Attorney for Drew Peterson asks for clemency for missing wife

The attorney for a former Bolingbrook police officer suspected in his wife's disappearance has asked state officials for clemency if 23-year-old Stacy Peterson returns.

The missing mother of two could be sued or face criminal charges if she comes back, said Joel Brodsky, an attorney for Drew Peterson.

"We're demanding that the state's attorney come forward and state, if Stacy comes back right now, or shows herself, she will not be prosecuted or sued," Brodsky told The (Joliet) Herald News.

For instance, she could be sued for the police resources spent searching for her, Brodsky said.

Will County state's attorney's spokesman Charles Pelkie declined to comment.

Police have labeled the suburban Chicago woman's disappearance a possible homicide and have named Drew Peterson, 54, a suspect. Hundreds of volunteers, police and fire officials have scoured waterways, fields and construction sites in and around the southwest Chicago suburb.

Peterson has denied any wrongdoing and said he believes his wife left him for another man and is alive. He has not been charged in the case.

"You've got a scared young girl out there who may have made a mistake and not realized the consequences," Brodsky said.

Stacy Peterson's family has said she claimed she was in an abusive relationship with her husband and was making plans to divorce him. Family members have said she would not have willingly left her young children.

Her disappearance has caused authorities to reopen an investigation into the death of Kathleen Savio, Drew Peterson's third wife, who died in March 2004. The 40-year-old's body was found in her bathtub.

At the time, authorities ruled her death an accidental drowning, but investigators exhumed her body in mid-November the request of a prosecutor. The results of the exhumation have not been made public, but after examining the evidence, authorities said they believe her death was a homicide staged to look like an accident.