Split high court upholds serial killer's conviction, death sentence
A divided Illinois Supreme Court upheld a condemned serial killer's conviction, rejecting his argument that he was denied a fair trial for the sex slayings of a Chicago mother and her daughter.
In a Thursday opinion, four of the high court's seven justices affirmed Paul F. Runge should die by lethal injection for the 1997 murders of Yolanda Gutierrez and her daughter, Jessica Muniz, 10, found side by side in their studio apartment.
A Cook County jury rejected Runge's insanity defense in an emotional 2006 trial filled with evidence of sexual violence in seven murders.
In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Anne M. Burke argued Runge deserved a new trial because Cook Judge Joseph Kazmierski did not do enough to ensure an impartial jury.
For example, evidence surfaced that jurors privately discussed the case before deliberations, in violation of the judge's order. The behavior of one particular juror, who made inappropriate comments, also was debated.
"I recognize that the crimes at issue here ... were horrific," Burke wrote. "But it is precisely these types of cases that test our commitment to the principle of law.
"We must not allow ourselves to be swayed by emotion. Given Illinois' history with capital cases, the majority's opinion sends the wrong message about how these cases will be treated in Illinois."
Prosecutors first pursued the Gutierrez/Muniz murders at trial because DNA evidence made it their strongest case. Runge admitted in videotaped confessions to at least five others.
The 39-year-old man may face a second trial for the Jan. 3, 1995, rape and murder of Stacey Frobel, 24, of Carol Stream, whose severed remains were found scattered across rural Lake County and Wisconsin. Prosecutors want to clinch a second death sentence should the first ever be overturned.
In its majority opinion, written by Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier, four justices rejected Runge's various arguments that his jury was tainted or that the judge erred in barring the defense from deposing certain prosecution experts and making a defense report inadmissible.
Runge is one of 15 condemned men on Illinois' death row. The unofficial moratorium has not been lifted, but capital punishment remains state law.
Runge was one of the last people to see Frobel alive when she visited his girlfriend's Streamwood townhouse, just eight months after his release from prison for the 1987 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Oak Forest.
Police found traces of Frobel's blood in the home, but they lacked enough evidence to make an arrest. The FBI kept Runge under surveillance, but he is accused of committing six other murders during that time through March 1997.
Authorities granted immunity to his then-wife, Charlene, who played a role in the first three slayings, which in addition to Frobel included the murders six months later of two Hanover Park sisters who had recently fled war-torn Bosnia, only to be killed in Runge's Glendale Heights home.
Their bodies still have not been found.
In 2000, forensic experts gleaned DNA from Jessica Muniz's body that they said connected Runge to the crime. After being confronted with the evidence, Runge confessed on videotape to at least seven murders, and was charged in June 2001.
Paul Runge has never granted a face-to-face media interview. He did, though, submit written answers in 2006 to the Daily Herald through his father.
"I don't let myself accept I'm guilty of these crimes," Runge wrote. "I feel bad about the pain I've caused but the self-defense part of my brain doesn't let me identify the crimes with me. Without truly accepting my actions, there will never be an equal amount of guilt and remorse. To fully accept and realize my actions would kill me."
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Related documents</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="/pdf/runge.pdf">Full state supreme court opinion</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>