Crime & Safety

Sheriff Makes Arrest in 1992 Murder of 15-Year-Old Boy

The boy disappeared a few blocks from his Skokie home on New Year's Day. His mom said "God and judgment" will prevail.

Esther Chereck has been waiting 22 years for this day, and it's finally come — the man long suspected of murdering her 15-year-old son is in custody.

Robert Serritella, 71, was arrested in Los Angeles by Cook County Sheriff's Police and L.A. County Sheriff's Department officers on Monday. He's due in court Thursday.

"It's a relief," Esther Chereck told ABC 7 News in an exclusive Thursday interview from her Skokie home. "It's as if David were saying to me, "Finally, Mom."

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David's body was found in the Linne Woods Forest Preserve in Morton Grove on Jan. 2, 1992. He was strangled to death with his own scarf. The boy was last seen by four of his friends on Jan. 1, 1992, at about 10:15 p.m. walking home on Harms Road from Lincoln Avenue in Skokie. He was alone and was just two blocks from his house.

"I never got to see him graduate high school or go to college and fulfill his dreams," Chereck said.

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Serritella, formerly of the Chicago area, was long considered a suspect but police had been unable to gather enough evidence against him. In 1998, six years after the crime, ABC 7's Chuck Goudie interviewed Serritella, who divulged bits of information about that fateful day. He told Goudie he was on the street in his mother's white car and saw David Chereck just before sunset.

"I stopped and when I had stopped, there was another white car similar to mine that this boy jumped into," Serritella said, adding that the white car sped past him as he drove away.

Investigators say information gleaned from ABC 7's interview with the suspected killer proved to be helpful in the case.

» Watch Chuck Goudie's 1998 interview in full on ABC7Chicago.com

Over the course of the investigation, Cook County Sheriff's Police gathered additional information, re-interviewed witnesses and analyzed reports that led to an arrest warrant for Serritella.

"It just seems as if this was a crime of opportunity," Sheriff Tom Dart said.

Serritella will be extradited from California to stand trial in Illinois.

"I believe in God and judgment," said David's mother, "and whether he's convicted or not, there's a higher power that will judge him."


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