''I like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson. "If I send you money, you will be able to fix the house," she said in one. In 1996, five years after Speck's death, a TV journalist made public a prison video, which showed Speck taking drugs and engaging in sex with another inmate during the 1980s, while he was an inmate at Statesville Correctional Institute; Speck appears to have breasts in the video, apparently as a result of hormone treatment received while in prison, and is wearing women's underwear. (Schmale family ). Speck is played by Jack Erdie on "Mindhunter." Netflix/AP Speck is one of the later interviewees in "Mindhunter." He was a high-school dropout and alcoholic by age 15. (Schmale family). Dorothy Schmale died five years after her daughter did, her death hastened by heartbreak. He watched it once and hurled it into a corner. In Lori's words, Gloria was driven, independent, intelligent, headstrong, poised, creative and snippy when she didn't like what you were doing. "Mindhunter" Episode #1.9 (TV Episode 2017) - IMDb Richard Speck has been described as a drifter, a loner, a high school dropout, a sociopath, a heavy drinker, a violent man who could be charming. She perpetuated the ruse until the day her daughter, then in high school, was watching a TV show about Speck, the women he murdered and the families left behind. On July 13, 1966, Speck unleashed his terror on Chicago by breaking into a building in the neighborhood of South Deering. It was all right. An average student at Aquinas High School, she was turned down by Loyola University, so after graduation she took a job as a file clerk for Peoples Gas. Thats why he and his wife established the Nina Jo Schmale Scholarship Fund at Wheaton College; Ninas name, and hers alone, is now attached to something good. According to a news account at the time, she thought it was a safer place to raise a family. His sister and seven of her fellow student nurses and nurseswere murdered 50years ago in one of Chicagos darkest crimes. "He is not going to harm you," the voice said. When Susan Jordan Morin, who now lives in Chicago's suburbs, thinks back to the day her family heard the news, her mind lands on a vivid memory of Billy. Another sister wired the news to their father in their hometown. "She is doing very, very well," said William Martin, 79, the former assistant state's attorney who was the lead prosecutor in the case. Suzanne Farris appears as a young girl with a prayer card from her funeral on July 18, 1966. I don`t know why it happened to me. Ate an early supper with Merlita and Tina. "I think there was somebody up there who was hiding me from him. Had Pat gotten in OK the night before? Later she learned that Speck, responding to the bell, had forced two of his hostages downstairs, a gun at their backs. By the time Pat was 5, she had another best friend, also named Arlene Arlene Kubasek and through the years the three girls laughed a lot together. Speck found work on a ship, and it began to seem like bodies turned up wherever Speck had been. Sickeningly mesmerizing because, as much as we hate to admit it, it is possible to talk to a mass murderer as a human being. Slain nurses remembered on 50th anniversary of Richard Speck murders THE VOICE OF RICHARD SPECK - Chicago Tribune Subsequent nationwide enquiries also raised the other incidents in which Speck was suspected, as well as his criminal record. In March of 1978, during an interview I had with him inside the walls of Stateville, Speck confessed for the first time to murdering the eight young women in 1966. By the time they were in their third year, they had helped deliver babies, treated sick children, watched people die. Atienza, 73, retired about five years ago after many years as a critical care nurse in Washington, D.C. She now spends most of her time with her husband, Alberto, daughter Abigail, son Christian and her six grandchildren. The True Story Behind Netflix's Mindhunter - Men's Health Nursing students were under strict rules during the 1960s, but still they found time for fun. Billy was the youngest, born with Down syndrome. Cora has gone on to have a life that appears normal. Parts of the confession were almost certainly bogus; Speck said that he had not killed all eight nurses-that an accomplice, whom Speck later shot to death, had killed one of the nurses, while Speck killed the other seven. ''Some of them women`s gotta be nuts. And Carol Burnett. "For Filipinos and Filipino Americans who came of age during the 1960s," she said in a recent email, "I think Gargullo and Pasion are remembered as nurses who encountered American violence and tragedy, and Amurao is remembered as the nurse who used her wits to survive.". Speck admitted he committed the killings _ breaking for the first time his claim of drug-induced amnesia. The judge sentenced Speck to death. 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. She worked her regular shift. Too tired. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. The Matuseks wanted Pat to be buried in the clothes she would have worn for her upcoming graduation, so on the day after the murders, Pat's sister, Betty Jo, asked Kubasek for a favor. The Farris family lived in a quiet, tree-lined Far South Side neighborhood called Fair Elms. Would Kubasek help? It was a world of hair curlers, hair spray cans, ashtrays, manual typewriters, textbooks, sheath dresses, corsages, cluttered rooms, a place where young women laughed, hugged, studied, ate, teased each other's hair. Another time, according to a different news account, Tina wrote her sister saying she wished she could live in Chicago forever. Theyre smiling and wearing regular clothes. The trial lasted just 12 days and, on April 15, 1967, the jury found Speck guilty of all eight murders, after less than an hour's deliberation. Cook County Assistant States Attorney William Martin, left, watches as witness Corazon Amurao uses a scale model of the townhouse crime scene to detail the murder of eight nurses by Richard Speck, center background, during Specks 1966 trial in Peoria, Ill. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. Fifty years later, Pat Matusek's two best childhood friends are the primary custodians of her past. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. A total of eight woman, between ages 19 and 24, were systematically bound, robbed, beaten, strangled and stabbed during Speck's frenzy. "When Merlita (Gargullo) cooked adobo filipino and pancit and they came home from the hospital and smelled the food and they say 'it's good' so we invited them to join us to eat, and they really like it. Pat and Arlene Kubasek could hardly stop laughing on the night, during their high school sophomore year, that they went to the drive-in with four other girls, then sat in the car eating popcorn and rolling their hair on giant curlers. But before she was gone, she placed four carousels of slides neatly in a box. Pat lived above Joe Matusek's Club, the tavern her father ran in the 10800 block of South Michigan Avenue. He thinks of his sister every day. It will be available May 10. She accepted an assignment at South Chicago Community Hospital and landed at O'Hare airport on May 1, 1966. Richard Speck - Born to Raise Hell | Crime Scene Database At her father's urging, Lori considered becoming a nurse, but she finally told him that she couldn't, she was just too emotional for the job. (Schmale family ). If that one girl wouldn`t have spit in my face, they`d all be alive today.''. "It was just awful," Siouchoff said. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune). It was the kind of neighborhood where kids walked everywhere and went home for lunch, though Pat took sandwiches to school because her mother worked during the day while her father, who ran the bar at night, slept. 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. What the camera couldn't catch were the girl's thoughts, the confusion she felt at the spectacle of all these other graduates. 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. Richard Speck | American murderer | Britannica Mary Ann had family responsibilities. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. Mary Ann Jordanin her nursing uniform in an undated photo. God was so nice," she said in an email to Martin. Tina was part of the wave of Filipina exchange nurses who came to the United States in that era to learn new things, make friends and, most of all, to work. The eight nurses killed by Richard Speck on July 14, 1966, in Chicago were, top from left, Gloria Davy, Suzanne Farris, Merlita Gargullo and Mary Ann Jordan. In those postwar years, most residents of Chicago's Far South Side were white and working-class, still close to their immigrant roots. (Schmale family). "She gets out of the car, slams the door and found out from the guy where we are and how to get home from there.". If you live your life in hatred and anger, you'll lose more than Gloria. But to hear Speck talk about himself in his own voice was repugnant and hypnotic. When 23-year-old Corazon Amurao opened the front door to Speck's knock, he forced his way in at gunpoint. As they snuggled, the phone rang in the nearby den. So eight people got killed. Tina was known as a good cook. Richard Speck - Interesting stories about famous people, biographies Wilkening has had a full life, but he doesn't pretend the pain is gone or that his life ever returned to a true version of normal. Then one day last fall, she found a voicemail from John Schmale. A few days later, 8,000 miles from their native land, Merlita Gargullo and Valentina Pasion were memorialized at a Mass led by Archbishop John Cody. ''What`s that dude who played in `Shaft`? News item: Richard Speck sentenced. Martin and Dennis Breo are co-authors of a 1993 book called "The Crime of the Century." Girl Scout. "I'm home.". Suzie was the kind of girl people might call pretty, perky, popular. 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. In May 1966, Valentina Pasion boarded an airplane in the Philippines, headed for Chicago. I`m not a violent man.''. And did he have any particular feelings about the American people? Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. William Martin was the lead prosecutor for Speck's trial. "It was him," she said. 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. Richard Benjamin Speck was born on December 6, 1941, in Kirkwood, Illinois, into a large, religious family, where he was the seventh of eight children. Atienza did not respond to Tribune requests for an interview. "The mailman would bring them in boxes," he said. John and Nina walked together to the one-room Queen Bee schoolhouse, carrying tin lunch pails. (Farris family). Richard speck video - YouTube 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. Together they helped prepare Pat's body for burial, at the funeral home run by Arlene Baskys' dad, next door to Joe Matusek's bar. So you could say that from the beginning, Richard, Speck's life was stained with violence even after the war was over. "Gloria's been murdered," Lori remembers her saying. He spent the rest of his life in prison until he died of a heart attack in 1991 at age 49. Kubasek said no. Marriage was prohibited for student nurses. Nina. I`m freakish.''. She waved and waited for Pat to go inside. ", "But work is easier than in the Philippine Islands," she continued, "only the patients are as big as water buffalo.". For years, Pam's name, along with those of her housemates, was in the paper two or three times a week, or so it seemed to Jack, and always attached to the name of the man who killed her. "Let people know who they were," she said. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). 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. Speck, a companion and a third man who did the taping did not appear to be fearful of being caught. Grace Jordan wasn't the only family member to stir Mary Ann's interest in nursing. Now, with the 50th anniversary of the massacre by Speck approaching, we are recuing our report on the compelling interview with the sole survivor of this grisly attack. 1. Best Known For: In 1966, Richard Speck committed one of the most horrifying mass murders in American history when he brutalized and killed eight student nurses living on Chicago's South Side. She was petrified of Speck but had the courage to step down from the witness stand, walk up to him and point her finger 2 inches from his forehead. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). Jewelry, makeup and nail polish were forbidden on duty. He wonders what it would have been like to grow old with a sister, his sister. And I don`t know what I`d do without it. Her brother, John Farris, still carries the photo and prayer card in his wallet 50 years later. Jack Wilkening, brother of Pamela Wilkening, remembers his sister and the days surrounding her 1966 murder along with seven other student nurses and nurseson Chicago'sSouth Side. On that Monday, she was taken to a townhouse on East 100th Street rented by her new employer, South Chicago Community Hospital. Eight thousand miles from home, they could earn decent money and many, like Tina, sent much of it back to their families. He was very close with his biological father, who had toiled as a logger, farmer, and factory worker. It sure gets way out. 5 Things To Know About Richard Speck | Crime History | Investigation It was Gloria, 22, calling from the townhouse to say that her fiance had just dropped her off. "It ended an innocence we all had,'' Martin said. There, next to his kitchen near the village of Mahomet, 140 miles south of Chicago, the lost women flickered back to life. What's more, Douglas was aware that any. Always a quiet woman, she grew quieter. Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 - December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on July 13, 1966. The day of her sister's death had been recorded as her graduation day. 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. Atienza was the states key witness when Martin prosecuted Speck in the 1967 trial. 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. He touched on feelings of pressure from police and investigators to help solve cases, as well as the empathy and duty he felt towards families of victims. The murders continue to have a profound impact on American crime and American society, Martin said. 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. He keeps the photo in a plastic pouch, tucked next to the prayer card from her funeral. John and Nina grew up on an acre of land near suburban Wheaton, a remnant of the Schmale family farm. He was matter-of-fact about. Richard Speck - Life in Prison | Life Prison - LiquiSearch During their first two years, all the nursing students were required to live in dorms attached to the hospital, but in their third and final year, in the hot Chicago summer of 1965, Nina and five others moved into one of the three townhouses the hospital rented on East 100th Street. They were excited. Billy loved her tremendously.". (Schmale family ). How to Talk to Serial Killers: An Interview with 'Mindhunter' John Mindhunter: 10 Most Chilling Quotes From The Netflix Show - Screen Rant Over his 25-year career with the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, Douglas interviewed hundreds of America's most notoriously brutal killers, from Charles Manson and Ted Bundy to " Son of Sam " David Berkowitz and the " BTK Killer ," Dennis Rader. Law- enforcement officials familiar with the 1966 mass murder said there was no chance an accomplice existed. For years, whenever July 14 comes around, John Farris has found himself depressed for a week before and after. (Chicago Tribune historical photo / Chicago Tribune). "This is the man," she said as pandemonium erupted. After graduating from Glenbard Township High School in Glen Ellyn in 1959, she worked as a secretary but didnt like it. The interview only goes south when Holden oversteps the bounds his newfound. 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 laughed their way through Catholic elementary school and on through Fenger High, where Pat was on the Titanette pompom squad. "I just would have liked her to see the kids," he said, and he cried. She was not the same person. She played baseball in the alley, badminton across the back fences. Patricia Matusek was murdered along with five fellow nursing students and two visiting nurses in 1966 on Chicago'sSouth Side. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. ''Look at this.'' He pulled it out recently as he talked for the first time publicly about the sister he lost when he was 15. He had pried open the screen of a first-floor window, reached inside for the back-door handle and slipped into the house. In the spring of 1966, she stepped into an airplane bound for Chicago. Phil was also the brother of one of Suzie's classmates, Mary Ann Jordan, who had lived in the townhouse for a while, then moved back home. ''You`re talking about two different categories of people,'' Speck said. 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. She liked clothes, and since the family didn't have a lot of money, she made her own. They'd see each other Friday, go hang out on Rush Street on the Gold Coast. These attacks, however, paled into insignificance on July 13, 1966, when Speck arrived on the doorstep of a townhouse in South Chicago, which served as a communal home for a group of eight young student nurses from nearby South Chicago Community Hospital. Speck, asked how many lovers he has had in prison, responded that he can't count that high. I stabbed them and I choked them. Clint Eastwood, he always plays good. Susan is 3. At South Chicago Community Hospital she earned $350 a month, much of which she sent back to the Philippines, and, like the other exchange nurses, she wrote a lot of letters. In this interview, Speck confessed to the murders for the first time publicly and said he thought he would get out of prison "between now and the year 2000", at which time he hoped to run his own grocery store business. No more parole hearings, no more fear that he might be released. ''Because any kid can end up to be like me. After that day, Arline Davy was different. The American student nurses and the exchange nurses never grew close, but from the outset they were friendly. She helped raise eight younger siblings, swam in the river and was good enough in school to be admitted to the nursing program at Arellano University in the big city of Manila. It may be difficult for those who weren't alive half a century ago to understand how profoundly Speck's crime shook the city, how far the ripples ran through time and space. From early childhood, she connected with him in a unique way, and he was why she wanted to specialize in pediatric nursing. Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. In November 1962, Speck married Shirley Malone, and they had a daughter, Bobby Lynn, soon after. "I was just as amazed as everyone that this despicable person landed on my surgical service that evening," Dr. LeRoy Smith said in an email this month. She hit her head against a brick wall and suffered a slight concussion. `Parents ought to be careful about their kids,'' Richard Speck said. I wanted to get rid of it. It's where Suzie taught him, as a 10-year-old, to play solitaire. In 1965 she became president of the Student Nurses Association of Illinois. She walked off the stage, shoulders back, carrying a diploma dated July 14, 1966. Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. A doting mother and grandmother, she enjoys baby-sitting her grandchildren about twice a week and the constant companionship of her children. By the time he was 24, in 1966, Speck was in Chicago looking for work. There's no question that Richard Speck lived a very troubled life from an early age. ''I stay up at night as long as it takes me to fall asleep or pass out from the hooch or from whatever we have at the time.''. Editor's note: This story was first published on April 28, 2016, and is being republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the murders. Richard Speck was born on December 6, 1941, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Merlita grew up on the island of Mindoro where bananas, rice and coconut grow. "Always very playful and very compassionate. Despite fears that Cora, in one doctor's words, would "lapse into a psychosis" and never be able to discuss the murders, she testified boldly at Speck's trial. But any kid can end up just like me.''. On a June day in 1966, when she was 20, she went to one of his races, and afterward waved goodbye. That's where she was on the night of July 13, 1966, when someone knocked at the bedroom door. Teacher. According to news accounts published at the time, Merlita, 23, was quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. The United States needed nurses, and Filipinas helped relieve the shortage. Being in the world of the older girls felt cool. Meanwhile, the women he murdered were relegated to the role of victims, their names largely forgotten except by the people who loved them and cannot forget. The old hospital is now called Advocate Trinity.