Paul Frederick Runge: The Classified-Ad Serial Killer
Background and Early Violent Offense
Paul Frederick Runge was born on January 28, 1970, and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Oak Forest, Illinois. Long before he became connected to a series of murders, Runge demonstrated an alarming capacity for calculated sexual violence. In 1987, when he was seventeen, he abducted a fourteen-year-old girl, restrained her, sexually assaulted her and subjected her to prolonged abuse. The girl survived, and Runge eventually surrendered to authorities.
Runge received a fourteen-year prison sentence for the attack, but he served only part of it before being paroled in May 1994. His release placed him back in the Chicago metropolitan area, where he married and found employment. Within months, however, women began disappearing or being found murdered under circumstances that investigators would later connect to him.
Runge frequently relied on deception rather than an immediate physical attack. He approached women through personal connections, offers of employment, classified advertisements and signs advertising property or household goods for sale. By appearing to be a customer, employer or harmless visitor, he gained access to victims and private residences where they were isolated from possible help.
The Murder of Stacey Frobel
Stacey Ann Frobel, a twenty-four-year-old mother from Carol Stream, knew Runge's wife. Frobel went to the Runge residence in Streamwood on January 3, 1995, and disappeared during the visit. Runge later admitted that he killed her inside the home and dismembered her body in an effort to prevent identification and conceal the crime.
On January 16, 1995, a dog carried a severed human leg to its owner's property near the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Additional remains, including another leg, a hand and portions of a skull, were recovered during the following months. DNA testing eventually identified the remains as Frobel's. Her disappearance became one of the earliest cases that caused investigators to examine Runge and the people surrounding him more closely.
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