Were Peterson's Comments Caught on Tape?
Report: Friends of Drew Peterson say they secretly recorded conversations.
July 24, 2008 — -- Drew Peterson, whose wife, Stacy, has been missing since last year, told his friends that police investigators were "idiots" and called Stacy a "b****" in conversations that were secretly recorded, one friend confirmed to ABC News' "Good Morning America" today.
That friend, Paula Stark, 38, along with her husband, Len Wawczak, 42, say they wore wires for seven months to record intimate conversations with Peterson in cooperation with an Illinois State Police investigation. Peterson is a former police sergeant in suburban Bolingbrook, Ill.
While police have not confirmed the existence of the tapes,, first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, Stark assured "Good Morning America" today that they do, in fact, exist
"I have proof. Like I said, it's not with the Illinois State Police, but I have proof. There's no doubt in my mind about either one of them," she said, referring to Peterson's involvement in the mysterious fate of Stacy and his ex-wife Kathleen Savio, who was murdered.
Savio's 2004 death was ruled an accidental drowning at the time, but after the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, police exhumed her body and reclassified her death as a murder.
"I should have had that b**** cremated," Peterson reportedly said on the tapes, according to the newspaper. "It would have cost me less and I wouldn't be going through this trouble."
The tapes allegedly also recorded Peterson insulting the investigating officers, saying, "She was in a dry bathtub. What a bunch of f****** idiots."
According to Wawczak, Peterson predicted that he would have already been tried and acquitted in Stacy's disappearance last year by the time police find her remains.
Peterson, who is a suspect in Stacy's disappearance, maintained his innocence in both cases.
"If I said anything close to that, it was taken out of context," Peterson told the Associated Press.
His lawyer, Joel Brodsky, does not believe the tapes exist at all.
"We know Illinois State Police would never allow an undercover informant to talk to the media about the contents of an undercover investigation," he told reporters yesterday.
Even if the tapes do exist, Brodsky told the AP, "there's certainly nothing incriminating on there."
