11/21/2007 (www.suntimes.com) Chicago Sun-Times

“The Woman Who Told Drew NO” (Kyle Piry’s First Interview)

http://www.acandyrose.com/2007-11-21-SunTimes-KylePiry.htm

http://www.suntimes.com/news/660449,CST-NWS-boling21.article

The woman who told Drew no

PETERSON CASE | 'A voice inside of me ... said there's something wrong'

November 21, 2007

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter/sesposito@suntimes.com

Drew Peterson gave her an engagement ring.

Together, they picked out a china pattern.

In the end, though, Kyle Piry resisted the mature charms of a man who has persuaded four other women to become Mrs. Peterson. But rebuffing the Bolingbrook police officer in the early 1980s came with a price, Piry, 46, told the Chicago Sun-Times this week.

"He would follow me and stalk me after I broke up with him," Piry said. "He would pull me over on a Friday or Saturday night and give me tickets for stupid stuff, like bald tires. They were ridiculous things."

At one point, Peterson came to the Bolingbrook hair salon where Piry worked and arrested her for accumulating too many parking tickets -- a trumped-up charge, Piry says.

Piry said she had to talk to some of Peterson's cop friends to persuade her ex-fiance to drop the charges.

Drew Peterson refused to discuss his relationship with Piry.

"You guys are reaching," he told the Sun-Times late Tuesday. "I remember her. I was engaged to her."

Peterson has been named a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, who vanished Oct. 28. Authorities are re-examining the 2004 death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

Peterson has said he has done nothing wrong and believes Stacy Peterson left him, possibly for another man.

Piry was in her early 20s when she first encountered the handsome, mustachioed police officer. She worked part-time at a Bolingbrook gas station while attending beauty school. Peterson arrived in uniform to investigate a gas theft. The police officer -- seven years her senior -- wasted no time in showing interest.

"He asked if I would be available to date," Piry said.

Peterson was bold, charming and liked to linger in front of the mirror, Piry recalled. He asked her to marry him after only four months of dating. Piry accepted because she was young and smitten.

But four months later, Piry called it off because she wasn't ready to become step-mother to Peterson's two young children from his first wife. And, "There was a voice inside of me that said there's something wrong here," Piry said.

Peterson appeared devastated, Piry said. She took pity on him, and ended up at his house one night about a week after the break-up. Piry said she found "long black hairs" in Peterson's bed.(ME-Vickie's?)

"I'm thinking, 'you're so distraught, but you've had someone else in your bed in a week,' " Piry said.

In the weeks that followed, Piry said, Peterson began to watch her -- sometimes from afar, but sometimes he'd pull up behind her and write her a ticket.

"He was sarcastic, and he'd get that sort of smirky smile," Piry said.

About a year after the break-up, Drew Peterson refused to leave her alone, she said.

In 1983 -- by this time Peterson was already married to his second wife -- Peterson and another officer arrested Piry as she arrived at work, Piry said. The officers said Piry had amassed too many parking tickets, Piry said.

She was ordered into Peterson's cruiser and fingerprinted at the Bolingbrook police station, Piry said.

Bolingbrook police Tuesday confirmed Piry's 1983 arrest, but did not release further details.

Piry says Peterson stopped following her shortly after the arrest, and she didn't get any more parking tickets from him.

Now married and working as a travel agent, Piry is following news reports about Peterson and the women in his life. And she's struck by something he once told her.

"He said I need somebody to love or care for," Piry said. "He never said I want you or I need you."