Looking for a Blue Barrel

By Laura Oppenheimer in News on Nov 28, 2007 5:00PM

"Warm to the touch."

We can't get that phrase out of our heads after reading that a relative of Drew Peterson helped him move a blue barrel that was warm to the touch on Oct. 28, the day before Stacy Peterson was reported missing. The relative — not named by the Trib but identified as Thomas Morphey, a step-brother, by the Sun-Times — then went home and told a friend that he was afraid he had just helped dispose of Stacy Peterson's body. The barrel, according to the Trib, was a sealed 4-foot-long rectangular plastic container that weighed about 120 lbs. And again, it was warm to the touch.

Morphey has not been called to testify in front of the grand jury regarding what he did and saw, because he has "memory lapses" about what occurred. Here is what we do know: Morphey was so distraught about what he had done that he attempted to kill himself two days later, and Peterson visited him while he was hospitalized.

Not surprisingly, Peterson's lawyer, Joel Brodsky, called bullshit on the story. "There's no container — no blue barrel. That's all part of the growing swirl of rumors that seem to have engulfed this case."

Peterson photo courtesy of AP.