Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
The Ripper Crew or the Chicago Rippers was an organized crime group of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles.
The group was composed of Robin Gecht and three associates: Edward Spreitzer and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis.
They were suspected in the murders of 17 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982, as well as the unrelated fatal shooting of a man in a random drive-by shooting.According to one of the detectives who investigated the case, Gecht “made Manson look like a Boy Scout.”
The men claimed to be part of a satanic cult, and the women were the victims of dark and horrific rituals. They were part of a much larger movement in the 1980s known as the Satanic Panic. America experienced a wave of fear surrounding anything occult, and although most of the scares were false alarms, the Ripper Crew was all too real….
this is the nature of evil.
chicago ,with a population of almost 3 million, this the third largest city in the United States built on the shores of lake michigan and nicknamed the windy city , this town’s history like that of most of country’s capitals is in turn luminous and dark.
known throughout the world for its avant-garde architecture its prestigious museums and its execptional symphony orchestra
this city has a dark past……..
it is here H.H Holms , built his infamous castle of death where he may have killed over 200 people.
the first serial killer in United states history claimed he’d been possessed by the devil since birth.
in the mid -20s Al capone established chicago as the theater for his criminal operations
and it is also here in chicago suburb that john wayne gacy
known as the killer clown tortured and murdered at least 33 victims during the 70s.
on june the 1, 1981 , policemen from dupage county will unknowingly open a new chapter in chicago’s tattered history.
they started out with a dead woman assaulted sexually and mutilated.
the brer rabbit in villa park a working-classsuburb of chicago is a seedy establishment, that’s a well know hangout for prostitutes.
that morning after an employee complains about a sickening smell coming from a nearby field
hank mcGinnis discovers the body of a young black women lying face down in the tall grass.
the woman’s hands were h handcuffed behind her back and that a broken key stil juts out from the lock
the women is still wearing her t-shirt but her panties have been pulled down to mid thigh.
agent Thomas vosberg finds a few rolled up bankotes and some loose change in one of her stockings, a little over thirteen dollars.
so clearly robbery was not the motive…..
from the state of the body the agents conclude that the woman must have died several weeks ago
and yet the forensic examiner dr david barrett establishes the time of death to be as recent as three or four days ago
and identifies the body as that of linda sutton a young 21 year old prostitute.
the women vas horribly mutilated and abandoned there as both her breasts had been cut off .
vermin had infested the corpse, allthough her death was recent decomposition was at a very advanced stage when she was discovered.
during the following months,5 additional womens bodies are discovered in the chicago area.
by the time the women were found they were so badly decomposed that one could not tell what was the cause of death.
several show signs of similar mutilations to thos of linda sutton .
they had been raped, tortured and mutilated .
they not only raped this women but while they were alive cut off their breasts.
all seems to be kind of a put down , a debasing of women.
even if everything points towards the existence of a serial killer in chicago,the police have not yet made a connection between the deaths of linda sutton and the four other victims.
all these kind of sadistic acts, these mutilatory acts agains these women was pretty distinctive and these crimes had basically had these kind of attacks in common.
detectives had to make a determination if the similarities of the victims found outside of chicago were sufficiently obvious to be connected to the kinds of injuries suffered by the victims found in chicago.
on may 15, 1982, lorraine borowski ,a real estate agent from elmhurst another chicago suburb also disappears.
Lorraine borowski who was walking to her job early in the morning in elmhurst, when she was snatched.
a purse and a pair of shoes next to the curb infront of a real estate that’s all it w s there.
five months later on october 10 , 1982 a teenager finds the body of a young women concealed at the end of an alleyway in clarendon cementery in villa park .
months later they find the girl, all decomposed again.
according to the medical examiner ,the young women has had her left breast amputated and been stabbed several times.
the coroner identifes the victim as lorrain borowski .
detectives , especially one, his name is warren wilkos was almost positive that the people he’s looking for are from chicago.
two weeks after lorrain borowski’s murder….
30 year old Shui Mak also disappears,she was born and raised in china she was brought here ,she lived with her parents,she worked in a company somewhere in Dupage county where they made mars lights for squads-electric company.
she did that eight hours a day and went to her family’s resturant and worked there.
on the night of her disappearance as she is coming home from work with her brother kent,a heated argument breaks out between them .
kent orders her out of the car at stop signe,it’s 1:30 in the morning
that night, shui mak will not get home…..
she walked southbound on barrington road from shaumburg road because it was the only way she knew how to get home.
the cook county police departement is tasked with the investigation into the young chinese woman’s disappearance.
on september 30th shui mak’s body is descovered on a construction site in south barrington an upscale chicago suburb in cook county.
and there was nothing left.no body parts,but again the clothes were on and this beautiful neckace was on.
the back of her skull was crushed and she had a tooth cracked in the front ,so it would seem that somebody punched her and her head went back and shattered.
Bits of steel wire was found next to the body.
the discovery of shui mak’s body convinces the various chicago area police departements that they’re dealing with a serial killer or worse with a group of serial killers.
the investigators review the various case files,one testimony stands out in june of the preceding year.
Holly clemens aka angel york a prostitute from the red light district had told about boarding a van driven by a prospective john.
he picled her up when she was running away from the police,when they were sweeping the area for prostitutes she got in in his van and found herself in much more trouble than she was trying to escape.
he force her down in the van , he orders her to take of her clothes, he ended up having her cut a hole in the side of her breast which he then enlarged with his finger and a knife because it wasn”t large enough to encompass his penis and he had sex with the breast.
after this interminable aggression he leaves her in an alleyway near grand avenue.
fortunately he let her out,he put some duct tape over her breast,let her out of the van
she is discovered five minutes later and driven to hospital where her condition is stabilized.
on august 37th another black prostitute is found dead and mutilated on the shore of the chicago river
a man was was there collecting cans,bottles and found a body.
sandra delaware had her hands tied behind her back and had also had her left breast amputated ,they would use a piano wire to sever one or both breasts.
on september 8th rose beck davis a 30 year old women is discovered behind a public housing complex near north lake shore drive.
slashing her chest with a hatchet and using the handle of the hatchet to destroy her vagina basically
the examiner would later find pieces of wood in her vagina, most likely from the handle of a makeshift ax.
investigators are baffled by these cases.
this offenders did not use race as a discriminatory consideration because they’re bothe white and black women involved.
neither victim is ever really chosen ,driving down the road, a women is out of gas – bang . she disappears ,we forget about her and in couple of weeks the police found her mutilated in a field ,a lot , a car.
regardless of the cause of death the police had murdered women ,bodies on their hands and they had to find the people responsible for it.
beverly washington a young 20 year old prostitute is found near a chicago railway line,despite the severity of her injures the young black women is still breathing.
the investigation finally takes a turn in the right direction when the kidnap victim survives her injuries
even thoug at first glance she seems to be dead she had to amputate her own beast with a knife.
she is immediately taken to the hospital where doctors stabilize her condition.
from her hospital bed she tells her story
beverly washington was acting as a prostitute that night.
on the night of her attack,she climbed aboard a red van driven by a man around 25.
she gave a description of the offender having a red van with dark seats and feathers hanging what she thought was a rea view mirror.
in fact there wasn’t a rear view mirror but the feathers, in fact there wasn’t a reaview mirror but the feathers where the reaview mirror would have been.
the man drives her to a desert location and suggest to go to the rear of the van set up like a carpenters workshop.
she described this red van and being taken into the back of the van because the back header wouldn’t partition and it had shelves on either side, the back of the van was totally secluded, there was no windows no opening.
he threatens her into taking off her clothes
he forces her to her knees to perform oral sex on him,the man first orders her,then forces her to swallow a handful of pills.
from that point on ,beverly gradually loses consciousness.
beverly washington said that he gave her a bunch of pills to knock her out and when she woke up , she had a breast dissected.
after holly clement’s story from june of the preceding year,beverly washington ‘s account is the second time a red van is clearly associated with the chicago mutilators crimes.
three weeks later ,agents phil murphy and tom flynn from chicago PD interceptive a van that fits beverly washington’s description perfectly.
what miss washington said about a feather or some type of device hanging from the rear view mirror would of course been helpful to identify the van.
the police coincidentally just happened to come across the van that corresponded to the victim’s description ,they stopped the van.
unfortunately the driver doesn’t fit the description given by the victims the man is called eddie spreitzer and he’s just 21.he says the van doesn’t belong to him but rather to his boss a man named robin gecht. -a building contractor.
the van is driven by someone named srpreitzer,he says yeah i only drive the van but i can take you to see my boss mr gecht.
the investigators give him back his ID and tell him they plan to follow him to the construction site where they want to talk to his boss.
there the policemen are met by robin gecht and note that hefits beverly washington’s description perfectly.
gecht is quite a snob with the police,in fact he says you wanna speak to me? speak to my lawyer.
the man is perfectly calm and relaxed.
when detective phil murphy tells him that his van may have been involved in a crime gecht is unmoved he even adds that he is ready to collaborate with the polices if should be true.
robin gecht and eddie spreitzer and two other employees from the building site are then taken to the brigade offices of chicago police’s fifth district.
all of them categorically deny involvement in any kind of criminal activity
murhpy and flynn then returned to beverly washington’s bedside she is still hospitalized at chicago general hospital
allthough it’s been three weeks sinced her terrible ordeal,she still has a very detailed memory of her aggressor.
and when the officer show her a picture of robin gecht ,she recognizes him without hesitation .
robin gecht 29 is arrested and formally accused of assault and attempted murder on the person of beverly washington
robin gecht is born on november 30th 1953 at the advocate Illinois masonic medical center in chicago, not long after his birth he is remanded to the care of his paternal grandparents reuben and sarah geckt with whom he’ll enoy a quite childhood.
many children are raised by their grandparents and become completely normal,completely adequate
the fact that he had developed such traits is more complex and goes beyond the simple fact of being raised by his grandparents
at 22 , robin marries rosemary ,then starts his own construction comapny.
robin gecht was the boss ,he was the carpenter, and robin gecht own the van, he own the company with his wife rose.
he was married had kids, apparently was abusive to his wife to some extent.
rosemary soon discovers her husband’s abusive sexual practices
besides being forced to accept his his numerous infidelities, she also has to submit herself to robin’s various perverse sexual practices.
including sadism.
he is obviously someone who takes pleasure in making his victims suffer making women suffer ,it all started by inflicting physical abuse to his own wife
he got his wife to let her stick pins in her breasts ,he got his girlfriend to do the same thing and let him burn her breasts .
unfortunately some women feel helpless around their husbands,they feel dependent ,they don’t have the strengh to leave and face being alone.
as these practices weren’t enough to satisfy him robin gecht would soon turn to perfect strangers ,ideal subjects for his macabre fantasies.
in the offices of the investigators for the fifth district robin gecht categorically denies any involvement in the attack on beverly washington
condescending with the police and says he’s not concerned,the story does not concern him.
gecht is a gifted manipulator and policemen soon realized they’ll get nothing out of him.
they then turned to eddie who is himself in preventiv custody.the young 22 year old is visibly nervous and sweats profusely.
edward spreitzer was very goofy and that he panicked when he heard that robin gecht was in the next room while he was being interrogated.
as soon as he hear his bosse’s name he flinch ‘s in his chair.
robin gecht was a very dominating boss and a very dislikable boss so they did everything that they had to do and they may have been abused by him to some extent as an employee.
eddie spreitzer is obviously terrifyied by robin gecht’s personality and the investigators exploit that weakness, they tell him that he can expert nothing from robin and that he has accused of everything starting with the savage aggression on beverly washington.
they interrogate spreitzer with such intensity that he cracks
spreitzer writes out a report in which he admits some of the crimes ,in a report that covers over 70 pages,it’s enormous,truly enormous.
he will describe for hours how he accompanied robin gecht on his murderous rampages ,how he witnessed his acts of violence and talks about gecht’s intense obsession with breasts.
robin gecht says he is a breast man,there are plenty of men in this world that are breast men obsessed with breasts or love breasts or fetish on breasts paraphilia .
he wanted to know what was inside breast, how they worked ,what their purpose was, it was obsession with breasts far beyond the normal .
most men obsessed with beasts don’t go around cutting breasts off.
and the man was clearly a sadist ,he seemed to enjoy hurting people.
using his’ bosse’s van ,he claimed they had abducted and tortured at least seven women ,in general ,it was robin who finished the job by severing one of the victim’s breasts before masturbating in the open wound.
he also claimed gecht even forced him to do the same to two or three of the victims.
upon hearing this story ,agents murphy and wilcox are stunned.
and then just as he is about to sign his confession spreitzer recants.
edward spreitzer would go from yes it was robin gecht , no it wasn’t my boss, yes it was….
he will finally maintain the crimes were orchestrated by a third man…
Andrew Kokoraleis
he was implicated by eddie spreitzer, that was the first time andy’s name was ever brought into the investigation.
that same night warren wilcox and tom flynn proceed to arrest andrew kokoraleis a young 23 year old living in villa park a suburb near the location where linda sutton’s bodie hadbeen found in june of 1981
mr kokoraleis voluntarily came to area 5 where he was interrogated.
it isn’t long before kokoraleis confesses to participating in different crimes and rituals
for hours andrew kokoraleis describes in detail some of the most horrible crimes ever committed in the chicago area.
andy kokoraleis confessed to his participation and involvement in the murder of rosebeck davis and other murders.
robin gecht was always present when these murders occurred and eddie spreitzer was present on a number of them .
spreitzer new the kokoraleis brothers and so the four of them together were the Ripper Crew
the combinations of these men would sometimes go four ,three or two.
when he did thi s attack on beverly washington,robin gecht was alone that was not the usual circumstance.
they’d go out and hunt for women,there was always just one driving,the other one or the others were in the back and they would get to this spot where things were going to start.
and they wound up killing and mutilating in many cases a number of women many of them whom were not prostitutes.
and really simply had the misfortune to encounter these men when they were out looking for victims.
the vay these individuals operated was based on satisfying their needs, their first need was not getting caught.
the second one was the manner in which their needs were satisfied,inflicting pain on women, making them suffer.
basically they got sexually aroused by by inflicting pain and suffering.
andrew kokoraleis also tells how how robin gecht , eddie spreizter and himself forced young shui mak to get aboard their van.
he mentions about punching her in the face , well, that’s when the tooth broke, that”s where the backof the head shattered.
once unconscious ,they brought her to a construction site near barrington .
as the young asian girl had very small breasts ,gecht decided not to amputate which didn’t stop them from carrying on a macabre ritual.
robin made several deep inscisions in her chest,and the three men took turns penetrating the wounds with their penises.
gecht finally strangled young shui mak with a piece of steel wire.
andrew kokoraleis knows he has said too much and cannot turn back
he then speaks about the other victims,including the morder of rose beck davis including the murder of lorraine borowski, including the murder of linda sutton behind the brer rabbit motel.
he would leave out no sort of details ,it does make you wonder how you find people that are willing to do that…..
it probably is a lot easier to find three people who will go rob banks with you than it is to find three other people who will go and sexually assault,kidnap women ,sexually assault them, mutilate them and then kill them.
that is really at the far end of depravity when you think about it.
when you think about it,it’sabsolutely inconceivable,it’s already unusal to meet a sexual sadist who mutilates his victms in this manner.
who tortures them,who kills them , that”s extremely rare,a group of four sharing the same pathology is even rare,hopefully we’ll never see this again.
less then 48 hours after andrew’s arrest agent warren wilcos returns to the kokoraleis family home, this time to question thomas.
andy’s younger brother .
when agents mentions andy ,eddie spreitzer and robin geths thomas became agitated,turns away and avoid their gaze.
agents knows that ,that type of behavior means he’s hiding something
the agent’s asks him if he agree to a lie detector test and thomas accepts.
at elmhurst brigade headquarters thomas kokoraleis takes a polygraph test which he fails miserably.
once confronted to that thomas confesses to everything.
it wasn’t hard to get confessions from thomas kokoraleis because he had a low IQ and he really was easily persuaded to tell the truth.
he explains that his brother andrew , edward spreitzer and himself are part of a satanic group led by robin gecht.
opposit of a catholic mass ,crosses were upside down.
in a special prepared room in gecht attic, he claims to have participated in macabre rituals.
in secret when his wife was at work ,he would bring the victims body parts to this chapel and participate in in satanic rituals.
some of the rituals involved sliced women’s breasts,which sometimes they had masturbated into while they were still in the van and they would cut it up and use it as if it were some like the body of christ , a satanic ritual
and that was for some kind of empowerment and magical properties apparently associated with the breasts ,so then they would also masturbate on the breasts as part of the ritual.
once they had finished masturbating gecht cut up the victim’s breasts and everyone ate a part of the poor woman’s mutilated chest.
the manner in which the mutilated women’s breasts were collected demonstrates an extremely rare form of fetishism.
he claimed their group had abducted a number of women in the chicago area in order to assault mutilate and murder them ,how many they were not sure, they could be as many as 18.
certainly some of the victims were definitely identfied but not all 18 .
kokoraleis will confess having seen up to 15 breasts in a box where gecht kept his trophies.
if there were trophy boxes and there was this attic filled with cult -like material surely that would come up at in at least one of the trials and according to the the knowledge it hasn’t come up in any trial.
and that would have been hard evidence to prove he did it ,but why it didn’t come up in trial is a mystery.
there was a motion and a pre-trial motion by the defense that the prosecution should not raise that in the trial because there was no evidence.
any mention of the occult was by just happenstances that came out in the statements made by andy kokoraleis but it was not the focus of the trial .
over the course of his confession thomas will recognize that he is convinced that robin gecht possesses supernatural powers and that he is connected to the lord of the underworld.
the others attribute occult powers to him ,people are warned against looking into gecht eys ,never look him in the eye because, he’ll make you do things,he has magical powers so just never look him in the eye.
when police get ro robin gecht home at 2163,north McVicker avenue to confirm thomas kokoraleis story, they find this infamous secret room set up in the attic.
in the attic of his house ,the police find a temple that is adorned with decorations and symbols that qualify as satanic.
investigators also find a number of books on satanism ,empty trophy boxes as well as a shotgun.
ballistic experts confirm it’s been shot recently
the chicago rippers case occured at the very start of what sociologists will later call the satanic panic.
people were overreacting to the influence of satanism upon common cultur and when these crimes happened, people did panic.
and they were upset.
but typically because these types of crimes the satanic crimes were typically grievous and shocking in nature.
when the FBI starts its inquiry into the activities of satanics groups without going as far as to say that such crimes don’t exist.
it describes them as being exceptionally rare and in most cases they are perpetratedby small poorly organized groups under under the influence of a charismatic leader.
such as charles manson…..
or robin Gecht.
robin gecht has no aura whatsover , nothing like of charles manson with his evil aura that he had.
whether he was manipulating them or wheter they were just enjoying what was going on robin gecht knew what leves to push to get all those men to do what he wanted them to do.
when someone allows themselves to do something there are people who only fantasize about it and this fantasy may never come true .
but when someone makes it concrete they’re ready to follow…..
if there had been no leader,maybe the others would never have don it at the very instant that that someone made it possible and concrete people with the same perversion volontarily followed without a doubt.
with the arrest of robin gecht….
edward (eddie) spreitzer…
and the brothers andrew…
and thomas kokoraleis
the various chicago police departments are convinced they’ve put an end to the activites of that quartet of monsters .
justly nicknamed by the press as the chicago rippers.
the name chicago ripper was a media creation but it was derived from the fact that it was mutilations and murders of prostitutes at least in part…
and there was a similarity to the jack the ripper in london.
after they were all arrested and in custody there were no more such horrific murders and attacks on women in chicago.
the fait of the four is in the hands of the judges.
robin gecht will be the first one to face justice, it it quite obvious that the leader had some influence over the others.
allthough the others were intimidated by him they were also impressed by the leader.
these guys were genuinely afraid of the reprecussions of them actaully turning him in because they thought he did have magical power as a result of these rituals.
they looked up to him apparently ,they followed his lead,whatever influence he had over these other three people was a significant influence.
in gecht case the other suspects all recant one after the other in order to protect him.
none of the others would testify against him,they actaully were quite afreaid of him ,they thought that he could do things to them even thoug he was ocked up.
they were pretty superstitious so they would not testify against him as a result they didn’t have direct evidence to implicate gecht in murder only in assault because there was a witness against him.
the testimony of the two survivors attests to the sadism of robin gech who just a few feet away is still claiming innocence.
with all the information they have on him ,psychopath is an appropiate diagnosis for it without a doubt.
we also know that lying comes very easily to this type of people
he does not deny his participation in various rituals but he denies any involement in crimes and murders and he has never amputated a woman’s breast.
rbut the jury isn’t fooled, after the deliberation gecht is found guilty of the attempted rape,aggravated assault and murder.
he received a sentence of 120 years ,which was maximum extended sentencing for the class X felonies of attempt murder and kidnapping and devious sexual assault and rape.
he got to serve half of it so 60 years .he’d be 88 when he gets out .
thomas kokoralei who has the least involvement of the four in these series of crimes is convicted of participating in the murder of lorrain borowski.
the young ReMax real estate agent murdered in may of 1982 in elmhurst.
Thomas kokoraleis was sentenced to 70 years in prison , so at some point he’ll be eligible for parole.
andrew kokoraleis is the next one to stand trial ,although he’s been very vocal ,just a few months before -for the agents, he claims to have absolutely no recollection of the attacks.
he took a consistent position that he was not even involved in any murders ,he did plead guilty ,he contested the charges very vigorously in court.
eddie spreitzer and robin gecht did not testify against him the evidence implicating andrew kokoraleis came from the written statements that he had made to the police.
certainly enough t evidence to prosecute the case, without the testimony of any co-defendants .
that jury imposed the death penalty on andrew kokoraleis and he was infact the last person executed in Illinois.
he is executed by lethal injection on march 17 1999 at Tams correctional center.
edward spreitzer is the last one to face the justice
on march 2nd 1984 he pleads guilty to the charges to murdering:
rose beck davis,sandra delaware and shui mak
he received a life sentence, in another trial he will also plead guilty to the charges of kidnapping and raping and murdering linda sutton.
he was also prosecuted in dupage county and received a death sentence there.
spreitzer was to be executed and he got off …..
spreitzer’s sentence was commuted when the governor cmmuted all death sentences so he has life in prison without parole.
eddie spreitzer will never get out of his cage.
robin gech is still alive and eddie spreitzer is still alive and all this victims are dead and their families have suffered with their loss and justice …meant that they should have died.
the jury came to a just verdict and it adjusts in position of the life imprisonment.
what they got out of it exactly ,exept other then the obvious but, clearly whatever they got was sufficient for them to continue to do it,because they didn’t stop, they didn’t say ,well, this not for me, this is to much .
upon reflection they kept on going out with him in the van looking for victims and they found them and they did horrible things to them.
and this i s the nature of evil.
an indian proverb reminds us that even the devil needs a friend when it comes to chicago rippers he found four and one of them has since joined him in hell….