The Norman Ring
The Houston Candyman
Dean Corll’s Dad was an electrician; his mother owned the local candy store and factory. Corll was popular in high school and even joined a band; he later joined the US army and became radio operations expert. After this he worked at the Houston Power and Lighting Company. He was known as ‘the Candyman’ as he would give local children free candy. He was so popular with the local children that he would set up a pool table in the backroom for them and he would give them rides on his motorcycle. His mom got divorced and became romantically involved with a Merchant Marine, yet he was suspicious of Dean causing them to fall out as she took Dean’s side. Dean’s mother moved to Colorado, yet against her expectations Dean didn’t go with her.
David Brooks was alienated by his father at age 12 and hung out at the candy shop a lot, eventually Brooks moved in with Corll who brought him a car among other things. One day Brooks was given oral sex by Corll without his consent, but not wanting to upset Corll he let him do it. Things slowly got more extreme until one day Brooks walked into Corll raping two boys; Corll forced Brooks out of the apartment and then later told him that they had been shot. Corll began offering Brooks 200$ to lure in boys for him. Brooks eventually lured Elmer Wayne Henley who had come from a broken poverty stricken home, but Henley somehow got involved. Dean was even invited to Henley’s house for dinner and fixed their car. Corll worked with Henley and Brooks to lure boys into Corll’s house to torture, rape, and kill them on a special torture board. Corll would incapacitate his victims with a ‘handcuff trick’, essentially fooling the victims into handcuffing themselves. They actually let the boys go and come back, and would only kill them when they got bored. They killed 28 boys, 22 of these were from the neighbour called ‘the heights’; 11 went to the same junior high school. This is just the official number; between 1971 and 1973 400 children have gone missing in the heights. All the cases were mishandled as assumed ‘run aways’. Some parents had received letters ensuring them that their sons were alive, but this includes some of the official victims’ parents.
Henley brought his own friends to Corll including; David Hilligest who lived down block from Henley, Mark Scott, and Homer Garceer who was in Henley’s drivers Ed class. Victim Malley Winkie may have worked at the Candyshop. One day, Henley alongside a girl and another young boy shot and killed Corll in his home before contacting the police. Initially, Henley pretended to be a victim, but then Brooks went to the police and they admitted to what actually happened. Brooks apparently told father about their murderous activities, his father made him stay quiet until they outlawed the death penalty. Brooks had recently been married and had a child around the time which may explain his sudden desire to get authorities involved. The bodies were buried underneath a layer of lime in a boat house; some bodies were also buried at Lake Samraven located in high Island. Corll had often threatened Henley by saying his organisation would ‘get’ him if he ever did anything to betray him. In 1974, Elmer Wayne Henley was convicted. In his confession, he claimed that Corll was part of a Dallas-operating group which brought and sold boys. Many of their victims thought they were going to become Hollywood stars as Corll claimed he had California clients for them.
An Apex Predator
John David Norman was a self-described writer, former TV producer, and a school teacher. In 1954, he was arrested for molesting a minor in Houston. He was arrested several more times after this, for instance in 1990 he was sentenced for 2 to 5 years for deviant sexual battery. In 1973, there was a raid on his Dallas apartment after Charles Burzaden reported him, believing that Norman was part of the Dallas ring talked about by Henley and Brooks. Burzaden worked for Norman who published a Newsletter called the ‘Odyssey Foundation’, officially it was as a young boy ‘self-help’ scheme which used travel programmes to pair disadvantaged boys to clients to provide them with opportunities. The programme involved at least 30 juveniles from 13 states part of programme, however after Burzaden saw ‘kill’ written next to photos of boys he alerted the authorities. The raid turned up hundreds of photos of young men in a book, so authorities deduced Norman was running an underage homosexual prostitution ring. Over 100 cards (potentially as many as 30,000) were found containing the contact details and preferences of clients including terms like ‘as young as possible’, these were sent to the State Department but then disappeared. The cards included the names of the head of a big orchestra, federal employees in Washington, and the founder of a Church in Palm Springs. According to Norman who admitted that the cards had vanished, the cards included Judges, legislatures, and other officials as well. Norman was released on a 7,000 dollar bond one month after the raid; he then travelled to Illinois and changed his name to Steven Gruwell. Within a few days he continued with his operation.
Detective Sergeant Frank Flannery of the Homewood Police received a call from a neighbour claiming that a man was luring young boys into his house and performing sexual acts on them, one such victim was Kenny Helstrum. When police interviewing him, Kenny said he had met David in a restaurant and accepted a ride home, but Norman lured him into his house instead with a promise of beer. Kenny and all of his friends then regularly went to meet Norman after school. Norman showed them pornography, then homosexual pornography, before then giving them fellatio. 1 year after testifying against Norman, Kenny was stabbed in back to death on his way home from work; he had 250 dollars left in his pocket so robbery wasn’t the motive. Police raided his new house; they found a camera set up for filming and more index cards. There were over 2000 names of boys from all over the US, proving that Norman was running a nation-wide pedophile ring. The cards were handed over to the Chicago police department; but the cards disappeared and only Norman was prosecuted and sent to Cook County jail. Whilst there he meets Phillip Paske who was awaiting trial for attempted murder. They used the jail’s printing press to continue Norman’s newsletter. In 1976, Paske was paroled and ran the newsletter for Norman, a year later Norman was paroled and moved in with him.
Michael Sneed, a reporter, receives brochure published by Norman’s ring called ‘The Delta Project’. She called the Police Department’s Juvenile Division asking about it, but the operator hung up on her. This led to her and her editor George Bliss working alongside Chicago police in undercover operations in ‘Chickenhawk’ areas; areas believed to house child pornography rings. They discovered both child male prostitution and the filming of children to produce commercial CP. For instance, they found a foster child called Andy Draft with his foster father in motel; the father was filming Draft having sex with a younger boy. The father was a photographer for Hermes, one of Norman’s newsletters which like the ‘Broadstreet journal’ used coded language for pedophiles to talk to one another. The Chicago Tribune published a story exposing Norman’s nation-wide pedophile ring; this led to the creation of many anti-pedophile laws.
Andy Draft had disappeared in 1977.The half-sister of Draft believed that Draft may have been of one of John Wayne Gacy’s 8 unidentified victims, she came forward after the Gacy investigation reopened now that homosexuality is more widely accepted. His DNA was uploaded into the Federal DNA database upon later investigation; he wasn’t one of the unknown victims. In 2015 it was found that his DNA matched an unidentified homicide victim in San Francisco who had been shot and buried. Andy’s foster parent would sexually abuse him along with other men and used him for prostitution and filming gay porn. Draft was going to be a witness for the prosecution against his foster parent, so he was likely murdered by Norman’s ring. Only two out of eight of Gacy’s remaining victims have been successfully identified, one of Corell’s victims is still unidentified. We only have a digital reconstruction of what he potentially looked like. Interestingly, an anonymous source sent an investigator a photo of a boy who looks eerily similar, the boy is in a very suggestive poses making it look like it came from a homosexual ring. The sender of the envelope claimed the boy was called ‘Bobby French’ and that he was taken by Brooks.
The Proto-Pedophile Island
Millionaire Francis Sheldon, whose linage involves the white house, was a real estate developer who sat on many Grosspoint boards. He set up the ‘Brother Paul’s Children Mission’ which operated out of Northfox Island on Lake Michigan, the organisation acted as a boys camp and obtained State money. Local GYM teacher Gerald Richards was listed as the official director of the charity. Richards was a magician, hypnotist, photographer, and witch who was a part of the YMCA. He groomed victim Michael farquer who lived near him, he met him on sidewalk and befriended him using magic tricks. He subsequently let Michael visit his house and even let him met his wife and child. Richards gave Michael a Wicca reward through the YMCA and then asked him to become his magic assistant. From there, he slowly groomed Michael into producing CP, and then into making other kids produce CP whilst they travelled doing around doing ‘magic shows’ as a cover. Richards also sold Michael to Priests and Clergy as prostitute when they performed at churches. Richard also had ‘massages’ at a doctor’s office as a service, which was likely another pedophile operation front.
Richard then told Michael that some friends had seen the photos they had taken via post-office picture trading and wanted to meet him, he was taken to a camp to meet Sheldon. Richards took Sheldon to meet Michael’s family; they became close enough that Sheldon flew Michael’s family around in his private plane. Michael had been taken to other States with Francis to attend different boy camps. The men convinced his family to let Michael go to Northfox Island. There were around 6 to 8 children on the island at any time, many of these children had taken photos with Michael before and others had been groomed there. One of the adults on the island sodomized an 8 year old boy called Eddie, resulting in his Mom getting the police involved. Police initially interrogated Michael to try to get him to confess to being an accomplice to the ring after Richards claimed that he was. The pedophile operation was exposed in August after a small local newspaper reported on it, yet only the least-connected Richards was arrested after he had also been caught molesting boys in a Catholic School.
Richards only received 18 months imprisonment. In 1988, Richard arrested for sending CP in mail, he committed suicide at age 49. Dire Grossman, a NY private teacher who frequently attended the island, was never prosecuted. Grossman was last seen in Washington in 1978. Convicted fraudster Adam Starchild also went unprosecuted. Starchild incorporated the ‘Brother Paul’s Children Mission’ as well as Ocean Living Institute, The Church of New Revelation, and the Education Foundation for Youth as part of money laundering operations. Starchild even faked his own death in 1977. Sheldon was tipped off; he cleared his apartment and fled the country to Holland. Sheldon left 25,000 dollars to Yale which could suggest nefarious activity occurring there, after all the leaders of Penn State University according to the ‘French report’ covered up abuse committed by football coach Jerry Sandusky via his charity ‘The Second Mile’. Sheldon also left money for his brother in Starchild’s trust; he had to sue Starchild to get it back.
Leads suggest that Sheldon funded a pedo ring in the Crass Corridor, some kids from there had been taken to ‘an Island’ for commercial CP and bidding purposes. Such a pedo ring located in the Crass Corridor is linked to the ‘Oakland County Child killer’ or ‘Michigan Snow Killings’ case. The first victim was Mark Stebbins in 1976; his sexually assaulted body was found in a parking lot. 10 months later and 2 miles from Stebbins’ house, Jill Robinson went missing and was then found dumped; there was no indication of sexual assault having occurred. 10 days later, Kristine Mihelich went missing; her body was found smothered and dumped. The medical examiners initially claimed to have found semen on her but then backtracked. 10 weeks later Timothy King was found dead. The killings stopped in the same month that Gacy victim Rob Piest went missing. Police set up huge task force to investigate these killings for a year and half but supposedly found nothing; they refused to speak to King’s family. Evidence suggested that the children willing got into cars, thus they likely either knew their killer(s) or the criminal was a police officer, or alternatively impersonated a police officer as Corll and Gacy did. Jeff Gannon, an anonymous investigator, has developed a theory that the murders were ritualistic killings committed as part of Pagan rituals. Whilst I cannot attest as to whether or not his claims are valid either way, it is worth noting that his claims do seem to accurately reflect ‘serial killer’ cases in general.
Corry Williams, a detective, was age 15 when Kristine went missing, his dad was a cop and friends with Kristine’s grandfather; thus Corry had answered the phone when Kristine’s family tried to contact his dad in a panic. In 2004, Williams identified known pedophile and police informant Richard Lawson as responsible for an unrelated cold homicide case, 2 months after this murder Lawson was arrested for armed robbery and made statements to the Dormont police claiming to know who did the Michigan snow killings. Lawson said it was a group of three men living in the Crass Corridor including Ted Ore and Bob Moore (known as Bad-eyed bob). Moore had boys living with him in his mansion where CP was filmed, Moore also rented out a room above a Crass Corridor movie theatre to film CP for pornography shops. Thus there was a pipe-line between economically well-off neighbourhoods and the Crass Corridor. They literally held pedo parties and had a ranking system; their connections were formed around porn shops as pedophiles had to know each other in order to access the CP which was sold under porn shop’s counters. Ore was in reality named Ted Lamobogrean, a known pedo with no arrest record. Ted failed polygraph tests about the murders and plead guilty to any charge they put on him, most likely in order to protect the ring.
In 2006, Chris King (Timothy’s brother) got a call from Vegas from an old friend who was a Polygrapher; he had been at a Vegas polygraph convention where he met a Polygrapher from Southfield (Michigan) who claimed to have polygraphed a man named Christopher Brian Bush. Bush had confessed to killing King to him during a private session booked by Bush’s lawyers to determine if it would be damaging for Bush to consent to a police polygraph test. King’s family had to track down Bush since the Michigan State Police and Oakland County Prosecutors were not being co-operative with them, thus instead they went public with lead via Journalist Marny Rich Keenan. Unsurprisingly, Bush was an associate of Sheldon. Bush’s dad was called Harold Lee Bush; Lee owned General Motors’ operations in the area as executive and was potentially part of a pedo ring. There are multiple claims of repeated ritual sexual abuse of children by GM executives occurring in the 1970s; furthermore for years there was rumour of a cover-up and the killer being a General Motors executive among police.
Chris owned a large mansion in Boomfield hills a mile away from the King’s house; he was a pedo with 4 molestation charges. 3 locations where Chris had been known to pick up children to abuse them matched the locations where the bodies had been dumped. 4 days after Kristine was murdered, he was arrested with another pedo in Flint; this friend claimed that Bush had killed Stebbins. Bush was given a polygraph test, it was claimed at the time that he passed it, but in reality he actually didn’t polygrapher according to polygraphers who have subsequently analysed the results. A year and a half after being released for other charges, Chris committed ‘suicide’ in his home via a gun. On the wall there was a pencil sketch of a child that looked very similar to Stebbins. Corporal Richard Magdemean was the responding officer to the suicide; he turned up there for a ‘wellness check’. However, a FOF requests reveals that he was a pedo and multiple people claim that he abused them when they were aged 8 – 11. He was alone at the scene alone for 30 minutes; if he was part of the ring he could have easily staged evidence.
The Boy Scouts Backbone
In 2010, a Judge ordered the Boys Scouts to produce an internal list of predators, 10 years later thousands of men filed lawsuits related to abuse against the organisation to the point that they filed for bankruptcy protection. In 1976 in New Orleans, photomap labs called the police after a conveyor belt broke down revealing rolls of film showing homosexual pedophillia. In the photos there was a ‘Boys life’ magazine, only boy scouts have access to this magazine. When the police inquired about this, the Boy Scout office stone walled them. After investigating further, they found out that the two men in photo engaging in the paedophilic activity were assistant scout masters in Boy Scout troupe 137. The men in question were Raymond Thomas Woodall, who abused children in his Mother’s home who covered from him, and Harry Cramer whose name was on the film’s receipt. The troupe leader was called Dick Alverson, Cramer essentially functioned as his employee. Alverson helped to form the troupe, he was also a pedophile who worked for the city council and was a Juvenile Court volunteer; giving him access to files on children. There had been previous reports of abuse made by parents complaining to Alverson, who of course did nothing. Alverson lived with Robert Lang who was likely a CIA agent as he had DD214 papers (certificate of release or discharge from the US Department of Defence) and photos showing that he was officer in the Marine Corps, Air force, Army, and Navy at the same time. He was stationed at Marshall Islands. At their house they hoarded CP and cards containing information of both children and their clients.
These men worked together to groom children, they also worked with adults who weren’t Boy Scouts but were involved in other organisations like ‘big brothers’, police departments, and child welfare services. They had a number of index cards containing such contacts. The men had a procedure for grooming children, similar to how in modern day time pedophiles use the internet-stored ‘pedophile handbook’. Alverson and Lang almost received a federal grant to open a Children’s home due to the support of well known New Orleans Politicians. They also set up a Delfi tours company to match visiting pedos with children and set up a Delfi Academy in coral-gables (Florida) which groomed children from poor neighbourhoods; Alverson and Woodall served as maintenance men there. They even went as far as purchasing four sons from an alcoholic mother. The ring was linked to the Diaper Pale fraternity, an organisation which helped men look for baby victims that was also helped by NAMBLA. The men collected Children’s urine. A photographer of snuff panicked since the DA got involved, he threw a brown bag full of photos of abuse which had occurred on an official Boy Scout’s camping trip in Canal; the bag landed on a lily-pad and so was found by an officer’s son.
Upon their arrest, Alverson and Lang were found with two children from a Child Welfare programme, Woodall and Cramer were also prosecuted. Some clients were even prosecuted like Bostom real estate broker and millionaire Hue Scott-Malore, who only received 5 years, and Richard Jacobs who was an Industrialist that owned the Jet Spray Corporation and the New England Patriots. Jacobs had stayed in a New Orleans hotel which was catered to by the pedophile ring; he posted bail and left before he could be prosecuted. In 1988, his family tried to get Jacobs declared dead but the judge rejected this and claimed he was rumoured to be in Europe or Central America. His friend Euscotts Melior whom he attended parties with in New Orleans was also implicated; he was a multi-millionaire as he was the treasurer and majority owner of the Reservoir Manor Corporation. Another multi-millionaire was known to take victims from New Orleans to his yachts in California. Woodall claimed that top politicians from around the nation were clients. By this time, the ring was actually international. Lang only got probation despite literally being involved in pedo smut. In prison, Woodall advised pedophiles about new methods of obtaining children. Overall there were 18 inter-state convictions, and one in Australia. At the time the only protection for children was the ‘White Slavery Act’, but this made it so only girls could be victims at a federal level. Furthermore, the FBI refused to look into the ring any further. Thus, there were likely more perpetrators. Significantly, bug vermille was busted. He was a Priest that ran Boys Farm Inc., a Boys Scout organisation. Thus it is very likely that he was linked to Sheldon who took Michael on numerous camping trips across the US. Most significantly, Woodall’s name was in Norman’s address book.
Gacy Carries the Torch.
John Wayne Gacy’s father was an abusive alcoholic according to his mother and sister, in fact he beat his wife and shot Gacy’s dog. Gacy himself was described by Detective David Hachmeister of the DesPlaines Police as being prone to having his personality change within a second. Gacy’s wife, who he controlled and offered up sexually to his friends and colleagues, as well as others described Gacy as a police freak. In fact, Gacy was well known in the gay district of Chicago and where the wide-spread belief was that he was a cop. It was also claimed that Gacy always carried a gun around with him.
As a teen he worked at a Las Vegas mortuary where he slept amongst the corpses in the embalming room, he was fired after some of the corpses were found to be partially undressed. Gacy also worked as an ambulance attendant during this time. In the 1960s, he moved to Iowa where he owned four restaurants, a clothing design firm, and a motel. He joined the Jaycee’s (the United States Junior Chamber, Ed Kemper was a member as well) and befriended the chapter’s president. This chapter was involved in prostitution, pornography, and other crimes. A local prosecutor claimed that Gacy’s hotel was hub of the chapter’s criminal activities and also facilitated gay and straight prostitution rings; the head of the chapter at the time managed Gacy’s motel. It should be noted that Gacy hired many young attractive employees. Gacy set up a ‘social club’ in his basement recreation room where he supplied drugs and alcohol to underage customers.
Gacy was very active in both the Iowa and Chicago community, he hosted parties which were attended by hundreds of guests and he was a successful business man. He also entertained children at hospitals, orphanages, and private parties as ‘pogo the clown’. He was also a lighting commissioner and he was popular in Chicago Democratic Party Circles as he was a Democratic precinct captain. Gacy had high enough security clearance to meet and have his photo taken with then-First Lady Rosalynn Carter (who also met Jim Jones) in his role as director of Chicago’s Polish Constitution Day Parade, in the photo he was wearing a secret service “S” label pin. Gacy claimed to be the aide to the Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and to be good friends with local Columnist Mike Royko as well as Walter Jacobson; a local anchorman and the only person Gacy accepted an interview with. Gacy was even on good terms with Illinois Attorney General William Scott. Two items on Gacy’s police report were blacked out, indicating that they were FBI matters. Gacy claimed that he was cousin of Tony Accardo (a local Chicago mob boss) and was part of an organised crime group called ‘the Syndicate’.
In 1968, Donald Voorhees Jr., the son of a Jaycee and former Iowa state representative, claimed that Gacy had assaulted and sodomized him; Gacy was indicted by a grand jury but no action was taken for months. Eventually Gacy was forced to submit to a Psychiatric examination at the Psychopathic Hospital of the State University of Iowa, while he remained there he spoke to investigators about the city elite’s corruption. He claimed that they partook in crimes and wife-swapping with the police’s complicity and even provided names including many Jaycee’s and police. After this, Gacy entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 10 years in 1968; he served less than 2 years in the end. Whilst in prison he always had money, cigars, and civilian shirts; all of which are hard to obtain items in prison. He may have also received electroshock and aversion therapy, supposedly to ‘cure’ him of his homosexuality. Eight months later he was arrested for disorderly conduct, but 8 months later he was let off parole. Another eight months later in 1972, Gacy was arrested for battery and reckless behaviour after pretending to be a cop to pick up a boy, after failing to handcuff him he repeatedly battered him. The charges were dismissed, his fingerprint card on a local police file referred to him as ‘Colonel Gacy’.
Gacy moved to Chicago in 1970. The string of missing boys was routinely dismissed as ‘run aways’ due to ‘hippie era’. In 1975, John Butkovitch disappeared. He was an employee of Gacy’s construction company which specialised in drugstore remodelling; Gacy’s home was found to be filled with pharmaceuticals. The night before he disappeared Butkovitch was involved in a disturbance at a friend’s house, he was rumoured to have gone to Puerto Rico to traffic drugs. A woman in San Juan called his family claiming that he was alive, and apparently an effort was made by someone to stop a missing person investigation from occurring. In 1978, Gacy was arrested for deviant sexual contact but the assistant state’s attorney refused to file charges. 6 months later Gacy was charged with battery after a twenty seven year old man who was picked up from the gay district, knocked out, and anally raped, gave police Gacy’s license number plate. Lots of Court dates passed with zero action being taken.
In 1978, Rob Piest disappeared after last being seen outside the pharmacy where he was employed talking to Gacy about working for his construction firm. The pharmacy owner, Phil Torf, refused to provide Gacy’s address and was evasive when questioned. Torf had remained at pharmacy with his friends until 1:00 AM, which is three hours after closing time. Piest’s family threatened to storm Gacy’s house, inducing the police to begin the ‘surveillance’ of Gacy. This was done by the Delta Unit of DesPlaines Police, a name resembling Norman’s updated ‘Delta project’. Gacy dinned with the team and let them into his house and car, whilst other times he sped away, driving at 100 miles an hour in school zones; yet he was never punished for this once. Gacy had alibi of being by his uncle’s side whilst he died on the evening that Piest disappeared, but accomplices cannot be ruled out.
Searches of his house revealed a high school ring belonging to one of the missing boys; an Illinois driving licence issued to another boy; marijuana and rolling paper; a switchblade knife; a pair of handcuffs; police badges; a hypodermic syringe; clothing that was too small for Gacy; a photo lab receipt traceable to Rob Peist as he had temporarily given his coat to another employee that it was addressed to; a chloroform bottle; and a bloodstained rug. One room was completely filled with Clown pictures. Gacy’s employees had dug trenches in a crawl space, it was then covered with layers of lime; nearly 30 bodies ended up buried there, others were dumped in the DesPlaines River. Despite the combination of this evidence, pending charges against him for the previous incident, and police having received 5 complaints (3 in Chicago) that Gacy had drugged and tortured them; Gacy wasn’t arrested at the time. An interesting consideration is why Gacy would supposedly torture some victims who were completely at his mercy yet leave them alive as witnesses whilst supposedly killing others.
One of Gacy’s employees called Michael Rossy had told police about how employees had just disappeared, another employee told police that Piest was probably in Gacy’s crawlspace. One of Gacy’s employees Greg Godzik disappeared; he simply stopped showing up to work and didn’t even take his last pay check. Gacy wasn’t questioned about his disappearance for three months. Godzik’s parents hired a private investigator called Anthony Pellicano Jr., Anthony was part of organized crime and Hollywood circles. He later faced charges for an investigation he worked on for actor Steven Seagal. Anthony never looked into Gacy and then lied saying he hadn’t been given name by the parents, he claimed to have been told that Godzik worked at gas station which wasn’t connected to Gacy. He was reportedly seen alive after his disappearance, as was another Gacy employee and victim called John Szyc. The Godzik home was burglarised the night before Gacy’s arrest became news. Victim Rick Johnston’s family though he’d been abducted by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, an organisation with ties to South Korean’s intelligence agency which was of course created and trained by the CIA. Judith Mowery was found stabbed to death in her apartment in 1972, later her brother John (a former marine) became a Gacy victim.
Gacy was arrested for Marijuana charges, allowing a second search of his home to occur. This led to the bodies in the crawl space being discovered, somehow they weren’t found in previous search or when the surveillance team went to his house numerous times despite the place reeking of decomposition. A garage freezer containing unmarked frozen meat and a container of suspected blood was found, however these were discarded as non-human meat and stewed tomato later on; how seasoned homicide detectives mistook tomatoes for blood hasn’t been explained. Gacy was taken to Holy Family Hospital due to him complaining about chest pain. Upon his release he signed a Miranda waiver and began confessing to the murders. Gacy asked if they had gotten the others involved yet and stated that they were directly involved in the murders including in transporting Rob Piest, but he didn’t state who at the time. Sergeant Long cut the interrogation short, it was then continued when Gacy had two attorneys yet the topic of his accomplices was never discussed. A week after Gacy’s arrest, a fresh body was found in the DesPlaines River. The murder rate temporarily soared in the Chicago area, so it’s possible a cleanup operation occurred.
Gacy’s confessions were completely flawed. He claimed that all the victims were strangled, yet at least thirteen had been suffocated. Gacy provided a map of the bodies locations under his house, the media claimed that this was accurate yet his map contained numerous discrepancies. He could only recall sketchy details of five of the killings, had no memory at all of the other 28. He did however claim that an alter personality called ‘Jack Hanley’ did the killings. He even claimed that the killings began in 1974 but then changed the date to 1972. He was denied bail and sent to Cermak Hospital, the medical wing of local jail, where he was held in isolation from inmates and staff. He wrote a letter stating that ‘since the dark shadow of Satan has come over me, it seems my fair weather friends have run away’. With the consent of his attorney he once again confessed to murders two weeks into his stay, he claimed that the victims were male prostitutes whom he killed over price disputes; it has since come out that lots of the victims were in fact prostitutes. Gacy also claimed to have used the ‘handcuff trick’ to gain control over his healthy victims, if this is true it’s possible he at least got the inspiration for this from Corll.
In 1979, 7 murder counts were brought against him, not guilty pleas were put forward on his behalf. Eventually a grand jury added other charges resulting in Gacy facing thirty-three counts; he also entered not guilty pleas for those. The jury selection took just four days; jurors were taken from a different county and sequestered due to the pre-trial publicity which was heightened by the news of the Jones Town Massacre. His trial took place in 1980; the state had sixty witnesses whilst the defence’s case took less than a week to present. Gacy wrote a letter to the Judge asking why trail hadn’t stopped despite his requests since the defence wasn’t using more witnesses due to a ‘shortage of money’. The state gave a rebuttal to the defence’s case; they were allowed to call in previous victims of Gacy’s sole perpetrator attacks as witnesses despite their testimony previously being excluded. One witness claimed he met with the police and the assistant state’s attorney but he was informed that no action would be taken and was denied signing any complaints against Gacy. As Gacy pointed out in another letter to the Judge, short of heresy statements of what he supposedly said, there is only evidence Gacy owned the house where the bodies were safely stored. After less than two hours of deliberation, he was found guilty on all counts, and after two hours more the jury gave him the death penalty.
Gacy’s house was the headquarters for his construction company, meaning that it linked to his many employees as much as it did him. In fact, numerous employees and other individuals had keys to access Gacy’s house which he had spent time away from. Plenty of people had lived in the Gacy home or regularly spent time there; all such individuals denied knowledge of the crimes and the source of the stench. One of his employees, known by the pseudonym Dick Walsh, was often a houseguest and was evasive when questioned by the police, a polygraph examination yielded uncertainty about the results yet no further tests were attempted. Gordon Nebel was also hired as the company’s bookkeeper by Gacy and he worked two days a week in the house. Despite knowing who he was, the surveillance team strangely misidentified Nebel in the visitor logs they kept. Donald Morrill and Ronald Rohde who had protected Gacy during the surveillance effort were never investigated. Names appeared in Gacy’s address book which were marked with a mysterious ‘H’ symbol, they were never investigated.
Most damningly, Norman’s partner Phillip Paske worked for Gacy and was one of the employees with a key to his house. Gacy hired Paske after Norman was arrested again for molesting two foster boys, Paske was present during the arrest but wasn’t arrested himself for some reason. Paske was a close friend of another one of Gacy’s employee’s called David Cram, who also had a key. Gacy hired Cram in 1976 and later on in his confinement openly accused him of masterminding the killings after convincing Gacy to bring Paske in (interestingly, Gacy was aware of Norman and his activities); Gacy pointed to the sudden explosion in the number of victims around this time as evidence. The final rebuttal witness called by the State was James Hanley to discredit Gacy’s alter personality claims by asserting Gacy was simply appropriating his identity. The prosecution claimed that his late appearance was due to them struggling to find Hanley for a year since the police computer wasn’t turning up his name, yet Hanley was a Chicago Police Department plain-clothes detective since the 1960s. How did Gacy know of the identity of a plain-clothed detective? In jail, Gacy painted portraits of clowns and Disney figures. Elmer Wayne Henley had similarly painted scenes far removed for his violent crimes in prison.
The Chicago Ripper Crew
Seventeen young women were killed in Chicago a year and a half after Gacy’s murders; these killings were attributed to the Ripper Crew whose leader was Robin Gecht; a master manipulator and an accomplished hypnotist. Most notably, Gecht was yet another murderous male employee of Gacy. Gecht reportedly had DPD and had alters of a small child, teenager, and a business man. He was born in 1953 at the Illinois Masonic Hospital and was primarily raised by his grandparents. He was then sent to a school for troubled youth and then a facility which catered to delinquent youth. As a teen, he formed a relationship with a pedophile called Thomas Farley who lived in the same building as his family. Gecht then moved in with him and they even went on a road trip to Florida together for unknown reasons, around the same time Gecht was accused of molesting his sister.
Gecht married Rosemary McCaffrey and had three children; he was into reading ancient torture techniques and so ordered that she kept hatpins stuck in her breasts for him constantly. Gecht had a stable of boyfriends and girlfriends, there was a study stream of teenagers of both sexes coming from and to his house; some even temporarily stayed there. One such guest, a 15 year old girl, accused Robin of raping her at gunpoint, but the charges were dropped. He reportedly even had sexual relations with his wife’s parents’ dog. He frequently visited an unidentified drug store whose pharmacist he was close to, this gave him access to practically any drug. In 1982, Gecht suddenly disappeared for several weeks; he refused to discuss where he went. Just after he returned, he made a call to a Chicago police officer who came and arrested him for carrying a loaded weapon. Robin established rapport with the officer quickly, a few days after they met at the officer’s house and Robin began doing work for him as a building contractor / carpenter. The entire Gecht family moved into the officer’s home for four months, during this time the murders began.
In 1982, nine days after Gecht befriended the officer, Lorraine Ann Borowski disappeared. A man sharing an apartment with her claimed that she wasn’t home the night before the murder, evidence suggested otherwise; despite his obvious lies he was never considered as a suspect. The day before she vanished, she had told her mother that a giant man in a car had been following her; Gecht had a notably small stature. The owner of a nearby liquor store saw a struggle outside a grey / silver old-modelled car; one suspect had driven a car like this until he claimed to have sold it just after the disappearance. This suspect had anger issues, a fondness for knives and throwing stars, and he had been in and out of mental hospitals for years. In fact, he had just been released a day before the disappearance, he even had a younger brother who was serving time for an abduction murder. It was later claimed that Robin’s crew killed 12 girls over the previous year before Lorraine, but police couldn’t identify 11 of these and could only produce one body. This body was a Chicago prostitute called Linda Sutton whose nearly-skeletal remains were found in a field, she had last been seen at a family function with a new boyfriend on the May 24th 1981. The body was found on 29th, it was claimed that she was killed just three days previously yet the decomposition had advanced to the stage it was likely she died around the time she disappeared. There is zero reason to link these two deaths or believe that there 11 other victims, these deaths were likely a fabrication to distract from strange circumstances surrounding when murders really began: when Gecht moved in with an officer of the Chicago Police Department.
In May 1982, Shui Mak disappeared and her body appeared in one of Chicago’s most exclusive suburbs. A month later prostitute Angel York was attacked and her left breast was slashed; a common satanic ritualistic act. The severed left breasts were used as part of rituals involving cannibalism and necrophilia by the cult. Other serial killers such as Richard Chase share this fascination, for instance the real Boston Strangler(s) made a ritual pattern with 18 stab wounds to the victim’s left breast. Prostitute Sandra Delaware’s body was found with the same mutilation wounds, her pimp was ‘The Minister’ but after leaving his stable she’d received death threats from him. A week later, Rose Davis’s body was found beaten, stabbed and strangled.
Robert Ressler was in the area and so was asked to help; despite the fact police already had a prime suspect in the Davis case. The suspect lived in an apartment building which the crime occurred directly outside of, witnesses even saw him at crime scene at the estimated time of death; polygraph tests showed that he had at least witnessed the murder. Police claimed that he was inside and heard the assault, then he went outside to witness it and was therefore cleared. Prostitute Denise Gardner was alive but heavily wounded; her left breast had been completely removed. At the Illinois Masonic Hospital she told investigators that she was forced to swallow unidentified blue capsules and provided a description of van used to abduct her. The next day a drive by shooting occurred leaving a drug dealer dead and his associate paralysed; this drug hit was credited to the ripper crew. Two weeks later, police pulled over van matching the description which was driven by Eddie Spreitzer, he led them to his boss Gecht who owned the van. Under questioning, Eddie revealed the involvement of the official accomplices.
Two of the accomplices were the Kokoraleis brothers Andy and Tom. Their mother had a premature death and so they were raised by their father with four other siblings, one sibling filed numerous complaints against their father for sexual molestation with the youth protection agency. The lead investigator into the case, Warren Wilkosz, was a close friend to the Kokoraleis family for a number of years. Rosemary’s brother Thomas was implicated by Robin, Thomas denied this but claimed that one of the accomplices was a lover of Robin and another was a former lover. Suspects had included the police officer, and a man whose name constantly came up whom failed polygraph tests about his involvement in the crimes, and others implicated directly or indirectly by witnesses. Andy was also brought in and the questioning continued over days. They claimed that Gecht had an alter in his attic where he performed rituals, when searched the alter had been removed but black and red painted crosses were found. Witnesses claimed that Gecht ritualistically slaughtered animals in the woods, and that there were orgies attended by Gecht’s sister in law and her friends. There also seemed to be a satanic ‘fad’ in the local high school with children wearing pentagrams and carving satanic imagery into their desks. Teachers even claimed to find circles of stones and skeletal remains of cats / dogs in wooded areas behind the school. The press ignored this and Ripper case as they were satanic cult committing murders, which of course contradicts the ‘Satanic panic’ narrative. The case was also overshadowed by the high-profile Tylenol packages poisonings.
Andy and Eddie ended up confessing to eighteen murders. Robin was charged for the attack on Gardner. Eddie and Andy were indicated for a range of crimes. Gecht was released on bail, six days later on Halloween a woman was rushed to the hospital with slashed breasts; Gecht was formally charged for this but an assistant State’s Attorney successfully got it dropped. Despite all the official rippers being in custody, 11 days later the mutilated body of a prostitute was found in the same spot where Sandra Delaware had been. It was deemed a coincidence. Eddie and Andy received death sentences despite being teenagers and obviously the least involved; Eddie initially pled guilty to four murders but was later indicted for more. Gecht was charged with lesser crimes, he had a mistrial before undergoing another trail where he received 120 years. Tom initially received a life sentence for complicity, but this was later reversed to 70 years via a plea agreement. Seventeen years after these arrests, one of Gecht’s sons was charged with murder alongside three accomplices.