Chicago Ripper Crew: Members, Victims, and Outcomes

The Chicago Ripper Crew was a group of four men — Robin Gecht, Edward Spreitzer, and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis — who abducted, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and murdered women across the Chicago metropolitan area in the early 1980s. Investigators believe the group killed as many as 20 women, though the confirmed count from convictions is lower.¹ One member was executed, two remain in prison, and Thomas Kokoraleis was released in 2019 after serving 36 years.

Who the Four Men Were

Robin Gecht was the group’s ringleader, a former subcontractor who had once worked for John Wayne Gacy’s construction company. He operated with Edward Spreitzer and the Kokoraleis brothers across Cook and DuPage counties, cruising for victims in a red 1975 Dodge van.² Their targets were primarily women they encountered on the street. Victims were abducted, taken to locations controlled by the group, tortured, raped, killed, and dumped in remote areas.

According to confessions from Thomas Kokoraleis, the men brought some victims to an attic room in Gecht’s home that they called a “satanic chapel.” There, Kokoraleis said, they tortured women and amputated their breasts as part of a ritual, keeping the severed body parts in a box.³ The group reportedly performed what they called “satanic communion” during these sessions.² Thomas Kokoraleis later recanted, claiming police had coerced him while he was under the influence of drugs and fed him the details he repeated.⁴

The Victims

The following victims were identified by name in court records and news coverage:

Lorraine “Lorry” Ann Borowski, a 21-year-old receptionist abducted in May 1982 outside her workplace in Elmhurst. Her body was found in a Clarendon Hills cemetery; she had been stabbed repeatedly.²
Linda Sutton, whose aggravated kidnapping and murder led to Spreitzer’s DuPage County conviction.⁵
Rose Beck Davis, a Broadview woman whose murder brought Andrew Kokoraleis a life sentence.⁶
Sandra Delaware and Shui Mak, both murders to which Spreitzer pleaded guilty.⁵
Raphael Torado (spelled Tiradao in some court records), a 28-year-old man shot on a North Side street in October 1982 while Spreitzer drove the getaway car. Spreitzer pleaded guilty to his murder.⁵

A teenage girl attacked by the group survived. She identified Gecht as her attacker, and he was convicted of her rape and mutilation.²

What Happened to Each Member

Robin Gecht

Gecht was arrested after the surviving teenage victim identified him in a photo lineup and again in a police lineup. He waived his Miranda rights and made incriminating statements about attacks on two women. A Cook County jury convicted him of attempted murder, aggravated kidnapping, deviate sexual assault, and rape. He received 120 years in the Illinois state penitentiary: 60 years for attempted murder, run consecutively with concurrent sentences of 60 years for deviate sexual assault, 60 years for rape, and 30 years for aggravated kidnapping.⁷ Despite his alleged role as the group’s leader, Gecht was never charged with murder. He remains incarcerated at Graham Correctional Center, with a projected parole date of October 2042.⁸

Edward Spreitzer

Spreitzer was convicted in DuPage County Circuit Court of the aggravated kidnapping and murder of Linda Sutton and pleaded guilty to the murders of Shui Mak, Sandra Delaware, Rose Beck Davis, and Raphael Torado. On March 19, 1986, a DuPage County jury sentenced him to death after roughly one hour of deliberation.⁵ His sentence was never carried out. On January 12, 2003, Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 Illinois death row inmates to life in prison, and Spreitzer was among them.⁹ He remains incarcerated at Dixon Correctional Center with no projected discharge date.¹⁰

Andrew Kokoraleis

Andrew Kokoraleis was convicted of the 1982 abduction, mutilation, and murder of Lorraine Borowski and sentenced to death. He also received a life sentence for the murder of Rose Beck Davis.⁶ He was executed by lethal injection on March 17, 1999, at Tamms Correctional Center, the first and only prisoner executed at that facility. The execution followed a day of legal maneuvering. Illinois Supreme Court Justice Moses Harrison II ordered a stay, the full court voted 4-3 to overturn it, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, and Governor Ryan denied clemency, saying that “some crimes are so horrible and so heinous that society has a right to deal the ultimate penalty.”¹¹

Thomas Kokoraleis

Thomas Kokoraleis was originally sentenced to life for the Borowski murder. That conviction was overturned on appeal because the trial court had improperly refused to admit his co-defendants’ confessions.¹ Facing retrial, he pleaded guilty in 1987 in exchange for a 70-year sentence. Under Illinois sentencing law at the time, inmates earned one day of good-time credit for every day served, making him eligible for release after 35 years.¹²

The Case and Illinois’s Death Penalty

Andrew Kokoraleis was the last person executed in Illinois before Governor Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in January 2000.¹³ Ryan later described allowing the execution to proceed as “emotional” and “exhausting,” and said the ordeal led him to believe the burden of deciding who lives and who dies “might be too much to ask of one person.”¹⁴ He had reviewed the case shortly after the exoneration of Anthony Porter, who had been wrongfully convicted and nearly executed.

On January 31, 2000, after a 13th Illinois death row inmate was exonerated (meaning more people had been freed from death row than had been executed since 1977), Ryan declared a moratorium, citing “systemic flaws” in the capital punishment system. In 2003 he commuted every death sentence in the state to life in prison, and Illinois formally abolished the death penalty in 2011. Ryan later said he regretted allowing the Kokoraleis execution to go forward.¹⁵

Where Thomas Kokoraleis Is Now

Thomas Kokoraleis was released from Illinois River Correctional Center on March 29, 2019, after serving more than 36 years. His release had originally been expected in 2017 but was delayed 18 months when he failed to secure an approved residence. Prosecutors also tried to commit him indefinitely under the Illinois Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, but psychologists and a psychiatrist determined he did not meet the criteria.¹⁶

On release, Kokoraleis was required to register as a sex offender and a convicted murderer, report quarterly to local police, and reaffirm his registration whenever he changed his address.¹⁷ He is not on parole and has not been subject to electronic monitoring.¹⁸ He initially stayed at a Christian-based shelter in Wheaton before moving to Wayside Cross Ministries in Aurora, where he entered a seven-month recovery program.

In a June 2019 on-camera interview with CBS Chicago, Kokoraleis maintained his innocence, saying, “Everybody thinks I’m a monster. I’m not a monster.” He denied any involvement in murder, ritualistic mutilation, torture, or cannibalism.⁴

As of August 2024, Kokoraleis, then 64, was living at Pathway Ministries in downtown Peoria. He first registered with the Peoria Police Department on May 2, 2024, and the police chief said the department had received no reports of issues from the agency that had previously monitored him.¹⁸

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ABC News. Chicagos Suspected Ripper Crew Member Convicted Murderer Thomas
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CBS News Chicago. Ripper Crew Victims Thomas Kokoraleis
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Rolling Stone. Thomas Kokoraleis Ripper Crew Prison Release
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CBS News Chicago. Thomas Kokoraleis Claims Innocence in On-Camera Interview
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Chicago Tribune. Spreitzer Sentenced to Death
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Chicago Tribune. Kokoraleis Execution Carried Out
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Findlaw. People v. Gecht
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Illinois Department of Corrections. Inmate Search – Robin Gecht N40573
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Death Penalty Information Center. Illinois Death Row Inmates Granted Commutation by Governor George Ryan
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Illinois Department of Corrections. Inmate Search – Edward Spreitzer N41165
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UPI. Kokoraleis Dies Following Legal Dispute
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CBS News Chicago. Thomas Kokoraleis 5 Fast Facts
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Peoria Journal Star. Illinois Last Execution
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U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Governor Ryan Testimony
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The Guardian. Former Illinois Governor Regrets Allowing States Last Execution
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ABC 7 Chicago. Ripper Crew Killer Released From Prison
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ABC 7 Chicago. Thomas Kokoraleis Registers to Live in Aurora
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Peoria Journal Star. Infamous Murderer Thomas Kokoraleis From Ripper Crew Now Living in Peoria