On the night of the crime, 24-year-old Speck snuck into a townhouse in Chicago where the nurses lived. "It was him," she said. For those girls, and for their families, and for me. I was high on heroin that night. He was referring to letters he received in his prison cell every week from women-female admirers who, he said, wanted to correspond with him. Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. And did he have any particular feelings about the American people? "This is the man," she said as pandemonium erupted. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). John Farris carries a photo of his sister Suzie in his wallet. In that small room, with its linoleum floor and overhead light, Suzie taught him how to make a grilled cheese sandwich and how, if you mixed sour cream and dry onion soup mix, presto, you had French onion dip. For many years she worked as a nurse at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. Now 73, she has two children and several grandchildren. The old hospital is now called Advocate Trinity. The Mystery Novelist Who Committed a Real Murder, Boston Marathon Bombings Survivors, 10 Years Later, A Complete Timeline of Adnan Syeds Trial, Release. "She showed the indomitability of her spirit by continuing her path as a nurse and dedicating her life to helping others and raising a family, but you can never get something like this out of your life," Martin said. She wrote her daughter's name, Nina, on a piece of pink paper. Forty miles from home, when they spotted a gas station, they were reluctant to stop for directions because their curlers made them look like creatures from Mars. A. I screamed there for about five minutes and nothing. In the video, Speck also casually admits to the killing of the nurses, describing the strangulations in some detail, and bragging about the strength required to kill someone in this manner. Tammy Siouchoff remembers life with her fellow students before six of them and two visiting nurseswere murdered in a neighboring townhouse on Chicago's South Side in 1966. One of eight young nurses killed in a Chicago townhouse on July 14, 1966, by a man who became notorious: Richard Speck. Not long afterward, Arline Davy, sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, made an announcement to her daughters. The doctor had just had a dinner break and had seen the front page of a newspaper featuring the killer's face. John had his own. He proceeded to brutalize them in the most horrific fashion over the following few hours. William Martin, shown April 22, 2016, in his Oak Park law office, was the lead prosecutor in the Richard Speck mass murder case. They were the last women to arrive at the townhouse that night. Fortunately, Amurao remembered the distinctive "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo that, along with the image, enabled police to identify their suspect as Richard Speck. 'Mindhunter' Episode 9 Recap: Born to Raise Hell | Decider With her salary, she paid tuition for college night classes downtown, after which she commuted home to 111th Street and Avenue E. Eventually she enrolled in nursing school, and though it wasn't a field she had dreamed of as a girl, she had a knack. And the mail. Merlita Gargullo, left, one of eight nurses slain by Richard Speck, gets a goodbye kiss from her aunt, Ancia Anyayahan, as she left Manila for the United States. THE VOICE OF RICHARD SPECK - Chicago Tribune He was in need of surgery to repair his severed artery, and was watched over by a dozen policemen who were determined to ensure that his days of making lucky escapes were over. Often after a day of classes at Fenger High School, Pat Matusek walked to Roseland Community Hospital to see her cousin Tommy. When he agreed to talk about his sister, he asked to meet at the Lansing Public Library, which used to be the Indiana Avenue School where he and Pam attended first through fifth grades. In the basement's dim overhead light, a big, brown cardboard box caught his eye, a box so soggy its bottom was ready to fall out. News item: Richard Speck dies in prison, of a heart attack, the day before his 50th birthday. Atienza was the states key witness when Martin prosecuted Speck in the 1967 trial. Episode #1.9: Directed by David Fincher. She married Alberto Atienza, and then, with her husband, a lawyer, moved back to the United States. In November 1962, Speck married Shirley Malone, and they had a daughter, Bobby Lynn, soon after. Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. (Chris J. Walker / Chicago Tribune). ''Here,'' he said. Despite the horror of what happened, Atienza carries warm memories of her friends, Martin said. Repacking it. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). Chicago was chilly, with a trace of snow, on May 9, 1966, when Tina's plane landed hardly the steamy weather she had known in Jones, a town 240 miles from Manila, where she grew up with five siblings. Shortly after the Filipina women arrived, the Chicago women threw them a welcome party, and over the next few weeks helped them learn their way around the city. Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. He killed more than eight people., Lori Davy Sivek remembers her sister Gloria Davy, one of eight student nurses and nurses murdered together 50years ago on Chicago'sSouth Side. Atienza became friends and learned to play penny-ante poker with the policemen and bodyguards who watched over her for an entire year while she was in protective custody. Indiana authorities wanted to interview Speck regarding the murder of three girls who had vanished on July 2, 1966, and whose bodies were never found. Richard speck video - YouTube Richard Speck had a troubled past and a rap sheet a mile long. I`m not a violent man.''. Would Kubasek go with her to the townhouse to get Pat's nursing cap and uniform? The Details of Mass Murderer Richard Speck | Oxygen - YouTube Kubasek is 71, Baskys 68. Speck, asked how many lovers he has had in prison, responded that he can't count that high. Secretary. I`d never shot heroin before. (Schmale family). Among the mourners standing in the drizzle was an older, bareheaded man from Mindoro. Her dad was on the line. They'd see each other Friday, go hang out on Rush Street on the Gold Coast. Another sister wired the news to their father in their hometown. Though she rarely talked to her two children about what happened, she made sure her sister Pat lived on through her daughter, to whom she gave the name Patricia Ann. Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. No one in her village had ever gone to America. In 1972, Speck's death sentence was commuted to 50 to 100 years in prison, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. Girls, we need to clean the house.". Who is Corazon Amurao? "Always very playful and very compassionate. On what occasion? They were excited. Opening the box at first meant to me that I was going to reopen her death. He opened it. Patricia Matusek was murdered along with five fellow nursing students and two visiting nurses in 1966 on Chicago'sSouth Side. Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 - December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who killed eight student nurses in their South Deering, Chicago, residence via stabbing, strangling, slashing their throats, or a combination of the three on the night of July 13-14, 1966. Suzanne Farris appears as a young girl with a prayer card from her funeral on July 18, 1966. Marriage was prohibited for student nurses. He'll never forget the cards and letters that flooded in from strangers all over the world. Photo: Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images, G. Gordon Liddys Wild Career After Watergate, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Richard Speck, Birth Year: 1941, Birth date: December 6, 1941, Birth State: Illinois, Birth City: Kirkwood, Birth Country: United States. Seeing them together, it's hard not to wonder what Pat would be like at their age. Come spend the night at the townhouse, Suzanne suggested to Mary Ann. A camera caught the moment: a pretty girl in a plaid dress with a Peter Pan collar, reaching, with white gloves, for the document her sister had worked so hard to earn. Everywhere she looked she saw starched white uniforms, starched white caps, the meticulously dressed 1966 graduating class of South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing. (Schmale family). She teaches her students about them and what they meant in both countries. One of eight young nurses killed in a Chicago townhouse on July 14, 1966, by a man who became notorious: Richard Speck. How to Talk to Serial Killers: An Interview with 'Mindhunter' John All Rights Reserved. She still gets a kick out of playing poker at casinos in Nevada with her husband. The first season of Mindhunter saw Ford interview a number of famous serial killers, including Edmund Kemper (Coed Killer), necrophile Jerry Brudos and mass murderer Richard Speck all of. If I had to do it all over again, it would be a simple house burglary. In the days before automated fingerprint identification, it took almost a week to identify the prints found in the townhouse as his. In one of the slides that her brother recovered from the basement, a young man crouches next to the Bel Air, washing the whitewalls, smiling for the camera. (Schmale family ). They shoved their beds edge to edge in a single room and lay there at night listening to the newly hired security guard's shoes click along the hallway tiles. Richard Speck And The Grisly Story Of The Chicago Massacre What he had, in this mysterious box he had inherited when his father died, were four carousels of slides, many of them corroded, warped, moldy, ravaged by water and time. From the transcript of Speck's trial: Q: How long did you scream, in a sitting position, with the window open? She closed the box, surely hoping that one day it would be opened. Many, like Schmale, have boxes of photos and mementos they've never opened. Guarded by detectives, Corazon Amurao arrives at the courthouse in Peoria to testify as the state's chief witness against Richard Speck on April 5, 1967. Next door was a funeral home, run by Arlene Baskys' dad. Richard Roundtree? Why were they here, and her sister wasn't? In the early 1900s, Grace Jordan was a high-ranking surgical nurse at the University of Michigan, and the stories of her accomplishments made Mary Ann think she could be a nurse too. Speck was the seventh of eight children. After it was aired on TV, Wilkening obtained a copy of the video. That is no comfort to the families of his victims. It was the kind of childhood that half a century later people look back on and call simpler, innocent, a time when city kids were raised to be independent and unafraid. Speck found work on a ship, and it began to seem like bodies turned up wherever Speck had been. In the family's two-bedroom Cape Cod home, Suzie and her older sister, Marilyn, shared a bedroom. 'Mindhunter': How the Real Serial Killers Compare to Show's - Insider The murders happened in a townhouse in the 2300 block of East 100th Street that served as housing for student nurses who worked at South Chicago Community Hospital. Lori Davy, center, accepts a nursing school diploma on behalf of her slain sister, Gloria Davy, at a ceremony at McCormick Place in 1966. (Schmale family ). Losing his parking spot as he carted all that food here and there. Media coverage splashed Speck's image all over the front pages and, in a desperate bid to escape, Speck tried to commit suicide on July 19, 1966, by slashing his wrists in the seedy hotel he was staying in. Corazon Amurao, center, the nurse who survived the massacre of eight of her fellow student nurses, walks between another nurse and William Ruddel, Bridewell jail superintendent, from Bridewell's Cermak Memorial Hospital after a second visit to the building where Richard Speck was being held on July 19, 1966. He has made sure that his niece, who is the keeper of the old family cookie jar, knows why she can't get rid of it. Speck was never officially charged with the murders of which he was suspected prior to the events that took place in the South Chicago townhouse and, officially, those cases remain unsolved. They`re violent players. I don`t know why it happened to me. Betty Jo had one more request. Like others Schmale has contacted, she was wary at first of resurrecting the past, but she has felt some relief in it. Growing up, Nina pronounced "Nigh-nah" was a good student, well-liked, quiet but with a sense of humor. So you could say that from the beginning, Richard, Speck's life was stained with violence even after the war was over. A Tribune freelancer in the Philippines had no success either, and reported that the Philippine Nurses Association in Manila had no contact information for their families. "What she did that night, very few human beings would have the courage to do. That was almost true; the man whose crimes introduced the term ''mass murderer'' to the American lexicon did not like to talk. It was Wednesday, July 13, shortly after 11 p.m. Richard Speck was already upstairs. Girl Scout. In recent months, John Schmale has tried, with no luck, to find friends and relatives of Tina and Merlita, hoping to connect with them for the 50th anniversary commemoration. One of them, Corazon Amurao, steered him to the front door. Nursing school exposed Pam and her classmates to life's wide range of joy and trouble.