(NewsNation) — Cassandra Cales, the sister of Illinois woman Stacy Peterson, who went missing in 2007, believes she has found her sister’s remains.
At the time of her disappearance, Stacy Peterson, then 23 years old, had been married to former Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson, who was 49 at the time. Stacy Peterson has never been found, while Drew Peterson was found guilty of killing his third estranged wife, Kathleen Savio, in 2012.
Drew Peterson and Savio had been divorced when her body was found in a bathtub. While the death was initially ruled accidental, Stacy Peterson’s case prompted police to take another look at what happened to Savio.
Ultimately, Peterson, now 70, was sentenced in 2013 to 38 years in prison for killing Savio — a conviction he is now trying to overturn. After also being convicted in 2016 of plotting to kill the Will County prosecutor who put him behind bars, Drew Peterson faces an additional 40 years in prison.
Now, all these years later, Cales has never stopped trying to find out what happened to Stacy Peterson. Cales shared an underwater video of what she says is her sister’s skeletal remains with “Crime Nation,” a television show on The CW, which shares a parent company with NewsNation.
These remains were found in a canal in Lockport, a city 35 miles outside Chicago, Cales said.
NewsNation affiliate WGN reported in 2020 that Cales submitted a tip to police about the remains.
Authorities searched but did not find Stacy Peterson. Previous searches in the area had also been unsuccessful, a police sergeant told The Chicago Tribune.
“It literally sucks the life out of me because I know she’s there,” Cales said on “Crime Nation.” “Where my sister’s remains are in the canal — it’s not accessible, but me and my team are recovering her.”
By searching with sonar, Cales said she and her team were able to get live video, which shows an “upside-down” human skull with two eye sockets filled with silt, and a lower jaw bone that fell off.
“It’s somebody,” Cales said. “Whether it’s my sister or not, they need to be brought home.”
Drew Peterson exclusively spoke with NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield in February where he blamed his conviction on a widespread bias against police officers.
“I’m not wanting my children to believe that I killed their mothers,” Drew Peterson told Banfield. “I don’t want them thinking that of me.”
As recently as October 2021, Drew Peterson maintained his innocence in a handwritten post-conviction filing from prison.