The Night of Terror: The Chilling Crimes of Richard Speck

RICHARD SPECK WAS AN AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER WHO TORTURED AND MURDERED EIGHT STUDENT NURSES IN A DORMITORY ON THE NIGHT OF JULY 13-14, 1966.

Early Years

Richard Speck was born on December 6, 1941, in Illinois. He was the seventh of eight children in the family. He had a strong connection with his father, who passed away from a heart attack when Richard was six years old.

After the death of her husband, Speck's mother, who was religious and against alcohol, met her future stepfather and moved to Texas with him and the children. Speck's stepfather was a stark contrast to his deceased father; he was a heavy drinker, had a long criminal record, and was moody and not particularly ambitious. He frequently threatened and verbally abused the children.

Speck encountered difficulties in school at an early age. He refused to correct his vision problems with glasses and had a fear of speaking in front of the class. Shortly after his 16th birthday, he decided to drop out of school. By that time, he had already been drinking almost daily for several years, and he also had a history of shorter prison stays due to forgery and theft.

Crimes

After facing another looming prison sentence in Texas, Speck fled to Illinois. There, he lived with relatives and spent most of his time in bars. One evening, he broke into the home of a 65-year-old woman whom he raped and then stole $2.50 from. A week later, a woman named Mary Kathryn Pierce was reported missing after leaving a bar and was never seen again. Her body was later found in an abandoned pigpen.

Speck became a suspect as he was often seen in the bar and had helped build the pigpen. When the police wanted to question him, he left town in a hurry.

Speck fled to Chicago and was taken in by his sister's husband, who got him a job in the United States Merchant Marine. However, due to a prolonged absence because of illness, he was repeatedly postponed for future deployments.

The Night of July 13-14, 1966

On July 13, 1966, Speck got drunk at a bar and raped a woman who was also intoxicated and known to him from the tavern. At 11 p.m. that same night, he broke into a dormitory for student nurses. He locked all eight women present in a room for hours, and one by one, he took them out to stab or strangle them. Gloria Davy, his last victim, was also raped before her murder.

Later, Speck claimed that his initial intent was only to rob the student nurses. However, he was no longer in control of his actions due to the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Speck was unaware that another girl, Armurao, was present in the room. She would be the sole survivor of that night. Armurao provided a detailed description of the perpetrator, including a tattoo on his arm with the inscription "Born To Raise Hell." Days later, Speck was apprehended in a hospital after a failed suicide attempt. The staff recognized the tattoo, and his fingerprints at the crime scene eventually led to his identification as the perpetrator.

Conviction

Speck was sentenced to death. However, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, his sentence was commuted to eight consecutive prison terms ranging from 50 to 150 years, totaling up to 1,200 years in prison.

Speck died of a heart attack in his cell on December 5, 1991. A discovered video showed him partying wildly with drugs and sex in prison.

XYY Syndrome

There were claims that Speck had an extra Y chromosome in the 23rd chromosome pair, which some researchers considered as a potential indicator of criminal activities. However, to this day, it remains unclear whether this assumption is true or false. It was later disproven that Speck had such an extra Y chromosome.