Trial date set for Drew Peterson

A judge has scheduled the trial of former Bolingbrook police sergeant Drew Peterson in the death of his third wife for late July.

Will County Circuit Judge Edward Burmila on Thursday asked Peterson if the date was OK. The defendant said it was, adding he has been in solitary confinement for three years.

Peterson is accused of killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio. She was found dead in her dry bathtub in 2004. Her death was ruled an accidental drowning, but prosecutors exhumed her body and reopened the case after Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy, vanished in 2007.

Peterson’s trial was set to stand trial in the summer of 2010. But prosecutors appealed a judge’s decision to forbid them from presenting certain hearsay evidence. Last month, an appellate court ruled the evidence could be presented.