Drew Peterson asks judge to vacate murder conviction

A judge is scheduled to consider former Chicago-area police sergeant Drew Peterson’s motion to vacate his 2012 conviction in the murder of his third wife

Drew Peterson

A judge is scheduled Monday to consider former Chicago-area police sergeant Drew Peterson's motion to vacate his 2012 conviction in the murder of his third wife.

Officials have said Peterson will not attend the hearing and it is not known if Will County Judge Edward Burmila will make an immediate decision on the motion. The judge has appointed an attorney and an investigator to assist Peterson and experts have said that such an investigation could take months to complete.

Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2004 killing of Kathleen Savio and sentenced to 38 years in prison. He has since filed multiple appeals that have been rejected. He filed his latest motion last fall and Burmila determined that the former Bolingbrook police officer had presented a “gist of a constitutional” claim and scheduled a hearing.

In his six-page handwritten motion, Peterson argued that his lead attorney, Joel Brodsky, did not provide effective counsel and that Brodsky would not allow him to testify in his defense. He also alleged prosecutorial misconduct and witness intimidation by Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow and contended that some witnesses should not have been allowed to testify about conversations they had with Savio or Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, before she disappeared.

Peterson is also a suspect — though he has never been charged — in the 2007 disappearance of Stacy Peterson, who is presumed dead.

In 2016, he was sentenced to an additional 40 years in prison for trying to hire someone to kill Glasgow.