Richard Speck is a mass murderer who committed terrible crimes in 1966 in Chicago. The name of this criminal will forever go down in the history of world forensics. Meanwhile, the motive of cruel and senseless killings is still incomprehensible even to specialists.
Brief biography of the criminal
Richard Speck was born on December 6, 1941 in the city of Kirkwood (Illinois, USA). His father died when his son was 5 years old, and in 1950 the mother of the future killer married a second time and the family moved to Texas. In addition to Richard, two more daughters and five sons grew up in the family. At the age of 18, the protagonist of our history first came to the attention of law enforcement agencies due to car theft. After this, Speck was delayed several more times, including for attacking the girl. But despite this by no means an impeccable reputation, Richard managed to get married (a daughter was born in marriage) and join the Navy.
The fateful night of July 13, 1966
Once on a warm summer day in 1966, Richard Speck rested in Chicago, waiting for the departure of the ship on which he worked as a sailor. According to eyewitnesses, the young sailor visited bars all day, and in between alcoholic libations he tried to get to know young girls and molest them. It is worth noting that Richard was only 25 years old at that time. Already at night, he went to the house of Jeffy - a student dormitory for nurses. There are two versions of the penetration of the criminal inside: one of them he cracked the door to the back door, the second - knocked on the front door, and one of the girls opened him. One way or another, armed Richard Speck threatened the first student who met with him and demanded to wake all the neighbors, promising to take only the money and not harm anyone. At this late hour, everyone in the house was already asleep. However, Corazon Amurao, the student with whom Speck spoke first, woke the neighbors. Then the offender tied all the girls with sheets and demanded to say where the money is. An amazing fact, but not one of the victims tried to resist and scream. The girls obediently told where the money was, and Richard found and took it, then began to take the young nurses out of one of the rooms.
Unexplained cruelty
Speck led his victims out of one of the rooms where he had previously bound everyone and killed with particular cruelty. Some students were stabbed to death, others were strangled, and the walls of the house, as police later discovered, were literally soaked in blood. At the same time, none of the neighbors heard any suspicious sounds - everyone around us was sleeping peacefully. It is possible that the girls themselves did not fully understand and could not believe what was happening to them. The only thing Richard Franklin Speck was wrong with was the number of victims. One of the girls was able to hide under the bed, and the killer did not find her. It is believed that the students were raped, and one after death. Although this information is contradictory - some sources claim that only one girl was raped.
“Help, they are all dead!”
When Richard dealt, as he thought, with all the girls, he calmly took the stolen money (only about $ 50) and left the house. Ironically, it was Corazon Amurao who remained alive - the very girl who happened to be the first to talk with the killer.
She came from the Philippines to study for a special student program. Corazon invited her neighbors to resist the attacker, but they hesitated and refused, believing that, having taken all the money and valuables, the offender would leave. As a result, the girl decided to fight for her own life and was able to hide. In the chosen shelter, she lay until the morning alarm clock rang, trying not to breathe and in no way to give herself away. And only having heard a persistent signal, she crawled out from under the bed and finally began to call for help. At first, the cries of the young girl did not attract enough attention, since local students at that time were already abusing alcoholic drinks and narcotic substances and such behavior was not new to those around them. However, after some time, the police still decided to check the hostel, and what they saw inside shocked them.
The killings should be noted!
What did the criminal himself do after leaving the student dormitory? It's hard to believe, but he went to the bar.
There he spent the money stolen from the dead girls (in the amount of about 50 dollars) for a drink. Well-typed, R. Speck began to boast of perfect killings right behind the bar counter. However, none of the visitors took the drunken sailor seriously. Richard himself, as soon as he realized that he was being taunted, pulled out a knife and attacked the bartender. The killer calmed down only when he saw fear in the eyes of his potential victim and stepped back, trying to turn everything that happened into a stupid joke.
How to find a criminal with signs?
The surviving student refused to receive first aid and a doctor’s examination, and immediately began to testify. The policemen were lucky because the suspect had special signs - problematic ("as if in smallpox") skin on his face and a tattoo on his arm with the inscription: "Born to make life hell!". When examining the crime scene, the detectives found many fingerprints and drew attention to the fact that all the victims were connected by special naval nodes.
While the police were looking for a sailor, paratrooper or climber with a tattoo, the villain himself was in a rather serious condition in the hospital. The young man was taken to a hospital in a state of extreme intoxication with numerous cuts on his hands in the vein area - that was Richard Speck. 1966 is a time when tattoos were not as common as they are today. The attending physician drew attention to this sign immediately and reported his patient to the police.
Psychiatric Examination
Even while Speck was in the hospital, a psychiatrist talked to him. Richard told the doctor that he did not deny his guilt in the crime of which he was accused, but he himself did not remember anything and could not call his actions adequate. According to him, on July 13, there was a blank in his memory, however, having learned in the morning about the massacre, he immediately guessed that he was involved in it. The suspect also complained of regular severe headaches, as well as memory lapses. According to Speck himself, the reason for this state of health is a long-standing craniocerebral trauma, received by him in a fight. The psychiatrist who worked with Richard was in no hurry to assert that the criminal was insane at the time of the murders, but noted that his patient was not different in the mindset typical of a maniac. To assess the adequacy of the killer, a psychiatric examination was conducted, at the end of which six competent specialists recognized that Speck was sane and could be brought to justice.
Full list of victims
How many people killed Richard Speck? The victims of this criminal, whose death has been fully proven guilty, are eight nursing students from Jeffrey Manor House. However, during the investigation, detectives drew attention to a series of unsolved crimes committed in cities where a self-propelled barge stopped, on which Richard Speck sailed as a sailor.
All the victims were female, among them were girls (from 7 years old) and quite mature ladies over 60 years old. For some episodes, there were not only temporary coincidences, but also more serious evidence, but the police understood how difficult it would be to prove the guilt of the suspect in court and did not begin to combine all the cases into one.
Court and sentence
The brutal murder of a group of helpless girls stirred up Chicago and the surrounding area. Local citizens were indignant and demanded that Speck Richard be extradited to them for a lynching. Due to such serious public unrest, the defendant was transported to another city, where a trial in his case was held. Speck's guilt was proven thanks to the discovery of his fingerprints at the crime scene and the testimony of the surviving girl. The verdict of the jury and the judge was unequivocal - the death penalty. Richard, having heard such a sentence, looked shocked, however, due to some changes in US law, the killer was not executed. The death penalty for Speck was replaced by imprisonment for a period of 400 years. Of these, he served only 19 and died in his own cell from an extensive heart attack.
Life and death in prison
Convict R. Speck was sent to Statesville Prison. According to the official version, he behaved there quite calmly and even worked in local workshops. In general, he was a dull man and unremarkable.
An interesting fact is that during his imprisonment Richard Speck, whose photo depicts a sullen and unsociable person, learned to smile sincerely. In the 80s of the last century, a scandalous video was made in prison (which came to reporters in 1995). In this mini-movie, the killer talks with a mockery of the crimes committed, introduces the audience to his male lover, and also uses drugs. This videotape became the basis for a series of checks in US correctional facilities. However, there were no official comments from representatives of the criminal punishment system, and it is not known whether those who made it possible to violate the prison regime were found. Speck passed away on December 5, 1991. None of the relatives wanted to organize his funeral, and the killer was cremated with state funds. The debate about who Richard Speck is - a maniac and a natural born killer or just an insane person, has been going on for a long time. Today, many documentaries, one full-length feature film, and several books have been written about this criminal. After reviewing these works, you can draw your own conclusions about the life and personality traits of Richard Speck.