As a young priest in Woodstock, Illinois, one of the first couples the Reverend Michael Binsfield married were high school sweethearts Ray Ritter and Ruth Ann Raycraft in 1969. Over the following nineteen years, Reverend Binsfield was friends with the Ritters and baptized their three children.

In the summer of 1988, Reverend Binsfield left Woodstock when he accepted a position with the Elgin parish. As the two towns are only twenty-five miles apart, he planned to return to Woodstock often. The Reverend did not expect to be called back so soon, however, and for such an awful occasion.

In August 1988, at the same church where he had married the Ritters in 1969, Reverend Binsfield returned to conduct the couples’ funeral. Many of the people who attended the Ritters wedding nineteen years prior were tearfully packed into St. Mary’s Church on a muggy afternoon to say goodbye to the beloved couple.

Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were the victims of the first double murder in Woodstock’s history. The primary target of their killer, though, was their daughter, Colleen. The Ritters’ eldest child was unable to attend her parents’ funeral, as she was still in the hospital recovering from her wounds.

As the Ritters’ funeral was held in the church where they were wed, a manhunt was in progress to find their killer, whose name, ironically, was Church.

Ray And Ruth Ann Ritter

Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were both born and raised in Woodstock, sixty miles northwest of Chicago. Forty-three-year-old Ray worked for ComEd (Commonwealth Edison), the largest electric utility in Illinois while his forty-five-year-old wife had previously worked as a secretary for a law firm.

The Ritters had three children, seventeen-year-old Colleen, fourteen-year-old Stephen, and eleven-year-old Matthew.

The Ritter Family

Colleen and nineteen-year-old Rick Church had grown up together and attended Woodstock’s Marian Central Catholic High School. Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were longtime friends of Church’s parents, Gene and Cherry, and the men had worked together for many years at ComEd. Both sets of parents were supportive when their children began dating each other.

Church was popular, a good athlete, and he had never been in trouble. Colleen was attracted to the seemingly All-American boy, and the relationship blossomed during the 1986-87 school year, when Rick was a senior and Colleen a sophomore. They continued dating after Rick graduated and left for DeKalb, forty miles from Woodstock, to attend Northern Illinois University.

Although Rick came home nearly every weekend during his freshman year of college, including to take Colleen to her junior prom, the romance gradually cooled for her. As she tried to distance herself from him, an increasingly despondent Rick called her nearly every evening, usually with little to talk about.

Becoming increasingly annoyed, Colleen confided in her parents. Although they had been supportive of the relationship, they now encouraged her to end it.

Rick Church And Colleen Ritter

High School Sweethearts

Rick Church returned home from college an angry young man in June 1988. He had not earned enough credits to qualify as a sophomore for the upcoming year. In addition, his parents had informed him they were going to divorce. But the worst news was yet to come, and it pushed him over the edge.

Colleen told Rick she no longer wished to be his girlfriend. His devastation was clear and his anger was evident, but he kept the degree of his ire hidden.

In Colleen’s words, the romantic relationship ”didn’t take,” but she still considered the boy she had known most of her life a friend and regretted hurting his feelings. Church, on the other hand, was determined to hurt Colleen’s feelings and much more.

Rick Church’s answer to the question of how do you mend a broken heart was to put a knife in another person’s heart.

Angry Church

On the evening of August 20, two months after breaking up with Church, Colleen was having a friend stay overnight, as was her youngest brother, Matthew. The middle sibling, Steven, was staying with one his friends.

At 11:30 p.m., Church called Colleen, begging for one last date with her. She declined and informed her former boyfriend she had begun a relationship with a classmate.  An angry Church, as he had done several times before, slammed the phone on her.

One Last Try Fails

Around 5:15 a.m. on the morning of August 21, while everyone in the Ritter house was sleeping, Church, armed with a knife, broke into the home. Upon entry, he went to Ray and Ruth Ann’s ground floor bedroom and stabbed them as they slept. Upstairs, eleven-year-old Matthew heard his parents’ screams and went into the hallway. There, he encountered Church, who stabbed him twice.

The Ritter Home

Colleen awoke, heard Matthew screaming, and attempted to call 911. At that point, Church broke into her bedroom and grabbed his primary prey. Colleen broke free and ran from the room, but Church caught her and began repeatedly stabbing her. She again broke away and ran out of the house screaming. Church chased after her and caught her in the street, where he stabbed her several more times.

Two neighbors, Chris Gehrke and Ronald Abt, heard the commotion. When they came to Colleen’s aid, Church fled. The injured Matthew had managed to call 911, and police and ambulance crews arrived quickly.

Colleen is Repeatedly Stabbed But Survives . . .

Another neighbor believed Church had run back into the Ritter home. As medics tended to Colleen, police cautiously entered the house. Officers found the bloodied Matthew in shock, huddled with his friend, who was unharmed. Colleen’s friend was also unscathed.

In the downstairs bedroom, however, police found the bloodied and lifeless bodies of Ray and Ruth Ann. Each had been stabbed multiple times.

. . . But Her Parents Are Not As Fortunate

Rick Church was nowhere to be found. The neighbor was mistaken; instead of going back into the Ritter home, Church had run the twelve blocks to his own home and hastily packed some belongings. At approximately 5:45 a.m., while his mother was sleeping, he grabbed the keys to her 1981 Dodge truck, threw a few items into it, and fled.

The following day, Church was seen at a motel in the Wisconsin Dells, approximately one-hundred-thirty miles northwest of Woodstock. Two days later he was seen back in Illinois, only a few miles from his hometown.

Church Takes Off

Matthew Ritter was released from the hospital the day after the attack, having sustained only minor wounds. Colleen, however, was critically injured, having been stabbed twenty-two times, mostly in the back of her head.

As her parents were laid to rest, Colleen lay in intensive care. Doctors feared she could be permanently blinded and/or suffer irreversible brain damage. Fortunately, and perhaps miraculously, she was released from the hospital after two months, having made a full recovery.

Colleen Recovers

One month after the attacks, Church’s mother’s truck was found abandoned outside a convenience store 2,000 miles away in west Los Angeles. It was determined the fugitive had stayed at the Kalmar Hotel in Venice Beach under the name Randy Hunt. He apparently had only enough money to stay one evening, as he was found to have slept the following week in the truck, parked in a nearby public garage.

Investigators discovered that, shortly thereafter, Church cashed $300 worth of savings bonds at a bank a few miles from Venice Beach, but an area search turned up no trace of him.

The Convenience Store Where

Church’s Car Is Found Abandoned

Rick Church successfully covered his tracks for three years before his luck ran out.

Using the name Danny Carson, Church was working at Bennett’s Pit Bar-B-Que, a fast food restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah. On November 13, 1991, he served off-duty police officer Craig Park, who recognized his picture from a fugitive bulletin. Confirmed to be Rick Church, he was arrested the following day.

Before settling in Salt Lake City, Church told authorities he had lived in Salmon, Idaho, New York City, and Alma, Arkansas, while on the run.

 

The Fugitive Is Recognized

Two of Church’s coworkers said they had seen his case profiled on America’s Most Wanted. They thought “Danny Carson” strongly resembled the fugitive but did not call authorities because they did not believe the man who they worked alongside and liked could be the cold-blooded killer.

Church Had Blended In

At the time of Rick Church’s capture, Colleen Ritter was engaged. Though her dreams of shopping for dresses with her mom and having her dad walk her down the aisle would not happen, Church’s apprehension was a good wedding present.

Colleen tied the knot seven months later in May 1992. Though the pain of losing her parents in such a brutal manner would always be with her, she was relieved of a tremendous burden knowing her former boyfriend-turned-killer could not return to harm her and that he would pay for his crimes with a life behind bars.

A Bittersweet Wedding

To avoid the death penalty, Rick Church pleaded guilty to the murders of Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter and to the attempted murders of Colleen Ritter and Matthew Ritter in June 1992. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Now fifty-five-years-old, Church is imprisoned in Dixon, Illinois. The picture is several years old, but he appears to still have a relatively youthful look.  Perhaps a fellow inmate will make him his “church lady.”

Incarcerated Church

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11417018/raymond-william-ritter

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11417028/ruth-ann-ritter

 

Pictures from the funeral of Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter

Craig Park, the Salt Lake City Police Officer who recognized Rick Church.

Park Catches Church

Rick Church’s case was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries as was the case of another fugitive, Protestant evangelist Tony Alamo, founder of the religious cult, “The Alamo Christian Foundation.” In 2009, Alamo was sentenced to one-hundred-seventy-five years in prison after being convicted of ten counts of child rape, as well as tax evasion. He died in prison in 2017.

Following his capture, Rick Church told authorities the infamous church leader had harbored him for several months in 1989, nearly a year after he began his life on the lam. Church said he had narrowly avoided capture when IRS agents raided the group’s headquarters in Alma, Arkansas.

Tony Alamo

SOURCES:

 

• America’s Most Wanted
• Chicago Sun -Times
• Chicago Tribune
• Deseret News
• Northern Star Media Northwest Herald
• Unsolved Mysteries