Drew Peterson's former stepdaughter says she and her mother were abused physically and emotionally by the alleged killer.
"I always thought he was a jerk," Lisa Ward said during an interview with ABC's Bill Weir on Monday's Good Morning America.
Ward is working on a book, co-authored by Michelle LeFort, alleging that Peterson emotionally, physically and verbally abused her mother, Vicky Connolly, during their 10 year marriage.
Connolly was Peterson's second wife.
"Within a month or two of being married, he put a gun to her head after she informed him that she would not love him more than she loved Lisa," LeFort told ABC.
Peterson has been accused of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, and is suspected in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.
Ward says that while she didn't instantly suspect that Drew Peterson had anything with Savio's death, she said "anything is possible."
"You know, that kind of thought goes through your mind. I know that they were having a hard time going through their divorce. She's a very strong-willed woman, and it just makes you wonder if that could have been a possibility," Ward said.
Ward said Peterson was a stern father-figure who did not like the relationship between Ward and her biological father.
"Drew did not like the fact that my father was involved in my life. Drew did not want me to have anything to do with my father. He wanted to be my father, and did not like the fact that I would not accept him as my father," she said, adding that Peterson would use his power as a Bolingbrook police sergeant to delay and shorten the visits she had with her father.
Ward also said that Peterson had threatened Connolly's life.
"I didn't hear those types of threats, but once all this had come out, she had told me that yes, he did threaten her life as well."
Peterson is being held in the Will County Adult Detention Facility in Joliet and maintains his innocence.
