The student nurses' white and pale-gray uniforms had to be strictly starched, their crisp white caps perfectly placed a tough trick on bouffant hair. Except, Speck doesn't see himself as an evil person. He thinks about the family she might have had, wishes she could have met his two sons and daughter and eight grandchildren. He pushed up his left sleeve to reveal ugly scars on his arm. Losing his parking spot as he carted all that food here and there. I stabbed them and I choked them. The judge sentenced Speck to death. Here`s half the country down on a person, they call him all kinds of names-and these women are trying to get to meet him. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,.css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}contact us! But 50 years ago, the murders were perhaps as shocking in the Philippines as they were in Chicago. "This is the man," she said as pandemonium erupted. On the 50th anniversary of the murders, he remembers Corazon's bravery in court. "She was great with him," recalled their sister, Susan Jordan Morin. By the time he left, around 3:30 a.m., eight women were dead, some stabbed, some strangled, some both. William Martin was the lead prosecutor for Speck's trial. (Farris family). Speck laughed. What he had, in this mysterious box he had inherited when his father died, were four carousels of slides, many of them corroded, warped, moldy, ravaged by water and time. He's still searching for the words to explain to his three children who his sister was, what happened to her. At her father's urging, Lori considered becoming a nurse, but she finally told him that she couldn't, she was just too emotional for the job. The Farris family lived in a quiet, tree-lined Far South Side neighborhood called Fair Elms. Lori tries to live by her mother's words. Betty Jo had one more request. Took a nap. It sure gets way out. According to a news account at the time, she thought it was a safer place to raise a family. For the past few years, Schmale, a friendly, white-haired man of 78, has searched for a way to honor exactly those aspects of his sister and her friends, a way that would emphasize not how they died but how they lived, that would focus on them more than on their killer. Teacher. All Rights Reserved. I was high on heroin that night. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). Merlita was considered quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. In the townhouse, she was known to sing while doing the dishes or the laundry. Seeing them together, it's hard not to wonder what Pat would be like at their age. Mary Ann Jordanin her nursing uniform in an undated photo. During the summers she accompanied Billy to nearby Rainbow Beach, splashed with him in the water, hugged him a lot, made him laugh, a boisterous laugh he copied from her. A Tribune freelancer in the Philippines had no success either, and reported that the Philippine Nurses Association in Manila had no contact information for their families. ''I stay up at night as long as it takes me to fall asleep or pass out from the hooch or from whatever we have at the time.''. Her village was small (200 people) and her family was large (eight kids). Shortly after the Filipina women arrived, the Chicago women threw them a welcome party, and over the next few weeks helped them learn their way around the city. In winter they went sledding. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. Who Is Richard Speck? According to news accounts published at the time, Merlita, 23, was quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. On many of those days she walked home crying, yet it was her afternoons with Tommy that made her think she could be a nurse. Atienza visits the Philippines every three years to see relatives. The next time Lori heard the phone ring, it was morning. Pam had been quiet, studious and decisive since she was a girl in south suburban Lansing. When her father was at work and her mother was taking care of the house and Billy, she took Susan along while she ran family errands on 79th Street, where the shopkeepers knew her name. He was arrested and stood trial for murdering the eight nurses. Amurao had arrived the previous day to identify the killer in person, but Speck was not well enough. After the death of his father when Speck was six, his mother remarried, moving the family to Dallas, Texas. John and Nina grew up on an acre of land near suburban Wheaton, a remnant of the Schmale family farm. ''I know it keeps up their morale. On this day, Amurao personally identified Speck as the killer. Born on December 6, 1941a day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that dragged the US into World War IIRichard Benjamin Speck was born in rural Illinois, the seventh of eight children. "Did I just see Grandpa on the television?" Their father, John, had attended seminary, changed his mind about the priesthood and married a young woman, Mary, who had grown up three blocks from him. Outrage Over Explicit Prison Video of Richard Speck | AP News (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune). Richard Speck captured the nation's attention during the summer of 1966 after murdering eight female students who lived together on Chicago's South Side. In the spring of 1966, she stepped into an airplane bound for Chicago. By the time they were in their third year, they had helped deliver babies, treated sick children, watched people die. Cook County Assistant States Attorney William Martin, left, watches as witness Corazon Amurao uses a scale model of the townhouse crime scene to detail the murder of eight nurses by Richard Speck, center background, during Specks 1966 trial in Peoria, Ill. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. Nina was 19 when she announced to her family, "I'm going to nursing school.". "I'm in," said Gloria, who phoned her mother every night to say she was back and safe. "Mindhunter" Episode #1.9 (TV Episode 2017) - IMDb "Coming back from the past.". During one of Pam's shifts, a patient slugged her. In recent months, John Schmale has tried, with no luck, to find friends and relatives of Tina and Merlita, hoping to connect with them for the 50th anniversary commemoration. Pat was 20 on the hot evening of Wednesday, July 13, 1966, when Arlene Kubasek dropped her off at the townhouse, well before curfew, which was 10:30 p.m. except for the two nights a week the women were allowed to stay out until 12:30 a.m. Do you want to come in for coffee? She wrote her daughter's name, Nina, on a piece of pink paper. Peter McNamee washes the 1957 Chevrolet owned by his girlfriend, Nina Jo Schmale, whom he planned to marry after graducation, circa 1966. Around 10:30 p.m., she went upstairs to bed, in the high bunk in the room she shared with Merlita. High school nursing club. The body count was so high that he failed to notice that Amurao, who had opened the door for him on his arrival, had managed to hide herself under one of the beds. Richard speck video - YouTube One victim was also raped prior to her murder. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. Richard Speck attack survivor: 'Somebody up there was hiding me from As he was sponging blood off the patient's arm, he saw that the man had a tattoo that said "Born to Raise Hell" that matched the description from the newspaper. Richard Speck was a murderer notorious for killing eight student nurses in 1966. In 1965 she became president of the Student Nurses Association of Illinois. In the Davy family, according to Lori, grieving openly for Gloria was considered weakness, especially by her father, the military man. Dorothy Schmale died five years after her daughter did, her death hastened by heartbreak. Bottom row from left are Patricia Matusek, Valentina Pasion, Nina Jo Schmale and Pamela Wilkening. He thinks of his sister every day. Lori Davy, center, accepts a nursing school diploma on behalf of her slain sister, Gloria Davy, at a ceremony at McCormick Place in 1966. Best Known For: In 1966, Richard Speck committed one of the most horrifying mass murders in American history when he brutalized and killed eight student nurses living on Chicago's South Side. The kitchen was the townhouse social hub, a place where Nina and her roommates congregated to eat, study and listen to the record player from the nearby living room. Politicians delivering food to the wake. A. I screamed there for about five minutes and nothing. Speck, however, seemed to have a knack for making a quick escape and keeping police forces guessing. (Schmale family ). Kubasek said no. They shoved their beds edge to edge in a single room and lay there at night listening to the newly hired security guard's shoes click along the hallway tiles. (Chicago Tribune historical photo / Chicago Tribune). Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. Richard Speck - Video, Tattoo & Daughter Clint Eastwood, he always plays good. Just a few glimpses of the video have been shown (in the A&E) documentary about Richard. "A lot of us never locked our doors but the Speck case changed all that.". (Schmale family ). Bottom row from left are Patricia Matusek, Valentina Pasion, Nina Jo Schmale and Pamela Wilkening. Cook County Assistant States Attorney William Martin, left, watches as witness Corazon Amurao uses a scale model of the townhouse crime scene to detail the murder of eight nurses by Richard Speck, center background, during Specks 1966 trial in Peoria, Ill. (R.K. Davidson). I wanted to get rid of it. I like him. Martin and Dennis Breo are co-authors of a 1993 book called "The Crime of the Century." After she married and had three children, she told her kids that Aunt Gloria had died in a car crash. She helped raise eight younger siblings, swam in the river and was good enough in school to be admitted to the nursing program at Arellano University in the big city of Manila. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. On what occasion? She accepted an assignment at South Chicago Community Hospital and landed at O'Hare airport on May 1, 1966. He told Greene one of his pleasures in prison was "getting high." When Greene asked him if he compared himself to celebrity . The Mystery Novelist Who Committed a Real Murder, Boston Marathon Bombings Survivors, 10 Years Later, A Complete Timeline of Adnan Syeds Trial, Release. The True Story Behind Netflix's Mindhunter - Men's Health In the video, Speck also casually admits to the killing of the nurses, describing the strangulations in some detail, and bragging about the strength required to kill someone in this manner. She roller-skated in the basement of the family's three-bedroom bungalow. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Her experience there whetted her interest in nursing. 1. It was that door that a student nurse from a neighboring townhouse approached at 12:15 a.m. on July 14, in search of bread for a late-night sandwich. Merlita grew up on the island of Mindoro where bananas, rice and coconut grow. Atienza was the states key witness when Martin prosecuted Speck in the 1967 trial. Her dad was on the line. Their married bliss was short-lived, however, and Speck's reversion to type landed him a jail sentence for theft and check fraud, in 1963. There's another kind of sealed box many of them have carried around as well. Serial Killer: Richard Speck - Full Documentary - YouTube When John Schmale talks about what happened that night, he uses the words "anger," "rage," "mourning.". "If I send you money, you will be able to fix the house," she said in one. Pat and Arlene Kubasek could hardly stop laughing on the night, during their high school sophomore year, that they went to the drive-in with four other girls, then sat in the car eating popcorn and rolling their hair on giant curlers. She waved and waited for Pat to go inside. Grief will always be tangled in that youthful happiness. Her brother, John Farris, still carries the photo and prayer card in his wallet 50 years later. They are young and together and happy. ''Dillinger and them guys, that was the Depression, they were robbing banks because that was their only way to survive. After that day, Arline Davy was different. Whatever confluence of forces saved her, Cora Amurao made it through the night alive. His sister and seven of her fellow student nurses and nurseswere murdered 50years ago in one of Chicagos darkest crimes. During their first two years, all the nursing students were required to live in dorms attached to the hospital, but in their third and final year, in the hot Chicago summer of 1965, Nina and five others moved into one of the three townhouses the hospital rented on East 100th Street. She laughs to see the pictures Schmale found, like the one of her and Nina dressed up like cats. She started college as an English major at Northern Illinois University, then switched to nursing. For those girls, and for their families, and for me. A. For years, whenever July 14 comes around, John Farris has found himself depressed for a week before and after. Speck is played by Jack Erdie on "Mindhunter." Netflix/AP Speck is one of the later interviewees in "Mindhunter." He was a high-school dropout and alcoholic by age 15. The knocking was done in a normal manner, she would later testify. In their tightknit neighborhood, Pat and her friends stood on corners during the fall to help her dad sell peanuts for the Kiwanis Club. He managed to deflect police questioning and escape once again, but police discovered some of Harris' personal effects in his vacant hotel room that conclusively tied him to her attack. Among the mourners standing in the drizzle was an older, bareheaded man from Mindoro. A few days before she died, Pam called her mother to say she couldn't come visit that weekend. On some summer days, because it gives him a warm feeling he can't entirely explain, he drives around, top down, in a car he bought a few years ago. The eight nurses killed by Richard Speck on July 14, 1966, in Chicago were, top from left, Gloria Davy, Suzanne Farris, Merlita Gargullo and Mary Ann Jordan. Only one of her siblings, a brother, is still alive. (Schmale family ). She was petrified of Speck but had the courage to step down from the witness stand, walk up to him and point her finger 2 inches from his forehead. But any kid can end up just like me.'' When. A funeral parlor jammed with mourners. He pulled it out recently as he talked for the first time publicly about the sister he lost when he was 15. Be married, divorced, retired? He'll never forget the cards and letters that flooded in from strangers all over the world. There, next to his kitchen near the village of Mahomet, 140 miles south of Chicago, the lost women flickered back to life. Gloria's brother and three of her sisters are still alive. By the time he was 24, in 1966, Speck was in Chicago looking for work. Being in the world of the older girls felt cool. From the transcript of Speck's trial: Q: How long did you scream, in a sitting position, with the window open? She also wrote about Chicago's weather, which she described in one letter as "really terrible. Lori would ride her bike over, do the dishes, pick up the clothes scattered around the living room. Amurao had arrived the previous day to identify the killer in person, but Speck was not well enough. Why should you be surprised?". For a short time he was a carpenter, but soon he was in trouble again: 65-year-old Virgil Harris was viciously raped and robbed in her own home on April 2, 1966, and on April 13 a barmaid in his local tavern, Mary Kay Pierce, was brutally beaten to death. He told me that he drank moonshine and took barbiturates in his prison cell. What's more, Douglas was aware that any. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune). "The families are slowly disappearing.". Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. Richard Speck | The Chicago Nurse Killer - YouTube Would she still love water ballet? That day was December 7th, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor that pushed the United States into World War Two. By the time Nina entered nursing school, she was three or four years older than most of her classmates and worried that she was over the hill. They opened the door. Speck found work on a ship, and it began to seem like bodies turned up wherever Speck had been. Two officials at the Consulate General of the Philippines in Chicago, when asked recently about the Filipina nurses, weren't familiar with the crime. "For Filipinos and Filipino Americans who came of age during the 1960s," she said in a recent email, "I think Gargullo and Pasion are remembered as nurses who encountered American violence and tragedy, and Amurao is remembered as the nurse who used her wits to survive.". Growing up, Nina pronounced "Nigh-nah" was a good student, well-liked, quiet but with a sense of humor. In one of the slides that her brother recovered from the basement, a young man crouches next to the Bel Air, washing the whitewalls, smiling for the camera. Q. On that Monday, she was taken to a townhouse on East 100th Street rented by her new employer, South Chicago Community Hospital. He has never discussed it with them in depth or with his sister Marilyn, who has moved away from Chicago. (Schmale family ). William Martin, shown April 22, 2016, in his Oak Park law office, was the lead prosecutor in the Richard Speck mass murder case. The two were destined to be roommates in a townhouse on Chicago's South Side. Her graduation from nursing school was less than a month away, exams were coming up and she needed to stay at her townhouse in the city to study. `Parents ought to be careful about their kids,'' Richard Speck said. she reportedly told friends a few days after the murders. In 1996, five years after Speck's death, a TV journalist made public a prison video, which showed Speck taking drugs and engaging in sex with another inmate during the 1980s, while he was an inmate at Statesville Correctional Institute; Speck appears to have breasts in the video, apparently as a result of hormone treatment received while in prison, and is wearing women's underwear. "He is not going to harm you," the voice said. That's where she was on the night of July 13, 1966, when someone knocked at the bedroom door. The kitchen was also home to the family cookie jar, a white canister that said "Cooky" on the front, a detail he retains because "Cooky" was his father's nickname for Suzie. But whatever the veracity of his account of that murderous night (''It was just one of them weird coincidences. Some bunk beds, some singles. The book is a detailed account of the months before the crime and ends with the drama of the trial. I had that put on me when I was 14 or 15. Guarded by detectives, Corazon Amurao arrives at the courthouse in Peoria to testify as the state's chief witness against Richard Speck on April 5, 1967. 30 Strange And Bizarre Facts About Richard Speck They could talk about the wedding. Lori has come to believe that Gloria's death prepared her to handle anything, and to see, in some useful ways, the possibility of death in everything. What a waste that Nina and her friends weren't able to give the world everything they had to give, or enjoy its pleasures. ", "But work is easier than in the Philippine Islands," she continued, "only the patients are as big as water buffalo.". (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). Together they helped prepare Pat's body for burial, at the funeral home run by Arlene Baskys' dad, next door to Joe Matusek's bar. Cora has gone on to have a life that appears normal. He instantly recognized his mother's cursive handwriting. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. Law- enforcement officials familiar with the 1966 mass murder said there was no chance an accomplice existed. 28. "She gets out of the car, slams the door and found out from the guy where we are and how to get home from there.". Grace Jordan wasn't the only family member to stir Mary Ann's interest in nursing. Her childhood resume wasn't flashy. How to Talk to Serial Killers: An Interview with 'Mindhunter' John A few years ago, he ran into an old family friend and she told him a story he'd never heard, about how when she was in high school and couldn't afford a prom dress, Suzie made her one. "She showed the indomitability of her spirit by continuing her path as a nurse and dedicating her life to helping others and raising a family, but you can never get something like this out of your life," Martin said. Over his 25-year career with the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, Douglas interviewed hundreds of America's most notoriously brutal killers, from Charles Manson and Ted Bundy to " Son of Sam " David Berkowitz and the " BTK Killer ," Dennis Rader. It was the kind of childhood that half a century later people look back on and call simpler, innocent, a time when city kids were raised to be independent and unafraid. Fortunately, Amurao remembered the distinctive "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo that, along with the image, enabled police to identify their suspect as Richard Speck. Wilkening has had a full life, but he doesn't pretend the pain is gone or that his life ever returned to a true version of normal. A few days later, 8,000 miles from their native land, Merlita Gargullo and Valentina Pasion were memorialized at a Mass led by Archbishop John Cody. In the basement's dim overhead light, a big, brown cardboard box caught his eye, a box so soggy its bottom was ready to fall out. A doting mother and grandmother, she enjoys baby-sitting her grandchildren about twice a week and the constant companionship of her children. Many of those people have never spoken at length about what happened, not even to close family members. (Schmale family ). Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. Billy, the spirited boy who rarely spoke more than two words at a time, blurted three: "Mary Ann's dead!". She went home, not knowing that a little more than an hour earlier, a drifter with a knife, a gun and a history of violence had broken in and was holding her friends hostage upstairs. In those postwar years, most residents of Chicago's Far South Side were white and working-class, still close to their immigrant roots. "The Nurse Killer" Richard Benjamin Speck - Happy Scribe But any kid can end up just like me.''. Only recently, since John Schmale got in touch with her about a 50th anniversary commemoration for the women, has Lori let herself believe that it's OK to remember, OK to cry. Repacking it. She worked part time at a bakery. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. Richard Benjamin Speck was an American mass murderer who killed eight student nurses in their South Deering, Chicago residence on the night of July 13-14, 19. The two Arlenes still laugh easily when they think of Pat, but the memory of her death brings them quickly to tears. "She did well with other people in situations that you're not necessarily in control of," Farris said, "which I think is a good skill for nursing.". 'Mindhunter': The True Stories Behind The Show's Killers And Profilers
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