who is richard speck
Richard Speck was an American mass murderer best known for the brutal 1966 killing of eight female nursing students in Chicago, one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century in the U.S.
Basic details
- Full name: Richard Benjamin Speck
- Born: December 6, 1941 in Kirkwood, Illinois, USA
- Died: December 5, 1991 (age 49) in Joliet, Illinois, from a heart attack while in prison
The 1966 nurse murders
On the night of July 13–14, 1966, Speck broke into a townhouse on 100th Street in Chicago, where he was staying temporarily, and attacked a group of student nurses who lived there while training at South Chicago Community Hospital.
Over several hours, he systematically murdered eight young women by stabbing, strangling, slashing their throats, or a combination of those methods. He also raped one of the victims before killing her.
A ninth nurse, Corazon Amurao, survived by hiding under a bed and was able to give a detailed description of the attacker to police, which led to Speck’s arrest shortly afterward.
Arrest and trial
Speck was arrested on July 17, 1966 at a Chicago hospital, where a doctor noticed the tattoo on his arm that read “Born to Raise Hell,” matching the description given by the surviving nurse.
His trial in 1967 was highly publicized and lasted only about 12 days. On April 15, 1967, the jury found him guilty of all eight murders after less than an hour of deliberation, and he was sentenced to death by electric chair.
Sentencing and prison life
Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972 (Furman v. Georgia), Speck’s death sentence was commuted, and he instead received eight consecutive terms of 50 to 150 years in prison.
He spent the rest of his life behind bars, mostly at the Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet, and was repeatedly denied parole. He died of a heart attack in prison on December 5, 1991, one day before his 50th birthday.
Notoriety and legacy
The Richard Speck case shocked the nation and helped define the term “mass murderer” in American media and public consciousness during the 1960s. Today, the crime is still frequently referenced in true crime books, documentaries, and forums as a landmark case in criminal history.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.