Drew Peterson trial: Week 1 recapFirst days included two defense calls for a mistrialBy Matthew Walberg, Chicago Tribune reporter
August 5, 2012
The case: Former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson is charged with murder in the drowning of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
Trial recap: During opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors said Peterson drowned his ex-wife and staged the scene to look like an accident. The defense called Savio "bonkers" and said the state's case is highly circumstantial.
The contentious first week of testimony included a judge's public rebuke of the state after the defense twice asked him to dismiss the case because of the state's use of inadmissible and prejudicial statements.
The first request for a mistrial came just minutes into Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow's opening statement Tuesday, when he began telling jurors that they would hear evidence of an alleged plot by Peterson to pay $25,000 for a hit man to kill his ex-wife.
The next day, Judge Edward Burmila angrily castigated prosecutors when they elicited inadmissible testimony from Peterson's former neighbor. The witness, Thomas Pontarelli, said he found a bullet on his driveway and believed it to be a message of intimidation from Peterson.
Burmila called the state's actions a "low blow" but allowed the trial to continue.
On Friday, Anna Marie Doman testified that weeks before her younger sister Savio's death, she told Doman that Peterson threatened to kill her.
Coming up: Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday. Jurors are expected to hear from a state police crime scene investigator who found nothing suspicious about Savio's drowning.
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