News reports that a relative helped former police officer Drew Peterson remove a barrel or container from his Chicago-area home around the time his fourth wife went missing last month are false and not credible, Peterson’s lawyer said Thursday.

During an appearance on TODAY, attorney Joel Brodsky also criticized the media for stories based on anonymous sources claiming that before she went missing, Stacy Peterson told an unnamed clergyman that Drew Peterson admitted killing his third wife and used Stacy as an alibi.

“What we have here is an unnamed, unauthorized source telling a gossip columnist that Stacy told an unnamed clergyman [something],” Brodsky told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira.

Brodsky was responding to a Chicago newspaper story that reported that Stacy Peterson had told others that her husband had murdered his third wife, Kathleen Savio, shortly after they were divorced, and that Stacy Peterson provided him with an alibi.

Savio had been found dead in her bathtub, but the death was ruled an accidental drowning at the time. Her body was recently exhumed for a second autopsy.

The story, Brodsky said, doesn’t hold water.

“Nobody goes to the police, nobody tells anybody, Stacy stays married to Drew and lives with him and has two children with him,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem logical. It’s more rumor and speculation. It’s not evidence, that’s for sure.”

But NBC’s legal editor, Dan Abrams, sitting next to Brodsky, said that the lawyer was not being realistic.

“We don’t know who said what, but there’s a lot of evidence mounting, and Mr. Brodsky is going to be a very busy man, I think, in the months to come.”

Video   Barrel a focus in missing-wife case Nov. 29: NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports on the latest developments in the case of missing Illinois mother Stacy Peterson. Today show

Series of denials
Brodsky also responded to another newspaper report that Thomas Morphey, Drew Peterson’s stepbrother, helped the former Bolingbrook, Ill., police sergeant move a large blue barrel or container on Oct. 28, the day Stacy Peterson went missing from her home.

Morphey reportedly attempted suicide after learning that she had disappeared.

“We have heard several stories,” Brodsky said. “First it was a barrel, then it’s a container. The shape keeps shifting. There never was a barrel, there never was a container. Thomas Morphey is the only supposed witness identified by name, and this man has multiple psychiatric hospitalizations, is a habitual alcoholic.”

Abrams said the number of accounts that keep surfacing about Drew Peterson present a problem.

“Either Drew Peterson is in huge trouble or he’s the unluckiest man in America,” Abrams said. “Four of the five people he was either engaged or married to are either missing, dead or say he stalked or threatened them.”

‘Wishful thinking’
And every story meets with a denial by Brodsky and Drew Peterson, he continued. “The problem here is that every time something comes out — an ex-wife, an ex-fiancee, a relative who may be a witness — Mr. Brodsky [and] Drew Peterson, assault them,” he said. “They either say they’re not credible, they had emotional problems, etc. etc.”

Brodsky insisted that there have been no named credible sources for any of the reports connecting his client to the death of Savio or the disappearance of the 23-year-old Stacy Peterson, who had two children with Drew Peterson. He said that newspapers have talked to all the neighbors and haven’t found one who saw Drew Peterson removing a blue barrel or container from the home.

AP This undated photo provided by her family shows Stacy Peterson, 23, of Bolingbrook, Ill., and her husband, Drew Peterson, 53, a police officer with the Bolingbrook Police Department.

“We don’t know what the neighbors do or don’t know yet,” Abrams responded. He said that investigators are probably taking their time with their investigation rather than rushing to file charges that may or may not be in the offing.

Asked if he thought his client will be charged in connection with Stacy Peterson’s disappearance and Savio’s death, Brodsky said, “No, I really don’t. I don’t see any credible evidence that there’s even been a homicide or any crime committed.”

The last word went to Abrams, who commented, “That’s wishful thinking on Mr. Brodsky’s part.”

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