Lanie, a new poster here at Crime Rant, gets the honors for Letter of the Week by posting her calm and insightful missive in the firestorm of posts about Drew Peterson, Joel Brotsky and our own M. William Phelps (Movie title: Dumb, Dumber and Da Bomb).

Here’s what Lanie wrote:

Since Joe Hosey is writing a book about Peterson and constantly reports even the smallest tidbit about him whenever he can. (I mean, seriously… was that story about Drew picking up a girl that works at a tanning salon– in the wee hours of the night– because her friend got arrested for a DUI… really necessary?).

I think it’s obvious that Brodsky and Peterson are trying to exploit the deaths of these two women anyway he can. I believe Matt 100%… Hosey writing the book and writing such positive articles about Peterson tells me this story is true.

I know that Matt is a professional and doesn’t want to get drawn more into this vile mess, but I think a lot of people would appreciate it if he released the tapes. I understand if he decides not to — it would be a tough spot to be in. If Brodsky keeps yapping his trap. Maybe Matt will feel compelled to release them.

I don’t think I have ever seen a lawyer like Brodsky before. He allows his client to go on numerous talk shows and comment about TWO cases — where he is the prime suspect.

They keep burying Drew deeper and deeper. If I were his lawyer, I would tell Drew to zip it. and I would DEFINITELY not be involved in brokering any type of book or news interviews.

That’s the bottomline, for sure.

It just gets better and better. Can you smell the desperation in the air? Drew Peterson’s lawyer is making threats against M. William Phelps (that’s Matt to his CR family) over comments made on Crime Rant Live radio last week.

While not revealing the specific content of the conversations he had with Peterson and his lawyer Joel Brodsky about a possible book project, Matt indicated that he was appalled and disgusted by what he heard.

I remember Matt telling me the next day that he’d felt like puking after listening to these two blowhards trash the victim. Or in Peterson’s case, the victims.

Anyone knows by now, there’s not much of a future in being Mrs. Peterson.

Peterson’s attorney, Joel Brodsky, posted a comment on the CR radio blog site run by Denny Griffin calling Matt a liar:

Check out this e-mail Mr. Phelps sent to Glen Selig, Drew Peterson’s publicist, after the conference call with Drew (which lasted 62 minutes, not 3 hours – another falsehood by Mr. Phelps – We have the phone records to show this and who was on the call, Drew, Selig, Brodsky and Peter Miller Phelps agent). From reading the e-mail I guess Phelps was not as disgusted as he is leading us to believe. Seems all he is concerned about is the effect Joe Hosey’s book is going to have on ‘the value of what I would do.’ I guess he didn’t have to take a shower after the call and only went to check out if there was going to be any competition for his book.

Matt’s email:

Glenn,
We’re going to have to discuss this: Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson (Hardcover) by Joseph Hosey (NAL; July 1, 2008). This puts a wet blanket on what we discussed on Saturday. It brings the value of what I would do down considerably. I do have another idea to discuss with all of you, however. I’ll look forward to your call with Joel and Drew at 10:00 this morning. 860-870-****
Thanks,
M. William Phelps

As an aside, I was the one who told Matt a day later about the other book. He didn’t run out to check on it. But that’s neither here nor there.

Here’s what Matt said today, adding a little fuel to the fire:

Look, I’m not about to get into the minutia of what was said, what was not said, etc … but I can release snips of the conversation on audio if need be. Notice what Joel Brodsky doesn’t deny. Also, during the radio show I specifically said I was very interested in pursuing the Drew Peterson book idea. Didn’t mean I wasn’t feeling dirty about the conversation or the potential book. In fact, my agent and I spoke right after–and I talked to him about my feelings. If they want me to start releasing emails (not just from me or to me), well, I can do that, too. I never signed a confidentiality agreement with them. I spoke to Joel Brodsky a few days after this call and told him–pointblank–that I was having trouble and struggling with some issues involved with the book. I said my journalistic integrity was more important. Drew Peterson would not take a lie detector test for me. That was of great concern. Now, this is the last time I speak about this. I’m done. I’ve moved on. They have an author, or so I’ve been told. … I should [also] probably note that my call with those guys was more along the lines of about 90 minutes (two sides of a 90-minute cassette tape). I had spoken to my agent and Drew’s publicist Glen for an additional half-hour/45 minutes before Drew and Joel came into the conversation, and my agent by himself for approximately 45 minutes before that–all of which centered around the Peterson case/potential book. So the entire process that morning took over three hours. Perhaps I did misspeak in implying that I spoke directly to Drew and Joel for three hours. I apologize if anyone misunderstood me.

An hour on the phone with Peterson and his flack and lawyer would make anyone reach for the hot water spigot and a bar of Dial.

There was plenty of questions from the media when Peterson’s lawyer paraded his client on Larry King and Today not too long ago. In fact, if they’d done his due diligence at all, Brodsky would have known that Matt was not in the hunt for writing a sympathetic tome about Peterson at all. He posted this on CR on January 15th, when the Peterson circus started going from town to town like some kind of old school freak show:

Turn on your TV, in fact, and look at the smut and trash we call entertainment. Now, our favorite former cop, the chief suspect in his wife’s disappearance, is somehow trying to take his situation and spin it into a profitable, 15-minutes of fame moment.

Drew Peterson, the loveable media whore who we couldn’t get away from on TV during those initial moments when his wife went missing, has hired a publicist and, I’m guessing, an agent, too, and is not speaking to anyone, anymore, he said, unless he’s being paid.

Is this not an incredible turn of events in this story? Does this man not have any morals whatsoever? Makes me want to write a book about this clown now and prove how dirty he actually is and expose the true sociopathic behavior he is exhibiting at the current moment.

And Brodsky wanted Matt to write a book about his client?

Un-freaking-believable. Hadn’t he heard of Google?

Drew Peterson can’t keep himself from a microphone and a TV camera. Can he? Our CR readers have pointed out that he’ll be on Larry King Friday. So, let’s open a thread and use this space to chat about what you’d like to ask Mr. Personality. And check back tomorrow to weigh in on how he did on show.

We bet he’d love that.

Funny thing happens when you drown: your lungs fill with the fluid that killed you.
It’s almost impossible to hide from a coroner.

Just yesterday, the death of Drew Peterson’s third wife was officially ruled a homicide after a second autopsy revealed that she was drowned to death.

What was the difference between the first and second autopsy?

Huge.

The second autopsy on Kathleen Savio’s March 2004 death included photos from the scene and reports from the initial investigation, along with results from microscopic examinations and toxicological tests, State’s Attorney James Glasgow said.

“We have been investigating this as a murder since reopening the case in November of last year,” Glasgow added. “We now have a scientific basis to formally and publicly classify it as such.”
Forty-year-old Savio was found dead in her bathtub shortly before her divorce settlement with Peterson was finalized.

Sound familiar?

Her body was exhumed on November 13, 2007 (after Peterson’s fourth wife went missing and all eyes pointed at him) and he named chief suspect in the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, who Drew says ran off with another man.

When asked about these latest results, Drew Peterson, a former sergeant with the Bolingbrook Police Department, said he was “shocked. … You’re kidding me. Unbelievable. That’s hard to believe.”

Savio’s family members, who received the news from Illinois State Police on Thursday, were not surprised, however. “This is something we’ve believed for almost four years. It’s a good thing that it finally came out,” Savio’s niece Melissa Doman said. “But it could have prevented if people would have listened to her before she was killed.”

Savio filed a protection order after Drew knocked her down one day in 2002 and ripped a necklace from around her neck that left marks on her body.

In the order, Savio said she “feared [Peterson] could kill her.”

Apparently, this new evidence makes it look as though she might have been right.

A grand jury convened in November 2007 to investigate both Savio’s death and Stacy Peterson’s disappearance.

Perhaps prosecutors have that additional evidence they need to finally drag Drew in to answer some tough questions.