Drew Peterson and Joel Brodsky talk with InSession's Lisa Bloom. February5, 2009

BLOOM: Were you really engaged to Chrissy Raines?Peterson: Yes I was. She asked me to marry her five or six times and I gave her aring. I don’t think I…BLOOM: She asked you to marry her?PETERSON: Yes.BLOOM: OK, go ahead.PETERSON: She asked me to marry her five or six times and each time I said yes,and I provided her with a ring which is not that good of a ring--it was a temporaryring but I was going to get her a new one--and I thought for all practical purposeswe were engaged.BLOOM: Was that Stacy’s ring, the one you gave her?PETERSON: No. No and that’s been confirmed by other people. It wasn’t Stacy’sring. Definitely not.BLOOM: Chrissy said on the Early Show, and I guess there’s been some confusionabout this, that this was a stunt.PETERSON: No. She originally said that and later her father’s calling the localstations in the Chicago area saying that his daughter was confused and it wasn’t astunt. So now they’re recanting what they originally said to everybody.BLOOM: Well, I think the clarification as I understand it, is that initially there was astunt in a restaurant where you were horsing around and pretended to propose toher. That that was the stunt and then later on the engagement was real. Is thatright?PETERSON: There was never any stunt like that where I proposed to her and therewas nothing never documented like that. The engagement was always real and Idon’t know where they came up with this stunt thing.BLOOM:OK and Joel, let me get you a chance to respond as well. Were you involvedin any type of publicity stunt as well?BRODSKY: Absolutely not. As a matter of fact Drew will tell you when he asked meabout having this young lady move in with him—or an engagement—I told him thatit probably wasn’t that great an idea. So I was against it and if it was a publicitystunt…BLOOM: Why did you think it was a bad idea?

BRODSKY: I think that the public reaction to Drew getting engaged or having ayoung woman move in with him right now is probably not in his best interest so…BLOOM: Because it makes it look like, Drew, like you’ve moved on. That you don’tthink Stacy’s coming back.PETERSON: Well, whether she is or she isn’t, I don’t know. It’s been over a year nowand I’m hoping she comes back just to show her face to clear my name. However, Idon’t know.BLOOM: Did you, Drew, ask Chrissy to wear Stacy’s clothes?PETERSON: No, not at all. In fact, I was packing up Stacy’s clothes and I put them inboxes and I’m saving them for her and at a particular time I asked her is thereanything here that Chrissy might want and she said no and that was the simplicityof all that.BLOOM: Why would you offer Chrissy Stacy’s clothing?PETERSON: Well, it wasn’t her clothing. It was just different things like…I don’tknow she really didn’t have that much stuff so I figured if there was anything thatshe could use, she could use it.BLOOM: Drew, what attracted you to Chrissy Raines, thirty years younger than you;a very shy, sensitive young woman?PETERSON: Well, I knew Chrissy from when she was around fifteen years old. Shewas basically, left loose to run the streets by her father who, basically she had nosupervision at that age and I met her then. I was bringing her home from being arunaway; I was involved in some of the instances where she was fist fighting withyoung girls, other young girls so that’s how I met her and then I just ran into her atone of the local nightclubs and I gave her my number she says, he we should goahead and get together for dinner sometime…BLOOM: Were you struck by how much she resembles Stacy?PETERSON: She doesn’t resemble Stacy at all. I don’t think there’s no resemblancewhatsoever.BLOOM: I guess everyone can look at the pictures and decide that for themselves.Same age. They have children roughly the same age. Your children with Stacy,Anthony and Laci, close in age, right, to Chrissy’s two children?PETERSON: Right. They were good friends. They were very close in age and they allgot along really well.BLOOM: So, when Ernie, the father of Chrissy, came to your house last week to askfor Chrissy’s things back and you came to the door, did you yell at him, Drew?

PETERSON: Yeah, that was because, like I say, in her younger years when Chrissywas in trouble a lot as a kid I was dealing with him a lot then, so I knew who he was.BLOOM: Why would you yell at the father of your fiancée when he comes to yourdoor?PETERSON: Just the way he acted. He comes to the door and, talk about a stunt, hecomes to the door with a news crew? I mean if you watch the “stunt” that he pulled,it was kind of theatrical.BRODSKY: I was on the phone with Drew when this took place. Drew had already;Chrissy had called him the night before to tell him that she wanted her stuff. Drewhad it all packed up and ready to go and then this Ernie Raines comes to the frontdoor with the CBS camera crew and Drew reaction was to tell him, you can have thestuff. Just tell the camera crew to leave. I don’t want to do this in front of thecamera. There’s no reason for it. He went and called the camera crew and told thecamera crew to go away…BLOOM: That’s not quite what his reaction was on camera. I think there was somescreaming and some profanities.BRODSKY: Absolutely. Ernie started say, don’t mess with me. You don’t know whoyou’re messing with and Drew said, ‘blank you’.BLOOM: Joel, you can understand why a dad might not want his daughter to bemoving in with Drew Peterson, can’t you? Would you want your daughters moving inwith Drew?BRODSKY: Drew? No I don’t think Drew. [Laughter] I’m kidding. But, seriously, I canunderstand. Absolutely, I can understand it. The point was that Drew had the stuff packed up ready to go. They could have come and, low key, just privately taken itaway but he had to bring a camera crew with him so Drew said, camera crew’s gotto go then I’ll give you the stuff and Ernie wanted the camera crew to be there tophotograph it for his own reasons…BLOOM: Let’s take a look at what Chrissy Raines said to me on the program a fewdays ago. I know—let’s take a look at what Chrissy had to say about why she left.VIDEO CLIPCHRISSY RAINES: At first I believed that she could have had left. At first Ibelieve…I believed him. I believed everything he had told me because I …BLOOM: That’s his story. She just took off and left with another man.CHRISSY RAINES: But, you know…I love his kids and…seeing the pictures inthe house, seeing how she was towards her kids and all her pictures, I kind of think, wait. Just wait a minute. How could you leave them? How could youleave them?