The Horrifying Mysteries of Chicago's Ripper Crew

Warning: This episode contains graphic, accurate descriptions of unclean actions, and may not be appropriate for all listeners.

In 1981 and 1982, an horrific series of murders and mutilation gripped Chicago. Ultimately, investigators found four men guilty of the crimes: Edward Spreitzer, brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis, and the alleged ringleader, Robin Gecht. However, as Ben, Matt and Dylan discover in tonight's episode, three of the criminals seemed unable to explain what, exactly, led to their depraved acts. Gecht, they argued, had supernatural powers of compulsion.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we begin tonight's program, we'd like to provide a
clear disclaimer. This episode contains depictions of extreme violence, descriptions
of graphic sexual assault, cannibalism, torture, and murder. As a result,
this episode may not be appropriate for all listeners.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Nol is on an adventure, but will return shortly.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
They call me Ben, and you can as well. Most importantly,
you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. At the very top as we
record here on Tuesday, December second, Friends and neighbors, fellow
conspiracy realists, please note tonight's story is not appropriate for

(01:14):
all listeners. H Matt, You've met a lot of people.
Have you ever met somebody with inexplicable charisma other than me?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Of course you, Ben, you have any I've ever met?
Let's see Dylan then, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Haul Wait a second, Noel, wait a minute, alexis you
holy rep I've met a lot of people with just
unattainable levels of charisma, which doesn't make sense because you
have all attained it.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
You've adated as well, Matt. As we know, we spent
a lot of time together, but we have never been
to Chicago together. We are traveling and tonight's episode to Chicago,
the big deal city in the state of Illinois here
in the United States, and we are looking to understand

(02:09):
more about an horrific cult of murderers, cannibals, and necro files.
This is not our opinion, by the way, folks, these
are legal conclusions. It's for otherwise ordinary men, collectively known
as the Ripper Crew. And I was thinking about you, Matt,

(02:33):
when I was doing a lot of research for this.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Because why don't think about me while you're researching this.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, because your previous work, my friend, we found you
and I both found separately and together with stuff. They
don't want you to know that in cases of collective
murder groups or spree killers or serial killers, it's usually
just one person. But when there is a group acting

(03:01):
in concert, it seems there's always a ring leader. It's
someone who through reasons science still does not totally understand
someone has managed to override or erode the egos and
self identity of their accomplices. And later when those folks
get caught, if they do get caught, they say, this

(03:26):
person insert leader here forced me, compelled me into unimaginable
acts of depravity, right like I'm thinking of Let's see,
there were a couple of cases in the United Kingdom.
There was obviously Leonard Lake and Charles Ing.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
I'm thinking about Manson and that that concept of somebody
who is hands off but forces his other people or
coerces his other people to do stuff. And often drugs
are involved, and that's why they seem so charismatic, because
somebody's getting drugged. But yeah, Waco, I mean, that's an

(04:08):
interesting thing to or texts, Well, how much control did
Koresh really have?

Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know?

Speaker 3 (04:15):
There there are always questions like that, But in the
end you've got somebody who's off their rocker and usually
dealing with some delusions of granture.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yes, just so, and well put our question tonight, our
questions tonight which we may not quite answer. How does
this phenomena work? What actually turns otherwise ordinary reasonably saying
people into monsters? We'll get into it after a word

(04:46):
from our sponsors. Here are the facts, Matt. Have you
ever been to Chicago?

Speaker 3 (04:58):
I have, just a few times. I haven't spent enough
time there to really get to know Chicago, though most
of my references come from SNL.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Bits Hey, Tennessee. Have you ever been to Chicago?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Many? Many, many times?

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah? Okay, what's your what's your favorite thing about Chicago? Guys?
Ooh the food?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, I know it's controversial. I love Deep Dish. It's
one of my favorite things in the world.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Oh yes, Lasagna's pizza. Yeah, I'm on board. We have, collectively, folks,
never been to Chicago in the early nineteen eighties. It's
very much a study and contradiction still is.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I always think about corruption when I think about Chicago,
but that's popular culture, and I don't know how much
of that is true. Maybe wealth disparity because of that corruption.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, wealth disparity definitely ruled, and I would argue rules
the day. Still, you got these towering skyscrapers, some of
the most famous architecture in North America. Opulent old wealth.
They have multi million dollar corporations, but the streets below
are littered with abandoned factories, crumbling, neighborhoods, desperation, crime, you know,

(06:25):
and at this time, in the early nineteen eighties, to
set the stage, the rest of the United States is
gripped with fear of demonic conspiracies, a social phenomenon we
now call the Satanic panic. And shout out to our
interview segment with none other than Sarah Marshall, who did

(06:47):
some amazing research. And if you want to learn more
about the Satanic Panic, check out our interview with Sarah Marshall.
If you want to learn even more, check out her show,
which is great. We're not blowing sunshine on that one.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
That's right, listen to it. So Satanic panic is a cloud,
a giant United States shaped cloud, and it is just
over everybody that human beings, all of us. At the time.
I was there in the eighties, but I was just
a child, but all humans were trying to put a

(07:25):
face to some of the horrors that society was facing.
You know, these are people being murdered, assaulted, injured, or
just there's so many things that were happening to people,
and a lot of crimes were going unsolved. There's all
kinds of issues. As we talked about with Sarah Marshall,
with children being abused. So the satanic panic, as we

(07:45):
talked about in that interview, it's human beings, like all
of us, just attempting to put a face to some
of the horrors society was facing, including you know, unsolved murders,
child abuse, all kinds of stuff. The concept of some
satanic force out there doing these evil things made a
lot more sense than just it's some people deciding to

(08:06):
do this horrible crap.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, and this panic, this moral outbreak, sure hit different
in Chicago in the early nineteen eighties because, as you
alluded to earlier, Chicago, Illinois is historically regarded as one
of the most corrupt cities in all of the United States.

(08:28):
The political class, law enforcement, often by the hoi poloi,
the local populace. They're perceived as living on a distinct
different plane from the rest of the city. A lot
of scandals simply don't make the news, and so the
public for decades and decades, actually well over a century,

(08:52):
tends not to trust the authorities and also tends to
believe in the possibility of dark conspiracy. I mean, we
can't forget this is the home of al Capone.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Right, Yes, Yeah, this is a place where real mob
control was in effect. And you know, again that's popularized
in the culture and movies and television and all this
stuff books and comics, but Chicago really did have sections
of it, parts of it, parts of the government itself
that were controlled by the mob, or at least by

(09:25):
mob money. And this was just reality. So you've you've
got situations where somebody who you know when you you know,
you go to restaurant or some of you know, waiter,
you know, some people who hang around at a deli
or something, and one of those people would just be
missing and gone, and they're just gone, and nobody asked questions.
You don't ask questions for sure. This is almost just

(09:45):
part of what happens also with you know, the nightlife
in Chicago. Human beings that are engaged in some of
that stuff will just disappear.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, The popular consensus at the time was both cynical
and valid. Murders could get ignored, right, Robberies could get ignored.
The police would look at each other and say, I
don't know, man, Sometimes buildings just catch on fire and
burned out. Investigations might lead nowhere. And to your point,

(10:18):
the most vulnerable of people to be specific here sex workers, minorities,
the poor. They could simply disappear. And I don't know
why I put a hyphen in disappear there, but it
works for the pacing. The tale of the Ripper Crew
begins with four individuals. At first, they resemble any other

(10:42):
group of friends. Guy named Robin get Ght, a guy
named Edward Spreutzer, and then a pair of brothers, Andrew
and Thomas Coco Rales Ko Ko r A l E. So,
like so many other young people at the time, these

(11:07):
guys are largely a drift in life. You know, they're
going job to job doing construction work. They're going place
to place. They have no real north star, they have
no real compass or big goal. And at the time,
Robin Gett is the oldest and most locally successful, I

(11:30):
would say of the four. He was twenty eight years
old in nineteen eighty one. He was a married father,
he had three kids. He was a construction guy. He
did carpentry, and I think he was an electrician too,
and it was electrician. He was essentially a handyman. He
always had a string of income, right, he had gigs.

(11:55):
It was very much a gig economy for this guy,
and when he was not working on his carpentry or
electricity gigs, he led another life as an avowed self
described Satanist. Now he did successfully support his family. He
was known in his neighborhood for inviting teens over and

(12:18):
playing Get This folks, loud, raucous music late at night.
Come hang with Robin and he's got some free beer
for you. But at some point, as will prove in
tonight's episode, he started proselytizing, attempting to convert others to

(12:41):
his belief system. And as far as we know, this
is where Edward Spritzer enters the picture. He's young at
this point, he's about twenty twenty one years old. He
lives with the Get family for a short time, and
through him Get acquires the Cocorales brothers. They're two teenagers

(13:04):
who had done a couple of gigs with him previously.
I think it's important for us to note that in
any society, at any point in history, across all cultures,
gangs and clicks naturally form. It seems this one evolved

(13:25):
into a cult and Matt maybe here is where we
just give the headline what happened.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Sure. Well, keep in mind, at least for authorities, none
of this that we've been talking about was known. All
it was known is that women were being found on
the side of the road or dumped in places within
several jurisdictions in the Chicago area. And they all had
a couple of things in common. Do we want to

(13:54):
talk about what the victims had in common now, just
so everybody has an understanding.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, let's do the headline that we've mentioned. So in
nineteen eighty one, in nineteen eighty two, this group led
by Robin Gek, brutally abducted, assaulted, tortured, and murdered possibly
as many as twenty people, overwhelmingly women, often sex workers,

(14:21):
in a series of ritualistic killings for reasons that later
even the murderers themselves could not fully explain.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Uh yeah, that's it, you know, at least according to
the trial and according to what's been said. There's been
all kinds of weirdness happening since then, and there are
all kinds of questions about whether or not this was
an Atlanta child murders kind of situation where Chicago needed
to put some people away for the brutality of the
murders that have been happening, but it does seem like

(14:55):
it does seem like these were the guys that did
this stuff. There was a woman claimed to have been abducted,
to have been abducted by a man in a red van,
a very specific red van, and she got away. She
said she was raped and brutally attacked basically mutilated within

(15:16):
that van. Then there was a lookout for this van.
It was eventually found and the van was registered to GECT,
but it was being driven by Spretzer, which is interesting.
So they realized that this red van was associated with
this series of brutal murders and mutilations all around the

(15:41):
Chicago area. They would allegedly drive around in the van
looking for women in different counties, Cook County, Page County,
and they would look for just someone who appeared to
be alone and they would target that person. They would
abduct that person into the van and they would sexual assault, rape,

(16:03):
mutilate by cutting off the breasts of that person. Sorry,
this is horrifying. I know, I've realized that as I'm
saying it. And then they would dump that person in
a different part or like usually in a different county
or in a different part of that county, usually where
there's another police jurisdiction.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, and the authorities don't put this together in enough
time to save lives, right, They save some lives for sure.
So one thing to note is that other than being
female and vulnerable for the investigators, for the police, with
each of these specific cases, they're kind of siloed. There

(16:42):
seems to be little rhyme or reason to the selection
of victims different races, different ages, different backgrounds. Crimes of
opportunity happens in Chicago. But to that earlier point we made,
however seemingly unrelated the victims were. At the time, the

(17:02):
methodology of crime was largely consistent torture, assault, murder, dismemberment, disembowelment, beheading,
and most specifically, removal or partial mutilation of the victim's breast.
So if you follow true crime, or if you have

(17:23):
ever lived in Chicago shout out to Chef ben in economics,
you are doubtlessly familiar with this case. Matt As the
investigators found. The first known victim of what would later
be called the Chicago Rippers or the Ripper Crew, was
a twenty eight year old named Linda Sutton, who was

(17:45):
kidnapped a mate third nineteen eighty one. They later, as
you said, they dumped the body. Her corpse was discovered
behind a place called the Moonlit Motel, which we'll come
up in the story later. Her left breast had been
rudely removed, and a bit less than a year later,

(18:07):
there is the disappearance of Lorraine Borowski on May fifteenth,
nineteen eighty two. Her body is not discovered until five
months later, on October tenth, in a cemetery in the
Clarendon Hills neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, and there were a lot of unexplained, similar, seemingly
related murders in between those two, right, that's the concept here.
Borowski was very different because, as we noted, these guys
were driving around generally at night, looking for someone who
was alone. Borowski happened to be heading into work in

(18:49):
the morning when she was abducted. So it's a I
don't know even how to talk about this correctly, Ben,
But Borowski had family and people that were looking for
her and expecting her, and she had coworkers who were
expecting her, and when she didn't show up to work,
there was an immediate alarm amongst all of the people

(19:11):
that cared about her, and then police notified, and then
it became a big deal. It was heavily covered in
the media. You can find the actual reports from nineteen
eighty two on CBS Chicago's website. I think they have
it on YouTube too, where this is where you've got
victims who have people who are going to make a
big fuss both to the police, officers involved in the

(19:34):
investigators and the media.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, so not the kind of folks that Chicago would
I say this. I We're trying to figure out the
best way to say this. Folks, Chicago ignored murders of
minorities and of people on the skits. It just happened.
This was You can read contemporary reporting in the Chicago

(20:00):
Tribune about Borrowski wherein suddenly the public took notice. And
also with as with so many other serial murder enterprises,
the pattern escalates just a few days after. On May
twenty ninth, same year, this group of four guys they

(20:25):
kidnap a thirty year old restaurant employee named Shuemach and
her body is not found for another four months. These
guys are not experts by any means. They did not
successfully murder all their intended targets. Some of their targets

(20:47):
did survive. This ultimately leads to a break in the investigation.
I'm thinking specifically June thirteenth, nineteen eighty two, when these
guys abducted a twenty year old sex worker named Angel York.
They took her into that red van we've mentioned. They

(21:09):
beat the snot out of her right, they assaulted her.
They forced her to cut herself on her breast, and
then again this episode is not appropriate for all audiences,
one of the men apparently ejaculated into her wound, laughing,

(21:29):
and then they taped up her wounds. Oh, the guy's
also cut her more. They taped up her wounds with
duct tape. They threw her in an alley and left
her for dead. She managed, Angel York managed to reach
a payphone and thankfully that saved her life. She was

(21:50):
taken to a hospital. Surgeons are trying to save what
is left of her chest as detectives are questioning her.
So for the first time, investigators are able to hear
directly from a victim. She didn't have much though she
described the van. She said there were multiple men inside,

(22:12):
which gave lie to some other guesses. We'll see where
investigators initially were thinking this is a single operator, but
the detectives start piecing things together, and so they go
back and law enforcement is very siloed across Chicago met
at this point, they go back to unsolved open cases

(22:35):
and they're asking other departments. They say, look for a
red van in any description of with any association to
other similar cases of assault, torture, mutilation, and murder across Chicago.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, and as they're looking for this red van, it's
still in operation and there are still murders happening. There's
a woman named Sandra Delaware who was found. I don't
know exactly when she was killed, but she was recovered
on August twenty eighth, eighty two. So that's well in

(23:14):
two and a half months after. You know, they've got
this tip about the red van, but there is an
intense search for this. I think it's a Ford, No,
it's a Dodge. It's a red Dodge van. You can
find pictures of it online if you want to check
it out. This person had identical injuries, very similar injuries
again to all of these unsolved murders that were happening,

(23:37):
and Remember we're in different police precincts, right, We've got
different investigators looking at all of these murders. Not everybody
sharing all the information. Some people are keeping it close
to their chest. But around this time, when they finally
got the red van, the connections are beginning to happen.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, we also see the next month nineteen eighty two,
still Rosebeck Davis is kidnapped. In September. She is found
shortly after a murder. Her body has been dumped in
an alley. These two victims, like the other victims, they
had nearly identical injuries, as we said, And now the

(24:21):
investigators are starting to connect some of the threats. They're
starting to put the pieces together. On October sixth, nineteen
eighty two, members of the group shoot two men. It
appears to be a random drive by, later confirmed by confessions.
Spoiler folks that these criminals do get arrested. A guy

(24:43):
named Rafael Torodo and his friend, a guy named Alberto Rosario,
are just randomly shot with a firearm. Rosario survives, Toronto
passes away. This makes him the groups only known male victim.
But that very same day get Robin get entices a

(25:08):
sex worker named Beverly Washington into his vehicle. She is brutalized,
Her left breast is removed, her right breast is mutilated,
and against all odds, this victim survives. She is able
to give police another description of Get and his red

(25:29):
Dodge van and the interior as well. So eventually the
police move and Robin Get is arrested. It's October twentieth,
we're still in nineteen eighty two. This is the first
arrest because they're able to link his van to that
attack on Beverly, Washington. And one of the first things

(25:53):
these investigators note is that this Get guy seems unusually called.
He is undisturbed, He is not particularly he doesn't seem
fearful of arrest or consequence. He also doesn't really seem
to care that his van is attached to such horrific acts.

(26:19):
Police have to release him due to insufficient evidence, right,
which sounds nuts here in twenty five.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
Well, yeah, I mean it's a weird situation when you
think about it from the investigator's perspective. You've got this guy,
he's got a wife, a son, and two daughters. You know,
the daughters are going to Catholic school. He's known around
the neighborhood as just being quiet. The whole family is.
He's also got these other men living in the same

(26:47):
house with him. And then you've got this van that
theoretically anybody in the house has access to just because
it's registered to him. Right, He's the guy gets picked
up initially. But when you're trying to piece together, is
you know who is making use of this van? Who
is doing these things? We've got a description of a man, right,

(27:08):
but the description of the man just makes you leads
you towards the guy whose name this van is registered in,
but it doesn't mean that it's him. So you've got
to get something out of this person or find additional
evidence to do anything with him.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Right, Yeah, he's a stone wall. I mean also keep
in mind, folks, this sounds ludicrous as we're exploring it
this evening, but yeah, this is before the days of
surveillance at a comprehensive level, and it's before the days
of DNA testing.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Well, yeah, for sure, you can't just you can't put
it on this guy unless you have sufficient evidence.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
And compelling evidence.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, and we're telling you think, like we've told you
a lot of things that they have no idea at
least the investigators have no idea about right up into
this point. This is just another guy and you know,
these are just people that live with him, So like
that's all they know about this dude.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Right, They're working with the information they have. Right, We're
not casting inspersion on them. We're saying that they Yeah,
they didn't have the benefit of retrospect or DNA testing
their comprehensive surveillance. They were playing by the rules. They
found a registration right, a van that matched a description,

(28:32):
and they knew that By this point, actually, they are
aware that there may be a pattern. And and so
this initial arrest of Robin Get leads to him getting off.
There's no evidence, so they have to let him go.
But on November fifth, he's arrested again, and once more,

(28:55):
he is cool as ice. He is cold as ice,
cool as a cucumber. The other three members of what
the press would later call the Ripper Gang are apprehended
shortly after this. After this second arrest in November, so
the authorities start conducting these lengthy interrogations and as they did,

(29:20):
the one guy Get stayed immovable. He said, I didn't
do anything. I've got nothing to say about this. But
the other three began to crack. One man, Thomas Cocorrales,
in particular, he told the detectives that, yes, they did

(29:41):
commit the murders. He said this after he failed a polygraph,
by the way, and he said, we would take these
victims or pieces of their bodies. Two Robin gets home,
and there get had created a satanic chapel. And then
he said they were still alive. They would sectually assault

(30:03):
and torture the victims, but they were centered on the breast.
They would amputate the breast with garat, but think of
it like piano wire, folks. And then he said they
would sometimes eat parts of the amputated flesh, at which
point usually get would masturbate. He would ejaculate into the

(30:28):
breast tissue and save it in a special box. All
four of these men ultimately get convicted on varying charges
from the first rest all the way up to the
present day. As we record again here on December, Robin
Gett always maintained his innocence. The thing is, the other

(30:50):
three don't agree with him. They unanimously agree amid themselves
that he was the ring leader, that he somehow I'll
forced them, compelled them to do these things.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, Well, there's another twist, and I don't want to
jump forward too much, but there's a bit of weirdness
going on in the investigation. And then there are other
statements coming out where Thomas Cocherialis is saying he was
coerced to say that, like, to admit to the murder

(31:29):
of Borowski by the police. Like he said, they told
me what to say, and I repeated it, and that
was my statement.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, and let's pick that up. Let's pick that thread
up in a bit, because our first question is what
led to these horrific acts? Based on all of the evidence,
it does seem certain that these four guys did these
horrible things. Also, it seems based on the precedent of

(31:59):
what we understand, and it seems that the Ripper Crews
crimes would have continued and likely escalated if Angela Yorck
and Beverly Washington had not survived. But this is the question,
all right, what do we make of these post arrest
confessions a Satanic cult at the dawn of the moral

(32:20):
outbreak called the Satanic Panic? What on earth could possess
these young, otherwise ordinary men to reach such abyssal levels
of depravity. According to the three of them, again and
again the answer was the same. Robin get they said

(32:41):
had super natural powers. Is it true? Let's pause for
a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy.
I guess you know it is true, at least from

(33:02):
their perspective. Edward Spritzer, Andrew Coco Realis, and his brother
Thomas all consistently claimed that had some kind of power
of compulsion.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Yeah. Even his wife, at least according to CBS Chicago,
would tell stories at work, like to her coworkers, things like, oh,
I love my husband too much. I'll never leave him,
but it is kind of you know, it's annoying. He
goes out all night, I just don't see him. And
then he'll come back with like a girlfriend who will

(33:39):
stay at our house for a while, or with these
young men who come and stay with us. That seems
like somebody, somebody who has some kind of ability to
just get people to go along with and what he
wants to do is is what should happen?

Speaker 1 (33:57):
And to convince you, yeah, yeah, I appreciate that point.
Because his wife, whose name is also Rose, she she
told police that her husband could talk anyone into anything,
and his parents, in later interviews said he had always
been strange, and people who knew him from childhood said

(34:20):
he was bookish and quiet, but had some kind of
fascination with pain. It did seem that there was some
sort of dark transmitter or receiver or antennae about the guy.
One acquaintance unnamed went so far as to uh, in

(34:41):
conversation with investigators, without prompting, tell them never to meet
this guy's direct gaze. He would get inside of you both.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
I mean, that's what they're saying.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
It's not me saying somebody.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
I'm not not talking about you. I'm talking about the statement.
It's just what that's one of those things. I yeah,
I hear that. I think in my mind already it's
there is something about this dude that is very intentional.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, a bit of a paper tiger perhaps, right. So,
Edward Spreutzer tells the police that he get in the
Cocoa Rales brothers are part of what they internally call
the group. His confessions are graphic, Edwards, that is concrete.
They're horrifying, They're backed up by forensic evidence, and he

(35:38):
describes random crimes of opportunity, kidnapping, torturing of female victims
across the city. He says, often we would take them
at least while they were alive, to a motel or
to the van, dump them in an alleyway, or we
do our evil deeds in a basement. And Matt, I

(35:59):
know we both saw this. When confronted with Spretzer's testimony,
Get grinned and just said, blandly, I don't know what
you're talking about. And then, per the story this is
coming from the investigators, they led him Get past the

(36:20):
room where Spritzer was still being interviewed. Spritzer and Get
could see each other, so this was not like a
two way mirror, This was a glass pane. And again,
per these reports at the mirror site of Robin Get,
Spritzer immediately recanted everything he had just confessed, and Get

(36:45):
said Spritzer was absolutely innocent all of these crimes. He
claimed in his new confession they were all the work
of Andrew Cocoles.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, that's pretty intense, right. It just means that these
guys are at least that there was some fear of Get.
And again this is kind of like your landlord, He's
like playing some kind of father figure to these guys.
You know, they're staying at his house. He's leading them

(37:21):
through whatever it is that they're doing. It's like, in
my mind, it's like seeing your dad shoot you that
glance you know that lets you know, Hey, what you're
doing is not what you're supposed to be doing. That's
what it reminds me of.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
And yeah, fast forward. Okay, so that now the police
are questioning the brothers, the Cocoralls brothers. Andrew is the
first to start racking right. We know there are serious
problems with the interrogation process in general, but his statements,
beat by beat, appear to confirm pretty much every aspect

(37:58):
of Spritzer's original confession, the one that he withdrew postaste
when he saw get walk by. Andrew speaks in depth
about the methods they used to stalk women in this van,
crimes of opportunity, the roots they took, the knives, the
wire they used. He even describes at some point the

(38:21):
use of can openers on the flesh of victims. And
he recounts not a ton but a small amount of
details that the police have been yet to share with
the public. And then he starts speaking about Gekt again,
and he says Gekt has convinced them of a weird, dark,

(38:45):
metaphysical thing. He says, you know, these, these breasts of
our victims have some kind of spiritual power, and that
by consuming this flesh in specific, one may absorb some
measure of that power. No, Matt, I want to go
to you here because I read and watched a lot

(39:09):
about this and dug in as deep as we usually do,
and I didn't see an articulate definition of what this
power is supposed to be.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Well, no, because Gekt wasn't talking right, I mean, and
he's the only one that made up the thing, so
he made he made up what this power is.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense because at no point in
these investigations are any of the other three members of
the Ripper crew able to articulate exactly what this power is.
Thomas Cocrrales is the youngest of the Let's just call
him a cult right or a group of murderers. He

(39:56):
is also by all reports, he is also the most
impressionable and maybe the slowest. It's something that his defense
will later use multiple times. They will say he's not
the I'm not sure of the right way to say it.
They will maintain that he he is not mentally disabled,

(40:20):
but he's at the threshold, that's what they're arguing.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yes, impressionable is just the word. Maybe he seems to
be very impressionable. So when you're questioning somebody like that
and putting them under tremendous pressure, the question is how
much are you leading this person to say the things
you want them to say rather than telling the truth.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah, how much you prompting and priming them? You know,
this is a mission critical question here. Thomas Cocorus is
also the last of the four to be questioned, and
like we were saying initially, he maintains his since he
fails a polygraph test a lie detector test, and those

(41:06):
are kind of bs.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Well, what do we know about that? What does it do?
What does a light detect test do to a person
who's being.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Questioned, Well, depending on how much you know about polygraphs,
they may affect your response. If you think it's actual science,
which it very much is not, then you may feel
pressured or exposed.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yeah, like crap, they've caught me in a lie if
they say you lied, right.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, this guy didn't notice squeeze, Is you know his
kegel muscles or put some thumb tacks in the bottom
of his shoe, neither of what work anymore, by the way. Uh,
and it's laughable that we still use polygraphs as some
sort of proof anyway. Yeah, you make an excellent point,

(41:56):
Thomas says, all right, after he fails this polegraph, he says,
the murder stuff is true, the rituals are real, and
Robin Gett has powers. It was all him. And if
we don't do what he says, he has the ability
to curse us or kill us if we disobey in

(42:20):
any way. And then he says, you know, there's also
a Satanic chapel, which he describes in detail, located in
the attic of the get domicile.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, this is a weird thing that he described. You guys,
we're talking about the perfect Satanic Panic version of a
ritual attic, right, red and black crosses painted all in
the wall. We got candles everywhere that get lit when
there's some kind of ritual going on. There's an altar
with red fabric and a box. Oh what's in the box?

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Right? Yeah? And Thomas J. Correlli says, this trophy box
a phrase they use a couple of times contains severed
flesh from their victims. Always severed flesh from the breast,
and he says this is true. He says that he

(43:21):
had seen as many as fifteen separate breasts stored within
this box. Consuming pieces of this flesh, he told investigators
was called taking communion, at which point he added, you
just have to do it, and again, we don't want

(43:41):
to lose this. Note there are serious problems with the
interrogation process in the United States. This may have very
much been a vulnerable person who is being prompted or
primed to say things that investigators life. And even now,
the timeline between when investigators get the warrant to search

(44:06):
the get home and when they're interrogating Thomas, it's a
low murky, low murky makes you wonder if they knew
what they were asking for.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, well, they're trying to get direct evidence, right when
we're looking at the evidence of this case, physical evidence
that you need to link this group of people to
all of these murders, perhaps even just one of these murders.
I guess we can say it now that the police
were kind of they're a bit at a loss when
it comes to direct physical evidence. They do have the

(44:39):
van right, they can't link these guys physically to these victims,
or at least they're having a very hard time doing that.
So having this described attic that would have the tissues
of victims in it, that would be huge. So you know,
I guess that's the big thing the invest gators are

(45:00):
looking into and locked in on, Like we can get
evidence now, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
If we can put the puzzle pieces together directly, then
even without DNA evidence, we do have the bodies ryep
a dark version of Habeas corpus. So by this point
the investigators have already learned to keep get away from
interacting with the other three members of the gang. If

(45:27):
you have ever been involved in some kind of criminal
group activity, you know that's part for the course anyway, Right,
Like if Dylan, Matt, you and Noel and me yours truly,
if we were all sell it, what's a silly thing?
If we're all selling counterfeit postal stamps we got we

(45:52):
got arrested for it, stamp fraud, we would be questioned separately.
They're not going to sit the five us down and say,
all right, guys, walk us through how you came up
with ripping off the post office for thirty seven cents
a pop.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
I would just say it depends on our social standing,
because they might just bring us all into an office
and say, hey, guys, what are we doing here?

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Right?

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Or they put us all in boxes and then one
by one we get questioned. And that is not a
fairly new tactic. That's a known thing. But I guess
at this point in the investigation, like before we got
to this point, they were unaware of the influence that
they had on each other.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, they're also at this point they are certain that
these men committed these crimes, but to the earlier point,
they've got almost no physical evidence linking any of them.
And importantly, they have virtually nothing at all directly linking
Geck to the murders. So they do get this warrant,

(46:58):
they do search gets home, and they find it is
addict exactly what the other people described. There's one key difference.
I mean, the candles are there, the drapery, the red cross,
red and black cross decoration stuff, all that ghastly accoutrement

(47:21):
is there. But there's one key difference. That trophy box,
the one that supposedly contains up to fifteen severed breast
of innocent victims. It's missing, and even now it is
yet to be found. So there's a very difficult rubicon

(47:43):
for investigators across. They soldier through the investigation, they do
background checks, they discover more and more troubling stuff. All right,
the three guys, the other three guys who are not
Robin Get, they don't really have violent priors, you know
what I mean. We're looking at what law enforcement would

(48:06):
describe as you know, low end stuff, speeding tickets, moving violations.
But Get has just two years earlier been charged with
a crime called contributing to the sexual delinquency of a
fourteen year old. He was trying to get a teenager.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Yeah, what the hell does that mean?

Speaker 1 (48:29):
That?

Speaker 3 (48:29):
What did he do to her? That's unknown. It's pretty horrifying.
Let's also remember that the police at this point have
the van, right, they do have the van. They've also
got Get's home where the men lived. And you have
to remember that Gets lived with a family and children
and these guys, so you have to imagine they probably

(48:51):
weren't committing these horrendous acts in that home. So you think, okay, well,
then it's the van. That's where the stuff is going down,
but they've got the van and they still don't have
a bunch of physical evidence, right, They're still lacking that.
So maybe it wasn't happening so much in the van,
some of it, maybe not most of it. So where

(49:12):
was this going down? And that's when they discover.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
The motel, the moonlit motel which we mentioned earlier. Turns
out that get and the other three individuals had rented
rooms at the same motel where Linda Sutton's body was
later discovered, and they stayed there for quite a long time.
They stayed there long enough that they had to redirect

(49:40):
their mailing addresses. That's Jesse, you know, folks, it's a
long time to stay in a motel. And the investigator
speak to the manager of the motel, and the manager
of the motel has a lot of stuff to say.
The manager notes these men were quote some kind of cultist.

(50:02):
He says, I think they practiced devil worship. I definitely
saw them bringing women to the property at all hours
of the night.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Such a weird concept of just if you see a
group of a group of men bringing women to a
hotel room, a motel room late at night, you would
think they're cultists. I do wish we had more information
on what he meant. Right, Why would you go to cultists?

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Right? Was he himself prompted or primed by the investigators?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Was a pop culture or some pop culture or.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
The satanic panic moral outbreak? We'll get to that. We're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors, and
we'll share one more strange wrinkle as the investigation continues.
We've returned and fellow conspiracy realist. I don't know about you, Met,

(51:00):
I don't know about you Tennessee, but I'm not sure
what to make of this one. We do need to
mention it. As the investigators are digging into the past
of these four suspects, they find a strange historical coincidence.
Before the killings associated with the Ripper Crew began, Robin

(51:22):
get actually worked for another serial killer. He was employed
by PDM Contractors, creation of the infamous murderer John Wayne Gacy.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
You saw this right, yes, because Chalmaye Gacy was also
of Chicago, specifically Norwood Park Township. And it is very
interesting because I don't think it's it's I don't think
it's ever been proven who John Wayne Gacy's associate or
his partner or whoever this person was.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
It was his helper, right, yeah, yeah, similar to his
son of Sam's stuff. Right, as true crime officionados in
the audience might recall. At trial and during interrogation, John
Wayne Gacy hinted multiple times that he had not worked alone.
In fact, he stated to your point, Matt, that he

(52:19):
did have an accomplice. He never named this accomplice. He
said this person was aware of his crimes and joined
in on some of those. And there was one murder
that was originally attributed to Gasey, but it occurred while

(52:39):
he was out of town. He was physically incapable of
committing that specific homicide. And Gasey responded by saying this
was the work of his associate, and then also somewhat perturbed,
he wanted people to know that this associate committed the
murder without his Proofal so we're detectives. Now, let's put

(53:03):
our let's exercise empathy, let's put ourselves in the shoes
of the folks investigating the rippers. We naturally start to
wonder whether Robin Gekt is indeed that mystery accomplice.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Logical question, the PDM contractor's connection is the strongest thing there.
That's pretty intense, I think, because this is something while
Gaysey's on probation that he creates and it's basically just
doing maintenance or it stands for painting Decorating maintenance PDM,

(53:38):
and that's some of the stuff that get would do
kind of a handyman, do some electric work here and there,
do some maintenance work over here. I don't know if
they were that close in and form some type of relationship.
And then Gekt is spewing insane stuff about breast tiss

(54:00):
you and how it has powers. I can imagine that
some of those ideas would at least be stirred and
encouraged by somebody like John Wayne Gacy.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Right. Yeah, I think that's a great point because things
like this, and I'm not going to call them people,
things like this can sort of practice a law of attraction. Right,
So we do know that investigators ask Gekt about Gaysey
when they discover this connection. Apparently his mask slips just

(54:36):
a little bit for just a moment. He's not as
cool as a cucumber, and he smirks and he tells
the detectives. You know, Gaysey's only mistake was storing those
bodies under his house and then the walls back up.
Nothing else. He didn't do anything, says Get. At around

(54:58):
this time, the public and the news get a hold
of the story. Four men on paper. If you look
at him, they're ordinary suburbanites, right, unless you have access
to Gek's earlier the records of his earlier crimes. They say,
how did these people commit some of the most heinous

(55:18):
murderers in the history of the state of Illinois. And
that's why by late nineteen eighty two, at this point,
the press is giving them various nicknames. A lot of
them are like muckraking journalism, kind of yellow journalism stuff,
But the most infamous, which still stick around, are the

(55:40):
Chicago Rippers or of course the Ripper Crew. The detectives
are speaking with the Gek's wife. He's arrested by now,
and she says, like you were saying earlier, Matt. She
says he had a lot of things that she accepted

(56:02):
as normal but maybe didn't really think about until interrogators
questioned her. She said, Get was obsessed with pornography. So
at this point in time, pornography pre internet would be nudimags, right,
He attempted multiple times to cut her breast or to

(56:22):
ask her to cut her breast in front of him
as a symbol of love. And then, just like the
legend of the Pirate, I believe it was blue Beard
the Pirate, he had a small room in the attic.
It was locked at all times. Rose was forbidden from
ever entering. And when she asked him, you know, reasonably,

(56:47):
as as you would ask her spouse, why can't I
go into a room in this house? He said, it's
my meditation spot.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Yeah, believe the word for that is sus Hey, if
you have somebody in your life who won't let you
enter into a room or whole section of a house
where you live.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
In, don't trust him.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
Maybe get in that room, Maybe get that room post taste, or.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Or I'm pulling on some horror movie experience here. Just
beat me, Dylan, get the fuck out of that situation.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Yeah, but let somebody know first.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Let somebody know when you are in a safe place,
like after you have gotten out. People with secret rooms,
especially if they're in your relationship with you, not a
good look.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Storage unit, secret vans.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
These diamonds. Right. Yeah, we can see again this pattern
of control because detectives also learn about how he is
compelling and recruiting and erasing the self identity of his followers.
Robin get again go back to this idea of the

(58:01):
dark antenna. Matt Robin Ghet seemed to have some sort
of Spidey sense for the vulnerable and the weak willed,
at least if we believe the statements of the other
three guys and the police, Spritzer and the Cocoareles brothers. Again,
they were younger than him. They were adrift, They were lonely,

(58:25):
yearning for structure, you know, attention, a sense of belonging,
a sense of purpose that happens to so many people
when they're young, and get slowly reeled them in. Like
we were saying earlier, he becomes a kind of patriarchal
father mentor figure to Spritzer. He gives the kid a job,

(58:49):
he lets him live in the house temporarily, and then
their friendship includes a series of increasingly ricked rules that
start as you know, hey, young man, let me help you,
and then evolve into things like this is what you
have to wear, this is how you have to talk,

(59:11):
this is what you're supposed to do. Also tell me
more about your friends, those little Cocorles kids.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
Yeah, let's go back to the Gaycy connection one more time,
to that PDM contractors, Cause Gaysey was hiring high schoolers
to do contract work for him, and sometimes he would
travel with those contract workers, those high schoolers, and he
would have a series of rules for them, and he
was constantly berating them for things and threatening them. You

(59:42):
know how easy it would be for me to get
a gun and take one of you out, and that
could hide your body, be so easy, that kind of thing.
And he was also physically sexually assaulting these these kids.
And it makes me think that what if you are
one of those kids and you went through all of that,
you're working for Gaysey right as an accomplice or whatever.

(01:00:06):
You can imagine the conditioning, the brainwashing type things that
are going on right while you're living through the horrors
of all of that. It makes you wonder what it
could do to you and would you then employ some
of the same things. Again, we're not saying this direct this,
We're not saying this is an absolute direct connection. I'm

(01:00:27):
just trying to point out, like I can imagine if
that is true, right, this unknown that exists out there
you could see the pattern being repeated.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Right, and for the timeline here, folks, just so you know,
if you're unfamiliar job waging. Gaysey has been convicted of
the torture, sexual assault, and murder of at least thirty
three men and boys between nineteen seventy two and nineteen

(01:00:59):
seventy eight. Investigators still don't know how many people he
sexually assaulted without in fact murdering them. So it's quite
possible that there was. It's not impossible. Let me be careful,
always say that it's not impossible that something occurred to

(01:01:21):
Get right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Well, yeah, just because of proximity and because of that
connection to the PDUM contractors.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
And the dark antenna right like attracts like perhaps, But again,
you know, to be fair, if you look at who
get is targeting and who Gaysey was targeting, the very
different demographics, Right, Gaysey was after boys and this guy
was after women. Get was, So how does he convince

(01:01:53):
this crew, these three drifting kids who have no great
north Star in their lives. They stay up late. He's
the cool guy in the neighborhood. Right, he plays the
loud music, They drink alcohol, drugs are happening probably drugs
are happenings, according to Thomas. According to Thomas, probably drugs

(01:02:15):
are happening. They start to speculate about Satanic rituals. And
keep in mind, fellow conspiracy realists, this is early nineteen
eighties United States, so the idea of a Satanic panic
is already in the zeitgeist. This is a thing that
you would talk about just in general. This guy escalates it,

(01:02:41):
get leverages again what investigators seem to think is almost
superhuman charisma, and he starts to convince these young men
of disturbing things. First, he says, hey, by the way,
God has abandoned the world andity is on its own.

(01:03:02):
The only way to acquire real power, I get undefined
real power is through paid and I as your mentor,
as the coolest of the four of us, I was
chosen for a higher purpose, and I have in turn
chosen you three to be part of this group. We

(01:03:25):
are acquiring power. We're doing it through pain, our acts
of torture and violence. Those are offerings. By the way,
you guys want to check out some stuff in my attic.
It's essentially what he does.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Yeah, yeah, it's super creepy. Let's go up in the attic,
and let's do it at an opportune time when the
kids are asleep downstairs and the wife is away at
work and the waitress thing, we'll just.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Share a night shift, by the way, Yeah, we'll just.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Come up here and do this thing. I guess. Yeah,
because any he doesn't just make up his own religion, right,
his own cult. He's playing off of stuff that already existed.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Yeah, yeah, he's not particularly original in the foundations of
this shared delusion. He reads from the Satanic Bible. Okay,
so this is the ritual that evolves into the wife
Rose is gone, the kids are asleep, the three kids

(01:04:31):
are asleep, Deck takes them to the attic of his domicile.
He reads from the Satanic Bible, and then his followers
repeat the stuff he reads. Then, at some point toward
the end of their ceremony, they do a perverse version
of the Catholic Union. They pleasure themselves over the fleshy

(01:04:57):
remains of victims. Then they can assume small pieces of
the flesh.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Well, this assumes that they're already out there killing people,
right and getting breasts right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
This is again confirmed by three of the four individuals
descriptions not the fourth guy, Robert Geck says nothing about
this stuff. We're investigators. We find ourselves at a crossroads.
Three of our four suspects have willingly confessed in depth

(01:05:32):
to the crimes, included with timelines, details that match our
earlier inquiries. The attic is discovered, The attic is real,
it is not a fantasy. Yet Get remains immovable. So
how did he convince these three again young men with
no priors nor history of violence to engage in this madness?

(01:05:58):
Riddle me this. Why did they each seem to genuinely
believe this guy had some kind of dark power over him.
They describe it as hypnotic, irresistible, suffocating, that he could
push them into action, whether they wanted to do something
or not.

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
I really think it's drugs, and Thomas is the only
one you talked about it. I really think there's a
lot of drug use going on during this time, and
like part of that is the person who controls your
supply ends up being really important right for that reason,
and almost subconsciously that leads into other stuff. I think

(01:06:42):
that's just and that's me speculating completely, but I do
think that's at least part of what's going on here.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
I remember talking with folks around the Charles Manson activities
where we see that we see something similar to the
process or outline there with the idea of erasing the
ego through the use of lucinogenics, in particular in the
Manson case. I guess we have to be careful because

(01:07:14):
we have to realize at the same time there's a
big narrative about drugs as evil, right, and I'm not
discounting the fact that that forced ritualized ingestion of intoxicating
substances can play a big role in erasing self identity
or agency. But we do have to acknowledge Uncle Sam

(01:07:41):
loves painting drugs in a very bad life.

Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Sure don't mean to be a narch here. I guess
what I'm saying is drugs mixed with influence like that,
and some of these techniques to get someone to do
what you want them to do, they can really work
well hand in hand. Uncle Sam knows that better than
anybody cough, well yeah. And all the other experiments that

(01:08:06):
the military has done with drugs to see how they
can affect both our soldiers and the enemy's soldiers, and
the public in general.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I wish we had, you know what, I wish we
had pulled off that thing with castro and aerosol LST.
That would have been amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Shoot Operation north Woods Baby. But there's all kinds of
I guess what I mean is, you can't get a
rationally thinking person to eat human flesh just like that,
right yet that doesn't happen. There's a systematic breakdown of
some sort that gets somebody to do that. And I

(01:08:48):
would just I would pause it that if these guys
are already engaging in drugs whatever they are, lots of alcohol,
those states that you find yourself in after consuming a
lot of whatever substance are going to be way more
conducive to committing cannibalism than if you're just like, oh, hi,
oh we're going to eat some people now, okay, if

(01:09:10):
that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Sure, yeah. And Edward sprites are in particular to the
point about feeling forced into actions. Spriteser in particular claimed
that he had putd after committing one of these. They
could only definitively prove eight They suspect twenty. Everybody generally

(01:09:35):
agrees on seventeen to eighteen. But these committing one of
these murders at the compulsion of robbing Get, and he
just pukes. He's disgusted, he's overwhelmed. And then somehow, per
his own confession, with a bit of prodding, Get compelled

(01:09:56):
him to continue. Gekt overrode his agents. It made him
do this. Later you'd see Andrew Cocles claiming that Get
can simply look at you and force you into action,
somehow communicating his commands without verbalizing them, without speaking. They

(01:10:16):
really thought, at least per the investigation, they really thought
the guy was in his head. And again and again
they said to investigators separately, you just had to do it. Get,
in contrast, always maintained his innocence. He was never convicted
nor even tried for any of the murders due to

(01:10:38):
that lack of evidence. We were mentioning, But that survivor
Beverly Washington did identify Get looking at photographs. She said,
this is the man who tried to kill me. So
he gets convicted in nineteen eighty three of attempted murder,
aggravated kidnapping, something called deviate sexual assaults and rape. And

(01:11:01):
I think for people familiar with true crime, you probably
know the rest of the story. Here the judge at
the time, Judge Francis Mahone, sentenced Gekt to one hundred
and twenty years in prison.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Oh yeah, one hundred and twenty years hanging out in
the Danville Correctional Center. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
Well, and he made a statement, I think you've got
that stame of ben some it's relating to just how
on earth would you do this to someone? How could
you do this to someone?

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Yeah, you want to give it to us?

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Hey, yes, And Judge Francis J. Mahone said this quote,
only a devil would do these things. An animal would
not do these things. A monster would.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
So let's go to the other three in before we
catch up with Gekt. In nineteen eighty four, hoping for
a better deal sentencing, Edward Spritzer pleads guilty to a
slew of crimes, including the murders of four victims, Shoy Mock,
rose Beck, Davis, Sandra Delaware, and Rafael Torado, again the

(01:12:09):
only male victim we know of the Ripper Crew. Courts
moved slowly right, so it was not until nineteen eighty
six that Spritzer is also convicted of the murder of
Linda Sutton. Prosecution in this case seeks the death penalty.
The other guys are getting prosecuted as well. Andrew co

(01:12:29):
Corales nineteen eighty five, he's convicted of murder and other
crimes related to the death of Rosebeck Davis. Prosecution also
seeks the death penalty, but the jury does something interesting.
So they deliberate for about i'd say about an hour
and a half, and they ultimately come back and they say,

(01:12:50):
this guy may have been an instrument. He may have
been a tool who he's a follower, he's not the leader.
He definitely was involved, but we're not giving him the
death penalty. We're giving him life without parole. That's eighty
five to eighty seven. He gets tried, for, tried and

(01:13:10):
convicted on the murder of Lorraine Borowski, still Andrew co Corales.
This time they do go for the death penalty, and
the death penalty sticks quite literally. He is executed by
lethal injection on March seventeenth, nineteen ninety nine. And I

(01:13:31):
don't know, I mean, Matt, this takes us to a
subject of great interest. Whereas the fourth of the four Thomas,
he's also found guilty of the murder of Barowski, of
the homicide, but he agrees to give a full detailed
confession to avoid the death penalty.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
Yeah, he does, and he does avoid that death penalty,
and he gets life in prison. But because some rules
there in Illinois, he got let out after serving about
half of his sentence.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
He got out seventy years.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
Yes, So he gets out in twenty nineteen, in March
or twenty nineteen, and it becomes a huge story, and
a ton of the reporting that we're able to find
here about the Ripper Crew comes from that time around
June twelfth, twenty nineteen. A little before that, that's at
least when CBS Chicago is going back over all of

(01:14:29):
their original reporting that CBS had done over all of
these years in the eighties, and they're kind of replaying
all of the investigation that was occurring when it was
a story before any of these guys were known. And
then it's talking, you know, to family members who are
aghast that only thirty five years, you know, thirty something

(01:14:51):
years have passed and now this guy is out and
he's part of this horrifying group of people that did
all these things. And then when he gives his first
major interview there with CBS Chicago, he states that no,
I was coursed. I didn't say I didn't actually do
any of these things. I said them because the police
told me to do them. I was yeah, he said,

(01:15:11):
I'm not a monster, I'm a drug addict. I was
a drug addict and I was a kid and I
had a bad attitude. Oh wow, that's weird, because then
it's it leaves you as a viewer of this stuff
and a witness to just him sitting there on camera,
living at this at this place that's kind of like

(01:15:33):
a halfway house, a ministry where he's living in Aurora,
and at least in twenty nineteen he was, and just
the reaction of the whole town, of everybody that was involved,
everybody that remembers this story just kind of in shock.
But then it really it sucks to imagine yourself in

(01:15:56):
Thomas's position, and I don't it's not fun to do.
But if you put yourself in his position just for
a moment to jar and gain that perspective, I don't
know how how would you feel like if you're out
after half your sentence for these horrifying crimes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
And originally we should state folks want you to know
that Thomas was up for parole earlier, but was unable
to that acquire that freedom because he had not located
a place to live. As of August twenty twenty four,

(01:16:35):
he's believed to be in Peoria, Illinois. He is not
in the same boat as Edward Spritzer, who spent decades
on death row until twenty twenty three. That's when then
Governor George H. Ryan, the same guy who signed off

(01:16:55):
on the execution of the other Coca rallies, The Governor
George H. Ryan commuted all death row sentences in the
state of Illinois. So this guy was consigned to death
by state execution. He is now in there for life

(01:17:16):
without parole. He remains incarcerated today, as does Robin Ghek,
still alive as we record in prison. Estimated parole date
October tenth, twenty forty two. If Gek does survive that
long and does achieve parole, he will be eighty eight

(01:17:37):
years old. History is so much closer than it looks
in the rear view mirror.

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
Very true. Maybe he'll write a book.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
You know what, he might He might make somebody else
write a book for him.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
Yeah, you know this, This story, specifically, the van makes
me think about some of these technologies we discussed on
the show before, like the license plate scanning technologies and
some of the tracking uber surveillance state thing that the
US and many other countries are trying to do. Right now,

(01:18:19):
would that be like it almost makes you feel like
that would be a good thing to have because you
could track, You could attract that van down after the
first couple of bodies are found or after the first
you know, witness comes forward. Right, I don't know, is
that is that crazy thing? I just I've imagined that
that would be a really nice thing to have, or

(01:18:41):
ubiquitous CCTV again another horrifying part of the police state.
But dang, you could probably not let something like this
happen again.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
Possibly, you know, it depends upon the motivations and the honestly,
it depends upon the motivations of enforcement, right. It depends
upon whether or not we see those state level forces
as incorruptible. It depends on what we think they would

(01:19:19):
do in pursuit of the truth versus in pursuit of convenience.
And look, I don't want to sound folks like I'm
casting aspersion when I talk about corruption in Chicago. It
is a known thing. It is very real. We're not
being about it, or at least still in a matt
are not being dead about it. There's much more to

(01:19:40):
this grizzly tale. I think that's where we leave it,
because luckily the legal system was in this case able
to achieve some measure of justice for the victims and
their loved ones. But the question I keep going back to,
and I think we all should keep going back to,
is how exactly was the seemingly normal Robin get able

(01:20:04):
to convince and compel ordinary men to commit such acts
of depravity. I mean, we see cases like this around
the world, folks like resputant Charles Manson. By all accounts,
they seem to hold a dark, inexplicable sway over others.
Science still can't explain it. That's the question I keep

(01:20:26):
going back to.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
Yeah, I agree, that's a crazy question. But it does
feel like fear is the thing that they end up using. Right,
those guys feared get They and he did something at
some point in his interactions with them that made them
fear him.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
He cowed them somehow, right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Yeah, and you know, fear is such a funny thing. Yeah, Lately,
what I've been thinking about that kind of thing and
being afraid of anybody or anything in this world I
think of. Actually, John Wayne Gacy is a great exam this.
There's a story about a fifteen year old kid that
Gasey took on one of the trips for the PDM

(01:21:10):
Contractors thing. He took this fifteen year old kid on
a trip to go do some work and while on
that trip, Gasey sexually assaulted him and raped him. And
then they drove back home and the kid, Anthony, was
so pissed off of what this guy did. He goes up.

(01:21:30):
He finds John Wayne Gacy in his front lawn and
beats the absolute shit out of Gasey his own front lawn,
and then Gasey has to turn tail and make up
stories to his wife about why he just got the
kicked out of him, And it just it makes you
remember that anybody like this on this planet currently that

(01:21:51):
we inhabit, that is trying to make you fearful and
scared of anything, is just a dude that could get
the crap kicked out of him in a lawn somewhere.
So remember that right on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
So yeah, like this is the question again that stays
with me. How is a seemingly normal individual able to
commit the thought crime right to erase the ego, to
compel folks and conspiracy realist. As you heard Matt's answer,
there is fear. I wonder if there's something more than that,

(01:22:23):
because science still can't really explain charisma. And if you
talk to the perpetrators of these atrocities there in Chicago
in the eighties, they will blame Get. If you talk
to Get, or you talk to a Manson or you
talk to a resputant, they're not gonna yield any real results.

(01:22:46):
They're not going to tell you how they do their
how they do their thing. So if there is a
true superpower of compulsion, it remains the stuff they don't
want you to know. We'd love to hear from you.
You can find us online anywhere there's an ad sign.
Just hit Conspiracy Stuff Conspiracy Stuff Show you'll get there.

(01:23:08):
You can also call us on the phone, and you
can always send us an email.

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):
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(01:23:35):
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Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. On a personal note, the holidays are always
rough for entities like me, so thank you to everybody
who reached out. You can look. You can find us
crossroads at midnight, mirrors in a dark room, pour some
salt in the right directions, or ruines, swing that wija board,

(01:24:09):
plan chet. That's the word around, and we'll give you
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Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
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