'Monster In My Family' Explores A Mysterious Case

In the Jan. 3 premiere of Season 2 of Lifetime's Monster in My Family, the sister of murder victim Kathleen Savio had a face-to-face meeting with Stephen Peterson, the son of her sister's killer. As we saw in the episode, Savio's death was originally ruled an accident, but her body was exhumed after Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in 2007. Drew Peterson was convicted of Kathleen Savio's murder in 2012 and, although he hasn't been charged, he's a suspect in Stacy's case. She remains missing, but what do we know about Stacy Peterson and her disappearance?

According to CNN, Peterson was 47 years old and still married to Savio when he began a relationship with Stacy Cales, who was 30 years his junior. By the time Savio was found dead, Drew Peterson had married Stacy and the couple eventually had two children together. The outlet reports that her aunt, Candace Aikin, claimed that Stacy Peterson knew her marriage was a mistake, but still tried to make it work. On Oct. 28, 2007, Stacy disappeared, prompting authorities to grow suspicious about Savio's death. In February 2008, Savio's body was exhumed and Savio's cause of death was reclassified as a homicide. Peterson is behind bars for Savio's murder, but justice has been elusive in Stacy's case — and it will likely stay that way unless she's found.

As reported by NBC, Stacy played a key role in the Savio murder trial. Although prosecutors weren't permitted to mention her disappearance, Reverend Neil Schori and attorney Harry Smith testified that Stacy had allegedly confided in them about Savio's death. Schori testified that Stacy had allegedly told him that Drew disappeared from their home around the time of Savio's death, and Smith claimed that Stacy had called him just days before her disappearance because she "wanted to know if, in my opinion, the fact that he killed Kathy could be used against him." The outlet also reported that Stacy had allegedly told friends and family that, on the night of Feb. 29, she woke up to find her husband gone. Upon his return, he allegedly asked her to lie about the women's clothes in his possession. Savio's body was discovered the next day. Although she couldn't be in court for the trial, Stacy's alleged words were key to securing justice for Savio.

In the most recent development, People reported in May 2016 that prisoner Antonio Smith alleged that Drew Peterson had admitted to murdering Stacy. Peterson was in court facing charges for attempting to hire his fellow inmate to kill James Glasgow, the prosecutor who had successfully put him behind bars for Savio's murder. (In July of 2016, Peterson was found guilty "of trying to arrange the hit on Glasgow," according to the Chicago Tribune.)

During the trial, Smith testified that “[h]e admitted to me that he killed Stacy Peterson." Smith claimed that, when Peterson first approached him about killing Glasgow in 2013, Smith led him on and recorded some of their conversations at the request of authorities. According to People, Peterson can be heard on the recordings blaming Glasgow for his incarceration and the loss of his pension — but it doesn't appear that any of the recordings caught his alleged confession to Stacy's murder.

Without a body, it seems highly unlikely that authorities will be able to build a strong enough case to charge anyone in Stacy's disappearance. Hopefully the renewed attention on Drew Peterson from the LMN episode will result in potential leads regarding Stacy's disappearance so that, at the very least, her family can eventually be provided with some sort of closure.