Richard Speck: photos, victims

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 criminalistics. Meanwhile, the motive for brutal and senseless murders is still incomprehensible even to specialists.

Brief biography of the perpetrator

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 murderer married a second time and the family moved to Texas. In addition to Richard in the family grew two more daughters and five sons. At the age of 18, the protagonist of our history first came to the attention of law enforcement agencies because of car theft. After that, Speck was delayed several more times, including for attacking the girl. But in spite of his reputation, which was far from perfect, Richard managed to get married (a daughter was born in marriage) and enlist in 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 whole day a young sailor visited bars, and in breaks between alcoholic libations tried to get acquainted with young girls and molest them. It is worth noting that Richard was at that time only 25 years old. At night, he went to the house of Jeffey - a student hostel for nurses. There are two versions of the penetration of the criminal inside: one of them he cracked the door of the black entrance, the second - knocked on the front door, and he opened one of the girls. One way or another armed Richard Speck threatened the first student who met him and demanded to wake up all neighbors, promising to take only money and not cause harm to anyone. At this late hour, everyone in the house was already asleep. However, Corazon Amurao - a student with whom Speck spoke first, was awakened by a neighbor. After that the criminal linked all the girls with sheets and demanded to say where the money lay. An amazing fact, but none of the victims tried to resist and scream. The girls obediently told me where the money was, and Richard found and took them, then began to take the young nurses out of one of the rooms.

Unexplained violence

Speck deduced his victims on one of the rooms, where he preliminarily connected everyone and killed them with particular cruelty. Some of the students were slaughtered, others were strangled, and the walls of the house, as the police later discovered, were literally soaked with blood. At the same time, none of the neighbors heard any suspicious sounds - everyone 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 that Richard Franklin Speck was mistaken about was the number of victims. One of the girls was able to hide under the bed, and the murderer did not find it. It is believed that the students were raped, and one after death. Although this information is inconsistent - some sources claim that only one girl was raped.

"Help, they are all dead!"

When Richard finished, as he thought, with all the girls, he calmly took the stolen money (only about $ 50) and left the house. Ironically, Corazon Amurao, the girl who had the first chance to communicate with the killer, remained alive.

She came from the Philippines to receive an education on a special student program. Corazon asked her neighbors to resist the attacker, but they hesitated and refused, believing that by taking 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 bell rang, trying not to breathe and not to betray herself in any way. And only hearing an insistent signal, she got 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, as local students already at that time abused alcohol and drugs and this behavior was not new to others. However, after a while, the police decided to check the hostel, and what they saw inside had put them to a shock.

Murders should be noted!

What did the criminal do after leaving the student hostel? 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) for a drink. Well typed, R. Speck began to show off right behind the bar with perfect murders. However, one of the visitors of the institution did not take the drunk sailor seriously seriously. Richard himself, as soon as he realized that they were mocking him, pulled out a knife and attacked the barman. The killer calmed down only when he saw the fear in the eyes of his potential victim and retreated himself, trying to turn everything that happened into a silly joke.

How to find a criminal with signs?

The surviving student refused to receive first aid and a doctor's examination, but immediately began to give evidence. The policeman was lucky because the suspect had special signs - a problem ("as if in pockmarks") skin on his face and a tattoo on his hand with the inscription: "Born to make life a hell!". When inspecting the scene of the crime, detectives discovered many fingerprints and noticed that all the victims were connected by special sea knots. While the police were searching for a sailor, paratrooper or climber with a tattoo, the villain himself was in rather serious condition in the hospital. The young man was taken to a medical institution in a state of strong alcoholic intoxication with numerous cuts on his hands in the region of the veins - this was Richard Speck. 1966 - a time when tattoos were not as common as today. At this sign, the attending physician paid attention immediately and reported his patient to the police.

Psychiatric examination

Even during the presence of Speck in the hospital, he was interviewed by a psychiatrist. Richard told the doctor that he does not deny his guilt of committing a crime in which he is accused, but he does not remember anything and can not call his actions adequate. According to him, on July 13, in his memory - a continuous gap, however, having learned in the morning of the massacre, he immediately guessed that he was involved in it. The suspect was also reported for regular severe headaches, as well as memory dips. In the opinion of Speke, the cause of this state of health is the long-standing craniocerebral trauma he received in a fight. The psychiatrist who worked with Richard did not hurry to assert that the criminal was insane at the time of the murders, but noted that his patient does not differ in the typical mind-set of a maniac. To assess the adequacy of the killer, a psychiatric examination was conducted, in the conclusion of which six competent experts recognized that Speck is sane and can be brought to justice.

Full list of victims

How many people did Richard Speck kill? The victims of this criminal, on the death of whom his guilt has been fully proved, are eight female nurses from Jeffrey Maynor House. However, during the investigation, the detectives drew attention to a series of unsolved crimes committed in the cities where the self-propelled barge stopped, at which Richard Speck sailed as a sailor. All the dead were female, among them girls (from 7 years old) and quite mature ladies aged over 60 years. In 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 unite all cases into one.

Court and sentence

The brutal murder of a group of helpless girls stirred Chicago and the surrounding area. Local citizens were indignant and demanded that Speck Richard be extradited to them for lynching. Because of such serious public unrest, the defendant was transferred to another city, where a court hearing on his case took place. The Speck fault was proved, 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 highest penalty, the death penalty. Richard, hearing this sentence looked shocked, however, due to some changes in US law, the killer was not executed. The death penalty for Speke was replaced by imprisonment for 400 years. Of these, he served only 19 and died in his own cell from a large heart attack.

Life and death in prison

Convicted R. Speck was sent to the prison of "Statesville" (Statesville). According to the official version, he conducted himself there quite calmly and even worked in local workshops. In general, he was a man of low and not remarkable. An interesting fact - during his imprisonment Richard Speck, whose photo depict a morose and unsociable person, has learned to smile sincerely. In the 80s of the last century, a scandalous video was made in prison (which fell on journalists in 1995). In this mini-film the murderer tells with a sneer at the crimes committed, introduces the audience to his male lover, and also uses drugs. This videotape became the basis for conducting a series of checks in US correctional institutions. However, there were no official comments from the representatives of the criminal penal system, and it is not known whether it was possible to find those who made possible the violation of the prison regime. Speck died on December 5, 1991. None of the relatives wanted to organize the funeral, and the killer was cremated with state funds. Disputes about who Richard Speck - a maniac and a born murderer or just a mentally ill person, were conducted long enough. Today a lot of documentaries, one full-length feature film and several books have been written about this criminal. After reading these works you can draw your own conclusions about the life and personality of Richard Speck.