The assumed intended of former police seargent Drew Peterson appeared on "The Early Show" on CBS this morning with yet another angle on the ongoing saga unfolding in Bolingbrook.
There was much made of the fact that 24-year-old Christina Raines had moved herself and her children into Peterson's home last month.
Peterson, 54, told a Chicago radio reporter last fall that the Raines' children got along well with his kids, and that the two of them were planning to get married "somewhere down the road."
Last week, word came down that Raines had moved out of the Peterson home, just a day after Peterson told Nightline's Martin Bashir, "She likes me. She likes me a lot."
On Monday, Raines spoke for herself, telling CBS that she thought she was in love with Peterson, but that the move into his home was just a publicity stunt to keep Peterson's name in the news.
"It was never an engagement, really ... it was a publicity stunt," she said.
Raines said Peterson openly asked her if she wanted to be part of his plan to spark some media attention and she declined.
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Eventually, however, she agreed to move in with him. Peterson told her to ignore reports that he was engaged, and that he never said publically that she was his fiance.
When asked what caused her to move out of his home last week, she said she had a talk with her ex-boyfriend, Mike, when she went to the apartment the two of them had shared to pick up some things.
"And he was telling me, you know, 'This is not right. He's not a good guy.' Just kind of opened up my eyes, and a lot of things made sense. And he guided me from Monday through Thursday, and Thursday's when Mike had asked me to move back in," she told "The Early Show's" Julie Chen.
Raines father, Ernest, also appeared on the morning show. CBS News Legal Analyst Lisa Bloom took the opportunity to commend him for his part in the drama.
"I've been very happy to be advising Ernest, and he -- I want to give hats off to Ernest for being the dad in this situation, for staying close to his daughter," she said.
"For being there for his daughter and for helping her to get out of this bad situation. It really is a success story. We don't see a lot of these," she added.
Peterson has been married four times. His first wife, Carol Brown, divorced him in 1980 after six years of marriage partly because he was unfaithful. His second marriage, to Vicki Connolly, ended after 10 years. Connolly later told reporters that he had physically abused her during the marriage.
Raines told CBS on Monday that Peterson was "very kind" to her and never physically abused her.
Peterson's third wife was Kathleen Savio, with whom he had two sons, now in their mid-teens. The union began to disintegrate in 2002, when Savio said that her husband took up with the 17-year-old girl who would become his fourth wife, Stacy Cales.
During a two-year period at the end of the marriage to Savio, police were called to the home 18 times because of domestic disturbances, and in 2002 Savio got an order of protection against her husband, charging him with threatening to kill her and physical abuse. No formal charges were ever brought against him.
He and Savio were in the process of finalizing their divorce in 2004 when she was found dead in a bathtub in her home. The tub was dry and there was clotted blood on the back of Savio’s head, but medical examiners ruled that she had fallen accidentally, with the tub draining itself after her death. She was 40 years old.
Peterson married Stacy in July 2003, shortly after his divorce from Savio. She was pregnant at the time and they would have two children, Anthony, 4, and Lacy, 2. All four children by both women are currently living with him.
If Peterson is, in fact, engaged again -- as he claims -- Christina Raines said it was never to her.
