Making Drew Rich

We'll start by saying we believe Drew Peterson to be guilty of any number of crimes. It's our opinion, we're entitled to it, we don't have to back it up with anything but a gut feeling, and it tells us Drew is a slick character. If you ever have to deal with him, check your wallet and count your fingers afterward. Twice.

But this prosecutor in Will County is going to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

• Drew Peterson, the former Bolingbrook police sergeant, likely killed his 23-year-old wife Stacy using a choke hold in their bedroom on the Sunday morning family and friends first noticed she disappeared, Will County's top prosecutor said today.

  State's Attorney James Glasgow, who referred to Peterson as a "knucklehead" and "hideous B-movie stalker," laid out for the first time a theory of how Stacy, who disappeared in 2007, was killed.

  Glasgow's comments came during closing arguments in a unique pretrial hearing on whether hearsay statements can be heard by a jury in Peterson's upcoming trial for the 2004 drowning death of third wife Kathleen Savio.

Is there blood? DNA? Any form of scratch marks, claw marks, body fluids, spatter evidence, grainy gas station video, tollway receipts, cell phone pings, anything remotely available that ties Drew to a crime?

Nope.

And this Will County State's Attorney, who enjoys prosecutorial immunity, is saying Drew strangled Stacy using a choke hold in the bedroom on a Sunday morning? Based on what? A guess? A gut feeling? You can have all the gut feelings you want, but you can't prosecute based on a gut feeling and you can't stand the criminal justice system on its head because the guy making a monkey out of you is a "B-movie stalker." This isn't a game of Clue.

Here's the intelligent thing to do - suspend the case. Wait it out. There is no statute of limitations on murder. At some point, a body turns up, someone recalls a pickup truck driving by in the dead of night, technology catches up with the crime - it took 14 years for the Brown's Chicken massacre to come to trial. The system gets there, albeit not as fast as we like sometimes, but it gets to the finish line in some form or another.

Drew outsmarted the system for the time being. It happens sometimes, especially with psychopaths. But Drew has gotten a taste of publicity and he can't help but taunt the powers that be with how smart he is. Play to it and he'll screw up somewhere if he's guilty. Go to trial on this weak ass "hearsay" evidence that flies in the face of 230 years of law and Will County will blow what may be a single chance to bring a killer to justice. Not only that, the taxpayers will end up paying for lawyers, damages and Drew's ego-maniacal pathology to the tune of millions.