People v. Kokoraleis

• Decision Date: 25 January 1990
• Docket Number: No. 2-88-0081,2-88-0081
• Parties: , 140 Ill.Dec. 482 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas C. KOKORALEIS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1354

549 N.E.2d 1354

193 Ill.App.3d 684, 140 Ill.Dec. 482

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas C. KOKORALEIS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2-88-0081.

Appellate Court of Illinois Second District.

Jan. 25, 1990.

G. Joseph Weller, Deputy Defender, Paul J. Glaser, Office of State Appellate Defender, Elgin, for Thomas C. Kokoraleis.

James E. Ryan, DuPage County State's Atty., Wheaton, William L. Browers, Deputy Director, Cynthia N. Schneider, State's Attys. Appellate Prosecutor, Elgin, for People.

Justice DUNN delivered the opinion of the court:

In November 1982, the defendant, Thomas C. Kokoraleis, was interrogated by the police regarding the unsolved abductions and murders of several young women, and he eventually gave inculpatory statements regarding the murders of Lorraine Borowski, Linda Sutton, Sui Mak and Carole Pappas. After this court reversed his original convictions of the murder (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 9-1(a)(1)) and rape (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 38, par. 11-1(a)) of Borowski (People v. Kokoraleis (1986), 149 Ill.App.3d 1000, 103 Ill.Dec. 186, 501 N.E.2d 207, appeal denied (1987), 114 Ill.2d 553, 108 Ill.Dec. 422, 508 N.E.2d 733), the defendant entered into an agreement with the State by which he pleaded guilty to the Borowski murder in return for a sentence of 70 years' incarceration and the State's agreement to nol-pros a subsequent indictment in the Sutton case. The plea agreement did not encompass the Pappas murder. Shortly thereafter, the defendant filed a motion with the circuit court seeking to withdraw his guilty plea. The basis of the motion was the discovery, some three weeks after the entry of the plea agreement, of the body of Carole Pappas; the State conceded that this finding proved that the defendant was not involved with Pappas' accidental death. The defendant claimed that, because his confession regarding the Pappas murder was false, then the veracity of his other inculpatory statements was called into question. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and the defendant now appeals from the order denying his motion. At issue on appeal is whether the discovery of Pappas' body provides sufficient grounds to allow the defendant to withdraw a voluntarily made guilty plea. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The same trial court judge who accepted the defendant's guilty plea also denied his motion to withdraw it, and he had also presided over the defendant's first trial. In ruling on the defendant's motion, the trial court heard arguments that touched on the entire history of the defendant's prosecution, and it appears that the trial court properly endeavored to evaluate the defendant's motion in the context of the earlier proceedings. (See People v. Nyberg (1976), 64 Ill.2d 210, 214-15, 1 Ill.Dec. 80, 82, 356 N.E.2d 80, 82.) Thus, to properly review the trial court's determination, we must first recount a portion of what has already transpired with regard to the prosecution of this defendant.

In the fall of 1982, various law enforcement agencies in Northern Illinois were investigating the abductions and murders of several women whose bodies, when discovered, evidenced severe breast mutilations. Among the victims of these murders were Linda Sutton, who was killed in 1981, and Lorraine Borowski, who had been missing since May 1982. Borowski's body was discovered on October 10, 1982. By November 1982, three suspects had been arrested and charged in connection with a number of the murders. The suspects were Robin Gecht (Gecht), Edward Spreitzer (Spreitzer), and Andrew Kokoraleis (Andy), the defendant's brother.

On the afternoon of November 10, 1982, Detectives John Sam and Warren Wilkosz of the Du Page County sheriff's office went to the Villa Park neighborhood where the father of the two Kokoraleis brothers lived. Sam was investigating the Borowski killing, and Wilkosz was investigating the Sutton murder. The two went to the neighborhood to investigate the case against Andy; the defendant was not a suspect. At about 2 p.m., the defendant approached the two officers and asked to talk with them about his brother Andy. The three then proceeded to the Villa Park police station. They arrived at 2:30 to 2:45 p.m., and the two officers questioned the defendant. Though he did not implicate himself in any of the murders, the police officers asked the defendant to submit to a polygraph examination. The defendant agreed, and arrangements were made for an examination to take place at the Elmhurst police station at 5 p.m. The defendant waited at the Villa Park police station until he was taken to Elmhurst, but he was not subjected to further questioning from 3:15 until 5:15 p.m.

Commander John Millner of the Elmhurst police department conducted a polygraph examination of the defendant which lasted approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Detectives Sam and Wilkosz were not present during the examination. During this interview, the defendant stated that he was not involved in any murders. Commander Millner told the defendant that he was not being truthful and suggested that perhaps the defendant had only witnessed the murders. The defendant then admitted that he was present when some of the killings took place. Commander Millner then ended the interview, and he approached Detectives Sam and Wilkosz to suggest that they continue to interrogate the defendant based on his admission of involvement in the murders.

At approximately 6:45 p.m., Detectives Sam and Wilkosz again began to question the defendant. At one point, Wilkosz confronted the defendant with a document purported to be Spreitzer's confession. He told the defendant that Spreitzer's confession implicated him in the murder, but Wilkosz knew that this was not, in fact, true. At this point, the defendant began to tell the detectives that he witnessed the Borowski and Sutton killings. At 8:42 p.m. the officers began to tape-record the defendant's statement regarding his involvement in the murders. This taping continued, intermittently, until about midnight.

In his taped statement, the defendant said that he was riding in an automobile with his brother Andy and Spreitzer when they abducted a young woman from an area near a shopping mall. The defendant identified a photograph of Borowski as the woman abducted. The defendant stated that Borowski was taken to a motel room where Spreitzer and Andy removed her clothes and forced her to engage in sexual intercourse. Andy then placed piano wire around the victim's breast and squeezed until the breast was removed, and Andy and Spreitzer then had intercourse with the wound in the victim's chest. Spreitzer then struck the victim in the chest with an axe and killed her. The body was then redressed, taken to a local cemetery, and left there. According to the defendant, he was present when these events took place, but he did not participate in them.

Also on the night of November 10, the defendant gave an inculpatory statement regarding the abduction and murder of Linda Sutton. The defendant at this time maintained that he had been present for only two murders. The defendant here has stipulated, however, that on November 10 he also gave a statement inculpating him in the murder of Sui Mak.

The next day, on November 11, police authorities again subjected the defendant to questioning. At 7:30 p.m., the defendant gave a statement to Detective Thomas Vosburgh of the Du Page County sheriff's office and Detective Grady Clark of the Wheaton police department. A court reporter transcribed the statement. The defendant identified a photograph of Carole Pappas, a woman who had been missing for two months, as the woman who he, Andy, Spreitzer and Gecht had abducted from a shopping mall some months earlier. Pappas was last seen on September 11, 1982, in the Marshall Field store at the Stratford Square shopping mall in Bloomingdale, Illinois.

The defendant stated that the incident took place in a shopping mall he could not identify, but he did recall that the mall contained a Marshall Field store. According to the defendant, Pappas, who was either entering or exiting her car in the parking lot in front of the Marshall Field store, was forced by Spreitzer and Andy into a van driven by Gecht. Spreitzer then entered Pappas' car, and the two vehicles proceeded to an area of farmland about 30 to 45 minutes removed from the mall. The defendant stated that he watched from the van as the other men took the woman into the field, tore off her clothes, and forced her to engage in sexual intercourse. The defendant claimed that Pappas was then bound and gagged, after which Gecht removed her left breast with a piano wire; the three then had intercourse with the wound in the chest. Before returning to the van, the defendant said, Gecht strangled Pappas to death. The four men then left the area in the van; the defendant was unsure whether the other three returned to the field later to take Pappas' car. In his statement, the defendant noted that he had been involved in two other similar incidents.

On November 12, 1982, the defendant gave another statement to Detective Vosburgh regarding Pappas' purported murder. The record also reveals that the defendant spoke to Richard Bueke of the Cook County State's Attorney's office later that same day. In his statement to Bueke, the defendant said that he had been present at only two killings.

The State subsequently indicted the defendant for the murder and rape of Lorraine Borowski. His pretrial motion to suppress his statements, which he alleged were given involuntarily, was denied, and a portion of the defendant's statements was introduced into evidence at his jury trial. Among the witnesses the State presented at trial was Frank Orlosky, a physical anthropologist, who testified that Borowski's body, which was badly decomposed when discovered, evidenced signs of trauma inflicted by a small circular...