Drew was being himself
'TODAY' | Didn't hide face, shed tears at arrest because 'that's just not me,' he tells interviewer
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Drew Peterson cracked jokes as he was arrested for allegedly murdering his ex-wife because that's his way, he said during a "Today" show interview to be aired this morning.
"There's no book written on how I'm supposed to act. Would it be better if I hid my head down and tried to hide my face and hunched over and had tears in my eyes?" the jailed Peterson told the show's Matt Lauer by phone Thursday morning. "I mean, no, that's just not me."
Peterson's jokes and behavior have been questioned on some media outlets.
Ex-Bolingbrook cop Peterson, charged with the murder of Kathleen Savio, his third wife, is a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.
He said he didn't participate in the search for Stacy Peterson because he didn't agree with the way it was being handled. He has maintained she abandoned him and their children, running off with another man.
"They were searching in weeds and bushes. I don't believe she is in weeds and bushes," he told Lauer. "She's out there somewhere living her life."
Excerpts of Lauer's interview with Peterson were aired on a WMAQ-Channel 5 newscast Thursday night.
Also Thursday, Peterson's stepbrother, Thomas Morphey, and acquaintances Paula Stark and Len Wawczak testified before a Will County grand jury.
Morphey has claimed he helped Peterson move a blue barrel that he now believes held the body of Stacy Peterson. Stark and Wawczak had cooperated with State Police by wearing a wire and recording seven months of intimate conversations with Peterson.
Peterson's girlfriend, Christina Raines, meanwhile, has hired prominent women's rights attorney Gloria Allred.
Raines, 24, got engaged to Peterson and moved her kids in with him before breaking off the engagement, then returning to him.