"How does a father do that to a child?"  Tears flow from a woman who says she suffered beatings and sexual abuse at the hands of her notorious former stepdad, Drew Peterson. 

"I was beat with a belt, with my pants down."

Peterson is now behind bars, charged with the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.  He's pled not guilty.

"He looked...cold, heartless, exactly the same person that I've known my whole life," says Ward of seeing Peterson, on TV, for the first time in years.

Lisa Ward was just 8 years old when her mom Vicky met and fell in love with Peterson in 1984.  From day one, Lisa says she was terrified of Peterson, who was working as an undercover narcotics cop.

"He grabbed me back of head pushed and said whether I liked it or not he was going to marry my mother and he was going to be my father and I would respect him."

She says her new step-dad was a control freak with a volatile temper.  "You could just feel the tension throughout the house. You would just cringe, and hope that rage wasn't coming back at you."

And Lisa makes a shocking allegation about humiliating punishments she says continued into her early teens: "He would make me go into his room and pull down my pants and expose myself to him completely so I could be spanked bare bottom. The more I fought the worse it was."

When her mom was hospitalized after a near-fatal car crash, she says Peterson did unspeakable things to her. She was only 14.

"He had told me that he missed my mother so much that he didn't want to be without her.  He asked me to come lay down with him.  He had tried to touch me in an inappropriate way.  I went in my room locked my door, and I thought to myself that can't be happening," she says tearfully.

After 10 years of marriage her mom and Peterson divorced.  The next time Lisa saw Peterson was on the news.

"He thinks all women are targets," says writer Michelle Lefort, who is currently working with Lisa on a book about her life with Peterson.

Drew Peterson's attorney said Peterson strongly denies beating Lisa or sexually abusing her. He also said, "When people want to sell books they make allegations of sexual misconduct, especially against people who cannot respond."
 
As for the murder charge against Peterson, Lisa has reached her own verdict: "Knowing the man, growing up with the man, I think he's guilty."

Drew Peterson is currently being held on $20 million bail.  He's due back in court at the end of October.