Alan Smithee wrote:
Every missing person should be declared "murdered" then." Not if there isn't other evidence but if there is other strong circumstantial evidence then yes. Drew Peterson hasn't even gone to trial yet and they may not get a conviction because there may not be enough other evidence with or without a body even if they do find one. And they didn't just convict Scott Peterson with emotion. Sometimes motive, behavior and other circumstantial evidence like the bodies being discovered in the vicinity of where he was known to have recently been, his infidelity and him behaving like he didn't expect her to come back been is enough circumstantial evidence to convict. You are free to acquit if you're ever on a jury. I might do the same depending on the case but your statement implied to me that you always need a body to convict someone of murder. Legally and practically that is not always the case.
And, going into circumstantial evidence there is plenty of that to speak of in Drew's case. Yes they haven't found his wife so they can't PROVE that she's murdered, but here are some facts. Murder is NOT something you want to be charged and convicted of, especially if you're innocent because that could mean dying for something you didn't do, or at the very least spending most or all of the rest of your life in prison for it. So, with so serious a charge in the air, who, if they were innocent, at the time they were arrested for murdering their wife would be LAUGHING and MAKING JOKES and showing off for the camera?
Another fact, without divorce, annulment, proof of death, or 7 years' time to officially declare a spouse dead, legally you are STILL married, meaning if you try to get married to someone else you are knowingly committing bigamy. So he can say all he wants that she left him for another man but that doesn't make him single to marry his next fiance.
And, as people have pointed out, Drew Peterson is a COP, a retired cop, so with the whole country looking for his wife, why wasn't he using any of his police know how to track her down? He can say all he wants that she left him for someone else, but if that were true he would have some proof to show, a picture, an email, something to show she DID have another man on the side.
He clearly was not worried at all about her EVER coming back and interfering with his plans. Which is odd because you would think you would want some kind of finality, an official end to the marriage BEFORE you try playing old geezer bachelor of the month looking for wife number 5. I mean as a guy who HAS been divorced twice, the last thing he would need would be for her to come back out of the blue and try to ruin his life with his new girlfriend, but if she was alive there would always be the possibility that she would come back, for the kids, to have him arrested for bigamy, for something. But he's not worried, he KNOWS she will never come back.
And then there's the fact that if she did leave, she LEFT HER CHILDREN BEHIND, something that her friends and family swore she would NEVER do. Now Drew Peterson is not a family annihilator, he just likes controlling, abusing and murdering his wives.
Circumstantial evidence is not a videotape of the killing but it IS what makes up most evidence in a lot of murder cases and it shouldn't be disregarded just because it's not the smoking gun.
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