Chicago Tribune FBI lapse let serial killer suspect remain free By Cam Simpson Tribune staff reporter June 16, 2001 The Chicago FBI on Friday acknowledged a lapse in alerting Illinois officials that they found a knife in the home of suspected serial killer Paul Runge—notification that could have sent him back to prison before he allegedly murdered four more women. Runge, a 31-year-old truck driver and former shoe salesman, was charged Thursday with killing six women and a child. His last four victims, police said, were slain in Chicago in early 1997, more than one year after the search of his Carol Stream home. When the knife was found on March 8, 1996, the FBI and two other law enforcement agencies involved didn't think of using it to invoke a violation of Runge's parole for a 1987 rape, said Ross Rice, a spokesman for the FBI in Chicago. Instead, investigators were solely focused on finding evidence they hoped would link Runge to the 1995 murder of Stacey Frobel and the disappearances that same year of two sisters who were refugees from war-torn Bosnia, Rice said. Only in May 1997, when authorities were desperate to lock up Runge because they suspected— but could not prove— that he was a killer, did they hit on the tactic of violating Runge's parole for possession of the weapon, Rice said. Illinois officials jailed Runge the next month. When his sentence expired in 1999, authorities went to court in 1999 to keep him in prison under the Sexually Violent Persons Act. Psychologists testified he was a "sexual sadist" and said he had no remorse for the kidnapping, repeated rape and torture of a 14-year-old Oak Forest girl. He was still being held when police said DNA evidence linked him to two murders and Runge then allegedly confessed to the other slayings. Authorities believe Runge is responsible for at least one other murder, law enforcement sources said Friday. He allegedly confessed to also killing a prostitute and chopping up her body, scattering the remains, which have not been found, the sources said. Police have charged him with three murders in which the victims were dismembered. Two of those bodies have not been found and a dog found the legs of another victim in Lake County. Authorities also said Runge nearly escaped last year after he and two other inmates being driven to a Cook County court hearing overpowered a corrections officer during a stop in Plainfield. Their escape was brief because they were immediately captured by local police who witnessed the incident, officials said. The knife that eventually sent Runge back to prison was among more than 200 items seized from the home Runge shared with his wife and father, according to court records. FBI agents also found a book about a serial killer who dismembered women and kept their eyeballs as souvenirs, a guide to police radio traffic, a crossbow and a stun gun, records show. Looking for evidence "We never felt that any of these items, including the knife, in and of itself, would be a parole offense, nor were we looking to violate his parole," Rice said. "We were looking for evidence linking him to the disappearances and or linking him to the murder of Frobel." When the FBI finally notified state officials about the knife, Runge had only about three weeks left on his parole, which was part of what motivated the effort to lock him up, Rice said. What is clear from once-sealed court records obtained Friday is that the FBI's efforts to link Runge to the 1995 Frobel killing and the disappearance of the two Bosnian women was intense in 1995 and early 1996. Runge's wife, Charlene, was also considered a suspect in the disappearances of Frobel and the Bosnian sisters, an FBI agent said in a affidavit to obtain a search warrant. Two law enforcement sources said Friday that Charlene Runge has been assisting in the investigation of her husband. That cooperation began after Paul Runge was back in custody in June 1997, but long before DNA evidence linked him to two Chicago murders late last year, a source said. Attempts to reach Charlene Runge for comment were unsuccessful Friday. On Thursday, Runge was charged with the murders of the Bosnians—Dzeneta Pasanbegovic, 22, and her sister, Amela, 20. FBI tracking Runge The 1996 affidavit revealed FBI agents had studied bite marks on Frobel's dismembered leg, followed Runge and his wife, traced calls from pay phones the couple used, tapped their phones and sifted through their garbage for months looking for evidence. Investigators said Runge became a suspect in the murder of Frobel a few days after a German shepherd named Friendly brought home a severed leg it found in a field near the Wisconsin border on Jan. 16, 1995. Five days later, the dog brought home another leg. Tests concluded they were Frobel's, who was a friend of Charlene Runge's. She had been missing since Jan. 4 and was last seen at the Runge house. The Pasanbegovic sisters were last seen on July 11, 1995. Runge became a suspect in that case after the FBI discovered Runge and his wife had allegedly offered the women housecleaning jobs through a mutual acquaintance, records show. The day the sisters disappeared, "I believe that [they] left in the company of Charlene Runge, to go to her residence for the purported purpose of taking a job cleaning houses," FBI agent Kathy Dee Shumaker said in the affidavit. Another connection to sisters At that time, the Runges lived in Glendale Heights and Paul Runge worked for a HoneyBaked Ham store at a mall, where he boasted to employees that his wife was starting a cleaning business, the FBI said. A woman he met there also helped connect him to the sisters, authorities said. The FBI also used records from a gas station pay phone on Bloomingdale Road in Glendale Heights to link the couple to the women, records show. After Richard Runge told his son that he had given the FBI permission to search the house they shared, seven garbage bags were placed on the curb for pickup, the FBI said. The FBI scoured it for evidence and found a note written on HoneyBaked Ham stationery. It contained the sisters' names and phone number, as well as the name and phone number of the friend who helped arrange the job, the FBI said. The FBI also discovered a pattern: Agents said Runge called in sick for days after Frobel was killed, then quit his job at a Lady Foot Locker. When the Bosnian sisters disappeared, he also called in sick for his HoneyBaked Ham job and quit. Tribune staff reporters Eric Ferkenhoff and Janan Hanna contributed to this report. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-52481,FF .html --
