Police agencies again search forest preserve for Stacy Peterson
By Brian Stanley bstanley@stmedianetwork.com November 7, 2012 12:24PM
Investigators with the FBI and the Illinois State Police plan their search inside Hammel Woods near Black Road and Route 59 in Shorewood, IL on Wednesday November 7, 2012. They were searching for the missing Stacy Peterson. | Matt Marton~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: December 9, 2012 7:31PM
SHOREWOOD — Investigators using dogs searched Hammel Woods again Wednesday.
The FBI and state police have been looking through the 400-acre Will County forest preserve this week. They won’t say publicly what they’re looking for.
A police source told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed, however, that investigators are searching for missing mom Stacy Peterson, the wife of convicted murderer and former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson.
The search was actually a repeat of one done two years ago by state police, said the source, who added that the search was based on an old lead; Authorities had been waiting for the availability of cadaver dogs.
Since Monday, an FBI Mobile Command truck has been parked near the Black Road entrance while groups have searched the woods. Around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday about 10 investigators returned with hiking sticks, small shovels and yellow poles used to prod loose soil.
As one man wearing FBI garb walked a hiking path and looked at an aerial photograph, another wearing a jacket labeled “Evidence Response Team” followed a springer spaniel running through the nearby trees.
Springer spaniels are regularly used as “cadaver dogs” and it is not unheard of for the animals to find remains that have been exposed to the elements for more than a decade.
Stacy Peterson has been missing since Oct. 28, 2007, shortly after telling her husband she wanted a divorce. Peterson was convicted in September of killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio, and is considered the main suspect in Stacy’s disappearance.
Joliet police said this week the search had no connection to their recent efforts to find Linda Barr Fellenbaum, who has been missing since Oct. 21. Friends and family searched for the missing 32-year-old mother of three on Sunday.
The DuPage River runs through Hammel Woods, with “islands” in the middle that regularly collect debris as the water flows downstream from the north.
