CHICAGO _ A member of the sadistic, four-man Ripper Crew _ believed to have killed as many as 17 women in the 1980s _ has been released from prison and is expected to return to DuPage County to live, authorities said Friday.
The Tribune has confirmed Thomas Kokoraleis has made plans to live at a Christian-based facility in the Wheaton area, according to law enforcement sources.
Kokoraleis was initially sentenced to life in prison for the 1982 slaying of 21-year-old Lorraine "Lorry" Ann Borowski of Elmhurst. But DuPage County prosecutors allowed him in July 1987 to plead guilty in exchange for a 70-year prison term after he successfully won a new trial because of legal errors.
Kokoraleis, 58, had been held at the Illinois River Correctional Center in Canton, about 30 miles west of Peoria, and was eligible for day-for-day credit for good behavior under sentencing guidelines no longer in effect. State prison officials confirmed his discharge early Friday. He arrived at Union Station later in the morning, sources said.
Members of some victims' families were outraged two summers ago when the Tribune first reported his scheduled release. Their efforts helped lead to an 18-month delay in his original parole date, but authorities announced in late 2017 there was nothing else they could do to hold him beyond March 29. He was set free without typical parole restrictions.
Though still upset, some relatives told the Tribune they accept the news.
"We've exhausted everything," said Mark Borowski, who was 14 when his sister Lorry Ann was abducted after walking a few short blocks in broad daylight from her Elmhurst apartment to work. "There's nothing else we can do. We fought as hard as we could. I cannot even imagine someone like this could get out."
Borowski and other relatives planned a news conference for Friday afternoon with famed L.A. civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, who has assisted the family since 2017 after news broke about the convicted murderer's release.
Those who know Kokoraleis _ including psychiatrists and psychologists who evaluated him as part of a last-ditch effort to block his freedom _ say he is not sexually violent and has participated in religious ministry in prison and stayed out of trouble. They portray him as a hapless follower with a low IQ who unwittingly inserted himself into the police investigation while trying to help his brother.
The brother, Andrew Kokoraleis, was the last inmate to be executed in Illinois. He died by chemical injection at age 35 on March 17, 1999.
Thomas Kokoraleis has two other brothers who live together in a two-bedroom apartment in the northwest suburbs, but one of them told the Tribune earlier this week that their landlord will not allow him to live with them. His other siblings live out of state.
He also has two elderly relatives in Villa Park, where the Kokoraleis family lived when he was arrested in late November 1982. His parents are deceased.
State officials said Thomas Kokoraleis' address will be a matter of public record on Illinois' sex offender registry. Though he is not a convicted sex offender, officials said state law requires him to register for the rest of his life while living in Illinois because the murder was sexually motivated. They said he will not be subject to other rules applying to sex offenders, such as boundary restrictions near parks, schools and day care facilities.
He is required to register his new address within three days of his release. Authorities in Wheaton already have been put on notice of his plans to live in town, according to a Tribune source.
As part of the 1987 plea deal, prosecutors dropped charges against Thomas Kokoraleis involving another woman who is thought to be the crew's first victim. Linda Sutton, 26, was found mutilated outside a Villa Park motel after the men abducted her about a week earlier near Wrigley Field in May 1981.
Besides crimes involving Borowski and Sutton, Thomas Kokoraleis admitted in 1982 tape-recorded police statements to being present during the abduction of 30-year-old Shui Mak of Lombard. She vanished two weeks after Borowski's kidnapping after getting out of a car following an argument with her brother as they drove in the Hanover Park area. Her body was discovered months later in a South Barrington field.
Kokoraleis later recanted his confession, stating police fed him the details before the tape recorder started rolling. Authorities argued he wasn't smart enough to memorize such descriptions even if they had. Kokoraleis has not responded to Tribune prison interview requests. In legal filings, he has denied raping or killing anyone.
The crew's ringleader, Robin Gecht, an electrical contractor and handyman who once worked for John Wayne Gacy, was the only member who did not confess. Authorities described the others as "genetic nobodies" whom Gecht easily manipulated while giving them work as laborers.
Gecht, 65, is eligible for parole in late 2042, when he would be 89.
The last defendant, Edward Spreitzer, 58, is ineligible for parole. Convicted of five murders, he was sentenced to death in 1986. But in 2003, then-Gov. George Ryan cleared out death row, commuting to life terms the sentences of all the state's condemned inmates. It was one of Ryan's final acts in office. Illinois abolished the death penalty some eight years later.
Exactly how many people the crew killed likely will never be known because police were unable to locate all the victims' bodies. Police said the defendants were high on drugs and alcohol during the attacks, and later confused details or couldn't recall where they dumped their victims.
