Drew Peterson Trial: Bathtub He Said, She Said

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Updated 5:41 p.m.  

Drew Peterson's attorneys called another doctor to say Kathleen Savio died in an accident.

"My opinion is, in all medical probability, it's an accident," said Dr. Vincent DiMaio.

"I concluded the death was an accident due to slipping and falling in the bathtub and striking the back of the head," DiMaio said.

The impact would have "stunned" Savio, or possibly knocked her unconscious, he said.

"She slipped underwater and then she drowned," DiMaio said.

Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow pointed out that some of DiMaio's testimony conflicted with some of his published writings.

Glasgow also asked DiMaio to provide a documented case of a sober, healthy adult drowning in a bathtub. DiMaio did not specify an individual who drowned in such circumstances.

After two doctors testified for the defense, four more witnesses are still scheduled to testify.

Updated 3:13 p.m. 

Assistant State's Attorney John Connor got Dr. Jentzen to admit on the stand that he previously testified that Kathleen Savio could have been the victim of a homicide.

"It's possible," said Jentzen. "That was my opinion. It was possible."

Connor also questioned Jentzen about a drawing of a woman falling he referred to during his testimony this morning. The picture shows the woman falling on flat ground and not in a bathtub, Connor pointed out.

"This is absolutely not relevant to thid case at all, is it?" Connor asked.

Connor got Jentzen to confirm the numerous injuries on Savio's body were suffered during a single fall in her bathtub.

The large red abrasion on Savio's buttock, explained Jentzen, was not an abrasion at all. It was a "drying artifact."

Updated 1:15 p.m.

Dr. Jentzen laid out his theory of how Kathleen Savio died for the jury.

"She was in a bathtub," Jentzen said. "She slipped and fell. She struck the left side of her body and her head against the tub. She sustained a head injury. She was rendered unconscious and in an unconscious state, she drowned."

Dr. Jentzen flat out said the opinion of a forensic neuropathologist who testifief earlier in the case was erroneous.

"She's wrong," Jentzen said of expert witness Dr. Mary Case.

Case has already testified that the wound to the back of Savio's scalp did not come from a blow struck hard enough to knock her unconscious.

Case also said there was no sign of injury to Savio's brain. Case was also steadfast in her claim that Savio was the victim of a homicide.

"I believe Dr. Case is confused in what a fatal head injury would be," Jentzen said.

Jentzen also said "it could be possible" that Savio suffered some sort of brain injury that would be impossible to detect because she died too quickly for the visible signs to manifest themselves."

Orginal post

A Michigan doctor has been on the stand all morning giving testimony in direct contrast to what has been testified to by the prosecution's two expert witnesses.

Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen said injuries suffered by Drew Peterson's third wife Kathleen Savio were consistent to those someone would suffer when slipping and falling in a bathtub.

Forensic neuropathologist Mary Case was one of two witnesses called by the prosecution who disagreed. 

Case compared the deep bruises on below Savio's clavicle and left breast to what one would suffer in a car crash.

The abrasion on Savio's left buttock and the laceration to the back of Savio's head could not have been caused her falling in her smooth-surfaced bathtub, she said.

Defense attorney Ralph Meczyk wanted to use a yellow "slippery floor" sign as evidence of the physical mechanic's of a fall, apparently because of the stick figure representation of a falling person.

Judge Edward Burmila told Meczyk he could not use the sign.

Meczyk is allowed to use a drawing of a person slipping and falling while walking.

Assistant State's Attorney John Connor objected to the use of both the drawing and the sign.

"This will be extremely confusing to the jury," Connor said, "because who's walking in the tub?"

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