Richard Speck

"It just wasn't their night."

Richard Speck was an American spree killer/mass murderer and rapist.

History
Richard Benjamin Speck was born in Kirkwood, Illinois the seventh of eight children. His parents were Benjamin Franklin Speck and Mary Margaret Carbaugh Speck. A few years after Benjamin, who Speck had been very close to, died of a heart attack in 1947, Mary Margaret met the peg-legged, hard-drinking Carl August Rudolph Lindberg, a traveling insurance salesman from Texas with a long criminal record, including forgery and several counts of drunk driving, and married him on May 10, 1950. Over the following years, Speck and those of his family who hadn’t moved away from home moved between various poor neighborhoods in Texas. He loathed his drinking and frequently absent step-father, who frequently abused him psychologically with insults and threats. Speck struggled through school, needing glasses but refusing to wear them and having a fear of being stared at. In 1957, he entered ninth grade at the Crozier Technical High School, but failed every subject and dropped out at the age of 16. During this time, he had started drinking alcohol at the age of 12, getting drunk almost every day by the age of 15, and been arrested for trespassing at the age of 13.

Speck worked as a laborer for the 7 Up bottling company from 1960 to 1963. In October 1961, he met 15-year-old Shirley Annette Malone at the Texas State Fair, impregnating her three weeks into their relationship. When they married on January 19, 1962, Speck changed his name to Richard Franklin Speck. When Malone gave birth to their daughter, Robbie Lynn, on July 5, 1962, Speck was serving a 22-day sentence for disturbing the peace after a drunken brawl. He spent the better part of the following years on the road or in jail, supporting himself through crime and odd jobs, including working as a driver for the Patterson Meat Company, from which he was fired for a number of accidents with his truck and failing to turn up for work. In January 1966, Malone filed for divorce, later claiming that he had raped her at least once at knife-point. The same month, Speck was arrested for aggravated assault after stabbing a man during a bar fight, but the lawyer hired by his mother got it reduced to disturbing the peace. For this, Speck was sentenced to a $10 fine, which he failed to pay and was consequently placed in jail for three days. He then bought an old car and then burglarized a grocery store, stealing 70 cartons of cigarettes, which he then sold from the trunk of his car. To keep him out of jail, Speck’s sister Carolyn drove him to the Dallas bus depot when an arrest warrant for him was issued. From there, he took a bus to Chicago, Illinois.

In Chicago, Speck’s brother Gene got him a job for a carpenter. On April 2, Speck burglarized and raped an elderly woman, Mrs. Virgil Harris, ransacked her home and stole $2,50 in cash. Nine days later, a barmaid named May Kay Pierce was found dead behind Frank’s Place, Speck’s bar of choice. Speck was questioned for the second crime, but got away from the police by taking a job on a ship on the Great Lakes. When the authorities searched through the hotel which he had lived in, but missed him by hours. Inside his room, they found jewelry and a radio stolen from Mrs. Harris. After spending the following months involved with the National Maritime Union, bouncing between naval jobs, Speck raped Ella Mae Hooper, 53, on July 13 and stole a black .22 revolver from her. The same night, he left the inn he lived at completely dressed in black and went to a townhouse used as a dormitory by student nurses, which was a block away from the NMU hiring hall Speck had been at earlier. He appeared at the front door with the revolver, forcing his way into the apartment. After placing all of the nurses in one of the building’s bedrooms, Speck began killing them. Fortunately, one intended victim managed to hide. Since she was a visitor and Speck knew that eight nurses lived there, he didn’t notice that she was gone. Two days after the murders, he attempted to kill himself with a smashed glass bottle. The doctor who treated him, Dr. LeRoy Smith, noticed his tattoo, “Born To Raise Hell”, which had been mentioned in the news. Speck was eventually charged with the murders, found guilty and sentenced to death. On June 28, 1971, his death sentence was reduced to eight consecutive terms of 50-150 years, which in turn was commuted to a maximum of 300 years. He was incarcerated at the Stateville Correctional Facility, where he spent his time doing solitary activities such as stamp collecting and frequently used bootleg alcohol and drugs. During his time there, he was denied the possibility of parole five times. On December 5, 1991, Speck died of a heart attack. He was eventually cremated and his ashes spread at an undisclosed location.

Modus Operandi
Speck entered the nurses’ townhouse through the front door, holding them at gunpoint with Ella Mae Hooper’s revolver. He also brought a pocket knife and a hunting knife. Once inside, he told the nurses to give him there money, claiming he was going to New Orleans. After they had complied, he tied them up with torn strips of sheets. He then systematically raped and tortured them one by one and killed them by strangling or stabbing them. Between the killings, he would wash up, presumably to make it appear to the individual captives as though no-one had been hurt.

Known Victims

 * Shirley Annette Malone
 * April 3, 1966: Mrs. Virgil Harris
 * July 13, 1966: Ella Mae Hooper
 * July 13-14, 1966: The nurses (all but Amurao raped and killed):
 * Mary Ann Jordan
 * Suzanne Farris
 * Patricia Matusek
 * Nina Schmale
 * Pamela Wilkening
 * Merlita Galguilo
 * Valentina Paison
 * Gloria Davy
 * Cora Amurao

Criminal Minds Comparison
Speck has been referenced a number of times on Criminal Minds. The most notable occasion was in Killer Profile, in which copycat killer Daniel Dryden went to the townhouse in which Speck's killings of the nurses took place with the intention of copying his M.O. on some of the current residents, even dressing up just like Speck had and bringing the same equipment. However, the authorities had figured out where his next attack would be and were waiting for him outside. Daniel fled and, having entered a kind of "close enough" phase, drove to a nearby community hospital and fired at three nurses, one of which died of her injuries, both as a reference to Speck's murders and as a diversion for the police. He then returned to the townhouse, planning to finish his Speck imitation, but was arrested by Rossi.