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CNN Larry King Live
Drew Peterson Answers Questions
Aired April 11, 2008 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, exclusive -- his fourth wife disappeared without a trace, his third wife ended up dead in a bathtub and now Drew Peterson is in the hot seat.
He answers my questions and yours. He's not under oath, but he's here unedited.
What would you ask, Drew?
Let's get to it right now on LARRY KING LIVE.
KING: We welcome to LARRY KING LIVE here in Los Angeles, Drew Peterson, who is a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife Stacy and still a question mark over the death of his third wife. Authorities are now treating the 2004 death of that wife as a homicide.
Also with him is Joel Brodsky. He is Drew Peterson's attorney.
Why did you come here, Drew?
DREW PETERSON, ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS WIVES: I thought if I talked to you, maybe some clear -- clear some things up for the public today.
KING: Did you have a question about him appearing legally,, Joel?
Any questions about what he might say?
JOEL BRODSKY, DREW PETERSON'S ATTORNEY: Well, there are certain things, obviously, that I'm not going to let him answer. But any question is fair game. And, really, he said so -- we've been so open that probably just the things I'm not going to let him answer are very limited,, in any event.
KING: Before we get to talking, we want to remind everybody of the facts of this story.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETERSON: Please go home. Please leave me alone. Please don't get involved in my life (ph).
KING (voice-over): Drew, Peterson's fourth wife Stacy vanished from their suburban Chicago home late last October. Since then, more questions than answers.
QUESTION: A rectangular container out of your home on October 28th?
PETERSON: I have no idea what anybody is talking about like that.
QUESTION: Warm to the touch?
PETERSON: Nope.
QUESTION: He says he believes that he helped you dispose of your wife's body.
KING: Peterson was a police officer. He's now a suspect in his wife's disappearance. He has not been charged in the case. Family and friends say Stacy was unhappy in her marriage and afraid of her husband.
CANDACE AIKIN, STACY PETERSON'S AUNT: He was following her around 24/7, even inside the house. He was very obsessed.
KING: Adding to the mystery, the death of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio. Her body was found in the bathtub in 2004, shortly before her divorce from Drew. The official cause of death an accident.
But was it?
Investigators reopened the case after Stacy vanished. Savio's remains were exhumed, examined. The new conclusion -- her death wasn't a mishap, it was murder.
SUE DOMAN, KATHLEEN SAVIO'S SISTER: She told me all the time, he's going to kill me. It's going to look like an accident. But it wasn't. Take care of my kids.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Drew, you're a bright guy.
Do you begin to think that the public might say that if it looks like a duck and it acts like a duck, it might be a duck?
PETERSON: Right, but they're not getting all the duck's information. So when they get all the information, then maybe we can re-examine that.
KING: All right, let's straighten it out.
The third wife.
PETERSON: OK.
KING: What happened?
PETERSON: I don't know. I don't know. She -- we got information that she drowned in the bathtub. I was working. I was a watch commander at the police department. And the previous night, I believe it was, she failed to respond at the door to allow me to bring the children home. The children were with me for the weekend. That was unusual for her, so I started calling her on the phone and I started questioning with the neighbors. And they were also alerted because it was unusual for her. I had neighbors go into the house and they found her dead in the bathtub.
KING: Were you surprised when the body was exhumed and they changed the determination of death?
PETERSON: Very much surprised, for sure. Because for many years, you know, my children and I've been believing that she died in a household accident. I would imagine that the first autopsy, the fresh one, would be the most accurate. But the powers that be are coming up with some new decisions on it and we won't really know for sure until, you know, we have a chance to go ahead and review that decision and we...
KING: Were you separated at the time?
PETERSON: Yes.
KING: You have friends in the police department.
What do they tell you about the investigation?
PETERSON: Well, the investigation was taken over by the Illinois State Police due to my relationship with the Bolingbrook Police Department. And, really, we got the final decision that it was an accidental drowning in her bathtub.
KING: So you have heard nothing since?
PETERSON: Well, we just heard what we see on TV, basically, that's it.
KING: Joel, is he a suspect in that?
BRODSKY: Well, he's not officially a suspect even though I think clearly, you know, he's -- the way they are treating it, he clearly is a suspect, even though they haven't announced it.
The problem we have -- and I've requested this both from Dr. Baden, who did the private autopsy, and from the Illinois State Police, is to release those two autopsies to us so that we can compare it with the first autopsy and see what the discrepancies are, because that's how you figure out where the problems are...
KING: And they wouldn't do that?
BRODSKY: And they won't -- they won't do it. So we're -- we're at a loss.
KING: We have an e-mail question, Drew, from Steven in Darien, Illinois: "Are you willing to take a polygraph test concerning Stacy's disappearance? And if why, why not?"
PETERSON: Well, that would pretty much be up to my attorney. If he tells me to take one, I'll take one.
BRODSKY: No, polygraphs in this type of circumstance are really -- the data is that they're 50-50. It's as good as flipping a coin. And there's really no validity to whether or not -- it's not going to tell you anything. It's random chance. And so we don't believe -- that's why they're barred from courtrooms. That's why they're -- they don't use them for evidence, because they're inaccurate.
KING: But the public has kind of a belief in them, don't they?
BRODSKY: Well, they do, but it is a mistaken belief. When you really look at the statistics, they're really no more accurate than the flip of a coin. So it's -- they're really worthless.
KING: Don't the police use them a lot, though?
PETERSON: Well, they use them as an investigative tool...
BRODSKY: Yes.
PETERSON: ...to steer you maybe in a certain direction or things. But in something like this, I'd have to totally rely on what my attorney...
BRODSKY: And what they use the polygraphs for is an investigative -- kind of an investigative technique to try to get people to make statements, as opposed to really gather whether or not something is true.
KING: Now Stacy.
What -- what happened? What -- were you married? Were you separated?
PETERSON: We're married.
KING: OK.
PETERSON: We were living together and we talked that morning. And what happened...
KING: Was it -- was the marriage going through problems?
PETERSON: The marriage had been going through problems since her sister died. And her sister died maybe several months prior of cancer. And it was a very rough death on the family. And it was very rough on Stacy. Stacy was very close to her sister, Tina. And when Tina died, it was...
KING: She changed?
PETERSON: She changed very much to where we had her under psychiatric care and we had her medicated for the problems -- and emotional problems that we were -- she was experiencing due to her death.
KING: Were you ever physical with her?
PETERSON: Never.
KING: Never?
PETERSON: No.
KING: So those stories are totally untrue?
PETERSON: Correct. I'm a -- you know, I'm a police officer.
KING: Right.
PETERSON: And I don't work for the phone company or the power company. And as a police officer, we don't have the same ability to do things as the common person. If I get involved in a domestic situation where I'm physical with a wife, I'll lose my job. And I would never even care to even come close to risking that. And I kind of challenge anybody out there to find anybody that has ever even seen me mad. So...
KING: You don't have a temper?
PETERSON: No.
KING: Are you in love with Stacy?
PETERSON: Very much so.
KING: Do you think she might be alive?
PETERSON: I do.
KING: There's much more is ahead.
Stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSANDRA CALES, STACY PETERSON'S SISTER: My main goal right now is to bring her home and find out who did whatever they did to her and bring them to justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Stacy's family wants answers.
Can Drew help them? I'll ask.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CALES: Drew Peterson believes that my sister left and we should be searching in other towns or Thailand and Jamaica and she left on vacation. My sister did not leave willingly. She was taken. We are going to find her. We're going to bring her home so the family can get closure. And whoever has done this to her we're going to bring to justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Adding further strangeness to this case, I'm told that Stacy Peterson's mother also disappeared and was never found.
A lot of people believe that Stacy is dead and that Drew killed her. There's also speculation that he got rid of her remains in the same kind of blue container.
On the "Today" show in November, Walter Martinez said that your stepbrother had confided a terrible fear to him.
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTER MARTINECK, JR., INTERVIEWED ON "TODAY" SHOW: His eyes were sunken in the back of his head. He took me by my shoulders, told me I can't say anything and he just told me that he thinks he helped dispose of Stacy's body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did he think that he had done that?
MARTINECK: Because when he helped Drew -- this is what he told me. When he had helped Drew take something out of the house, it was warm to the touch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I said Martinez. It's Martineck.
Do you want to respond, Drew?
PETERSON: I really can't answer for any of that. None of that happened, so...
KING: What do you make of it?
PETERSON: Tom...
KING: You mean they're inventing this?
PETERSON: I don't know. I really don't want to bad mouth Tommy. He has some serious emotional issues. He was losing his house, losing his wife. He had a drinking problem. He had a suicidal problem. So I really -- and he is a family member, so I really don't want to bad mouth him here. But...
KING: But they're turning on you.
PETERSON: Everything is invented. None of that's true. BRODSKY: I've said that. Martin -- Mr. Murphy (ph) has some very serious issues, you know, some psychological issues. And...
KING: Are you saying, Joel, are you saying, rather, that Drew is a victim?
BRODSKY: No. I don't portray him as a victim. I mean I -- because a...
KING: I mean the circumstances surrounding all of this are weird.
BRODSKY: Very, very weird.
KING: You both admit to that, right?
PETERSON: I admit that. There's no question about it.
BRODSKY: And even, I'll admit, suspicious.
KING: Sure.
BRODSKY: But, you know, when you look beyond mere suspicion and look for hard facts and proof, there is none. And Mr....
KING: Well, obviously, the police haven't come up with any because he's still walking and he's never been arrested, right?
BRODSKY: Correct. And they're not going to come up with any. There is nothing to -- there's nothing out there that they haven't investigated. They've looked at the phone records, the cell phone towers, every which way you can investigate it and they still have nothing. And that says, I think, volumes.
KING: Where do you think Stacy might be?
PETERSON: Stacy loves male attention. She could be...
KING: She ran off with a guy?
PETERSON: Ran off with a guy and she could be dancing somewhere. I don't know.
KING: And let you go through this?
PETERSON: If she wanted to get away, do you ever really know anybody?
So, I don't know.
KING: Detroit, a phone call for Drew Peterson and his attorney, Joel Brodsky. Joel's law partner, by the way, is Reem Odeh, right?
BRODSKY: Reem Odeh, yes.
KING: Reem Odeh. We want to get that... BRODSKY: A very fine attorney.
KING: I wanted to get that straight.
All right, Detroit, go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is how come none of Drew's family members or friends have come forward to say that Drew was a good father, that Drew was a good husband?
The only person that seems to come forward is his friend Steve Carcerano. And I question why he's the only person. And I wondered what was the reason for that.
KING: OK.
Drew?
PETERSON: Well, my family and friends come forward all the time. However, the news and the media have done their best to keep me sinister. Sinister sells better. And any time that anybody comes forth with anything positive about me, it's immediately washed under the -- their blankets and it doesn't come out.
KING: You mean they want you to be guilty?
Are you saying that?
PETERSON: It sells better if I was and to keep me sinister through all this and to keep me in a negative light, I believe, sells more news.
KING: So are a lot of people standing up for you?
PETERSON: Friends and family. People that actually know me know that this is an impossibility that I was involved in something like this.
KING: How about police officers?
PETERSON: I don't know. They're all under orders not to speak with me. And if they speak with me, they have to do a report and forward it to the Illinois State Police so...
KING: Do you feel persecuted?
PETERSON: Very much so. Very much so.
KING: Anything he can do?
BRODSKY: Well, I mean, I understand why the police are doing that. I mean that's just proper procedure. You know, there is an investigation going on and if they have contact with the subject, obviously, they need to report it. That's just proper procedure.
But Drew is right. You know, there's a blog on the Find Stacy Peterson Web site. And anything that's ever posted on that blog positive about Drew is immediately deleted off the log. It's as if nobody wants to hear anything good about him, they only want to hear bad things.
KING: And why do you think that is? Isn't it the circumstances?
BRODSKY: I think that they want -- they believe something and they just want it to be true, even though there's no facts to support it.
KING: Drew, why do you think it is?
PETERSON: Like I say, sinister sells better. And the media, if they keep me mischievous or mischievous or if they keep me looking bad, it sells better.
KING: So you realize if Stacy is never found and you're never arrested, you're going to live the rest of your life under a cloud.
PETERSON: Of course, yes. That will happen. But it's something -- all this is happening for something that I wasn't responsible for or nothing that I did. And it's just something I'm going to have to live with.
KING: Still a lot more to come.
Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETERSON: What do you get when you cross the media with a pig? What do you get? You get nothing because there's some things a pig won't do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He clearly hates the media, so why is Drew Peterson here?
We'll ask after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Why do you think he did it?
KYLE TOUTGES, STACY PETERSON'S UNCLE: Because he had threatened to do it. I mean he had threatened other people that he could do it.
C. AIKIN: My worst fear is that she's no longer with us. She was afraid. She was afraid for her life.
SHANDA AIKIN, STACY PETERSON'S COUSIN: And she would have taken her children. She's a good mother and she'd be sick if she didn't have her kids. It just -- it doesn't seem right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Did you threaten to do it?
PETERSON: Never. (INAUDIBLE).
KING: So why -- what do you make when you see that?
PETERSON: I can't even explain it. I can't even fathom any type of reason why that was said.
BRODSKY: But that's something that Kathy had said when she was building the divorce case against you. That's where it first -- that's where it came out from.
PETERSON: OK.
BRODSKY: I mean, his ex...
KING: The other wife...
BRODSKY: The third wife had said that during the divorce proceedings as an attempt to build a case against -- against Drew.
KING: You have two children with...
PETERSON: Stacy.
KING: With Stacy.
They're how old?
PETERSON: They're three and five. Oh, I'm sorry, three and four.
KING: And they're in your custody?
PETERSON: Correct.
KING: Who else -- what are the other children?
PETERSON: I have a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old that Stacy -- they were Kathleen's and Stacy adopted them after Kathleen passed away.
KING: Are they with you now, too?
PETERSON: Yes.
KING: So you have four children.
PETERSON: Yes.
KING: Who takes care of them?
PETERSON: I do. I went from being a watch commander to a mom.
KING: So you're a mom? PETERSON: I'm a mom. I'm a housewife.
KING: And you have two older children, too, right?
PETERSON: I have two older children that are grown men, 29 and 30.
KING: One's a cop?
PETERSON: One's a policeman in Oakbrook, Illinois.
KING: Were you -- were you kidding around too much at the beginning of this?
We saw that little gag tape.
PETERSON: Very much so. I was barraged by -- at any given time the media would show up with their trucks, as many as 30 or 40 trucks in front of my house at 3:15 in the morning, 3:45 in the morning. And they'd be there until like 11:30, 12:00 at night.
I was being questioned by the police. I was scared to death. And policemen -- any policeman will tell you that police deal with stress and despair with humor. They laugh, they make jokes. They're trained not to show their emotions. And it came out as that which is -- maybe has been inappropriate for the general public.
KING: You know, unless Stacy is found alive -- or if found dead and someone else is involved -- you're never going to be cleared.
PETERSON: Right.
KING: You're going to be a lifetime suspect.
PETERSON: It's something that I'm going to have to live with.
KING: How do your children deal with it?
PETERSON: The older two are pretty much bored with it all.
KING: Bored?
PETERSON: The 14- and 15-year-old. They see it on TV and they're just bored with it. They just want to watch something else.
KING: The younger don't understand?
PETERSON: The younger two, Anthony and Lacy, their -- they were their mom is on vacation. And I talked to a psychologist and he said that was age appropriate for them.
KING: Do you see the humor in having someone named Lacy Peterson?
PETERSON: Well, it was -- we named her about the time all the -- when the Peterson incident was taking place. But Lacy was Stacy's little sister that died previously, when she was an infant. And we weren't going to let that, you know, stop the family name.
KING: An e-mail question from Tammy in Gardners, Pennsylvania: "Is Drew letting Stacy's family visit her children?"
PETERSON: Yes. Whenever they would make a phone call, I would allow this. I've been in communication with her aunt, Candace, out of California. And she has full reign to come see the children any time she wants.
KING: Do they come?
PETERSON: They come. You know, we actually had a nice little Christmas dinner with them all.
KING: Oh, that's nice.
PETERSON: And we were out to dinner and they had what nice visit with me and the kids.
KING: Bolingbrook, Illinois. It's your town.
PETERSON: Yes.
KING: Hello?
Bolingbrook, hello?
Are you there?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello?
KING: Yes, go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I was talking to someone earlier.
KING: Yes. Go ahead. Speak.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh. OK. I was just wondering if Drew was any relation to Scott Peterson. They're so much alike.
PETERSON: No, there's absolutely no relationship between Scott Peterson and I.
KING: Dallas, hello.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. Yes, my question is regarding this other man that Stacy is supposedly involved with.
Why has that person not been identified or more brought up about him?
PETERSON: Well, we haven't received any information. The state police is doing extensive investigations on these people, we believe. And they're not making us privy to any of the information.
KING: Do you think you know who it is? PETERSON: No, I don't. I don't have a clue.
BRODSKY: Well, we...
KING: Why...
BRODSKY: I mean our -- we've had some private investigators look into it and they've discovered text messages that lead us to believe that Stacy was involved with at least two people -- two men. We found that out after she left. But as to their names and addresses and things like that, the Illinois State Police have confiscated the phones and locked the records. So we really are at a dead end.
KING: Would it shock you that she was involved with someone else?
PETERSON: Not really. Like I say, Stacy loves male attention.
And anytime we would be anywhere, she would have to be the center of attention for the males on the scene -- older, younger, anyone.
KING: We have a video toss here. Now, your former fiance, Kyle Piry, was on the show in November. She had this to say about why the relationship ended.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, NOVEMBER 30, 2007)
KYLE PIRY, PETERSON'S FORMER FIANCE: He was extremely controlling and would say mean-spirited things, would follow me, that sort of thing. After I had broken up with him, though, he did. At one instance, I went back to his house to get some of my things. And it did go into a confrontation where he pushed me over a coffee table and pinned me to the floor and that sort of thing. And I had the same experience with calling the police department and having them send someone out and having them kind of, you know, the policeman they had sent over was one of his friends. So he, at that time, had told to, you know, he was upset, let's just let it go. And, unfortunately, I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Is Kyle Piry lying?
PETERSON: Yes, she is.
KING: Why?
PETERSON: I think she's angered. I broke up with her. I got information that she was cheating on me and that she was doing things in her younger days like dancing at bachelor parties and that type of thing. And I had all the people that I was talking to on the street as a policeman telling me about her activities. So this was somebody I just couldn't be married to.
KING: So why not -- why shouldn't you just say it didn't work out and we broke up.
Why -- why take this kind of tactic?
PETERSON: She was angered. And in all these instances we had together, she knew exactly where I sat and ran my radar every day, because she would come up and to talk to me when were together. And then she goes and drives through my intersection at 90 miles an hour. Of course, I'm going to pull her over and write her a ticket. It was crazy things she was doing.
And then after we had broke up and she had already been married to somebody else -- I used to own a tavern in Montgomery, Illinois. She came up to my tavern in an attempt to get romantically involved with me while she was married to somebody else.
So Miss. Piry is very angry that I no longer wanted to be with her.
KING: You've run into some weird circumstances.
PETERSON: Yes, I have.
KING: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Head to CNN.com/larryking and weigh in -- do you think Stacy Peterson is dead?
You can answer now at cnn.com/larryking.
And we'll be back with more after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARON BYCHOWSKI, PETERSON'S NEIGHBOR: The week before she disappeared, she was crying out on the parkway. Her and Drew had had what she considered to be her last stand, where she packed ten boxes of clothes for him and told him to get out. I don't want you here. I want a divorce.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Drew?
PETERSON: That never happened, either.
KING: All of this is false?
PETERSON: Yes, sir.
KING: Well, what do you make of this? There's all of these people lying? PETERSON: All these people are coming out of the woodwork that are all big Stacy fans and anti-Drew fans. I think a lot of the things they are saying are very much fabricated.
KING: What would cause somebody to be a Stacy fan or a Drew fan? You were a couple. She disappeared. Why you?
PETERSON: I'm supposedly the suspect in all of this. I'm the focus of their hate and anger.
BRODSKY: For example, Larry, all these things -- people you are showing -- for example, Steve Carcerano, who has made many statements. He said he never saw Drew mad, and Drew is a great dad. Nobody ever plays those clips. It seems like only the clips that seem to be exciting and seem to be sensational are the one that get played. And the ones of him being a good guy aren't sensational so it doesn't get played.
KING: Why didn't you move away?
PETERSON: Well, realistically, the house I'm in still belongs to Stacy and I together. I can't sell it until she shows her head or I get a court order allowing me to move or sell the home.
KING: How are your neighbors treating you?
PETERSON: The neighbors -- Sharon next door has been acting emotionally disturbed, I guess. She is posting posters all over her windows that face my house. She has a big poster in her front yard, where's Stacy? Her family members put the posters in the windows of their cars and they park directly in front of my house.
Well, that's fine if you are trying to do something to harass me, but my kids see that. It's very inappropriate for the kids trying to be kids and playing and have that thrown in their face.
KING: Where were you when Stacy went missing?
PETERSON: I was at home.
BRODSKY: You have to answer that question.
PETERSON: I was at home sleeping.
KING: You got a call.
BRODSKY: I can't really -- as far as a timeline of what occurred from the point after he called -- you can talk about the phone call, obviously, Drew.
KING: Who called you?
PETERSON: Stacy called me.
KING: And?
PETERSON: She told me she found somebody else and she was leaving.
KING: She left under those circumstances, good-bye, Drew.
PETERSON: Right. Correct.
KING: What about the children?
PETERSON: Didn't say much about them.
KING: Didn't say much about them? She was taking them? Not taking them?
PETERSON: Didn't say. There were at home with me, and she didn't say anything about them during the phone call.
KING: Did she say where she was calling from?
PETERSON: No.
KING: Were you able to check her cell phone or any text messages she might have received?
PETERSON: I wasn't and I believe the state police may have.
KING: So you have no knowledge of who this lover might have been or lovers?
PETERSON: No. I have knowledge of who one of them may have been, but I believe he's still in the area.
KING: Still in the area --
BRODSKY: That's the male nurse.
KING: Have you confronted him?
PETERSON: No, I wouldn't do something like that. Rosatto (ph).
BRODSKY: Steve Rosatto, he sent what the state police refer to as pornographic text messages between him and Stacy just a few weeks to a month before she disappeared.
KING: The Illinois state police supplied us, by the way, with a statement about the investigation into Stacy Peterson's disappearance. It says in part, "As stated previously, Stacy Peterson did not voluntarily cease all contact with her children, family and friends. The investigation continues to make progress proving that claim. We are confident the investigation's momentum will culminate in an arrest."
Does that give you pause, Drew?
PETERSON: They have been saying that from the beginning.
KING: Does it give you pause?
PETERSON: I really don't know what you mean by pause.
KING: Cause you to say, I'm a little worried?
PETERSON: Well, I have concerns, of course, since all of this started. So, all I can say is I'm concerned.
KING: Does it bother you that they say she did not voluntarily cease all contact with her children, family, and friends? That's a definitive statement.
PETERSON: Sure.
BRODSKY: As far as I'm concerned, that's a ridiculous statement. Mothers, unfortunately -- nobody wants to think that mothers or their mother is a perfect person, but mothers abandon their children, hurt their children, burn their children, murder their children; it happens. We read about it in the news. It happens. Mothers do abandon their children. It is unfortunate it happens. That is the real world. We are dealing with reality, not what the state police want to believe. That's the simple fact of it.
KING: We'll talk another call. We'll also come back and hear from Stacy's family. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We have a statement from Pamela Bosco, the Stacy Peterson family spokesperson. She says, "It is painfully clear every time Drew Peterson appears on public television it is not to help in the search for his wife, Stacy Peterson, but rather to promote himself.
Mr. Brodsky, Drew and his PR agent's constant appeal for public appearances is nothing more than an advertisement to promote Drew for future profit. We think that if Drew Peterson's honest intent of his media appearances was to help clear his name and find Stacy, then he would fully cooperate with the Grand and the Illinois state police by giving a detailed outline of his whereabouts the day and night of Stacy's disappearance."
Are you refusing to do that, Drew?
PETERSON: No. I cooperated with the state police 100 percent.
KING: What do you make of that statement?
PETERSON: The only I didn't talk was when the lawyers advised me not to talk to the Grand Jury. Initially, when the state police come to my home, I gave them a full statement and cooperated 100 percent with them.
KING: Why did you advise him not to talk to the grand jury?
BRODSKY: There's a rule the lawyers go by. That rule is you give a statement once. You don't give two statements. Because there's the potential for minor conflicts, which they will tend to drive a truck through, even unintentional ones. It happens when people tell complicated statements. So he gave a full and complete statement to the Illinois state police, and they have it.
KING: Take a call.
Cleveland, Ohio, hello. Cleveland, are you there? Cleveland, good-bye.
We have an e-mail question from Judy in Little Shoot, Wisconsin: "Why haven't you gone out looking for Stacy? Why haven't you joined the volunteers searching for her, or at least thanked them for their efforts?"
PETERSON: Well, the searchers are looking for Stacy where I don't believe that she is. They are looking far a body, I believe. Stacy is alive. And if they get involved in some sort of effort to find her alive, then I'll be more than happy getting involved in it. We have private investigators working on it now to find her alive.
KING: Is anyone, to your knowledge, other than the private investigators working on that theory?
PETERSON: Just the people involved.
BRODSKY: Unfortunately, not. We don't believe the state police is looking for her alive. We don't believe anyone else is. That's unfortunate. We really wish they would give at least some credence to that and at least keep an open mind. That's what they are supposed to do, especially the police.
KING: We have an e-mail question from Fay in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina: "How do you sleep at night?" Do you sleep well, or are you bothered by at least some aspect of this?
PETERSON: I'm bothered by the fact that she left. And I'm bothered by the fact that my children don't have a mom. I'm raising a little girl who needs female attention. And, yes, sometimes I have trouble sleeping with it.
KING: Are you dating?
PETERSON: No. I go out socially once a week.
KING: Do people recognize you everywhere you go?
PETERSON: I walk into everywhere I go and there's this little hum that goes through the establishment, there's Drew Peterson. There's Drew Peterson. There's Drew Peterson.
It happens everywhere from where I'm at up in Chicago. I took the kids to Disneyland this winter, and every two steps there was somebody pointing me out to somebody.
KING: Do you talk to the D.A.? What do they say about the investigation? You are the lawyer, they are supposed to give you some information.
BRODSKY: Since there's been no charges, I'm not entitled to any discovery. But Jim Glasgow's office and John Connor, who is the first assistant in charge of this case, are very professional, very courteous, very civil. They are doing their job, and they are going to do it in a professional manner. They are not going to bring charges if they don't have proof.
I assume -- I don't think they'll ever have it, but if they do have proof, they will bring it. I talked to them in a professional manner quite often.
KING: You said in the past you have cheated on your wives, except for Stacy, right?
PETERSON: Everybody says I cheated, but I went out and sought female attentions elsewhere after the marriages were over. But we were still legally married. So technically I cheated.
KING: You were living together?
PETERSON: With Kathleen I was seeing Stacy, but I had been living in the basement. We were living separate lives in the same house just for economics.
KING: Did Stacy know Kathleen?
PETERSON: They met each other eventually. It was very ugly meeting between the two of them. It actually got physical.
KING: Really? Finally, Drew, what you are saying is Stacy is alive. She ran away with someone. I don't want to put words in your mouth. You think she will be found.
PETERSON: I believe that, yes.
KING: Do you believe she misses her kids?
PETERSON: I believe that she does, but she hasn't been coming back to be with them or make any contact with them.
KING: Thank you, Drew. We have a team of legal eagles to dissect Drew's interview. Jill Brodsky will be one of them. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Our panel is now assembled. Joel Brodsky, Drew Peterson's attorney, has been with us from the start, is here with us in LA. In New York is Lisa Bloom, the anchor for "Open Court" on True TV, a former trial lawyer. In Miami is Yale Galanter, the defense attorney. Among his clients O.J. Simpson. And in Miami, our friend Stacy Honowitz, the Florida assistant state attorney.
Lisa, what do you make of what you have just seen?
LISA BLOOM, "OPEN COURT": The problem with Drew Peterson's story is that it is preposterous. If she went off with another man, there would be a missing man. Who is this missing man? There's nobody like that from the community. Women do occasionally abandon their children, that's true. But they don't just start out doing that. They have some history of neglect or abuse.
Stacy Peterson, by all accounts, was a loving mother, a caring mother. She was looking forward to her two-year-olds first dress-up at Halloween. It is out of character for her to completely abandon her children and her entire family.
KING: Response Joel?
BRODSKY: How many times do you hear in the news when something tragic happens, a mother and father kill their family, that he was a great father, he was a great mother -- she was a great mother, and this was out of character. I don't understand why she did it. Things out of character happen.
KING: How about there has to be a missing man?
PETERSON: It could be somebody who has no connections or has no family. It could be somebody from outside the community that she met. Maybe --
KING: Maybe a single guy from Vegas.
PETERSON: Who knows. It could be somebody with no family connections, therefore nobody missing them.
KING: Yale, how do you read this?
YALE GALANTER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think it is a mistake that Joel and Drew are doing these interviews at all. Joel said it on your show. He said -- you asked him why he gave one statement to the police, and Joel said, well, because if there was a second statement, police would go through it and nit pick and drive a truck through it. Well, they have given tens and tens of interviews, and every one of them are being gone over by the state police. And every one of them, if Drew is eventually charged, Joel will have to contend with.
Why they are doing the interviews to begin with is beyond me. I think it will make Joel's job a lot tougher if and when his client is charged with a murder charge.
KING: Joel?
BRODSKY: I have spoken to Yale about this. Him and I disagree. I think that in the typical model that the client doesn't talk doesn't really apply in very high profile cases. You look at Robert Blake. He gave interviews. You look at Michael Jackson. He did media interviews. Both of them were acquitted. I think in extreme high profile cases, because of the extreme public attention, the standard model of don't say anything really doesn't work.
KING: Stacy --
GALANTER: Joel, the problem with that is look what happened to Scott Peterson. It was his public interviews that ultimately led to his conviction. That's the problem you are going to have to deal with.
BRODSKY: But he only gave three interviews and then he clamped up. It was the -- he never went on and still tried to address the problem.
KING: Let me get Stacy's thoughts.
STACY HONOWITZ, ASSISTANT FLORIDA STATE ATTY: I agree with both Lisa in feeling that these statements are preposterous, and I agree with Yale in the fact that the lawyer allows him to go on the air. The lawyers in the state attorney's office will be looking at this meticulously to see if anything in today's interview is different from what he previously said.
Also, I think what interestingly emerged in today's interview was for some reason every person had a problem but Drew Peterson. When anyone asked him about previous wives or neighbors, friends, anybody that came forward, Drew Peterson said every one of these people had some sort of problem. I think in this case him going on the air to try to ingratiate himself among public, to get good public opinion really didn't work.
KING: Joel?
BRODSKY: As we said first of all, you are only seeing the clips of the negative clips, because they are more spectacular and they're played more often. What you are seeing today is -- what you saw today is the real Drew Peterson. It is not the goofy things he was doing earlier on. This is the real guy. I wish that the people who come out in his favor would -- clips would be played more, and statements we get from family and friends that really know him would be played more. I think that would show the true side of him.
KING: We'll take a break and play a quick clip of Drew and get the attorney's reaction. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETERSON: If I get involved in a domestic situation where I'm physical with a wife, I'll lose my job. I would never even care to come close to risking that. I kind of challenge anybody out there to find anybody that has ever even seen me mad.
KING: You don't have a temper?
PETERSON: No.
KING: Are you in love with Stacy?
PETERSON: Very much so.
KING: Do you think she might be alive?
PETERSON: I do. (END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Lisa Bloom, in the interest of justice, why don't we assume innocence?
BLOOM: Well, he is presumed incident. He hasn't been charged.
KING: Not by this panel.
BLOOM: But that doesn't mean we can't talk about a lot of suspicious things, Larry, like the fact that he bad-mouthed Stacy, even today, the missing wife of his two your children. He says she loves male attention. She's out dancing somewhere, when there's no evidence of that. He's made other public comments about her menstrual cycle affecting her brain. Why isn't he concerned that some other person out there may have done her harm? Why didn't he participant in the searches? Why is he so convinced that she's alive when there's no evidence of that?
KING: All right. Joel?
BRODSKY: There's no evidence she's dead, either.
BLOOM: She hasn't contacted anyone for nine months?
BRODSKY: It's been five months, but if somebody wants to disappear, if somebody decides that they've met somebody and they want to abandon their family -- they are 20 years old and don't want to be with an older man and four young children for the rest of their lives and start over fresh, to disappear is not a difficult thing to do. It is certainly a motive. She may want to start over fresh. She may think she made a mistake and move on.
KING: The sound that Lisa just talked about we have. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Where do you think Stacy might be?
PETERSON: Stacy loves male attention. She could be --
KING: Ran off with a guy?
PETERSON: Ran off with a guy and could be dancing somewhere. I don't know.
KING: And let you go through this?
PETERSON: If she wanted to get away, do you ever really know anybody? So I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Yale, do you think this case might just never be resolved? He won't be charged and there will never be a suspect and we'll never find out what happened?
GALANTER: Well, I think there will be charges. I think the case will be resolved. I think when the state police come out with the statement saying they are making progress and they believe there will be an arrest, there will be. Whether or not it will be Drew Peterson is a completely other story, Larry.
You really did hit the nail on the head. I mean, I believe that everybody is innocent until proven guilty, and everybody is entitled to a lawyer of their choice and a good defense. Obviously, I disagree with Joel, as he stated, about these public statements, but things like what Lisa said at the top of this segment, about bad mouthing his wife who is missing is just not a good idea, because the state police are going to be dissecting those statements. If he's charged, they will use those against him.
KING: Agreed, Joel?
BRODSKY: No, I disagree. Anybody that thinks that this is going to be a simple case -- remember, we are dealing with the law in the state of Illinois. You need to look at -- there's a case on circumstance evidence -- circumstantial homicide, people versus Nathaniel Davis. You'll see that it's very difficult with these type of statements.
KING: Are you expecting your client to be charged?
BRODSKY: No, because the only evidence or statements out there that you've ever seen anywhere are hearsay and double hearsay.
KING: Stacy, we're running close on time. If a body is never found, let's assume the worst, is the prosecution more difficult?
HONOWITZ: Well, it is more difficult, but certainly it is possible. We have had cases down here, a lot of cases, homicides, that have gone to trial without the body. Is it more difficult? Of course, it is. That's what a jury wants to see. What's the cause of death, the manner of death? Where's the person?
But certainly it's possible. In this case, there are a lot of things behind the scenes that we don't know about that the police are doing that they are not divulging because it's a pending investigation.
KING: Joel, one of the dilemmas here is what's the motive.
BRODSKY: That's true. Also, there hasn't been a prosecution for a murder in Illinois without a body since the 1850s. So I'm not really concerned about that.
KING: Do you think the authorities are saying they must have a body?
BRODSKY: They know the same case law that I do and they know that it's been over 150 years in Illinois since there's been a prosecution without a body. KING: Yale believes there will be a charge. There will be a result to all of this. Do you?
BRODSKY: There will not be a charge.
KING: Maybe somebody else.
BRODSKY: Who knows. If Stacy ran away with somebody and that person did her harm, that's a possibility. But there will never be a charge against Drew.
KING: Never?
BRODSKY: Never.
KING: Thank you all very much for being with us. Joel Brodsky, of course, for being with us for the full hour, and for making your client available, Lisa Bloom, Yale Galanter and Stacy Honowitz.
You can check out our Web site, CNN.com/larryking. You can download our current podcast, "American Idol." We've also got a Stacy Peterson "Quick Vote." It's all at CNN.com/larryking.
Monday, big show -- Steven Colbert is with us. He's in Pennsylvania, site of the big primary. He'll be reporting for us as only he can. You don't want to miss it. Steven Colbert Monday night on LARRY KING LIVE.
Now, here's Erica Hill. She's in for Anderson Cooper on "AC 360," and she's much prettier. Anderson is gone. Here's Erica.
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