On June 14, 2001, Paul Frederick Runge, 31, was charged in Chicago with murdering and sexually assaulting six women and a 10-year-old girl in a string of sex attacks in Cook County and DuPage County between 1995 and 1997. The suspect, Paul Frederick Runge, has been behind bars since 1997, when he was arrested for a parole violation. Police said Runge has confessed to all seven killings and was linked to two of the crimes through DNA.

Death Row sentence in double homicide

June 6, 2006

A Cook County judge on Monday sentenced an alleged serial killer to Death Row for the 1997 rape and murder of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter.

Judge Joseph Kazmierski sentenced Paul Runge, 36, after denying motions by his public defenders to seek a new trial and a new sentencing hearing. Runge is awaiting trial on five other slayings.

Runge became the fifth person sentenced to death in Cook County since former Gov. George Ryan emptied Death Row in 2003.

At Monday's hearing, Bernie Murray, assistant Cook County state's attorney, said prosecutors plan to seek a trial in the January 1995 slaying of Stacey Frobel, 25, a friend of Runge's ex-wife. Frobel's remains were found in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

Jurors in February recommended that Runge, originally from Oak Forest, be sentenced to death after a hearing that lasted two weeks.

Kazmierski announced his decision as Runge sat in his tan Cook County Jail uniform. He showed no emotion as the judge's decision was read. No one from his family or the victims' family were in the courtroom.

Kazmierski set a July 20 status date for the Frobel case. He said he expected lawyers to go to trial quickly.

Runge was found guilty in February of repeatedly raping and cutting the throats of Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz.

He is alleged to have talked his way into their apartment in the 3100 block of North Laramie Avenue. After sexually assaulting both victims and cutting their throats, he burned their bodies.

Prosecutors called the slayings vicious and brutal, and they hoped the case might force a decision on where Illinois stands on capital punishment and spur movement on whether the moratorium in place since 2000 should end.

Runge's defense lawyers, William Wolf and Woody Jordan, asked for Kazmierski to impose a gag order in the case, arguing that the statements of prosecutors could taint the potential jury pool in Runge's upcoming cases. The judge denied the request.

They filed an appeal in the case.

When Runge was 17, he pleaded guilty to kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and armed violence in return for a 14-year sentence. He spent five years in prison.

Runge got out of prison in 1994, moved to Carol Stream, found a job at a Lady Foot Locker and got engaged. He married on Jan. 27, 1995--"too quick," he would later tell the prison psychologist.

Weeks before Runge was to marry his wife, Charlene, the first of his alleged victims was killed. Mutilated parts of the body of Frobel, a friend of Charlene's, were found as the month went on. Frobel had last been seen at the couple's home, so police quickly focused on them.

Along with Frobel's murder, Runge is charged with the rape and murders in July 1995 of two Hanover Park sisters, Dzeneta, 22, and Ameal Pasanbegovic, 20. Runge is awaiting trial in DuPage County on that case. Investigators never found the two women's bodies.

He is also charged with the January 1997 rape and strangulation of Dorota Dziubak, 30, on Chicago's Northwest Side. Runge had responded to an ad for a house for sale, authorities said.

He also is charged with the murder of Kazimiera Paruch, 43, of Chicago, in March of that year.

Murray said they don't expect to try Runge on all the cases. He expects Frobel's case to go to trial later this year.

Runge is already serving to 90 years for a botched prison escape in 2000, as well as for armed robbery, aggravated battery and possession of contraband in a penal institution in an October 2000 attempted escape from a prison.

Runge to stand trial again

June 6, 2006

As confessed serial killer Paul Runge heads to Illinois’ death row, the prosecutors who put him there plan to try the condemned man for another murder to ensure the noose around his neck remains tight. Runge will next stand trial for the Jan. 3, 1995, Murder of Stacey Frobel, the first of seven sex slayings he is charged with, whose severed remains were found scattered across rural Lake County and Wisconsin. Prosecutors told Cook County Judge Joseph Kazmierski of their trial plans Monday after he certified the death sentence a jury delivered Feb. 27 for the 1997 rape and murder of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter in Chicago. The judge also rejected a defense motion for a new trial and sentencing hearing. Runge, 36, became the seventh person across Illinois sentenced to death since former Gov. George Ryan emptied death row in 2003. A stoical Runge showed no outward expression, other than nodding, as the judge told his fate.

Runge’s father, Richard, who argues his son is mentally ill, said Paul was prepared for such a punishment. The defendant has turned down repeated media requests for an interview. Paul Runge did, though, agree to answer some Daily Herald questions though his father, acting as an intermediary, including one regarding remorse.

“I don’t let myself accept I’m guilty of these crimes,” he said in a written response. “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.”

In February, the jury rejected Runge’s insanity defense based on sexual sadism after a lengthy trial filled with evidence of sexual violence and the anguish left in its aftermath. The same jury next deliberated a little more than one hour before sentencing him to death for killing Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz.

Prosecutors first pursued that case at trial because it with DNA evidence was considered their strongest. The police investigation into Frobel’s death also turned up physical evidence, and prosecutors hope it will give them a second death sentence should the first ever get overturned on appeal.

Runge was one of the last people to see the 24-year-old Carol Stream woman alive when she visited his girlfriend’s Streamwood townhouse more than 11 years ago, just eight months after his release from prison for the 1987 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Oak Forest.

Initially, Runge and his pregnant girlfriend, Charlene, whom he later married, told authorities Frobel left that night. Police later found traces of her blood in the home, but they lacked enough evidence for an arrest.

They kept Runge under surveillance, but he is accused of committing six other murders through March 1997. Police arrested him three months later for a parole violation related to the 1987 rape and, as his release date neared, stalled in filing a petition in early 1999 to have him civilly committed as a sexually violent person.

He hasn’t been a free man in nearly a decade.

Charlene Runge, who soon divorced him, played a role in the first three slayings, which in addition to Frobel included the murder six months later of two Hanover Park sisters who recently fled war-torn Bosnia, only to be killed in his Glendale Heights home.

Authorities granted Charlene Runge immunity in 2000 in exchange for her cooperation. Months later, however, forensic experts gleaned DNA evidence from Jessica Muniz’s body. After being confronted with the evidence, Runge confessed on videotape to all seven murders and was charged in June 2001.

He admitted smashing Frobel’s skull with a weight as she spent the night rather than drive home intoxicated. He carried her bloody body into another bedroom and laid her down on plastic. He confessed to raping the unconscious woman. The next morning, Runge said, he dismembered Frobel’s body in a bathtub using a saw and later scattered her remains.

Runge is due in court July 20.

A Cook County judge on Monday ordered an alleged serial killer executed for the 1997 rapes and murders of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter.

Lawyers for Paul Runge, 36, sought a new trial and a new sentencing hearing, but Judge Joseph Kazmierski denied the motions and sent the killer to death row.

The jury that convicted Runge in February of raping and slashing Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz, to death deliberated for just two hours before recommending capital punishment.

Runge showed no emotion as Kazmierski sentenced him. No one from the suspect's or victims' families appeared in court.

During trial, prosecutors said Runge went to Gutierrez's apartment Feb. 3, 1997, on Chicago's Northwest Side in response to a for-sale sign for exercise equipment. There, he raped Gutierrez and Muniz, slashed their throats and torched their apartment, according to prosecutors.

DNA evidence collected from the mother and child was matched to Runge's profile in late 2000.

Runge, formerly of Oak Forest, is charged with five other slayings in a string of attacks between January 1995 and March 1997. Authorities next plan to prosecute Runge in the January 1995 slaying of Stacey Frobel, 25, a friend of his former wife, Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Bernie Murray said Monday.

Frobel's dismembered remains were found in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

Authorities say Runge also raped and killed sisters Dzeneta Pasanbegovic, 22, and Amela Pasanbegovic, 20, in July 1995. The bodies of the Bosnian immigrants haven't been found.

Runge also is charged with the January 1997 rape and strangulation of Dorota Dziubak, 30, on Chicago's Northwest Side and the March 1997 murder of Kazimiera Paruch, 43, of Chicago.

Prosecutors do not expect to try Runge in all the cases, Murray said.

Runge was paroled in 1994 for the 1987 kidnapping and sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl but was arrested and jailed again on a parole violation in 1997.

He is serving a 12-year sentence for an Oct. 6, 2000, escape in Plainfield after he and another inmate overpowered guards taking them to a court appearance.

Jury picks death sentence in Belmont Cragin killings

March 2, 2006

It took a Cook County jury less than two hours Monday afternoon to decide that Paul Runge, 36, should be sentenced to death in the rape and murder of a Northwest Side woman and her daughter.

Runge was found guilty Feb. 10 in the February 1997 slayings of Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her 10-year-old daughter, Jessica Muniz, who shared a small studio apartment on the 3100 block of North Laramie Avenue. The same jury found him eligible for the death penalty four days later.

Runge was as expressionless as he had been throughout the trial. When the jury's recommendation was read, he stared down at the table in front of him, said Gutierrez's father, Ramon Rivera.

After the trial, Ramon Rivera said "There can never be closure for us, because I don't have my daughter right now. I don't have my granddaughter, at least justice is done ... He'll never be able to harm anyone again. I guess he got what was coming to him. I know he is going to burn in hell. He has to."

Prosecutors said Runge went to the apartment Jan. 31 of that year pretending to be interested in buying a set of "Hooked on Phonics" tapes. When he returned the following Monday, he sexually assaulted the mother and daughter at knife-point and then slit their throats. Runge then poured a flammable liquid over their bodies and set them on fire.

DNA match in 2001

Rivera said the family spent four years wondering if someone would be charged. Runge, who was in jail on a parole violation, was formally charged in 2001 after police told him that a DNA sample taken from Muniz matched his DNA. He confessed to their murders and to raping and killing five other women between 1995 and 1997. His first victim, Stacey Frobel, was murdered a few months after Runge was released on parole after serving a sentence in the 1987 rape of a 14-year-old girl.

After the hearing, Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Bernard Murray told reporters: "Paul Runge, for us, redefined the death penalty in Cook County. A serial killer of this magnitude has not been seen in the Chicagoland area for quite some time."

A moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois has been in effect since Gov. George Ryan halted executions in the state shortly before he left office. Prosecutors were later allowed to resume seeking the death penalty in criminal cases, but the state legislature has not lifted the ban on carrying out a death sentence.

Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine said that his office and the DuPage County prosecutor's office will be working to make sure Runge is eventually executed.

"I think this should be a message for the governor and the legislature that we should take a look at the moratorium and seriously decide what we are going to do with the death penalty in this state...." Devine said. "This case will bring into focus the need for this state to make a decision on where we are going."

The sentencing hearing played out like a trial that covered the five other murders, with police, assistant state's attorneys, and family members of the victims testifying about the crimes.

In addition to the killing of Frobel, Runge confessed to raping and murdering Dzeneta Pasanbegovic, 22, and her 20-year-old sister, Ameal, in Runge's Glendale Heights residence. Prosecutors said Runge dismembered the bodies of Frobel and the Pasanbegovic sisters and discarded the body parts.

Runge is also accused of raping and strangling Dorota Dziubak, 30, of the 7500 block of West Touhy Avenue in January 1997 and Kazimiera Paruch, 43, of the 4700 block of North Kenneth Avenue two months later. Both women had their residences up for sale. Their burned bodies were discovered after firefighters extinguished separate fires in their homes.

The defense in the Runge case argued that he was insane and should be found innocent. A specialist in neurology and psychiatry had testified that Runge suffered from brain damage that caused him to become a sexual sadist, and he wasn't in control of his own actions.

Father's apology

Before the jury came to its verdict, Runge's defense team put Runge's 69-year-old father, Richard. The elder Runge apologized to Ramon Rivera and his wife for his son's actions.

Richard Runge said he and his late wife, Anita, adopted Paul Runge when he was 6 months old. The father chronicled his son's troubled childhood in Oak Forest, including his being kicked out of a Catholic grade school when he was 8 because parents had complained that young Paul was "bothering" their daughters.

Earlier, the defense also told the jury that Runge's ex-wife participated in the murders of Frobel and the Pasanbegovic sisters. Murray, in an interview, said Charlene Culnan, who married Runge in January 1995, confessed to playing a role in the killings, but she was granted immunity from prosecution if she promised to cooperate.

Rivera said he wished Culnan could have received the same charges and sentence that Runge did. But Rivera took solace in his belief that God would be the ultimate arbiter for Runge.

Rivera, his wife, and other surviving family members planned to visit the gravesite of Gutierrez and Muniz on Tuesday.

Runge is due in court before Judge Joseph Kazmierski Jr. in March, where the judge will decide whether to validate the jury's decision.

Rivera said he plans to return to Illinois when -- and if -- Runge's sentence is carried out.

"If the good Lord will give me enough time on this earth, I would like to be there when they put him to death," Rivera said.

Jury recommends death penalty for Runge

February 28, 2006

A Cook County jury that convicted alleged serial killer Paul Runge of murder in the slashing deaths of a Chicago mother and her young daughter recommended Monday that he be executed.

As the forewoman read the unanimous death sentence verdict, the Oak Forest native kept his gaze fixed downward, his usual pose throughout the five weeks of his murder trial and sentencing. Just as he opted against testifying on his own behalf, he left the room without saying a word.

"I'm not a hateful person, but I hope he burns in hell for what he did not only to my daughter but to the others," said Ramon Rivera, whose daughter Yolanda Gutierrez and granddaughter Jessica Muniz died at Runge's hands in February 1997. Rivera and his wife and daughters managed to suppress their tears until the judge left the courtroom; then they hugged each other and the four prosecutors who procured the guilty verdict.

The jury recommended that Runge, 36, become the fifth person sentenced to death in Cook County since former Gov. George Ryan cleared death row with mass clemency in 2003. Runge is scheduled to return to court March 28, at which time a judge will decide whether to affirm the jury's recommendation.

"He took the lives of seven beautiful people, and it's only right for them to take his life now -- he's a monster," said Rivera, who sat side-by-side with relatives of Runge's other victims. "I wish that the good Lord will give me enough time to see him strapped to the gurney. Once he's gone, then I'll be satisfied."

'Ultimate candidate'

But that likely will take years. Even once the case has moved through the appeals process automatic in death sentences, the state has no plans to lift the current ban on executions, and Illinois' last execution was 1999.

"Paul Runge is the ultimate candidate for the death penalty," prosecutor Bernie Murray told the jury. "If not him, who?"

Prosecutors touted Runge's brutal criminal history, which they said includes five other murders, a daring escape from the Department of Human Services in 2000, and the 1987 rape and torture of a 14-year-old Oak Forest girl he handcuffed in his father's home. She managed to wriggle free from her bindings once Runge left the home, and she went straight to police. She -- and the resulting seven years in prison Runge got -- are why he began killing and concealing his rape victims, prosecutor Michael Wolfe argued.

"He enjoys sadistic rapes, and he couldn't leave them behind because they tell," Wolfe said of the five other women Runge allegedly raped, murdered and either dismembered or burned between 1995 and 1997.

Serial-killer suspect faces death penalty

February 14, 2006

A Cook County jury Tuesday found a suburban man convicted of raping and murdering a mother and her young daughter in 1997 was eligible for the death penalty. Jurors then listened to the only known victim to survive an attack by Paul Runge recount 15 hours of rape and torture at his hands.

The same jury convicted Runge Friday of first-degree murder of Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz, 10, rejecting his insanity defense.

Runge, 36, has been charged with killing five more women between January 1995 and March 1997. He was convicted in 1988 for the kidnapping and rape of the woman who testified Tuesday and was paroled in 1994 after serving 5½ years.

The woman testified Tuesday in the second phase of Runge's death penalty hearing. She said she knew Runge from school and was lured to his Oak Forest home early Aug. 17, 1987. Although his family was away, he lied and told her they were asleep, she said.

The woman, 32, recounted how she slipped out of a window at her house without her mother's knowledge to meet Runge, then 17, near a horse stable after he told her a friend needed someone to hide some marijuana for the night.

When she followed Runge into his house, he punched her in the face, knocking her to the floor and then began raping her repeatedly, she testified.

Fifteen hours later when she escaped from a crawl space bound, handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded, her body was covered with bite marks, knife wounds marked her arms and her ankles and wrists were ringed the deep impressions from handcuffs.

Yet when asked by prosecutors Tuesday to describe her injuries, the woman asked timidly, "The physical injuries?"

Runge avoided eye contact with the woman and jury members during the graphic testimony.

Jurors deliberated for less that two hours earlier in the day before telling Criminal Court Judge Joseph Kazmierski Jr. they would consider the death penalty for Runge in the murders of Gutierrez and Muniz.

Runge raped both before slitting their throats and burning their bodies on a bed.

The second phase of the death penalty hearing began in the afternoon when prosecutors put Runge's victim from 19 years ago on the stand.

Defense attorneys for Runge did not cross-examine the woman, who took deep breaths during her time on the stand but largely kept her composure.

Assistant Public Defender Woody Jordan told jurors everything they hear during the penalty phase would buttress defense arguments, that Runge is a sexual sadist who can't control his actions.

"Natural life without parole is the appropriate sentence because he is a sick man," Jordan said.

About 14 hours after the torture and rapes began, Runge's girlfriend called him and asked for a ride to work, prosecutors said.

The woman testified Runge stuffed her into a sleeping bag—gagged, blindfolded and bound—and put her into a crawl space before leaving the house.

"I was thinking that I wasn't going to die lying down, that I was going to escape," she said.

She escaped, opening doors with her hands cuffed behind her back. She hopped across the lawn until a woman passing by in a car spotted her.

Jury finds alleged serial killer guilty

February 10, 2006

Jurors took only about an hour Friday to convict serial-killer suspect Paul Runge of first-degree murder in the 1997 rape and killing of a mother and her young daughter, rejecting his insanity defense.

Runge, sitting with his chin resting on folded hands, had no observable reaction as the verdict was read. Family members of victims Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz, 10, wept and hugged outside of court.

"We didn't have a doubt that the man was guilty," said Gutierrez's father, Ramon Rivera.

The same jury that convicted Runge, 36, is now set to consider whether he is eligible for the death penalty. Those hearings will begin Tuesday in the courtroom of Criminal Court Judge Joseph Kazmierski Jr.

Runge also has been charged with the slayings of five other women between January 1995 and March 1997. Friday's conviction concluded his first murder trial.

Prosecutors argued Runge was not insane, saying he was shrewd and cunning in talking his way into Gutierez's apartment by tricking her into thinking he wanted to purchase a reading program her daughter had used. He bound the two with duct tape before raping them, cutting their throats and burning their bodies on their bed.

"He's not insane; he's not mentally ill," Assistant State's Atty. John Dillon told jurors. "He's evil."

Runge's defense team argued Runge suffers from sexual sadism that makes him unable to control his impulses to rape and kill. But prosecutors countered by showing Runge planned and then concealed his crimes, proving he understood his behavior to be criminal.

"Don't get caught up in the horror that is Paul Runge," Dillon said. "Don't make the jump that only a crazy person could do this."

Assistant Public Defender Lisa Boughton told the jury that Runge was not acting freely and voluntarily. Runge's impulses built up inside him, she said.

When he finally acts out, "he is out of control," Boughton said. She held up gruesome crime scene photos and told the panel they could tell something was wrong with Runge by looking at them.

"This is not logical," Boughton said, showing the photos. "This is not rational. This is not sane."

Asked about what punishment Runge should face, Rivera said his family's position is clear.

"Death would be good," Rivera said. "But maybe that's even too good for what he did."

Man Charged With Killing 7 Chicago Women

By John W. Fountain - The New York Times

Friday, June 15, 2001

The police said today that they had uncovered a serial killer who had murdered and sexually assaulted seven women, including two Bosnian immigrants lured to their deaths by the promise of jobs.

They said the man, Paul Frederick Runge, was charged today with all seven killings.

Described by the Cook County state's attorney, Richard Devine, as ''a terrible predator,'' Mr. Runge, 31, is accused of strangling, slashing or beating to death six women and an 11-year-old girl from 1995 to 1997. The authorities said Mr. Runge, who lives in the Chicago area, gained the confidence of some of his victims by pretending to be interested in property they were selling or renting.

''Paul Runge is our worst nightmare,'' Mr. Devine said today at a news conference.

The police said they began questioning Mr. Runge a week ago after DNA from one of the dead women matched his profile. They said Mr. Runge confessed to all seven killings and provided details about them.

''He conned his way into women's homes or duped them into trusting him,'' Mr. Devine said. ''He then raped and murdered them.''

''He looked for opportunities to make acquaintances with people,'' Mr. Devine added in a telephone interview. ''He'd see for-sale signs up and say he'd like to look at the house, things like that.''

The police said the killings occurred while Mr. Runge was on parole after a conviction for kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old girl in 1987. He was 17 when that crime occurred and was paroled in May 1994, but has been in custody since May 1997, when he was jailed again for violating his parole.

Mr. Runge was charged in Cook County with five counts of first-degree murder, sexual assault and armed robbery. In suburban DuPage County, he was also charged in the July 1995 sexual assault and killing of two young women whom the police said he had lured to a house where he was living in Glendale Heights with a promise of work as house cleaners.

Once inside the house, the police said, the two women, Dzeneta Pasanbegovic, 22, and Amela Pasanbegovic, 20, sisters who had come to the United States from Bosnia to live with their uncle six months earlier, were handcuffed and eventually dismembered, their bodies placed in plastic bags and discarded in garbage bins.

DuPage County authorities said they would seek the death penalty; Cook County officials said they had not decided on what penalty to seek.

''We're going to look at it very thoroughly,'' Mr. Devine said.

Mr. Runge was being held in the DuPage County jail without bond.

At this afternoon's news conference, the authorities provided details of the killings, in which all of the victims were sexually assaulted. In four cases, the victim's homes were set on fire, the police said.

The first victim, they said, was Stacey Frobel, 25, an acquaintance of Mr. Runge's wife. Ms. Frobel was killed on Jan. 3 or 4, 1995, in Mr. Runge's home, the police said, beaten with a dumbbell and dismembered with a saw in his bathtub. The other victims, all Chicago residents, were identified as Dorota Dzubak, 30; Yolanda Gutierrez, 35, and her daughter, Jessica Muniz, 11; and Kazimiera Paruch, 43.