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On June 1999,
Chicago police indicted 54-year-old Ralph Andrews for the 1977 murder, rape,
and aggravated kidnapping of 16-year-old Susan Clark. Not suprisingly,
wherever Ralphie lived, bodies turned up to the tune of 20 dead women
within a three-state area. Police said Andrews was always considered a
suspect in the murders of Clark and two other women Amy Alden, and
Arvella Thomas, who were fatally shot and stabbed multiple times, and
their bodies dumped in Skokie.
On 1991, police said 41-year-old
Virginia Griffin was murdered in her Rogers Park apartment. The knife
used in the murder was in Andrews home. But authorities said
Andrews recently began bragging to fellow inmates about Clark's murder.
A special unit with the Cook County State's Attorney's Office then put a
recorder in Andrewsą cell. He allegedly confessed to the murder, giving
graphic details.
According to the federal indictment,
Andrews also wrote out a list of all the victims he murdered. Alden and
Thomas were allegedly on that list. Skokie police are not calling
Andrews a serial killer just yet. But he has lived in Indiana, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Illinois, and in all four states there have been unsolved
murders which were committed in the same way.
Convicted killer, Ralph Raymond
Andrews, 54, was charged with the Aug. 25, 1977, rape and
murder of 16-year-old Susan Clarke, after he was secretly recorded in
prison confessing to the killing. The tape has prompted authorities to
examine his possible link to the slayings of two other teenage girls in
Skokie, Illinois, in the '70s, and 20 to 40 unsolved murders in other
states.
Andrews, who is serving a life term
for a 1991 murder and sexual assault, reportedly admitted killing Clarke
after abducting her as she returned to her home from a baby-sitting job.
She was sexually assaulted and shot in the head, and her torso had been
sliced open from the neck to the abdomen. He allegedly dumped her body,
which had been shot and stabbed, in a vegetable garden near the Edens
Expy. in Skokie.
He is also a prime suspect in the 1972 murder of Amy
Alden, 15, found in the 4700 block of Old Orchard Road, and the 1978
killing of Arvella Thomas, 14, discovered in the 8200 block of Ridgeway
Road, Skokie Police Sgt. Michael Ruth said. Andrews was a suspect from
the beginning in Clarke's murder and the Skokie slayings, sources said.
He was questioned in each, but denied being involved, they said.
Because the cases have the markings of
a serial killer, authorities from Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin want
to see if Andrews can be linked to 20 to 40 other murders in those
states, sources said. Andrews, formerly of Chicago, was a caretaker at
Pottawattomie Gardens on the North Side.
He is currently serving a life
sentence at Stateville Correctional Center. He was convicted in 1993 of
the 1991 murder and rape of Virginia Griffin, 43. Like Clarke, Griffin
had been sliced open and sexually mutilated.
About six months ago, Andrews
reportedly started telling a fellow inmate about other murders he
committed. The inmate tipped authorities, who then recorded his
conversation with Andrews. Andrews has a criminal record related to
attacks on teenage girls dating back to 1972 and served time on battery
charges, Benjamin said. He was acquitted of attempted murder in 1973 in
connection with the stabbings of two 15-year-old hitchhikers.
Suspected serial killer dies in
prison
Man may have killed more women than Gacy
By Chuck Goudie - abc7chicago.com
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
A man who may have
committed more murders than John Wayne Gacy will never be
brought to justice for most of them. The ABC7 I-Team has
learned suspected serial killer Ralph Andrews died in prison.
Over the years, authorities in Illinois
have called Ralph Andrews a real-life Hannibal Lector. But
even that seems to be an understatement for a man who
proudly boasted that he assaulted, slaughtered and
eviscerated as many as 40 girls and women in Illinois,
Wisconsin and Michigan. Andrews was serving a life sentence
at Stateville for two of the murders when he died of natural
causes.
Where Ralph Andrews went, evil seemed to
follow. His FBI rap sheet began in 1961, stretched over 30
years and spanned the city, suburbs and mid-section of the
country.
Andrews was imprisoned in 1994 after
killing a 44-year-old woman in a Chicago park torturing her
with a tent pole and stun gun, and stabbing her almost three
dozen times. While at Stateville doing a life sentence for
that crime, the Cook County cold case squad obtained a court
order to secretly bug Andrews' cell, and on that tape,
Andrews confessed to the murder of 16-year-old Susan Clark.
"Mr. Ralph Andrews is a wild
animal, out of place, and he deserves to die,"
said Dick Clark, the victim's father, in 1999.
Mr. Clark was informed of
Andrews' death personally by Cook County State's
Attorney Dick Devine. Coincidentally, the
teenage victim babysat for Devine's family.
In Andrews' jail cell,
authorities found lists of women he claimed to
have killed. at least 40 names. While he was a
prime suspect in a half dozen killings, many are
names of missing women for which there has never
been any physical evidence.
Andrews said he buried some
victims and dumped others in a septic tank in
Michigan. Cook County authorities checked the
tank but found no remains, although
investigators say the system had been cleaned
since Andrews was there.
Not all of Andrews' victims
died. Betty Hanson called Andrews a "killing
machine," even though she survived a stab wound
to the heart. Seven years ago she told the
I-Team that she could hardly wait for him to die.
"Have a nice trip to hell,
because all your victims are waiting for you,
and I couldn't wait to see them attack him like
a bunch of piranhas," said Hanson.
For someone who vainly
claimed to have butchered dozens of women, more
than Gacy, Bundy, Manson and the nation's more
prominent serial killers, Ralph Andrews' death
in prison nearly passed without notice.
Andrews has been dead for
nearly a year. He died January 31 and word is
just starting to circulate. He died refusing to
undergo the heart surgery that might have
prolonged his life in prison. According to
authorities, the man who stabbed so many victims
was frightened to go under the knife.
SEX:
M RACE: W TYPE: T MOTIVE: Sex./Sad.
VICTIMS:
Six
MO:
"Ripper" of five teenage girls and one 44-year-old woman
DISPOSITION:
Life + 30 years on one count, 1993
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