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发帖数: 16778 | 1 http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/21/justice/illinois-drew-peterson-se
Former police Sgt. Drew Peterson gets 38 years for ex-wife's murder
By Michael Christian and Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 7:09 PM EST, Thu February 21, 2013
Former Peterson lawyer: 'Fair sentence'
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: State's attorney describes Drew Peterson as a "cold-blooded killer"
NEW: Vowing to appeal, a defense lawyer says his client was "railroaded"
The Chicago-area police sergeant was convicted of murdering his third wife
He is sentenced to 38 years in prison and will get credit for nearly 4
years served
(CNN) -- After years policing Illinois streets for criminals, Drew Peterson
is now among them -- and will be for more than three decades, a judge ruled
Thursday.
Will County Judge Edward Burmila sentenced Peterson to 38 years in prison in
the murder of his third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, said state's attorney
spokesman Charles B. Pelkie.
The former Chicago-area police sergeant will get credit for the nearly four
years that he has been in custody, according to Pelkie, a spokesman for Will
County State's Attorney James Glasgow. He could have received as many as 60
years in prison; Illinois does not have a death penalty.
"The reason that I never looked Drew Peterson in the eye is because I never
acknowledged his existence," said Glasgow, describing the convict as a "cold
-blooded killer."
"But I looked him in the eye today," the prosecutor said. "He knows that we
did our job."
Peterson's wife's family reacts to verdict
Drew Peterson in his own words
Peterson was convicted of murder in September but had fought for a new trial
, an effort that Burmila denied Thursday, just before the sentencing, Pelkie
said.
Peterson's lawyers promised Thursday that they would press on with their
appeal and expressed confidence they would prevail. They stood by their
client, who made long and emotional remarks in court, claiming he never
should have been found guilty of murder.
"Wouldn't you be angry if you were wrongly convicted?" said one of his
attorneys, Steve Greenberg.
"In this case, (the prosecution) changed everything ... How would you feel
if you were railroaded?"
Savio was found dead in her dry, clean bathtub on March 1, 2004. Prosecutors
said Peterson killed her; the defense contended that she fell, hit her head
and drowned.
The headline-grabbing case did not arise until after Peterson's fourth wife,
Stacy, disappeared in October 2007. It was during the search for Stacy
Peterson -- who still has not been found -- that investigators said they'd
look again into Savio's death, which was initially ruled an accidental
drowning.
Authorities altered their judgment and ruled Savio's death a homicide in
February 2008, setting the stage for the first-degree murder trial last year
of Peterson, a former police officer in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
A Will County jury convicted him of murder after nearly 14 hours of
deliberation.
"Finally, somebody heard Kathleen's cry," the victim's mother, Marcia Savio,
said after the verdict. "Twelve people did the right thing, oh, thank God."
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