Parks said she frequently walked Savio to her car after school, and on one occasion Savio told her how Peterson threatened her.
"Kathy told me that her husband, Drew Peterson, told her that he could kill her and make her disappear," Parks testified.
9:35 a.m. Pathologist, Savio friend may testify
Today’s witnesses are expected to include pathologist Larry Blum, Will County Coroner Patrick O'Neil, and Kathleen Savio's friend Mary Parks, who previously said Savio told her Peterson had threatened to kill her.
Blum, who was hired by the state, has testified previously that the Savio deathscene was "very, very pristine," with no water splashed out of the tub and none of the bottles surrounding it knocked over. The positioning of her arms and legs also indicated she had not slipped in the tub, he said.
"She's so far out of the usual pattern as what one sees," Blum said of Savio's injuries at a pretrial hearing. "Most of the time when people do fall in tubs and drown, you might have a little cut over their eye, you might have a bruised ear.
"But not all these injuries at once from a fall, that's just hard to believe."
9:20 a.m. Judge jokes about hot tip
The trial opened on a lighter note this morning when Judge Edward Burmila informed the courtroom that he had received a hot tip.
"Yesterday I received a letter from an inmate in the Illinois Department of Corrections stating that he had some information linking this case to the Abraham Lincolnassassinationand the (George) Zimmerman case, and asking me to communicate with him if I wanted some more information," Burmila said.
"I won't be communicating with him," he deadpanned, prompting laughter from the gallery.
6:30 a.m. Trial enters 7th day after key ruling
Drew Peterson's murder trial continues today after prosecutors won a key ruling, allowing a friend of Kathleen Savio to testify that Peterson once told Savio he could kill her and "make it look like an accident."
The testimony from Kristin Anderson could be important to the state's case against Peterson, accused of killing Savio in 2004, but it was not clear until Wednesday whether the jury would ever hear it.
For two years, prosecutors had been battling to get Anderson's testimony and other so-called hearsay statements admitted. Before the trial started last month, Judge Edward Burmila refused to issue a blanket ruling on the hearsay statements.
On Wednesday, Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow, who has been largely silent in the courtroom since giving the opening statement, rose from his seat to give an impassioned plea to allow the hearsay statements, shouting and jabbing his finger in the air.
Burmila, who said he was not swayed by the "volume" of Glasgow's argument, nonetheless then allowed Anderson's testimony and said he would not be bound by prior rulings on hearsay statements, a decision prosecutors view as a potential turning point in what had been a rocky start to the trial.
