Welcome to part two of Richard Speck. Today, we're going to pick up from where we left off in part one, so if you haven't listened to it yet, be sure to go check it out. We're going to pick up right where we left off as he's on his way to go commit mass murder.
Warning.
The following podcast contains graphic content and material intended for a mature audience listener discretion. Hey, how's it going. My name's Ben.
And I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and.
Grim, a true crime podcast. Can you hear that?
I can't hear it?
A little tinkle tinkle in the glass today.
A little but a different sound for you.
Just as refreshing, though.
There you go.
It almost had tea today, though maybe next time. I was gonna have a tea, but then I had tea like an hour earlier, and I was like, well, I don't want another cup of tea.
So we actually drink a lot of tea in this house.
We do. Tea's delicious and it's good for you.
Yeah, we like it. It's like a warm hug and a cup.
But that's a good way of describing it. But that's that's how I feel about coffee though, Oh.
Okay, actually that's how I feel about hot chocolate.
Just all the above. Warm drinks, warm drinks.
There you go.
But like for me with coffee, it's not like it's a oh I need coffee to wake up, a caffeine, you know. It's it's the ritual thing for me. It's you wake up, you have that nice hot beverage in your cup, and it's just like so earthy and so grounding. It's just a warm hug in the morning.
Give it. When you have it in the afternoon, that's to wake your ass up.
If I have it in the afternoon, it's usually I could use a little bit of a pick me up.
Yeah, okay, yeah, or not a hug just to pick me up at that point.
Pretty much pretty much don't generally need it. It's I want it, you know. It's I want that feeling again.
Oh my god, it's almost sad.
Yeah, I guess it kind of does sound sad now that I really think of it, taking a step back and look at it. Oh yeah, So that's that's my story for coffee. Actually, speaking of stories, we got to ask you.
Guys transition there.
I think it almost like I set.
It up pretty much, but I didn't.
We got to ask you, guys. We're looking for some listener tales, so we want you to submit some listener tales over to us on our email. To shoot us an email with some spooky stories or some creepy stuff that's happened to you in your lifetime, some experiences. Send it to us over at Wicked and Grim podcast at gmail dot com. We're going to be going through some listener tail stuff for Halloween week.
So yeah, it's gonna be specifically right now, I guess for Halloween week. Yeah, and depending how many we get, we may have to have to choose.
Yeah, So it's not guaranteed you're going to be in the episode with your story. I wish we can guarantee everybody, but it's unfortunately not the nature of the beast. So you have the opportunity to potentially be in an episode as we do a listener tale thing for Halloween a week.
Yeah, and we put this out on Patreon already, so we've had a couple submitted from our patrons.
Yeah, and there's some good stories already.
Yeah, so kind of cool.
It's kind of weird some of the shit that happens to people. It's like, how like you can't explain most of this shit, it's so crazy. Yeah, like me and my Sasquatch story, I don't.
Feel like I have any story like that, Like there's I don't feel like there's anything I could submit that would be of interest. Nothing, I don't think so well.
I mean you kind of do. It's not like it happened to you yet.
Okay, at this I don't think it's gonna happen.
But that in itself is a fucking weird ass story.
Not really, I don't think.
Okay, we'll quickly catch them up like an elevator pitch on what it would be your story?
Well, gosh, it was so long ago, but at different periods of time, I had gone to psychics, like two different ones, and they had both basically kind of seemed like I was hard to read that if I wanted to, like I could tap into like some psychic ability of my own, and that at some point I would basically walk in to a room and I would see something that no one else would see that would scare the shit out of me. Yep, and that has yet to happen.
So it's like, are these people just like putting me on edge for the next like how many years of my life?
Maybe what you saw was how absolutely handsome I am and it scared the shit out of you with just how handsome I am.
Well, it's funny too, because maybe it has happened, and like I didn't realize that I was the only one that saw it and it didn't scare me, Like who knows.
That's very possible, like a whole sixth sense scenario sort of thing.
Lots of times I'm kind of oblivious because I just have like way too much shit going on in my brain. My brain never shuts the fuck up, so I don't even know. If I maybe I wouldn't have even noticed.
There's a potential of that.
So that's not really a very exciting story because nothing exciting has really happened.
Yeah, but that's like a very suspenseful story. It's like when is something going to happen?
Yeah, And sometimes I'm like, gosh, do I want to put myself in that situation? What if it's now?
Well, I wouldn't want that to be me with this unknown Is something going to happen at any moment?
Yeah? No, fangs, I know, I know and I have put myself in some situations too where with ghosts could be like I had gone to Alcatraz, which I'm sure. Yeah, if a ghost is gonna be somewhere, there's gonna be a ghost there for sure.
Yeah. And Barkerville, the local Barker.
Yeah, I forgot about Barkerville.
How could you forget about Barker. I don't know.
I'm obsessed with that place. If you ever get the chance to go to Barkerville, like you must, Yeah, we'll be.
Going there in the near future for sure.
And there bakery is amazing, like, oh yeah, go hungry, Like it's getting better every year, is it.
I haven't gone for what like two years now?
Yeah, it's been too long.
We also got to give a shout out to our patrons, of course, as we always do. We had a few more patrons sign up this week. We have Ashley, Justine Smith, and Eleanor love the name Eleanor by the way.
Yeah, well in all of those like you nail the names. Those are razy, Paisy.
They were not challenging names at least I think unless Justine Smith is like it's actually just Steiny Smithy or something like that. And I just butchered it, and who knows, You never know because there is different pronunciation.
There absolutely is, and yeah, and lots of times to the way we pronounce stuff in Canada is different from how they pronounce it in other areas of the world exactly.
So it's roll the dice a lot of the times.
Yeah, but honestly, we appreciate, Yeah, we do.
Even if we say your name right or wrong. We still love you no matter what. There you go, even if you're not on Patreon, you just listen to us. Still love you. You're still awesome, You're still wicked.
Stay wicked.
Hey, that's the end of the episode.
Bye, okay, bye, have a good night. Could you imagine, oh my gosh, I met I wonder Kate. It would be funny. Okay, not really funny, but it would be funny to put something out there like that just to see how many emails we got where people were just like the fuck jinks.
Wow. Okay, Well, I think that's enough of our shenanigans. We're almost seven minutes into this.
Let's go. Let's say, Yeah, we need to recap two of what happened on part one here.
So part one it's kind of hard to really recap in detail of what part one was true. But basically, we have this individual named Richard Speck growing up. By the time he was about six years old, he was your average, regular little boy. His dad unfortunately passed away from a heart attack. Then he had the step dad kind of come in who was an alcoholic, kind of a no good kind of.
Person, wasn't it, Carl.
I believe it was a Carl. Yes, not cool Carl.
We got to keep that trend going here.
And growing up from there on out, his life kind of took a turn for the worse, committing petting crimes left right and center, and he began to in his older years commit things like assault and rape. So all the while he was unable to hold a job because of his attitude towards women in life and everything in general. He just became an all around dick head douche canoe. Yeah, and here we are today where he is dressed all in black after raping an individual and stealing her twenty
two caliber pistol. He now has this pistol in hand with his switchblade in the other hand, dressed in all black, heading on his way to where he's going to commit mass murder to.
A nursing school or not nursing school but nursing.
Housing um or something townhouse.
Yeah, oh my gosh, okay, yeah, that you left. I remember now it's coming back to me here because it kind of just like toned it out a little bit because I needed to. But this is going to get real shitty.
Well, and it was a lot of like information overload in the other one. It was just more so on Richard, and unfortunately this is still a Richard heavy episode. I wanted it to be more about a survivor in this episode, but there's not a whole lot of detail on her. So I'm just going to kind of respect that, talk about her as much as we know, and give her her space as do as well.
Yeah that honestly, sometimes when people go through terrible things, they probably just want to move on or as much as they can, not that they totally can at all, but like you know, they don't want to be on podcasts maybe exactly.
So she's going to be our badass of the day. I'm going to tell you that right now. But we'll get to that, Okay. So we're starting off on the evening of July thirteenth, in nineteen sixty six, just after ten pm. Richard is dressed all in black and armed with his usual switchblade and the new twenty two caliber pistol that we just mentioned. He had spent most of his day drinking and was now making his way down
the street towards a townhouse complex. Now, the complex was about a mile walk from where he was staying, and it functioned as a dormhouse for nine nursing students students that attended the South Chicago Community Hospital. The nine students were busy studying for their upcoming exams, all the good stuff that comes along with being a student. Right now, it was about eleven PM that Richard arrived at the home.
He knew exactly where it was, he knew exactly where he was going, and when he got there, he knew he needed to make his entrance as quiet as possible. Now, the front door would draw far too much attention, and he needed to get inside without being noticed, so he went to the back of the building. He used his switchblade to pry open a windows screen and he crawled inside. He crept through the shadows of the unlit area on the main floor and began slowly climbing the stairs to
the top floor, where all the rooms were. He came across the first door and he moved towards it. He weighed his options. Should he barge in or should he wait? He knew there were multiple residents of the house. As I had mentioned, He knew where this place was, and he had passed it many times before on his way to and from a finding work and over to his hotel room. He knew who resided inside, so he didn't
really want to wait either though. He had an agenda and he wanted to act on his sick ideas, so in order to avoid any immediate suspicion, he acted as though as he simply belonged. He raised his hand up to the door and he knocked.
Oh my gosh, I wasn't expecting that. But I also just have to say, the idea that you're just like in your home, like studying, sleeping, whatever, and someone is like literally lurking around and then gets into your home is disturbing.
Well, as we talked about in part one, Richard is about as creepy as you fucking get.
Yeah, so, but the idea of that is just like gosh, like ha, like I'm in my brain right now, I'm like, Okay, what the fuck do I need to lock?
We've covered episodes before where it was like you probably want to lock your like what was that one the bedroom Strangler? Is that it where it was like the third or fourth floor?
They come, oh, yeah, there are numerous cases where people literally like scale buildings. Yeah, like you think you're safe in like a fourth floor, fifth floor, sixth floor, whatever, balcony, you're freaking not like lock your door.
Yeah, even your balcony door, because they like you said.
Scale and then like you need a window that freaking locks as well. Apparently yep.
So well, I'm pretty sure most windows nowadays do lock.
Two Yeah, but this was kind of like like a.
Little bit older, but cas well and windows do get left open or whatever.
Oh yeah, So so he knocks on the fucking door.
Yeah, he knocks on the door, and a moment later the door opened up. Now in front of Richard stood a twenty three year old Filipino exchange student nurse by the name of Corazanto Amaro. Now, Richard wasted no time. The first thing Corazon saw when she opened the door was the twenty two caliber pistol pointed directly at her face. She was left with no other choice but to comply with Richard's demands.
Oh Man, and.
What he wanted was for her to help gather up all of her other housemates.
See, I don't know. I feel like in that scenario, like if you just made a ton of noise and just started freaking out, like I mean, yeah, I guess that he would have shot. He could have shot. You should be dead, I guess. I don't know. Sometimes though, with attackers, it seems like if you make a huge fussy he could have got scared and run away. That's true, But you are rolling the dice yep.
Yeah, because you're probably you have a gun in your face.
You're probably going to freeze, and you're just going to freeze too when you see that.
So I mean, like I said, gun in her face, and like you said, she froze. Yeah, So she had no other choice. One by one, she led him around the house and they woke five other nursing students.
Yikes.
Now, the five women were Matilda Garulo, who is twenty three, Valentina Passen who is twenty three, Patricia Mettusik who is twenty, Pamela Wilkening, who is twenty and Nina Joe Schmail, who is twenty four. Then he brought them into the largest room in the house and he began to tie them up. Now, he wasn't able to complete this task very easy though, he would have to put his gun down to do this, So while using his knife to cut strips from a bed sheet to tie them up, he never let his
gun be very far away from him. He kept it close enough so that in an instant he could reach over and grab it and have it at any moment. Yeah.
But also the fact that he didn't have anything just ready to tie them up, like he really doesn't seem to he really thought about it that much through.
Well, he's done this before. He used someone's housecoat and cut it in strips to.
Tie them up.
Okay, so this is his method almost kind of like a calling card of his fucking scenario.
Yeah, I hate that, hate that. Yeah, okay, and sorry, how many people does he have in the freaking living room right now?
Well, he went gathered five up with the help of Corazones, so he has currently six.
Six nursing students.
Okay. So needless to say, though, like women are terrified as they're systematically having their hands bound behind their backs and ankles cinched tight together.
Oh my gosh, I could only imagine.
Yeah, they were no doubt scared, but the women managed to keep calm and they tried to talk to Richard. So far, he seemed very calm himself and was talking very gently, and it's very reminiscent of how he had treated some other victims in the past as well, one of them being are saying that he was almost like a gentleman.
Oh yeah, like almost kind So.
It's the same sort of situation. He had them all sitting on the floor, and he actually sat down on the floor as well on the other end of the room. He lit up a cigarette and he chatted with the women. Wow also reassured them that he didn't want to hurt anyone. He just wanted some money so he could leave town on a ship to New Orleans. His conversation and lighthearted demeanor was easily reflected in the way that the six
women spoke back to him. Now, after all, he was talking to multiple nursing students, students who would have gone through training and classes based on dealing with patients who are going through things like trauma, anxiety, and I'm sure a whole other plethora of emotions. Yeah, so psychology was
their weapon of choice in this situation. They kept calm, they talked compassionately, compassionately with him, They joked, they tried and you know, laughing and being light hearted or doing whatever they need to, and they complied with his requests. Their hopes were that he would simply tie them up, take some of the possessions around the house, and then be honest.
And then honestly, that's very impressive, it is. And they probably just the fact though, how he sounds when he's like talking to people, and like the situation, the vibe or whatever of what's going on, you almost probably think in your head, Okay, this isn't going to go that badly, that's right.
Yeah, And their hopes are probably up because they're probably seeing this reaction from the individual to training they've received. Yes, they're like, oh, it's going how it says it goes exactly, So if we keep this up, we'll be fine. Yeah, I mean that was their hope.
But well, it makes sense.
It was a far cry from how there soon to be reality would play out.
Unfortunately, I figured.
Yeah, so soon another housemate would make her way home from a date with her boyfriend.
Oh man, if only that date lasts longer.
This would be twenty two year old Gloria Jeane Davey. She was dropped off by her boyfriend and she was quickly added to the group of captives in the home, making the total of people in Richard's holding seven individuals.
Oh my gosh, that is terrible. Yeah, and the boyfriend, I can only imagine he's like shit, like if only I like walked her in, but like you wouldn't think anything like that would be going on in there.
Yeah, especially like sure you walk her to the front door, she goes in, yeah, good night. Whatever, she goes into the house, she doesn't know until she's upstairs. You probably don't know until you're gone. She probably didn't scream because she's going to have a gun in her face immediately.
Yeah.
So unless this man went in with her, he wouldn't have known. And if he went in with her, he probably would have been right there with the girls, maybe even shot on spot, who knows.
That's very true. Yep.
So it's definitely not one of those situations where oh if only, well, if only, it probably would have ended up being worse honestly.
Well, yeah, I mean, if only the date might have lasted a smidge longer or something. Is the only if only? Probably eh? Oh okay, okay, never mind.
No, that wouldn't make a difference either, So Richard instead beginning to leave them out of the room one by one instead of just sitting there in the room. He started by taking Pamela Wilkins out. She wasn't going to simply just let him be this evil guy though, because their kind of demeanor had changed, they was no longer this happy kind individual. He crushed out his cigarette and started systematically one by one bringing them out.
Okay, so she.
Wasn't gonna let him just be this evil guy without showing her disgust to him. She would spit in his face, and she told him to his face that she would easily pick him out of a lineup. Wow, so good for her on that.
That is good.
Like she literally hints that he was going to get caught and go to jail from her own account, so fuck yeah love that. Richard, however, had a different idea of how things were going to play out. He started by pinning her down on the bed in a nearby bedroom, ready to rape her.
Okay, Martie like confused, though, Can I just ask one super super quick question here? Yes, So, like he's taking them one by one and the rest are just like they can't move in the other room.
I guess, Yeah, they're all tied up.
So they can't do anything.
And I'm sure even if they do get out or whatever, he's going to hear them coming out of that bedroom.
Okay, So yeah, he's probably thinking that through.
Okay, so he's ready to unfortunately rape this woman who's bound and at his will. However, it was quickly cut short. Two more women who lived at the home had arrived from their evening out, and they happened upon Richard and Pamela in the room. As they opened it up. In this instant, all hell broke loose. Oh oh, and the literal bloodbath would begin.
No, okay.
The two women who entered the home were Suzanne Ferris, who was twenty one, and Mary Anne Jordan, who was twenty. Now, they tried to run when they encountered this situation. I freaking met Richard on top of Pamela, her being tied up and pinned down, and then opening the door to this shit. They tried to run, but they didn't make it far. Richard managed to stop both of them before they made it farther than the hallway.
How the hell, and.
He stabbed them both a total of twenty times with his switchblade knife.
Okay, so like shit really really really just hit the fan. Yes, because he was out of control really at that moment. Yes, there's two more came in that aren't bound.
And he lost his shit.
Oh wow.
Bodies laid lifeless, surrounded by blood, and Richard, with his knife in hand, turned back towards Pamela, who is tied up in the bedroom. He was dead set on leaving no witnesses.
Yeah, my heart, that just like that, just a little scene you just that makes my heart to sink.
And it's it's super sad because, like you say, you said earlier, what if someone did scream? What if someone made a loud enough noise? But these are just what ifs. However, Yeah, you also have someone on top of you with like a gun from Corazone who had and these individuals a knife. You never know, you kind of got to try and play the cards right.
Well, those two girls that entered later and then we're basically trying to run a rain being chased. I bet you they did.
I bet you they did scream, but they still weren't hurt.
Yeah.
So, now after Pamela, he didn't rape her, but he did murder her. He did stab her with his switchblade knife multiple times. After he was done, he would wash his hands of all the blood and clean himself up, then return back to the room where the rest of the women waited with in their bonds. He would take the next out of the room and proceed to stab her repeatedly.
Holy shit, all.
While the muffled screams were being heard from inside the room where the woman were laying helpless. And I do want to highlight muffled screams. They were not heard easily.
Oh my gosh.
This happened repeatedly, over and over for the course of the next four hours.
Holy shit.
Four hours.
Oh my gosh. I just can't even I just can't even imagine this, Like the just the sheer fear that would be, like this is unbelievable.
Those four hours would feel like an absolute eternity, like absolute, like every second is going to feel like an hour on its own.
Yeah, and you're literally the whole time trying to figure out, How the fuck can I get out of this situation?
Yep? So Gloria Dean Davis Jeane Davis excuse me, was last and she was, unfortunately the women that the woman that Richard decided to rape. He unleashed everything on.
Gloria, Oh my gosh, anger.
From his past, his terrible job history, his absolute fucking pathetic view on women, which, if you don't recall from last episode, in his mind either ye trash or like perfect. He sexually brutalized her for an extended period of time before strangling her to death. After he had finished and there was no one left in the room of captives, Richard left the house, but not before cleaning himself up
and stealing any valuables he found inside. He walked over to a nearby bridge not too far from where he had committed this crime, and chucked his bloody switchblade off the knife into the water before walking back to his hotel room for the night.
Okay, was his clothes just not coated as well? Like just drenched in blood?
Probably, but remember he is wearing all black. You probably wouldn't see it.
Okay, I never thought about that, could Chane something? I just saw something out of the corner of my eye outside. I was just like it was probably to some moth, but I'm on some serious edge right now.
Well, he would walk back to his hotel room, like you say, probably coated and blood. Yeah, you don't see it. But he basically thought he got away with murder. He committed the perfect crime. He left no witnesses, he got rid of the murder weapon, everything. But what Richard didn't know is there was one detail he overlooked. He intended to kill any witness that night, but he failed on
this task. He left one witness alive. Somehow during the night, Richard lost count of how many people were in the house.
I was wondering how the hell this happened.
Now, maybe it's because of his blind rage, or perhaps because of the new faces coming into play twice over the course of this entire event. But one thing's for sure. He left behind a witness. While everything was going on the house, one woman managed to slip his view, and that was Corazon Amorrowka, a woman who answered the knock at her door to find Richard standing there with a pistol in her face.
Oh shit.
At one point she waited until Richard's back was turned and she rolled underneath the bed in the room that everyone was held captive. And there she hid and.
She waited seriously. Oh my god. Okay, so she is super like a bad ass of the day, for sure.
She is one hundred percent the badass of the day here for these reasons wholeheartedly. But I'm going to tell you the exact moment where I want to declare it. Okay, so though she is our badass, I'm not declaring it just yetka wait for the moment and you'll understand why. That is the moment that tops it all off. So she waited for his bag to be turned, hid under the bed, and there she would wait. She would hear
footsteps come in the room and then leave again. She would hear screams, then silence, and more footsteps into the room. Any moment she was expecting to have hands wrap around her ankles and drag her out from her hiding place.
Uh huh.
She thought there was no way she's getting away with this. Each breath she took felt like she was literally going to be breathing her last until she didn't hear any more footsteps, she didn't hear any more screams, She didn't hear anything. She stayed hidden under the bed for a long time, long after Richard was gone, actually unsure if
he was even there. Still, she kept hiding. Eventually hours had gone by since he had left the house, and Corizone finally emerged from her hiding place at six a m.
Well, because you have no idea, what if he was just literally just sleep taking a nap on the freaking coach, which just happened in some of our cases.
And stuff, exactly. People do stay around, Yeah, who knows, Like, oh, maybe he was in the room just waiting for her to come out. Maybe it was a game for him.
Right. That was almost like seven hours ish that she was under that bed.
Yep.
Wow.
Now when she did get out from underneath the bed, she didn't calmly and quietly like creep out and sneak around either. She got up and she bolted to the nearest window, opened it, leaned outside, and she began screaming for help. She screamed out into the street below. They are all dead, My friends are all dead. Oh God, I'm the only one alive.
Oh my gosh, goobs bumps, holy heck.
She continued screaming and didn't stop until police arrived at the scene. Oh my gosh, so again complete badass. But we gotta wait for the cherry on top.
Oh, this isn't the cherry.
This isn't the cherry on top. Oh, trust me, she's a bad asshole.
Yeah, but I'm just like, what else is gonna happen?
But there's a cherry on top for it all. Just wait, it's coming up a little bit later, but just wait. So news sources would of course quickly pick up on this horrific incident that occurred over the night, and a manhunt literally began for the individual at large. Now Richard would shortly thereafter learn that he left behind a survivor in the house.
Oh man, I would have loved to been a fly on the wall for that moment.
Of course, the papers the new he was on TV. He would learn that someone is there to tell about the story yep. And there's someone to tell who it was, who did it?
Yep.
So he of course he panicked. He tried to leave Chicago as quick as he could, and he began by starting with using a new name. Now he would make his way down to the skid Row district of Chicago, where he booked himself a ninety nine cent hotel room under the name of our Franklin. Now he was desperate to find his way out of the city, but he knew public transportation would be crawling with authorities looking for an individual trying to escape the city. And as time
went on it only got worse. Every moment that passed, new things came out. The police pulled a total of thirty three fingerprints from the crime scene. Oh really, thirty three fingerprints?
He was so that doesn't make any sense because he thought that he was pretty much like good to go after this.
Yeah, clearly he's dumb as fuck and no. Yeah, so they pulled thirty three fingerprints from the scene, and together with the full description given from Corazone, the prints were found to be a direct match with Richard spec. Yes, his criminal history caught up with him and they were able to identify exactly who he was. So police knew who he was and now it was just a matter of finding him.
He's done, You done, buddy, So well.
Richard knew that too. He knew there was absolutely no way out. It was only a matter of time. But just like the night of his crime, he didn't intend on getting caught. So one night, I think it was three days afterwards, he downed a bottle of cheap wine, smashed the glass, and used the shards of the bottle to cut his wrists to commit suicide.
Okay.
He slowly began to bleed out and his vision darkened. Eventually he was unconscious, unconscious but still alive when a hotel handyman found him lying in his room. Oh wow, so nine when one was called and he was rushed to the hospital where they managed to save his life. Okay, but it was there that doctor Leroy Smith would recognize the tattoo on his arm born to raise Hell, and in that instant he knew this was Richard Speck, a man who committed the crime who police were looking for.
I thought it for some reason, I just assumed the handyman knew. I don't know why, but so was the doctor that actually correct realized.
That they were just concerned about this individual who was bleeding out and just rushing into the hospital. And it came time where the doctor's the first one to really like looking over him and they saw There's actual clip in a documentary I watched where the doctor's talking about wiping away the crusted blood off his arm. Oh my gosh, to reveal the tattoo.
That's a momente.
And he said like in that moment, I knew this was the guy. So Richard would of course be sentenced to a lot of things, let's put it that way. So to sum it all up, we would get into his prison or sorry not prison sentences, court sentencing. But before that he would be analyzed by a panel a psychiatrists chosen both by his defense and his prosecution, and
he would thankfully be found competent to stand trial. Okay, So, during his trial, which began on April third in nineteen sixty seven, Richard and his defense claimed that he had absolutely no recollection of the murders. Oh of course, he recalled drinking up until about eight pm, when he stated that he was given an injection of speed by some stranger at the bar.
See, I have so much trouble of who the fuck would even want to defend him. But I think, honestly, even if like someone would be appointed, like, you're entitled to have someone defend you, right, yes, So I mean even if someone doesn't step up, like you're probably almost maybe someone asks be forced you. But because I'm like, how could someone literally defend him?
I believe that's exactly how it worked, and how it worked in this case is he was appointed.
Okay, that poor soul.
He was appointed a defense and that was their defense. Now, he never actually denied the murders, specifically or flat out. He did apparently say and this is a quote from someone else who was in court reminiscing of what he said. So it's a quote through a quote. Okay, but he did say, if I am accused of it, I don't remember it. So that's kind of the attitude he approached it with in court.
Well what else does he have?
Yeah, So Correzone would stand trial against Richard.
Okay, is this the moment we're getting there?
The moment? Yeah? Now, she painted the picture of the horrific night that she and her roommates were put through and how she was lucky enough to be forgotten about. She would quite literally point out to the jury the man responsible for it, and she would do so by standing directly in front of him and pointing her finger inches away from him, right in his face, saying, this is the man, fucking bad ass of the day.
Okay. So many moments here that just give me like a shiver.
Like wow, Like she stood inches away from this fucking assholeah and said, this is the guy with her finger in his face.
That's impressive. That is amazing. Well, yes, good for her, like right on, so.
Like she's got balls bigger than me one hundred and ten percent, like wow.
Well, I mean she's had some time to ste on. What a complete freakin' asshole. This is more so than that, Like I don't even want to say what he is.
Oh yeah, but I mean and fair enough, like someone who's going to go through something like that, that trauma is going to carry way through the rest of your life.
You think it could go on the other way where she was just completely terrified and didn't even want to go into the courtroom.
Yeah, and I mean respectively, So if that is the case. But less than a year later, she stands inches from this man and tells the entire courtroom and she points to him, this.
Is the man right on. I love that? So good for her?
Fuck yes, yeah. So along with her testimony, which in all honesty, the whole trial primarily was her testimony. That's pretty much how this all wrapped up was because of her. But along with her testimony and the various fingerprints at the scene that matched his. After only forty five minutes of deliberation, the jury came back with a guilty verdict and Richard was given the death penalty. Okay, however, there's always a however.
Oh here, I'm just like, okay, yeah, this is good, this is a good well, and this is a shit ending, but like the best possible ending of a shitty scenario.
But what well you're not going to like the ending? Is that?
Not?
For this part? I'm going to tell you about this real quick. However, it would later be changed to a life sentence. Oh, nineteen seventy one. This is a fair I get this, This is fair. It was changed in nineteen seventy one when the Supreme Court ruled that people opposed to the death penalty were unconstitutionally excluded from his jury during the trial. So he did not have a fair trial or fair jury in the trial as far as considering death penalty.
Okay, say that again, sorry, say that one part again.
The jury was predominantly people who believed in the death penalty.
Oh okay, So it was like he's going to be guilty, and like, no matter what he's going to be.
Sentenced to that, Yes, so it was not a fair distribution of death penalty or not, right, so they took it away because of that reason. So he's still serving life.
Yeah, okay, so still like a good sentence.
I understand that call. So anyway, I mean I may not agree with the sentence or whatever, but the call makes.
Sense, and they're not wasting money and resources and all that to have like another trial.
Yes, they just went, okay, you know what, he could have also gotten life instead of death, so let's just give him life.
Yeah.
So he served out a sentence in Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois. Now, a sentence that in itself was almost as odd as his life growing up. This is where things take a really weird turn and where it's almost like it's not a happy ending. Now. He was frequently found in his cell in prison with drugs or contraband like moonshine, all within his possession. Often he was given the nickname Birdman, apparently because he had managed to capture
a few sparrows that would fly into his room. So we had these pet birds, So he got the nickname Birdman. But he kept everything in his cell very meticulous, odd individual. Now, amongst the drugs that were smuggled in for Richard were some sort of unknown hormone therapy drugs. He began to grow breasts while in prison, something he did it speculated specifically to use to his advantage in prison and ensure his survival in the rough atmosphere.
Oh wow.
In nineteen ninety six, a very bizarre video was leaked from his prison cell. Now, this video was taken in nineteen ninety eight, and it was released to the public by an anonymous attorney. The video shows Richard wearing silk panties and being topless with his very feminine like breasts.
Oh yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm just like, what's going on right now? Like this is about the least thing I ever expected.
Yeah. Now, in this video that I've only seen PG rated clips of Richard is performing oral sex on another in while they do large amounts of cocaine. Now, quote from Richard from the video has him saying, quote, if they only knew how much fun I was having, they'd turned me loose.
Okay, I don't even know what to say. I am just like, yeah, in shock right now? So was I okay? Like what just happened?
Well, so many people wanted him to rot, to suffer, to justice. This isn't justice.
And here he's just saying that he's living like his best life in there and having fun. Yeah, what on earth is happening? Okay? And sorry? What prison was he in?
Oh? You're make me scroll back here?
Oh you don't have to. I just feel like when I was at Alcatrals there was a birdman.
No, it's not that one stateful correctional center in Illinois.
Okay, I look that up now.
Though, as I've stated, I have not watched this whole video. I've only seen the PG rated stuff or some highlights of the PG rated stuff. There are conversations of individuals asking him if he likes intercourse with men, does he like receiving it from men in prison? And he's like, of course I do. And these men are asking him about his underwear and stuff and like are you wearing the silk one stain? He's like yeah, like let's see take it off, and he's just like on a whim,
He's just doing it. He's just like happy to He's basically, for a lack of better term, he's a sex slave in prison.
But this is almost like it was his survival mechanism. Yes, very much, so just faking that.
Well, that's what a lot of people are saying. Is Okay, maybe he is getting a fate worse than his death because he is turned into something where he is he could be getting he was.
Doing this to other people in a sense.
Yeah, he could be now a sex slave in prison, and he could be doing this as some sort of coping mechanism for what he did to other people.
Yeah, because he probably went in there thinking that he would get murdered then because of what he's done.
Yeah, so now he's almost become his own victim in a sense, or he's.
So messed in the in the head that he has convinced himself that he likes this and he actually does.
Yeah, maybe he does like this, and wow, he is literally enjoying prison. Who knows?
I literally like, is this is this a movie like this?
It's bizarre because.
This made out to me it's not. I know, I'm not questioning you at all, but I'm just like this, Okay, my mind's blown. Now.
At one point in the video, another voice, well a voice from behind the camera, asked Richard another question he asked why he killed the women. Okay, Now, he responded by saying it just wasn't their night and kind of laughing it off.
Wow, asshole.
Now in this video there's a few other references to the murders. This is the only time on record Richard ever admitted to killing the women.
Oh okay, so that was actually okay, Like he's admitting there.
Yeah, like in the whole trial and everything, he's like, I don't remember it.
Yeah. That was his defense, basically that he had no recollection of it. Yeah.
So in this video, which as far as I can tell, he was not being aware. He was not aware of that other was being filmed.
Oh who was filming this?
I don't know. Like I said, it was an anonymous video that surfaced in nineteen ninety six when it was originally recorded in nineteen eighty eight. So yeah. Richard Speck would eventually die on December fifth, nineteen ninety one, the eve of his fifteenth fiftieth birthday. So he died when he was forty.
Nine years old, pretty young.
He died from a sudden heart attack, just like his father. He spent twenty five years behind bars, and upon his creation, his family didn't want his body or anything to do with them.
Wow.
And to this day, apparently there are only two individuals who know what happened to his remains because they are the individuals who had to deal with his remains. No one cares to.
Know that, right there is Oh, what's the word? I can't even think of the word. But that's the ultimate punishment. Really, you literally have no one who gives a shit that you are no longer in the world. Like that's wow, Like you really fucked up.
Yeah, he is like Douche Canoe beyond belief. Yeah, Like fuck this guy and the whole like prison thing is like if they knew how much fun I was having, did turn me loose? Like what the fuck?
Yeah?
When I when I watched that clip of him saying that, I.
Feel like I need to google something. I need to see that.
Yeah, I'm sure you don't want to see the whole video, Like I said, no, I'd like the PG Yeah, well I can. I can link the documentary that one of the documentaries I used for a resource in the bottom show notes of this, so you can go click on it. It's on YouTube and it's some highlights of that video in there as well. So you guys can go check it out too.
This whole thing though like bizarre, Like the whole story is just bizarre. And then to end it in that way.
Oh yeah, the whole psychological factor in this is jaw dropping beyond belief.
Like I've never heard of anything like that.
Yeah, it's again bizarre.
Because generally you're like, okay, this person, like, yeah, he's guilty, he's going to serve life in prison. Maybe there's some like he gets attacked in prison or like or something or dies or something, but not like that. He literally takes pills to give himself breasts and wears underwear and is like a sex slave to inmates.
Yeah, and like, as far as I can tell, there is no there's no documentation or any statement of him wanting to become transgendered or become a woman or anything like that. He just did this strictly as a defense mechanism to keep going, which kind of falls back to again the first episode on this, people talked if he didn't have a weapon in his hand, he was just spineless,
And I think that's what it was. He didn't have a weapon in his hand, so he needed some way to have the power over individuals, which is exactly what we talked about. Wow, first episode, he needed power somehow, this was his way.
So he was basically using sex as his power in prison. Yep, well, my head is spinning this Okay. I was not expecting any Well I knew a little bit, but not that part. Holy heck, can't believe you kept that from me.
If there's one episode or one case you guys listened to from our show multiple times to try and understand things, or maybe even if you don't listen to us, but you dive deeper in a case, this should be it, because holy fuck, Like I said, the psychological stuff behind it is it's heavy. It's it's so deep.
And is this a movie?
I don't, not that I'm aware of documentaries.
Yeah, but okay, but the story kind of is. So I'm sorry I keep saying this bizarre, but it almost just seems like it needs to be made into a movie.
It's it seems like a movie plot.
It does because like at one point I was like, is this literally real?
Yeah? It is?
Oh, that would have been interesting to research prior to researching. Did you know about that end part? No?
No? I did not.
Okay, Wow, that's probably the biggest shock of researching a case ever.
Well, prior to researching this, I knew of this. I've heard the name, and then I knew it was he
killed some women. That's all I kind of knew. And then when I started scrolling, you know, looking for cases, you know, through a book or online or whatever, I came across his name again, and it came across like a quick little like meme article sort of thing, little elevator pitch on how he's a mass murderer and killed eight women in a dorm room essentially, and there was a survivor, and I was like, you know what, we haven't done a survivor for a while. I want to
cover her survivor. So that's kind of the case that stood up, like let's do it. And then upon researching it was just like holy fuck, everything just started unfolding and I'm like, what the fuck?
Yeah, well, I mean survivor or not. Like, it's amazing. I'm so thankful that someone survived. Gosh, it had been amazing if more people survived, but they would have probably found him anyway. Yeah, I'm assuming right. She just really sped up and helped the process.
She did. I think alone the fingerprints would have pulled up a match.
Eventually because his criminal record was so vast prior to right.
Yeah, but she was able to give a description that fit that kind of narrow down their search.
For the yeah prints. So she was very helpful.
Yep.
But wow, okay, wow.
So yeah, that's the episode. Hopefully it was worth being a two harder. Like I say, if there's one case that you guys dive deeper into or listen to double on, this should be it. Because I'm just gonna leave with that. It was insane. Thank you for sitting here with us. Thank you for being here with us. If you want to check out our links for Instagram, Facebook, or website, all the good stuff merch even we have merch.
Did you know that we got merch?
Yeah, we have merch. So all those links are in the show notes below, just like the link for the documentary. Like I said, we'll be in the show notes below. You can follow us on Patreon, Instagram, you name it. We appreciate your support regardless of what you do.
I just have to say too, I think most people make it to the end, but this is one you got to put on the Instagram post because maybe they are like, oh he's guilty, they just stop listening. You got to listen to the end on this one. Yeah that's insane. Oh yeah, but anyway, well done and until next time, Not cool, Carl, stay wicked.