Much of the population of the United States has been held captive by the heart wrenching story of an Illinois police sergeant named Drew Peterson who allegedly killed two of his wives. On September 6th, the jury in the case found Peterson guilty of murder in the death of his ex-wife Kathleen Savio. This conviction is the first step in bringing Peterson to justice. The trial for his second wife, Stacy Peterson, cannot begin until her body is found and she is definitively pronounced dead.

Kathleen Savio was Drew Peterson’s third wife. She was found deceased in a bathtub on the first of March in 2004. At the time, Peterson claimed that she fell and hit her head, rendering her unconscious. The officially recorded cause of death was drowning. Despite the fact that Peterson and Savio had a turbulent relationship, with police breaking up 18 domestic fights between 2002 and 2004, the death was not found to be suspicious.

Attention was only drawn to Drew Peterson in 2007, when his fourth wife Stacy disappeared in October. As the search for her body continued with no success, investigators looked into Kathleen Savio’s death with more scrutiny. It was found that Peterson was having an affair with Stacy in 2001- at which point she was 17. It was this affair that pushed Kathleen Savio to file for divorce from Peterson and make a claim to some of his assets. Savio was allegedly close to receiving support from Peterson as well as getting a cut of his pension.

There were a number of details that made Savio’s death suspicious. According to a prosecutor in the case, Chris Koch, Savio had injuries on ‘multiple sides’ of her body. He posed a question to the jury, ‘How can you get that in one fall? You can’t… it’s not possible.’

Although the forensic evidence in the case was quite substantial, what pushed the case toward a conviction was the allowance of hearsay evidence. This was an unusual part of the trial because the US Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that any evidence presented in the place of a missing person violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront a witness. However, the state of Illinois passed a law in 2008 which allowed hearsay evidence to be presented in cases where prosecutors thought a person was killed in order to prevent their testimony.

The prosecution believed that Stacy Peterson was eliminated by Drew Peterson for just this reason.  Her pastor, Neil Schori, presented testimony on her behalf. Schori stated that Stacy told him that on the night of Savio’s murder she woke up to an empty bed. In the early morning Peterson returned home dressed in black clothing and carrying a bag. He told his wife that he had killed Savio, and proceeded to coach her on the story he had fabricated.

Another important piece of testimony was delivered by Harry Smith, a divorce attorney. He had received a phone call from Stacy in which she expressed a desire to divorce Drew Peterson. She was calling in order to find out if her knowledge of Savio’s murder could be used as leverage in the divorce proceedings. Soon after the call was made, Stacy disappeared.

Admitting hearsay evidence into a trial is always a contentious action. The fact that the jury made their decision largely based off of this type of evidence greatly increases the likelihood of an appeal from the defense.