Peterson's brother-in-law returns to Bolingbrook
BOLINGBROOK -- A potential key piece to the Stacy Peterson puzzle is back in the neighborhood.
Tom Morphey, the stepbrother of Drew Peterson and the man believed to have helped him carry a suspiciously warm barrel out of his house hours after his fourth wife was last seen alive, is home again in Bolingbrook.
Peterson even claims to have recently bumped into his stepbrother in a local Meijer store, and says his stepbrother was so scared he went "poof" and disappeared.
Morphey's girlfriend, Sheryl Alcox, disputes this account. She said she was with Morphey when they saw Peterson and, while Peterson has never been shy when he has seen her solo, he steered clear when he spotted her in the company of her live-in boyfriend.
"He didn't come near us that time," Alcox said, adding, "Every single time he's walked up to me in that store when I was by myself."
State police named Drew Peterson a suspect in the "potential homicide" of his fourth wife, Stacy, who vanished just over a year ago.
Shortly after she disappeared, reports claimed Morphey helped Peterson carry a warm, blue barrel from Peterson's bedroom to the driveway and his waiting Yukon Denali.
Upon learning Stacy had been reported missing, Morphey was hospitalized after overdosing on sleeping pills. Peterson visited him in Naperville's Edward Hospital.
Morphey then became scarce.
Alcox, at the time, said he was in "therapy." Other sources said he was in police protective custody. Peterson has repeatedly said the authorities had put Morphey someplace to "dry out."
If Morphey is an important element in unraveling the mystery of what happened to Stacy, he has yet to tell his story to the special grand jury empaneled for that very purpose nearly a year ago, Alcox said.
State police spokesman Lt. Luis Gutierrez declined to comment on Morphey's role in the investigation or whether he had been in police custody.
"We're not going to give that information out," Gutierrez said. "We can't comment on that issue."
Regardless of where he has been, Morphey is back now in his Thistle Drive home. Alcox would not say where Morphey was when he was gone, but said the separation from her boyfriend was difficult.
And Morphey was not the only one displaced after Stacy disappeared.
"Me and my kids had to be gone for a while," Alcox said.
Alcox said she met Stacy Peterson soon after taking up with Morphey in 2000.
"Stacy, yeah, she was wonderful, she was fantastic," Alcox said as she insisted the young mother would never abandon her children to run off with another man, as Drew Peterson has accused her of doing.
Even though her boyfriend has returned home, Alcox has said her life has not returned to normal.
She does not know if it ever will, unless Peterson is charged with Stacy's murder, she said.
"I pray to God he will be," she said. "I'll be in court every day."