New Search for Stacy Peterson Yields Zilch

Investigators came up empty-handed in their search for Stacy Peterson's body yesterday. Acting on a tip from an inmate who claimed Drew Peterson told him, police excavated a 10-by-10 area of a rural Peoria farm, to no avail. "I don't want to allude to (the idea that) we're looking for a body. We're looking for evidence of a crime based on this lead that we have," said a State Police spokesman. The search may resume tomorrow.

Peterson, notes the Chicago Tribune, has been in protective custody—which is extremely solitary—for 13 months. His lawyer wasn't buying the lead, either, dismissing it as a "despicable tactic" designed to "dirty up the defendant" ahead of his murder trial next month. But the farm's owner, who said he didn't spend much time there, said "They had pretty solid leads with specific coordinates." (More Stacy Peterson stories.)