Convicted Murderer Robert Serritella Sentenced To 45 Years

SKOKIE, IL — A man convicted of the murder of a 15-year-old Skokie boy in 1992 was sentenced Thursday to 45 years in prison. After rejecting a plea deal that would have seen him eligible for parole in just five years, the sentence means he will remain incarcerated until he is at least 92 years old.

Robert Serritella, 76, formerly of Park Ridge, was convicted in May of first-degree murder in the killing of David Chereck, who was found strangled to death in Linne Woods in Morton Grove.

Prosecutors said they Serritella stalked the Niles West sophomore and his friends as they spent the evening of Jan. 1, 1992, in a Skokie bowling alley, park and convenience store.

Serritella, who then went by the name "Rico Rocco" and handed out business cards to teenage boys containing the phrase, "Let's Come Together," killed Chereck after the boy rejected his sexual advances, according to prosecutors.

Serritella, a convicted sex offender, first came to the attention of investigators within a week of the incident after he called police to say he might have witnessed Chereck get into a car strikingly similar to his own. When detectives began trying to follow up with him, he moved to Southern California. He remained a suspect for years, even granting an interview to WLS-TV investigative reporter Chuck Goudie in 1998.

But it was not until after he placed multiple phone calls to Chereck's mother in 2013 that the cold case unit of the Cook County Sheriff's Office and investigators from the state's attorney's office renewed their focus on the case. While Serritella continued to insist he was innocent, the murdered boy's mother did not buy it.

"I just want to hear why you did it," Esther Chereck told Serritella on a recorded phone call played at his trial. "I don't want to die and be in my grave and not know what happened to my son."

At her son's killer's sentencing in Skokie on Thursday, Chereck said she would never recover from the pain he caused 27 years ago.

"But I am content that I have lived long enough to see justice for David," she said, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Serritella turned down a plea deal that could have seen him released from prison in just five years if he had admitted killing Chereck. Instead, he waived his right to a jury trial and chose to have Cook County Associate Judge Lauren Edidin decide his fate. Even after she found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, he would not admit responsibility for the killing in court.

At his sentencing, Edidin described the killing as a "cowardly act and an act against humanity," the Tribune reported.

Prosecutors called 16 witnesses at the four-day trial. They included high school friends who had been with Chereck on the night of his death, men who testified that Serritella had propositioned them for sex before they turned 18 and former cellmates who said Serritella had admitted to being in involved in the killing. The public defenders who represented Serritella did not call any witnesses and he declined to testify on his own behalf.

Assistant State's Attorney Ethan Holland said Serritella could not stop talking about the murder because it "haunted" him.

"He talked and he talked and he talked. He can't shut up about it. But for his refusal to remain silent, we wouldn't be here," Holland said.

Read more:

• Cold Case Murder Trial Begins In Death Of Strangled Skokie Teen
• Friend, Cellmate Testify Against Skokie Boy's Accused Killer
• Robert Serritella Found Guilty Of 1992 Murder Of David Chereck