RICHARD SPECK MURDERS

At 11:00 PM on July 13, 1966, Richard Speck broke into a townhouse located at 2319 E. 100th St. in the Jeffery Manor neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It was functioning as a dormitory for several young student nurses, some of whom were Filipinas. Armed with only a knife , Speck raped then killed most of the young women, including Gloria Davy, Patricia Matusek, Nina Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Pasion., Later, patrolman Daniel Kelly was flagged down by a citizen who had noticed Corazon Amuaro, a young student nurse, screaming and sobbing in an apartment window uncontrollably. Kelly, only eighteen months on the job, entered the apartment and exited some time later, vomiting in the street. Inside he had found the bodies of eight young women, all student nurses, strewn about the premises. When Corazon was able to tell her story, she related how an armed man had come to the door, forced his way into the apartment and found seven students there. He made them empty their purses at gunpoint and bound their arms and legs with strips of material he made from their sheets. What Richard Speck was about to do would shock even the most hardened detectives and horrify the entire country. Two other young nurses came home at this point and attempted to flee when they saw what was happening. Speck caught them and stabbed and strangled them to death. He then began a grim routine of going into the room where the other seven were tied up and bringing them one by one to other rooms where he raped, then murdered them with his knife or by strangling them. Corazon, realizing that the only way she could save herself was by hiding, wedged her body under a bunk bed and hoped against hope that Speck would not see her. After he had raped and strangled his last victim, he took whatever money he had stolen and left, having lost count of how many girls were in the room. Hours later, Corazon crept out in a state of shock and screamed for help. Her description of the man, especially of a tattoo on one of his arms, helped lead police to the Maritime Union Hall, where an employee recognized the sketch artist's work as Richard Speck. With nowhere to hide as an entire city closed in on him, Speck tried to kill himself, but changed his mind and wound up in Cook County Hospital. The doctor treating his injuries saw the telltale tattoo and alerted a policeman. Speck was arrested without incident. Speck's trial in Peoria lasted just twelve days. Found guilty on all counts, he was sentenced to death, but was saved from that fate by the Supreme Court's abolishment of the death penalty in 1972. To assure that Speck would never see the light of day again, he was re-sentenced to over 400 years in prison. He died behind bars at Stateville Prison in Joliet on December 5, 1991, a day before his 50th birthday, of a massive heart attack. He never showed any remorse for what he did, often bragging in prison about the killings.