True Crime All The Time - Richard Speck

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

Richard Speck was one of the most infamous mass murderers in U.S. history. On the night of July 13th 1966, moving into July 14th, Speck would force his way into the dorm of 9 female student nurses. Over a period of hours he would assault and murder 8 of the nurses. But one nurse was able to hide herself under a bunkbed and would live to tell about what happened to her classmates that awful night.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the horrible crimes of Richard Speck. What happened over the first 25 years of his life that would lead Speck to commit such a heinous act? He started heading the wrong path at an early age and would rack up a string of small crimes in a small amount of time. But the murder of the 8 student nurses would shock the world.You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at www.truecrimeallthetime.comSponsors:Omax - Go to MY OMAX BOOST dot com slash TCATT today to save over 60-percent on Omax Cognitive Boost! You’ll get your first 30-day supply for just $19.95, PLUS free shipping!Havenly - Visit Havenly dot com slash TCATT and get twenty-five percent off your design packageCredits:Writing/Research - Maggie DobschuetzSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 74 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as my co-host and my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson, Gibby. How are you? I'm doing all right, man. That's good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a rough week, but last few days, but we're champion through. You champion through? We're mixing it up a little bit. We're taping in the morning when we normally tape at night. Makes it a little rough too. I haven't had my breakfast of champions. A little different. And Gibby's wearing a t-shirt, which really threw me off. It did.

You about stepped back a few steps when I walked in. For as long as I've known you, I'm not sure I've ever seen you wear a t-shirt. Yeah, because you don't see me on the weekends. Right. Obviously, we can't wear t-shirts at work. Yeah. And we haven't worked together for a couple of years now anyway, but you just not usually, normally, when I see you, a t-shirt guy. Yeah, I wear them all the time.

Yeah. Just not around. I thought maybe it was because all that, you know, me going in the gym so much lately that, you know. Well, that was eye-popping too. You're like, boom, look at that. When I opened the door, I said, is this Gibby or is this Dwayne the Rock Johnson? I didn't know who it was. You know, I can see how you could get that mixed up.

Besides the fact that I'm pasty white, you know, from. Other than that, I was looking. You know, unlike the rock that's got that, you know, Pacifican Pacifican. I don't think it's that. Yeah. Pacifican, I don't know if that's. a word or not. It should be a word, though. It sounds good. I like it. Let's add it to my Gipchenary. That's what I was going to say. If you say it, it's like it becomes a word.

Yeah. Let me reach out to the Rock and see if he's okay with that. If he's okay with you saying that. I don't want to get him upset. I would agree with that. I mean, if you think about a lot of different people, I would say, and I think the Rock's a really nice guy, I'm sure it is. Yeah. Yeah. But we talk a lot. In a dark alley, that's not the person that you want to be upset with you. But if I got my K bar, I feel fine with anybody. That's true. Yeah, that's true. I hope the Rock's listening to this, and he takes that as a personal challenge.

You say, smell what the Rock's cooking. And he reaches out to you. Yeah. All right, Gibbs, let's go through our new Patreon supporters. We had Wendy Harris. Thank you. Julie Davison, Carissa Cortez, Jonathan Hagar. Sammy.

I think it's Sammy's brother. Brent King, Jude Ann. Hey, Jude. Hey, Jude. Just Ann. Just Dan. jumped out to our highest level. Thank you. We had Leanne Anderson. Awesome. A lot of Ans mixed up in this. Yeah. I'm seeing a theme here. We had Lark. Hey, Lark, what's up?

Jay Crewe. The magazine. I like it. It's spelled differently, but you never know. Send us some stuff. We had Alina Chong Lieber. Thank you. Claire Humphrey. Yeah. Felicity. You know what I hear going back one step there, Claire? You know what movie I think about, right? Breakfast Club? Yeah, the Breakfast Club. exactly. We had Lisa. Just Lisa? Just Lisa. Hey, Lisa, with an E or I.

Can be an A. No, the middle. Oh. And I. Okay. I was like, how do you get an E on Lisa? Yeah, I met the first. We had Jenna Therererason.

That was hard for you to say. I watched you try to say that. Yeah, I hope I got that right because I really like Jenna. Jenna's left us a couple of very important voicemails. And, you know, we interact with her on email quite a bit. We had Emily Heesh. Hey, Emily. Gabby.

She's talkative. Chatty. A lot of first names. Yeah. Rebecca Hirschkoff. Yeah. Thank you, Rebecca. And then if we go back into the vault.

How far are you going back? Going back as far as I can. Yeah. On every episode. Yeah. Dust off some names. Dust off some names. We picked Carol C.

Carol C. And we love Carol C. We met Carol Cerell C. at CrimeCon last year. We did. Carol's going to be at CrimeCon this year. So we'll get to drink beer with her again. She's a lot of fun.

Part two. Part D. Yeah. And then on PayPal Gibbs, we had a lot of support as well. Julie Davison. Thank you, Julia. Who was Patreon and PayPal at the same time. So Julie's on both?

Yeah. Awesome. Kind of amazing. Yeah. Anne Meyer. Thank you, Sam. And then Kalin Nelson. What'd she do?

Came out with the biggest one-time support. support we've ever received. Really? Yeah. Amazing. That's shocking. Wow. Yeah. It was really cool. Samantha's not going to like that. It doesn't probably still add up to Samantha overall. Yeah, I got you. But it's the one, the single biggest one time. I just know Samantha's pretty competitive. It is. I'll tell you, Samantha S is very competitive. Yeah, but thank you so much for that. Yeah. Thank you, Kayla. We really appreciate it. We had Colleen Hartthorn. Awesome. Wow, that's a, that was a rough name. Not for me.

It sounded like it. You talk, you think of in terms of if you had to say it. Oh, I'd be. Yeah, poor, poor people. We are going to have an episode where you have to say all the Patreon name. Oh, that's going to be a long episode. We're going to do that next episode. Oh, okay.

That's our new thing. All right. And then we had Gala Kyle. So big shout out to all the new support that we received. Thank you so much. Patreon, PayPal. And I can't leave out all of our social media folks. Yeah.

do an amazing job of helping to spread the word about the podcast. They do. I tell you what, it seems like, you know, we got a lot, all of them are great. And it just kind of rolls in, everybody's busy. So you see some people on there for a while. Yeah, same with us. They drop off for a little bit because they got things going on, but then other people step up and just keep spreading it. And it just cycles through. And I love it. And same with us. We can't keep up with it the way that we used to. I know you try, try hard. I'm hard, man. I can't do it as much as I used to just because of everything going on. But it really has become kind of like a family.

Absolutely. It really has. So big shout out to Maggie for the writing and the research as always. Thanks, Maggie. And then don't forget about true crime all time unsolved. Yep. Right now there's an episode out on the Yuba County Five. It's good.

Check it out. It really is. It's an interesting case of, you know, five individuals that go to see a basketball game. and then the mystery kind of develops from there about what happened to these five people, five guys. Yeah. And then I have to say Gibbs, we'll play voicemails at the end. Right. And, you know, I mix and match them.

You do. I don't always know which ones are meant for true crime all time and which ones were meant for unsolved. Yeah, and I don't hear them until you play them that time. So some people that only listen to one, they may not hear their voicemail because it might be on the other one. Right. But what I want to say is we got a voicemail from Mel in Pennsylvania.

Okay. And something happened. I couldn't make out the word. So I'm not, I wasn't able to play it. Okay. But I wanted to tell Mel, call us back. Leave it again. Leave it again.

All right, Gibbs. Let's dive into this episode. We're talking about the infamous Richard Speck. And this is a little bit of a departure for us in that, you know, Richard Speck is technically classified as a mass murderer. Okay. We have not done a lot of mass murders. No, we haven't.

I don't even know if we, I was trying to think back to think if we've done one. This might be the first, you know, real mass murder that we've done. Yeah. And we're going back to 1966. That's a good year. Is that the year you were born? That's a year Gibby was born. Oh, my goodness.

That may explain a lot about what we've been dealing with. you being born the same year as spec commits these horrifying mass murders. Well, it was a good year for me. It's a good year for you. It wasn't a good year for you. It wasn't a good year for my mom, too, since, you know, I was out. I'm sure she was happy about that. I'm guessing she probably was.

At 12 pounds, eight ounces. That would have been huge, man. I don't know what you were. I think I was. I'm just assuming. Like around eight pounds, I think. Yeah, that's still pretty big. Yeah.

Pretty big baby. But this would go down. as, you know, one of the worst mass murders in American history. Now, not number wise, right? There have been mass murders and school shootings since. Absolutely. Yeah. That, you know, where the numbers are much higher, but how he did this, the details

behind it, all of what would come out would, it would fascinate people. Yeah. And horrify them at the same time. Absolutely. So Richard Speck was born on. December 6th, 1941 to Franklin and Mary Speck in the small village of Kirkwood, Illinois. And I know, Gibby, that is just next door to what state? Illinois.

Right. Yeah, I know. So we're in the, we're in Illinois now. Yeah, I know. Which they all get it right. He was the seventh of eight kids. So large family. Yeah.

And a large religious family. His mom, especially, was very religious. His father was a factory worker. And like I mentioned, his mom was deeply religious. And what's important to note is that she would not allow a drop of alcohol in the home. Really? No, that's the way she was. There's not going to be any alcohol.

There's not going to be any drinking of any kind. And it's an important fact to point out because it's going to come up later. Now, not long after Richard was born, the family decided to move to Monmouth, Illinois. And we have to talk about his sister. siblings. There was a fair amount of age gap between Richard and his younger sister, who was born in 43, so she was a couple of years younger than Richard. But all of the rest of their brothers and sisters were at least 10 years older. Richard would have to deal with his first major loss at a very young age because his dad died of a heart attack. He was 53 years old. At that time, Richard was

six years old. So, you know, very tough for a six-year-old to lose their father. Sure. But in this instance, unlike some of the other cases we do, Richard Speck apparently adored his father. I mean, he thought the world of him. So this was a much bigger blow, I think, than it would have been to other killers we talk about that don't have a great relationship with their father. And I believe that this would have had a tremendous effect on him in ways that are later going to manifest themselves later in life. He also lost one of his older brothers, Robert. Robert died in 1952. He was only 25 years old and he died in a car accident. So a few years later, after the death of Richard's father, his mother meets a new man. And she meets this man, Carl Lindberg, while she's on a train to Chicago.

Carl's a traveling insurance salesman, but he's not a good guy. He has a drinking problem. Apparently Gibbs, he had a peg leg. A peg leg. Peg leg. Really? Mm-hmm. So I'm picturing like the wooden.

Like pirate? Pirate. Sea captain. Just a wood. Just a peg leg. Yeah. I don't know if that's what it would have been in the 1940s. Maybe probably a little better than that.

Maybe, but not the prosthetics that we have today for sure. Do you pledge that, you know? get some pledge out and clean it up every now and then. If you have a wooden one, I would think you have to. I would use Murphy's. Yeah, probably put some of Murphy's on it. Yeah. You want it looking good.

Yeah, you want it, you know, no splinters. But on top of that, this man, Carl Lindberg had a criminal record that spanned over 25 years. He had been in trouble with the law for forgery, drunk driving, and a host of other things. So you have to look at Carl Lindberg as. pretty much the polar opposite of Richard's real father, Franklin. Because Franklin, by all accounts, was hardworking. He was a strict guy with the kids. But, you know, he took care of them.

He was loving. So now his mother, Richard's mother, is married a guy that is the exact opposite. And they do get married on May 10th, 1950 in Texas. So she moves down to Texas to get married. to get married to start this new life with Carl. But during that time, Richard and his younger sister Carolyn, they stay in Illinois with one of their older sisters. And they would stay there for the rest of the school year.

But once that was over, they also went down to Texas to join their mom and Carl, who is now a brand new stepdad to them. Right. Call me daddy. That has some weird connotation when he said. I know what you mean, but when I first heard it, I thought, was it the way I looked at you when I said it? Yeah, the eye contact. Yeah. Let's not make I tons. Let's never do that again.

When you say stuff like that. Maybe we shouldn't even talk about it. So they're down in Texas and the family moved around a lot when Richard was growing up and they ended up in East Dallas in a poor part of the city. They bounced around from one run down house to another over about 12-year period. This was not an ideal childhood for Richard Spack and for Carolyn, too, for that matter. Number one, Richard didn't get along with Carl. Carl was drinking heavily. And that's where he, you know, come back and talk about Richard's mother who had previously not allowed any alcohol in the house. All of a sudden, she's relaxed that rule after marrying Carl. But one of the problems that would manifest itself was that, you know, while Carl was drinking, he was verbally

abusive. He was physically abusive to the kids with a lot of that directed at Richard. The other thing that happened to Richard while he was growing up in Texas was that he fell out of a tree. He had kind of a minor accident. Yeah. But he did land on his head or did hurt his head in some fashion. So the thought is he possibly suffered some type of head trauma in this accident. Sure. And you know us. We always like to point out the head trauma. We do.

For good or bad. Then we talk about Richard Speck as a student. Not a great student. I think in the early years, maybe average. Yeah. Average type student. For one thing, he was supposed to wear glasses, but he didn't like them. He wouldn't wear them.

I mean, spec wouldn't wear specs? Speck would not wear his specs. Oh, man. So that made it much harder for him in school. You know, obviously if your eyesight's not good and you're supposed to wear glasses, depending on the severity of it, right. It's pretty hard to read papers that are passed out. See that chalkboard.

See the chalkboard. Right. He ends up having to go through the eighth grade twice. What's wrong with that? Nothing. Okay. I'm not saying anything disparaging about it. You got to repeat the second grade or the eighth grade.

It doesn't matter. You know, you're just trying. trying to make sure your comprehension level is higher. Right. And we know how well it worked out for you. Yeah. But this is not his biggest impediment during school. He starts drinking by the age of 12.

So 12 years old, he starts drinking. That's early. It's pretty early. Yeah. Although I can't say I was too far behind old Richard. Yeah, but 12, I mean. And I say that, but it wasn't to the degree. It was one thing to sneak a drink.

out of the little something, something out of the bar. That's what I did. You know, every now and then. Just for shits and giggles. I like to get a little Johnny Walker Red. Back then, you probably just pour a little bit in a shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, in a shot glass and thought you were drunk. Yeah, I probably was. Well, 12.

After one shot of Johnny Walker Red. Yeah, it could have been. You know, Gibbs at, you know, 14, 15, whatever I was. I was just trying to take the edge off, man. It was a long week. It was rough, man. You know, I was doing a little bit. little madman action. I had to take the edge off. Yeah. Yeah. I should be drinking right now.

He should be. I need to take the edge off. So you have to look at the stepdad. Sure. Who is a heavy drinker. Yeah. And talk about how much influence that had on Richard. Well, you know it does. He's seeing it every day. Yeah. Even if you don't idolize the person. But if you do and you see that's the norm, that's what you think you do. You know, and you want to do it as soon as you can. Yeah. He definitely didn't idolize. his stepdad, but it does seem like he imitated him. Sure. And a couple of different ways that we'll talk about. Well, boys do.

But the first was to start drinking. Yeah. Now, by the time he gets to high school, it said that Richard Speck was drunk almost on a daily basis. So he's just not taking the edge off. He's getting hammered every day. It's his coping mechanism? It could be.

Yeah. His first arrest came at the age of 13. Okay. For trespassing. Yeah, that's minor. Minor. Yeah. But it signals the start of a very long string of misdemeanors.

Yeah. So just misdemeanors, but... Did you ever get in trouble for trespassing? No, no. I had a guy come out of his house one time and chase me with a knife. Is that me? No, it was not you. Okay.

It was an older gentleman that lived in the neighborhood. Back in those days, because we lived in like a plight. I don't know if everybody will know what a plat is, but a housing development, subdivision. Yeah. We used to go out at night once it got dark, and we would be wearing like camo. We had our fake guns. Oh, yeah. We had walkie-talkies.

My dad would shoot you today if you see. That's what I'm saying. You know, back then much different. Oh, yeah. You did that today. Be sealed Team 6 staring you in the face at some point. I know it. But I don't know if we scared this guy.

We probably messed with his mailbox. or we did something we shouldn't have done. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. And he bolted out of the house and... We used to put those little M80s on the window seals, not little M80s, but we put M80s on windows by the bedroom windows that we thought were bedrooms. Now, is a window seal? Is that the same as a window sill?

It is. Okay, I just want to make sure. Yeah, it's different in my region. But yeah, we'd put those M80s there and light it and then run and, yeah, we got... What the hell, man? That's actual property damage. Yeah, we got trouble. Oh, I would hope so.

Yeah, we thought we could outsmart the police and they found us. So, yeah, we had an answer for it. Man, you were a... That was 12 years old. You were a brigand. Yeah. I used to break into the pool too and go skinny dipping with people, you know? With yourself.

With myself? Just me, me, myself and I. We had a good time. You added in with people, but I know you met yourself. Yeah. So. Trouble for that, too. I'm sure you did.

So he's getting drunk daily. He won't wear his glasses and scorn. should come as no surprise that by the time he's in high school, his grades are horrible. Sure. Yeah. He's failing every class. Richard ends up dropping out of high school at the age of 16. So now he's not in school. He's continually breaking the law, but he's able to get a job working for seven up in Dallas. And he would be with the company for about three years. Okay. Pretty good stretch. Yeah. But while he worked there at this company, he would. would meet a girl, 15-year-old girl named Shirley Malone, met her at the state fair.

Yeah. They start dating, but she ends up getting pregnant very soon into this relationship. It happens. It does happen. They end up getting married in January of 1962, and she moved in with Richard and his family. Good times. Now, by this point, Carl was out of the picture. They had separated.

Okay. Richard's mom and Carl, Carl had moved to California. So the family unit is Richard, his new wife, Richard's mom, his younger sister, Carolyn, and the guy that she was married to because she was already married to it by this point. Oh, okay. The sister was. The younger sister. Yeah. They got married early back then.

Yeah. Some people did. Yeah. And I think my grandma got married at the age of 14. Yeah. And the hollers of Kentucky. Don't be making fun of my hollers. It's my hollers, too.

I'm not making fun of it. My holler digging than your holler. It's always a competition with you. I know. I'm sorry. It can be the same. And his new wife, Shirley, would give birth to a daughter on July 5th, 1962. Right after the holiday. Yeah, one day after the holiday. See how I, how I worked at? That was good math he did in your head there. But Richard's not going to be around much for either his daughter growing up or what would turn out to be about a four-year marriage to Shirley. He wasn't

even around for the actual birth. Well, back then, a lot of guys weren't, you know. Well, but he had a very specific reason. Oh, okay. He was in jail. Well, that's a problem for on a charge of disturbing the peace. Oh, okay. And that's really going to be the reason why he's not around for this marriage and

his daughter, because then later, he gets caught forging a $44 check that belonged to a coworker. Okay. And forgery was another. thing that his stepdad Carl apparently was very good at. And so I go back to how much did he learn from his stepdad? We know he probably learned his drinking. Of course he did from him. From seeing Carl. But apparently he may have also learned how to forge or some other tricks of the trade. So he gets caught for not only forging this check, but for also robbing a grocery store.

And in this robbery, he took some cigarettes, he took beer, and the whopping sum of $3. Big $3. So he's charged with forgery and burglary. Yeah. And he gets three years. Every dollar cost him a year? He got a year for every dollar he took. Yeah.

But he's paroled after serving 16 months. Okay. Not a bad gig. It's not. And you and I, we like to talk about this on a lot of episodes. What do people actually serve for what they commit? I'm not appalled by this one. No, it seems reasonable.

Like I am with, with a lot of crimes that we talk about where you think, man, this person just got a slap on the wrist. He did 16 months. That's for what he did. That seems reasonable. But those 16 months, they changed Richard Speck. Because a week after getting out, he attacked a woman in a parking lot with a 17 inch night. Really? I'd say big friggin knife.

What's you trying to do? Outdo me? Yeah. I'll get a bigger one. And I was thinking Gibbs is going to be jealous about the size of this guy's knife because I know how competitive you are. I know. Especially about sizes of things. Knives.

Of knives. But during this attack, the woman screamed and it caused Richard to flee the scene. So he doesn't kill this woman. Police show up pretty quickly and they're able to catch him. So think about that. He just served 16 months. He's out a week and he's already been caught by police. He's charged with aggravated assault.

He gets another 16 months. Yeah. Because number one. Violation. Violation of his parole. Right. And this attack. But somewhere along the line, someone messed up some of the paperwork.

And this screw up lets Richard get out after serving only six months. That's ridiculous. So somehow it was just the tack on of the violation of the parole or something. There was a mess up with the paperwork. So he's free once again after six months, gets a job driving for a meat company. And he doesn't do really well at this job. He's driving a truck. Apparently he crashed this truck like six different times.

That's a feat in and of itself. Hopefully he would wear a seatbelt. Unlike you, and people give you a hard time over. They do. He ends up finally getting fired. not for crashing the trucks, but for not showing up for work. I would say because he couldn't handle his meat.

He couldn't handle his meat. Couldn't handle his driving is what he couldn't do. Right. And then his mother, Spex's own mother, gets him hooked up with a woman who is in need of daycare for her kids. Now, why Richard's mom thought that he would be a good candidate to watch over some kids is beyond my grasp, but I haven't been able to figure that out. But he actually moves in with this woman to help take care of her kids. Now, keep in mind, he's still married and has a daughter of his own. So his wife, this is when she files for divorce.

But spec continually is breaking the law. He stabbed the man in a bar and was charged with aggravated assault. But his mother was able to get him a pretty good lawyer. Yeah. Got that charge knocked down to disturbing the peace. That's a pretty far cry. You stab somebody and end up getting disturbing the piece. Well, you know, you upset all the other patrons that day inside the bar.

Yeah. But you stabbed a guy with a knife. Yeah. You know, back then there was a lot of knife fights in bars. It really was. Today, they just pull out their gun. So he manages to get this down to disturbing the piece. He gets charged with a $10 fine.

Ten bucks. For stabbing a guy. Wow. Ten bucks. Ten dada. But that's not the most interesting part of it. He doesn't pay the $10. He doesn't even pay his fine.

So he gets thrown in jail for three days. What an idiot. All he had to do was pay the $10. And he walks away from what could potentially have been attempted murder. I mean, you name it. Right. And he won't pay the damn $10. The attorney loves him.

But let's keep in mind. This is not a MENSA candidate that we're talking about here. Right. In March of 66, Richard buys a used car. and he promptly uses this car to rob a store. He steals 70 cartons of cigarettes. That's a lot of cartons of cigarettes. That's a lot of smokes, man.

And he very quickly starts selling the cigarettes from the trunk of his car. That's like an episode of Goodfellows or something. I think it was out of Goodfellas. You remember that? They used to hijack the trucks. Yeah, and let the younger kids go. Yeah, the kids would sell the cigarette. Yeah.

Not an episode of Goodfellas though, because Goodfellows was a... It was a, you know, a segment, a, yeah. Unless I missed the Goodfell's TV show, which would be kick ass. That would be kick ass, actually. Actually, they had. It was called The Sopranos. That was good, too. But this is where we get into sizing up spec from a, I don't know what you want to call it Gibbs, a mental capacity, a common sense standpoint.

Yeah. Because he starts selling these cigarettes out of the car in the same. same parking lot of the store that he robbed the cigarettes from. Well, it's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Now is he? No, that's what I'm saying.

You've got to paint this picture of Richard Speck. Now, the one thing I'll give him, he's an entrepreneur. Yeah, sure. I'll give him that. He's trying to make money. Yeah. You know, not doing it legally, mind you, but.

He's like, I'll steal him from here and I'll set out my car outside of here because I know that's where the people are coming to get them. And I'll sell them for cheaper. Yeah. Because I got no overhead. He's like one of those Girl Scout cookie tables outside of the, you know, the Kroger's store, except that he stole them. I was going to say, if the Girl Scout stole the cookies from Kroger's and then walked outside and set up a booth. Hey, mister, you want to buy some cookies?

That I just stole from inside the Kroger's. Exactly. We'll give them to you for a dollar. Police were on to spec for this robbery. They traced the car and he was forced to ditch it. And by this time in his life, Richard Speck had been arrested many times, maybe as many as 40 times. That's a lot. What a, what a rap sheet. Now, like I said, most of them were misdemeanors.

Yeah. Or had been knocked down to misdemeanors. It all tells the story. But right, it's all leading up to something. But the one thing that Richard Speck knew was that he did not want to go back to being locked up. He'd already done that a couple times. He wasn't down. for doing that again, and he knew that this time he would probably go away for a much longer period

of time, because his rap sheet is going to catch up to him and his priors. So his younger sister drives him to the bus station so that he can flee Texas. And Speck goes to Chicago, he stays with his older sister Martha, but then he eventually makes his way back to Monmouth. He stays with friends, and one of his brothers there actually gets to. him a job. But Speck starts to spiral. And one of the triggers for this spiral is that he finds out that his ex-wife is getting remarried. So he didn't want her, but he doesn't want anybody else to want her, right? Yeah, I don't know if he didn't want her or not, but he couldn't stay out of prison long enough to really be with her. And he did, you're right, he did kind of abandon her to move in with this

woman. Yeah, I mean, if you don't want her, why do you care if somebody else wants her? I never understand that, but there's a lot of people like that on both sides. Jealousy. Yeah. They don't want you, but they don't want anybody else to want you. Now, I have not had an ex-wife, but I've always thought that most people would jump up and down when their ex-wife gets married because they wouldn't have to pay alimony anymore. Now, you know, Richard Speck's not paying Jack Squat, but because of this spiral, Speck moves

into a motel and he starts spending all of his time drinking at the bars. And one night at the bar, he threatened a man with a knife and ended up in jail for a night. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsor, OMAX. I don't think anyone will deny that no matter who you are, no matter what you do for a living, sometimes your brain can use a boost. And Gibbs, you and I have recently tried a new product that we were amazed with how quickly its effects were shown. So this product is called OMAX Cognitive Boost. And it's a daily supplement that can increase your brain power and productivity,

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Yeah, I mean, I like knives. You do in a, in a, what we've believed to be a very healthy way. Yeah. Allegedly. Well, I haven't had a certain time yet for it. Got to be smart. Around this same time, he also starts committing some home burglaries. And one of his victims was a 65-year-old woman.

She came home on April 3, 1966, found Richard Speck in her house with a knife. He would blindfold her, tie her up, and rape this woman. What a monster, man. And when he left, he took $2.50 from the house that this woman had apparently been paid for doing some babysitting. So think back about some of these crimes. Now, we know these are, you know, back in the day, but what's he getting? $2.50, $3. Yeah, what's like $5, $6 today, $7?

I mean, that's say it's 12. I mean, that's not enough that I wouldn't, can't imagine someone stealing such a small dollar amount with the risks associated with it. No, I get that. And I also think, okay, if you're a burglar, right, you don't have to rape the homeowner. No, not at all. That's a choice that you made. Yeah.

It's normally, you know, something you find in some, a weak individual. Now, this woman would later tell police something interesting. She said that the man who. who assaulted her was very polite. Yeah. And that he had a Southern draw. Maybe he had that Texas accent. And I think he would have developed that.

He lived in Texas for a good part of his life. I know. When I travel somewhere, by the time I leave there, I'm talking like him. So if I'm in Texas, you know, I'm drawing it out. And if I'm in... Drawing it out more than you even normally draw it out? Yeah. Yeah.

If I'm in New York, I'm speaking of a little faster. Well, we know what a great impressionist you are. Fly me to Australia, man, and mates, I'll be right there with them. It only makes sense. Yeah. Now, many believe that Richard Speck's first murder was a woman named Mary Kay Pierce. She was a 32-year-old barmaid who worked at one of Speck's favorite bars. She disappeared.

Her body was discovered just a few days later. Her liver had been ruptured after what police believe was a punch to the stomach. It's a hell of a punch, man. And we've had a couple of those on recent episodes. Yeah, exit. Both TCAT and TCAT Unsolved, where people have died from massive punches to the stomach. Trauma. Trauma to the gut area.

But what's fascinating about this one is that police actually question Richard Speck. Because like I said, this is probably his favorite bar. He's there all the time. And as they're questioning him. Richard says that he's feeling sick. And he told the investigators that he needed to cut the interview short, but that he'd come back later to the station to finish up. But Richard never shows.

He skips town and he goes into the city of Chicago. But police are able to find the hotel that Richard had been staying at. And inside the hotel room, they find some jewelry that belonged to the bartender. and they find other items that they believed to be from burglaries that Speck had committed. So they're on to him. Speck's back in Chicago. He's staying with his sister Martha once again. And apparently he made up some story about how he had to leave town because there was a crime

ring that was pressuring him to sell drugs. And it's at this point that Martha's husband makes the suggestion that spec should go into the merchant marine. His life is not going in a very good direction. So I think his brother-in-law is offering up some pretty good advice. You know, this might be a way to get your life on track. And he actually takes spec to the office to apply. They accept him and he gets a job on a boat.

But it doesn't last long. He ends up getting sick while he's on the boat and has to be removed to have surgery to take out his appendix. So you have to wonder, if that had not had happened, would he have done something with this new job in the merchant Marines and got his life back on track? Probably not. Highly doubtful. But I think it's still a question to ask. Yeah, I think it's reasonable to say, would he or wouldn't he?

I appreciate you saying I'm at least reasonable. I know. Sometimes you are. You can be reasonable. Sometimes. So he goes back to Martha's to recuperate. But eventually he gets back on the boat until he's kicked off. for getting into a drunken fight with an officer.

So that probably answers my question right there. You know, Speck's makeup was probably not going to let him succeed in this type of endeavor because there's rules. Right. There is. When you're out on the water, man, you follow the chain of command. And Speck doesn't play by the rules. He doesn't like to.

We know that. So he bounces around a little bit. He's staying in hotels. He goes up to Michigan to see a nurse. that he had become friends with. She gives him some money to help him along. And then Speck goes back to living with his sister Martha again. But his brother-in-law is really trying to help him out because he takes him down to the Maritime Union Dining Hall so that Speck can get his Siemens card.

The important thing to have. It's very important. Got to have your Siemens card. But this hall where they went was just a block east of. these two-story townhouses, many of which were occupied by some student nurses from the South Chicago Community Hospital. And one of these townhouses included the eight nurses who lived at 2319 East 100th Street. This is going to be the setting for this mass murder. But I think at this point Gibbs Spex's sister Martha, she'd had enough of him. She didn't want him staying at her house

anymore. So she kicks him out and he would go to stay at a rooming house until he was given like a ship assignment. He's still trying to get on one of these boats. He went to get his assignment on July 12. But when he arrived at the dock, he was told that his place had been taken by someone else and that the ship had already sailed. So spec is devastated by this. He has no place to stay. He ship out of luck. He ship out of luck. He has no job. This is not. This is not a good thing for somebody in his state of mind. And it's the very next day, July 13, on the morning of these horrifying murders, he's sitting with his sister in her car. He's angry about losing out on this job. They're actually parked across the street from the nurse's dorm. His sister

gives him some money and he checks into a local hotel and he would spend all day drinking and then he takes a woman from a bar back to his hotel and he rapes this woman, robs her, and in the process, she must have had a gun on her because he takes her gun. Stills her gun. So now he has a gun. He goes back to the bar, drinks till about 10 p.m. And then he leaves the bar. And you have to paint this picture.

He's dressed all in black. He has a switchblade knife. And he has this gun that he's stolen from this woman. that he just victimized. Yeah, he's playing the role. And he leaves the bar and he ends up at this nurse's dorm at 2319 East 100th Street. And Speck would murder eight nurses that night. So Gloria Davy was 22 years old. Patricia Matusek was 20 years old. Nina Schmael was 24. Pamela Wilkening was 20. Suzanne Ferris, 21. Marianne Jordan 20. And then there were three nurses, student nurses that were from the Philippines.

There was Merlita Gargulo, she was 22. Valentina Pagion was 23. Now that's eight that I've mentioned. There was a ninth student nurse there that night by the name of Cora Amarow. She is going to be the lone survivor. She's lucky. As we get into the details of this horrific night. And when spec comes.

to the residents, three of these women are not home yet. Gloria Davy was out on a date with her boyfriend, and Marianne and Suzanne were with friend. So he knocks on the door four times. Cora Amaral opens the door. She sees Richard Speck. He's tall. He's gangly. I mean, that's one thing we haven't really talked about, Gibbs is what Speck looked like. And a lot of people know they've seen pictures of him. he was not what you would call an attractive man. You know, I'm no Brad Pitt, but this guy was not attractive. Some women like that, though. They like that.

The fact that he's not attractive? They just like different. Well, he's different. Yeah. So he has a pockmarked face. He just has a very distinctive look about him. But he's tall, he's gangly. And like I mentioned, he's dressed all in black.

So Corr sees him standing in the doorway and she quickly realizes that he has a a gun in his hand. And he pushes his way into the residence and Speck asks Cora after grabbing her by her arm, where are your companion? So he knows that there are a lot of women living in this residence. He wants to know where they all are. Murlita had gotten out of bed and Speck walked both Cora and Marlita down the hall to a large bedroom that was in the back. And he turns on the light. And when he does, he sees three women sleeping. And at a certain point as all of this is going on, the three nurses from the Philippines, Cora, Marlita and Valentina, they're able to hide in a closet. I mean, they're scared to death. So they hide in this closet. But eventually, one of their roommates

comes, knocks on the closet and says, you know, you guys can come out. This man is not going to harm us. And I think they got this from the fact that Speck, was demanding money. He said, I want some money. I need it to get to New Orleans. But he also has a gun that he's pointing at these women and he makes them sit in a semicircle. He sits down on the floor facing them and he's talking to them, almost like he's a friend. So strange. You know, it's a very strange scene to set. So after demanding money, each of the women asked permission to go get their purses, which they do, and they all give Speck every dime that they have. And it's after this that Gloria Davy comes home from the date that she'd been on with her boyfriend and she was

tipsy from the night out. She staggered up the stairs, opened the door to the bedroom, and this is when she sees the scene that we've laid out, right? Speck has the gun pointed at these women in the room. Glory is forced to join the circle. And it's at this point that Speck gets up. And he takes a sheet from one of the beds and he starts to cut them up into strips. And he's laying the strips over his neck as he cuts them. And then one by one, he tied each of the women up both their hands and their feet. And now you have the two remaining nurses, Marianne and Suzanne, they come home from being out with friends. They open the door to this back bedroom and they see Richard Speck standing over a bound and gagged Pamela Wilkening who is terrified. Obviously, all these women are terrified. Yeah. But imagine these two girls coming home,

probably in a great mood. They'd just been out with friends. They open the door and this is the scene that they that they see. Their friends are bound and there's a man with a gun who has tied them up. And these two women scream and they make a run for it. But Speck is able to catch them. He pushes them into another bedroom and he stabs and strangles these two women as they're fighting him. And then he does something that he's going to do multiple times. He goes to the bathroom and he washes up because obviously Gibbs, he has blood all over him. This is a very close quarter brutal attack with a knife along with strength.

He's going to have blood all over him. But he takes the time while these other women are bound to wash up. He then returns to Pamela Wilkening and he kills her by stabbing her directly into her heart. I mean, that's just terrifying, man. One direct hit like that. I mean, this whole scene as it unfolds is terrifying, right? No doubt about it. And he didn't just kill these women.

You know, he raped them as well. I don't know if he raped all of them, but there was. sexual assault slash rape involved in this mass murder. And it didn't happen like within a 10, 15 minute period of time, right? This terror lasted for hours as he would take one woman, do whatever it was he was going to do. The other ones, Gibbs, they're bound in a room hearing what's going on. Terrible. They would have been in just absolute terror. Yeah, Absolutely, they would have been. Some of the girls that were in the bedroom, they tried to hide underneath the bunk beds.

And one of these was Cora. She was able to hide underneath the bunk bed. Speck comes back. He unties Nina Schmail, leads her down the hall to another bedroom, stabs her in the neck, and suffocates her with a pillow. And Cora Amarow, who we said is going to survive this. She would later say that she could hear all of this. And then she heard the sound of water.

So again, Richard Speck is taking the time to wash up. He then came back and he took Valentina Pagion. He lifted her up very easily. She only weighed 100 pounds. You know, he killed her. And again, Cora would say she could hear everything. And you know the remaining women that are still alive could hear it as well. Absolutely.

They could. But the only thing was, she's going to be the only one left to talk about it. He returned for Merlita Gargulo, and Merlita, like I said, she was from the Philippines, as was Valentina and Cora. And Cora would later say that she could hear Merlita talking in their native language. And what she said was, it hurts. I mean, it's heartbreaking to go through some of these details. And Cora would later say that about 30 minutes went by,

before she heard the sounds of water again. So again, he's cleaning himself off each time. Every time. Pizarre. The next victim that he comes for is Pat Matusek. And Pat was described as very athletic. And he would take Pat into the bathroom and apparently Gibbs punched her in the stomach, again, rupturing her liver.

And then he strangled her. And then he comes back to the room for Gloria Davy. And Gloria was the one that had been out on the date. She had been drinking. She was actually asleep from the amount of alcohol that she had consumed, apparently. He takes off Gloria's clothes and he rapes her. And Corr would later say this happened in the room that she was in. She's hiding under one of the bunk beds.

Yeah. And she would recount hearing all of the sounds, you know, the bed springs. I can't even imagine. She said all she could do was close her eyes and pray. He eventually took Gloria out of that room downstairs and continued to assault her on a couch down there. And at this point, Cora is alone in the large bedroom. She's the only one left. And she crawls from underneath the bunk bed that she's been hiding under to another one that has like a blanket hanging over the side.

Yeah, a little better hideaway. Yeah, more concealment. And she gets underneath that. And 45 minutes after taking Gloria Davy downstairs, Speck comes back. He takes all of their purses, dumps them out, grabs up any coins, any more money that he can find, and he leaves. Now keep in mind, Cor is still underneath this bed. And she stays there for about 90 minutes until she heard an alarm clock go off. And she knew by that that it was 5 a.m. in the morning.

So she begins to free herself. and she had untied her ankles just as a second alarm went off, which she knew meant it was 5.30. So it took her about 30 minutes to free herself. And when she got up and walked out, what she saw was horrific. I mean, it was a trail of bodies. She then went to her bedroom and saw the bodies of Wilkening, Ferris, and Jordan. They were all dead on the floor. So, I mean, she's seeing bodies everywhere.

And these are her friends. I mean, these are the people that, you know, she's grown close to. So she climbs to the top of her bunk and she opens a window. And she just starts screaming. And eventually she pushed out the screen and she climbs out, stands on the ledge, is overtop the front door of their townhouse. Yeah. And she's screaming at the top for lungs for help.

So desperate to get anybody's attention. And she's saying they're all dead. They're all dead. And a woman that was a neighbor was up. Now, remember, it's pretty early in the morning, but this neighbor's already up. Her phone rings and somebody saying, hey, there's a woman outside crying. And she goes outside and sees that it's Cora. And that's when the police are called.

I was just praying our father, Hail Mary, you know. After he was taking these girls one by one outside that big bedroom, that's why I realized that he was doing something to them, but I never think that he was killing them. But I was just so scared, you know. It's very, very scared. I can't believe that they were dead, and I'm still alive. God has some, you know, he, I think he spared me

so that I can do more things, you know. After that night, I'm always scared, you know. I'm not that kind of person. because I'm always a happy person. But then after that night, it seems like he takes some of my, you know, like happiness. So that was a clip of an interview with Cora Amarrow. And, you know, I just, I feel for her Gibbs.

Yeah, I do too. And obviously, the other eight women were taken. They were murdered. But Cora went through something horrific as well. and she has to live with it for the rest of her life. Every day. And you can hear it. Richard Speck took some of her happiness away from her.

He sure did. And also we'll probably leave her frightened, you know, for the rest of her life. Yeah. And police come on scene. They find some fingerprints, which they give to the FBI. And I don't know if they did an amazing job of police work Gibbs or if it just kind of fell into play. You know, one of the things that they did is they questioned everyone, right? This is a horrific murder.

They're questioning a lot of people. It eventually leads them to the place where Richard was trying to get on as a merchant Marine. And they're able to get a picture of him from this place. And they realize that it matches very closely to the sketch that they were able to put together from what Cora told them. They were also able to quickly match. match Speck's fingerprints because they were able to get those on file to those fingerprints found

on a knife and to some found in the house. So really quickly, I mean, in a matter of days, they got it pretty wrapped up. They got it pretty locked down to the point where on July 16th, they're able to publicly announce that they're looking for Richard Speck in connection with the eight murders. But that very night, Speck was on a drive. drinking binge at the Star Hotel with a couple of people. Earlier, he had bought some liquor at the store, but he had also purchased some newspapers with details of the horrible crimes he had committed splashed on the front page. One of the people that Speck was with, a man named Claude Lunsford, actually called police to tell them about Speck. This Lunsford guy had recognized a sketch from

the paper, and he knew it was Richard Speck. But the amazing thing Gibbs is police didn't respond to this call. Even though when they went back and they look at the records, they showed that the call was made. Later on that night, Speck would end up breaking one of the liquor bottles and he used the glass pieces to cut his wrists and arms. He attempted suicide. So a hotel desk clerk called in the emergency and Speck was taken to the hospital. And it would be at the hospital. that a 25-year-old resident would notice the tattoo on Speck's arm that read Born to Raise Hell.

Because that fact had been widely circulated in the media. So this guy calls police, they come to the hospital, and they arrest Richard Speck. The murders shocked and horrified the entire city, resulting in one of the largest manhunts in the city of Chicago. For two days, the suspect later identified as Richard Speck, alluded police by holding up in a CD. West Madison Flop House. Fearing that capture was imminent, Speck slashed his wrist and arm allegedly attempting suicide. Police later discovered bloodstained papers and clothes in room 584 of the Star Hotel. Speck was taken to Cook County Hospital where an alert doctor noticed the tattoo emblazoned on his arm that read, Born to Raise Hell, a tattoo which had been described earlier to police by the only

surviving nurse Corazon Amoral. Speck is recuperating in the hospital and he's unaware that police have arranged for Cora Amarrow to identify him. So they dress her up in a nurse's outfit, which she probably already had. I mean, she was a student nurse. Right. And she actually goes on rounds with another nurse, eventually arriving at Speck's room. And for three or four minutes, she stared at Richard Speck. And she knew that this was the man that had brutally murdered her friends that night. And she had seen him. She knew it was him. And apparently after leaving the room, she met with detectives and she said, it's really him. And then she collapsed. And that's the type of toll that

it took on her to stand in that room for three or four minutes with this guy. So we talked about the evidence against him, right? They have the fingerprints. Speck's not able to give an alibi for where he was when the murders occurred. You have Cora's identification. There were other witnesses that put him in the area. The knife that they recovered had his fingerprints on it. They found t-shirts that he wore that were covered in the victim's blood. And then they were also able to identify sperm from the victims as belonging to Richard Speck.

So I don't know Gibbs how you get much more than this, right? They've cracked this case within a matter of days. They have a mountain of evidence against this guy. But spec does not admit to the murders. Prior to going on trial, he's interviewed by a psychiatrist. And apparently he told the psychiatrist a number of times, quote, I must have done it if everyone says I did. That's all he would tell the guy.

And what he would claim is that he's, blacked out that night from, you know, what was probably a tremendous amount of alcohol. He also probably smoked dope that night. He was pretty high. But I think the biggest thing leading up to this trial, because the trial is not going to be much in this story, right? It's a slam dunk, pretty much. The outstanding issue is whether or not Richard Speck is sane. So he sees all these psychiatrists and in the end, they find him competent to stand trial. He's. He's, They declare him sane, but they also say, this guy's a sociopath. That probably was not a very tough diagnosis to make.

No, I think it probably was a fairly simple one. So the trial of Richard Speck would be held in Peoria, Illinois. The judge put a gag order in place. Cora testified on the stand, which, you know, just added to the mountain of evidence they had. And when asked if the killer was in the room, she stood up. and pointed right at Richard Speck and said, that's the man. I don't know how you get too much more powerful from a jury standpoint than the one surviving victim pointing out to killer.

To be able to come face to face with each victim and personally either with a knife or his bare hands, extinguish the lives of absolutely harmless and innocent women who did nothing to him. it's hard to imagine more evil conduct. So that was the prosecutor in the case and he makes a really important point, Gibbs, that I want to talk about, which is the randomness of this crime, right? Richard Speck didn't have anything against these women. They hadn't spurned him.

They had, you know, he wasn't a jilted lover. There was nothing like that that you see in a lot of cases. These were innocent women getting ready to go about their new careers of being nurses, and he happened to select their townhouse to bust into. I think this fact alone scared a lot of people back then, right? It's one thing when you talk about, I don't know, Gibbs, a guy finds his wife in bed with another man in the heat of the moment he shoots that guy. Yeah.

Or he shoots both of them. Sure. Not saying that's, that's a. a good thing to do. Shawshank. Shawshank. But I think in a lot of people's minds, they understand how that could happen. Yeah. Doesn't make it right. None of that. But you have some form of reasoning behind it. Yeah. In a weird way, there's a reason behind. Right. In something like this, people are left shaken because it's so indiscriminate. Right. It could be me. It could be you. Doesn't matter if you're a good person.

Doesn't matter if you're dealing drugs or putting yourself into a dangerous situation. These women were not. No. And that is a scary thing to think about. It is scary. So the trial wraps up and the jury deliberated for all of 49 minutes. So that just goes to show you, you know, what type of evidence they had, how strongly it was presented and what the jury felt about it.

They found him guilty. and they suggested the death penalty. And that's the sentence he got. He was sentenced to die in the electric chair. The sentence was handed down on June 5th, 1967. He would appeal the conviction, but it would be upheld in 68. But then three years later in 1971, the death penalty was taken off the table. And the reason that I saw for this was that people who were against the death penalty

were purposefully kept off the jury. And that was ruled to be unfair to Richard Speck. Well, from a technical standpoint, it would be. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, nobody gives a rat's ass about Richard Speck, but if you're talking in legal, technical terms, then, yeah, I agree with you. So what happened was the case was sent back

to the Illinois Supreme Court to be sentenced again. But in the meantime, the death penalty was found to be unconstitutional and deemed cruel and unusual punishment. So by the time that they went to sentence him, they had no choice, but to give him life sentences. And they did.

They gave him eight consecutive life sentences, each ranging from 50 to 150 years. So in total, we're talking about 400 to 1,200 years in prison. It's not funny, but it's strange when you think of it like that. Yeah. It was like, like,

because they're consecutive, you're saying, hey, you're going to do 1,200 years in prison. Yeah. Why would we just say 120? Because nobody's going to live. Nobody's going to live past. Nobody's going to outlive that. Yeah. But then just the next year, 1973, his sentence was reduced.

They capped it at a max of 300 years. So there's why you go with the big number because you know they're going to come back and try to reduce it anyway. Yep. So give them the 1,200 and then allow them to reduce it to 300. under it. So this had dragged on, if you think about it, right? The trial ended in 67. This final sentence really wasn't rendered until six years later in 1973, because it's just going to be four years after that in 77, 10 years after the trial. He's eligible for parole. And I don't know if that's an Illinois thing.

That seems very quick. Yeah, it really does. I mean, you think that minimum, you know, if it was one person that he killed, you get 20 years to life, so you have to wait 20 years. But to kill eight people. 10 years be up for possible parole. To get a 300 year sentence, basically. Right. But to be eligible after 10 years. I just seem, it seemed to me to be pretty quick.

Yeah, pretty fast. But it doesn't matter. They're never going to let this guy out. He's a monster. And he's denied parole every time he comes up. But he comes up a lot. you know, 77, 78, and then it must transition into like a three-year period because he's denied in 81, 84, 87, and 90. And Speck even fascinated people while he was in prison.

So they called him the bird man because apparently he had birds in his cell. He had a couple of sparrows that he kept. He was a loner. He had a stamp collection. He liked to listen to music. But he was constantly getting in trouble. he was into drugs and other things while he was in prison. But what does he care?

He knows he's never getting out. Richard Speck died in 1991 at Silver Cross Hospital. He suffered a heart attack. He had been transported to the hospital from the prison after complaining of chest pain. After he died, no one claimed his body. Even though he did have some surviving relatives still, I'm assuming they were trying to distance themselves from. one Richard Speck at that point. So his body ended up being cremated. And normally that would be the

end of the story. But something comes out in 1996, five years after Richard Speck is dead. And it actually involves Bill Curtis. And anybody that listens to the show knows how much I love Bill Curtis. I watched all of his shows. Yeah, a big fan, aren't you? Bill gets these tapes that were made sometime in around 1991 prior to Speck's death. And these are videotapes that were made right there in Statesville prison. And it's hard to even describe what is on these tapes. Basically, it's a bunch of prisoners sitting around, including Speck. They're passing around drugs. They're doing cocaine. I mean, they're literally cutting and snorting lines of cocaine in the the prison and somebody's videotaping it. Which I mean, you think back then, videotapes, you know,

recording machines weren't tiny, man. No. They were big. You couldn't tape it on a phone or anything like that. No. So, I mean, it wasn't like something you could conceal. And you can tell from the tapes, this is, you know, something on a tripod. I mean, this is, uh, this is not a, uh, a small handheld operation. They've got a video camera on a tripod. Yeah. Just recording hours of, of, them sitting around doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing. So they're doing drugs. They're actually engaging in sexual acts on camera. And this is where spec comes in. Because when you see spec in the video, he has breasts. I mean, like real breasts. Yeah. Because apparently he had been able to smuggle in some hormones that he was taking to make him more female. So he's in this video. He's wearing what is

essentially like silk underwear. Yeah. And that's it. Your favorite. My favorite. And you can tell that he has done all of this to, oh, what am I trying to say, Gibbs, be safe in prison. Likeable. Likeable. He has basically offered himself up to these other inmates is what I was what I get from the videotape. And in exchange, they probably don't kill him. And they, and he gets drugs and stuff. At one point, he actually snorts cocaine off of another man, another inmate. It's a disturbing video. Let me just. It sounds disturbing. Then you can, you can, you can, you can see parts of it out online. Of course you can, because that's how the internet works. What can you not get out online? But he talks in the video. So I, I want to play some of that.

I just said, I had to tell us. I was going to always feel. I had no feeling. I felt sorry and, but no. Yeah, George, you know, it's fun. I'm happy. Let's it church me lose. You like that damn fucking that man?

Absolutely. Have you always liked you and fucking me? So there's a lot going on. I know it's really hard to hear. I tried to clean up the audio. but it's tough. Sounds like somebody's, there's like pipes banging or something in the background.

Something banging. There well, there was something big. But one of the inmates asks him how he felt after he killed these women. And he says how, like I always felt. No different. No remorse.

Yeah. And then probably the most famous part is where he says, if they only knew how much fun I was having, they would turn me loose. So these tapes get exposed. And it creates a firestorm. storm. Because you can imagine Gibbs, this is not making the correction system in Illinois look very good. No, not at all. You got inmates engaging in sexual activity, doing drugs. Basically,

it's like a frat party. Yeah, no control. And what it did was prompt a lot of changes in the prison system in Illinois. Now, John Schmael, who was the brother of Nina Schmael, he would come out and say, you know, that was a very painful experience. Watching on video, Richard Speck talk about, you know, how he killed my sister, how he had no remorse, it didn't bother him in the slightest. Imagine that. Not, you know, your sister was taken from you. Sure. You know who it was. The guy was convicted. And then all of a sudden, many years later on television, you're watching this guy partying in prison, bragging, boasting about what he had done. That would make you sick to your style. I mean, it makes me sick. Oh, it does, man. And I'm not connected to any of the victims.

Yeah. But that's it. That is the story of Richard Speck. Spectacular story, Mike. Appreciate that. Yeah. Just a horrible mass murder. Yeah, absolutely. Of eight innocent women. And then we heard from Cora. who, you know, as she talked about, she had to live with the aftermath of what happened. She will never feel safe again. No, I don't think so. I don't know how you could ever. I don't either.

Even though she knows now that, and I think by the time that interview was done, that Richard Speck is dead, doesn't matter. She does not feel safe. He took something away from her that night that she could never get back. Yeah. Yeah, he really did. All right, Gibbs. We've got some voicemails, lighten it up a little with those.

Yeah, let's do that. All right. So that was S. Yeah. He emails me a lot. We email back and forth. Checking in on the Northeastern. I don't know that I've ever said the word, nor Easter.

I don't think so either. I know the weather people like to say it. Yeah. I don't think I've ever used it in a sentence, though. It's a lot of words to come out of my mouth. That's just easier for me say, Storm. And there's an apostrophe there in the middle somewhere that's probably throwing you on. Throwing me off a little bit.

Hi, this is Kate from Murphysboro, Tennessee, and I just got done listening to the Dean Coral episode, and I kind of wanted to quickly interject something. It's really easy to be hard on somebody like Wayne Henley, but you have to remember that he was just a kid, and he was abused by Dean Coral, and then when he was at his weakest, he was manipulated by Dean Coral, who was obviously a master at that. And you can tell from his voice when he's recounting things that he's just shut down. And he probably had been shut down for quite a while. And he did wake up eventually, I'm sure, but when he did, it was probably pretty dreadful. And to my mind, keep the hero in all this. And he saved Rhonda because that's what broke his being shut down, was broken wide open when he realized they were going to kill her.

So, I mean, that's when he turned around and killed Dean. Paul. So maybe we could be just a little bit easier on him and remember he's just the kid. Oh, and Gibby, it doesn't matter what anybody says. I love your Gibby tales. You crack me up. Thanks, guys. So I wanted to play that voicemail Gibbs because, you know, obviously you and I, we respect everyone's opinion. Absolutely. We do. Now, I will say, I have a hard time finding any type of soft spot for Henley. Now, granted, he was not 18 years old yet, but he wasn't a 10-year-old. But he wasn't a 10-year-old. kid either. So was there some manipulation and things by Dean Coral? Yeah. I'm sure there was. I'm sure there was. Yeah. But he also knew what was happening to these kids. He was accepting money to bring victims to Dean Coral.

And then in the end, he did save Rhonda's life. He did. Yeah. But the question is, what was the motivation? Right. And from everything that I read, I honestly believe, a lot of the motivation was that he thought Dean was going to kill him. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, it could go a bunch of different ways. Sure. I mean, that's the great thing, you know, is that it's okay to agree to disagree? Sure. Everybody has a view on these stories and the people in these stories and that's, that's great. Everybody respects each other and that's what we got. And there are, to be honest with you, there are people in some of our stories that I feel sorry for. Sure. Even when they've done some pretty horrific things.

I just don't know if Henley is one of them. Yeah. From all the research that we've done, I think he was a pretty willing participant in a lot of what went on. Hi, I'm Mike and Gibby. This is Kadisa calling from Milford, Connecticut. I was just calling because I was reading about a case that came up here where I live in Connecticut called the Cheshire, Connecticut Home Invasion Murders that involved the rape and murder of a woman and her two daughters and the severe injury of her husband. And it was pretty well publicized here.

It took place in, I believe, 2007, which is before I lived here, but I'm a true crime addict. So I tend to look up things like this. So I thought that might be an interesting case for you guys to look into eventually. And I, again, wanted to express how excited I am to have discovered you guys. I listen to both this podcast and Unsolved, and I'm completely hooked. I listen to it on my comedies, and it makes me really happy. So again, keep up the good work and stay safe and keep your own time sticking. All right.

Great voicemail. That's a brutal, sickening crime she's talking about. Yeah, have you, you've looked into that one? I did, yeah. All right. Well, we'll have to do it at some point. Gut-wrenching, for sure. We appreciate that.

Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name's Brogan. I'm in Brisbane in Australia. I'm a long-time list of first-time fall-up. I just wanted to thank you guys for all the work that you do. It's been keeping me sane while I write up my thesis or dissertation, as you guys call it. It's in entomology, but you guys are making me think I should have specialized in forensic entomology. Anyway, just by the way, team Fergie here. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking, guys. So we got a team Fergie, Gibbs. Yeah, next voice mail. That's funny. So, you know, what I really liked about that one was, first of all, that she thought either you or I would know what a thesis or dissertation was. Yeah. What's up with that? What's up with that? But the forensic entomology makes me think immediately of silence of the lambs. It does, doesn't it? You remember that scene where they pull the, what is it, like a moth. Yeah. Or so. That's entomology, right? I think so. I think so, too, for wrong. Call back in time. I'm sure if she'll let us know. Team 30. That's what it makes me think of where they find that, that moth or cocoon or whatever

it is lodged in, and determine the victims through. Factors off of that. Yeah. So, yeah, forensic entomology. Yeah, that's cool stuff, man. All right. Yeah. We've got a lot of smart listeners.

We do. Got a lot of listeners that are way smarter than we are. Well, that's not hard to do. We're setting the bar so high. Yeah. All right, everyone. We appreciate you listening. We appreciate everything that you do for us.

So that is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.