Why Do Women Keep Falling For Potential “Bluebeard” Drew Peterson?

He’s a former police sergeant who has been married four times, convicted for the murder of one of his wives, suspected in the disappearance of another, and has allegedly abused several other women. So what makes Drew Peterson such a magnet for young, attractive women?

Despite the fact that his third wife, Kathleen Savio, was found dead in March 2004, and his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in October 2007, by December 2008, Peterson was already engaged again: this time to a 23-year-old single mother named Christina Raines (above).

Related: Drew Peterson: 5 Shocking Facts You Never Knew About The Wife-Killing Ex-Cop

Dangerous Liaisons cover art [Amazon]

In early 2009, Raines moved out of Peterson’s home, and said that the engagement had been a publicity stunt — but according to media reports, she was still visiting him in prison in 2012. And she wasn’t his only visitor in lockup — in 2011, another young woman, Diana Grandel, told Inside Edition that Peterson had been writing her erotically charged love letters from behind bars.

Over the years, several psychologists have weighed in on Peterson’s allure. Claudia Moscovici wrote in her book Dangerous Liaisons: How To Recognize and Escape From Psychopathic Seduction that despite Peterson’s reputation as a “contemporary Bluebeard,” the former police officer “offers a case in point in how psychopaths manage to seduce numerous desirable women in spite of their dubious reputations.”

Related: Stacy Peterson’s Sister: “I Know Where Her Remains Are & I’ll Dive For Them Myself”

Peterson’s relationships followed a pattern: He would choose vulnerable women — both Stacy and Kathleen had had difficult upbringings, while Gaines had come out of an abusive relationship — and then sweep them off their feet and become their knight in shining armor. But his caring would soon turn into controlling — he monitored his love interests’ every move and began to criticize them and isolate them from friends and family. Then, the alleged abuse would begin, and often left them wondering what they did “wrong.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0UzkQbSmWk]

“A sociopath can often be charming, smooth, and seductive, so some women easily fall into his trap. And these women might like the idea they are so super-special that they can win the competition — they can be the one to ‘tame the beast,’ so to speak,” Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist with New York Presbyterian Hospital, told Today.

Saltz also stated that the young womens’ interest in Peterson may have been partially explained by the Oedipus complex, which meant that they looked to Peterson to fill the void left by an emotionally unavailable father. Grandel certainly seemed to fit this pattern: She said she met Peterson when she was just 14 years old, when he, in his capacity as a police officer, responded to a domestic call at her home.

Related: William Ennis: Wife-Killing Ex-Cop, First Policeman To Die In Electric Chair

“I looked at him, like, as my savior, my dad,” she told Inside Edition. “He says: ‘I wish you would have hunted me down when you turned 17 or 18. I’m sure we would have been together since.’ That seems a little creepy, that a guy would say that he wishes you could have gotten together when you were 17. Did you not think that was a little strange?” reporter Les Trent asked Grandel.

But Grandel insisted that she reached out to Peterson because she did not believe that he could have killed his wife. This also fit Peterson’s pattern: One woman was dead and another missing, but he continued to insist that he was the victim.

In his sexually charged love letters, Peterson begged Grandel to send him a picture of her in a bikini, which she did. He also wanted to know if she had any sexually transmitted diseases, and described in graphic detail what he wanted to do with her in bed.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjB_yLAHR_w]

Experts say that once they have captured the object of their affection, psychopathic personalities have no trouble discarding them and moving on to the next victim. Peterson admitted in interviews that he was attracted to the thrill of the chase in the early romantic stages of each relationship, but tended to lose interest when “there was no excitement in the marriage anymore.”

“I’m basically attracted to young, beautiful women with good personalities,” he told ABC News when asked to describehis relationship with Raines. “That’s what I’m attracted to.”

When interviewed on Steve Dahl’s Morning Show about his grief when Stacy was missing, Peterson tried to pitch his idea for a dating contest called “Win a Date with Drew.”

Related: Drew Peterson Convicted Of Soliciting A Hitman To Kill The Prosecutor Who Tried Him For Murder

In 2012, Peterson was finally charged with the killing of his wife Kathleen Savio, which was determined to have been a homicide staged to look like an accident. He was sentenced to 38 years in prison.

In 2015, Peterson was charged with solicitation of murder and solicitation of murder for hire when he attempted to pay a fellow inmate $100,000 to kill Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, for which he had 40 years added to his sentence. In 2017, he was transferred to a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

According to online court records, the father of six will be eligible for parole (and an eligible bachelor!) in 2081.

Don’t miss Drew Peterson: An American Murder Mystery Thursday April 5 at 2/3c on Investigation Discovery!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvYr0dpO3VQ]

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Read more:

Inside Edition

Today

Main photo: Christina Raines and Drew Peterson [Today Show / YouTube (screenshot)]

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Why Do Women Keep Falling For Potential “Bluebeard” Drew Peterson?