Family, Friends Search Woods for Missing Bolingbrook Mother: Missing Woman, 23, Likely Dead, They Sa

Nov 04, 07:59 AM

Current Headlines: By Emma Graves Fitzsimmons, Chicago Tribune

Nov. 4--Giving up hope that missing Bolingbrook mother Stacy Peterson is alive, her family and friends are now focused on finding information to help with the investigation into her disappearance.

Dozens of people combed a forest near her home for several hours on Saturday looking for any traces of the 23-year-old, who disappeared last Sunday. Their search through the wooded Knoch Knolls Park came up empty, but the group planned to return with more people on Sunday morning.

Peterson's sister, Cassandra Cales, said the family no longer believes she is alive.

"We're going to get to the bottom of this," Cales, 22, said during the search. "I just want whoever did this to her brought to justice."

Cales also confirmed Saturday that her sister said the Friday before she disappeared that she feared for her life and wanted a divorce from her husband, Drew, a Bolingbrook police sergeant.

Neighbors posted fliers at local malls while friends created a Web site to pool information on her case. Some searched the DuPage River a mile from her home by kayak; others walked a cadaver dog through nearby wetlands at Whalon Lake Dog Park.

Meanwhile, her sister pieced together a timeline of accounts from friends and family of the days leading up to her disappearance.

It was a coordinated effort by a community hungry for an explanation into her disappearance, especially as the national media have descended upon the quiet southwest suburban neighborhood.

Drew Peterson, 53, has been interviewed by police in his wife's disappearance. The couple have two children, ages 2 and 4, and Drew has two sons, ages 13 and 14, from a previous marriage. His former wife and the mother of his sons, Kathleen Savio, drowned in a bathtub accident in 2004, but prosecutors are now reviewing that case.

Authorities are calling the Stacy Peterson case a missing-person investigation, but those who knew her best suspect foul play and say Peterson never would have skipped town without her children.

Peterson was reported missing to the Illinois State Police early Monday after she failed to meet her sister Sunday to help paint a house. Her husband said he last saw her about 10 a.m. Sunday, and last spoke with her about 9 p.m. Sunday when she called on her cell phone to say she was leaving him.

Authorities were not performing any searches on Saturday after divers spent Thursday and Friday dragging a 5-acre pond at Bolingbrook's Clow International Airport, just blocks from the Peterson home. Drew Peterson, who is licensed to fly a plane, said he found his wife's car in Clow's parking lot Monday.

State Police on Friday searched a hangar at Cushing Field in Sheridan where Drew Peterson kept a plane, according to Michael Hudetz, a flight instructor at A&M Airsports. Cushing Field is about 38 miles west of Bolingbrook.

The Web site dedicated to Stacy Peterson is findstacypeterson.com.

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efitzsimmons@tribune.com

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