Peterson's son gets 8-day suspension over squad-car use

By Joseph Sjostrom Tribune reporter
12:02 AM CDT, April 10, 2008

Stephen Peterson, who was in his Oak Brook police uniform and driving a squad car when he was caught by news cameras after appearing before a Will County grand jury investigating the disappearance of his father's wife, was given an 8-day suspension Wednesday night for, according to his chief, casting the department in a bad light.

Peterson, 28, son of former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson, used "extremely poor judgment in using a squad car in a matter that had nothing to do with the Oak Brook Police Department or the village of Oak Brook," Chief Thomas Sheahan told the Oak Brook Police and Fire Commission.

The three-member panel handed down the suspension after meeting in executive session. Sheahan's attorney, Charles Hervas, had asked for a suspension of 6 to 15 days. The commission left the decision as to when the suspension would begin up to the chief.Peterson left the Oak Brook Village Hall following the commission's ruling without comment.

Sheahan said Peterson previously had been given 1-day suspensions on two occasions—for making a rude comment to a citizen and for sending an inappropriate message on a police computer.

Peterson had told the panel that he appeared before the grand jury four times, twice in uniform. He said he thought he had permission on Nov. 29 and Dec. 13 because he notified his superiors and he wore his uniform because he expected to return before his shift was over.

But Sgt. Casey Calvello, his superior Dec. 13, said he and Peterson did not discuss where the court appearance was or why he was going. Calvello later saw Peterson on TV.

"After I found out there was a problem," Calvello said, he asked Peterson if he had gotten permission. " 'Did I say you could take the squad car? If I did, I'd go to the chief and take the hit.' He said, 'No.' "Drew Peterson, 54, is a suspect in the Oct. 28 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy. The grand jury also is investigating the 2004 drowning of Kathleen Savio, his third wife, who was found dead in a dry bathtub.

Drew Peterson denies wrongdoing in either case. He has not been named a suspect in Savio's death, and has not been charged in either case.

Eldorado Texas: Who was at the YFZ Ranch?

In a court filing released Tuesday, Texas investigators listed dozens of names of men, women and children believed to have been living at the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado.

One of the most prominent names on the list: Wendell Nielsen, a prominent businessman in the FLDS community and a counselor in the sect's religious hierarchy.

There are 25 women on the list, 12 men and more than 100 children. The document was filed in district court as part of an affidavit seeking conservatorship of the children taken from the ranch over the past six days.

Also on the list: Donald Robert Barlow. A man by that name was charged with sexual misconduct by Arizona authorities in 2005 but was acquitted the next year after prosecutors failed to prove he had a sexual relationship with a girl in that state.

Court documents also say the state wants the judge to require genetic tests of parents to prove parentage of the 419 children now in state custody.

It also asks that the parents and children be given psychological and psychiatric evaluations. Parents should be required to pay retroactive support for children in state custody, it adds. -

Brooke Adams

The Salt Lake Tribune

Police seek help in search for missing woman

BY STAN FINGER
The Wichita Eagle

Reena Mullick

Wichita Kansas police are seeking help from the public in their search for a missing woman.

Reena Mullick, 49, was reported missing from the area of Champion and Rock Road at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, 2008, police said. She is of Indian descent and is 5-feet-1 and 115 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call the homicide section of the Police Department at 316-268-4181 or 911.

Polygamist sect forced girls to marry at puberty

April 9, 2008
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

ELDORADO, Texas---- The scared girl, already a mother at 16, whispered into a cell phone: she wanted out. She'd been forced to spiritually marry a man more than three times her age, becoming his seventh wife.

Her husband sexually assaulted her, and when he was angry, he would beat her while other women held her infant, she told a family violence shelter in a series of secret calls that triggered an investigation of the polygamist sect here.

The girl had looked for opportunities to escape before, but she was warned that outside the double-gates blocking entry to the Yearning For Zion Ranch, in a world completely foreign to her, she would be forced to cut her hair and wear makeup, and to have sex with many men -- all damning transgressions in a faith where modesty calls for women to wear long underwear year-round under pioneer-style dresses.

At the end of one call she began to cry; she wanted to take it all back.

But child welfare officials allege in court documents released Tuesday that the compound built by leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was rife with sexual abuse, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.

The documents detail the hushed phone calls, but days after raiding the West Texas compound, officials still aren't sure where the girl is. She is not named among the children in initial custody petitions by the state.

Texas authorities have legal custody of 416 children, all of those believed to have lived at the ranch, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner told reporters in San Angelo, about 40 miles from the compound in Eldorado.

Court documents said a number of teen girls at the 1,700-acre compound were pregnant, and all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of ''emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse.'' Nearly 140 women left on their own.

''Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the (Yearn for Zion) Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them,'' read the affidavit signed by Lynn McFadden, a Department of Family and Protective Services investigative supervisor.

McFadden said the girls were spiritually married to the men as soon as they reached puberty and were required to bear children.

Attorneys for the church and church leaders have filed motions asking a judge to quash the search on constitutional grounds, saying state authorities didn't have enough evidence and that the warrants were too broad. A hearing on their motion was scheduled for Wednesday in San Angelo.

Church lawyer Patrick Peranteau did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.

An unknown number of men and women were at the ranch while authorities completed the search of the gleaming 80-foot-high temple, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, a doctor's office and housing units. Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday the adults were not being held, but if they left the compound, they could not return while the search continued.

At least two FBI agents were seen entering the back entrance of the temple on Tuesday.
Spokesmen for the FBI and DPS declined comment.

The compound was raided Thursday after the girl called a local family violence shelter March 29 and 30, using someone else's cell phone and speaking quietly to avoid being overheard, McFadden's affidavit said.

The girl said she was not allowed to leave the compound unless she was ill. She told the shelter that her husband would ''beat and hurt'' her when he got angry, hitting her in the chest and choking her while another woman in the house held her baby. Once, he broke her ribs, she said.
The girl also said her husband sexually assaulted her, and that she was several weeks pregnant.

The girl told the shelter her husband went to ''the outsiders' world'' but she didn't know where.
The girl's husband was not identified in the court documents released Tuesday. But authorities have issued an arrest warrant for church member Dale Barlow, a 50-year-old believed to be in Arizona.

Authorities were looking for documents, family photos or even a family Bible with lists of marriages and children to determine whether the girl was married to Barlow, who was sentenced to jail last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He was ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.

Authorities were trying to determine the identities and parentage of many of the children; some were unwilling or unable to provide the names of their biological parents or identified multiple mothers.

The boys were groomed to be ready to marry underage girls upon adulthood and engage in sexual activity, resulting in them becoming new ''perpetrators,'' the affidavit said. Children in the sect were deprived of food and forced to sit in closed closets as a form of discipline, a warrant said.

An FLDS member now living in the Texas Panhandle, Samuel Fischer, objected to the raid.
''It's religious persecution,'' said Fischer, who moved to a ranch near Lockney with his two wives and 12 of his children from Hildale, Utah, last year.

The Texas investigation is the state's first of FLDS members, but prosecutors in Utah and Arizona have pursued several church members in recent years, including sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old wed to her cousin in Utah. He awaits trial on other charges in Arizona.

Authorities investigating the Eldorado compound have described FLDS members as cooperative, but the house-by-house search of the temple, factories and living quarters has led to some trouble.

On Monday, 41-year-old Leroy Johnson Steed was arrested on charges of felony tampering with evidence -- a day after 19-year-old Levi Barlow Jeffs was arrested on misdemeanor charges of interfering with the duties of a public servant, said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger.

He declined to give details on the arrests or how Levi Barlow Jeffs might be related to the FLDS leader.

Peterson: Neighbor 'detained' young son

Right: disgusting bastard


ONGOING DISPUTE
April 8, 2008
By JOE HOSEY Staff Writer



BOLINGBROOK -- Things were bad enough when it was just alleged Internet threats and a misappropriated garage door opener, but now allegations of an unauthorized photograph of a 4-year-old have sent tensions on Pheasant Chase Court soaring to a new high.

Drew Peterson called the law on Sharon Bychowski, his next-door neighbor and the best friend of his missing wife Stacy, and accused her of "detaining" his young son Anthony, police said. It was the third police report from the neighbors since March 14.


Peterson said he learned of the matter from a neighbor after picking up another of his sons from church early Sunday afternoon.

"They had my 4-year-old, Anthony, surrounded in Sharon's driveway, taking his picture," Peterson said. "He's a little guy. He's 4, and he's surrounded by them. Kris (his older half-brother) is yelling at him to get in the house."

Bychowski said the boy simply rode his bicycle to Bychowski's driveway to see Stacy's sister, Cassandra Cales, who was there with her friend, Bruce Zidarich, following a volunteer search for the missing woman.

"It was ridiculous," Bychowski said. "We took a picture of him and his Auntie Cassandra.

"You can't arrest me for taking a picture outside," Bychowksi said. "Didn't he used to be a cop?"
Peterson had indeed been a cop for 29 years before he abruptly quit in the wake of his wife's disappearance, dodging an internal affairs investigation. Since then, the state police have labeled the disappearance of Stacy, Peterson's third wife, a "potential homicide" and named Peterson as their sole suspect.

The state police also are investigating the March 2004 apparent bathtub drowning of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio.

At the time, investigators found no indications of foul play in Savio's death, according to special agent Herbert Hardy. A forensic pathologist has since concluded that Savio was the victim of a homicide.

Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, has accused Bychowski and her son, Roy Taylor, of threatening Peterson through Internet postings. Bychowski, for her part, claims Peterson is in possession of a garage door opener she had given Stacy, and that he used it to open her garage.

On Monday, Brodsky said the unauthorized photograph may amount to a felony charge.
"If they cornered the child, as Drew said, that would be (a felony crime of) unlawful restraint," Brodsky said.

"Personally, I think Sharon's lost touch with reality," he said, claiming a witness described the look on her face as "maniacal." "I really fear for her mental stability," Brodsky said, saying the people in Bychowski's driveway acted "almost like a modern-day lynch mob."

Lt. Ken Teppel of the Bolingbrook Police Department said the matter was referred to the state's attorney's office. An officer on the scene viewed the photograph of Anthony and his aunt, he said, and the child does not look harried.

"In the photo, he doesn't appear he's being held against his will," Teppel said. "They both have their arms around each other and they're smiling."

While he had the cops there, Peterson also complained of Cales peeling out as she drove past his house Saturday night and said she left about 20 yards of tire tracks behind her.

Bychowski said she and other volunteers put out new blue and pink ribbons on the trees of their subdivision in memory of Stacy and Savio. Peterson promptly removed the ones on his property.

"It says he's not supporting both women," Bychowski said. "It makes a big statement about what he thinks, and these are the mothers of his children."

"No, that means I don't want those raggedy ribbons on my trees," he said. "I take good care of my house."

And above his house, Peterson said, he is concerned about his kids.

"I really don't care what they do as long as it doesn't affect my children," he said.
"My kids can't be kids, because of Sharon and her band of vigilantes."

It's sad he doesn't see the effect that murdering their mothers has on his children. Whether he is convicted or not, the children will eventually know, just as Eric Peterson knows about Kitty Savio and refuses to speak to his father. What a legacy to leave to your kids. My father murdered my mother...