The True Life Story of Richard Speck Born in Monmouth, Illinois on December 6th, 1941, Richard Speck was the yougest child in a large family. His father died while he was very young, and Speck's mother remarried. Speck's stepfather was a heavy drinker who despised Speck and often made him the target of his drunken belligerance. Raised primarily in Dallas, Texas, Speck dropped out of school and became a father at the age of nineteen. He had started committing small crimes while in his early teens, and by the age of twenty had amassed a forminable criminal record. Eventually wanted by the authorities in Texas on suspicion of several others, Speck eventually fled the area, coming to the Chicago, Illinois area with the hope of finding work. While in Chicago, he stayed with his sister and brother-in-law. He attempted to find work on the city's southeast side, which in 1966 was a major seaport. His efforts proved fruitless, and Speck spent much of his time hanging out at dingy taverns, drinking and passing the time. The union hall where he had registered for a job as a merchant seaman was directly across the street from a townhouse where several student nurses lived. They all worked at South Chicago Community Hospital, a facility that was about one mile away. During his stint in the area, Speck had seen them coming and going from the house. On the night of July 13th, 1966, Speck spent the early portion of the evening at a bar called The Shipyard Inn. He was staying in a rooming area above the bar. About ten-thirty, having consumed several drinks, he donned dark clothes and departed for the townhouse, about a thirty minute walk. Once there, he managed to open the screen door, walk upstairs, and began talking to several nurses that were home. He told them that he would not hurt them and merely wanted money to go to New Orleans, where he ostensibly had plans to catch a boat. After approximately one hour, however, Speck began binding the nurses with bedsheet strips that he had torn with his switchblade knife. Frightened into submission by the knife and gun Speck carried, the nurses put up little resistance. Through there were only a few nurses when Speck first arrived, there were not seven, others having arrived home from work or dates. Finally, two more nurses, Mary Ann Jordon and Suzanne Farris, arrived in the townhouse shortly before midnight. Speck was caught off guard and encountered resistance from them. In another room, he killed them violently with his knife, stabbing them repeatedly. He also killed another nurse who he had brought into the room. The savage butchery never stopped. Speck took each nurse from the upper bedroom wher they had been bound and brought them, one by one, into various rooms of the townhouse. He killed each of them, most by strangulation, some by stabbing. After each killing, he washed his hands in the bathroom on the upper level. During times when Speck was out of the bedroom, a nurse named Corazon Amurao had managed to slither under a bunkbed and hide. Speck apparently forgot Cora and he left the townhouse at about 3:30 a.m. on July 14th, having murdered eight of the nie nurses he had encountered that night. Speck was captured after a massive manhunt. He was tried and convicted in 1967 of the murders and sentenced to die. The prosecution, led by Assistant State's Attorney William J. Martin, presented such a solid case against Speck that the jury required only forty-nine minutes of deliberation before finding Speck guilty. Speck was not exected due to the 1972 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to abolish the death penalty. Richard Speck was instead sentenced to eight life terms. Though he would come up for parole several times, he was never released from prison. He died in November of 1991, a few weeks short of his 50th birthday. Return to Speck |
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