Rotten Mango - #103: The Nurse Killer From Hell (Case of Richard Speck)

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

The 7 nursing students were huddled in their dorm room bunk beds - panicking about what to do next. They had been tied up by an intruder. They waited till he came back into the room and he pointed at a nurse “you.” He escorted her out and tortured her for 30 minutes. She would never return.  One by one - like a ritual the killer escorted out nurses to their death.  The hostage room went from 7 to 6 then 5…4…3…2… Then there was one.  How will she escape? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to this week's mini-sode of Rotten Mingo. I'm your host Stephanie Sue and today we've got an exciting ad-free Spooktober main episode coming at you with seven nurses. Seven nurses were huddled in their dorm room arguing about what to do next. No, one of them is like, well he's gonna let us go. We just have to do what he says. He just wants the money. We already gave him $25. He's gonna be on his way. There's no reason for him to stay. The other nurses they start arguing.

We have to try and untie each other. That's the only solution. We've got to fight back. Think about it. Yeah, he has a gun. He's got a knife. But it's it's seven of us against one of him. We can overpower him. For the entire night, the killer went in and out of the nurse's dorm, taking one girl out at a time. To her death. Seven turned to six, then five,

until there was just one. Korra had hidden underneath a bunk bed, and the killer came for the very last time. He gave the room a sweep, checked the girl's purses, but he failed to see Kora hiding underneath the bed. After he left, she crawls out from her hiding space. She saw her friends, her co-workers, her roommates, all covered in blood. They were dead. So she started screaming continuously for five minutes straight out the window, terrified

to go downstairs, she opened up the window, she's screaming, they're all dead, they're all dead. My friends are all dead. Oh my god, I'm the only one alive. She crawled out the window and stood outside for another 20 minutes, screaming until someone came for help. Full Source Notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com but there is a book on this. It's called Crime of the Century by Dennis Brio,

a Florida author and journalist. I don't know why I had to throw a Florida in there. Okay, he was the former national correspondent of the Journal of American Medical Association, which is super fancy. This is his fifth book. He went over 10,000 pages of transcripts He had personal experience interviews. I mean, this is a meticulous well-researched book on this case

That was also on mine hunters Not the book but the case this guy Richard Speck. He's on mine hunters This is actually a highly requested Uh, topic. He teamed up with William Martin the prosecutor that led the prosecution against Richard Speck, and they wrote this book together. It's good, go give it a read. Now, Richard's childhood starts like this. He was born in Illinois, and he was considered, quote unquote, the bad apple of a good family. I feel like that's worse than just a bad apple, okay? I just feel like that's really aggressive. In this big family, he was the seven child out of eight. His mom was Mary Margaret,

and his dad was Benjamin Franklin Speck. Now, most of his siblings were a lot older than him. So they all moved out, they all got married, because this is like, what, in the 60s where everyone gets married when they're like 1920. So they're doing their thing, making their own little families, which would really make Richard the baby of the family.

And he was, for a little while. They weren't well-loved, but Benjamin the dad, I mean, he tried his best. He loved his kids more than anything, made an honest living as a little farmer. Right he had a multiple different jobs, he was like a little packer here and there, really it's it everything. The only tension in the house came from Mary Margaret. She hated, she was so religious, she hated alcohol. If you even have a sip of a beer, which one time Benjamin did, I like, they call it a fresh fry, I think it's a

like a fish and fish and chips party, I think. I think you say fresh fry. Yeah, a fish for a french fry, a fish fry, you know, it is sip of of beer because I mean how can you have fried fish without beer, right? And she was so pissed, they argued about it for days. Like this is where the tension was coming from. Unfortunately, Benjamin ends up passing away really young when he's 53 years old and Richard is only 6. All of a sudden, Richard's life, little 6 year old Richard's life, is spiraling out of control. Mary Margaret's devastated, she doesn't have any savings,

she's way too old to work, but they need to, so like what do we do here, right? Now Mary meets Carl. Carl August Rudolph Lindbergh. Okay, this is a, this is an interesting man. He was a Swedish traveling salesman, which I don't know why that sounds like such an old job, but so many people travel for sales these days

But like traveling salesman, okay? He had lost his leg, his knee, in an accident So he was always on crutches. He was a mean guy Like love to drink, love to beat on the kids when he was drunk whether it was love or maybe Mary just was desperate for stability. She ends up marrying him. Even though all he does in his free time is drink. It's a little confusing. They move the whole family, the two youngest kids to Dallas, Texas to be with Carl, and in the 12 years that they're with Carl, they would move to 10 different houses.

I mean, a super unstable environment. Every time the stepdad would get drunk, he would look richer than the eye and tell him, I can't even stand the sight of you. That's why I'll never adopt you. Imagine being sick and hearing this. Like imagine being sick and your dad died, and now this new guy is like, you'll never be my son. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

So Richard is emotionally physically traumatized. He starts showing all of these symptoms or these like effects in the eighth grade. His teacher said that he was terrified of being stared at. Like he refused to answer a question in class because the other students would of course look at whoever's talking. And he was just scared. She said, quote, he was sort of sulky, he didn't talk back. I mean he was taught at home non to talk back. He was a loner, he didn't have any friends in class. He seemed sort of lost all the time. It just didn't seem like he knew what was going on. I don't think I've ever seen him smile. I really wasn't able to teach him anything. He seemed like he was always in a fog.

Now during his childhood, Richard allegedly got hit on the head a lot. Now I don't know if any of this is true because it's coming from Richard's mouth and he later proves to be like a pathological liar. So at 10 years old, he allegedly fell from a tree 10 feet bunk tis head. Just landed bunk right on his head, right? Knocked out for 90 minutes his sister thought he was dead. His sister was like, oh my god, you're dead, right? Then at 15, he said that he ran into the side of a building and has steel rod rammed into his brain. I'm sure that's an exaggeration. I'm sure he had like had a little buck, right? Now he also had dozens of concussions from the beatings that his stepdad gave him when he was young, and after his crimes came to light, after he died, Harvard professors wanted

to study his brain. So his brain was sent to Harvard, but then it went missing. His brain went missing. The secretary forgot to lock the room that they were putting the brain in. It went missing. They searched everywhere, even offered up a reward. His brain would never be recovered to this day. Where's his brain? Yeah, who wants? Yeah, this brain. Even if you didn't know whose brain this was. Okay, first of all, if I saw a brain and you're like, that's a killer's brain I don't think I'd take it, but even if I saw a regular brain. I don't think I'd take it. But even if I saw a regular brain,

I don't think I would take it. But this will probably only happen in Harvard. Yeah, he's interested in someone's brain. Like what are you gonna do? Like if I offer you freaking Einstein's brain, what would you do? But what if it was just like a genuine package thief? Maybe they had an unboxed it and they thought,

oh my god, look at these little Amazon Prime packages. You think? They didn't have it in the back then. They're that dumb in Harvard? They... They're just like... Take the brain! So apparently that's something that stuck okay later in life is that Richard had some weird problems

because he would always have his mouth open. It was always half open all the time, like a fish, is how people described him, looked like he was staring at it, nothing, like he was in a fog. The mean one said it a lot more aggressively, and I quote, he has a habit of occasionally staring stupidly into space with his mouth half open.

Pfft. Yeah, so they mean people. He was really self-conscious as he got older, mainly because of his looks. So he has a lot of these like deep acne scarring on his face. I can relate to that. Listen, adult acne is like the worst. But he even had really bad eyesight.

But he felt like with the acne scarring and glasses, it was just too much. So he refused to wear glasses. He was miserable at home. And at first Richard's like going deeper into his little shell, right? And the eighth grade is teachers like he's so shy. He has no friends, right? But once he hits his teenage years, he starts fighting back. He starts breaking into his stepdad's liquor cabinet at 13 years old and starts just gargling whiskey.

I thought they're not allowed to do that. Yeah, so the stepdad tries to stop him with a good old beating like he always did. And this time Richard's like I'm grown. You know what I'm gonna do? Carl. I'm gonna take your fucking crutches and bash your head in. He starts threatening him. So now Carl's like okay well I'm terrified. Richard drops out of school and he had this thing for getting drunk hanging out with the bad crowd and getting a lot of tattoos. So pretty much in this order literally. He had a lot of tattoos and his tattoos would actually bring him down. That's how he gets caught with his tattoo.

Yeah, don't get tattoos. Don't get like specific tattoos if you're going to be a criminal. You just got a tattoo. So the first couple of tattoos. One is very, like, common. He had a snake that was entwined around a knife on his arm. I feel like I've seen 25 of those, right? The second thing was a skull with a pilot's helmet on. And it said, uh, right underneath it, a Texas slang word for f**k you. So that's great. Then another one said born to raise hell. This would be his most famous tattoo on his arm, born to raise hell. This is what caused him to get caught. Then he also had something called the West Texas Dickie Bird, which was a bird with the body and wings of a bird, but the head was an wrecked penis. I know you're trying to visualize it, but I was having such a hard time visualizing

it, yeah. Because where's the ball placement? On the neck? Like a beard? Back at the head. Eye balls. No boss. I boss. No. Disgusting. So he gets arrested 41 times during his young like from 16 to 22. 41 times breaking and entering burglary's forged checks violence against women. His probation officer even said when Richard is drinking, he will fight or threaten anyone so long as he has a gun or a knife. So this guy, when he's drunk, he's got a weapon,

he's balzy, he wants to kill everybody, but when he's sober or unarmed, he couldn't even face down a mouse. It's just a weird way, right? Even his jail psychiatrist said that this guy is gonna keep reoffending, his rating of rehabilitation is poor, we advise to keep reoffending. His rating of rehabilitation is poor. We advise to keep him in maximum security prison, but sure enough, they release him.

They're like, go back into the wild, Richard with your little bird dick tattoo. Have fun. Go at it. So at 19 years old, he gets married. His whole marriage is another saga of its own. He needs his wife at a Texas state fair. Her name is Shirley Annette Malone, and she was only 15. She was only 15.

And Richard starts smooth talking now. I mean, this guy's been incredibly sexually active, treated for gonorrhea five separate times. Five separate times, not like the one case of gonorrhea that just wouldn't go away. Five separate cases. And Shirley being 15 was just, she didn't know that she was impressed by his maturity, he seemed cool. They started dating and almost

immediately she gets pregnant. And they get married because that's the norm back in the day. But they were never really happy, so surely that her mom's house just go in through the motions of pregnancy. She hears a noise, looks outside her window, and so the noise of a very distinct car, a convertible, rolls up Skirskar, parks right in front of her window. It's Richard, her husband, and in the passenger seat, another girl. And he just starts making out with this girl. Right in front of the window. What the heck?

So she's, I mean, Shirley's confused. Like, are you kidding me? I'm pregnant with your baby, which wrong with you? And he'd tell her, yeah, well, there's really nothing you can do about it, Kenya. He would start threatening her, putting a knife to her throat, for Shirley to have sex with him four to five times a day. When he got bored of torturing Shirley,

he started taking it out on Shirley's mom, his mother-in-law. So her name is Aida, right? One day, she starts getting these strange calls, very sexual calls, okay? Like really aggressively rapy calls and matter calling her demanding sex and she's like, what the hell is wrong with you? Well, it's how you're sending law to stop showing off your pictures at the bar then. What? What are you talking about? So apparently Richard had stolen pictures of her from her own house of her having fun at a beach in her bikini Taking it to the bar showing all these random strange dudes at these very CD bars. Hey this woman's cheap

She's down for anything here's her number So when she confronts him he says hey, I've got a pretty good-looking mama-in-law And if I wasn't married I'd make a date. He's like a Shakespeare of his time. So if I had to tell them, stop doing this, to me, stop doing this to my daughter. He would just hop up and put a knife to her face. And he had this really intense southern accent. He talked really soft, very slow, very calm. If you had just met him and hadn't seen these parts of him, you would think that this guy

is like one of those Southern gentlemen. I think that's the scariest thing about them. And in his Southern accent, he would tell Aida, I will make you eat the knife. So finally, after four years to get a divorce. Now, Shakespeare Richard goes to Shirley's place back for her back. Please, baby, I'll change. I'll do anything. I don't want you to leave me. And she's like, no, Richard, I can't do this. this like this is for my baby. I don't want you hitting our baby He says well

Can I at least borrow your car? Guys just weird, okay? This is the type of guy He's also the type of guy that would lift up his shirt on purpose to show off the knife that he was carrying He's also the type that would go to a bar and casually start playing with his pocket knife. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like start flicking around in his hand. He smelled heavily of old spice cologne everywhere he went, which is old spice cologne. So back in Illinois, he's traveling town to town creating these little crimes, getting arrested 41 plus times. There is a 65 year old woman by the name of Virgil Harris.

She was a divorcee, live in a loan, making some extra money as a babysitter. She comes home from our shift one day. Nothing's out of the normal. It's not like it's broken into. Walks into her house, takes off her coat, and she's about to start making dinner when a man with a string jacksent grabs her from behind. Shows her that he has a knife and says, don't make a sound, you won't get hurt. He blindfolds her and starts slicing her coat into thin long strips.

While he tells her, you know I've killed a woman before. Take off every stitch of your clothes, or I will rip them off. And she's trying to reason with him, she's like, I'm 65. You look like 19. Listen, you don't seem like a bad dude. Why don't we just sit down and talk? Are you Christian? And he says, I came through the back door. I'm gonna stay all night.

How long has it been since you've had any? Forces her into the bedroom and takes off his clothes while threatening her. If I don't get what I want, I will kill you." He rapes her in her own bed. She would later say that the rape lasted very, very short few minutes. It actually took Richard much, much longer to tire up using the strips of coat, like her house coat that she had just ripped up earlier, that he had ripped up earlier. Then when he leaves, she manages to hop out of the house, get the neighbor's attention,

she gets rushed to the hospital, and what are the chances of this? She gets examined by Dr. J.D. Simmons. This is the same doctor two decades ago, delivered Richard's spec into this world. Oh my god. So Richard is suspected of the elderly rape and the burglarization of her home, but also suspected of murder of a 32 year old bartender found in an abandoned hog house like a pig house. So Richard's completely friendless, alone in the world, wanted by the police in multiple states for very serious crimes. We already knew that was him at that time. Yeah, they're like, he looks like this.

Okay. We gotta find this guy. He talks in a weird southern draw, right? So he's running around town, trying to figure out where to go go and he ends up calling his older sister who's living in Chicago He hasn't committed that many crimes in Chicago. He should be good. So he asked can I move in with you? You know, he emits the whole part where he's wanted for the rape and the potential murder suspect thing He's like, I'm just trying to spend some time with you Martha and our husband Jean agreed So he moves in and at first it's all cute.

He's helping them build some wood furniture, but slowly he starts showing his true colors. His lazy and annoying pathological liar colors. Anytime the two teenage daughters of his so-is-nice, right, of his older sister, would bring over friends, he would threaten them, show off his knives, like throw up gang signs. Talked about how many guys he's beat up in life. He refused to get a job. The only thing that he did every single day without fail was take multiple showers a day and change his shirts. He really liked wearing clean shirts.

This is important later. That's weird. And spray old spice all over him. Yeah. Now, Jean, his brother-in-law is sick of him. Listen, I'm gonna get you a job with the US merchant marine as an apprentice, as a seamant. Now, Richard really wasn't having it. He's like, okay, fine.

So he gets on a boat, his first job, and he's supposed to be working, but instead he gets drunk and starts fights with the other seamant that are trapped on this boat with him. So of course he gets fired, and Gene is now even getting more sick of it. Like, are you kidding me? Are you serious? So he decides I'm just gonna drop you off at the National Maritime Union Hall, which is essentially a hiring place for semen. Give you $25. That's it. Okay, bye. Have fun finding your own place. Now Richard really resented this because he said that he felt like a loser.

Walking around this hiring hall with his suitcases. He looked homeless. he was so embarrassed, he was hurting his pride. And every day at the hiring hall, nobody wanted to hire him. So he'd walk from his motel back to the hiring hall and as he was walking, he would always see this townhouse complex.

So it had six townhomes in total. So the townhomes are like two stories, they're all stuck to each other. So it's kind of like these two story apartments. It's not single-family homes where the walls are separated. You're sharing walls with your neighbors. We've got three private residences, just families, and then the other three town homes were actually rented by a nearby nursing school. The South Chicago nursing school would rent them out and house nurses because they didn't have

space in their dorms So they turned it into these makeshift dorms and so Richard would walk by and see the nurses now back then nurses were forced to wear these They almost sexist outfits like these white dresses with those white hats. Do you know what I'm talking about it? It was a short, but it was all white Yeah, but like longer, you know? So that's what they were forced to wear back then. So he would always see these pretty nurses and the nurses uniforms, and he would always think to himself,

wow, they're always hanging out talking to each other. And they have no idea that I'm watching them. And there was one pretty one that just kept catching his eye. She was wearing a yellow dress. But he never approached them. At least during the day, instead he would go to a bar and he would show off to other women. He would keep telling them, this is how he showed off.

He would lie. Guess what, baby? I got a $1,300 check coming in the mail. OK, I might need help cashing it. It's a big one. It's a doozy. Man, my pockets are so heavy. Because that $1,300 check in my name that I got coming for sure.

That's dimmy hits. When the steamy hits. I'm going to take you out, okay. And then he would also brag that he stabbed a man once and got fired from his job. Listen, I don't know what kind of woman listens to this and goes, you know what, this right here is husband material. I feel very safe. I can't wait to marry him. I don't think it was working for Richard. These women were thrown off by this. Now at one of these bars, he spots a woman by the name of Ella May Hooper. She was a mother of 10. She had been handed a lot of

rough cards in life, had been through some stuff. That's why earlier that day, she had gone to her pawn shop to buy that her gun. And she eerily told them, I better take it, I might need it sometime. Pays for her gun, puts it in her purse and goes to these bars. Now after she leaves her last bar she starts heading home and it was a good night, it was a fun night, right? She was just minding her own business, but she hears a voice. Where are you going? She tries to ignore the voice, she's like, okay, if I ignore it, it's gonna go away. When I talk, I want answers. She starts walking faster. Okay, this is creepy. Hey, let's go somewhere and have a drink. Let's go to the shipyard in and have a drink. No, that's okay. I want to go home. What if I

foresee to have a drink? Now Ella, she's getting balls, she's got a gun in her purse, so she says, nobody forces me to have a drink. If I want one, I just take one, okay? And that's when she felt the cold knife press on her back. And he said, you don't see anyone around, do you? I could stab you right here and nobody would know who did it. Do what I tell you and I won't hurt you.

All I want to do is ask you some questions. You need to come with me if you don't want to get hurt. You got it? Where do you think I'm taking you? Somewhere to rape you? Listen, I'm not going to rape you. If I take you to bed, I'm going to give you $20. So Ella is forced into his room in the shipyard in,

which was like right around the corner, and he keeps threatening her with his knife. Do you like young men? I have nothing against them. Would you like to live with a young man? What? Um, I never really thought about it. If I was going to tell you to pull your clothes off and get into bed, would you?

I guess I have no choice. Well, what if I let you out of here? Would you tell anyone? Um, no, I guess not. Listen,. Well, what if I let you out of here? Would you tell anyone? Um, no, I guess not. Listen, I'm a sailor. I mean, this guy's all over the place. Listen, I'm a sailor. I'm a ton of money. Lots of money. If you want an apartment, I'll get you one. I'll even give you $200 tonight.

If you meet me at the bar, and we'll go get an apartment. What? So he forces her to undress and rapes her. And afterwards he says, all right, well, if you tell anyone about this, I'm going to kill you and your kids even if it takes me a hundred years. Okay. So he keeps telling her as he's walking her down the steps of the shipyard and meet me at the bar. We're going to get an apartment together. I'm going to pay you $200.

Now, this is so bizarre. Like, why are you even saying these things? Like she's already on her way out, she's not, she's just trying to leave. No way she's doing that, but she keeps nodding. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he walks her downstairs, she walks back to her place, brushes, and she opens up her purse to put her gun away,

and the gun is gone. Let's talk about the nurses. South Chicago Community Nursing Class. This is where they had rented the three is gone. Let's talk about the nurses. South Chicago Community Nursing Class. This is where they had rented the three town homes. Now, there were 30 girls in the program. They were all about to graduate in a few weeks. Half of them lived in those makeshift dorms. The town homes units 2311, 2315, and 2319.

Now, the other three in the building like I said were residential families. These, these dorms they were converted with bunk beds to fit, you know, all the girls. There was a house mom that lived in 2315 and she had to be reported to by all of the girls in all three dorm units. I mean this really was more of a boot camp than like a college experience. It was run by a woman by the name of Josephine Chan and all of the girls. All of the nursing students were to follow a strict set of rules. If you didn't keep your personal room clean, you'd get in trouble. If you used the laundry machine on days that you weren't assigned to use the laundry machine,

you would get in trouble. You could even get expelled for doing that too often. Using the laundry machine on days you weren't supposed to. So in Unit 2319, which is the one that we're talking about today, there were five American nursing students that were in school, but there were also three Filipino exchange nurses. So these are not students. They're from the Philippines that are working at the South Chicago

hospital, community hospital. They're workers. Yeah, so they were hired to work in the US, and they all came from very, higher to work in the US and they all came from very, very poor families in the Philippines. They're away from their country, away from their friends, their family, just to work all day. Pretty much though, lived by the same rules as the nursing students, even though they weren't students. They all had to abide by the same curfew by the same set of rules, you

know. They were pretty miserable, but they tried to make it work. Like, they were very optimistic, happy people, but it was a miserable life that they were living. I'm gonna be honest with you. Now, the two groups never really intermixed with one another. The American students kind of kept to themselves. The nurses from the Philippines kept to themselves. I think there was a cultural difference, but also like a, just a different stage in life.

Student versus like, you're already a nurse, you're getting paid, right? So inside the townhome, we had Gloria Davy Davy now she was the golden girl of the school she was the leader of her friend group she was the leader of this townhouse honestly very independent she was chosen as the quote unquote sweetheart of the future farmers of America I don't know what that means I don't have to feel about that so not the sweetheart of America But like the sweetheart of the future farmers not even just farmer but the future Yeah, not even like farmers insurance agents just future farmers. Okay, she was really driven

She was president of the student nurse association in her free time get this when she wasn't studying She was studying philosophy, wrote poetry, and she would reset buttons that were slightly out of line on her glasses and jackets. She would re-sow them. Then we had Suzanne Ferris. She was studying to be a pediatric nurse, and she was kind of the one that brought everyone together. She would have these massive parties at the townhouse that they would always get grounded for, where the girls would come over in their roller skates, and they would skate around the whole house blasting classical music. They would be grounded for weeks for doing this, but Suzanne loved it.

Their house mom did not find it cute or enduring. Then we had Patricia Matusek, who was only 20 years old, she was a champion swimmer and she was engaged to a fellow nurse. We had Nina Schmail. She came from a super religious family. I think the way that everyone describes her is just, you know that one in the friend group that just always has their act together. You're like, that's the mom of the friend group.

She was the mom of the friend group. Just very mature, very poised. She volunteered in her free time to help elderly patients. I mean, she loved everything that was like very, she's like one of those soft people. She had a sea horse, right? She has a sea horse? She had two male sea horses.

One of them got pregnant and had 23 baby sea horses and she was spending all of her time, money and energy trying to make sure that these 23 baby sea horses make it. That's so cool. Yeah. She had a sea horse. Fascinating, right? Wow. Then we had Pamela Wilkening, Willie was her nickname and she told her friend she wanted to be a nurse more than anything in the world. One of her favorite quotes was, and Miles to go before I sleep. Which I think is such a cute quote. Then we had Mary Ann, who is 21 years old, loved, rock and roll.

She was athletic. She spent a lot of time with her family. Then we have the Filipino exchange nurses. So we have Valentina Pazion, who was 24. Her family was very, very poor. She'd wait two years for her older brother to finish college, Tina Pazion, who was 24, her family was very, very poor. She'd wait two years for her older brother to finish college before she could start going to school. She sent half of her salary back to her parents every single month.

Her salary was $350 a month. She never complained. Never, she would write to her sister about how much she missed being home and she said, and I quote, sometimes I can't help but shed tears. You know, it's really hard to be a thousand miles from home. Then we had Merlida Gargillo, 23 years old. She also came from a very poor family, but she was, she had this beautiful voice that she loved to use. She would sing and dance. I mean,

she was so pretty that all of the male patients that she worked on would always say, hey, you got a boyfriend? And she was, she would always turn them down so sweetly, like, oh, yeah, yeah. She prayed every single night. She just was like a really nice person. Then we have Korazone who went by Korah. She also came from a not so well off family, one of eight children. She was kind of the fun one of the three.

She was like very spunky and open. She was just a super accepting person, deeply religious. So July 13 rolls around and after finishing work or school, the girls were slowly making their way back to the townhouse to make dinner to shower. It was a normal day. They had curfew that they had to abide by, so they start trickling in one by one. By 1030, all of the girls are home, except for three. Suzanne, Marianne, and Gloria. So Korra goes downstairs to lock the front door and she goes back into her room to turn off the light.

But Marlita is like, oh wait, can I pray first? So she leaves it on and starts drifting asleep. They had no idea that Richard's back, all dressed in black, had different plans for them ever since he saw that nurse in the yellow dress. So it took Richard about 30 minutes to walk all the way from his in to the nurse's townhouse. He went to the back door of 2013-19 and using his knife he pride-open the back door, reached inside, unlocked the door and crept his way upstairs. Knocked on the furthest door down the hallway, which was Coras door, four times. She opened it, it was around 11.

Who could that be? And right when she opened the door, it pushed back up against her and in walks, Richard's back with a gun in his right hand, and this was their first time even seeing a gun. So they start freaking out, but he says, shh, calm down. He starts marching them, room

to room and he's going from room to room gathering up these nurses that were asleep. He wants them all in one room. And he would have them sit down on the ground forming a circle around him, turn the lights off in the room and he was calm. So they're confused, they're scared. What do you want from us? I want some money. And he would smile at them. He started talking to them and his smooth southern accent. How many people right there? Right now we had six.

So the nurses, they're slowly becoming less terrified. Okay, maybe he really just wants some money, right? Maybe this is a nice guy that just had to do something bad to get some money. They start speaking up, well I have a dollar, I have ten dollars, I have five! Essentially he gets twenty-five dollars from this. Richard would escort each girl to their purse to grab in the cash while he's pointing the gun at them. Now at this point, Gloria is getting home from her dinner with her fiance.

She had drunk in a lot, they were celebrating that day, they had a lot of champagne, and they had been sitting in the car outside the townhouse where the girls had been held hostage. They did not hear or see anything because they were listening to their favorite song called You'll Never Walk Alone. The lyrics go like this. When you walk through the storm hold your head up high. Don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm there's a golden sky.

Walk on You'll'll never walk alone. And once the song ended, Gloria walked into the townhouse alone. She walked up the stairs into the hallway, and when she opened up her door, she was greeted by the gun and Richard. And he said, it's okay, don't be scared. I'm not going to kill you guys. Had her join the circle of Hostages. Now they're seven. He sat down, starts cracking jokes with them, smiling at them, smoking cigarettes. Then he jumped up and says, all right, time to get the party started.

You know, starts grabbing the bedsheets, starts tearing them into long strips. One by one, he tied up the girl's brist and ankles. And the whole time, he's joking with them. So they're thinking, okay, it's fine, he's going to tie his up so he gets a head start. He's going to run out of this townhouse, once we're tied up, we're not going to be able to call the cops or get any help anytime soon. Once we're done, he's long gone. He's probably a New Orleans at that time, right?

That's what they're thinking. And just as he's about to finish up with Kora and Merlead at the last two girls that are untied, the doorbell rings. A fellow nursing student from 2013-15, Tammy, had walked over. She wanted to see if the girls in the townhouse had bread. She was on the phone with her boyfriend, who was still on hold at her dorm, by the way. She was hungry, wanted to make a sandwich, but they didn't have bread! So Richard starts guiding Korra at gunpoint downstairs to open the door. But before she could open it, Tammy got impatient.

Her boyfriend was on the line, didn't want someone to hang it up. Besides, the other girls were talking about ordering pizza, so Tammy skadaddled back to 2013. So Richard goes back to tying up Kora and Marlita upstairs, and a car drives past the townhouse. Very slowly. Kathy, another nursing student, was with her boyfriend. She wanted to see if the girls were awake because she had borrowed something from one of them, and she wanted to return it.

She was like, well, if the lights are on, we'll just stop by, I'll ring the doorbell, and I'll give them, you know, the thing back. Now, here's the side note. Kathy's boyfriend, the driver, was a target shooter, and he was all about guns. He told Kathy, you need to get a gun. You need to keep it in your purse, taught her how to shoot it, and Kathy really was a target shooter and he was all about guns. He told Kathy, you need to get a gun, you need to keep it in your purse, taught her how to shoot it, and Kathy really was a type

of girl. If you try something on her, she will shoot you. And as they're driving past, she said, wait, never mind, yeah, I think they're asleep. And the couple drives off. After Richard ties up all the nurses, he points at Pamela. You. Unties her ankles and drags her into the other bedroom. The other six girls were confused. They were scared. Why did he do that? They heard a little sigh, almost like a sigh. It wasn't a scream. It sounded like a sigh, right?

But then nothing else. And that's when they start whisper arguing. The American girls, they wanted to stay calm, collected. They said, oh, we took a psychology class. Like, we shouldn't fight back. Then the exchange nurses, they were saying, no, are you kidding me? We got six people. We got to start on tying each other. We got to do something.

Maybe we can ambush him. So they were split. And that's why they couldn't really form a plan together. And instead, all the girls just started wiggling around in the room, Because they were tied. Now Richard had stuffed a rag into Pamela's mouth, forced her spread eagle on the floor, and was about to rape her when he hears two girls enter the house. Suzanne and Marianne were the last girls home.

They had barely made it before curfew, which is 1230. They rushed into their room, which is the one that Pamela was in, saw her tied up and started screaming. So Richard stops them, blocks them from getting out of the room, and they start yelling, fighting, and the other hostages, they're hearing this, they're confused. They don't know what to do. He pulls out his knife, and immediately stabs Suzanne 18 times. Eleven in the chest, seven in the back, and then strangled her with a nurse's stalking. He smashes and stabs Mary Ann's eye,

plunge the knife into her chest three times. Meanwhile, Pamela saw all of this. She was gagged and tied. And after he killed Susanne and Mary Ann, he walked up to her and stabbed her right in the heart. Within minutes, the three girls had been murdered. And then there were six. So Richard rushes to the bathroom, cleans the blood off of him, changes his shirt, goes back to the remaining six hostages, and he didn't want to freak them out. He said, if they saw blood on me, they were going to freak out, right? So he had this new shared-on, was calm, and said, said Nina, you like pointed at Nina. Took her to a different room that Pamela and the other girls were not in.

And again they heard that faint like sigh almost. It wasn't a scream. They were getting more and more terrified because they're like why didn't he bring Pamela back? Why did he take Nina? What's going on right? They start trying to hide. Gloria who had drinkin a lot that night had fallen asleep, and the rest of the girls they tried hiding in the bunks. All of them just hid in the furthest bunks except Kora, who was, she was small, she was the tiniest, she was 98 pounds. So she managed to wiggle her body underneath the bunk, and the only problem was that her

head refused to fit. So she's spending, like she's just banging her head up against this bunk, trying to squeeze it down. Then 20 minutes later, they hear the water running again, and they knew he was coming back without Nina. Then there were five. It was this time around, Tammy, the nursing student, and the other townhouse. Remember she had come to get bread? She heard some sort of noise.

It was like some sort of like animalistic. She said it was an undescribable animalistic noise that didn't even sound human. So she thought maybe I'm hearing things. Walked out of the town home Outside of 2013-19 where she could have sworn the noises were coming from. Walked right under one of the upstairs bedrooms where her friends had just been murdered and Was listening But nothing. So she walks back to her dorm. In another frustrating instance, Tammy's dorm had ordered pizza, and the pizza boy walked to the front door

of 2319. And he noticed that all the curtains were closed. There was a small light in the living room, and he thought, wow, they're just going to turn it on and they're eating pizza in the dark. Should I be scared? Am I going to get mugged by this delivery? And that's when you realize, it's so shoot, that's not even the right house.

Without knocking, without ringing the bell, he turns around and searches for the other dorm of nurses. He was only 14 steps below Richard. This time Richard came back and took Valentina. 20 minutes later, the water was running again. It was like he had this ritual. Then there were four. He came back and took Melita. Now, the other girls, they were her kind of sighing once, right?

But Melita was fighting. She was screaming. And she kept screaming in tag-log. It hurts. It hurts. And Coral was terrified because Coral understood. Then the water running. Then there were three.

So Richard comes and gets Patricia. And as he's walking around, he asked, are you the girl in the yellow dress? And he told her to lie down, but she refused. And he screamed loud enough for Coro to hear. Lie down here, and he kicked her in the stomach, and assaulted her for 35 minutes. Then Coro heard the water running,

and then when he came back, there were two. Now during that time Korra was able to get her head under the bunk. It was around 2.30 in the morning, and then there were only two left. Gloria, who was knocked out, and Korra under the bunk bed. So Richard slammed open the door. There was no need to pretend to be nice anymore. There was no need to pretend like he wasn't going to act like he was going to let them go, you know?

He was over it. He was almost done. So the door slamming woke up Gloria, who eerily and instinctively I don't know woke up and said I just had a dream that my mom died. Because you know when you wake up you're like confused. I think she was confused. And Korra could see Richard jump into her bed, start assaulting her and saying have you done this before? And after about 25 minutes he left the room with Gloria, took her downstairs where he would continue to Sodomize her. And then there was one.

Kora, she panicked, but she realized in order to have a chance at living she had to hide somewhere else. She had spent two hours getting her head under this bunk, okay? Because she's tied up, she had to wiggle under, like it's not easy. So she might have already seen that she's down there. So at like a fish out of water rocking side to side on her stomach, she left the bunk that she was under and tried to reach another bunk where there was a blanket hanging off of the bed. So it could probably cover the space underneath. And it had always been there. It looked very natural.

Maybe it would conceal her. So for the next 50 minutes, it was barely enough time for Kora to get fully underneath a different bunk, and at 3.30 in the morning, Richard comes back into the room, walks around, shaking the girl's purse as to take out any coins he might have missed, throws glorious purse on the ground, nearly missing Korra under the bunk, turns around, turns off the lights, and leaves. So he forgot, there's one more? And on his way back to the end, he threw his knife into the river and skipped back,

knowing that the crime would be all over the news tomorrow and he was going to get away with it. He had no idea that 98 pound Korra had managed to hide under a bunk and was going to bring him down. So the next morning Korra's yelling, oh my god they're dead, because she had no idea where he was if he's playing games, did he really leave? We don't know. So she's screaming out the window, oh my god they're dead.

One of the fellow nurses students in 2315 heard the scream, went to the house mom, hey house mom, like, wake up Mrs. Bison, they're in trouble. In 19, what do we do? So she gets up, throws on a rope, starts waking up all the nurses, get up kids, the kids

in 19 are in trouble, they need our help. They rushed outside, now Leona, one of the nursing students, and Mrs. Bazon, the house mom, were the first to enter the town home. And Leona came out and said, nothing can be done, they're all dead. Mrs. Bazon came out screaming, my god, all my girls in 19 have been murdered. All I see are blood and girls. My girls are dead, my girls are dead. Then there was absolute chaos. The other students started coming out

to see what was going on, and Mrs. Bazon again, she's just screaming, my girls are dead, what happened? I don't know, I think they're all dead over there. What? Was it like toxic fumes or something? How are they all dead?" And Leona looked over and said, no, they were killed.

The first police officer on the scene was Officer Kelly. And his wife worked at the South Chicago Community Hospital. He was severely traumatized because he knew almost everyone in that town home. He had also grown up around Gloria and dated Gloria's older sister before marrying his wife. He knew all of them pretty personally and so did his wife. The crime scene was brutal, there was blood everywhere. Maryann had been stabbed in the eye, Nina had superficial wounds on her neck, it looked like he was torturing her, giving her these tattoo-like knife pricks on the neck. Valentina had been slicks on the neck.

Valentina had been slashed on the throat so deep that her voice box was exposed. Reled as body was lying on top of Valentina and her neck was dislocated and you could tell just by looking at her, she too had been stabbed. The police rushed Josephine Chan to ID the bodies, at the crime scene, the head of the nursing department, and the murders were so vicious that she could only identify three of her girls. The rest of them were too covered in blood to even identify. Richard the next day, he starts hitting a bars again, as if nothing happened, and he had the strange moment with a bartender where out of nowhere Richard stands up on his bar stool, grabs a bartender, puts a knife up to his Adam's apple and said, if I were to kill somebody, this is how I would do it.

Just unwarranted out of the blue. He was so relaxed even though there was a massive manhunt out from him already beginning. Koria had given descriptions to the police, they had a police sketch artist work on her, she remembered his tattoo, born to raise hell it said, everyone knows a weird tattoo. This actually became one of America's biggest crimes at the time. So because of the way that Richard was living,

bar to bar, it didn't take police long to start tracking him down. They were looking for Richard's spec. They were onto it. He knew it. He went to a new motel and he tried to commit suicide. He slid his wrists. And the last minute, he decides, wait a minute,

I don't want to do this. And he starts banging on his neighbor's walls for help the hotel staff found him covered in blood They get an ambulance rushing to the hospital and as the doctors examining him. He says oh my god I feel like I just saw this guy The nurse said that the doctor and the nurse is like what are you talking about? He's like okay, this is crazy, but can you please go to my office and get the Tribune the paper Front and center was the police sketch of Richard and they're looking at him. They're looking at Richard They're literally reading the paper in front of him at this point staring at Richard who's completely out of it. No way

Yeah, but okay wait It says that he has a tattoo born to be born to raise hell Okay, that's weird. We're okay. It's on his arm So they were so desperate that they used saliva to wipe away blood on Richard's arm They saw a bee then I know then born then they saw it all born to raise hell The doctor grabbed the sensitive part on the back of Richard's neck and Richard woke up and He said who are you? What's your name?

And he squeezed hard and Richard started screaming and said, it's back. Richard's back. Can I get some water, please? I'm sick. And the doctor just said, did you get the nurses any water? That night they operated and saved Richard's back's life. The nurses and the doctors. So he gets arrested.

Now during the trial Richard tries to plead insanity. But the way that he carried out his crimes, I mean there was thought, it was meticulous. He walked over there, took in 30 minutes, then he had this whole system of how he killed these girls. I mean come on. Now Korra was faced with this huge decision. She was being offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for an exclusive story of that night from American media outlets. They didn't care. They wanted it before the trial. They wanted to be the first to release it because

during the trial, I mean everyone's getting it at the same time. So they were willing to pay our hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now mind you, she was only getting paid $350 a month. The family was dirt poor. This could change their lives for generations even. But she refused. She turned it all down and said that she didn't want to ruin the trial and the prosecutor's chance at getting her friends justice. During the trial, they asked to ID the man that killed her friends and court testified,

right? She gets up from the witness box. Unhooks the door, walks slowly but deliberately, stands one foot away from Richard's back, extends her arm, points her finger, inches away from Richard's back's face, and said this man right here Like this is I don't even know what to say about this woman. She is I Don't even I mean this is crazy What's even crazier is that Joseph and Chan, you know the the head of nursing She wanted Quar to come back to work. She thought that Quar was being too spoiled by the DA's office. Yeah

What yeah, the DA was like, are you kidding? So the DA's office had flown in to her family members and put her in like a police cart in motel for like the trial, which honestly is the bare minimum because this is the star witness. This is like what they're betting the whole trial on. Yeah. And also she had been so traumatized and just faint was like, ah, she's getting too spoiled. Meanwhile the nurses at school were freaking out.

They were getting prank calls that would say, men would say, I'm going to finish you off the same as spected. Some would just call and say, whores and hang up. Yeah, because nurses were raped and murdered. So that makes all nurses whores. Because you know, others would ask them in public when they were in their uniform.

What's it like being alive, nursing? I mean, they were terrified. Not only did their friends, co-workers, and fellow students get murdered, but now they're terrified for their lives. But thankfully, Richard Speck was found guilty and sentenced to death. Now, because there was like one trillion legal proceedings,

he would actually die in prison of natural causes. But in prison, some weird things went down. He made a vlog with other inmates. I don't know how they smuggled in a camera, okay? actually die in prison of natural causes. But in prison, some weird things went down. He made a vlog with other inmates. I don't know how they smuggled in a camera, okay? It was like a 60 minutes parody, which is when a news network is interviewing a criminal, like a jail house interview.

And Richard would talk about how much sex he's been having since he got to prison. He said that the way that he wanted to die was being forked to death by a man in prison. And it would take two weeks to get the smile off his face. That's what he said. Then the interviewer, the other inmate, asked him to show his quote, real titties to the camera.

And he lifted up his shirt and they looked very similar to women's breasts. Now, I don't think that he was transitioning. At least not on medical records. The prosecutor on this case believes that Richard had hormones smuggled into prison. And he was taking it as protection. So Richard is a sneaky coward. And he found that in prison it doesn't matter what his crimes were.

Nobody respected him. The only way to not die, to not have a target on his back, was to offer something. What can he offer? Will people miss the feeling of a woman? They asked him on camera, why did you kill those nurses? And he said, it just wasn't their night. How did you make them strip? How did I make them strip? I stuck the freaking pistol underneath her jaw and cocked it and said, get naked bitch. Do you believe in God? I am God. Do you believe in the devil?

I am the devil. Richard died in 1991. He was only 49 years old, and the nurses and doctors tried to save him for six hours. But they were unsuccessful. He had died of a heart attack. Now, because of all the allegations and the theories of his head injuries,

causing his killing spree because his his team of lawyers made a whole Spectacle of it. They were like it's the concussions. It's he fell on his head, you know, that's what happened He's insane. They wanted to study his brain carefully packaged sent it to Harvard went missing Never returned they searched everywhere. They put out a reward nothing Never returned. They searched everywhere. They put out a reward. Nothing. Korra is now living in the US. Retired. Living her best life, she married an attorney. That's, they started their own real estate firm. She has a successful life. She had successful children. She has successful grandchildren. She has a vacation home and everything. I mean, this woman is truly incredible.

And that's the story of Richard Speck, who was featured on my Hunters on Netflix. I don't even know what to say about him. I think it's just really telling that this guy has no confidence unless he has alcohol in a weapon. Like he's so weak that he's just a coward. I don't know how else to say it. And he's so angry. And it's his tattoos that brought him down. What are your thoughts on this? Will you think twice about getting a tattoo now? I hope you guys enjoyed this

week's main episode and I will see you guys on Sunday. For a mini-showed. Bye! Bye!