People v. Kokoraleis, 2-84-0890

• Citation: 103 Ill.Dec. 186,149 Ill.App.3d 1000,501 N.E.2d 207
• Decision Date: 13 November 1986
• Docket Number: No. 2-84-0890,2-84-0890
• Parties: , 103 Ill.Dec. 186 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas C. KOKORALEIS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 207

501 N.E.2d 207

149 Ill.App.3d 1000, 103 Ill.Dec. 186

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

No. 2-84-0890.

Appellate Court of Illinois Second District.

Nov. 13, 1986.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 30, 1986.

G. Joseph Weller, Deputy Defender, Paul J. Glaser, Office of State Appellate Defender, Elgin, for defendant-appellant.

James E. Ryan, State's Atty., Wheaton, Kenneth R. Boyle, Director, State's Atty. Appellate Service Com'n, Springfield, William L. Browers, Deputy Director, Cynthia N. Schneider, Staff Atty., State's Atty. Appellate Service Com'n, Elgin, for plaintiff-appellee.

Justice LINDBERG delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Thomas Kokoraleis, was charged by indictment with 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 Lorraine Borowski. At the conclusion of a nine-day jury trial, guilty verdicts were returned on both charges. Defendant appeals, raising five issues for review: (1) whether his statements to police officers were voluntary; (2) whether the trial court erred in excluding statements by two other men which failed to mention defendant's participation in the offense; (3) whether the State proved the corpus delicti of the rape offense; (4) whether the natural life prison sentence for murder should be reduced; and, (5) whether the extended-term sentence for rape is lawful. For reasons developed later in this opinion, we reverse defendant's murder conviction and remand that cause for a new trial. We reverse defendant's conviction for rape because the State failed to present evidence independent of defendant's confession tending to establish the commission of rape.

The following recitation of facts provides a general background of the events precipitating this prosecution. We do not include an exhaustive statement of facts because many of the facts are discussed where necessary to resolve the legal issues raised by defendant. Specifically, the facts surrounding defendant's statements to the police officers are abbreviated here because they are recited more comprehensively in our treatment of the voluntariness issue later in the opinion.

On October 10, 1982, Steven Grist, a 15-year-old resident of Darien, Illinois discovered the remains of a human in some brush amidst trees and tall grass in the Clarendon Hills Cemetery. DuPage County Deputy Coroner Peter Siekman arrived at the scene and found a greatly decomposed human body and clothing remains. He later prepared a death certificate for Lorraine Borowski.

Also present at the cemetery on October 10, 1982 was Douglas Miller of the DuPage County sheriff's department. He found the skeleton on its back with a pullover top on the body. Puncture holes were discovered on the lower portion of its back side. Both of the clasps on the bra found around the body were closed. Miller did not recall if the panty hose were discovered pulled up to the waist, but stated the pair of pants found on the body was separated at the center seam.

Defendant did not testify at his trial. The principal evidence linking defendant to the crime was a tape-recorded statement, played to the jury and submitted to the jury as two statements, which defendant made to certain police officers in November 1982. The statements concerned the homicides of Borowski and Linda Sutton, a black woman killed in May 1981. The statements were admitted at trial after the court denied defendant's pretrial motion to suppress the statements on the basis that they were the result of physical and mental coercion and hence were involuntary.

Several detectives of the DuPage County sheriff's office testified concerning the events preceding and the substance of defendant's confessions. On November 10, 1982, nearly one month after the victim's remains were discovered, Detectives John Sam and Warren Wilkosz of the DuPage County sheriff's office were canvassing the Villa Park neighborhood of defendant's father. Wilkosz knew that Robin Gecht (Gecht), Edward Spreitzer (Spreitzer) and Andrew Kokoraleis (Andy), defendant's brother, had been arrested and charged with the murder, rape and mutilation of women in the Chicago area. Sam was investigating the Borowski homicide, and Wilkosz had been assigned to the suspected Sutton homicide. At approximately 2 p.m., defendant approached the detectives on the street, introduced himself as Andy's brother, and expressed a desire to talk about Andy.

Defendant agreed to travel with the detectives to the Villa Park police station. Subsequently, defendant agreed to take a polygraph examination which occurred at approximately 5:15 p.m. at the Elmhurst police station that same day. At approximately 6:45 p.m., Sam and Wilkosz began questioning defendant, and at 8:42 p.m., defendant gave a taped statement to the officers regarding the Borowski homicide which was played to the jury.

Defendant stated that he, Spreitzer and Andy grabbed a woman at a shopping mall and forced her into a light gray, two-door 1977 car. They stopped at a motel located 10 minutes away and checked into a room. Spreitzer brought the woman into the room and undressed her. Each person except for defendant had intercourse with the woman whose hands were tied to the bed and whose mouth was gagged. Andy then took out a three or four foot length of wire, tied it on her left breast and squeezed until the breast came off. Spreitzer then struck an ax against her chest and killed her. After dressing the victim, the three men put her in the car, drove to a cemetery at approximately 11 a.m. and dropped the body in some short grass.

Sometime after the questioning concluded at the Elmhurst police department, Sam and Wilkosz drove defendant back to the DuPage County sheriff's office. Passing the intersection of Route 83 and St. Charles Road, Sam asked defendant if the area looked familiar and defendant answered that it did. Defendant thought it looked like the location where the white girl was picked up. Sam said defendant then directed them to the REMAX office which he identified as the spot where the abduction occurred.

In addition to defendant's confession and his identification of the scene of the abduction, the State introduced the testimony of several witnesses who supplied facts about the events on May 15, 1982. Kathleen Zingraf, who lived in an apartment building on the same floor as that of the victim, said she saw the victim leaving her own apartment at approximately 8 a.m. on May 15, 1982. Robert Cercone who was then the manager of a store located in a shopping center at Route 83 and St. Charles Road in Elmhurst, Illinois, observed a commotion involving a woman next to an open car door at approximately 8:30 a.m. on May 15, 1982. Also testifying was Thomas Luehring, who drove his car into the shopping center parking lot that day between 8:05 and 8:15 a.m. He observed a gray, four or five-year-old American car leaving the parking lot driven by a white man with curly light-brown hair who was between 18 to 30 years old.

The owner of the victim's place of employment, Donald Stibbe, testified the victim was scheduled to work that day. Upon arriving at the office in the shopping center after 8:30 a.m., he noticed some keys, money and other items on the sidewalk near the office and thereafter called the police. The items were later identified as belonging to the victim.

The State also offered the testimony of Frank Orlosky, a physical anthropologist, who examined the remains of the victim on October 11, 1982. He was asked to determine signs of trauma that might be related to a cause of death. Skin covered the abdominal region and lower chest, pelvic bones, left thigh, ankle and foot, the right thigh, leg and foot and the left arm and part of the right arm. He attributed the missing skin to chemical and insect decomposition. While he located the right nipple, the skin ended two inches below where the left nipple should have been located. He found no trauma in the left breast area, although he acknowledged a clean cut in the area of the left breast would leave no signs of mutilation or trauma. In the lower thoracic area, skin extended from eight inches above the navel to 4 1/2 inches below the navel.

The first vertebra of the body was missing, as were some bones in the fingers and toes. Orlosky detected primary trauma on the sternum. He observed a circular frontal entrance wound in the upper part of the bone and an exit wound on the other side; sharp bony spines protruded inward. Circular entrance and exit wounds, two millimeters in diameter, were observed on the second left and right ribs. Injury to the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae was evident. Also observable were superficial scrapes and trauma on the spinus process of the ninth vertebra. The head of the eleventh right rib was absent, and the rib was displaced. The nasal bone was fractured. Orlosky stated his examination revealed that certain of the entrance wounds were in the victim's back. In Orlosky's opinion, the circular wounds were caused by a small, circular object like an ice pick.

Following presentation of the State's case, the defense offered the testimony of several witnesses who worked at the motel where defendant stated the events took place. During May of 1982, Ann Bruenning was employed as a maid and laundry person from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week. She recalled nothing unusual regarding the condition of the rooms that month; no thefts of mattresses or bed sheets, no overturned furniture, no handcuffs and no large amounts of blood on the floor or furniture. Similar testimony was offered by Harry Lux, one of the owners of the motel who also lived on the premises and stripped 80% of the linen. In May 1982, he noticed no mattresses or sheets missing, no handcuffs and no large amounts of blood in any room.

Defendant also introduced the testimony of Dr. Albert Stipes, a psychiatrist,...