Robert Serritella extradited to Chicago to face charges in David Chereck murder
CHICAGO (WLS) -- An ABC7 I-Team exclusive report: bond has been denied for the California sex offender now accused of killing a Skokie teenager 22 years ago, Robert Serritella, who was brought back to Cook County Wednesday and appeared in court for the first time Thursday morning.
READ: Robert Serritella bond proffer document
Eyewitness News investigative reporter Chuck Goudie talked with the accused killer when he arrived at O'Hare.
WATCH: Original I-Team reports on David Chereck murder investigation
Shortly after somebody strangled David Chereck with his own scarf on New Year's Day 1992, a man named Rico Rocco left a message for police, saying he had information about the crime. That man was actually Robert Serritella, who told police he had seen the teenager get into a white car before he was killed. Authorities say Serritella was the driver of that car and the murderer of David Chereck.
On this flight from Los Angeles, the last passengers off the plane were Robert "Rocco" Serritella - in an orange sweatshirt that covered up his hands in shackles - and two Cook County sheriff's deputies.
Serritella, 71, was quickly deposited in a wheelchair for the trek from the C-29. It has been an even longer voyage for authorities here since January 1, 1992, when David Chereck was out with friends and never made it home.
"I saw something," Serritella said to the I-Team in 1998.
From the beginning, Serritella was the prime suspect, telling the I-Team that he had seen Chereck the night the teenager vanished.
"I was travelling about 35-miles per hour and I don't know why he's waving so I stopped and when I had stopped I looked in the rear view mirror and there was another white car, similar to mine, that this boy jumped into and they took off and as they passed me I took a look over into the car and I had a good description of the boy and the driver," said Serritella in 1998.
Despite Serritella putting himself near the crime scene and the victim, the case was fumbled by forest preserve police who actually lost track of Serritella when he moved out west- even though he was still a registered sex offender. When the I-Team found him in 1995 and interviewed him, it was an interview that would become central to obtaining charges six weeks ago.
"You're a seeker of the truth- and I like that, my friend," Serritella told the I-Team in 1998.
Chuck Goudie asks, "You knew this day was going to come, didn't you?"
Almost two decades later, on Wednesday at O'Hare, Serritella entered a public plea:
"I did not kill this boy. I did not kill this boy. I did not kill this boy. Everything is circumstantial. I had a crooked lawyer. He turned me in to the Skokie Police Department," said Serritella.
Serritella also said that DNA tests on him were negative. He will appear in Skokie bond court Thursday morning, three miles from where David Chereck was found dead at the start of a new year 22 years ago.
WATCH: Full interview with Esther Chereck
Chuck Goudie's 1998 Interview with Robert Serritella
WATCH: 1992 coverage of the Chereck murder
