Part 14

March 9, 2000, IN THE MATTER OF: SHAWN ELLIS, DEPENDENT MINOR CHILD, (FRANKLIN COUNTY CHILDREN SERVICES, COMPLAINANT-APPELLEE, CARLA RICHARDSON, RESPONDENT-APPELLANT) . IN THE MATTER OF: KIMBERLY DAVIS, DEPENDENT MINOR CHILD, (FRANKLIN COUNTY CHILDREN SERVICES, COMPLAINANT-APPELLEE, CARLA RICHARDSON, RESPONDENT-APPELLANT) COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO, TENTH APPELLATE DISTRICT, FRANKLIN COUNTY, 2000 Ohio App. LEXIS 849, Permanent Court Commitment of Children Affirmed.

Overview: Appellate documents state in May 1995 allegations of abuse and neglect were filed against the mother, Carla Richardson, on behalf of her two children. She failed to protect the children from being sexually molested by a boarder in the home who was ultimately convicted of rape. After three and a half years of offering services and receiving treatment from six different counselors, the mother remained in denial about the abuse her children had suffered. None of the parents complied with the reunification plans for their children and the court stated Satanic occult practices were allegedly commonplace.

The court noted that after being in counseling for over three years, appellant continued to deny what happened to her children and claimed an inability to remember the abuse. “There was even testimony that appellant could not recall taking blood and hair from the children as part of satanic rituals."

February 24, 2000, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, Motion Withdrawn to Hold State in Contempt of Court.

Overview: News articles report that a Federal judge was asked to hold the State in contempt of court in February 2000 for its continued failure to provide court-ordered and doctor-prescribed mental health services to a severely traumatized 17-year-old victim of rape and occult ritual abuse.

Four months prior, State officials signed a federal consent decree in the case which was known as Grier vs. Wadley to make sure Sarah C. received the care she needed. While in the custody of the State, she was exposed to occult sadism, was beaten, hung from walls locked for prolonged periods in closets, and raped repeatedly. This all happened before the age of seven. A State advocacy group, Tennessee Justice Center, filed a class action lawsuit against the state for failure to properly administer the appeals procedure for the health care plan enrollees of TennCare, (Tennessee Behavioral Health). The 17 yr. old victim was just one of the people named in the settlement but she was left without proper care until this motion was filed. In April, the state agreed to properly attend to her care. See "Tenn. Could be in Contempt if Mental Care for Teen Inadequate," The Commercial Appeal, February 24, 2000; “Foster Parents Say State Failed to Care for Abused Girl in State Care,” AP, February 24, 2000; "Sarah C. to Get Badly Needed Care," Knoxville News-Sentinel Co., April 18, 2000

October 21, 1999, SOUTH AFRICA, Ameriko Manyike Sentenced to Life in Prison

Overview: News articles state Ameriko Manyike, 32, mutilated a 15-yr-old boy and tried to sell his genitals which he had cut off. "Ritual or 'muti' murders are common in South Africa where people are prepared to pay well for potions made of human parts which they believe will bring good health or good fortune." See "Mozambican Jailed for Life in S. Africa for Ritual Murder," Agence France Presse, Oct. 21, 1999

August 18, 1999, STATE OF OHIO v. KENNETH J. SMITH, 1999 Ohio App. LEXIS 3794, Status as Sexual Predator Affirmed

Overview: Appellate documents state that on June 4, 1991 Kenneth Smith pled guilty to sexual imposition against a 10 year old child. Years later he appealed the designation as a sexual predator. The trial court noted the nature of the sexual conduct with the victim as indicated in the summary in the presentence investigation report and found defendant’s conduct demonstrated “a pattern of abuse.”

The court stated that in making its decision, the report indicated alcohol was used, the defendant had threatened the victim, and that Satanic ceremonies had been involved.

August 11, 1999, HELSINKI, FINLAND, Jarno Sebastian Elg, Terhi Johanna Tervashonka, Mika Kristian Riska Sentenced for Murder

Overview: News articles state a court sentenced three alleged Satanists, including a 17-year-old girl, to prison terms for ritually killing a man and ingesting some of the body parts. Jarno Sebastian Elg, 24, was given a life sentence for killing a 23-year-old man in November and instigating others to participate in a ritual that included torturing the victim and listening to heavy-metal music. The Hyvinkaa District Court in southern Finland sentenced Terhi Johanna Tervashonka, 17, to two years and six months in prison and Mika Kristian Riska, 21, to two years and eight months in the case. The victim, who was not named, suffered prolonged torture and eventually was strangled to death, the court said. It also said the three people convicted "were strongly influenced by Satanism." The court declared most of the details of the case secret. See "Alleged Satanists Sentenced for Murder, Cannibalism," Associated Press, August 11, 1999

August 3, 1999, KIEV, Dmitry Dyomin was Sentenced to Death for Murder; His Accomplices, Valentin Chelyshev and Alexei Andreyev Sentenced to 13 and 8 yrs. in jail.

Overview: News articles state Dmitry Dyomin and his two accomplices, Valentin Chelyshev and Alexei Andreyev, killed a 15-year-old girl whose tongue was then boiled and ate. Dyomin belonged to a Satanic cult and with the help of his two accomplices, he severed the girl's head with a kitchen knife. Dyomin later lacquered the skull and kept it in his room. Skulls that he had taken out of graves, and books on black magic, pentagrams, and upside-down crucifixes were found during a search of the defendants home. See “Cannibal Satanists Get Death Sentence,” ITAR-TASS NEWS Agency, August 3, 1999

July 24, 1999, UGANDA, AFRICA, Yunus Samanya, Francis Muwanga, Gloria Nagadya, Sentenced to Death

Overview: News reports state that Yunus Samanya, 23, a native healer, Francis Muwanga, 24, and his wife, Gloria Nagadya, 21, were sent to the gallows for the ritual murder of a girl, Shamin Muhamad.

The girl’s head, tongue, private parts, and two fingers were cut off. The motive for the murder was that the perpetrators wanted to become “rich,” with the assistance of evil spirits, and a witchdoctor advised them to make a human sacrifice.

The article also mentioned that cases of child sacrifice had triggered public outrage. See “Shamin Killers for the Gallows,” Africa News, July 24, 1999

Four companion cases are described below:

October 6, 1999, PEOPLE, STATE OF ILLINOIS v. ROBIN GECHT, SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS, 720 N.E. 2d 1098, 1999 Ill. LEXIS 1423, Petition For Leave to Appeal Denied

Note: Four members of a satanic cult, Andrew Kokoraleis, 23, Thomas Kokoraleis, 26, Robin Gecht, 28, and Edward Spreitzer, 26, were convicted in a series of murders, rituals, and acts of cannibalism over a number of years in the mid 1980’s. The case broke after an 18-year-old prostitute was brought unconscious to the local hospital after being found naked, bleeding profusely and near death. Her left breast had been severed and she identified Robin Gecht, a carpenter-electrician, as her attacker.

All the defendant’s appeals are in published decisions except for Robin Gecht’s which is reported as a Table case.

Overview: News articles report that Robin Gecht, 28, a carpenter-electrician was arrested on Oct. 20, 1982, in the vicious slashing of an 18-year-old prostitute which “proved to be the opening of a Pandora’s box of depravity, sadism, Satan worship and cannibalism that perhaps involved nearly a score of Chicago-area women.” Within a week of Gecht’s release on bond for the attack on the prostitute, another woman claimed to have been attacked by him. He was then rearrested.

Following clues, the police had pulled a van over to the side of the road which was driven by Edward Spreitzer, and which had Andrew Kokoraleis as a passenger, who told them the van belonged to Robin Gecht. The gruesome link between many of the slayings in which the remains were still identifiable was that victim’s breasts had been mutilated or slashed off with a knife or piano wire. The three suspects then began implicating each other.

“The first inkling that the killings might have been part of a cult ritual came when a former neighbor of Gecht in Villa Park told authorities that Gecht enjoyed reading books on torture practices of ancient cultures. ‘He told me that he was reading about how the ancients cut off the breasts of women and saved them for tobacco pouches,” she said.”

The police found six crosses, some black and some red, painted on the walls of a tiny attic room in a house once occupied by Robin Gecht. Thomas Kokoraleis told investigators that the room had contained an altar, made from a board covered with red cloth, where cult members cut up animal parts, and sometimes human parts, for sacrifice.

“All were found to have been legally sane at the time of the murders, but Gecht was said by behavioral experts to exhibit multiple personalities, perhaps as a ruse. For example, in their discussion with him he wandered. His voice changed. He would speak as a small child, a teenager or a businessman. The experts said it probably was a sham.”

Robin Gecht was ultimately convicted of the attack on the 18 year old prostitute, and is currently serving a sentence of 120 years. Authorities learned later that Gecht had worked twice for John Wayne Gacy doing construction [the well-known serial murderer of 33 boys] See “Disappearances of Young Women Formed a Path Into the Darkest Depths of the Human Psyche,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 11, 1987; “Trail’s End: Gruesome Clues Led to an Altar in an Attic,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 12, 1987

See Part 15