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Two years ago today: Q&A with Chuck Smith Jr.
Pastor ‘blown away’ by Stacy’s confession about Drew
Dec. 11, 2007
A Naperville pastor who spoke privately with Stacy Peterson just weeks before she vanished tells the Chicago Sun-Times he can’t understand why former Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson hasn’t helped search for his missing wife.
“If my wife were missing for a month, I’d be concerned about her and I’d be looking for her,” Pastor Neil Schori said.
Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed was the first to report in late November on the conversation between Stacy Peterson and Schori. In August, Stacy Peterson confided to Schori that her husband had claimed to have killed his previous wife, sources told the Sun-Times.
And earlier this month, the Sun-Times interviewed Schori, who acknowledged he’d spoken to Stacy Peterson in August.
Schori told the Sun-Times he doesn’t believe Stacy Peterson — a devoted mom — would run off with another man, as Drew Peterson has claimed.
“That doesn’t add up to me, considering her character,” Schori said. “That doesn’t sound very feasible.”
In a Monday night Fox TV interview, Schori confirmed what sources told the Sun-Times two weeks ago — that Stacy Peterson told the pastor her husband admitted to killing his previous wife, Kathleen Savio.
The conversation between Stacy Peterson and Schori occurred at a Bolingbrook coffee shop in August, Schori told Fox’s Greta Van Susteren.
“And she said, ‘He killed Kathleen,’ ” Schori said. “And I was really blown away. I was reeling inside.”
At the time of that coffee shop conversation, Stacy Peterson hadn’t told her secret to anyone else, Schori said.
In the TV interview, Schori said he first met Stacy Peterson about two years ago when she came to his church. Drew Peterson also attended, but less often, Schori said.
Schori said he’d meet with Stacy Peterson from time to time to help her with run-of-the-mill life issues. But then in August, she specifically asked to meet with him by herself, Schori said.
Schori said he didn’t believe Stacy Peterson simply speculated Drew Peterson killed Savio, whose 2004 death was ruled an accidental drowning.
“It was more than just putting two and two together,” Schori said. “It was not speculation on her part.”
After that August meeting — on the same day — Drew Peterson also asked Schori for a meeting, the pastor said.
“And I sort of backed out of doing that,” Schori said.
In a continuation of the Fox interview Tuesday night, Schori revealed that in an eerie coincidence he had briefly served on a recent Will County grand jury convened to reexamine Savio’s death.
“It [Savio's case] came up at the very end of my 13 weeks on the grand jury,” Schori told Van Susteren. “I got myself out of there … I recused myself and said I can’t” participate because of the pastoral relationship he had with Drew and Stacy Peterson.
Investigators continue to probe Stacy Peterson’s disappearance. She vanished in late October. Her husband, Drew Peterson, is considered a suspect in her death. In light of Stacy Peterson’s disappearance, Savio’s death is now being re-investigated.
Drew Peterson has repeatedly denied any involvement in either his wife’s disappearance or his former wife’s death.
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