Joliet Detective Convicted Of Battery Testifies Wife Was Kissing Groomsman, Sipping From His Drink At Wedding

JOLIET, IL — Standing 6 feet tall and weighing 192 pounds, Peter Ranstead rose from his chair and took the witness stand Thursday afternoon, testifying in his own defense at the domestic battery trial that led to his removal as a Joliet Police Department school resource officer and detective.

As it turned out, Ranstead's version of events did not help his cause at all. Shortly after 6 p.m., Kendall County Judge Lisa Accardi announced her findings: Ranstead was guilty of two counts of domestic battery and one count of interfering with the reporting of a domestic violence 911 call.

GUILTY: Joliet Police Detective Loses Bench Trial Before Kendall Co. Judge Despite Testifying

He will be sentenced on April 17.

The incident happened during the night of Sept. 28, 2024, inside Ranstead's home on the far west edge of Joliet in Kendall County. The victim was his wife, Caleigh. Thursday's trial took place at the Kendall County Courthouse in front of Judge Lisa Accardi, who became a judge in the summer of 2023. Ranstead chose to have his case decided by her rather than pick a jury of 12 Kendall County citizens to decide his fate.

On the witness stand, Ranstead testified he was married to Caleigh Ranstead and they have a young son, who will turn 2 years old in April. He also has two more children, ages 9 and 5, from a previous marriage.

He testified that Caleigh filed for a divorce against him last April, and the divorce remains pending. Back in late September 2024, Joliet police received a total of three successive 911 calls regarding a domestic disturbance at the Ranstead home near Ridge Road in the Kendall County portion of far west Joliet.

Most of Ranstead's testimony centered on the events of Sept. 28, 2024.

"Caleigh had a wedding as a bridesmaid," Ranstead testified. "We woke up ... She had to be in Tinley Park at 9 a.m. I dropped her off at the hotel."

Ranstead testified that shortly after he dropped off his wife at the hotel, he saw that she and the bridesmaids were getting their hair done, and "she was having a mimosa." Several bottles of vodka and glasses of orange juice were scattered throughout the hotel room.

Lead criminal defense attorney Anna Rose Bertani handled the questioning for her client. She asked Peter Ranstead if he had any observations of his wife before the wedding ceremony on that morning of Sept. 28, 2024.

"Buzzed," he answered for the judge.

When asked how he could he know this, Ranstead replied, "I had been in a relationship with her (for) two, two-and-half years."

Ranstead testified he returned with their infant son back to his house in Joliet. Later, Caleigh's mother came to the house to babysit the little boy so Ranstead could return to Tinley Park to attend the wedding reception that evening.

When asked if he spoke with his wife much that day, Ranstead testified, "We didn't have any interaction because she was in the wedding."

He testified he spent much of his time at the reception going back and forth to the bar to obtain drinks for Caleigh.

"I got her doubles of Captain (Morgan) and Coke. Four over just an hour. It was just dinner," he testified.

He estimated the wedding reception had more than 60 guests. "It was a good size wedding," he testified.

Ranstead testified he saw his wife continue to indulge in alcohol throughout the entire evening because the tables were set up in a way that everyone was facing toward the head table where the bride and groom and the wedding party sat.

When asked who he sat with, he testified, "I don't know. They were strangers. I never met them before.

"The last time she went to the bar, she seemed pretty intoxicated, so I worried for her safety," Peter Ranstead testified. "I saw her put her arm around this gentleman, whisper in his ear, kiss his cheek and take a sip of his drink."

Bertani, his lawyer, then asked how that made him feel to see Caleigh in that situation.

"Sad," he responded. "I started to walk to my car. She got in the passenger seat."

He testified they then left the wedding reception and drove home together. He testified that the real reason he turned up the volume of his car stereo music was because Caleigh began yelling and screaming the entire time.

"Oh, she began yelling at me, screaming at me," he testified. "I turned up the music up pretty loud eventually because ... she's very irrational when she gets intoxicated."

When asked how much alcohol Ranstead consumed during the wedding reception that entire evening, he testified he had three or four bottles of Corona beer, and that was it. No hard liquor.

"I weigh 192 pounds," he testified.

He testified that once they arrived back home, he helped Caleigh's mother walk back to her car since she uses a walker and has mobility issues.

Back upstairs, Caleigh continued yelling and screaming at him, and "I just wanted to go to sleep and create separation," he testified.

Peter Ranstead testified he offered to go sleep way down the hallway in the bedroom of one of his sons "so I could go to sleep."

But, when his wife learned he would not spend the night sharing their bed with him, she screamed at him, "f*** you, I'm going to get all your guns and throw them in the street if you aren't going to sleep with me," he testified.

All the while, their infant son was still asleep in their master bedroom.

"I felt like she was being irrational. So I opened the door to the master bedroom. She continued to yell and scream at me, that's when I grabbed her wrist and I escorted her out of the room," Ranstead testified. "She didn't resist. She was not fighting back."

Bertani asked her client several questions, inquiring whether he pushed his wife into the door frame of the laundry room as she had testified hours earlier on the witness stand. He answered no to that question.

When Bertani rephrased the question to ask if he pulled his wife or yanked her out of the room, causing her to smack her head into the doorframe, Ranstead again testified the answer was no.

"I shut the door," Ranstead testified.

"Did you see her fall?" Bertani asked her client.

"No," Ranstead answered.

"Did you throw her out the door?"

"No," Ranstead answered. "I locked it so I could get my stuff and leave because I knew then it was going to be an all-night thing. She wasn't going to stop screaming and yelling."

Moments later, "I heard the door get slammed open," he testified.

Asked again if he pushed her out of the master bedroom or threw her out of the master bedroom, Ranstead answered "No" and "No."

"I hear the door get slammed open. I saw that the door was broken open," Ranstead recalled. "That's when she said, 'I'm f****** bleeding.' I see blood on her hand."

The next key moment came when his wife dialed 911.

"Next thing I know, I said, 'who ya calling?' She told (me), 'pick it up. Pick it up,'" Ranstead testified.

He said he grabbed possession of her phone, and "I see Joliet Police calling, (an) incoming call. I said, 'It must have been accidental' ... I grabbed my bag and left."

When asked why he chose to exit their house and drive off late that Saturday night, Ranstead's response on the witness stand was, "Because she said get out."

As far as the injuries to Caleigh's head were concerned, Ranstead testified he was convinced that his wife injured herself when she kicked in the door to their master bedroom with powerful force. He never pushed her, pulled her or shoved her into the doorframe, he testified on the witness stand as Judge Accardi listened intently from just a few feet away.

As for his career, Ranstead testified he had been with the Joliet Police Department for 12 years. He served as a patrol officer, then a neighborhood-oriented police officer and finally his last assignment as a juvenile detective and school resource officer at the Pathways alternative school.

During cross-examination from one of the prosecutors, Ranstead was asked his current employment status with the Joliet Police Department.

"Do you still work at JPD?" the prosecutor asked.

"No."

"Why?

"I was advised that I was terminated."

When the prosecutor asked for the reasons given for Ranstead's termination, the criminal defendant answered, "To my knowledge, no one ever told me. They had to tell my attorneys."

The assistant state's attorney asked if he was found guilty in Thursday's bench trial, would Ranstead no longer be allowed to possess any firearms.

"Correct," he answered.

Back in November, Joliet Police Chief Bill Evans announced Ranstead's termination from the department, and it's still pending before the city's police and fire board.

Judge Accardi has set Ranstead's sentencing for April 17 at the Kendall County Courthouse. He was briefly kept in the Kendall County Jail upon his arrest back in September 2024.

On Thursday, Joliet Patch produced a lengthy story from the trial, detailing the testimony of Caleigh Ranstead and her version of events, which Judge Accardi announced in the courtroom — shortly before the defense called Peter Ranstead to the witness stand — that the judge found Caleigh Ranstead's testimony was credible and believable based on a litany of instances of situations during her turbulent marriage to Peter Ranstead, including a violent event in June of 2024 when she ultimately contacted the Shorewood Police Department after being hit in the face by Ranstead with a pizza pan while sitting behind the steering wheel of her car in their garage as she prepared to flee their residence.

"I do find her testimony was credible as to the allegations in counts 1, 2 and 3," Judge Accardi announced to everyone, just a few hours before the judge issued her guilty verdicts. "I do not find she was lying or fabricating to the police."