Sergeant's home searched in missing woman's case

Illinois State Police executed a search warrant Thursday at the home of a Bolingbrook police sergeant whose wife's disappearance has prompted authorities to look into his former spouse's drowning death, authorities said.

The warrant authorized troopers to search the home, personal computers, cell phones, a sport utility vehicle and a car owned by Drew and Stacy Peterson, Illinois State Police said in a statement.

The search involved cadaver dogs and crime scene technicians, authorities said.

Investigators also searched a pond near the Bolingbrook home with the help of a dive team from the Naperville Police Department and cadaver dogs, state police said.

Will County state's attorney's office spokesman Charles Pelkie declined to say what, if anything, investigators found during the search.

"No criminal charges have been filed and no one has been taken into custody," Pelkie said.

Authorities said they have found no indication of foul play and the investigation was ongoing.

Peterson, 53, has said he believes his 23-year-old wife has left him for another man.

"I believe she's with someone else, but I believe she's safe," Peterson said. He said she called him Sunday night and told him she was leaving, taking some clothes and money from a safe in the couple's home.

Peterson, a 29-year police veteran and Bolingbrook police sergeant, said his wife has suffered from what he called "mood issues" since her sister's death from colon cancer last year.

"Ever since then, Stacy has been different," Peterson said Wednesday. "… She's been under the care of a psychiatrist" and is taking antidepressant medication.

The disappearance has triggered renewed interest in the death of Kathleen Savio, Peterson's former wife, who drowned in a bathtub in 2004.

Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow has started pulling and reading through old files from the Savio case, including police and coroner's reports, Pelkie has said.

Savio obtained an order of protection against Drew Peterson in 2002, alleging a pattern of physical abuse and threats, according to court records.

"In light of recent developments, he's reviewing this with an open and fresh mind … to determine if further action will be warranted," Pelkie said, adding that Glasgow wasn't in office when Savio died and so hadn't been familiar with her case.

Peterson denied he had anything to do with his ex-wife's death or Stacy Peterson's disappearance.

"It bothers me," he said. "I've led an honorable life, and people are looking at me sideways. It hurts."

The couple celebrated their four-year wedding anniversary last month, Drew Peterson said. Hours before his wife called him Sunday night she had left their home to help another sister and that sister's boyfriend paint their home, he said.

She did not show up, prompting the family to try unsuccessfully to reach her on her cell phone, police said.

Peterson said he thought the couple had a good marriage, "but maybe she didn't," he said.

Stacy Peterson's family agreed she was depressed, but said it was because she believed her husband watched everything she did. They said she had asked for a divorce.

"She just wanted people to know she was unhappy, and she didn't like how she was being treated," said her aunt, Candace Aikin, 48, of El Monte, Calif. "In case she disappeared -- if something bad happened to her."

Aikin said she talked to her niece every week and knows she did not have a boyfriend.

"She had a husband who was following her 24/7," she said.

Family members also said they didn't think Stacy Peterson would leave without her kids -- Lacy, 2, and Anthony, 4.

"I know … she wouldn't go without them kids," said her uncle, Gary Cales, 68, of Hemet, Calif.