It is this author’s belief that Gary did not target homosexuals with murder in mind. He did not seek out, like so many serial killers do, victims to kill with robbery in the forefront of his mind, either. So, I suggest that there was no premeditation for the killings here at all.
What I do suggest, however, is that in Gary Bowles we find a homeless, out-of-control alcoholic and drug abuser who, throughout his life, contributed nothing at all to society. He used his streetwise skills to target the weaknesses and predatory nature of certain homosexuals, to suit his own short-term ends—to buy more booze and drugs to satisfy his habit. That he flipped from time-to-time, that he bludgeoned his victims, that he stuffed rags and toilet tissue down their throats, strangled them, and shot one of them before stealing what meager possessions the dead men had, was the result of the hatred he had built up against his stepfathers during his early childhood.
But so what?
Millions of folks have suffered dysfunctional childhoods, but they do not become serial killers in later life. Thousands, even tens of thousands of alcoholic dropouts worldwide are content to drink cheap booze and fall asleep without so much as a snore. Indeed, the facts stare us straight in the face: Mr. Bowles went with gays and exchanged sexual favors for cash or a roof over his head, occasionally murdering them, and stealing whatever his victims had to pawn for money to satisfy his inebriated, chemically imbalanced cravings. The fact that this psychically strong young man could have worked and earned an honest living didn’t even enter his mind.
According to Gary Bowles:I don’t think anyone is born a natural-born killer. But if anyone deserved the death penalty it is me because I have killed so many people. But I gotta say that death row ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
When asked if he had any remorse for his killings, Bowles replied:Well, ah ya know, like I said I feel bad, but I never sought to kill anybody. I didn’t go looking for to kill people. Look, I never wanted to become a so-called serial killer. I feel bad for their families . . . I feel bad for my family. Ya know, I cain’t take back what I did!
Well, ah. Ya know I will say sorry to all the families of the people I have killed, and with me being executed, maybe they can find peace. I would tell my mom that I love her, and that would be it.
CHAPTER 2
ROBIN GECHT—THE MASTERMIND OF THE CHICAGO RIPPER CREW
THE UNSMILING, UNREMARKABLE face staring into the Illinois Department of Corrections camera is that of Robin Gecht—unremarkable in that his could be the face of any bus driver, postman, store clerk, indeed any face on your street, for there is nothing about his appearance that would ever set him apart in any crowd.
Born in Illinois on November 30, 1953, Gecht has blue eyes and thinning brown hair. At five feet five inches tall and weighing 135 pounds, he certainly doesn’t look dangerous; but by god, he certainly was until he was locked up—for a very long time indeed—on February 17, 1984.
But Robin does have something to look forward to—he has a “tentative release date” set for December 13, 2045. He will be 92 years old when he is wheeled out of those prison gates, if he is not thrown through the gates of hell before that.
The Chicago Ripper Crew had four members. Robin Gecht, then 30, assumed the role as mentor and leader. Edward Spreitzer was 21, while the Kokoraleis brothers, Andrew and dim-witted Tommy, were teenagers.
Exclusively published in this book for the first time, here is the Statement of Facts concerning victim Beverly Washington, as issued by the Illinois State Attorney’s Office (1982):Around 1 or 2 a.m., on October 5, 1982, BW [Beverly Washington], a 19-year-old African American prostitute, asked Defendant [Robin Gecht] if he wanted a date and entered Defendant’s red Dodge van. Defendant pointed a gun and a butcher knife at the victim and ordered her to disrobe, which she did. Defendant handcuffed her ankles and wrists, tied a cord around her breasts and forced her to commit a sexual act by inserting his penis in her mouth.
Defendant forced the victim to drink soda and take some pills. Then he placed his penis in her vagina. B.W. testified Defendant did not ejaculate at any point. Eventually B.W. lost consciousness.
A few hours later the victim was discovered lying naked in an alley. Her left breast was removed, her right breast was intact. She was bleeding and in shock.
Expert testimony at trial demonstrated that the victim’s disfigurement had been caused by a cutting of a knife. The victim described her assailant’s van to police, who, two weeks later arrested Defendant.
While in hospital, B.W. positively identified Defendant in a photographic show-up and a police lineup. Defendant was charged accordingly, thereafter.
On September 29, 1983, the Defendant was found guilty and sentenced as follows:
Sentenced to 120 years in prison for the following offenses:Attempted Murder. Aggravated Kidnapping. Deviate Sexual Assault and Rape.
To which Robin Gecht, #N40573, Menard Correctional Center, 711 Kaskaskia Street, Menard, Illinois 62259, U.S., responds in a rambling sort of way:This is the entire [States Attorney’s] case to which I stand accused. I will have and will continue saying that B.W.’s ID is a mistake and DNA testing would prove that [sic], but I am being DENIED such testing by the Courts. So whatever else you’ve read is hearsay based soley on a book long outdated and of course 2 so-called friends that never meant what truth meant. And look where they are today. [sic]. I do know who attacked B.W. Police told her in the hospital I owned the van . . . a long story we’ll get into another time . . .
So there you have it. This is what I was charged with [Attempted Murder. Aggravated Kidnapping. Deviate Sexual Assault, and Rape] . . . and to this day I still claim innocences [sic]. This conviction is also still on APPEAL as we write. In 1997 by means of DNA testing in the murders others were charged with. I was found NOT GUILTY and not involved in those matters and cleared as a suspect as I was from 1982 to 1997 . . . based on what other ALEGED to of said to police as I being part of their crime spree . . . I was not or did not know anything at that time.[sic]
According to Mr. Gecht, he is the innocent victim of corrupt law-enforcement agencies, a crooked prosecutor, an inept defense attorney, even a biased judge or two. He has been set up by his two-timing, backstabbing, testimony flip-flopping co-defendants. God! The inconvenience of him having being locked up for decades must be worth a few million dollars to him, at least.
Then there are the internet campaigners who are out of their heads with the tragedy of having “our Robin” being so unjustifiably incarcerated “ruling/ ruining” [sic] their own lives, while conveniently forgetting that Gecht and his sadistic cohorts were involved with the brutal deaths of at least 18 women.
The city of Chester, Randolph County, Illinois, is one of those “nowhere special” places that seem to have just the one popular claim to fame. Sitting prettily on the eastern bank of the mighty Mississippi River, Chester (pop. 8,400), is the birthplace of the late Elzie Crisler Segar, the creator of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor.
I have a huge respect for women in general . . . you will be shocked and understand my continuing fight for justice . . . I’m no angel . . . I will not try to convince you of anything . . . I cry, just as you would . . . and, sure, I do have an obsession about women with big breasts. It is a thing with my entire family going back, as I am told, to GREAT GRANDFATHER & his. Each of us have married large breast women. I as well!! My ex-wife is a 39D & YES she was very satisfying to me.
—ROBIN GECHT
Born December 8, 1894, Crisler died prematurely at age 43 in Santa Monica, California. “El” had a vivid imagination. He invented the character Popeye, who outlived him by a considerable span of years and was, incidentally, based upon local thug Frank “Rocky” Fiegal. Indeed, many unwitting residents of Chester would soon become characters in the Popeye stories, so a visit to Chester would not be complete without visiting the six-foot bronze statue near Chester Bridge that is dedicated to the spinach-eating seaman. I have been there, and I have the T-shirt to prov
e it.
However, Chester has another claim to fame—a proximity to the Menard Correctional Center.3 Opened in March 1878, sixteen years before the creator of Popeye was born, it is the second oldest prison in Illinois. Moreover, up untilJanuary 11, 2003, it housed the state’s death row. Then, the-soon-to-depart Republican governor had a change of heart. George Ryan told the 156 condemned inmates that they no longer faced the death penalty.
“I can’t live with executed men on my conscience,” Ryan said. This, among other statements made by George Ryan, caused a furor among the hang ’em and whip ’em brigade, and if heinous serial killer John Wayne Gacy had been more fortunate, he would have been a beneficiary of George Ryan’s farewell gift, too! Unfortunately for John, he was a tad too late . . . as was one of the utterly despicable characters featured in this chapter. Gecht’s co-Chicago Ripper Thomas Kokoraleis was injected with a fatal chemical cocktail as well.
The Menard Correctional Center can be reached by driving through quaint Chester, taking a left turn, and continuing down a narrow road to the banks of the Mississippi River. It is then approximately a two-mile drive to the prison, a towering, bleak stone fortress cut into the hillside. Death row inmates used to be housed in a separate unit, high up on the right as one faces the institution and clearly visible from the road. Today that unit is used for troublesome inmates. Co-Chicago Ripper Robin Gecht, is housed in general population, and he says he should not be in prison at all.
Linda Sutton
Nineteen miles west of downtown Chicago is the non-home rule municipality of Villa Park. With a population of 22,000, Villa Park was also home to the Ovaltine chocolate beverage factory, situated off South Villa Avenue. The place was closed down in 1985, and the empty building was frequently used by the homeless for shelter.
Satanic rituals in which small to medium-sized animals were sacrificed also took place in the abandoned factory’s corridors. People who have been to this location have described voices and cries that came from nowhere, as well as voices that somehow knew their name. Also reported were people who had large piles of debris thrown at them violently with no natural explanation behind it, like heavy poltergeist activity.
In December 1997, the place was finally sold and later revamped into residential apartments. Yet even today, occupants of those apartments will report hearing screams or footsteps running on the roof, seeing flickering lights, and most common, feelings of being watched. To make things even spookier, after all the construction was completed, the basement of the building remained closed and, for unknown reasons, it still is. Perhaps the ghosts that still haunt the place are the souls of workers who had died in the factory, or people who had been struck and killed by the trains on South Villa Avenue, where the street now called Prairie Path was once a railway…
After leaving the former factory, take a short drive up South Villa Avenue, hang a left at the intersection, and at at 17724 W. North Avenue, Chicago, you can find, among a bunch of seedy stores, bars, and fast-food outlets, the Brer Rabbit Motel. It was here, on the rainy afternoon of Monday, June 1, 1981, that a maid noticed a terrible stench coming from the trash-strewn field at the back of the building. The motel manager investigated the problem. Maybe it was a dead animal, but it was a smell that couldn’t be tolerated, and it had to be gotten rid of.
The source of the problem was the corpse of a young woman, whose remains consisted largely of bones and some clinging flesh. The initial assumption made by the detectives who arrived at the scene was that the body had been there for some time, because they could see her ribs and much of her upper skeletal structure. However, closer examination revealed that maggots were still enthusiastically burrowing away, which indicated that her death had been quite recent.
That the woman had been murdered was not in doubt. Her wrists had been handcuffed, a cloth was stuffed in her mouth, and she still wore a sweater and panties, which were pulled down to her thighs. In one of her socks was tucked a small wad of dollar bills, so robbery was ruled out as a motive.
Back in the ’80s, the motel was rumored to be a joint where one could meet someone for quick sex or to find drugs. It was an area frequented by hookers, who plied their trade along W. North Avenue, and the practice of rollingmoneyinsidesockswas a trick used by prostitutes to prevent them from being robbed.
Deputy Coroner Pete Siekman determined that the woman had been dead for only three days. The advanced state of decomposition was due to two large wounds in her chest—her breasts had been removed, which allowed for an invasion of parasites that had devoured the body. She was identified through fingerprints as 21-year-old Linda Sutton, a prostitute well-known to the police through a string of arrests. She was also the mother of two children, both of whom lived with Linda’s mother.
However, the exact location where she had been murdered was something the police had yet to determine. Investigators needed to know whether the motel site was the primary crime scene or the secondary scene where she had been dumped after being killed someplace else.
As for normal obsession with Womans breasts. WHAT NORMAL MAN OUT THERE HASN’T? Not sure if you’re large on top or what. But if so, am sure you’ve walked down any street & some guy notices you & your tits. Why? WE’RE MEN, but that doesn’t mean we cut then & have sex with them, cuz we have an obsession with large breasted women. 65% of men are obsessed with big tits. I’m sure you already know that. I’m not obsessed otherwise or for any other reason than a normal Joe. MEDIA FOR YOU, IT SELLS. [sic]
Well, I gotta go. YARD time & DR. [sic] Said I need exercise. Not getting sex so I must walk. Ha, Ha!
—Robin Gecht in a letter to author Jennifer Furio
Edward Spreitzer, one of Gecht’s accomplices, later told police that Ms. Sutton was gang-raped and sodomized, and her left breast was cut off while she was alive . . . and that Gecht ran the show.
On February 12, 1982, an unnamed 35-year-old cocktail waitress’s car ran out of gas. When her car was found, police noted that the tank was empty, her purse was on the front seat, and the keys were still in the ignition. Her nude body was discovered on an embankment near the road. At autopsy, it was determined she had been raped, tortured, and mutilated, and one of her breasts had been cut off.
Lorraine Borowski
May 1982 was the month that blonde-haired Lorraine Borowski was killed after being abducted as she crossed a parking lot alone. She was gang-raped, and a piano wire was used to sever a breast from her body. She died as the result of hatchet wounds to the head. Lorraine’s decomposing remains were discovered at a dump site close to Clarendon Hills Cemetery—a 19-minute drive from where Linda Sutton had been found.
According to Edward Spreitzer, he, Gecht, and another man named Thomas Kokoraleis were driving in a red van and pulled up alongside Lorraine as she walked to work. When she declined the driver’s offer of a ride, two of the men jumped out of the van and grabbed her. They took her to a motel room where they gang-raped and beat her. One of the men produced some piano wire, which was wound around one of her breasts and tightened until it was severed from the body and fell to the floor. Spreitzer later told police, “Gecht had sex with Borowski’s breast and then finished her off with an ax.”
Shui Mak
On Saturday, May 29, just two weeks after Lorraine Borowski was killed, a Chinese woman, Shui Mak, was abducted as she returned home from her family’s restaurant in Streamwood, 18 miles northwest of Villa Park. She had been in her brother’s car, but after they argued, he dropped her off to wait for a ride from other relatives, whom he believed were following behind. Tragically, the “relatives” turned out to be the Chicago Ripper Crew driving in a red van, and she was never seen alive again.
Robin once became so furious with his wife that he cut off her nipples.
—EDWARD SPREITZER
Only a sick person would ever think of that.
—ROBIN GECHT
Shui’s body was discovered in late August buried at a construction site. It, too, had been simila
rly mutilated. Spreitzer testified that they had driven her to an isolated wooded area where they “raped her, cut off her breasts, sliced her body to ribbons, and buried her in a hole.”
Angel York
In June 1982, Angel York was dragged into a red van, handcuffed and gang-raped. She was able to escape and told police that the men had even forced her to use a large knife to cut her own breast, which drove one man into a frenzy. “This guy cut me more,” she said, “and then he masturbated into the wound before closing it with duct tape and dumping me in the street.”
Angel identified the man as Robin Gecht.
Sandra Delaware
In August, Sandra Delaware’s body was found floating near the shore of the Chicago River. Her wrists were bound behind her back with a shoelace. Her left breast had been removed, and her bra was knotted around her neck. An autopsy determined that she had been dead for just six hours.
Carol Pappas and Rose Beck
Less than two weeks after the murder of Sandra Delaware, Carol Pappas, age 42, went missing, as did 30-year-old Rose Beck Davis. Rose, a marketing executive, was found stabbed and raped on Wednesday, September 8, 1982, behind a stairway of a North Lake Shore Drive apartment building. A black sock was tied around her neck, and her clothing was in disarray. Her face was crushed, and blood pooled beneath the body. She had been beaten with a hatchet; there were deep cuts to her breasts, and her abdomen had been stabbed. Very small punctures were also present, suggesting that a needle had been another instrument that was used.
The Voices of Serial Killers Page 3