Oh god, should we switch it off? Hi, and welcome to give
us morgue. I'm Nive and I'm Megan And that was so weird. It
was kind of weird. Let's popping, you guys, what's popping? Poppingpen?
Oh wow, bounced off that microphone. The refurberation in your earballs was
toasty. So we've already had a few technical difficulties. Yeah, this is
a whole new style of recording that we're doing right now. It's really uncomfortable
kind of So any hoodles, how have you guys been you enjoying our episodes?
Up? I thought Megan had a glass of wine? There I do.
It's my second So wag should that be concerning as to what this case
entails or slightly? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, get yeah, yeah yeah.
I just have my Starbooks Halloween cup because I am that bitch. It's
beautiful. I had a rough week and it was my It was like a
reward. Let's look the reward. I have been having a little glass of
wine almost every night this week. So fair because we found out that we
had a surplus of wine from that party get together thing that we had,
oh know what tragedy. I know tragedy. When you find the wine inside
your fridge, it's tragedy. So the only option is to have a glass
every night because as I'm living is stressful life. You're welcome, guys.
Do copyrights. Copyrights, guys, copyrights. That was that was my best
work copy written. So guys, guess what I learned this week And yeah,
I'm going to brag about it because I'm so proud of myself. Megan'son
slaying slaying at her new job. So I got a new job, and
it's me scary. I'm still in the same place, it's different. But
yeah, yeah, So this week I learned what market cap is and oh,
she's got a definition for us. Oh I'm not going to tell you
the definition because I can't explain it like properly yet, Like I don't mean
that in a bad way, but that would just go right over math mathematical
formula. Fuck. No. So for this week's episode, you guys,
it's really there's a lot. There's there's rape, there's murder. Okay,
So yeah, if you're not feeling like you want to listen to that right
now, it's fine, go check out some of her other stuff. We
have some like I was gonna say lighthearted, but they do all involve murder
of some kind, so that's not the correct term. There is. We
have other episodes that you might be able to listen to Bridget Cleary. Yeah,
that's a fun one, a little less heavy. Yeah, if you
want to hear about banshees and change links and everything like that, go back
to our I think it was our third ever episode. Oh god, you
don't want to go back that far. That was not our best era.
We're in it now. It's okay, okay, I loved that era.
Okay, that era was me and Neve sitting in her garage, sharing a
microphone, just doing our damn best, just being like, wouldn't it be
so funny if we started a podcast over Snapchat one night and then it just
it just grew from there, and here we are. Here we are three
years later. I know. Yeah. Now when people tell me they listen
to us, I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. No.
Still to this day, when people say, oh, yeah, I
listen to the podcast, I'm like, oh, why would you do?
Don't tell me? God, yeah, I don't want to know. I
like, let me live my life. I like to pretend we are just
talking into the void. We're talking to each other and nothing ever. Literally
though, I got through the process of editing it and then uploading it and
I'm like, yeah, nobody listens. It's fine, it's fine, it's
fine. And then we get emails telling us how many people have listened.
Oh not the weekly statistics. Oh god. And when we're on our sabbaticals
and we're getting the weekly statistics and they're just dwindling and twinkling because we have
because we're like, we're taking a week's holidays. Five months later, they're
like, oh, are you guys, maybe you want to post an episode
please. People are kind of forgetting about you. Yeah, and we're just
like, I don't see you right now, Marcus read anyway, We're about
to jump right on in. Let's go, let's get this, let's go.
So this week's case is about Richard Speck. I feel like he's not
as spoken about in the true crime world. Oh why do I know that
name? Because he is, like, he is well known, but he's
not I feel very spoken about. And if you watched American Horror Story,
they do have a scene in it that is very like what he had done,
and you'll know what's scene I'm talking about when we get to the end.
Okay, all right, so let's get into it. Oh, it's
like I don't know how to read anymore. Richard Speck was born December sixth,
nineteen forty one, the seventh of eight children born to Mary and Benjamin
Franklin in Kirkwood, Illinois. Eight goddamn children, Such strong Catholic family.
Yeah are My mom was like tels enough to be fair. I was a
demon child, so I was, yes, I was. I yeah,
I'm fully sure on the sill reason she was like, yain, no,
we're not having any much. But I feel like it's always the case.
It's like the first child is always an angel, and then the second child
is just megan. I put coal in the computer and in the VCR ME.
Yeah, I put playing cards in the floppy disk part of the computer.
You know what you are doing, an investigation. I was curious.
There's nothing wrong with curiosity apart from when it breaks the family computer. I
used to wash my dolls hairs in the toilet. Oh, I'd get a
hold of the shampoo as well, Like they'd be shampoo in the toilet.
Yeah, like my mother was like, and no more children, take my
take my fallopian tubes away. His older six siblings were all consider older than
him and his younger sister Carolyn. His mother, Mary was extremely religious and
was a pioneer slash teetoler, which meant that she didn't drink. Benjamin the
dad was a little more easy going, and he would have a drink here
in there. Yeah. He had been working as a stonemason in Monmouth when
he died of a heart issue at only fifty eight years old. Geez Louise
Richard was only six years old when this happened, and he was very close
with his father. Actually both parents doated on all of the children, so
this really affected him. About three years later, Mary met a man named
Carl August Rudolph Lindbergh. Oh my god, what a fucking name. I
struggled. That was a struggle. I'm sorry, I gen't when he thought
like it was gonna end and then didn't know. I was like, oh
my goodness, that's the name. And he was a traveling salesman from Texas
and they met while she was on a train to Chicago. What a random
place to meet a ma'am. I know isn't it like people these days have
to join Tinder and go through so many people. But now she found Carol
and she fell in love. She's just training her way to Chicago, and
this Texan man is like, howdy, ma'am. Oh, you know what,
I get it married. It would have followed for it too. Yeah.
So they did get married very quickly, and I'm sure that did have
something to do with the fact that Mary had eight children that she was trying
to raise by herself. Yeah. I could see that there were a few
of them that had married and moved out at this point, but like,
there's a lot going on there and you can't do that by yourself. No.
Fuck. Now, this didn't stabilize Richard and Carolyn at all. They
stayed with their sister until they finished third grade, and then they joined their
mother and stepfather in Texas, where the home life was shit. Oh goodness,
Yeah, it was really bad. They moved around Texas a lot,
about ten times. Jesus m. Carol was a psychologically and physically abusive criminal
with a rap sheet the length of Texas, and the two kids were subject
to endless abuse. This is not funny, but it's funny Carol had a
half leg after being in an accident, and he needed crutches to get around,
and sometimes when Carol would beat him, Richard would fight back and tell
us step father that he would beat him up with his crouches. I'm sorry,
that is iconic, all right, Richard, Okay. I just needed
to put in there because I needed to note that Richard was threatening to beat
up a grown man with his own crutches at a young age. At a
young He's like, beat me, I'll beat you back with your goddamn crutches.
Richard's eighth grade teacher would describe him as quote, he was sort of
sulky, but he didn't talk back. Evidently he had been taught at home
not to talk back. He was a loner. He didn't have any friends
in class. He seemed sort of it didn't seem as though he knew what
was going on. I don't think that I ever saw him smile. I
wasn't able to teach him anything. I don't think anybody could get through to
him. He seemed to be in a fog and that he is sad when
you think about it. Child and an abusive home. They can't take full
advantage of school because there's so much going on at home that they're too distracted
about what's going on in their home personal lives that they're not soaking anything up
in school and they can't make friends either, because I'm sure he was absolutely
terrified that if any of his friends ever found out what was going on at
home, and then as well as that, it's like I can't have my
friends around to the house, or you know, like, am I going
to get in trouble if I asked to go stay with a friend or exactly.
Richard didn't speak in class either, and refused to wear his glasses that
he needed to wear, and I think maybe for fear of being bullied when
he was already a bit of a loner. That's sad. He was also
suffering quite badly with acne too, so thin were not going well. For
god. Yeah, no, he's not having a good, good thing.
And it didn't help either. When he was only thirteen, he was actually
arrested for the first time for trespassing m He had started drinking at twelve,
and by the age of fifteen he was as much of a hard drinker as
his stepfather was. Oh my god, that's no life. But at the
same time, it's like he's dealing with a lot of like grown up issues
at quite a young age. So to him, he's like, no,
I need the drink. Yeah, it's escapism. Really, he left school
at sixteen, and now he would spend his time quote bragging, drinking,
lying, and whoring. Oh my goodness, not the whoring, not the
horn. The book that I read for this states that he was treated for
goneria five times and syphilis twice. Jesus Christ, Richard, Yeah, we're
not here to shame anyone, Okay. An STD's very easy to get.
You can sleep with one person get an STD. But five times you're syphilis
twice. That's a lot of gnaria, Richard, it's a lot of I
feel like it might be too much gonaria. Like I feel like one time
one STD is you know, too many STDs. Book easily is like easily
happened. Two STDs is like maybe five STDs is like five times. The
fifth time of gnarihea, It's like, no, Richard, you're not even
trying anymore. Are you going back to the same person? What's happening?
How many? Why are you getting gonaria so much? He walks into the
doctor's office and they're like, ah, we don't even need to check.
He walks in and they're Likenaria and he's like, again, we're not here
to shame anybody. SuDS happen just a part of st Yeah, it's that's
just it's a lot, That's all I'm saying. Not like I'm not I'm
just like five times, it's just what like what any hoodles. When he
was around nineteen, he got a job working at a bottling factory for seven
up and it was around this time that he met fifteen year old Shirley and
Malone Richard. That's not okay. They met at a Texas state fair,
and after only a few weeks of dating, she got pregnant. Oh no,
Richard, that's double not okay. They had a bit of a shotgun
wedding, but Richard continues continued his shenanigans, and while his daughter was being
born, he could not attend because he was in jail serving twenty two days
for a bear fight. Oh Richard, now I know you've had a shitty
upbringing, but now's your time. Now's your time to get it together and
be like I'm not gonna let my child go through anything traumatic. And you're
in jail for a bear fight at nineteen by the way, as well twenty.
You're not even legally supposed to be drinking. Why are you getting in
bare frights? And I don't this, I don't think this was his first
time in jail at all. Like he was a he was a return caller,
just like the gonorrhea. Anyway, he's tryna break world records. Sorry,
and we'll compose ourselves, I promise, Hey, whine the wine making
megan joke if you just almost killed me, I apologize. How are you
guys? And we're gonna have to cut like half of that egg because it's
just was laughing like cooking Motley. It was this time when he was in
jail that he got a few shitty tattoos. On his left calf was a
tattoo of a bird with wings that also had an erect penis oh for its
head. And then he also got born to raise Hell on his forearm and
surely on his shoulder. No, Robert, that's embarrassing. Richard. Oh
Richard. Wait, he's called him Richard and he has born to did you
this cup dick head on the bird? Did he call himself is he saying
that tattoo is He's probably saying he's free like a bird, but he's like
nickaated dick Dick. Yeah, that's also but also born to raise. Your
name is Richard, and you're gonna get born to raise hell And that's like
what's like the female version of Richard? Like Richard's a posh name? I
don't know, like Mary. Imagine Mary getting like born to whole one or
like what your name's Mary? Margaret? Margaret? Literally like, hello,
my name is Margaret. I'm born to who? You know what? I
always think every time we use the word whore on this podcast, I'm like,
are we going to get canceled like param where I got canceled? No,
because we don't have enough of a following to be canceled. Praise Jesus
for that. What's going to happen if we ever do get a following,
I'm not gonna have to rein it in. I don't know if I can.
All right. He had just gotten Shirley tattooed on his shoulder, too,
but at this point him and Shirley were already separated parably due to say
that he treated her during her pregnancy. She broke up with you, and
you were like, I'm gonna get her tattooed on me. But this is
the thing. He's an extremely jealous and paranoid man, and he would often
accuse her of cheating, but then to return the favor, he would like
drive and park in front of her house in his convertible and like kiss and
touch other women in the car in front of her house, try and make
him jealous. First of all, this per girl is like fifteen, sixteen
years of age, Like, what are you doing, Richard, go back
to prison, just honestly, just you know. They they have the room
waiting, They have one set aside has your name on the door. And
this happened at least six times. At least he would also threaten Shirley with
a knife and look for sex six to seven times a day, and he
would rape her if she refused. Six to seven times a day. Richard,
that's not humanly possible, Like I'm sure it is, but I'm sure
it is. But like at the sack fucking now, Richard, Jesus Richard,
he's happened a little a little viagra. He had to have been popping
fucking something six six times a day at that point, he's just coming powder.
Honestly, he's a horrible, disgusting man. So Richard had even attacked
and threatened Shirley's mother a couple of times. No, that's definitely not okay.
And it was really weird because he once brought a picture of her in
a swimsuit to the local bar and then gave her number out to the guys
that are like, oh, yeah, she's pretty hot, and then she
got multiple calls from men looking for dates. That would be terrifying, wouldn't
it, Like that's like somebody sending your nudes around? Basically, yeah,
basically she reported him to the police after he threatened her with a knife,
but no arrest was ever made. Richard was when known to the police,
though, obviously, and right here, I'm just gonna take a very quick
ad break. So welcome back from the break, you guys. We refilled
our refreshments. We are back back with a bang, bitch. Before Richard
was twenty four, he had been arrested forty one times. What the fuck,
Richard, what he'd stop it? That's no, that has to be
a world record. At that point. I'm sure the police were just styling
you know the stairs sixty nine the recall button. Yeah, he's back in
again. Mary. In nineteen sixty three, he had been sentenced to three
years for robbing a store and stealing his co workers paycheck, but he was
paroled for good behavior after only sixteen months. No, because he's clearly not
on good behavior, because he's forty one times has been arrested. It seems
to be that he can be on good behavior when he really wants to be.
It's really weird. But it didn't really translate into the real world because
after less than a week he was arrested for attacking a woman in a car
park with a seventeen inch carving knife. Oh, sweet mother of Divine Jesus.
When she screamed, a guy came out and was like what is going
one? And she ran and like that gave her enough time to make an
escape and Richard was picked up after a few minutes and they found then I've
dumped in a bush like he ran and the police were very close already,
but they caught him like right away. He was sent back to prison then
for a violating violating, violating his parole, violating his parole, getting him
six months and beat the attack, giving him sixteen months, so two separate
charges. Yeah, but I guarantee he'd like only served like six months of
that. The two sentences were to run concurrently to each other, but due
to basically a filing error, he was released after only six months. Ah,
there we go. And the parole officer had this to say, quote,
when Spec is drinking, he will fight or threaten anybody as long as
he has a knife or a gun. When he's sober or unarmed, he
couldn't face down a mouse. That's all well and good. Tell that to
the girlfriend. Yeah, poor, surely. But basically the parole officer was
saying, SPEC's a big old pussy. He's a big old fucking loser.
It's only when he's drinking that he's fucking Johnny big balls. Yeah, we
all know those people. That's like from your man Paul last week, the
Merda murders with the big hands, the jazz hands. I'm getting angry.
In case you guys don't know, Paul Murdo used to spread his fingers out
wide when he would get drunken angry, very terrifying. It's like when you
need a bear and you raise your arms up to make yourself seem bigger.
After his release, he went to work as a trucker for a meat company.
He got into six accidents in the truck, but then he was only
fired for just not showing off one day. Six accidents. If I make
one singular, small, tiny, eighty bay little mistake at work, I'm
like, oh, crucify me, just let fire me. I'm no good,
I'm no good. But six truck accidents, Richard, Richard, why
are you going to try break every god damn fucking Guinness World record there is?
You know what if he was just born to raise hell? Richard,
stay in your lane. Just stay in fucking prison. Oh my god,
that's what I mean. That's his lane. Why are you? Why are
you getting arrested forty one times? Getting gunnery at five? Six truck accidents?
Syphilist twice, that's Richard? Are you okay? One divorce? Oh
before he's hit fucking thirty. Nancy Simms was a twenty nine year old single
mother of Tree. She was an ex wrestler turned bear woman at Jinny's,
a bear that Richard frequented, but she was actually struggling to find a babysitter
and Richard's mother Mary basically asked her, like asked Nancy, if Richard could
move in and in return he would provide babysitting services. Oh no, Nancy,
you do not want Richard babysitting your kids. First of all, he
has a kid of his own that he doesn't even see. I mean just
I would not want him around my children. He's a criminal, a convicted
criminal. I wouldn't even want him around me, never mind my job.
Like that's a whole other like not. I don't even don't even look at
me, Richard. Now. She eventually kicked him out for having a fight
with her ex husband, and she did notice that Richards drank a lot and
done awful things to people when he was drunk, But he was always sorry
when he sobered up. Way sorry, well, good job. Was he
sorry to Shirley when he raped her, when he would feel up other women
in front of her? Was he sorry? I don't think he was.
Was he sorry when he tried to attack her with a knife? Her mother,
that's her mother, Jesus Christ. Richard. I felt sorry for you
in the beginning. Then I called you Robert, and no, I don't
like you at all, morbid. I always say that like it's okay,
not that it's okay, but like you can feel sorry for the kid.
You don't have to feel sorry for the adults because when you're an adult,
you can decide you have free will. But as a kid, when you're
in this situation, you don't have free like enough free will to be able
to go and do whatever you want. I feel like though, like Richard,
just like you know, sad story, sad story, out of control.
He was like, I'm going to be the baddest bitch there is,
and he took that literal. I'm going to get a tattoo of a bird
with a dickhead because I I'm a dickhead. Not long after this, Richard
was in Jinny's when he attacked another patron, stabbing him with the switchblade that
Richard always carried on him. Because casual fine, he was only given a
ten dollars fine after Mammy got him a lawyer. He stabbed somebody Mary and
wait till you hear this. He refused to pay the ten dollars fine,
so he Richard three whole, three whole days in jail instead. Richard,
it's ten fucking dollars, you scabby ass bitch, you basically could have paid
ten dollars to stab somebody. Yeah, essentially. In March of nineteen sixty
six, he bought a nineteen fifty four Plymouth and used it to sell cigarettes
out of after burglarizing a grocery store to steal the cigarettes. I mean at
least didn't stab anybody. Yeah, I mean it's a non violent crime.
Our expectations are on the floor there. It was a non violent crime.
No, they're not even on the floor. They're in the circle right there.
He was ann violent crime, you know. Good on him. Yeah,
Oh, he's improving. He left the carrot there like where he was
selling the cigarettes from, and the police were easily able to track him down
after they checked the carrot and saw that he had bought it. They tracked
the carrot to his sister's house, but he wasn't there with this and arrest
warrant was out for him, and he realized that it was about time to
skip town to avoid prison. As much as he enjoyed bragging about his time
on the inside, you know, he's one of those guys like you always
spent six months. I spent the guy got three days. Yeah, my
arm says, so he left Texas for Chicago when his sister brought him down
to the train station. He moved from place to place, staying with friends
and family, taking up odd jobs that he could never keep. He made
his way back to his original home of Monmouth, where he continued his criminal
activity. On April second, Richard broke into the home of sixty five year
old Virgil Harris. She had returned home from a babysitting job to see that
her home had been ransacked and a six foot one figure standing in the dark
in her room. He forced her to strip before raping her, cutting up
her dressing gown to bind her with it before leaving. She managed to get
to a neighbor's house, and she did thankfully survive, and interestingly, she
was checked over by the same doctor in Monmouth that had aided Richard's mother in
his birth. Jesus Christ, it's a small ten, I believe. On
April ninth, nineteen sixty six, a thirty two year old bear maid named
Mary Kay Pierce went missing after finishing her late shift at the bear She was
found dead in an abandoned little like building slash structure kind of thing. I
think it was used to hold like pigs in. She had been hit in
the stomach, which ruptured her liver. Speck was questioned regarding her murder.
Richard faked being sick the first time, so the police told him that they
would interview him again another time. When that day came and the police were
looking for him in the hotel that he'd been staying in, they were told
that he had left earlier in the day. That's not suspicious exactly. It's
not confirmed that he killed Mary Kay. It is while widely believed, Oh
God, yeah, like, why would you not go for the police interview
if you were innocent. He moved in with his sister Martha in Chicago at
this point and her husband and two teenage daughters. He very quickly overstayed his
welcome. Richard wasn't working, and he was sleeping on their couch. And
from what I know, I believe they were in like an apartment that was
already pretty cramped with the two daughters and the husband and the wife. To
have somebody else staying there and sleeping on the couch, it's not a comfortable
situation. It was noted, though, that he was very clean. He
would have multiple showers a day, He would change his shirt multiple times a
day. When you look at Richard as an adult to his skin is completely
pock marked. And like I said, he did have acne when he was
younger, and knowing somebody that had really bad acne, like cystic acne when
they were younger, they told me that being in the shower it makes you
feel clean, like to have multiple showers a day because you feel clean,
and also because nobody can actually see you when you're in the shower. There's
nobody staring, there's nobody looking at you, so it is a kind of
safe space. And I don't know if maybe that's why he was taking multiple
showers a day, or if it's just because he was bored. I don't
know who. It got to the point where on the twelfth of July,
Martha and her husband drove Richards to the National Maritime Union Hall to seek employment
on one of the boats, as he did actually have some experience as a
seaman see me. However, the job he was called in for was actually
given to another man with more kind of seniority on it, and you know,
he didn't have great records so exactly, so like we really don't know
if we want to but you're in a confine space with other people, Richards,
Are you gonna stab anybody? Hey, tell me the truth. Don't
be shy. We're not gonna get angry. Maybe, Okay, you know
what, Richard, I'm just disappointed. I'm not angry. I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed his brother in law gave him some money and sent him on his
way. And I do just want to say here, like, let it
be known that the nursing dorms were very close to the ENEMU. I went
on Google Maps, so where the National Maritime Union Hall was is no longer
there, but from what I could kind of gather, it literally was just
around the corner, Like I mean, it was on a block. You
turn the corner and then nurse's storms were right there. Okay, if you
were probably in the backyard and of the nurse's dorms, you could probably look
over into the back the Union Hall from what I understand, I don't know
Chicago, but from Google Maps is what I could gather. At night,
Richard approached fifty three year old mother of ten Lama Hooper. That night.
She was carrying a gun that she had recently. She had recently purchased it.
That night, she was carrying a gun that she had recently purchased with
her spec came up behind her after following her for a while, and stuck
a knife to her back. He forced her back to his room that he
was staying in and he raped her. He did let her go, and
he ordered her to meet him later on at a bar so he could give
her some money. It was a very strange, very very strange interaction,
and obviously he did raper yeah, but he kind of led on like it
wasn't a rape to himself and to her, like I'm going to give you
money. It was a real case of no, like you're a sex worker,
Like I'm going to pay you for this, Like he decided that she
was a sex work. Yeah. When she left, she checked her bag
and she realized that her twenty two caliber pistol was gone. Oh not only
did you rape the woman, but you robbed her classy, And he'd done
it in a very sly way as well. From the book that I read.
He picked up her bag to give it to her to be like,
I'll meet you at the bar later, but obviously had the route through and
got the gun so earlier. In the day while he was at the Union
Hall, he had seen a girl in a yellow dress walking into a building
close by. He was mesmerized by her and he couldn't stop watching her.
Like he saw the yellow dress and he was like, Okay, I'm going
to remember that girl. H Now very drunk and agitated, he found his
way to that building that he saw that woman walk into. He broke into
twenty three nineteen East one hundredth Street through a back window and found his way
to one of the bedrooms upstairs. Corazon Amarro twenty three opened the door to
a gun in her face. Merlita Gargulo, who was sleeping in the same
room also twenty three, had gotten out of bed to see who was at
the door. Valentina Passion, also twenty three, was in the room too.
The three girls were from the Philippines, and we're in the US on
a student visa to learn more about nursing. The thing about these three girls
is that they were all really homesick, but they became really good friends because
they were able to share that homesickness together. Oh, they obviously shared the
same interests in food and things that were you know, back from the Philippines.
Yeah, you know, like I think that when you leave a country,
and speaking from experience, when you meet somebody that is from your country,
you're like, Oh, thank God, you're gonna understand my humor.
You're gonna understand what I'm talking about. You can understand my talk really fast.
Yeah, Like we're going to bond over like things that we're homesick over,
things that we miss, things that we don't miss. You're gonna get
like my kind of humor. And because every country is so different that like
m Richard moved all three of the girls into another bedroom where three more girls
were sweeping soundly. Biggest disappointment. There are many women unfortunately involved in this
night. Patricia Mattusek, Pamela Wilkining, both twenty and Nina Joe Schmail,
twenty four. We're all awakened by the disturbance. Richard forced them all to
sit in a semicircle on the ground while he sat in front of them.
The three Filipino girls hid in the closet, but came out when the other
girls knocked and said that this man was not dangerous because Richard had told the
girls that he only wanted money to get to New Orleans. So he sat
there and he's like, Oh, I'm not gonna hurt you. I just
need your money. I just want to rob you. It was very much
like what BTK used to do. Yeah, Like it's a real case of
like no, like if you just cooperate and give me your money, like
I will leave you, and like you can just forget this ever happened.
You can move on. I can move on. I can go down to
New Orleans, like we'll be fine. While they sat around in this semi
circle, Gloria Davies came home from a night out with her boyfriend. As
she walked in, she screamed when she saw what was happening. At this
point, Richard freaked out and he ripped up some bedsheets and tied the girls
up using strips of them, which we can remember he'd done that to the
lady where he had broken in and ran slept at home, he ripped up
her addressing gown. Yeah. He first took Pamela Wilkining out of the room
and into another bedroom where he was intent on raping her. Just as he
went to do this, nurses Suzanne Faris and Mary Anne Jordan walked in.
Mary Anne was there to stay the night with Suzanne to talk wedding plans,
as Suzanne was getting married to mary Anne's brother Phil, so she didn't even
live there. That's yeah. They had spent the evening like chatting with friends,
basically the girls that lived in the dorm next door to the dorm,
and Richard was in. They spent the evening there. They like, they
had chatted, they'd gone I think it was burging that day. They were
having a great day friend and then they come home to this horrible They screamed
as they saw Richard hunched over Pamela. He jumped at the two girls and
moved them into another bedroom. He stabbed Susanne eighteen times in the back and
chest, and then used in nurse's sock to strangle her, before moving on
to mary Anne, where he hit her in the eye with the knife and
then stabbed her three times in the chest. Then he went back to Pamela,
where he stabbed her in the heart. He went into the bathroom to
clean himself off so that when he went back into the original bedroom none of
the girls would see the blood on him. Next, he took Ninishmail.
She suffered stab wounds and a broken neck. Oh my god. At this
point, the remaining girls had heard a bit of a like a bit of
a commotion. Yeah, exactly. There wasn't like a lot of noise because
he was strangling them. He was making sure that the other women couldn't hear
what was going on because he wanted them to continue to believe that they were
safe. Yeah. At this point, the remaining girls scrambled to find a
hiding spot in the room. Corazon, who from now on I'm going to
call Cora, managed to squeeze herself under a bunk bed. He came for
Valentina. Next, after Valentina was Marita. He dragged Mariita out of the
room, and Cora heard her yell. After about half an hour, Speck
came back for Patricia Matusik. He knelt beside here, asking are you the
girl in the yellow dress? Like I said earlier, he had noticed a
girl in the yellow dress and became fixated on her. She was brought to
the bathroom, where Cora heard him tell her to lie down. Patricia was
kicked in the stomach. Spec came back and woke up Gloria, who was
sleeping on one of the beds. Now, Gloria had come home from a
date with her boyfriend. Remember, she walked in as everybody was in the
semi circustoms show was quite drunk, and nobody knew what was happening to the
girls. Once they left the room, they didn't know if they were being
moved to another room. They they believed he wasn't hurting anybody because every time
he hurt somebody, he would go to the bathroom and he would clean himself
again. Like I say, the girls weren't really hearing much, so they
didn't really know what was happening. She woke up and she said, I
dreamed my mother died. Cora looked up from underneath the bed to see that
Speck was raping her. Cora put her head down and prayed until she could
hear no more movement. When she looked up, Gloria and spec were gone,
and she took this chance to move her hiding spot so that she would
be better concealed. So basically, she was under one bunk bed, but
her head was kind of like half fit her head under, but she managed
to kind of crawl her way to another bunk bed that was on the other
side of the room. This took her a very long time because she didn't
want to make any noise whatso she was trying to do it as quietly as
possible. Luckily for her, it worked. When Spec walked back into the
room, he checked a purse for some money, threw it on the ground,
and walked back out of the homes front door, leaving it wide open.
He threw the knife into the Calumet River before heading back to the shipyard
Inn, where he fell asleep peacefully. Yeah. I just want to point
out that multiple times there were opportunities, well, I don't want to say
opportunities, there were chances where somebody may have walked in on all of this
happening. The girl's next door that the other girls had been with before they
came home, they had ordered a pizza, and originally the pizza delivery man
actually walked up to the house that Richard was in and he was about to
ring the bell till he realized that it was the wrong house. Oh my
god. Like, there were a few different instances where something like that had
happened throughout the Yeah, never got to the point where anybody entered. So
unfortunate, I mean, is it unfortunate or fortunate because like, would he
have just taken more lives. Judy Dickton woke up around five am and heard
an animal whimpering. She went about her morning business, she had gotten up
early to study, when she heard the sound again. She opened her blinds
to see Cora crouched on a window ledge on the top floor, saying,
Oh my god, they're all dead. She ran over and into the home,
where she saw Gloria Davy face down on the sofa with a strip of
cloth around her neck and her hands tied behind her. Judy quickly ran to
grab the house mother so like the person that was in control of all of
the nurse's dorms, and the police were called. Police were absolutely horrified by
the scene, many of them vomiting after being in the house. Like originally,
one police officer went in and he came out and he vomited, and
the police were kind of like the people that he called for backup were like,
oh, can't be that bad. But every single one of them vomited
after they came out of the house. It was a blood bath. I'dn't
imagine. Eight women had been brutally murdered, one lone survivor Cora Amiro could
hopefully provide the answers they needed, and we're just going to take a quick
ad break right here, and we are back the final stretch. Cora provided
a description and they managed to get a sketch made up. Got to bless
her. They brought her straight to the hospital and she was able to get
it. Imagine you've been through all of that and you're still able to and
keep in mind, like her English is good, but it's not like it's
not her first few native English speakers. She's able to get a sketched one.
She just her strength is incredible. God, absolutely, Like she was
so worked up that they had to give her a shot to calm her down
because they had They were like, we need to preserve her sanity. Yeah,
the neighborhood was canvassed and detectives got to work. One of the detectives
had a thought, well, if this guy was in the neighborhood, then
he probably went to like the local businesses. So he went to a gas
station where a worker at the gas station remembered a man who his boss had
said, Okay, this guy came in and left his bags here a couple
of days ago, because he said he was going to be doing some stuff,
so he left his bags here and like Cory's description, this man was
tall, blonde, and he had a Southern accent. While all of this
is going on, Spec himself and went to a bar where he learned the
news that there was a survivor. But he just continued to drink with a
friend, like just chilling, and I think he said something along the lines
of that guy is an animal? Whoever done that? Like he was like,
oh my god, horrible? But what was his name? Edgeane?
He used to hang out with the police officers and be like, God,
that person sucks. Whoever done that? Wow, I'm so sorry you guys
are having to find this guy. This sucks, you know, like what
is wrong with these people? The police went to the National Maritime Union Hall
and gave their description to a man working there who he remembered a man like
that and provided them with the name Richard Spec. Which it's so they got
very lucky and that somebody was there that remembered him. They were very lucky
like that people did because like I won't lie, like I serve so many
people in a day that like if the police were to come into me and
be like, did you serve this man? I like, I couldn't tell
you. Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember what accent he had,
Jesus, Yeah, like I barely remember what they bought, never mind,
like they ordered food off me and I'm straight away like what was that?
Police got a last known number for spec, which was his sister's house.
She directed the police towards the shipyard in called there and Richards. Richard
was called to the phone. They told him that they had a job for
him, Den at the hall to go out on the Great Sinclair. He
said he would be Den in about an hour. However, he never showed
up. Richard knew that the Great Sinclair was the boat that had already set
sail, because it was the boat that they had originally told him when he
first got there. Okay, but the job was given to the other person
at Moreau. So I was going to say, that's the clever idea to
not tell him that it's the police looking for him. But then they've gone
and Une fucked up and told him the name of the book that already set
sail. Yep, they done goofed. They done goofed. The police sat
and waited for Richard while he packed his bags and called a cab. While
he waited for the cab, he calmly played the back of the bar.
I'm sorry, but would you not place some undercover police outside the hotel?
Just in case he tried to flee? No, I guess not. No,
there was okay, just me that thought about that. Richard got a
cab to the north of Chicago, to the projects, and I say that
with inverted comments. I don't know if that's like politically correct. I don't
fucking know. And he found himself a hotel there. The FBI at this
point had been called to see if they had any fingerprints of Richard spec I
mean to be fare he killed eight people, damn sure, they're calling them
FBI of course, due to his massive amount of criminal history. They did,
and an FBI agent personally flew them out to Chicago, so he wanted
to make sure they got there. I think there was a striker. There
was delays and flights or something, so he personally flew the fingerprints out.
And it's mad to think like that. They don't just have a computer system
at this point, like this is what the nineteen seventies. I think to
mention the victims, like every single one of them wanted to be a nurse.
Every single Filipino woman that was there was sending money home to support their
families. If they weren't. Everything American woman that was there had written statements,
well, a couple of the American women that were there had written statements
about how they wanted to be a nurse because they didn't like to see people
suffering and they like to look after people. Like these were good women that
just got snuffed out for absolutely no reason. You know, they were getting
married, They had their own lives and cuts really really deep, and you
remember, like this podcast and everything that we consume, these are real people.
Oh yeah. Spec left the hotel that he was originally staying at after
he found some drinking buddies that evening, and he went to stay at the
same hotel that they were staying at. Not long after he left his first
hotel, the police came in looking for him because even the taxi driver was
like, why do you want to come out here? Like he didn't give
the taxi driver an exact location. He's like, just drive me out to,
like where where all these people hang out. The guys hang out.
He spent the night with his drinking buddies talking about getting out of Chicago and
train hopping. So basically they had spoken about like they had done some train
hopping in the past, and he was like, yeah, let's do it.
Let's let's get out of here and just some train hopping. You guys,
come on. But even they weren't too sure on him. They knew
that there was something fucking here about Respec. And these these are not guys
that are, like, you know, upstanding members of society. But even
they were like, mmmmmmm, something's not right here. So SPEC's prints were
confirmed to be a match on the prince found at the crime scene, and
a rest warrant was made and an app was put out for him. It
didn't take long for his picture to be splashed on all of the newspapers with
accurate physical descript with accurate physical descriptions following, including all of his tattoos,
which as we know, are very very unique. He went into a news
agents one day and he saw his own photos on the papers. He knew
what he had to do. Next. He bought a bottle of wine and
brought it back to his hotel. Now this is more of a motel where
there's like the rooms are separated by curtains. He drank the bottle, broke
it and used the broken shards of glass to slice his wrists open. You
little for all of the bragging that you did for being in jail before.
What you can't take the heat? Now? What's the matter there, Richard?
You're afraid nobody's going like you because you murdered eight innocent women like you
don't do well in prison, do they do they? Darling? Interesting?
He was found by one of his drinking friends from the night before, who
at this point knew what he had done. This guy anonymously called the police,
but they never came. So this guy found Richard fucking bleeding out and
was like, police, Hello, I just found this fucking guy that killed
those eight nurse is he's like tried to commit suicide? Can y'all come up
here? And they're like eh, even though they were aware that he was
in the area. Richard was taken to Cook Kenny Hospital, where he was
being treated for his injuries. As his doctor was wiping the blood from his
arm, he noticed Richard's born to raise Hell tattoo. He grabbed the back
of Richard's neck and squeezed hard. What's your name, he asked. Richard
told him his name and asked for water. Did you give the nurses any
water? Was the doctor's reply. Now, the doctor said that this was
more of kind of a murmur, like did you give the nurses any water?
But I like to believe that he said it out let, and Richard
was like, fuck, you know, yeah, it's fun to think that.
Yeah, I want to think of it in a superhero in a way,
you know. The doctor called in an officer that was already on the
hall, and that officer then called everybody else this is incredible. So Cora
was given her opportunity to identify Spec. She got dressed in her nurse's uniform,
and she went into SPEC's room, pretending to be on unds with the
other nurses. I can incredible. Can you imagine how shit bricking you would
be doing? I just I can't imagine. She lasted three and a half
minutes before she left the room and emotionally confirmed to officers that this was the
man who had sought at her friends who had intruded into her home, had
told them that no, you'll be safe. She watched him rape her colleague
and her friend, and she heard him murder her friends. She had to
hide, and then she had to go into his room and be his nurse
for three minutes and so pretend to like be like, do you need anything?
Can I get you anything, just so that she could IDENTI to fire
him like that takes, honest, absolutely incredible. He was found competent to
stand trial, thankfully, but he was fun. I believe to be a
sociopath. Oh, you'd have to be to behave like that of course.
Now his trial was moved out of Chicago to Prioria, three hours outside of
Chicago, and it took six weeks to select a jury alone. They had
to take him out because everybody knew about the crimes. So he has to
be given a fair trial. I which is like, oh, he did
it, But at the same time, I get it, I get it,
But he is entitled to a fair trial. Spec was given the death
sentence, which was sent commuted to life in prison after capital punishment was abolished
in that state. No, not state, it's just in that state.
He died of a heart attack in nineteen ninety five, and his body so
I found a little bit of different information. So I wrote that his body
was not claimed by any family, that it was cremated. Yeah, I
didn't hear also that his sister actually did claim his remains, and because she
was afraid that somebody would desecrate a grave, she did get him cremated and
spread his ashes somewhere. That it's not he was their brother, do you
know, Like I mean, yeah, you grow up with that person,
you don't expect them to do something. So yeah, and I'm sure it's
hard to separate like all those memories you have with like what he'd done,
because you'd almost be like, no, because that's not my brother, Like
my brother wouldn't do that. Yeah, Like okay, yeah, maybe he
stole some cigarettes, he stole the paycheck, He don't the odd random thing
that's like you'd be like, yeah, he's done some things that aren't great,
but like murder eight women, Like no, like that's in one night.
I always feel sorry for like the I always feel sorry for the killer's
family. They are victims too, because they are in a way they are
because like they're not only is their name tarnished, but also how do you
mourn someone that's done something so horrible? You're looking back you're always always always
going to look back with rose colored glasses. You're also going to be like,
is there anything I could have done to stop them? Or is there
anything I could have done to make him a different person? Or do you
know, like that's You're going to have so many questions running through your head.
And we're saying this as fortunately people who have never had to experience this
kind of situation, very fortunately. But I don't know. We can only
imagine that these are the kind of questions that you would ask yourself, Yeah,
well this is it. No. In nineteen ninety six, so a
year after he died, a video was shared to a news outlet showing Richard
shortly now with breasts. He was seen doing drugs and having sex with another
inmate. When asked about the murders, he didn't seem to have any regret
at all. He said, quote, if they only knew how much fun
I was having, they'd turn me loose. So he had illegally gotten some
sort of hormonal drugs into the prison so that he would grow breasts, so
it would make it easier for other inmates to see him as more of a
sex object. I suppose because he decided and this is what is believed,
that it's easier if I turned myself into a sex object rather than be raped
and abused by other inmates. Yeah. Yeah, like he got titties,
Richard. I know, like you murdered people and that's not normal. And
you know you've done some other things that I said weren't nor well. And
every time I think that you can't get any weirder, you get yourself some
titties. Yeah, okay. And at one point when he was being interviewed
in prison, they're like, so what would you do if you got out?
He was like, I'd open my own grocery store chain. That's what
I would do. Richard, you are the definition of Dululu. Got myself
some new tits. I would open up a grocery store chain. Okay,
you're okay, okay, okay, alright, you do you on? You
do you? So? That is Richard spec I honestly thought this was going
to be a longer episode because I spent so fucking long researching this asshole.
My heart goes out to those nurses because all they wanted to do was help
people, every single one of them. They wanted to help families, they
wanted to help the people that were sick. They just had no badness within
them at all. Even when an intruder enters their home and says I'm going
to rob you, they're like, he's not dangerous, you guys, it's
fine. Yeah, that's yeah, yeah, not okay, Robert, you're
not okay. I'm surprised we didn't call him dick throughout this whole episode.
Nope, but for some reason I came up with Robert. Yeah, my
brain is okay, I promise. Yeah. So that was this week's episode.
We really hope you enjoyed it. Find it informational. I most certainly
did. So. If you liked this episode and you haven't already done so,
make sure check outs over other stuff. Like last week we talked about
the Murdoch family and just every single controversy that they could ever find themselves in.
Upcoming cases are exciting. I got a nice I got a nice eighteen
hundreds case for us. All okay, spooky season, and we've got a
case as like, not very spoken about either. So we've got some interesting
stuff. We got some interesting stuff, and we promise where spooky seasons our
season, this is where we larnush. Yeah. So we are going to
bombard you. So you can obviously check asidah wherever you get your podcasts such
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See you then, good bye. Launch