''Because any kid can end up to be like me. "A lot of us never locked our doors but the Speck case changed all that.". '', Even when he attempted to express remorse for the murders, he still came off as a conscienceless criminal: ''I`m sorry as hell. After the murders, the nursing students in the nearby townhouses moved back into the dorms connected to the hospital. On this day, Amurao personally identified Speck as the killer. Speck, asked how many lovers he has had in prison, responded that he can't count that high. Sitting in her Naperville home, she sobbed. So was pregnancy. Forty miles from home, when they spotted a gas station, they were reluctant to stop for directions because their curlers made them look like creatures from Mars. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune). Her brother, John Farris, still carries the photo and prayer card in his wallet 50 years later. "I'm home.". Only recently, since John Schmale got in touch with her about a 50th anniversary commemoration for the women, has Lori let herself believe that it's OK to remember, OK to cry. Her brother Phil, who lost both his sister and his fiancee on that July night, died at 64. When Speck realizes he's being played, he. Speck's trial began on April 3, 1967, and his claim that he had no recollection of the eight murders committed placed Corazon Amurao in the spotlight as the star witness. The next morning, Pat's mother called Kubasek, worried. Atienza was one of three Filipina exchange nurses who lived there, too, and worked at the hospital. Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. "Pat looks at us and says, 'Oh, for crying out loud!'" They were excited. In the townhouse, she was known to sing while doing the dishes or the laundry. She was not the same person. She walked off the stage, shoulders back, carrying a diploma dated July 14, 1966. Just below, in smaller type, was the news that six policemen had been shot during riots on the West Side. The eight nurses killed by Richard Speck on July 14, 1966, in Chicago were, top from left, Gloria Davy, Suzanne Farris, Merlita Gargullo and Mary Ann Jordan. Atienza became friends and learned to play penny-ante poker with the policemen and bodyguards who watched over her for an entire year while she was in protective custody. Shes in her nurses uniform, gazing down. "Don't hate," she told them. She has rarely spoken in detail about what happened, not even to her husband. Atienza was the states key witness when Martin prosecuted Speck in the 1967 trial. A photo that appeared in Life magazine after the murders shows her sitting with three of her housemates. His little sister. (Curtis Thatcher & Assoc.). Tammy Siouchoff remembers life with her fellow students before six of them and two visiting nurseswere murdered in a neighboring townhouse on Chicago's South Side in 1966. Speck admitted he committed the killings _ breaking for the first time his claim of drug-induced amnesia. "It ended an innocence we all had,'' Martin said. "She showed the indomitability of her spirit by continuing her path as a nurse and dedicating her life to helping others and raising a family, but you can never get something like this out of your life," Martin said. Grace Jordan wasn't the only family member to stir Mary Ann's interest in nursing. News item: Another Speck parole hearing at Stateville Correctional Center. The police arrived to scenes of carnage, and took Amurao into custody, interviewing her and proceeding with the construction of an Identikit image. They shoved their beds edge to edge in a single room and lay there at night listening to the newly hired security guard's shoes click along the hallway tiles. Astrological Sign: Sagittarius, Death Year: 1991, Death date: December 5, 1991, Death State: Illinois, Death City: Joliet, Death Country: United States, Article Title: Richard Speck Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/richard-speck, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: December 1, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. Martin said he'll never forget a key moment in Atienza's testimony during the trail. Their married bliss was short-lived, however, and Speck's reversion to type landed him a jail sentence for theft and check fraud, in 1963. Sickeningly mesmerizing because, as much as we hate to admit it, it is possible to talk to a mass murderer as a human being. She probably wouldn't still wear her hair in a perfect flip. Schmale was a student nurse at South Chicago Community Hospital. Atienza did not respond to Tribune requests for an interview. Speck then rounded the nurses up and ordered them to empty their purses, before tying them all up. Suzie was lucky. News item: Richard Speck sentenced. Billy died at 42, with Susan as his caretaker. Phil taught public school, had a sailboat and was nice to him, the kid brother. Not long afterward, Arline Davy, sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, made an announcement to her daughters. In one of the slides that her brother recovered from the basement, a young man crouches next to the Bel Air, washing the whitewalls, smiling for the camera. Rode the hospital shuttle back to the townhouse. Lori didn't cry. Her experience there whetted her interest in nursing. That was a good time that we had," she told Martin in a recent email. And it turned out that it reopened her life.". The radio said some nurses had been killed; the police wouldn't give out information. Although she declined to be interviewed for this story, she has exchanged emails recently with John Schmale. Be married, divorced, retired? She liked clothes, and since the family didn't have a lot of money, she made her own. The Mystery Novelist Who Committed a Real Murder, Boston Marathon Bombings Survivors, 10 Years Later, A Complete Timeline of Adnan Syeds Trial, Release. "Awful, awful. "A lot of people will be here shortly. 29. I`m not a violent man.''. Richard Speck was a murderer notorious for killing eight student nurses in 1966. Fifty years later, Pat Matusek's two best childhood friends are the primary custodians of her past. He hates knowing that anyone who Googles the name "Nina Schmale" lands on the name "Richard Speck.". Here`s half the country down on a person, they call him all kinds of names-and these women are trying to get to meet him. Speck opens up, admitting for the first time that he only sexually assaulted one of the women during his spree. Everywhere she looked she saw starched white uniforms, starched white caps, the meticulously dressed 1966 graduating class of South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing. The last time John Farris saw Suzie, 21, he had just come home from a track meet, carrying his victory medals, and she was visiting with her boyfriend, Phil. She was homesick. According to the New York Times, at least one victim was raped. Thats why he and his wife established the Nina Jo Schmale Scholarship Fund at Wheaton College; Ninas name, and hers alone, is now attached to something good. He was very close with his biological father, who had toiled as a logger, farmer, and factory worker. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. "What wonderful people they were.". Speck laughed. With her salary, she paid tuition for college night classes downtown, after which she commuted home to 111th Street and Avenue E. Eventually she enrolled in nursing school, and though it wasn't a field she had dreamed of as a girl, she had a knack. Speck, however, seemed to have a knack for making a quick escape and keeping police forces guessing. Come spend the night, Suzie suggested. Richard Speck attack survivor: 'Somebody up there was hiding me from Richard Speck full prison video : r/masskillers - Reddit "When Merlita (Gargullo) cooked adobo filipino and pancit and they came home from the hospital and smelled the food and they say 'it's good' so we invited them to join us to eat, and they really like it. Jack Wilkening, brother of Pamela Wilkening, remembers his sister and the days surrounding her 1966 murder along with seven other student nurses and nurseson Chicago'sSouth Side. Two officials at the Consulate General of the Philippines in Chicago, when asked recently about the Filipina nurses, weren't familiar with the crime. Shortly after the Filipina women arrived, the Chicago women threw them a welcome party, and over the next few weeks helped them learn their way around the city. It sure gets way out. This important Mindhunter moment didn't happen in real life - Digital Spy Cora came from Batangas, a province south of Manila known for its volcano, its beaches and the balisong, a traditional folding pocket knife in which the blade can be concealed. She roller-skated in the basement of the family's three-bedroom bungalow. Speck'S High Life Shouldn'T Have Been a Shock "It was terrible," Kubasek said, remembering what she saw. He'd turned on the TV news in Pennsylvania. What made headlines about the interview was Speck`s confession, after years of proclaiming his innocence, that he had, indeed, done the murders: ''Yeah, I killed them. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. One of eight young nurses killed in a Chicago townhouse on July 14, 1966, by a man who became notorious: Richard Speck. Lori Davy Sivek remembers her sister Gloria Davy, one of eight student nurses and nurses murdered together 50years ago on Chicago'sSouth Side. Mary Ann brought her Irish humor, her sense of duty and her talent for friendship to nursing school and to the townhouse on East 100th Street. 8 Dead Nurses In One Night: The Horrible Story Of Richard Speck Then I screamed for help. Corazon Amurao, center, the nurse who survived the massacre of eight of her fellow student nurses, walks between another nurse and William Ruddel, Bridewell jail superintendent, from Bridewell's Cermak Memorial Hospital after a second visit to the building where Richard Speck was being held on July 19, 1966. ''You`re talking about two different categories of people,'' Speck said. The first season of Mindhunter saw Ford interview a number of famous serial killers, including Edmund Kemper (Coed Killer), necrophile Jerry Brudos and mass murderer Richard Speck all of. Catherine Ceniza Choy, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, writes about the three exchange nurses extensively in "Empire of Care," her history of Filipino nurses in the United States. In court, Speck was positively identified by the sole surviving student nurse, Cora Amurao. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune). It was the early 1960s, before the flowering of the women's liberation movement, an era when it wasn't assumed that women would leave the house to work, and those who did had few choices. With a rush of excitement and a pang of dread, he read her penciled note: "Nina South Chicago Hospital.". In 1996, five years after Speck's death, a TV journalist made public a prison video, which showed Speck taking drugs and engaging in sex with another inmate during the 1980s, while he was an inmate at Statesville Correctional Institute; Speck appears to have breasts in the video, apparently as a result of hormone treatment received while in prison, and is wearing women's underwear. Clicking from slide to slide, Schmale stepped into his sister's vanished world. Parts of the confession were almost certainly bogus; Speck said that he had not killed all eight nurses-that an accomplice, whom Speck later shot to death, had killed one of the nurses, while Speck killed the other seven. Kubasek hurried to her car and drove to the townhouse. She'd bring him water, fluff his pillow, hold his hand, tell him that she loved him. He proceeded to brutalize them in the most horrific fashion over the following few hours. I wanted to get rid of it. What he had, in this mysterious box he had inherited when his father died, were four carousels of slides, many of them corroded, warped, moldy, ravaged by water and time. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). "I was just as amazed as everyone that this despicable person landed on my surgical service that evening," Dr. LeRoy Smith said in an email this month. No answer. Their father was a cement finisher descended from Germans. The kitchen is where he and Suzie shared lunch, usually made by their dad, who worked afternoons while their mother worked days. Around 10:30 p.m., she went upstairs to bed, in the high bunk in the room she shared with Merlita. Tina was known as a good cook. As you all know, in 1988 Richard Speck and Ronzelle Larimore made a video in prison that is half talkshow, half pornography. Mary Ann Jordanin her nursing uniform in an undated photo. Together they helped prepare Pat's body for burial, at the funeral home run by Arlene Baskys' dad, next door to Joe Matusek's bar. Suzanne Farris appears as a young girl with a prayer card from her funeral on July 18, 1966. Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. Photo: Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images, G. Gordon Liddys Wild Career After Watergate, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Richard Speck, Birth Year: 1941, Birth date: December 6, 1941, Birth State: Illinois, Birth City: Kirkwood, Birth Country: United States. She knew before she was officially told: Pat was dead. When Susan Jordan Morin, who now lives in Chicago's suburbs, thinks back to the day her family heard the news, her mind lands on a vivid memory of Billy. She went home, not knowing that a little more than an hour earlier, a drifter with a knife, a gun and a history of violence had broken in and was holding her friends hostage upstairs. Having been paroled in January 1965, he lasted only four weeks outside, before being arrested again for aggravated assault, and he was jailed for a further 16 months, of which he served 6 months. Why were they here, and her sister wasn't? Mary Ann Jordan grew up hearing her father's tales of her Irish grandmother, Grace. The doctor had just had a dinner break and had seen the front page of a newspaper featuring the killer's face. Gloria Davy was the second of six siblings, born in the same hospital where she eventually studied nursing, raised not far from the townhouse where she died. In the family's two-bedroom Cape Cod home, Suzie and her older sister, Marilyn, shared a bedroom. ''. I give their addresses to my cellmates. Rare photos, interviews honor 8 nurses slain by Richard Speck in 1966 30 Strange And Bizarre Facts About Richard Speck The trial lasted just 12 days and, on April 15, 1967, the jury found Speck guilty of all eight murders, after less than an hour's deliberation. She did, however, like her volunteer job at an elder-care facility known as the poor farm, and she made friends with her patients, even brought them Christmas presents. As the 50th anniversary of the murders approaches, that's what he wants for himself and the other families to reopen the lives of the women whose names have been overshadowed by their killer's. They'd see each other Friday, go hang out on Rush Street on the Gold Coast. It is being republished for the anniversary with updated sections, including one about Atienza. A few years ago, he ran into an old family friend and she told him a story he'd never heard, about how when she was in high school and couldn't afford a prom dress, Suzie made her one. And yet news of Speck continued to haunt them. Richard Benjamin Speck was born on December 6, 1941, in Kirkwood, Illinois, into a large, religious family, where he was the seventh of eight children. Teacher. he said. Pat was born in 1945, the year World War II ended, to Joe and Bessie Matusek, both of Czech descent. But life wasn't all play. She climbed out on a window ledge and screamed for help, at which point concerned neighbors summoned the police. She teaches her students about them and what they meant in both countries. "You know," he said, "older sisters take care of you and I always felt taken care of. And it hasn't stopped since. Corazon Amurao, center, the nurse who survived the massacre of eight of her fellow student nurses, walks between another nurse and William Ruddel, Bridewell jail superintendent, from Bridewell's Cermak Memorial Hospital after a second visit to the building where Richard Speck was being held on July 19, 1966. With whom? ''Just tell `em to keep up their hatred for me,'' Speck said. Suzanne Farris appears as a young girl with a prayer card from her funeral on July 18, 1966. She played baseball in the alley, badminton across the back fences. During the summers she accompanied Billy to nearby Rainbow Beach, splashed with him in the water, hugged him a lot, made him laugh, a boisterous laugh he copied from her. Speck was captured two days later when an emergency room doctor at Cook County Hospital thought a patient he was treating for self-inflicted gashes looked familiar. The murders happened in a townhouse in the 2300 block of East 100th Street that served as housing for student nurses who worked at South Chicago Community Hospital. "She was great with him," recalled their sister, Susan Jordan Morin. In recent months, John Schmale has tried, with no luck, to find friends and relatives of Tina and Merlita, hoping to connect with them for the 50th anniversary commemoration. And the mail. In their tightknit neighborhood, Pat and her friends stood on corners during the fall to help her dad sell peanuts for the Kiwanis Club. She was home on the night of July 13, when her brother Phil stopped by. By July of 1966, however, Mary Ann, 20, had moved out of the townhouse and back into the family bungalow. Between their second-floor apartments stretched a low, flat roof, and Pat and Arlene often ran across it to tap on each other's windows, looking for a playmate. Pat was 20 on the hot evening of Wednesday, July 13, 1966, when Arlene Kubasek dropped her off at the townhouse, well before curfew, which was 10:30 p.m. except for the two nights a week the women were allowed to stay out until 12:30 a.m. Do you want to come in for coffee? Guarded by detectives, Corazon Amurao arrives at the courthouse in Peoria to testify as the state's chief witness against Richard Speck on April 5, 1967. During this period he had the words "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his arm, a sentiment that wife Shirley had experienced firsthand: She filed for divorce in January 1966. And I don`t know what I`d do without it. Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. Marriage was prohibited for student nurses. Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. Life in the new country must have brought surprises, but it was hardly dramatic. He keeps the photo in a plastic pouch, tucked next to the prayer card from her funeral. We kind of lost her, Lori said. "Time is moving on," he said one afternoon, sitting in his peaceful yard under the old, low-hanging trees. But she came with a coveted distinction: She had a car, and not just any car, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible in pale yellow "Colonial Cream," a gift from her father, who could barely afford it and who himself drove a run-down pickup truck. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). (Harold Norman / Chicago Tribune). By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our. He told me that he drank moonshine and took barbiturates in his prison cell. "What she did that night, very few human beings would have the courage to do. They could talk about the wedding. What would Nina, who died at 24, look like today, at 74? Its a typical 1950s school photograph, small, black-and-white, cropped with pinking shears, showing Suzie at about 10, wearing what looks like her Brownie uniform. In the bedroom she shared with Cora Amurao, Merlita slept on the bottom bunk. Serial Killer: Richard Speck - Full Documentary - YouTube Nursing students were under strict rules during the 1960s, but still they found time for fun. Then one day last fall, she found a voicemail from John Schmale. "This is the man," she said as pandemonium erupted. Despite concerns about her ability to testify after her harrowing ordeal, she gave a faultless performance, impressing the jury with every detail of that evening, identifying Speck unequivocally. Patricia Matusek was murdered along with five fellow nursing students and two visiting nurses in 1966 on Chicago'sSouth Side. Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. She worked at the hospital from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Like the other Filipina nurses, she sent money home. Often after a day of classes at Fenger High School, Pat Matusek walked to Roseland Community Hospital to see her cousin Tommy. Report a correction or typo . One of her sisters would later say the delay may have been a sign that "God didn't want her to leave.". (Schmale family). She loved Elvis, cats and the color pink. A. Like others Schmale has contacted, she was wary at first of resurrecting the past, but she has felt some relief in it. Elmhurst Blotter: Man charged with battery for allegedly punching a security guard at a bar, Hinsdale police blotter: multiple thefts reported by patients at Hinsdale Hospital, Glenview police blotter: Harwood Heights woman charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune). She had the guts to move (under the bed), which saved her life," Martin said. 5 Things To Know About Richard Speck | Crime History | Investigation On some summer days, because it gives him a warm feeling he can't entirely explain, he drives around, top down, in a car he bought a few years ago. He unearthed his ancient 35 mm slide projector, marveled that the bulb still worked and began projecting images on a wall. He was in need of surgery to repair his severed artery, and was watched over by a dozen policemen who were determined to ensure that his days of making lucky escapes were over. My mother had an appointment for me at Parkland Hospital, the same place where Kennedy ended up dying. Richard Speck captured the nation's attention during the summer of 1966 after murdering eight female students who lived together on Chicago's South Side. In May 1966, Valentina Pasion boarded an airplane in the Philippines, headed for Chicago. Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. God was so nice," she said in an email to Martin. Gloria's brother and three of her sisters are still alive. Through the end of spring and on into summer, Tina and her Filipina friends were sometimes spotted walking to a nearby shopping center, and they took occasional field trips, but they spent a lot of their nonworking time in the townhouse, frequently writing letters home. So eight people got killed. Speck was captured two days later when an emergency room doctor at Cook County Hospital thought a patient he was treating for self-inflicted gashes looked familiar. In the basement's dim overhead light, a big, brown cardboard box caught his eye, a box so soggy its bottom was ready to fall out. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. Merlita was considered quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. After Speck was arrested for burglary and assault, he fled to Chicago to seek shelter with his sister, Martha, a couple of months later. As part of their psychiatric rotation, they dealt with mentally disturbed patients. Born on December 6, 1941a day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that dragged the US into World War IIRichard Benjamin Speck was born in rural Illinois, the seventh of eight children. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Nursing students were under strict rules during the 1960s, but still they found time for fun. You're afraid in life, and here's someone who is comforting you.''. It was around dawn when she made her way to an upstairs window. Secretary. Finding no one there, he marched them back upstairs. At the door stood a tall stranger with a pockmarked face and a gun. Their mother, of English and Czech stock, stayed at home to take care of her children. The body count was so high that he failed to notice that Amurao, who had opened the door for him on his arrival, had managed to hide herself under one of the beds. It was the kind of neighborhood where kids walked everywhere and went home for lunch, though Pat took sandwiches to school because her mother worked during the day while her father, who ran the bar at night, slept. Richard Speck - Video, Tattoo & Daughter Jack Wilkening, brother of Pamela Wilkening, remembers his sister and the days surrounding her 1966 murder along with seven other student nurses and nurseson Chicago'sSouth Side. Schmale was a student nurse at South Chicago Community Hospital. But any kid can end up just like me.''. He couldnt identify everyone he saw, but at the photo of the familiar woman in the familiar yellow two-piece bathing suit, he felt his heart clench. The eight nurses killed by Richard Speck on July 14, 1966, in Chicago were, top from left, Gloria Davy, Suzanne Farris, Merlita Gargullo and Mary Ann Jordan. Only one of her siblings, a brother, is still alive. ''Some of them women`s gotta be nuts. Corazon Amurao Atienza has moved on with her life and wants to be happy every day. "She was kind of your average good kid who was really dedicated to being a caregiver.". After his killing spree in 1966, a manhunt ensued and he was captured two days later. He thinks about the family she might have had, wishes she could have met his two sons and daughter and eight grandchildren. Her mother, Bessie, passed away in 2005. In the early 1900s, Grace Jordan was a high-ranking surgical nurse at the University of Michigan, and the stories of her accomplishments made Mary Ann think she could be a nurse too.

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