Abomination: Devil Worship and Deception in the West Memphis Three Murders (33 page)

Chicago, Illinois

(1981)

In the early eighties Robin Gecht, a former construction subcontractor of John Wayne Gacy, and three associates, Edward Spreitzer and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis, ran a Satanic cult suspected in the disappearances of 18 women in the streets of Chicago. Known as the Ripper Crew, Gecht and his gang drove around in a van looking for prostitutes to sacrifice in Gecht's apartment. Gecht maintained an altar in the attic of his Northwest Side home, where the group gathered during the evening hours after his wife was gone to work. Supposedly, he had painted six red-and-black crosses on the walls and covered the altar with a red cloth.

At age 30, Gecht was the only adult and assumed the role of mentor and leader. During his adolescence, Gecht began worshipping Satan. Some associates claimed he had supernatural powers, and told detectives not to look into his eyes. Spreitzer was 21 and the Kokoraleis brothers, Tommy and Andrew, were only teenagers. In 1981 and 1982, the group allegedly committed dozens of murders involving rape, torture and mutilation. They would remove one breast from each victim and eat it as Robin read passages from Anton LaVey’s
Satanic Bible
. Gecht maintained a black box where he kept the body parts of his victims.

Gecht and his friends were arrested in 1982 for the stabbing of a teenaged prostitute. Though Robin's associates and other witnesses implicated him in a number of the deaths, investigators never had enough evidence to charge him with murder. His accomplices refused to testify against him. At his first trial, his attorneys forwarded an insanity defense. Found guilty, Robin is serving 120 years in Menard Correctional Center. Fellow cultists Edward Spreitzer and Andrew Kokoraleis were sentenced to death. Kokoraleis' brother Thomas was sentenced to life for his role in the murders. On March 16, 1999, Andrew Kokoraleis was executed by lethal injection at Tamms Correctional Center in Southern Illinois for the 1982 strangulation murder of Lorraine Borowski, a 21-year-old secretary at a real estate office that was abducted on her way to work. Her mutilated body was found in a cemetery.

Defense attorneys unsuccessfully argued that Andrew was coerced into confessing. They also argued that new information cast doubt on the credibility of confessions by two co-defendants who accused Kokoraleis.

Gecht maintains that he is innocent of any murders, and that he didn’t even know the other members of the Satanic cult during the time the victims were killed:

First mistake...is considering me a serial killer...I am not considered one...I have never killed or took part in any such acts nor ever charged in any murders of anyone.

I don’t only face the injustices, but the nightmares that follow. You have no idea the pain and hurt I face and feel every single day I sit here and lose hope. I’m not an angel...but I never intentionally hurt anyone unless it was to protect myself or my family. I could never live with killing or knowing I was responsible for taking ones life.
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James Ryan Bunnell

Tulsa, Oklahoma

1999

James Ryan Bunnell originally told police he retrieved a gun from his parents' dresser drawer to kill a skunk the family dogs were chasing and then tripped over the threshold when he went back into the house, accidentally killing his 15 year old brother. If he hadn't been smoking pot when the police arrived, it might have made his story more believable. The police doubted his story when they found a blood soaked pillow with four bullet holes in it. Later, the landlord discovered occult books & the Satanic writings of Bunnell's in a Bible. Bunnell stated in his writings that he was the "Son of Satan" and desired to kill his entire family as a sacrifice to the Devil, according to testimony heard in Rogers County District Court. Bunnell also wrote, "I want to rape young girls and feed upon their flesh."
²¹³
Perhaps he was imitating Anton LaVey, who admitted to dining on the leg of a 20 year old girl. Bunnell pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received 35 years in prison

Satanic Murders

of San Luis Obispo, California

Jacob Delashmutt, Jospeh Fiorella, Royce Casey

On July 22nd, 1995, the small town of Arroyo Grande, California was rocked by news of the murder of a pretty fifteen year old, Elyse Pahler.  The murderers were three of Elyse’s classmates obsessed with Satanism. Jacob Delashmutt, Jospeh Fiorella, Royce Casey, aged 14, 15 and 16, were troubled teenagers at the time of the murder.  Royce Casey and Joseph Fiorella had difficulty in school, were known drug users, and were considered social outcasts in their community. Jacob Delashumutt was the son of devout Mormon parents, was a known meth user, and had sought help in the Mariposa Community Recovery Center. Kara Herrick, a neighbor of Delashmutt, told investigators that Jacob and his strange friends were interested in real devil worship.  There were rumors at school that some students were practicing devil worship and there had been talk of a couple of boys trying to snatch a young virgin off the streets of Arroyo Grande. Joe Fiorella’s growing library about the occult, which included copies of pamphlets by Satanists such as Aleister Crowley, fed the boys interest in the subject.  As the group’s obsession grew, so did their twisted perspective about reality.

On the fateful July night in 1995, 15 year old Elyse Pahler slipped out of her family home to meet the three teenaged boys.  Unfortunately for young Elyse, her friends had a different plan for the evening than she did. The three young men she had decided to meet had chosen Elyse to be their victim.  They wanted a virgin to sacrifice to Satan---they believed the murder would help their heavy metal band, Hatred, become successful. The three young men led Elyse into a eucalyptus grove where her assailants took turns stabbing her with a knife. In total the victim was stabbed 12 times. Jacob Delashmutt tied his belt around her neck to control her during the attack. Casey told investigators that Elyse Pahler cried out for her mother while being attacked. She "was on the ground praying to God and calling for her mom."
²¹⁴
After they were finished, the boys dragged the body deeper into the eucalyptus grove. Her body had multiple stab wounds to her torso indicative of torture.

Authorities did not find out about the murder until eight months later when Royce Casey converted to Christianity and confessed to police. Many students at the high school were not surprised when Delashmutt, Casey, and Fiorella were arrested because many of them actually knew what had happened to Elyse but were too afraid to tell police. Casey told police the three plotted her death for more than a month prior to the murder. He told police
"
she had blond hair and blue eyes and because she was a virgin, she would be a perfect sacrifice for the Devil
."
²¹⁵
When asked by police why they did it, Casey answered:

It was to receive power from the Devil to help them play guitar better..."By making this perfect sacrifice to the devil they would gain more craziness, or nuts, as he said...That would make them play harder, play faster. And by making this perfect sacrifice to the devil it might help them go, quote, professional.
²¹⁶

Fall River Satanic Cult

Carl Drew and Robin Murphy

1980

Robin Murphy

River Police began investigating a serial killing in early 1980 after Karen Marsden’s body, which had been decapitated, was found in the woods. Two other prostitutes, Doreen Levesque and Barbara Reposa, were found earlier in the year by Fall River police. The crime scenes were often littered with both human and animal bones. The investigation lead detectives to Carl Drew and Robin Murphy, who told them of a Satanic cult who murdered as part of ritualistic sacrifices. During the investigation, police heard of an apartment where Satanic rituals were taking place. A local detective, Paul Carey, decided to buy beer and attend the ceremony:

I told my partner, "Let's go. We're going to meet Satan."

We got two six-packs of beer and went to the apartment. We didn't tell anyone we were cops. People started arriving including Drew, a known pimp, and Murphy. They were soon joined by a woman named Karen Marsden -- who would later end up the third victim in the satanic slaying cluster.

At the apartment, we watched a satanic ritual. There were strange chants. A "Hail, Satan!" announcement indicated that Satan had entered the room.
²¹⁷

Declaring himself to be Satan, Carl Drew would reportedly chant and pray in "a different language," leading his flock through the grisly steps of human sacrifice on at least two occasions.

Murphy was known to police. She had been involved in prostitution beginning in her early teens, but her coldness and cutthroat demeanor had moved her up through the ranks of the prostitution ring until the she ran her own operation. Robin Murphy turned state’s evidence in exchange for immunity in the murders of Raposa and Levesque, while pointing the finger squarely at Carl Drew for the murder of Karen Marsden. She described in detail how Drew knelt on Marsden’s beaten back, pulling her head back by her long hair and decapitated her with a hunting knife. Her cooperation with the prosecution earned Robin Murphy the lesser sentence of second-degree murder, as opposed to Drew’s life sentence. Barbara Raposa’s boyfriend, Andre Maltais, was convicted of her murder, based on Robin Murphy’s testimony. However, following his conviction, he was found to be clinically insane.

To this day, police involved with the case remain skeptical of Murphy’s testimony, and many have spoken out against her light treatment. More than one informant, including the murdered Karen Marsden, had pointed to Murphy as the ringleader. The detective who attended the Satanic ceremonies of the group recently commented on the case:

I have never seen a case more shot through with lies and deceit by a person seeking parole than this one.

I don’t think you would know the truth if it jumped out of the ground and slapped you in the face.

She was involved in all three murders,” Carey stated Friday. Robin is smarter than most, and she can manipulate people, including the District Attorney. She testified for them and got a free walk on this. I felt badly that she was out on parole. I feel she is a danger to society, still. She shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets.
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Russian Satanists

A gang of Satan worshippers murdered four teenagers by stabbing each of them 666 times, police believe.

The number of wounds is the same as that revered by followers of the devil.

The three girls and one boy, all described as Goths and aged 16 and 17, were allegedly forced to drink alcohol by the gang before they were attacked.

The killers then allegedly lit a bonfire under a tree near their cottage in Russia's Yaroslavl region, 300 miles north-east of Moscow, where they cooked and ate their victims' body parts.