Stacy and Drew Peterson and their children occasionally attended services at the church from 2004 to January 2007 but then stopped coming, Daniels said. The church, which is less than a mile from the Peterson home, has served as a headquarters for several volunteer searches for Stacy.

Church officials have not made any decision on whether they need to review how the church handled the situation, Daniels said.

Also in August, Stacy made a "frantic call" to her sister Cassandra Cales, a spokeswoman for Stacy Peterson's family said Thursday.

Stacy Peterson wanted Cales to ask close family friend Pamela Bosco if Stacy could take her children to live with Bosco's relatives in California, Bosco said during a nightly briefing she holds outside Drew Peterson's home.

Nothing ever resulted from the call, but Bosco said it indicated to her that Stacy -- who had been talking of marital problems for several months -- grew especially concerned in August.

"She was looking at different avenues to move and leave this marriage, this difficult relationship," Bosco said.

Investigators are also re-examining the 2004 death of Drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio. Police have said her death may have been a homicide staged to look like an accidental bathtub drowning.

Peterson, 53, has denied wrongdoing, saying he believes 23-year-old Stacy Peterson left him for another man and is alive. Peterson has since resigned from the Bolingbrook police force.

Stacy Peterson was last seen by her relatives on Oct. 28.