CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
Proceedings have ended for another week in the Drew Peterson murder trial and prosecutors have not rested their case as expected.
The judge told attorneys Friday that he expects Will County prosecutors to rest on Monday. He also told the former police officer's defense team to be prepared to begin calling their own witnesses on Monday. Peterson is charged with the 2004 death of his third wife Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in a dry bathtub. He has pleaded not guilty.
Peterson was charged in Savio's death in 2007 after his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, went missing. He is a suspect in her disappearance but has denied any wrongdoing.
On Monday, prosecutors plan to call Savio's divorce attorney, Harry Smith, to the stand. Defense attorneys plan to bring back a couple police officers to testify again and they're going to bring in an FBI agent and two doctors.
WITNESS: PETERSON RECEIVED EVIDENCE TRAINING
Drew Peterson, the former suburban Chicago police officer accused of killing his third wife, received evidence-technician training as part of his job, a witness testified Friday.
The testimony from Brian Hafner, a record-keeper with Bolingbrook police, was meant to bolster the state's contention Peterson could make a murder look like an accident.
Peterson, 58, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Kathleen Savio. The 40-year-old aspiring nurse was found dead in her bathtub in 2004, her hair soaked in blood. The death was reclassified from an accident to a homicide only after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in 2007.
Though the judge allowed Hafner's testimony, he did block a prosecution bid Friday to introduce testimony that Peterson once received stranglehold training that would have helped him kill his third wife.
Prosecutors made the request as they wound down their four-week presentation of evidence. The state hasn't offered any testimony about how the former Bolingbrook police sergeant might gone about killing Savio, Judge Edward Burmila said, and so he wouldn't allow them to encourage jurors to speculate he used a stranglehold.
"You can't be serious," the judge balked. "You don't even have any evidence linking him to the scene. Now you want to say this is what he did there?"
Prosecutors said they would rest later Friday. They had no other major witnesses scheduled, so it seemed unlikely they would address that potential hole in their case.
Hafner testified that Peterson took a one-day course in 1988 on compiling evidence. Under cross-examination, he said had no idea what was taught, including whether it included fingerprint collection.
"I'm sure they taught something, but I would not know," he said, prompting laughter in court.
"Do you know if they taught how to stage an accident, how to clean it up?" defense attorney Steve Greenberg asked.
"I have no idea," Hafner responded.
Absent any physical evidence and with no direct witnesses putting Peterson in Savio's house the day she died, prosecutors have relied heavily on hearsay, or statements not based on the direct knowledge of a witness. Such evidence is typically barred in American courts, but Illinois adopted a law in the wake of the Peterson case that allows it in certain circumstances.
If convicted, Peterson faces a maximum 60-year prison term.
SPRINT RECORDS CUSTODIAN VERIFIES TWO PHONES
The prosecution called Sprint records custodian Ray Norman Clark to the stand as their first witness Friday. Clark testified in regard to Peterson's phone records from Feb. 23 – Mar. 24, 2004. Peterson had two phones on record with Sprint.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Steve Greenberg asked Clark who would have been using the other phone if Peterson had two. Clark said he didn't know – he only crunched the numbers.
The prosecution needs to prove that one phone belonged to him, and the other to his fourth wife, to back up the testimony that Stacy called Drew to try and find him the night Kathleen Savio died.
STACY PETERSON'S PASTOR SAID DREW TOLD HER TO LIE
Stacy Peterson's old pastor, Rev. Neil Schori, took the stand Thursday.
Schori testified about a tearful two-hour meeting he had with her just before she vanished.
Stacy told him that on the night Kathleen Savio was found murdered, she woke up one night to find her husband gone. Very early the next morning she saw him dressed in black, stuffing another woman's clothes into the washer.
Schori testified that Stacy said Drew Peterson told her to lie to police about where he was that night. She told him her husband coached her for hours regarding what to tell the police when they came calling.
The pastor said Stacy asked him not to tell anyone, even though she told him "she lived with someone who had murdered someone."
He didn't – until Stacy disappeared. The pastor said it wasn't his job not to tell her to go home, but to abide by her wishes.
"The whole point of his testimony is ridiculous," Peterson defense attorney Joe Lopez said. "If somebody tells you they live with a murderer and you do nothing, doesn't that defy common sense?"
Peterson is a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance, but has not been charged. She has never been found.
"I think it was like Stacy speaking from heaven above through Pastor Schori," Stacy Peterson family spokeswoman Pam Bosco said. "We heard loud and clear again that Drew Peterson is a murderer."
RESTAURANT OWNER APOLOGIZES TO THE COURT
Jeff Ruby, the Ohio restaurant owner who was thrown out of court Thursday for mouthing "f*** you" to Drew Peterson after they locked eyes apologized to the judge Friday.
Ruby was not a witness in the trial. He's simply an observer who came all the way to Joliet from Ohio to send a message.
Ruby, a victims' advocate, had previously taken out ads criticizing the performance of legal teams and the judge in the Peterson trial, expressing his discontent with the way things are being run.
"He started staring me down," Ruby said. "I kept looking back at him. The look got more evil. I can tell you, if looks could kill, I would have been his third victim. That's how bad the look was."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
