The Murder of Sheila Deviney "Oklahoma Style"

By Sheryl McCollum, Holly Hughes and Susan Murphy Milano

The murder of Sheila Deviney on January 6, 2004, was no accident. Sheila Deviney was in fact murdered! On Monday evening's show on "Intimate Partner Homicide Investigation" we were flooded with calls from friends, relatives, college professsors, co-workers, and former classmates providing vital information regarding the murder of this young woman.

Dozens of statements, now recorded in podcast, from callers on the show as to Sheila's fear, her statement of mind and the threats made against her life, including the day before the fire, were never investigated by authorities. So how the heck does a case go cold for so many years without an investigation, a named suspect or an arrest? The answer is clear. The state never investigated the murder. The state even allowed a former ex-husband and buddy within days of the fire to enter private property and literally cut up the crime scene (the home) and dump it into a river. Only a person who has motive and something to hide goes to those extremes. Think about the fact the couple were no longer married. The only ties to the couple were the children. The ex-husband had no legal interest in the home or its contents.
The position of the body and the lack of smoke in her lungs after the fire shows Sheila Deviney was murdered.
Sheila's family, since her murder, has been trying to get the District Attorney's office in Oklahoma to open the case. The former elected officer refused to do his job and ignored the case. Now, with a different District Attorney elected into office, the case is still being ignored.

As we wait for the cobwebs to be dusted off the desk of Oklahoma District Attorney, Greg Mashburn, this particular cold case and facts into Sheila Deviney's murder will not be ignored by the Intimate Partner Homicide Investigation team of Sheryl McCollum, Holly Hughes and Susan Murphy Milano.
If you have any information on this case please contact us by email at IPHInvestigation@gmail.com. All information received will be kept confidential.
In the weeks ahead we will provide others facts on this case and keep you updated on any new developments.

"God Bless you, Susan McFarland"

Gone Forever is a story of violence and murder behind closed doors. The book written by author Diane Fanning shows us human behavior at its worst and why people stay in violent marriages that often lead to murder. Even when the acts by a spouse are unacceptable, people look the other way or assume that the person is just "odd." Friends and close relatives are naive and often believe that there will be a magical change in an abuser which as we all know never happens in the real world of family violence.

Recently, Diane Fanning wrote a guest blog on Time's Up regarding this case.

"When my readers pick up one of my books, I want them to see the victim as a real person—as someone who deserved to live their life to the fullest. Only family and friends can supply me with the anecdotes and the information about personality that enable me to shape a portrait of their deceased loved one and thus, allow my readers to understand the magnitude of the loss suffered by this crime."

"I have found through the years that the people who shared their memories and thoughts with me are grateful that they did. I’ve received many notes and emails thanking me for remembering their loved one in my book. Some of these people continue to maintain contact, years after publication.

The more in-depth information I can gather, the better job I do. When I wrote GONE FOREVER, I had an amazing treasure chest of information about Susan McFarland—access to her personal journal, a sibling’s perspective on her childhood and the memories of friends throughout her life. I felt a strong emotional connection to her. I wrote about this feeling in the Afterword of the book:

One morning while driving up Interstate Highway 35 to Austin, Susan McFarland became so real to me that I thought about how much more I would enjoy the ride if she were sitting beside me sharing stories and passing the time together. Then the realization struck—I would never be able to meet her. I would never bump into her in Central market. I would never laugh with her over lunch. I would never hear the sound of her voice or see the sunny glow of her smile.

At that moment, I was hit by a sense of loss so visceral; it took my breath away and formed pools of water in my eyes. The light of a life-enriching personality was snuffed out, never to brighten anyone’s day again. Gone forever—all because of the violent selfishness of one man.

To this day, I think of Susan when I enter the dark recesses of a crime—talking to killers, looking at crime scene photos, reading autopsy reports. She is my bridge to surviving family and friends, one that allows me to glimpse the inner strength and determination that many of them possess. She reminds me that her story has the potential to save the lives of other women. I owe her a debt of gratitude that I can never repay. God bless you, Susan McFarland."

Writing a book is a long process that is why I write blogs on victims so we can learn from their lives in hopes of saving others. But a published book is different it records the history and the details of persons life before during and after an event. For Susan McFarland and the other victims Diane Fanning writes about in her books, she also enshrines their lives in the Library of Congress for at least one hundred years, if for nothing else but to say their lives mattered before they were abruptly removed by another individual's rage.

"The Ripper Murders"

The old case file had been tucked away for over twenty years in the rafters of an attic. On the case file jacket in bold, handwritten letters was the name Robin Gecht. It was the original police file containing the names of twenty women connected with one of the most notorious gangs of serial killers in history.

The Chicago Rippers were a group of four hoodlums—Andrew Kokoraleis, Tommy Kokoraleis, Robin Gecht, and Edward Spreitzer (pictured below, left to right)—who practiced satanic worship. The men had journeyed into a trend of sorts that swept through the country in the late 1970's and into the early '80s, especially among teenagers: practicing satanic worship.


"The Ripper Crew," as they would come to be known, had taken their rituals much further than most who believed they could somehow make contact with evil from the dark side.

The case file revealed how the killers saved the flesh they had removed from their victims. According to the signed confession of Thomas Kokoraleis, he "cut up the breasts," and consumed them as a form of satanic communion in front of a makeshift altar.

Robin Gecht, the group's leader, had an altar in the attic of his Northwest Side home, where the young men gathered during the evening hours after Gecht's wife had left for work. Gecht had painted six twelve-inch red-and-black crosses on the walls and draped the altar with a red cloth.
Detectives from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs worked together to solve these horrific murders. Each case began as an abduction or a missing persons report. The first known case was Linda Sutton, 28, abducted from a Chicago suburb. Her severely mutilated body found with the left breast cut out from her chest was left naked in a field.

Each of the twenty victims were gang-raped and then forced to endure having their breasts sliced open and cut off using piano wire, ice picks, can openers, and hunting knives. The men would then use the cut body parts for a satanic sacrifice by eating the women's breasts. All but two of the victims died.

After several months, police hit a dead end. Nearly another year would pass before the next victim would be reported.

A break in the case finally came on October 7, 1982. A twenty-year-old woman by the name of Beverly Washington was discovered nude beside railroad tracks in Chicago. Barely alive and naked, with her left breast severed and the right badly mutilated, she survived the brutal attack.

Two Chicago Police Detectives from Area Four Violent Crimes were called into the case. They interviewed Beverly Washington from her hospital bed. She provided details of the van and a description of the four men who had abducted her.

A directive in the form of a memo from the Mayor's office stated this case was a priority. Specific case details of the victims' murders were withheld from the public. The detectives worked around the clock.

DNA testing had yet to be developed. The solving of the serial murders would be done using pure instinct and good old-fashioned police work.

On November 7, 1982, all four men were arrested. They were placed in separate interrogation rooms. Andrew Kokorakeis was the first to break, confessing to at least seven of eighteen known murders. The case notes included a hand-drawn map of a cemetery in a nearby suburb of Chicago. The badly decomposed body of a victim murderd five months earlier would be recovered by police based on the map.

The two detectives who would eventually solve the murders, Thomas Flynn and Phillip Murphy, had been partners for over twenty years. On January 6, 1984, during a ceremony at the police academy—with the Attorney General, Mayor, and Superintendent present—the detectives were honored and presented with a special plaque for solving the serial murders.

This would be their career case. One that the City of Chicago and this police detective's daughter would never forget.

In the strange twist of events that would follow, the detective, Philip Murphy, would no longer be known for solving the worst serial murder case in Chicago's history. Instead, five years later, his legacy would be for the murder of his wife, my mother, in 1989, before he took his own life.

My father was one hell of a detective, loved and revered by so many. He would be a man I never really knew. A man who brought terror and violence into our home on a regular basis.

And yet, a man who made the streets of Chicago a safer place to live. Much safer with the Ripper Crew off the streets. What became of them? Andrew Kokoralesis was executed in March of 1999; Thomas Kokoralesis is serving 470 years; Edward Sprietzer received a life sentence; and Robin Gecht is serving 120 years.

Susan Murphy-Milano is a nonfiction author and violence expert—a defender of victims' rights. Susan has appeared on Oprah, 20/20, American Justice, and CNN. As a nationally recognized women's advocate, she was intrumental in the passage of the Illinois Stalking Law and the Lautenberg Act. Susan's third Book "Time's Up will be available in stores and on-line through Amazon in March, 2010.

Charging Ahead or Failing to Charge

After a family discovers a crime scene or reports a loved missing in cases where the spouse or former boyfriend is the likely the individual responsible for the murder or vanishing act it often creates an additional burden on law enforcement to follow through and properly investigate the case as a possible homicide.

In the case of Kelly Currin Morris, the 28-year-old mother of two, missing since September 3, 2008, police located her remains in a heavily wooded area last week. William "Scott" Morris (the husband)has been charged with first-degree murder and for burning a dwelling, shared by the couple and their children. It was burned down the day after Kelly was reported missing. He is being held without bond and likely will remain where he belongs, behind bars.

The law enforcement community did a remarkable job, otherwise William Scott Morris would still be a free man as we have often seen in other cases. It is not easy to investigate a case involving "intimate homicide."

Renee Pagel Case Still Unsolved

Still unresolved, and frankly outrageous, is the unsolved murder of Renee Pagel ,found stabbed to death in her bed recovering from surgery, (after donating aa kidney to a complete stranger) just days away from her divorce being finalized. According to close friends and relatives the grade school teacher and a registered nurse told others she was in "fear for her life." A week before her murder she changed the beneficiary of her life insurance policy from her estranged husband to a close family friend.

Her estranged husband, Michael Pagel, is the only person who has not voluntarily cooperated with police, nor has he provided an alibi to police for the night of Renee's murder. He retains custody of the couple's children.

As many women say when they are married to an abusive spouse, "if something happens to me, make sure people know it was not an accident." And, yet, in Rockford, Michigan detectives assigned to the case, in "name only," appear to have dropped the ball and the case file is sitting in a drawer collecting spiders, cob webs and dust.

Are cases like this more difficult because they already have the body, it's not that important, and no one is around to put pressure on investigating and ultimately charge the person responsible?

I realize a good defense attorney would attempt to kick a case like this to the curb. There would be media and a lot of mud slinging. But, a seasoned prosecutor would be able to win such a case and get a conviction.

Isn't the prosecutor the one who represents justice for the victim?

Living The Nightmare

Amy Leichtenberg quietly approached the casino boat gamblers with fliers, hoping they may have seen her ex-husband, a known gambler. Three weeks earlier, he abducted the couple’s two young sons and by now all other leads had come up snake eyes. Then her phone rang.

An investigator on the case told her to drive to the McLean County Sheriff’s Department to discuss something new in the case.

Leichtenberg excitedly made the two-hour drive to the police station, allowing herself to daydream about her two boys—9-year-old Duncan and 7-year-old Jack—happily greeting her there.

Inside the station, she didn’t see her boys waiting for her. Instead, Beth Kimmerling, the county coroner, introduced herself.

"No!" Leichtenberg screamed, quickly realizing her hopeful daydream turned into her worst nightmare. "No! No! No!"

The coroner couldn’t even get the words out, telling Leichtenberg that Duncan and Jack—the joys of her life—were dead. And her ex-husband was dead, too, taking his own life after killing both his sons.

"Where are my babies?!" Leichtenberg remembers asking frantically through sobs. "Where are my babies?!" The coroner told her the boys’ bodies were with their father’s body in the back of the police station.

"I want my boys as far away from him as possible!" Leichtenberg remembers yelling, punching a desk and nearby concrete walls.

As the coroner left, Leichtenberg dissolved into a chair, crying, screaming and shaking. She felt numb. She felt empty. She felt like joining her sons in heaven. "I want to see my babies," she remembers telling authorities. No, they told her. Not yet. Not now. Not in their condition.
She begged them. They refused.

To read the entire story about Amy Leicchtenberg in the October issue of Chicago Parent click HERE.

Amy Leichtenberg was a guest on the Susan Murphy Milano show to listen to the interview it plays from this site automatically make sure the volume of your computer is turned on. Susan's show will resume again on Wednesday October 7, 2009 at 4:00 PM.