On May 2, 1996, Clepper was charged with strangling eight women. His last victim was found stuffed in the closet of his bedroom. Police said Gregory was waiting for his mother to help him dispose of the body. Clepper, 28, a resident of Chicago's South Side, preyed on drug-addicted prostitutes who he killed after they objected to his refusal to pay for sex.

Clepper, a classic sexual predator, told detectives when he was arrested at a relative's house, "I knew it was just a matter of time. I'm glad it's over. " An aquaintance turned him in after he had boasted about one of the slayings. The killings began in 1991. Some of the victims were dumped in garbage bins around Chicago's South Side. The most recent corpse, Patricia Scott, 30, was found April 24 in a trash container behind Calumet High School. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Clepper apparently killed Scott a day earlier at the home he shared with his mother, Gladys Clepper, who along with a friend was charged with helping dispose of the body.

Mrs. Clepper, 46, was charged with one count of concealing a homicide. Eric Henderson, 30, was charged with two counts of concealing a homicide. Apparently Eric had witnessed the murder of an earlier victim and helped dispose of her body, too. With his arrest, Clepper was the third serial slayer arrested in Chicago's South Side in less than a year. The other two killers, Hubert Geralds and Ralph Harris were arrested in 1995.