When Drew Peterson’s stepbrother, Thomas Morphey, reported he had helped the Bolingbrook, IL, police officer remove a heavy blue barrel from his house in late 2007, I immediately thought Peterson must have disposed of his fourth wife’s body in a local landfill. Now that a blue barrel has been found in the Des Plaines River in proximity with human remains, I’m somewhat skeptical the remains will prove to be Stacy Peterson’s.

• Sidebar: This isn’t the first blue barrel containing human remains that’s been found floating in the Des Plaines River, and it probably won’t be the last. It makes this mystery fiction writer question why it’s so easy for murderers to acquire blue Waste Management barrels. If you take a look at a Waste Management website you don’t find blue barrels on offer for disposing of one’s enemies. It isn’t even clear to me that I could buy one as a private individual—they appear to industrial products.

In 2007 when local groups searched frantically for Stacy Peterson’s body in nearby rivers and canals and in the vast fields around Bolingbrook, I knew they wouldn’t find her. A cop simply wouldn’t dump a body where it could be found so easily. Even “civilian” criminals such as the mob and drug dealers know better.

A landfill is the perfect place for permanent disposal of biological material. Everything in a landfill is rotting; even cadaver dogs are easily thrown off the scent in a landfill (as we learned in the Utah Lorie Hacking murder investigation). In addition, a blue Waste Management barrel in a northern Illinois landfill would not arouse the slightest suspicion (Waste Management’s headquarters are in Oak Brook, IL). But it would if it bobbed up on the Des Plaines River.

And then there’s the fact that there’s a landfill within about 10-12 miles of Peterson’s home—and, as a patrol officer, Peterson would have to be aware of that fact, as well as aware of all the other nearby sites where criminals tend to dump bodies that are never identified.

Frankly, the Des Plaines River is the last place I would have expected a police officer to throw a blue, plastic barrel. If the remains turn out to be those of Stacy Peterson, you can take it as an IQ test for Drew Peterson—an IQ test he flunked.

Think about it: A body sealed in a barrel will produce a huge amount of gas, as any policeman would know. Gas is lighter than water. Gas is lighter than air. The barrel would be bound to rise to the surface of the river eventually. Furthermore, the barrel would help preserve the body, rather than allowing it to disintegrate in the water and be washed away irretrievably. (Even Scott Peterson—assuming he really did it—knew enough not to put the body in a sealed, plastic barrel.)

I suppose it’s no secret that I live in northern Illinois. I often drive in the area of Bolingbrook. Soon after Stacy Peterson’s disappearance made the news, I happened to be very near the Peterson residence. I spotted another possible disposal site near there: a massive construction site. Huge road-graders were leveling several acres for a housing development. A dismembered body could easily have been dumped around that area—and the next day graded over, eventually even sealed beneath pavement or concrete foundations.

If Drew Peterson murdered Stacy Peterson and then asked his mentally disturbed stepbrother to help him dispose of the body in a blue barrel, which he then threw into the Des Plaines River, he should go down in history as the stupidest Bluebeard in history.

• Sidebar: As a mystery fiction writer, I can’t help but consider alternative scenarios. What follows is pure fantasy on my part. I know absolutely nothing about this case beyond what I’ve read in the papers or seen on TV. I also believe that everyone should be presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty by a jury of his peers. What if Drew didn’t do it? What if someone did it who was secretly fixated on Stacy, who had suicidal tendencies and was known to behave erratically? What if Drew was the one who tried to help this other person cover up the crime, and not the other way around? 

There are so many egregious crimes associated with Drew Peterson, it’s hard not to think he really did it. And it’s ghastly that he got away with murder for so long, only because he was a police officer. For more about the background to this crime, I recommend this story from the Chicago Breaking News Center: http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/04/drew-peterson-sued-for-wrongful-death-of-3rd-wife-kathleen-savio.html  And for more about Peterson’s third wife Kathleen Savio’s death, I recommend A Candy Rose: http://www.acandyrose.com/stacy_peterson_timeline.htm

And I will repeat what I have said before: young women must be very careful about whom they choose to love. If you fall in love with a vampire, you will get bitten.