Richard Speck, The Birdman

After murdering 8 nursing students in their dorm, Richard Speck became known as one of the most fiendish mass murders in American History.

Richard Benjamin Speck was born in Kirkwood, Illinois in 1941, the seventh of eight children of Benjamin Franklin Speck and Mary Margaret Carbaugh. He, and his younger sister Carolyn, were much younger than their four older sisters and two older brothers.

Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Monmouth, Illinois where his father worked as a packer at Western Stoneware. His mother was described as religious and a teetotaler. They were a happy family, with young Speck especially close to his father. Unfortunately, things change, and in 1947, his father died at the age of 53 from a heart attack.

Further tragedy struck in 1952 when Speck’s eldest brother, Robert, died in an automobile accident at the age of 23.

Some would argue that three years was too soon for his mother to move on and remarry, but she did. On May 10, 1950, Mary married Carl August Rudolph Lindberg in Palo Pinto, Texas. Lindberg was a traveling insurance salesman from Texas, and she met him during a train ride to Chicago.

The pair moved to Santo, Texas, just 40 miles west of Fort Worth. Speck and his sister Carolyn stayed behind in Illinois, living with their older, married, sister Sarah Thornton, until he had finished out the school year. Then they joined their mother, and her new husband where he took the name Richard Benjamin Lindberg.

Things might have gone differently for Speck, had his step-father been someone else. Unfortunately, Lindberg had a 25-year criminal record that ranged in severity from forgery to DUIs. While Speck’s mother didn’t drink, Lindberg did heavily.

Starting in 1951 with a move to East Dallas, the family continued to change homes frequently. In fact, over the next 12 years, they would have 10 different addresses, usually in poor neighborhoods.

In addition to his drinking, Lindberg was verbally abusive when he wasn’t altogether absent.

In school, Speck wasn’t the greatest student – far from it in fact. It could be that he refused to wear the glasses he needed for reading, or it could be due to his home life. He had picked up some of his step-father’s habits, drinking alcohol from age 12, getting full-blown drunk by 15. He was arrested for the first time when he was 13 for trespassing.

School wasn’t just a struggle. It was so bad, he was forced to repeat the eighth grade, reportedly because he feared people staring at him, and because he refused to speak in class due to his anxiety. For ninth grade he attended Crozier Technical High School, and failed every subject. He refused to return for the second semester, dropping out in January 1958, just after his 16th birthday.

He took a job as a laborer for the 7-Up bottling company in Dallas where he worked from 1960 until 1963. In October 1961, he met Shirley Annette Malone at the Texas State Fair. They started dating, and within three weeks, she became pregnant. She was 15.

He did what was expected of him at the time, and married Shirley on January 19, 1962, when he also changed his name back to Richard Benjamin Speck. The couple moved in with his sister Carolyn and her husband, where his mother also happened to be living at the time after splitting from Lindberg – who had moved to California.

Speck’s daughter, Robbie Lynn Speck, was born on July 5, 1962. He wasn’t present however, as he was currently serving a 22-day jail sentence for disturbing the peace after a drunken melee.

His troubles with the law didn’t end there. In july 1963, when he was just 21, he was charged and convicted of forgery and burglary, having forged and cashed a co-worker’s $44 paycheck and robbed a grocery store for cigarettes, beer, and $3 in cash. He was sentenced to three years at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.

Speck was paroled in 1965 after serving only 16 months, but he was certainly not reformed. In fact, a week after his release, he was arrested again on January 9, 1965 after attacking a woman in the parking lot of her apartment building. He attacked her with a 17-inch carving knife, but fled when she screamed. Police arrived within minutes and caught him just a few blocks away.

Speck was charged and convicted of aggravated assault, and sentenced to 16 months in prison. He returned to the Texas State Penitentiary, where he served just six months, due to an error in the system.

After his release, he took a job working as a driver for the Patterson Meat Company. He was reckless, and even racked up a total of six accidents in the company truck. However when he was fired, it was for not showing up.

By this time, Shirley had separated from Speck. She reportedly lived in fear of him, claiming that he often raped her at knifepoint, and demanded sex four to five times per day from her. According to his probation officer, “When Speck is drinking, he will fight or threaten anybody. As long as he has a knife or gun. When he’s sober or unarmed, he couldn’t face down a mouse.”

In December, 1965, without his wife, Speck’s mother recommended he move in with a 29-year-old divorced woman who served as a bartender at his favorite bar, Ginny’s Lounge. She was in need of a babysitter for her three children, and he was in need of a place to stay and a job. Especially after his wife filed for divorce and took custody of their daughter.

That same month, he got into a knife fight at Ginny’s Lounge where he stabbed a man. He was once again charged with aggravated assault, but an attorney hired by his mother was able to get the charges reduced to disturbing the peace. He was fined $10 and jailed for three days – after he failed to pay the fine.

On March 5, 1966, he bought a 12-year-old car, then robbed a grocery store the following evening. He stole 70 cartons of cigarettes, which he then sold from the trunk of his car in the store’s parking lot. Either he didn’t care about getting caught, or he was truly an idiot.

He abandoned the car and the police were able to trace it back to him and issued a warrant for his arrest on March 8. Before he could be arrested his sister, Carolyn, drove him to the Dallas bus depot where he took a bus to Chicago, Illinois.

In Chicago, he stayed with his sister Martha Thornton for a few days before returning to Monmouth where he stayed with some family friends. His brother, Howard, was a carpenter and found him a job sanding plasterboard. Being back in his hometown, with friends and family, things might have turned around for him. Unfortunately he was dealt another blow.

Shirley had been granted their divorce on March 16, 1966, but when Speck learned she remarried just two days later, his anger flared. He moved to the Christy Hotel in downtown Monmouth and spent most of his time in local bars. By the end of the month, he once again found himself detained by police, after bar-hopping in Gulfport, Illinois with a group of acquaintances. He had reportedly threatened a man in a tavern restroom with his knife.

He didn’t stop there. On April 3, he was caught burglarizing the home of Mrs. Virgil Harris, a 65-year-old woman. She found him when she returned home at 1am. She described him as “very polite” and spoke “very softly with a southern drawl.” Despite her description of his politeness, he still tied her up, raped her, ransacked her house, and stole the $2.50 cash she had on her.

A week later, Mary Kathryn Pierce, a 32-year-old barmaid who worked at Frank’s Place, a tavern in downtown Monmouth, disappeared. She had been seen leaving the tavern at 12:20am on April 9, reported missing on the 13th, and found later that day in an empty hog house behind the tavern. Mary Kathryn Pierce had been killed by a blow to her abdomen that ruptured her liver.

Since Speck was a frequent customer at Frank’s Place, and the hog house where Mary’s body had been found was one he had helped build, he was questioned by police. Police asked him to stay in town for further questioning, but when police showed up at the Christy Hotel where he had been staying, they discovered he had left the hotel just hours prior, carrying his suitcases. He had claimed he was going to the laundromat, but he skipped town.

A search of his room turned up a radio and costume jewelry that Mrs. Virgin Harris had reported missing from her house, as well as items reported missing from two other burglaries in the previous month.

On April 19, 1966, Speck returned to Chicago, moving in with his sister Martha and her family. He told them that he had to leave Monmouth after he had refused to sell narcotics for a “crime syndicate”. Her husband, Gene, who worked as a railroad switchman, had once served in the U.S. Navy. He suggested Speck join the U.S. Merchant Marines. On April 25, he took Speck to the Coast Guard office to apply for a letter of authority to work as an apprentice seaman.

The application required being fingerprinted and photographed, and having a physical examination by a doctor. Once he got his letter, he immediately got to work, joining the 33-member crew of Inland Steel’s Clarence B. Randall, an L6-S-B1 class bulk ore lake freighter

Further bad luck struck, when Speck came down with appendicitis. On May 3 he was evacuated by U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hancock, Michigan where he had an emergency appendectomy.

After his discharge from the hospital, he returned to stay with his sister Martha to recuperate. By May 20, he was back to work on the Clarence B. Randall. He served until June 14, when he got drunk and got into a fight with one of the boat’s officers. He was subsequently put ashore on June 15.

He stayed at the St. Elmo, an East Side, Chicago flophouse for the next week before traveling to Houghton, Michigan. There he went to the Douglas House where he visited Judy Laakaniemi, a 28-year-old nurse’s aide he had befriended at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Judy gave him $80 to help him out until he was able to find a job, and he returned to Chicago to stay with his sister Martha again.

On June 30, Gene once again helped push Speck in the right direction when he drove him to the National Maritime Union hiring hall to file his paperwork for a seaman’s card. On July 8, Gene drove him back to pick up his card and register for a berth on a ship. He missed out that day, losing to a seaman with more seniority for a berth on the SS Flying Spray, a C1-A cargo ship bound for South Vietnam.

He returned to his sister’s house, and by Monday he had outstayed his welcome. He packed his bags and was driven back to the National Maritime Union hiring hall to await berth on a ship. The next day he received an assignment on Sinclair Oil’s SS Sinclair Great Lakes, which was a 30-minute drive away in East Chicago, Indiana. Unfortunately, when he arrived, he discovered that his spot had already been taken, and he was driven back to the National Maritime Union hiring hall, which was closed by that time.

Without money for a rooming house, he slept in an unfinished house nearby. On Wednesday he once again checked in at the National Maritime Union hiring hall. His sister and Gene drove down to visit him and gave him $25, which he was able to use for a room at the Shipyard Inn. He spent the rest of his day drinking before he met Ella Mae Hooper.

Ella Mae was a 53-year-old woman who had been spending her day drinking at the same taverns that Speck had been at. He took her to his room at the Shipyard Inn where he raped her and stol her black $16 mail-order .22 caliber Röhm pistol.

He left, wearing nothing but black, armed with a switchblade and Ella Mae Hooper’s handgun. Later that night, after drinking at the Shipyard Inn’s tavern until 10:20pm, he walked about 1.5 miles until he came upon a townhouse at 2319 E. 100th St.

It was July 13, 11pm, when Richard Speck broke into the townhouse, entering through a window. The home had been serving as a dormitory for student nurses. Inside he made his way to the bedrooms.

He first came across the room of Corazon Amurao, 23, a Filipina exchange student. At gunpoint, he herded her and fellow exchange students from the Philippines, Merlita Gargullo, 23, and Valentina Pasion, 23, into the next room where more students were sleeping.

The other students were Patricia Matusek, 20, Pamela Wilkening, 20, and Nina Jo Schmale, 24. He woke the girls up and proceeded to tie their wrists behind their backs using strips of torn bed sheets.

According to Corazon, who survived the encounter, “The American girls told us we more or less had to trust him. Maybe if we were calm and quiet he will be, too. He has been talking to us all and he seems calm enough and that is a good sign.”

Unfortunately, the American girls were wrong. One by one Speck led them out of the room where he proceeded to stab or strangle each girl to death. None of them screamed as they left the room, but their muffled cries could be heard later.

Corazon bravely rolled under a bed while Speck’s back was turned.

As all this was happening, two more student nurses who lived in the dormitory arrived home. Speck met Suzanne Farris, 21, in the upstairs hallway as she was walking to her room. He stabbed her to death. Then he spotted Mary Ann Jordan, 20, whom he also stabbed to death.

Finally, after arriving home last when her boyfriend dropped her off, Gloria Jean Davy, 22, met her own horrific end. While the other women were stabbed or strangled to death. Gloria was raped and sexually brutalized before he finally strangled her to death.

After so many deaths, he must have forgotten all about Corazon and he left the property.

Corazon remained hidden under the bed until 6am before running to the nearest window where she screamed, “They are all dead. My friends are all dead. Oh God, I’m the only one alive.”

She continued screaming until the police arrived.

Investigators on the scene found fingerprints, and were able to match them directly to Speck. A sketch was produced and published in the evening paper along with reference to a “Born To Raise Hell” tattoo. A tattoo Speck had gotten when he was 24.

Two days later Speck was drinking on the fire escape of the Starr Hotel with Claude Lunsford and another person. Lunsford recognized him from the sketch after finding him in his room at the hotel, and phoned police. Interestingly, the police never responded to the call.

Speck might have gotten away, had he not attempted suicide that night. He was taken to Cook County Hospital at 12:30am on July 17 where he was recognized by Dr. LeRoy Smith, a 25-year-old surgical resident physician. Smith had read about Speck’s tattoo, and upon seeing it on his patient, quickly phoned police and he was arrested.

Speck was held without questioning for three weeks after his arrest, after concerns regarding a recent Miranda case that had vacated the convictions of numerous criminals. They were trying to tread carefully.

Felony Court Judge Herbert J. Paschen appointed an impartial panel of six physicians, to report on Speck’s competence to stand trial and his sanity at the time of the crime. The panel’s confidential report deemed Speck was competent to stand trial and concluded he had not been insane at the time of the murders.

While he awaited trial, Speck participated in twice-weekly sessions with part-time Cook County Jail psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin Ziporyn. These sessions continued after he was transferred from Cermak Memorial Hospital until the day before he was transferred to Peoria where he would stand trial. Ziporyn diagnosed Speck with depression, anxiety, guilt, and noted he felt shame but also a deep love for his family. He also noted Speck had an obsessive-compulsive personality and a “Madonna-prostitute” attitude towards women.

According to Ziporyn, Speck viewed women as saintly until he felt betrayed by them for some reason, after which hostility developed. He was also diagnosed with organic brain syndrome, resulting from head injuries he had suffered when he was younger. While Speck competent to stand trial, he believed he was insane at the time of the crime due to the effects of alcohol and drug use on his organic brain syndrome. Speck later claimed that he was both drunk and high on drugs at the time of the murders, and may have originally planned to commit a routine burglary

Dr. Ziporyn did not testify for the defense or the prosecution because Ziporyn was writing a book about Speck for financial gain. Because of this, Ziporyn was fired as Cook County’s part-time psychiatrist the week after Speck’s trial ended. At some point during his interviews with Speck, Ziporyn had obtained a written three-sentence consent from Speck authorizing him to tell “what I am really like.”

Speck claimed he had no memory of the murders, but had confessed to Dr. LeRoy Smith at the Cook County Hospital. During the trial, Smith did not testify as the confession was made while Speck had been sedated. According to Cook County’s state attorney in regards to the confession, “…we didn’t need it. We had an eyewitness.”

In 1978, Richard Speck did coherently confess to the murders when he spoke to Bob Greene, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. In a film that inmates made at the Stateville Correctional Center in 1988, Speck recounted the brutal murders in detail. He again stated he was high that night, but then he undercut the idea that the drugs were a mitigating factor, asserting he could just as well have “done it sober”

The trial began on April 3, 1967, in Peoria, Illinois. In court, Corazon Amurao took the stand. When she was asked if she could identify the killer of her fellow students, she rose from her seat in the witness box, walked directly in front of Speck and pointed her finger at him, nearly touching him. “This is the man.”

On April 15, after just 49 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Richard Benjamin Speck guilty and recommended the death penalty. On June 5, Judge Herbert J. Paschen sentenced him to die in the electric chair, but granted an immediate stay pending automatic appeal. The Illinois Supreme Court subsequently upheld his conviction and death sentence on November 22, 1968.

On June 28, 1971, the US Supreme Court upheld Speck’s conviction, but reversed his death sentence and the case was remanded back to the Illinois Supreme Court for re-sentencing. On June 29, 1972, the US Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional, so the Illinois Supreme Court had no choice but to re-sentence him.

On November 21, 1972, Speck was re-sentenced to from 400 to 1,200 years in prison (eight consecutive sentences of 50 to 150 years), which was then reduced to 100 to 300 years.[54] He was denied parole in seven minutes at his first parole hearing on September 15, 1976, and at six subsequent hearings in 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1987, and 1990.

While in prison, Speck was described as a loner who kept a stamp collection and enjoyed listening to music. According to the prison warden, he was “a big nothing doing time.” He was a model prisoner, despite often being caught with drugs or distilled moonshine. He didn’t care about any sort of punishment. “How am I going to get in trouble? I’m here for 1,200 years!”

Regarding the murders, Speck has sated that he “had no feelings,” but things had changed. “I had no feelings at all that night. They said there was blood all over the place. I can’t remember. It felt like nothing … I’m sorry as hell. For those girls, and for their families, and for me. If I had to do it over again, it would be a simple house burglary.”

In his book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, John E. Douglas of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit refers to a telling prison incident Speck revealed to him in an interview. “he found an injured sparrow that had flown in through one of the broken windows and nursed it back to health. When it was healthy enough to stand, he tied a string around its leg and had it perch on his shoulder. At one point, a guard told him pets weren’t allowed. ‘I can’t have it?’ Speck challenged, then walked over to a spinning fan and threw the small bird in. Horrified, the guard said, ‘I thought you liked that bird.’ ‘I did,’ Speck replied. ‘But if I can’t have it, no one can.’”

It was his appreciation of the bird, and the reported pair of sparrows he kept in his cell that earned him the nickname “Birdman” in prison.

In May 1996, Chicago television news anchor Bill Kurtis received video tapes made at Stateville Correctional Center in 1988 from an anonymous attorney. Showing them publicly for the first time before the Illinois state legislature, Kurtis pointed out the explicit scenes of sex, drug use, and money being passed around by prisoners, who seemingly had no fear of being caught. In the center was Speck, performing oral sex on another inmate, sharing a large quantity of cocaine with another inmate, parading in silk panties, sporting female-like breasts (allegedly grown using smuggled hormone treatments), and boasting: “If they only knew how much fun I was having, they’d turn me loose.”

From behind the camera, a prisoner asked Speck if he had killed the nurses. Speck responded, “Sure I did.” When asked why, he shrugged and jokingly said, “It just wasn’t their night.”

Richard Speck died in the early morning hours of December 5, 1991 at the Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, Illinois, a day before he would have turned 50. He had been complaining of severe chest pains. The coroner stated that Speck had an “enlarged heart, emphysema and clogged arteries” which most likely contributed to his fatal heart attack.

Speck was cremated and his ashes spread in a secret location in the Joliet area.