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That day was December 7th, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor that pushed the United States into World War Two. In this interview, Speck confessed to the murders for the first time publicly and said he thought he would get out of prison "between now and the year 2000", at which time he hoped to run his own grocery store business. Jack Wilkening, brother of Pamela Wilkening, remembers his sister and the days surrounding her 1966 murder along with seven other student nurses and nurseson Chicago'sSouth Side. It was the kind of neighborhood where kids walked everywhere and went home for lunch, though Pat took sandwiches to school because her mother worked during the day while her father, who ran the bar at night, slept. His horrifying violence had made him a murderous celebrity on the level of John Dillinger. 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. Be married, divorced, retired? Bottom row from left are Patricia Matusek, Valentina Pasion, Nina Jo Schmale and Pamela Wilkening. Suzie was the kind of girl people might call pretty, perky, popular. He has made sure that his niece, who is the keeper of the old family cookie jar, knows why she can't get rid of it. Amurao had arrived the previous day to identify the killer in person, but Speck was not well enough. What would Nina, who died at 24, look like today, at 74? 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. "Time is moving on," he said one afternoon, sitting in his peaceful yard under the old, low-hanging trees. "Don't hate," she told them. Indiana authorities wanted to interview Speck regarding the murder of three girls who had vanished on July 2, 1966, and whose bodies were never found. Theyre smiling and wearing regular clothes. (Schmale family ). It's a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible painted in Colonial Cream. Repacking it. 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. He told me that he drank moonshine and took barbiturates in his prison cell. Atienza was the states key witness when Martin prosecuted Speck in the 1967 trial. She also had a hard time believing he actually died of a heart attack in prison in 1991 and wonders why she was spared. Just below, in smaller type, was the news that six policemen had been shot during riots on the West Side. Rare photos, interviews honor 8 nurses slain by Richard Speck in 1966 By the time he left, around 3:30 a.m., eight women were dead, some stabbed, some strangled, some both. A photo that appeared in Life magazine after the murders shows her sitting with three of her housemates. 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. She laughs to see the pictures Schmale found, like the one of her and Nina dressed up like cats. Tammy Siouchoff remembers life with her fellow students before six of them and two visiting nurseswere murdered in a neighboring townhouse on Chicago's South Side in 1966. It was a world of hair curlers, hair spray cans, ashtrays, manual typewriters, textbooks, sheath dresses, corsages, cluttered rooms, a place where young women laughed, hugged, studied, ate, teased each other's hair. In that small room, with its linoleum floor and overhead light, Suzie taught him how to make a grilled cheese sandwich and how, if you mixed sour cream and dry onion soup mix, presto, you had French onion dip. 1. On that Monday, she was taken to a townhouse on East 100th Street rented by her new employer, South Chicago Community Hospital. Report a correction or typo . In the townhouse's unofficial sorority, Pam was the quiet one. 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. The old hospital is now called Advocate Trinity. She waved and waited for Pat to go inside. "What she did that night, very few human beings would have the courage to do. She did, however, like her volunteer job at an elder-care facility known as the poor farm, and she made friends with her patients, even brought them Christmas presents. Her childhood resume wasn't flashy. 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. Richard Speck has been described as a drifter, a loner, a high school dropout, a sociopath, a heavy drinker, a violent man who could be charming. "You know," he said, "older sisters take care of you and I always felt taken care of. Abigail Atienza followed in her mother's footsteps and became a nurse practitioner, and Christian is a certified public accountant. And I don`t know what I`d do without it. It's where Suzie taught him, as a 10-year-old, to play solitaire. Would Kubasek go with her to the townhouse to get Pat's nursing cap and uniform? 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. The video's release caused a major scandal within the Illinois Department of Corrections, and was widely cited as justification for the reintroduction of death penalty. After graduating from Far Eastern University in Manila, she worked for a couple of years as a staff nurse, then applied for work in the United States. In this interview, Speck confessed to the murders for the first time publicly and said he thought he would get out of prison "between now and the year 2000", at which time he hoped to run his own grocery store business. He was arrested and stood trial for murdering the eight nurses. The close quarters helped turn most of the women into close friends, and for all their dedication and discipline, they loved pranks. Jack Wilkening is 79 now, retired from his job as a Standard Oil cashier. "I really don't know how to break the news of Tina's death to our parents," one of her sisters sobbed when word reached the Philippines. "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.". At the door stood a tall stranger with a pockmarked face and a gun. Its why he wants a 50th anniversary commemoration that reclaims all the womens names, all their lives. And it hasn't stopped since. In May 1966, Valentina Pasion boarded an airplane in the Philippines, headed for Chicago. So was pregnancy. She was not the same person. Mary Ann was the fourth of the six kids of Philip and Mary Jordan. News item: Richard Speck sentenced. Billy, the spirited boy who rarely spoke more than two words at a time, blurted three: "Mary Ann's dead!". Richard Speck - Wikipedia An average student at Aquinas High School, she was turned down by Loyola University, so after graduation she took a job as a file clerk for Peoples Gas. Only Cora would survive. After Speck's trial she moved back to the Philippines and married in 1969, but she returned to the U.S. about four years later. What about the notorious ''Born to Raise Hell'' tattoo that led to his capture? Lori realized it was time to tell the truth. Until he was six-years-old, he lived a fairly normal life in a small town in Illinois. Speck is in jail for murdering and raping a group of women. He has never discussed it with them in depth or with his sister Marilyn, who has moved away from Chicago. "A lot of us never locked our doors but the Speck case changed all that.". Richard Speck | The Chicago Nurse Killer 10,333 views Apr 17, 2020 61 Dislike Share Real Ghost Stories Online 67.8K subscribers In 1966 residents of south Chicago were traumatized by a deviant. 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. Corazon Amurao, center, the nurse who survived the massacre of eight of her fellow student nurses, walks between another nurse and William Ruddel, Bridewell jail superintendent, from Bridewell's Cermak Memorial Hospital after a second visit to the building where Richard Speck was being held on July 19, 1966. He spent the rest of his life in prison until he died of a heart attack in 1991 at age 49. They are young and together and happy. But any kid can end up just like me.''. 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. Teacher. You climbed down to the ledge on 100th Street? Lori Davy, center, accepts a nursing school diploma on behalf of her slain sister, Gloria Davy, at a ceremony at McCormick Place in 1966. After the trial, she went home to the Philippines, got a job as a nurse and was elected to the town council in her hometown of San Luis. Speck was captured two days later when an emergency room doctor at Cook County Hospital thought a patient he was treating for self-inflicted gashes looked familiar. I watch. That is no comfort to the families of his victims. Pat was born in 1945, the year World War II ended, to Joe and Bessie Matusek, both of Czech descent. Suzanne Farris appears as a young girl with a prayer card from her funeral on July 18, 1966. Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. He was very close with his biological father, who had toiled as a logger, farmer, and factory worker. 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. I had that put on me when I was 14 or 15. Books, documentaries, countless news stories, a 2007 film called "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" were dedicated to the so-called crime of the century. That's where she was on the night of July 13, 1966, when someone knocked at the bedroom door. ''What`s that dude who played in `Shaft`? She liked clothes, and since the family didn't have a lot of money, she made her own. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. Atienza did not respond to Tribune requests for an interview. 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. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned due to issues with jury selection at his trial. When their bodies were flown back to Manila, however, more than 100 people relatives and friends waited in the rain to watch their caskets unloaded from an airliner and hefted into funeral coaches. 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. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}G. Gordon Liddys Wild Career After Watergate. 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. 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. `60 Minutes,` the news, keep up on the outside world. "She was kind of your average good kid who was really dedicated to being a caregiver.". No one in her village had ever gone to America. She wanted to do Pat's hair and makeup for the funeral. Then I screamed for help. She still gets a kick out of playing poker at casinos in Nevada with her husband. After several minutes, they heard a female voice urging them to come out. But to hear Speck talk about himself in his own voice was repugnant and hypnotic. ''You`re talking about two different categories of people,'' Speck said. Nursing students were under strict rules during the 1960s, but still they found time for fun. Phil taught public school, had a sailboat and was nice to him, the kid brother. But any kid can end up just like me.'' When. "It was him," she said. He has remained in contact with her all these years. Her family her father, John, a pipe fitter; her mother, Lena, a homemaker born in Germany; and her only sibling, Jack lived in a small, one-story brick Cape Cod on Commercial Avenue. The police didn't rush them, but they left as fast as they could. Suzie was lucky. Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. Elmhurst Blotter: Man charged with battery for allegedly punching a security guard at a bar, Hinsdale police blotter: multiple thefts reported by patients at Hinsdale Hospital, Glenview police blotter: Harwood Heights woman charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. By the time they were in their third year, they had helped deliver babies, treated sick children, watched people die. He was referring to letters he received in his prison cell every week from women-female admirers who, he said, wanted to correspond with him. Losing his parking spot as he carted all that food here and there. He thinks about the family she might have had, wishes she could have met his two sons and daughter and eight grandchildren. "She laughs a lot.". "Well," she wrote, "it was a fine, dizzying, exciting and wonderful weekend, but I still believe there is no place like home.". They could talk about the wedding. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. The book is a detailed account of the months before the crime and ends with the drama of the trial. The children suffered considerable abuse at the hands of their drunken stepfather, and Speck's childhood was marked by juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, which soon led to petty crime. What the camera couldn't catch were the girl's thoughts, the confusion she felt at the spectacle of all these other graduates. He killed more than eight people., Lori Davy Sivek remembers her sister Gloria Davy, one of eight student nurses and nurses murdered together 50years ago on Chicago'sSouth Side. We were just totally out of our minds.''. Dorothy Schmale died five years after her daughter did, her death hastened by heartbreak. Changing his mind at the last minute, he summoned help, and was taken to Cook County hospital, where, again, his tattoo gave him away, and he was arrested and taken into custody. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. Being in the world of the older girls felt cool. After she married and had three children, she told her kids that Aunt Gloria had died in a car crash. Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. Brownie. Finding those carousels of slides, in September 2015, may have been a fluke, but it felt like a providential sign. Richard Speck | American murderer | Britannica The Matuseks wanted Pat to be buried in the clothes she would have worn for her upcoming graduation, so on the day after the murders, Pat's sister, Betty Jo, asked Kubasek for a favor. Many of those people have never spoken at length about what happened, not even to close family members. Richard Speck Serial Killer Documentary - YouTube Elmhurst Blotter: Man charged with battery for allegedly punching a security guard at a bar, Hinsdale police blotter: multiple thefts reported by patients at Hinsdale Hospital, Glenview police blotter: Harwood Heights woman charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. In 1991, while still in prison, Speck died of a heart attack. 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. Peter McNamee washes the 1957 Chevrolet owned by his girlfriend, Nina Jo Schmale, whom he planned to marry after graducation, circa 1966. 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. "I was just as amazed as everyone that this despicable person landed on my surgical service that evening," Dr. LeRoy Smith said in an email this month. Why he did what he did in the next few hours will never be known. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. Tina, as her family called her, had graduated the year before among the top 10 nursing students in her class at Manila Central University. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune). Then one day last fall, she found a voicemail from John Schmale. He pulled it out recently as he talked for the first time publicly about the sister he lost when he was 15. 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 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. ''A lot of them send pictures,'' Speck told me. According to news accounts published at the time, Merlita, 23, was quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. For the people who loved the women who died, their deaths remain vivid. He told Greene one of his pleasures in prison was "getting high." THE VOICE OF RICHARD SPECK - Chicago Tribune Richard Speck once remarked that the day after he was born, all hell broke loose. Forty miles from home, when they spotted a gas station, they were reluctant to stop for directions because their curlers made them look like creatures from Mars. '', He said that if he were ever paroled, and someone annoyed him, ''I`ll be back in prison. After that day, Arline Davy was different. Despite the horror of what happened, Atienza carries warm memories of her friends, Martin said. Martin and Dennis Breo are co-authors of a 1993 book called "The Crime of the Century." Not violent? Cora has gone on to have a life that appears normal. 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. 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. "But I come from the place where they make balisong. 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. Having been paroled in January 1965, he lasted only four weeks outside, before being arrested again for aggravated assault, and he was jailed for a further 16 months, of which he served 6 months. The real-life Speck who tortured, raped, and murdered eight Chicago student nurses in a. Their lives are what John Schmale wants the world to see, and he can't help but believe that's what his mother wanted too. ''How am I gonna get in trouble?'' In one of John Schmale's slides, Nina poses wearing nothing but a white towel and her nurse's cap, holding a hypodermic needle and pretending she's about to give one of her housemates a shot. Before long, the Davy home was packed with people, and every room, it seemed, was packed with roses, so many roses the scent made Lori sick. Billy loved her tremendously.". And so, shortly after 12:15, Mary Ann and Suzanne climbed the stairs to Suzanne's bedroom. 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. Speck's father, to whom he had been deeply attached . Subscribe. Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. 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. Despite fears that Cora, in one doctor's words, would "lapse into a psychosis" and never be able to discuss the murders, she testified boldly at Speck's trial. It was a close-knit community where almost no one locked their doors. But before she was gone, she placed four carousels of slides neatly in a box. Betty Jo had one more request. "She walked within two inches of his forehead and pointed . The first floor consisted of a living room, a powder room and a kitchen. Around 10:30 p.m., she went upstairs to bed, in the high bunk in the room she shared with Merlita. Merlita's father. Mary Ann Jordanin her nursing uniform in an undated photo. Their parents slept on a hide-a-bed in the living room. Shortly before she died, she wrote a friend about a trip to Wisconsin. Nurse. Not long afterward, Arline Davy, sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, made an announcement to her daughters. A. An impressive and brazen mimic, Mary Ann made everyone around her laugh. Thats why he and his wife established the Nina Jo Schmale Scholarship Fund at Wheaton College; Ninas name, and hers alone, is now attached to something good. ''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.''. In 1972, Speck's death sentence was commuted to 50 to 100 years in prison, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment. Phil was engaged to one of Mary Ann's classmates, Suzanne Farris, who still lived in the townhouse, and Suzanne was with him that evening. Life, though not idyllic, felt safe. (Schmale family ). That was almost true; the man whose crimes introduced the term ''mass murderer'' to the American lexicon did not like to talk. He opened it. Phil was also the brother of one of Suzie's classmates, Mary Ann Jordan, who had lived in the townhouse for a while, then moved back home. "The mailman would bring them in boxes," he said. With a rush of excitement and a pang of dread, he read her penciled note: "Nina South Chicago Hospital.". She told him she had never forgotten his sister Nina's kindness and that she still misses her. Billy died at 42, with Susan as his caretaker. Astrological Sign: Sagittarius, Death Year: 1991, Death date: December 5, 1991, Death State: Illinois, Death City: Joliet, Death Country: United States, Article Title: Richard Speck Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/richard-speck, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: December 1, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014.