OPINION: Pastor in spotlight during Drew Peterson case still crusading for more domestic violence awareness among clergy

Oct. 3—Even all these years later, the Rev. Neil Schori remembers his frustration when trying to get a critical message to those who needed to hear it.

Back in 2007, the then-counseling pastor at Westbrook Christian Church in Bolingbrook received no response after repeatedly leaving information on a police tip-line regarding a missing woman who had revealed to him a couple months earlier that her much-older spouse had killed his ex-wife.

The husband was Drew Peterson, and it was his wife Stacey's confession to Schori that thrust the pastor, husband and father of three young girls into the headlines of one of the nation's most sensational murder trials.

Schori's five-year involvement in that notorious case — Peterson was convicted in 2012 of the murder of his third wife Kathleen Savio eight years earlier but has never been charged in Stacey's disappearance — also forced him to rethink how he should have counseled the fearful young wife who police believe met the same fate at the hands of the now imprisoned former Bolingbrook police sergeant.

All of which has turned the 48-year-old co-pastor of The Edge Church on Eola Road in Aurora into an advocate for domestic violence awareness, particularly targeting clergy, who are often the first to hear from victims struggling in their personal lives.

And that's' where Schori hit more walls.

Although he's spent the last 14 years blogging about domestic violence awareness, partnering with other advocates, meeting with church leaders and speaking out in the media or at workshops and symposiums, Schori is frustrated because too often churches continue to turn a blind eye to a problem that puts so many lives at stake.

Three victims a day in the United States are killed by a partner and between three and four women out of every 10 will at some point be subjected to serious physical violence, he reminds me as we head into National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Schori is also aware of another statistic — that on average, it takes a victim seven times to leave the abuser, with the danger often increasing as the perpetrator senses this loss of power.

In hindsight, Schori missed plenty of red flags and made mistakes in those sessions with the Petersons. As we sat down to chat at a Starbucks similar to the one where he'd last talked to Stacey, I got chills as he vividly recounted the tears and the fears he saw in the 23-year-old woman's eyes when she began to open up about her marriage to the charismatic but controlling man that the pastor found increasingly "creepy."

Schori had been counseling the Petersons together and separately for months when, over coffee with a distraught Stacey on Aug. 31, 2007, she finally revealed how one night she awoke to find her husband missing, then later saw Drew dump a bag of another woman's clothing into the washing machine, along with his own dark attire.

"You know where I was," he replied when she asked where he'd been, then spent the next few hours coaching his wife on what to say to police who came calling after Savio's body was discovered in her bathtub.

Schori did not help Stacey leave her marriage following that shocking revelation because she'd asked him to keep the information private. A couple of months later, after reading in the Chicago Tribune that Stacey Peterson was missing, he called the Illinois State Police tip-line specifically set up for this case but received no response. And it wasn't until a chance encounter with the lead investigator while the pastor was nearing the end of grand jury duty in Will County that officials finally took his statement and forever changed his life.

Schori's name and face were immediately thrust into the world spotlight. That same evening, Mark Fuhrman, working for "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," was on his doorstep. And the parade of media types — from Geraldo Rivera to Judge Jeanine Pirro — did not stop until long after the close of the trial that featured him as one of the prosecution's two star witnesses.

Schori estimates he's appeared on over 20 national TV shows, which he jokes "could make me the least known person who has been on national TV the most." And he still gets two or three calls a year seeking an interview, most of which he agrees to do because "every time I get that kind of large audience, victims come forward."

That's why, when "Dateline" recently asked for a second interview because producers felt the importance of rehashing the Peterson case in the #MeToo aftermath, he sat down with correspondent Natalie Morales a couple weeks ago in Elgin to tape the segment that is tentatively scheduled to run in December.

Schori hopes what airs will help hammer home the need for clergy to realize the critical role churches have in assisting domestic violence victims. The Aurora pastor uses his own pulpit as well as social media and his ties to this sensational case to get out his message whenever possible. But many clergy leaders, even after #MeToo (and the #ChurchToo movement it spawned) are not ready to accept there "are no two sides to a story of abuse," that there is no "divorce criteria" or "cross to bear" when it comes to this issue. And you can't throw out words like forgiveness and submissiveness, or even grace, in order to save a marriage based on control and violence.

"All that does is silence the voice of the victims and they realize this is not a safe place to talk," Schori insists, which leads to "re-victimization rather than helping them get out" of a toxic and volatile relationship.

"Pastors go into the profession with a desire to help people, but I think we get busy with other things in the ministry that they believe is more important," he says. There's also the liability issue that scares churches. And some don't think there's a problem in their congregations, while a "small percentage don't want to point the spotlight at themselves because of their own abusive tendencies."

Still, despite his frustrations, Schori's commitment remains strong and his calendar as full as he can make it. In May, he spoke via Zoom at a symposium sponsored by the Dallas Police Department; he was recently keynote speaker for the fourth time at a gala for Lake County's A Safe Place shelter; he and wife Brandi, who has become a vital partner in his efforts, will speak this month at the University of St. Francis in Joliet'; and the pair are on a regular rotation at Paul Mitchell schools in Lombard and Chicago because, like pastoral counselors, victims often open up about abuse with hairdressers.

Then there's what Schori estimates is more than a hundred victims he's personally counseled. When I spoke with the pastor on Tuesday, he'd just helped a woman complete an evidentiary abuse affidavit, a tool he implemented with its creator, the late national advocate Susan Murphy-Milano, that officially documents a history of abuse so hearsay testimony won't be a stumbling block, as it was in the Peterson murder trial.

And when I caught up with him again a couple days later, Schori apologized for running late because of a couple of sessions with victims that had run extra long.

More than a decade after beginning this mission, Schori continues to feel impatience "because more churches should be talking about it, grasping it and looking inside themselves."

But he also sees "signs of growth and hope" as "more advocates are rising up and connecting," within a society that's going through a pivotal reckoning.

"It takes a whole lot of sowing before there is reaping," Schori says. "Even if the church is a little bit slow, the truth is, God is patient .... I am still confident in his working, even if people are hardheaded."

dcrosby@tribpub.com

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