Years ago I served as juror at a trial where, as is almost invariable in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the accused pled guilty. The judge, a charming and erudite old man,  brought us jurors into his chamber to give us a very sensible little lecture on the concept of reasonable doubt, a lecture which I still use to this day. He then said, "You know, I hope you realize how much we professionals need you jurors. If that felon hadn't known that a jury was here, just waiting to be empanelled, he never would have pled guilty, and the Commonwealth would have been put to the expense of a trial. And you have no idea how jaded we get! Why, we feel we know right away who is guilty, because we see and hear so much. But a jury gives a fresh viewpoint, and allows the accused person to have the presumption of innocence, which is so important."

Well, years have gone by, and many trials and many cases, and I now feel I know exactly what that old judge was talking about. I just wish they would come up with something NEW, instead of the same old treadmill. For example, yesterday a very lurid little story came to light, all about a 53-year-old police sergeant named Drew Peterson whose 23-year old fourth wife, Stacy, had "just disappeared" leaving behind two small children. Supposedly she left her car at the local airport. I wish just once in cases of this kind that the car could be left in some original location besides the airport, such as the train station or possibly even a truck stop. This husband claims that his wife "is where she wants to be" and states he is "unconcerned". It seems that he is the owner of a small plane. My brilliant theory is that wife no. four asked for a divorce, that this creep beat her to death, put her body in his small plane, as has happened in about ten other cases I can think of, and flew the plane over a body of water and tossed out the murdered woman, probably weighted down with concrete blocks so it will take the authorities months to find her body

Yesterday, the body of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, was exhumed. The autopsy is planned for today but supposedly the results will not be available for weeks. She was found dead in a bathtub in 2004 under mysterious circumstances three days before she was to go to court to argue with her ex-husband over alimony. How this case could ever have been passed as an accident baffles me. Savio was found dead in a bathtub, nude, and perfectly dry, with her head bashed in. The police theory at the time was that she must have fallen down in the tub "and the water all drained out". Sure. And if my mother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car. Kathleen Savio had a million-dollar insurance policy which went to her two teenage sons with Peterson, making it unnecessary for him to have to pay child support or worry about educating the two boys- a pretty good motive, I should imagine.

Now, what is it about bathtubs and wife-killers? Of course there is the greatest of them all, George Joseph Smith, bigamist, swindler, and serial killer. He operated in England from about 1900 to 1914, when he was finally apprehended due to an anonymous letter. He began by marrying women bigamously and swindling them of their money. At a certain point he seems to have decided this was not worth the effort, and began insuring his "wives" for large sums of money and then drowning them in their bathtubs. He murdered three women in this way. The Modus Operandi of the crimes was proved by the brilliant pathologist Bernard Spilsbury. Spilsbury hired a female athlete and swimmer the same height as one of the murdered women and placed her in one of the tubs used in the murders in a bathing suit. He tried six ways from Sunday to shove her head under the water and failed. It then occurred to him to grab the woman's legs and try to pull her head under the water that way. This succeeded so well that the woman was rendered unconscious and had to be revived. It is pleasant to relate that Smith had to be carried to the gallows for the sentence of death which had been handed down on him to be carried out.

Nowadays we are much more merciful. Timothy Boczowski, 48, was sentenced to death in 1999 for drowning his second wife, Maryann, in a hot tub in Pennsylvania. He had previously been convicted of killing his first wife Elaine in a bathtub in the couple's home in North Carolina in 1990. However, the appeals court decided that the jury in his second wife's murder should not have been allowed to know of the manner of death of the first wife, so his death sentence was overturned. Personally, I am against the death penalty, but every so often I give in to my baser instincts as there is a case which infuriates me so much I feel like screaming, "let me throw the switch!". This is one of them.

Now, we have this idiot Peterson, the typical narcissistic moron murderer who cannot keep his mouth shut, appearing on the "Today" show to talk about his life has been "ruined" by the media and appealing to "the lawyers of America" to represent him pro bono, as he is too poor to afford the best legal representation, which he obviously feels he deserves. When asked why he did not join the dozens of volunteers who are scouring the woods and ponds near his suburban Chicago home searching for traces of his missing wife, he simply shrugged. You have to love this guy, though. He isn't even bothering to try to put up a good front. The same stupid smirk was on his face throughout the entire interview. He must be taking lessons from our Commander-in Chief. I, for one, cannot wait for the trial and conviction.

UPDATE: 11/19/07 Kathleen Savio's death was pronounced to be a homicide today after an autopsy carried out by famed pathologist Dr. Michael Baden.