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Drew Peterson update: Coroner, attorney in Savio case break their silence
March 7, 2008
By Mike Puccinelli CBS2
CHICAGO (CBS) ― The original autopsy for Kathleen Savio declared her death an accident. Now investigators say it's a homicide, and the original coroner is under fire.
That coroner spoke out Thursday exclusively to CBS 2. And the attorney for Savio and missing woman Stacy Peterson is breaking his silence.
Pat O'Neil has presided over more than 40,000 death investigations during his 16 years as Will County coroner, but one investigation -- Kathleen Savio's -- has been under constant scrutiny for the past four months.
In 2004 six jurors determined that it was an accidental drowning. But in recent months after her body was exhumed two pathologists declared it homicide. Now a former coroner's office employee has come forward to take on his old boss.
"I think Coroner O'Neil has some blame that he has yet to take on," said coroner candidate Charles Lyons.
Lyons says the coroner didn't advocate on behalf of the deceased.
"I see that the family wasn't listened to," he said. "They stated that there were threats made against her. The suspicious death protocol was not followed."
Coroner O'Neil says Lyons is right that the protocol wasn't followed, but he says it is law enforcement that decides whether to use that protocol.
"The Will County Coroner's Office asked the law enforcement agency that was in charge of the death investigation if the suspicious death protocol should be followed," O'Neil said. "They said no."
He said they did not say why.
O'Neil says his inquest was by the book and that Savio's sister was allowed to testify that she believed Kathleen Savio was murdered by her ex-husband, Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson.
But O'Neil says the coroner's jury ruled it an accident even though they were given the option of declaring the manner of death undetermined.
"They should have at the very least said it was undetermined," he said. "That was our opinion at the Will County Coroner's Office."
Lyons says the fact that the only Illinois State Police officer to testify at the inquest was never even at the death scene was a travesty of justice that he claims O'Neil shouldn't have been overlooked.
"He should have rescheduled the inquest," Lyons said. "When you don't have the appropriate people to testify he should have rescheduled the inquest."
O'Neil says Lyons is a disgruntled former employee who doesn't know what he's talking about.
"We have no control over who the law enforcement agency is going to send to testify at a coroner's inquest nor do we know what their role or qualifications are when they're sent here prior to the inquest," O'Neil said.
O'Neil wasn't the only player in the Savio case breaking his silence Thursday. Wheaton divorce lawyer Harry Smith also spoke out for the first time about representing Savio.
"Kathy Peterson Savio thought that Drew was going to kill her," Smith said.
And Smith says, more than three years later, Stacy Peterson contacted him for the last time just two days before she disappeared.
"She did contact me for information regarding a dissolution of marriage," he said.
The 23-year-old called him twice in the final days before she disappeared. Smith wouldn't talk about what was said other than to say she wanted to talk about ending her marriage.
