What penalty could these individuals receive that would adequately fit their crimes. I can think of nothing short of torture. Death would be too easy for them. Life in prison would not come close to their just punishment. I really wish that persons with this type of ignorance and evilness could be sent to an island from which they could never escape, but instead remain there with their own kind and live lives of torment and desperation.
It is sadly the truth that we live in a world which is full of evil and satinism. That is all that can really be said about these people...they are full of the wishes and demands of the devil. They live lives that are totally about themselves, without any thought of anyone else.
“If I tried to leave him, he said he’d kill me.”
Those were the words allegedly spoken by 23-year-old missing mother of two, Stacy Peterson, to a friend and neighbor about a threat her 53-year-old husband Drew Peterson made.
On Oct. 26, Stacy told Drew she wanted a divorce. Two days later she was gone. Her policeman husband suggests that she has left for personal reasons in the past, and that he suspects she has either run off on her own or run away with an unnamed man. No evidence of either scenario has yet been discovered.
What is it, though, in Sgt. Peterson’s background that would make him any more of a person of interest in his wife’s disappearance than the statistical probability ascribed to any other spouse or partner of a missing person?
Common sense would support her husband knowing something more about her disappearance than is publicly known. Consider the following:
Sgt. Peterson is 30 years his wife’s senior, having met and allegedly dated her when she was 17 and while he was still married to his then 40-year-old wife, Kathleen Savio. Stacy Peterson is Sgt. Peterson’s fourth wife and he has a total of eight children.
A history of deceit: Sgt. Peterson allegedly told Stacy he was single when he was still married to his third wife. Other wife-killers have told similar lies concerning their marital status, like Scott Peterson who told Amber Frey he was a widower.
Sgt. Peterson allegedly threatened and beat his third wife, Kathleen, who he married less than three months after his second divorce. Of the 18 individual reports of domestic abuse from their household, at least half were related to allegations of physical abuse by one or both parties to the marriage.
After his divorce from Kathleen, who once had a domestic protection order against him, Sgt. Peterson attempted to have his $2,000-per-month child support payment reduced, to no avail. Kathleen continued to live in the house in which she, Sgt. Peterson and their two children resided at the time of her untimely death. At this point, she was in legal action to receive part of Sgt. Peterson’s anticipated retirement pension.
Kathleen Savio's death
On the weekend of her 2004 death, Kathleen is believed to have turned over her two children to Sgt. Peterson. When he later returned the children to his former residence, he was unable to get into the house. So he, an experienced police officer, went to a neighbor’s residence for help. The neighbor called a locksmith who responded and unlocked the door to the residence.
The neighbor entered the house and found Kathleen dead in an empty whirlpool-style bath tub. Her head reportedly showed signs of trauma and there was blood in her wet hair. Because her hair was wet and her fingers were wrinkled, the local medical examiner ruled her tragic death to be accidental, saying the water had probably slowly leaked away from the tub.
Kathleen had made notes concerning her fights with her former husband — just in case, according to her sister, something happened to her.
A pattern of behavior?
Stacy Peterson told relatives she was afraid of her husband. Sgt. Peterson had allegedly monitored and limited his current wife’s telephone and social contacts, “watching her every move,” even to the extent of allegedly following her as she went to class at a local college. He previously refused to allow her to visit her sister in a nearby community and had allegedly threatened her on more than one occasion. Stacy had told a number of friends that if anything happened to her it was not an accident; her husband, who had allegedly beaten her in the past, would kill her.
Stacy Peterson was said to be a good mother to her two children with Sgt. Peterson and the two children she was raising from his previous marriage to Kathleen. Family and friends say she would never run off and leave her children. She was, however, according to friends and relatives, depressed concerning the deaths of two of her sisters, one by SIDS and one in a fire.
Forensic DNA Analysis - What is Mitochondrial DNA?
Mitochondrial DNA is a very useful tool in forensic science. It has been used to identify human remains and perpetrators of a crime. It has also been used to determine ancestry.
In traditional DNA testing, nuclear DNA is used. Nuclear DNA (nDNA) can be removed from any nucleated cell. However, there are cells that do NOT contain nuclear DNA. These cells are called non-nuclear DNA cells. Where else is DNA found? Mitochondria contain DNA. Mitochondria are tiny organelles that live within the cytoplasm of a cell. Their role in a cell is to produce energy used for the cell's metabolic processes.
A minute amount of DNA is found within the mitochondria. Each cell contains many tiny mitochondria organelles. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is important for several reasons:
mtDNA
- passes from parent to offspring via the maternal lineage
- is found in places where nDNA can not be found
- rarely mutates
- is highly stable
Your mitochondrial DNA comes unchanged from only your mother. She receives hers from her mom, and her mom from her mom, and so on and so forth.
Upon fertilization, the mother contributes to the zygote her egg AND half of her DNA. The father, on the other hand, only contributes half of his DNA via the sperm. The sperm then degenerates after passing its genetic material into the nucleus of the egg cell. Therefore, all the cellular parts of the developing zygote are contributed from the mom, including the mitochondria. As the zygote divides and multiplies, these mitochondria are duplicated and passed on, parent organelle to offspring organelle, parent organelle to offspring organelle. This means that all the cells of a body have mtDNA that are consistent with that of the mom.
Genetic mutation of mtDNA is thought to happen about once every 6,000 years. This means that mtDNA is highly stable unlike nDNA. This also means that you essentially have the same mtDNA as your mom, your maternal grandmother, and all your maternal ancestors from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. For this reason, you can accurately trace back your maternal heritage through several generations.
Because of mtDNA's high stability, forensic scientists can many times remove it from the bones and teeth of very old skeletons and thus utilize it to determine the maternal lineage of skeletal remains. Mitochondrial DNA can also be found in some tissues where nuclear DNA normally does not exist. For instance, dead cellular debris can be found in human hair. However, the only thing that is living in human hair the follicle, where it is rich in nDNA. Nuclear DNA can be extracted from here and used for DNA profiling and matching. Simply put, hair that has been pulled out during a struggle or shed with its follicular bulb attached can be a rich source of nDNA.
Consider what happens if CSI's find human hair that has been cut and there is no follicular bulb attached? This hair can still provide clues.
As hair grows, the cells of the follicular bulb multiply, undergo transformation, and become an integral part of the growing hair. Part of this change includes the loss of the nucleus from each cell. Therefore, this hair is absent of nDNA, and the dead cells that are an integral part of the growing hair may contain mtDNA. If this is the case, mtDNA can be isolated and used for identifying the person to whom the hair belongs.
The next time you watch your favorite CSI program and see what they do with trace evidence such as human hair, you will know why they focus on the hair follicle for nuclear DNA and the hair for mtDNA.
Fabiola Castillo is an online marketer for the website NinjaCOPS SuperStore. This virtual store specializes in crime prevention tools where you can buy cheap stun guns, kubaton keychains, hidden video spy surveillance cameras, nunchaku training videos, civilian Tasers, expandable steel batons, and many other personal safety products.
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