After six months of staying out of the search for his missing wife, Drew Peterson put up a $25,000 reward Wednesday for information that brings her home.

There’s just one catch. She must come home alive.

“Her mom left her, and it’s clear that history has repeated itself and that Stacy does not want to be found either,” Peterson said in the release announcing the reward. “I don’t know who she left with or where they are. Maybe the money will prompt someone to come forward with a lead. Her children miss her, and people believe I had something to do with her disappearance.”

In the statement released by his attorney Joel Brodsky, Peterson said he hasn’t participated in any searches because those looking for her assume she is dead.
Peterson said Stacy, his fourth wife, called him the night she disappeared and told him she was leaving him. Stacy Peterson has been missing since Oct. 28, and her husband has been named a suspect in the disappearance, which police are calling a “potential homicide.”

The investigation also led police to reexamine the March 2004 death of Peterson’s third wife, Kathleen Savio. Shortly after her drowning, her death was ruled an accident.

Authorities exhumed Savio’s body in November, and two independent forensic pathologists — one at the request of Savio’s family and one on behalf of Will County — performed separate autopsies. Each recently ruled her death a homicide.

Police have not named a suspect is Savio’s death, but Peterson has come under intense public scrutiny in both cases. A special grand jury investigating both cases has met each Thursday since November. Peterson has denied involvement in either case and has not been charged with a crime.

Police and volunteers have conducted numerous searchers since Stacy Peterson disappeared at the age of 23. Drew Peterson has not participated in any of the searches but instead hired a team of private investigators to find her. He said he hopes the reward will be enough to bring her home.

“I haven’t (searched) because I believe she’s alive,” Peterson said. “She told me she was leaving. She obviously doesn’t want to be found.”

Information and tips should be sent to stacytips@yahoo.com. Brodsky said the tips will be opened and read by a team of investigators hired by Peterson, not by Peterson himself nor his attorneys. He said all legitimate leads will be forwarded to law enforcement authorities, who have set up their own tipline at (815) 740-0678. The reward will be paid out in addition to the $35,000 reward being offered by Stacy Peterson’s family.

Meanwhile, friends and family of Stacy Peterson denounced the $25,000 reward as another publicity stunt set up by Drew Peterson and Brodsky. Sharon Bychowski, Stacy

Peterson’s best friend and neighbor, called the offer “too little, too late.”

“He knows he’ll never have to pay out that money,” Bychowski said.