Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Nurse Killer” Richard Benjamin Speck

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

It was called the crime of the century: In 1966, Richard Speck drifted into Chicago, and unleashed a whirlwind of violence and rage onto a group of student nurses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of rape, murder, assault, and attempted suicide that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. July 13, 1966 was a scorching summer day in Chicago. As night fell, the exhausted residents of 2319 East 100th Street turned in for the evening, desperately seeking relief. Around 10.30 p.m., Corazon Amurau, a 23-year-old nursing student, walked into the upstairs bedroom she shared with her roommate, Merlita. She locked the door behind her and got ready for bed.

Amarau went to turn the light off, but Merlita told her to keep it on. She wanted to do her nightly prayers before going to bed. Amaral sighed and climbed to the top bunk and laid down, trying to fall asleep despite the light. About a half hour later, Amarau had just closed her eyes when she heard four soft knocks on her door. Merlita was still praying, but Ammaro climbed down from her bunk. She opened the door expecting to see one of her housemates, but it was a stranger on the other side of the door. A tall man with combed back hair and a badly pockmarked face.

He was dressed all in black, and in his right hand, he held a gun. Hi, I'm Greg Polson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're discussing Richard Speck. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other originals from Parcast for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In today's one-part episode, we're talking about Richard Speck, one of the most infamous mass murderers

in American history. In 1966, he killed eight nurses in one night in Chicago. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Richard Speck once remarked that the day after he was born, all hell broke loose, and it hasn't stopped since. That day was December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor that pushed the United States into World War II. So you could say that from the beginning, Richard Speck's life was stained with violence. Even after the war was over, Young Speck was haunted by tragedy. When he was six, his father died of a heart attack. Speck had shared a close relationship with his father and was devastated by his passing.

Three years after his father's death, when Speck was nine, his mother remarried a traveling salesman named Carl Lindbergh. She moved the family to Lindbergh's home outside Dallas, Texas, pulling Young Speck into a tornado of chaos and violence. Lindbergh was an alcoholic with a long rap sheet, reportedly convicted of crimes ranging from drunk driving to forgery. He was also extremely abusive to his stepchildren. For some reason, Young Speck bore the brunt of his stepfather's bullying. He constantly insulted and taunted Speck

and seemed to relish in telling the young boy how worthless he was. The bullying profoundly affected Speck and destroyed. destroyed his self-esteem. Two years after the move to Texas, the family experienced tragedy once again. One of Speck's older brothers died in a car accident. It only made Speck further retreat into his shell. Through middle school and high school, he failed to make friends and could barely bring himself to participate in class.

He suffered from terrible acne, which exacerbated his insecurity. He truly believed what his stepfather had told him, that he was a worthless loser. and the world would reject him. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. According to a 2005 study published by Dr. M. Brent Donnellin,

Kali H. Tresnevsky, Richard Robbins, Terry Moffitt, and Avshalom Kaspie, there's a significant correlation between low self-esteem and aggressive and antisocial behavior. Especially among adolescents, low self-esteem is highly predictive of later aggression. As those who struggle with self-hate will tend to externalize those feelings and lash out in ways that go against societal norms. As Speck grew older, those same self-esteem issues that made him meek as a child transformed him into a combative young adult, quick to anger and violence.

He morphed into an angry young man who, wanted to fight back at a world that hated him. In his teenage years, Speck fell in with a tough, older crowd, who, like his stepfather, were petty criminals. He drank, stole jewelry, and burglarized homes. He was always looking for a fight, and more often than not, got one.

Throughout his youth, he suffered several injuries while fighting, including multiple concussions that may have caused lasting brain damage. But he didn't let those injuries deter him. he just kept throwing punches. In the summer of 1961, when he was 19, Speck met 15-year-old Shirley Malone at the Texas State Fair. Not long after their initial meeting, Shirley realized she was pregnant. Under pressure from Shirley's parents,

the young couple married in January of 1962. They moved into Shirley's mother's home in East Dallas and prepared to start a family. But Speck's new domestic life did not. stop his criminal behavior in the slightest. A few months after his wedding, Speck was arrested after a night out drinking with his friends. He served three weeks in jail for disturbing the peace, missing the birth of his daughter. When he returned home, Speck's behavior as a husband and father resembled far more his stepfather than his biological one. He was violent and unstable,

freely cheating on his wife and sexually assaulting her on several occasions. Speck also terrorized and attacked his mother-in-law, to the point of threatening her with his collection of knives and guns. But still, for the sake of her family, his mother-in-law never had him arrested and tried to help him get a job to support his new family. In the summer of 1963, 21-year-old Speck took his criminal antics too far. He went on a miniature crime spree, stealing beer, cigarettes, and cash from a store. Speck was sent to prison. During his incarceration, by far his longest stint yet, Speck finally made some personal progress. He was well-behaved and began attending church services regularly. Speck claimed he wanted to find honest work as a carpenter. He was ready to leave his

criminal behavior in the past. The prison psychologist wasn't so sure. In a report prepared for Speck's parole hearing, the psychologist determined that Speck was emotionally and socially under-devening. and would likely relapse if released. Instead of being released, the psychologist recommended that Speck remain in maximum security prison. That advice was ignored, and Speck was released on January 2, 1965, after serving 16 months.

Almost immediately, he proved the prison psychologist correct. On January 9, 1965, 23-year-old Speck was loitering in the dark parking lot of an apartment building in Dallas just after 2 a.m. He'd been drinking and was carrying a long knife with him. He was looking for a fight or something worse. Spek spotted a young woman across the lot. She parked her car and headed towards the apartment building. Speck watched her from the darkness and readied the knife. As she walked past, he pounced. The woman screamed as Speck tackled her and held the knife to her throat. He told her.

her not to scream, but she was too terrified to do anything but, and those screams got the attention of a neighbor. As the neighbor approached, Speck fled into the surrounding alleyways, trying to slip away in the darkness. Police cars were on the scene within minutes and began combing the area. Speck tossed the knife into the bushes and tried to walk naturally, but the cops had already spotted him. Before Speck had a chance to run for it, the police cornered him in an alley, and arrested him. At first, Speck claimed complete innocence, but the woman had clearly described him to the police, so he said he was in a drunken haze and couldn't remember the attack. None of the excuses worked, and Speck was found guilty of assault and parole violation. He was

sentenced to 490 days in prison, but served less than half that time. Somehow, Speck slipped through the cracks again. After his release, Speck felt a and boldened. He'd seemingly beaten multiple felony charges over the previous years. In fact, Speck wore his criminal past as a badge of honor, proof of his rebellion against the world, so his violent behavior only escalated. His wife, however, had had enough of Richard Speck and left him by the end of 1965. Speck wasn't surprised by the failure of his marriage. It was just another example of the world rejecting him, even if he caused him. In the immediate aftermath of his divorce, Speck went out looking for trouble, needing to release his internalized anger.

He instigated an argument with another drinker at a bar, which quickly escalated into a full-on fight. It ended when Speck pulled out a switchblade and stabbed his rival. Speck knew he'd crossed a line. With no one else left in his life, he turned to his mother for help. She hired a lawyer who successfully framed the stabbing. in the context of a good old-fashioned bar fight. The assault charge was reduced to disturbing the peace. Speck was fined $10. Speck's brush with a potentially serious felony didn't scare him straight. It only emboldened him to continue pushing his luck. Two months later, he stole 70

cartons of cigarettes from a grocery store and tried to sell them in a nearby parking lot. Speck managed to get rid of the cigarettes and flee before the police arrived, but an arrest warrant was issued. Speck worried that the cops and courts might have a personal grudge against him after failing to imprison him for the stabbing. If they caught him, they would throw the book at him, so Speck decided to run. On March 9, 1966, as the police searched for him, Speck boarded a bus headed north. He wanted to go back to the beginning, back to the last. place he felt happy and accepted his hometown in Illinois. But Speck was no longer a quiet, lonely child. He was now a one-man storm of aggression and crime. And when he returned home,

violence inevitably followed. Coming up, Richard Speck and his chaos and violence returns to Illinois. Listeners, here's a new show I can't wait for you to check out. When it comes to love, every story is unique. Some play out like fairy tales seemingly meant to be. Others defy the odds to achieve happily ever after. In Our Love Story, the newest Spotify original from Parcast, you'll discover the many pathways to love, as told by the actual couples who found them. Every Tuesday, our love story celebrates the ups, downs, and pivotal moments that turn complete strangers into perfect pairs. Each episode offers an intimate glimpse inside a real-life romance with couples recounting the highlights and hardships that define their love. Whether it's a chance encounter, a former friendship, or even a former enemy, our love story proves that love can begin and blossom in the most unexpected ways.

Follow our love story free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now back to the story. In 1966, 24-year-old Richard Speck returned home to Monmouth, Illinois, leaving behind most of his family, his lengthy criminal record, and an outstanding arrest warrant. But his fresh start quickly soured. He got a job as a carpenter, but lost it when he made a habit of skipping work to spend time at the bar. Speck tried to reconnect with his older sisters who still lived in Monmouth, but none of them wanted much to do with their troublesome younger brother, the black sheep of their family. So Speck found himself living the same life he had back in Dallas, floating between odd jobs, drinking heavily, and committing acts of violence.

He also picked up a reputation as a Brackard and a liar. In bar conversations, he claimed that he'd left Dallas because he'd killed a man and spent time smuggling drugs into the country from Mexico. Speck was quickly known in Monmouth as a seedy, dangerous character, and as the months went on, he lived up to that. reputation. Just after midnight on April 2nd, 1966, Speck broke into the home of Virgil Harris, a 65-year-old woman. While rifling through the empty house, Speck heard Harris return home. He rushed to the front door and grabbed the woman. He pushed a knife to her throat and

threatened to kill her if she screamed. Harris complied and tried to reason with Speck, but he wasn't receptive. Speck pulled Harris into the bedroom and ordered Harris, ordered her to remove her clothes before sexually assaulting her. Then he tied her up and fled. Harris managed to free herself and get to a hospital where she reported the crime and described her assailant as a polite man with a southern drawl. A week later, Speck struck again.

Mary Kay Pierce, a 32-year-old barmaid, was found behind the tavern where she worked. She'd been killed by a single blow to her abdomen by a blunt object, which ruptured her liver. Within two days, the police focused their investigation on Richard Speck, who frequented the bar where Pierce worked and, according to Pierce's friends, had an interest in her.

When they discovered he was from Texas, the investigators realized that Speck was probably the perpetrator of the Harris assault as well. The police summits back to the police station, where they questioned him about both crimes. But their interrogations ended abruptly when Speck complained he was feeling sick. He asked to reschedule their questioning for a different day, and the police obliged. As soon as he left the police station, he skipped town. It remains unclear to this day if Speck was actually responsible for the murder of Mary

K. Pierce, or if he simply didn't want to take any chances with the Monmouth Police. Either way, Speck wanted out of the small town. He ran. He showed up unannounced at the Chicago home of his older sister, Martha. Speck spun a story for Martha and her husband, claiming he had to escape Monmouth because a gang of drug dealers was out to get him. Martha was automatically skeptical of everything Speck said. Martha had already grown up by the time her mother remarried and moved the family to Texas, so she didn't really know her brother very well. And like her other siblings, she viewed Speck as the black sheep of the family, the product of an alcoholic and violent stepfather they all disliked.

Still, out of a sense of family obligation, Martha tried to help her wayward brother. She and her husband successfully secured Speck a job as a deckhand on a steel freighter traveling the Great Lakes. Martha hoped that the isolation and discipline of working on a boat might straighten him out. It didn't. His drinking and violence continued, and after barely two months aboard the freighter, Speck was fired for fighting. Speck's sister and brother-in-law were reaching the end of their rope. They again tried to get Speck a steady job, bringing him to the National Maritime Union to pick up Deccant work. But Speck failed to get his life together because he had no interest in living a normal life.

He just wanted to drink and fight. He could no longer stay at his sister's house, so he got a room at a nearby boarding house and waited for work. On July 12th, Speck received an assignment on an oil tanker. He packed his things and drove to the dock, only to find that the job was all. already taken. With no other choice, he returned to the Union Hall. Without enough money to pay for a room, Speck spent the night on a park bench outside the hall. The next day, he sat outside for hours, waiting for another deckhand position to open up. But as the day wore on, no jobs came, and his mood turned sour. He was furious at the MNU for giving away a job they had assigned

to him, at his family for abandoning him, at the world for his poverty and lot in life. He felt trapped by his failures and his dwindling options. By late morning, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees, Speck's frustration finally boiled over. He gave up on getting a deckhand job and opted for another path. He convinced his brother-in-law to loan him $25 for a room at the inn, then immediately went to a nearby tavern to begin drinking.

As he knocked back drink after drink, Speck brooded on the rage and dejection that were beginning to overwhelm him. And there was only one way Speck knew to express those emotions, with violence. Later that night, Speck was walking between bars when he spotted 53-year-old Ella May Hooper. Speck made a few awkward advances towards Hooper, who tried to keep her distance from the strange man 30 years her junior. Speck was furious at the rejection. He caught up to Hooper and pressed a knife against her back. He told her they were going to have a drink together. If she refused, he'd stab her.

Hooper, frozen in fear, complied. He told her that he wasn't going to hurt her or rob her. He just wanted to talk. He led the shaking, panicking Hooper back to his room at the inn, where he sat her down on the bed and offered her a beer. Then Speck asked her a series of bizarre questions. Did she have children? Did she like younger men?

Would she sleep with him willingly? Speck wasn't just looking for a victim to assault. In his own violent, strange way, he was looking for someone to simply accept him, while the rest of the world rejected him. Hooper tried to be what Speck wanted. To avoid angering him, she even said she would sleep with him. But Speck didn't believe. leave her, so he ordered her into bed and raped her. Afterwards, he rifled through her purse and found a

22-caliber gun, which he took for himself. Speck, now armed with a knife and gun, walked Hooper downstairs back out to the street. Speck told her to meet him later that night at the bar and threatened to kill her and her family if she stood him up, or told anyone about what happened. It was just past 8 o'clock, and Speck still wasn't satisfied with the damage he'd already done. The night was still young, and he had more he wanted to do. He returned to the tavern, where he continued drinking. He nearly instigated another fight by pulling out the gun, but cooler heads prevailed. Speck needed to do something else to sate his violent appetite.

Around 10 p.m., Speck left the tavern and returned to his room. After a day of drinking heavily, Speck had worked up enough liquid courage to do what he'd always wanted to do, get revenge on the world, get revenge on the people who hated him. He collected his hunting knife and changed into an all-black outfit. Then he left the room and walked in the direction of the NMU hiring hall. The weather had cooled down by 11 p.m. as Richard Speck approached the hall, a mile and a half away from the tavern. But Speck had another destination in the room.

in mind, a row of townhouses across the street. Speck knew that many of the residents were nursing students from the South Chicago Community Hospital. Speck crept into the alleyway that ran behind the townhouses and approached his target, 2319 East 100th Street. Unlike the other townhouses, the lights inside were off. The nurses inside already asleep. Speck used his pocket knife to pry open a window

in the townhouse, reach inside, and unlock the back door. Breathing heavily with anticipation, Speck stepped into the dark and quiet house, knife and gun at the ready, prepared to kill. Coming up, Speck commits one of the most infamous acts of violence in American history.

Now back to the story. Around 11 p.m. on July 13, 1966, 24-year-old Richard Speck broke into the townhouse said 2319 East 100th Street in Chicago. He was armed with a gun and two knives. He'd already robbed and raped a woman earlier in the evening, but he wasn't satisfied. Speck stepped deeper into the dark townhouse.

The women who lived inside, all nursing students had already retired to their upstairs bedrooms. So Speck ascended the stairs and walked up to the first bedroom door. Inside the room were two Filipino exchanges, students in their early 20s, Corazon Amorau and Merlita Gargulo. Amurau was asleep in her bed, while Gargulo recited her nightly prayers when they heard four quiet knocks on their door. Amarou didn't think anything was odd about the knocks, so she opened the door. She was shocked to find a shadowy man standing on the other side, dressed all in black.

The man raised his hand, revealing a gun, and stepped inside the bedroom. Amuro turned away from Speck terrified. Speck took another step towards her and demanded to know where the other housemates were. But neither nurse said anything, too scared to speak. Speck grabbed Amaro's arm and asked the question again, but she couldn't bring herself to say a word as tears trickled down her face. Frustrated, Speck ordered the nurses to walk out of their bedroom.

They fearfully complied. Speck pushed the gun into Amuro's back as he walked her and Gargolo to the large bedroom at the end of the hallway. Inside the dark bedroom, Speck turned on the light to see three other nurses sleeping in the room. As they began to grogly wake up, he stared down at them, momentarily lost in his own dark thoughts. While Speck was briefly distracted, Amuro and Gargulo took their chance. Amurau grabbed one of the waking nurses and bolted it. into the bedroom's closet, slamming the door shut behind them. An angered Speck tried to pull the closet door open, but the three desperate nurses managed

to hold it closed. For the moment, they were safe. Seathing, Speck held his gun at the other two nurses' heads and instructed them to get their housemates to come out of the closet. Speck promised that he wouldn't hurt anyone. They calmly did what he asked, telling Amuro that it was safe to come out. They took the other women at their word. They stepped out of the closet and back into the clutches of Richard Speck. Motioning with his gun, he made the nurses sit on the ground in front of him. He tried to speak softly and calmly. He was only there for money, enough to supposedly get him to New Orleans. The scared nurses offered Speck what little cash they had in their purses. Speck watched as the nurses gathered their money, then froze as he heard foot

steps coming up the stairs. Another student nurse, Gloria Davy, had returned from a date with her fiancé. When she approached the master bedroom door, Speck burst out of the room and grabbed her. He threw Gloria onto the floor with the rest of the hostages and slid his knife out of his pocket. The nurses sat quietly as Speck sliced up their bed sheets into strips, which he used to tie his hostages up with knots, he learned as a sailor. Once they were all bound, Speck chose his first victim, Pamela Wilkening. He pulled her off the floor and marched her down the hallway and into an empty bedroom. Using the bedsheets, Speck tied Wilkning to the floor and prepared to rape her

when he heard the front door open. Two more nursing students, Marianne, Jordan, and Suzanne Ferris were happily chatting as they walked up the stairs, completely unaware of what was happening. They walked down the upstairs hallway to the master bedroom. where they were suddenly greeted by the horrifying sight of their housemates tied up. And then Richard Speck emerged from one of the bedrooms. Knife and Gun held high. Jordan and Ferris screamed and turned to run,

but Speck chased them down and blocked the exit. Shubbing the gun in their faces, Speck ordered them into the room with Pamela Wilkening. Inside, Speck's violent desires burst out fully. He killed Suzanne Barris and Mavis and Mew. Marianne Jordan, stabbing and strangling them both. Then he turned his attention back to Pamela Wilkening, but he abandoned his initial plan. Instead of raping her, he stabbed her to death. According to a 2002 study by Dr. Eric Beauregard and Jean Prue, sexual murderers tend to fall

into one of two criminal profiles, the sadistic profile and the anger profile. Sadistic murderers are driven by a desire to dominate. and control, and their crimes are often carefully premeditated. Anger-driven sexual murderers like Richard Speck are more often driven by personal problems like loneliness, family difficulties, and employment failures. They want to lash out at the world for perceived societal rejection, and are often fueled by drugs and alcohol. Speck might not have had any intention of killing when he entered the townhouse that evening,

but he wanted to put himself in a dangerous situation. where his anger could take over. But taking three lives didn't sate his anger. It fueled it. He wanted more. Speck stumbled back into the master bedroom to select his next victim. In his focus on killing, he didn't notice that one of his hostages, Corazon Amarau, had rolled herself underneath one of the beds and out of view.

Speck selected Nina Schmal. He untied her and led her out of the room at gunpoint. back into another empty bedroom where he repeated what he'd done to Pamela Wilkening. Over the next three hours, Speck took each nurse one by one out of the master bedroom and killed them. Corazon Amarau laid silently under the bed, watching as her friends and roommates were dragged out of the room. She was helpless to fight back and too afraid to run. At 3.30 a.m., the master bedroom was seemingly empty. Speck never noticed Amarau hiding under the bed.

She listened as he went through the remaining clothing and purses, stealing every last scent he could. Then she heard him walk back down the stairs and leave the townhouse. Speck walked home, having had his fill of violence for the evening, he'd finally taken out his anger on the world. He tossed his bloodied knife into the river and returned to his room at the inn just before dawn. He laid his head on the pillow and peacefully drifted off to sleep. Back in the nurse's townhouse, Corazon Amaral was shaking and silently crying underneath the

bed, still wedged in her hiding spot. As the sun rose at 5.30 a.m., Amaral finally worked up the courage to undo her bindings and pull herself out from under the bed. She left the bedroom and saw the carnage that Speck left. The bodies of her fellow nurses left. in the other bedrooms. Horrified and in shock, Corazon opened a second floor window with shaky hands and crawled out onto the ledge. Then she began to scream in both English and her native Tagalog for anyone to hear. They're all dead. My friends are all dead. The police arrived soon after. Reporters from the Chicago Tribune and other papers were close behind. This wasn't just front page news. This was the crime of the century. Fortunately for the police, Corazon Amorrao gave

them a good description of the killer, six feet tall, short blonde hair, and unusual for Chicago, a southern drawl. Within a few hours, investigators had asked around town and discovered that several people had seen or spoken to a man that fit that exact description, Richard Speck. By the time the investigators had discovered his name, Speck had started his day. He woke up and went down to the tavern to order his first drink, seemingly without a care in the world. As Speck happily drank his way into the afternoon, the police tried to make their move. They had an NMU agent call Speck and ask him to report to the Union Hall for a job opening on a ship. But Speck somehow knew it was a setup, and instead of walking into a trap, he had to be a job.

hopped into a cabin headed to the north side of Chicago, having put some distance between himself and the police. Speck wandered into yet another bar and continued drinking. Meanwhile, the investigators pressed on. Using fingerprints and FBI records, the police placed Speck inside the townhouse. When shown a photo, Corazon Amuroo confirmed that Speck was their man. Within three days of the murders, Speck saw his own name and face printed across the the front page of the Chicago Tribune. The updated description of the suspect included an account of Speck's tattoos, including the words, Born to Race Hell, etched on his left forearm.

The police were closing in, and it wouldn't be long before they found him. Speck checked into a low-rent hotel in Skid Row, where the rooms resembled jail cells and tried to plan his next move. He had nowhere to go, no money, and no options. Speck could only see one way out. So on the night of Saturday, July 16th, Speck cut his wrists open with a broken wine bottle. Neighboring hotel guests found Speck covered in his own blood

and called the police. Speck was rushed to the hospital, where doctors worked to save his life. As one of the doctors worked on Speck's injured arm, he noticed a tattoo born to raise hell. He recognized it from the newspaper. The doctor asked his patient what his name was, The patient, still in shock, drunk and delirious, replied that his name was Richard Speck.

The police placed Speck and leg shackles even before the doctors finished saving his life. When he had recovered, Speck was booked and sent to the Cook County Jail, where he was evaluated by a panel of psychologists. They determined he was fit to stand trial. Speck's highly publicized trial began on April 3, 1967. The press and general public were fascinated and disturbed by the crime and the seemingly inhuman sociopathic killer. Throughout his trial, Speck remained emotionless and cold, even when Corazon Amarou took the stand and dramatically declared without a doubt that he was the killer. Speck claimed he'd blacked out due to the alcohol and drugs that were in his system.

Even if he did commit the crime, his attorneys argued, he wasn't responsible for his actions. Dr. Marvin Siporin, the jail psychiatrist to examined and treated Speck, supported this theory. He claimed that Speck had suffered serious head trauma as a teenager, leaving brain damage that caused violence when mixed with alcohol and drugs. In recent years, there's greater evidence for that hypothesis. According to a 2018 study by researchers W. Hugh Williams, Pratiba Chitza Vazen, Siena Fasel, Tom McMillan, Nathan Hughes, Michael Parsonage, and James Tonks.

Traumatic brain injury at an early age is associated with criminality and violence. But the argument didn't hold water in court. After a two-week trial and 49 minutes of jury deliberations, Richard Speck was found guilty. The jury recommended the death penalty. Richard Speck spent six years on death row. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court declared the death penalty illegal, and Speck was resentenced to serve eight consecutive sentences of 50 to 150 years. In 1978, after more than a decade behind bars, 36-year-old Richards Beck gave his first interview. He admitted to killing the nurses and claimed he felt sorry for what he'd done, but still couldn't explain why he'd done it.

He seemed to blame his behavior on his abusive childhood, saying, Parents ought to be careful with their kids. I don't know why it happened to me, but any kid can end up just like me. Ten years later, 40-year-old Speck was asked again why he'd killed the nurses. He responded, it just wasn't their night. The real motivation behind Speck's killings remains a mystery to this day. At the time, authorities, including the Board of Psychologists, consulted at his trial, deemed Speck a sociopath who killed for his own gratification.

Speck's murders made a lasting mark on American culture. In his obituaries, journalists noted that Speck was the first person in American history, called a mass murderer, sparking an era of mass violence. In the interview he gave in 1978, Speck was asked if he had any final, thoughts for the American people, he responded, just tell him to keep up their hatred for me. I know it keeps up their morale, and I don't know what I do without it. Richard Speck spent his entire life believing the world hated him and was punishing him with tragedy, abuse, and isolation. As a teenager and adult, he lashed out, returning that

perceived hate with violence. Finally, after committing one of the bloodiest crimes in American history, Speck felt vindicated. The world finally, truly hated him as much as he always thought it did. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with a new episode. For more information on Richard Speck, amongst the many sources we used, we found the Crime of the Century, Richard Speck and the murders that shocked a nation by Dennis L. Breaux and William J. Martin, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of Serial Killers and all other originals from Parcast are free on Spotify. We'll see you next time.

Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Brendan Hawkins, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Bruce Katovich. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Ryan Lee, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson.

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