The Ripper Crew Satanic Cannibal Cult Murders | True Crime
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The Ripper Crew was a Satanic Cult and Organized Crime organization that wreaked havoc in Chicago, Illinois, in the early 80s. They have been accused of killing 17 women and 1 man. The only thing that stopped them was their eventual arrest on November 5, 1982.
The Ripper Crew was comprised of four members, Robin Gecht, 29 (ages at time of arrest), Edward Spreitzer, 24, Andrew Kokoraleis, 21, and Thomas Kokoraleis, 24.
Victims of the Ripper Crew
First Victim | Linda Sutton 28
1 As she walked by Wrigley Field, Linda was abducted May 23, 1981, in a heavily trafficked tourist area. Her body would be found ten days later in an empty field in Villa Park.
On June 1, 1981, detectives received a call about a foul smell from a lot behind the Rip Van Winkle Motel. Detectives arrived expecting to find a dead deer but instead found Linda Sutton’s decomposing body.
The hotel, which has gone by many names over the years, including Bear Rabbit Hotel and Moonlit Hotel, was known as a quickie motel for drugs and sex.
The body was reduced to mostly bones with small amounts of clinging flesh. It appeared that it had been eaten on by wildlife and maggots. But even in it’s destructed state, officers knew that they were looking at a murder, a pair of handcuffs were still attached to the now bare-boned wrist.
A gag was found still crammed into the victim’s mouth. She was wearing a sweater, but her panties were pulled down her legs. Inside her socks, a small amount of cash was found, ruling out that she had been targeted for a robbery.
From the state of the body, detectives thought that most likely, the location was not the crime scene, but a dumpsite. They also didn’t believe her body had laid there for the amount of time needed for decomposition. They took soil samples to determine if her bodily fluids had seeped into the ground, to help prove when she was left there.
Coroner Pete Siekman performed an autopsy. He could not get fingerprints from the body and had to search dental records to ID the victim. It took two weeks, but they finally found out who their Jane Doe was.
The other interesting fact the ME discovered was, Linda Sutton had only been dead three days. He found the reason for the accelerated decomposing was because both of her breasts had been removed, leaving large open wounds.
The most disturbing facts Siekman found were that Linda had been gang-raped, sodomized, and had her left breast cut off, all while she was alive.
Her killers had sexually violated her, amputated her breast, kept her handcuffed, stabbed her numerous times, and mutilated her body in various areas in the week that they held her.
Second Victim | Cynthia Smith — she survived her attack barely.
Third Victim | Cocktail Waitress
3 She was abducted on February 12, 1982, after her car ran out of gas. The first sign that something was wrong was when her car was found abandoned alongside the road. An inspection of the vehicle showed that the gas gauge was on empty. Her purse was lying on the passenger seat, and the keys were still in the ignition.
Her body would be found nude, mutilated, tortured, raped, and left alongside the road.
Fourth Victim | Hispanic Female Body Found
4 A few days after finding the Cocktail Waitress’s body, police found a Hispanic female body. Her breast had been savagely bitten, and someone had masturbated over her body. A psychic would tell police that the crime was committed by a local animal lover who had a family.
Fifth Victim | Lorraine’ Lorry’ Borowski 21
5 On May 15, 1982, Lorry was seen leaving her Elmhurst Gardens Apartment on South Fellows Court in the Elmhurst neighborhood at 8:00 am. From there, Lorry walked to the Remax office she worked at on St Charles Road.
When Lorry’s boss Donald Stibbe arrived at work at 8:30 am, he found the door locked. As he was letting himself in, he noticed some items on the sidewalk in front of the building. There was a pair of women’s shoes, a key chain with keys, and cosmetics. Thinking a woman had lost her purse, he picked them up and took them inside and called the police.
While waiting for the police to arrive, he looked over the items more closely and noticed that the keychain held a key with his company’s name. “I saw all the stuff on the ground, and I didn’t think anything of it.” Donald Stibbe told Detective Raymond Bradford when he arrived. “Then, I saw the Remax keychain. I tried the key, and it fit our lock.”
Assuming the items then belonged to Lorry, Donald and the Detective went outside and searched the area for her. The Detective also talked to her neighbors and got a description of what she was wearing that morning. Khaki slacks with a white ruffled blouse, she was carrying a beige purse with wooden handles. Her boss described the jewelry she usually wore, four gold rings, and an ankle chain.
A BOLO was issued for Lorry, the 5-foot three-inch, 129-pound woman was considered to be in danger. It appeared she had been taken from in front of her place of work while she was probably getting ready to open the door.
Lorry’s body wouldn’t be found for four months, on October 10, 1982. Hunters walking through the Clarendon Hills Cemetery close to Westmont made the discovery. Her body had been dumped in the thicket with her clothing scattered nearby.
Her family had searched that exact area shortly before the hunters found her. They had talked to a psychic who had seen Lorry’s body in a cemetery. It’s assumed that the killers had not only kept Lorry alive for quite a while after abducting her but that they kept her corpse for sometime before dumping it at the cemetery.
An autopsy would reveal that Lorry had been repeatedly raped. A wire had been wrapped around her breast tightly until it cut off her breast. She had been beaten savagely. And it appeared that something had been inserted into the wound from her severed breast. Lorry was eventually killed with an ax.
Sixth Victim | Shui Mak 30
6 Shui had only been living in the US for three years, having moved from Hong Kong to work at her family’s restaurant Ling Ling’s in Streamwood.
On the night of May 29, 1982, she left the family’s restaurant after work with her brother Kent. They were in the car and arguing over the fact that Kent had taken a table from the restaurant. He planned to use it to stand on and paint the garage at home.
While on the highway, Kent pulled over and told his sister to get out, telling her to get a ride home with their parents. Their parents would be coming along shortly on their way home. Kent drove off, leaving Shui at the Barrington and Irving Park Roads in Hanover Park along the highway.
Ling, their sister, was driving the other car home that night and drove past Shui alongside the road. It wasn’t until both cars got home that they realized Shui still needed to be picked up. They left at once to get her, but couldn’t find Shui.
The family called the police as soon as they were unable to locate her. They were worried because Shui didn’t have any money on her or ID, and still only spoke limited English.
Police searched the area but were unable to locate the girl. A BOLO for Shui was issued, saying she was last seen wearing a red sweater, black pants, and sandals.
On the last day of September 1982, police received a call of a woman’s body in a field east of Barrington Road, in the town of South Barrington. It was only a mile away from where she got out of her brother’s car that fateful night.
Her body was found in the red sweater and black slacks that she had been wearing. The autopsy would show that she died from a fracture to her skull. Ling was only able to identify her sister by the clothes she was wearing.
Seventh Victim | Angel York
7 On June 13, 1982, Angel got into a van with a ‘John,’ she was a prostitute. The ‘John’ turned out to be more than one. She was held in the van, where her attackers handcuffed her to the inside of the van. One of the men then handed her a knife and told her to cut her own breast.
Angel said after she did so, the one man went into a frenzy. He took his knife back and cut her breast more. Then man masturbated into the wound. When he was finished, he duct-taped it shut and dumped Angel on the street.
She called the police to report the incident. Angel described her attackers, but the police were unable to locate them. Unfortunately, she had not gotten a lot of information about the van or the men’s names.
Eighth Victim | Sandra Delaware
8 On August 28, 1982, the Chicago police found the body of Sandra Delaware on the North Branch of the Chicago River. She had been dumped under the Fullerton Avenue Bridge.
Sandra had been stabbed, strangled, and her left breast had been amputated. Her wrists were bound together behind her back with shoestrings. Knotted around her neck was a bra. The autopsy would show that her body had been found only six hours after death.
Ninth Victim | Rose Beck Davis 30
9 Rose, a marketing executive from Broadview, would be found on September 8, 1982, dead in an alley. She had been dumped under a stairwell of a three-story North Lake Shore Apartment building in the Gold Coast Neighborhood.
Found lying on her back, her sweater found nearby appeared to have been ripped off Rose’s body. Also located close by were her blue corduroy slacks. Investigators first on the scene noticed the similarities to the previous victim’s wounds.
An autopsy showed the Rose had been stabbed repeatedly, raped, and strangled with a black sock. Her face was beaten so badly it was hard to recognize her. Her stomach showed numerous small cuts and punctures. Her breast had been cut and mutilated like the other victims, and a large blood pool accumulated from her anal cavity. Numerous hatchet blows to the face, and head eventually killed her.
FBI Behavioral Science Unit Profiler, Robert Ressler, weighed in on the attacks in Chicago. He said the attacker was uncertain about his sexuality and was most likely bisexual. He described the man as looking effeminate. ***This last part would prove incredibly wrong since none of the Ripper Crew would ever be considered effeminate.
Tenth Victim | Carole Pappas 42 — Possible Victim
10 Carole was the wife of Chicago Cubs Pitcher, Mitt Pappas. This victim has long been speculated to belonging to Ripper Crew, but there has never been any proof.
She disappeared on September 11, 1982, after shopping near Wheaton, Illinois. Her body wouldn’t be found for five years. It was eventually ruled an accident, but based on an autopsy, it was hard to determine the cause of death.
Eleventh Victim | Beverly Washington 20 — The One Who Got Away
11 On October 6, 1982, Beverly was found by the railroad tracks in Chicago’s Humboldt Park. But, unlike the Ripper Crew’s other victims, this one was alive, just barely. The Crew, thinking she was dead, had dumped her body.
Someone had come across Beverly and called for help. She was found with multiple injuries, including an amputated her left breast, a severely slashed right breast, and numerous stab wounds inflicted upon her body.
This attack would ultimately be the Ripper Crews undoing.
Beverly told her horrific ordeal to the police. A red Dodge van with tinted windows had pulled up to her and asked how much for “a date.” When the driver offered her more than she was asking for, she became nervous. But, got in the van anyways. She told the cops all the details she could remember, including the feathers hanging from the rearview mirror by a roach clip.
The driver was a slender white man about 25 years old. During her attack, he wore a flannel shirt and square-toed boots. She said he had greasy brown hair and a mustache. Investigators didn’t know it yet, but she was describing Robin Gecht for them.
After she was in the van, Gecht pulled out a gun and told her to get in the back of the vehicle. There was a plywood divider separating the cab from the back of the van. She had to go through a hinged plywood door to get in the back. Along the walls in the van were wooden shelves holding tools and electrical wiring.
Gecht ordered her to remove her clothes, and she complied. Next, he handcuffed her, then forced her to perform oral sex on him. She told investigators how the floor and ceiling of the van were covered in carpet.
“Then he raped me and shoved some pills into my mouth and made me wash them down with soda pop.” As she started to pass out, she saw he had a cord in his hands. She thought he was going to kill her. “I blacked out, and the next thing I remember, I was in the hospital.”
Twelfth Victim | Rafael Torado
12 On October 6, 1982, a few hours after police found Washington’s body, the Ripper Crew pulled up next to a phone booth in their van. They opened fire on Rafael Torado and an unnamed man with him. Both were shot. Rafael was the intended target and the only one to die. The Crew had started taking murder for hire contracts to earn some money and do what they already enjoyed, killing.
Satanic Rituals
The group would regularly meet at Gecht’s place after his wife went to work late at night while his children were in bed. They had created a Satanic Chapel in his attic, complete with an altar draped in red cloth. The only lighting would come from candles that would flicker across the walls that were adorned with six red and black crosses.
The majority of the Ripper Crews victims would be killed in that attic. While the men tortured the women with knives and removed their breast with piano wire, Gecht would be reciting from “The Satanic Bible.”
Almost all of the breast amputations happened while the victims were alive.
They would always eat the breast in the attic as part of their ritualistic sacrament, even if they had killed the victim elsewhere. Gecht would continue to read passages as each man would take his turn masturbating into the severed breast. Once they had all taken their turn, Gecht would cut it into pieces, and they would each consume the flesh.
The Ripper Crew believed that their leader Gecht had supernatural powers. The consensus was he used his powers to control his followers both mentally and physically.
Just as they had been drawn to him, they believed Gecht used his powers to draw others in as well. They would later say they felt like he had put them in a trance, and that there was no way to escape him and his powers. This power is how the Crew said he could convince them to do his will by murdering and committing cannibalism.
After being caught by the police, the Crew would fall back on a similar excuse most followers give for their crimes. They were afraid that their leader would kill them if they didn’t do what he wanted.
Thomas Kokoraleis talked about being under Gecht’s will as “You just have to do it” to whatever he told them.
Like so many other Satanic worshipers, Gecht seemed always to be trying to hear the hidden messages in music. He would listen to heavy metal music repeatedly, trying to catch the coded secret he needed to learn.
While Gecht did seem to appear more sadistic than some leaders, he attained his followers the same way as all the others. He found a group of men who longed to be apart of something larger than themselves. They wanted to feel like they were important.
You could say the same for Manson’s Family, the people who turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse happening at Penn State University, and even the Catholic Church and their devout followers. They were all willing to forgive even the most inexcusable sins, to feel as if they belonged to something bigger than themselves.
And also, like Manson’s followers, Gechts Crew refused to testify against him in court. Because even captured, he allured that much power and persuasion over them.
Closing In On the Ripper Crew
Detective Warren Wilkosz would go to Cicero Avenue, talking to prostitutes and passing out flyers with the Ripper Crew’s van details.
Chicago Police eventually located the van on the 2900 block of North Central Ave. Sitting behind the wheel was a husky red-haired man that did not fit the description given by Beverly Washington. The officers walked up to the van and looked around inside. It was just as Beverly had described.
The driver ended up being Edward Spreitzer. When questioned, he said the van belonged to his boss, Robin Gecht.
Part of that conversation:
Officer — “What does your boss do with all this stuff?”
Spreitzer — “R&R Electrical Company.”
Officer — “Ah, what did you say his name was?”
Spreitzer — “Robin Gecht.”
When questioned where he was headed, Spreitzer said to meet his boss at an apartment they were remodeling. They followed the van there. Spreitzer asked his boss to come out, telling him some cops wanted to talk to him.
The first thing the officers noticed was that Robin Gecht fit the victim’s description to a “T.” Gecht was even wearing the same type of shirt and boots she had described him in. But most alarming was how calm Gecht appeared. Either this was a complete mixup, or they were face to face with a psychopath.
The officers told Robin Gecht that his van description had been given to them about a potential crime. They informed him that he needed to go to Area 5 Headquarters at Grand and Central Aves for questioning. Gecht agreed.
While this was happening, techs searched the van, finding a pill. The lab would prove this was a sedative tablet, and similar to what the victim had said, she was forced to swallow.
Now that investigators had a name, Robin Gecht, they started to dig.
They found that two years before the murders began, Gecht had been arrested and charged with contributing to the sexual delinquency of a 14-year-old girl. At the time of his arrest, Gecht was living in Hanover, Park. Around that same time, Victim #6 Shui Mak had disappeared from the area.
When they dug a little further, they uncovered that he had molested his own sister as a teenager. His family sent him to live with his grandmother for a while after that.
That initial day Gecht had been easy going and agreed to talk to the police. At that time, they were only asking questions about his van. But, when they came back a few weeks later for a follow-up, Gecht brought a lawyer.
Arrest and Interrogations of the Ripper Crew
Edward Spreitzer Confession
The police interrogated Spreitzer for hours before he broke down and started to confess in a 78-page statement. It was apparent to the officer’s present that Spreitzer was deeply afraid of Robin Gecht.
The first crime Spreitzer admitted to being apart of was when Gecht shot the two men at the payphone in a drive-by-shooting style execution. He admitted to being the driver.
Spreitzer then confessed to when he was driving the van, and Gecht told him to slow down as they approached a prostitute. After getting into the van, Gecht had sex with her. They parked in an alley where Gecht and the prostitute got out of the van. Gecht preceded to slice off the woman’s breast and bring it back with him into the van. Gecht put it on the van’s floor. All of the blood bothered Spreitzer, he said.
While stalking, Spreitzer said how sometimes when Gecht would slice off a woman’s breast, he would get so excited and start having sex with it right away. Instead of waiting to get back to the apartment where they had their temple set up.
Excerpt from Spreitzer Confession: “A black female was picked up, blindfolded and gagged. Robin shot her point-blank in the head. Put chains around her neck and legs, attached two bowling balls, and threw her in the water. I understand her body was not found.”
He also talked about the time Gecht had beaten a woman to death with a hammer, and he threw up at the sight of it.
Spreitzer said it took a while before he could remove a breast himself, at the urging of his leader, Gecht. Spreitzer confessed that he wasn’t sure if the woman was dead when he removed both her breast, and he said he didn’t try to find out either. After he removed them, Gecht then forced him to have sex with the gaping wounds.
He told the investigators that while the murders were going on, Robin Gecht was in a state of utter blood lust. He described how Gecht hacked a woman’s breast off in an alley while still alive. Then after severing the breast, Gecht started having sex with the wound. The woman was screaming, and blood gushed from the wound, but it didn’t seem to phase Gecht. After he finished, he took an ax and beat the woman to death.
In all, Spreitzer had confessed to being apart of seven different murders.
Interrogation of Robin Gecht
While Spreitzer was confessing, Robin Gecht sat in another interrogation room with his lawyer, still as calm and collected as he was that first day.
Using the information from Spreitzer’s confession, the investigators pulled pictures of the seven victims and placed them on the table in front of Gecht. He denied knowing any of them.
In an attempt to rattle him, police took Gecht down the hall and showed him Spreitzer confessing. The officers with him said that Gecht didn’t look phased.
But, inside the room Spreitzer was in, the mood changed drastically. As soon as Spreitzer saw Gecht, he turned white as a ghost and suddenly changed his story. He said that Gecht had never killed anyone. Spreitzer started talking real fast and trying to take back his confession. When pressed by police, Spreitzer said that his girlfriend’s bother, Andrew Kokoraleis, killed all those women.
When the detectives questioned Gecht about Andrew Kokoraleis, he said that Andrew worked for him and gave police his address, but denied knowing anything that Spreitzer had been saying to do with murders.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough to hold Robin Gecht, so they had to let him go.
Investigators took a photo array, which included a picture of Gecht to Beverly Washington in the hospital. Weeks later, she was still recovering from her injuries. She picked Gecht’s photo as the man who had attacked her.
With Robin Gecht not talking, the detectives decided to speak to people in his life that they didn’t believe were involved in the crimes. In his younger years, Gecht had asked girls he was dating to let him stab them with pins in the breast while they had sex.
When they spoke with his wife, she admitted that Gecht had gone further with her, actually slicing her breast. She said her husband had done this against her will but had never reported him.
The detectives spoke with people who knew Gecht from the neighborhood. And it appeared that not just his Crew feared him, but most people who had any contact with him.
Some told the police that Gecht had some sort of power over them, that he could draw them in and force them to do his will. One scared individual told the officer, to never look into Gecht’s eyes, or he would be pulled in too. They spoke of despicable acts Gecht had made them do with him, things they wanted no part of, but couldn’t tell him no.
Evidence Against the Ripper Crew Starts to Accumulate
Knowing they had the right men, investigators continued digging into the Ripper Crew’s backgrounds during the time period of the murders, hoping to connect them to one of the crimes.
In 1981, Gecht had rented a room at the Rip Van Winkle Motel for several months. Three adjoining rooms were rented by Edward Spreitzer and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. They were able to find this out because the Kokoraleis brothers had their mail forwarded from this address when the group moved — leaving a trail with the US Postal Service.
When speaking to the manager of the motel, they learned that he remembered the men well. He said they had loud parties, and he believed they were involved in a cult, saying they were “some kind of cultists.” The men frequently brought numerous women back to their rooms.
***This was the same motel manager that found the body of Linda Sutton behind the motel.
Andrew Kokoraleis Confession
It didn’t take detectives long to break Andrew Kokoraleis under interrogation, either. He started talking about the women they had kidnapped and murdered, and the details were eerily precise to the coroner’s reports.
Kokoraleis talked about how they kidnapped women to rape and torture. He said they routinely carried knives, but also used razors, tin can lids, and can openers to mutilate the women.
He went into more detail about using piano wire to amputate the breast of different women. He confirmed that the Crew would take turns masturbating into the breasts before eating parts of them during their Satanic Ritual.
In total Andrew Kokoraleis, admitted to being apart of 18 murders, including Victim # 5 Lorraine Borowski and Victim #9 Rose Beck Davis.
He described the rape and murder of Victim #8, Sandra Delaware, in detail. Kokoraleis said they had shoved a rock in her mouth to keep her from screaming while they attacked her. They forced a wine bottle into her vagina that made her bleed profusely, and they stabbed her body with a knife to mutilate her. She was strangled to death. The autopsy report confirmed his statement.
Thomas Kokoraleis Confession
When investigators first spoke with Thomas Kokoraleis, he gave conflicting statements and couldn’t stick with a story. When he was brought into the police station, he was given a polygraph test, which he failed.
Armed with the other confessions and Thomas Kokoraleis’s failed polygraph results, it didn’t take much for him to confess.
Kokoraleis told the detectives that he and the other men would take women back to Gecht’s place, where they had a “Satanic Chapel” in the attic. There they would rape and torture the women. They often used knives, and ice picks to mutilate women’s bodies. He said the breast was usually removed with a wire garrote.
After removing the breast, they would masturbate into the breast, and then each would eat a part of it as a sacrament. Kokoraleis said eating the flesh was “taking communion.” Gecht saved the breast in a box. Kokoraleis once counted 15 inside.
During his taped confession, Thomas Kokoraleis admitted to being present during three murders, including Victim #5 Lorraine Borowski.
Elmhurst Police Detective John Miller, who sat with Kokoraleis during his confession, had this to say: “I’ve done many homicide cases and I’d never heard of anything so horrendous in my life.”
“He talked about raping the women, stabbing the women, having sex with the knife wounds, cutting their breasts off to leave what he called ‘Robin’s Mark.’”
It should be noted that neither Edward Spreitzer nor Andrew Kokoraleis named Thomas Kokoraleis in their confessions.
Robin Gecht’s Serial Killer Connection
The Ripper Crew is considered a serial killing group, which is extremely rare as it is. Now consider that the Ripper Crew leader, Gecht, worked for serial killer John Wayne Gacy, and you have something that feels like it’s out of the Twilight Zone.
It was the late 70s, and Gacy had the company PDM Contractors, and Gecht was an employee.
Gacy will be remembered as the serial killer who murdered young men, buried them under his house, and dressed up as a clown.
After being arrested and convicted, Gacy talked about having a partner. Someone who worked with him on some of the murders. He never named the partner.
A young man who worked for Gacy and turned up dead was initially contributed to Gacy, but then police determined he was out of town at the time. Gacy said that his accomplice had committed the murder without his consent.
Could this partner have been Robin Gecht? It’s hard to say since Gecht denies any wrongdoings, and John Wayne Gacy was executed in 1994.
After The Crews Arrest
The police executed a search warrant on the homes of the Crew. Inside Gecht’s attic, they found the Satanic Chapel. They also recovered a rifle that would match the Rafael Torado shooting.
Trials and Convictions of The Ripper Crew
Robin Gecht’s Trials
1 | In an attempt to avoid going to trial at all, Gecht declared he was insane. He was evaluated by numerous mental health professionals and determined to be competent to stand trial. But, his first trial ended in a mistrial.
2 | Started on September 20, 1983.
The prosecution laid out their case against Robin Gecht being the leader of the Ripper Crew. They presented the court with the recovered evidence found in the defendant’s Satanic Chapel. Including the rifle used in the Rafael Torado murder and the trophy box that held female breasts.
The jury was told the Crews MO: the women were kidnapped, held, tortured with needles, knives, and icepicks, gang-raped, and having their breast sliced off for the men to use during their Satanic Ritual. Then the women would be brutally murdered.
The prosecution called numerous female witnesses who took the stand and testified that Gecht had inflicted wounds on their breast and had asked them to cut off their nipples for him.
Not one of the other men, Edward Spreitzer, or Thomas and Andrew Kokoralesis, would take the stand against their Satanic Leader. And they all recanted ever saying Gecht had anything to do with the murders.
In a rare move, Robin Gecht took the stand in his defense.
Up until this time, Gecht had denied being apart of any of the attacks or murders. Sitting on the stand, he confessed that he had been involved in the attack on Victim #11, Beverly Washington. But, insisted that he had never killed anyone or been involved in any of the murders or rapes.
***Beverly Washington had picked Robin Gecht out of a photo lineup as one of the men who had attacked her.
His defense, he told the jury that he hadn’t even known the other men during the time that most of the murders had happened.
Since the other members refused to testify against Gecht, and the police had no direct evidence against him, he was only charged with the rape, battery, and attempted murder of Beverley Washington.
The jury found him guilty on all charges and he was sentenced to 120 years in prison. Robin Gecht will first be eligible for parole in 2022.
Thomas Kokoraleis Trial’s
Initially, Thomas Kokoraleis had tried to have his confessions be thrown out, but he lost the motion.
The Dupage County Jury convicted Kokoraleis of the rape and murder of Lorraine Borowski. He was sentenced to life in prison after the judge threw out the prosecutions death penalty sentence.
During his trial, Kokoraleis chose not to testify, but he spoke and denied any involvement in the crimes he was charged with during sentencing.
In 1986, the State Appeals Court reversed the guilty verdict, citing legal errors in the original trial. Thomas Kokoraleis was then granted a new trial.
A year after, Kokoraleis pled guilty to the murder of Lorraine Borowski and was given a 70-year sentence.
In 2017 Thomas Kokoraleis came up for parole, and authorities tried to have him committed as a sexually violent person; this would force him to stay behind bars. For this statute to occur, they had to prove that it was “substantially probable” that Kokoraleis would commit more acts of sexual violence.
They referenced that Thomas Kokoraleis had admitted to more devious rapes and murders since he had been in prison. In a taped interview in 1982, Kokoraleis detailed what had happened to Victim #6 Shui Mak. Including the parts, he played in the rape. Over the years, he had also confessed to being a part of other rapes and murders carried out by the Ripper Crew during interviews with mental health professionals, prison officers, and the press.
Psychiatrists evaluated Kokoraleis in 2017 and determined he was not sexually violent.
Thomas Kokoraleis was released from prison after only serving half of his sentence. He must register as a sex offender as long as he lives in Illinois.
Detective Warren Wilkosz spoke about the release of Kokoraleis, saying he didn’t have strong opinions on it. But he said about Gecht someday coming up for parole and that it would be “a whole different thing.” Wilkosz said, “He made Manson look like a Boy Scout.”
Andrew Kokoraleis’s Trials
1 | Andrew Kokoraleis was first brought to trial for the rape and murder of Victim #9, Rose Beck Davis.
Kokoraleis had confessed to abducting Davis with the other members of the Crew. Saying they had forced her into the van and beaten her with a hatchet.
The jury deliberated for over three hours before finding him guilty of rape and murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.
2 | He was brought to trial the second time for the rape and murder of Victim #5 Lorraine Borowski and #9 Rose Beck Davis.
Kokoraleis had initially confessed to the rape and murder of both Lorraine Borowski and Rose Beck Davis, during police interrogation. But, had recanted his confession before trial. At trial, he insisted that he had never raped, or killed anyone, that the police had coerced his confessions.
Prosecutor Brian Telander went through each confession with Kokoraleis on the stand. He had confessed to six separate detectives and two prosecutors. Telander asked why Kokoraleis had given the same statements over and over to each person. Kokoraleis said that the police had fed him the information, that they had beaten him, forced him to repeat what they wanted him to say.
Detective Warren Wilcosz was called by the prosecution to talk about the confession Kokoraleis had given to him. Wilcosz said that he had shown an array of photos to Andrew Kokoraleis of women, and Kokoraleis picked out the picture of Lorraine Borowski and said, “That’s the girl Eddie Spreitzer, and I killed in the cemetery.”
The jury took three hours to decide if they believed eight separate individuals had forced Korkoaleis to lie, or if he was now lying on the stand. They determined that he was guilty.
During sentencing, Kokoraleis stuck to his not guilty plea, claiming he had nothing to do with the attack. Again no one believed him, and Andrew Kokoraleis was sentenced to death. He appealed several times and lost all attempts.
Then he changed his story again.
Now he claimed that he did rape and kill those women, but had been suffering from a Schizophrenic Break at the time and didn’t know what he was doing.
Kokoraleis, now with a new claim and lawyers, also blamed his old council. He said that since his original defense team didn’t enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, they had done him an injustice, and he deserved a new trial. The prosecution and the judge should have ordered an evaluation, too, so they were also in error.
While in prison, Kokoraleis had been evaluated by a psychiatrist. They had determined that he was “vulnerable” to a strong influence (Gecht) and suffered from abnormal behavior, making him not responsible for what he had done. The court didn’t think that abnormal behavior met the requirements for a finding of insanity.
Andrew Kokoraleis was executed by lethal injection on March 16, 1999. He would be the last inmate executed before Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation to abolish the death penalty on March 9, 2011.
Edward Spreitzer’s Trials
1 | On April 2, 1984, Spreitzer pled guilty to the murders of Victim #6 Shui Mak, Victim #8 Sandra Delaware, Victim #9 Rose Beck Davis, drug dealer Victim #12 Rafael Torado, along with numerous rape and deviant sexual assault charges.
Edward Spreitzer received a life sentence for each of the four murder charges.
2 | On February 25, 1986, Spreitzer went on trial for the murder of Victim #1 Linda Sutton. He opted for a bench trial in front of Judge Edward Kowal to determine his guilt but let a jury decide his sentencing.
During the trial, Spreitzer admitted that he and the other Ripper Crew members had abducted Linda Sutton as she walked past Wrigley Field. He said they took her to a wooded field near the Rip Van Winkle motel they were staying at during that time.
Linda Sutton was handcuffed, raped, and they removed her breast. They then each raped her again before leaving her to die alone.
Public defender Carol Anfinson represented Spreitzer. She presented her client to the judge as an immature, impulsive young man who merely followed orders. Anfinson tried to blame leader Robin Gecht and portray her client as being scared for his own life.
Friends called to the stand testified that Spreitzer had always seemed easy going. They added that in the past, Spreitzer had been the victim of bullies.
Another friend rebuffed these claims by testifying that Spreitzer had bragged about what he had done to the “broads.” Laughing while talking about the mutilations and how he had killed some of them himself.
Judge Edward Kowal found him guilty of aggravated kidnapping and murder. A jury would sentence him to the death penalty two weeks later.
Edward Spreitzer exhausted all of his appeals and sat on death row for years. When Governor Ryan was leaving office in 2003, he gave Spreitzer clemency, turning his death sentence into a life sentence.
Afterwards For Robin Gecht
On November 16, 1988, Robin Gecht’s mother, Loretta, sister Rachelle, and nephew Nicholas visited him in prison. Their car was involved in an accident on their way home, being sandwiched between two semi-trucks. Loretta and Nicholas died instantly, Rachelle remained in a coma for four months before passing away.
In March of 1999, Robin Gecht’s son, David Gecht, was arrested for first-degree murder. David Gecht, 18 at the time, shot and killed Roberto Cruz in Northwest Chicago. He was tried as an adult and received 45 years in prison.
Robin Gecht has given numerous interviews over the years, where he continues to claim he’s innocent and that DNA evidence will soon exonerate him.
“First mistake . . . is considering me a serial killer . . . am not considered one . . . I have never killed or took part in any such acts nor ever charged in any murders of anyone.”
“I don’t only face the injustices, but the nightmares that follows. You have no idea the pain and hurt I face and feel every single day I sit here and lose hope. I’m not an angel . . . but I never intentionally hurt anyone unless it was to protect myself or my family. I could never live with killing or knowing I was responsible for taking one’s life.”
In another interview, Gecht talked about his obsession with breast and how it was an inherited family trait. “Well, in an answer to your question on obsession with breast,” Gecht says. “It is a thing with my entire family going back as I’m told to great grandfather.”“Each of us men have married large breast women. My ex-wife is a 39D, and yes, she was very satisfying to me.”
Then clarifies his feelings on sex with breast, “As to your question about having sex with breast . . . I have no real obsession with breasts in that form. Only a very sick person would even think of that.”
***Yes, a very sick person indeed.
Wrap Up
Professionals who have studied the case and spoken with Robin Gecht characterize him as a “Mansoneque” type of killer, which is someone who can easily persuade others to kill for them.
Do you believe that some people have this power over others? Or do you think that this type of person can just see what others really want to do, and then just nudge them along?
About Me, Lisa Marie Fuqua: I’m a Crime and Corruption Writer for the Publication True Crime Addiction. I’m a Crohn’s Disease Ninja, a Sphynx Cat Rescue Mom, and reluctant desert dweller in Las Vegas. Also, I’m a proud Trophy Wife, it’s true I have a bowling trophy to prove it.
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