Stacy Peterson’s disappearance doesn’t stand alone—because three years earlier, Drew Peterson’s third wife, Kathleen Savio, was already sounding the alarm. In Part 2, Dr. Phil traces the relationship timeline: Stacy meets Drew at 17 while he’s still married to Kathleen, and Kathleen’s divorce filing alleges he was “having an affair with a minor,” followed by a temporary order of protection as she fears for her life.
Then the calls start stacking up—eighteen domestic disturbance responses between 2002 and 2004—each one a missed opportunity to recognize escalation inside a home where the husband also knows the system.
On March 1, 2004, Kathleen is found nude, face-down in an empty bathtub with visible injuries—yet her death is ruled an accidental drowning.
When Stacy vanishes, investigators exhume Kathleen’s body and a second autopsy changes everything: blunt-force trauma, signs consistent with drowning after injury, and a case that now looks like murder.
Dr. Phil breaks down what this pattern suggests about control, narrative manipulation, and why some cases don’t break until a second victim forces the system to look back.
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