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Under Suspicion

By Alex Tresniowski and Nicole Weisensee Egan

Originally posted Wednesday November 21, 2007 05:00 PM EST

Third wife Kathleen Savio Photo by: Courtesy Steve Carcerano

On Oct. 26 Stacy called her friend Pamela Bosco and "said she was looking to rent my rental property; she said she was looking to move out with her children," says Bosco, who is now the official spokeswoman for Stacy's family. "She said her husband was acting a little unusual." The next night, Stacy's sister Cassandra dropped by for a visit; that was the last time anyone other than Peterson is known to have had any contact with Stacy. Peterson says he got off work at 4 a.m. on Oct. 28 and got in bed beside his wife; around 9 a.m. he spoke briefly with her after their children jumped in their bed. "I went back to sleep," says Peterson, "and when I woke up, she was gone."

Peterson's friend Ric Mims says he talked with Peterson after Stacy disappeared. "He said Stacy had met someone else she wanted to be with," says Mims. "He thought she was seeing about four or five different guys. I said, 'That's karma, man, because you've cheated on all your other wives.' "

On Nov. 9 police officially named Peterson a suspect in his wife's disappearance and labeled it a "possible homicide." Peterson, who last week retired after 29 years with the Bolingbrook Police Department, says, "I believe the state's attorney and the cops will be under scrutiny if they don't arrest me, so I'm prepared for it." For the moment, he has custody of his four youngest children – the two teenage boys he had with Savio, and little Lacy and Anthony – and is caring for them in his home with the help of his brother Paul. His focus, he says, is on shielding his kids – and himself – from the media scrutiny that now defines their lives. "We're under a magnifying glass," he says. "I'm not a perfect man by any means, but nobody is. And you're only seeing my dirty laundry. You don't see all the positive things I've done."

Meanwhile the search for Stacy continues. On Nov. 17 some 130 volunteers spent five hours combing the woods near her home in Bolingbrook. That same day around 100 people marched the few blocks from the two-story home where Kathleen Savio once lived to Stacy's house. The skies darkened, and a cold rain came, and the marchers shivered as they clutched small candles and held up signs in their solemn vigil. "I'm just praying Stacy will be found, and that somehow she'll be alive," says her friend Cheryl. "There's always that hope and that's my prayer. But we don't always get what we want."

• Steven Gray, Wendy Grossman and Crystal Yednak in Bolingbrook and Jeff Truesdell in Orlando