What he did, however, is known, because Cora, a 4-foot-10 nurse from the land of the concealed knife, escaped his sight at one point and hid under one bed, then another, until he was gone. Speck's father, to whom he had been deeply attached . 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. She wrote her daughter's name, Nina, on a piece of pink paper. After the trial, she went home to the Philippines, got a job as a nurse and was elected to the town council in her hometown of San Luis. 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. In the bedroom she shared with Cora Amurao, Merlita slept on the bottom bunk. Their father, John, had attended seminary, changed his mind about the priesthood and married a young woman, Mary, who had grown up three blocks from him. Tina was known as a good cook. When 23-year-old Corazon Amurao opened the front door to Speck's knock, he forced his way in at gunpoint. Stewardess. Siouchoff was the student who, on the night of the murders, rang the back doorbell of her friends' townhouse, in search of bread, then left when no one answered. THE VOICE OF RICHARD SPECK - Chicago Tribune As they snuggled, the phone rang in the nearby den. For years, Pam's name, along with those of her housemates, was in the paper two or three times a week, or so it seemed to Jack, and always attached to the name of the man who killed her. During one of Pam's shifts, a patient slugged her. Sitting in her Naperville home, she sobbed. It was small and nothing fancy: One bathroom and three bedrooms upstairs. The murders continue to have a profound impact on American crime and American society, Martin said. These attacks, however, paled into insignificance on July 13, 1966, when Speck arrived on the doorstep of a townhouse in South Chicago, which served as a communal home for a group of eight young student nurses from nearby South Chicago Community Hospital. Lori didn't cry. Mindhunter: 10 Most Chilling Quotes From The Netflix Show - Screen Rant Not only had they been allowed a slumber party with their mother, but their big sister who was about to graduate from nursing school was coming home for good the next day. Editor's note: This story was first published on April 28, 2016, and is being republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the murders. The True Story Behind Netflix's Mindhunter - Men's Health Him and Eastwood and Bronson. But whatever the veracity of his account of that murderous night (''It was just one of them weird coincidences. In the days before automated fingerprint identification, it took almost a week to identify the prints found in the townhouse as his. Speck found work on a ship, and it began to seem like bodies turned up wherever Speck had been. "She walked within two inches of his forehead and pointed . One of her sisters would later say the delay may have been a sign that "God didn't want her to leave.". At her father's urging, Lori considered becoming a nurse, but she finally told him that she couldn't, she was just too emotional for the job. Gloria's brother and three of her sisters are still alive. Subscribe. Cora has gone on to have a life that appears normal. '', He said that if he were ever paroled, and someone annoyed him, ''I`ll be back in prison. 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. Merlita grew up on the island of Mindoro where bananas, rice and coconut grow. "She wasn't the prom queen or the valedictorian," her brother recalled. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. Pat was born in 1945, the year World War II ended, to Joe and Bessie Matusek, both of Czech descent. Her brother, John Farris, still carries the photo and prayer card in his wallet 50 years later. Law- enforcement officials familiar with the 1966 mass murder said there was no chance an accomplice existed. On that Monday, she was taken to a townhouse on East 100th Street rented by her new employer, South Chicago Community Hospital. Richard Benjamin Speck was an American mass murderer who killed eight student nurses in their South Deering, Chicago residence on the night of July 13-14, 19. "You are surprised I survived?" In winter they went sledding. 'Mindhunter' Episode 9 Recap: Born to Raise Hell | Decider "I just would have liked her to see the kids," he said, and he cried. Politicians delivering food to the wake. Jordan Morin, who was 15 when Mary Ann died, has never before spoken publicly about her sister's death, and she doesn't talk easily about it now. Outrage Over Explicit Prison Video of Richard Speck | AP News Richard Roundtree? She promptly planned a trip to the United States, but passport problems twice forced her to postpone. her daughter asked. Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 - December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on July 13, 1966. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. Too tired. Changing his mind at the last minute, he summoned help, and was taken to Cook County hospital, where, again, his tattoo gave him away, and he was arrested and taken into custody. They could talk about the wedding. "I don't believe this," Schmale said to his wife on that day half a. I was high on heroin that night. You're afraid in life, and here's someone who is comforting you.''. Betty Jo had one more request. Martin talked recently in his Oak Park law office about Cora's bravery. Peter McNamee washes the 1957 Chevrolet owned by his girlfriend, Nina Jo Schmale, whom he planned to marry after graducation, circa 1966. She wanted to do Pat's hair and makeup for the funeral. During their first two years, all the nursing students were required to live in dorms attached to the hospital, but in their third and final year, in the hot Chicago summer of 1965, Nina and five others moved into one of the three townhouses the hospital rented on East 100th Street. On the 50th anniversary of the murders, he remembers Corazon's bravery in court. Speck, asked how many lovers he has had in prison, responded that he can't count that high. Next door was a funeral home, run by Arlene Baskys' dad. If I had to do it all over again, it would be a simple house burglary. "She laughs a lot.". Amurao, she believes, saved her life. (Schmale family). "It hurt everyone down to your soul and your being and your bone," Kubasek said. Videos by Chicago Tribune's Chris Walker. Here's an image she holds on to, one her father captured on a Super 8 movie camera: A sunny Easter morning. After Speck was arrested for burglary and assault, he fled to Chicago to seek shelter with his sister, Martha, a couple of months later. Baskys says that for a while she slept with a flashlight or a knife, but eventually, determined not to raise her children in fear, went through five years of therapy to retrain her thinking. On a trip to Florida with her classmates not long before she died, she sent a postcard home to report that immediately after their plane landed, they had gone to Mass. 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. "It was just awful," Siouchoff said. She was home on the night of July 13, when her brother Phil stopped by. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune). Finding no one there, he marched them back upstairs. She also wrote about Chicago's weather, which she described in one letter as "really terrible. "She is doing very, very well," said William Martin, 79, the former assistant state's attorney who was the lead prosecutor in the case. Another time, according to a different news account, Tina wrote her sister saying she wished she could live in Chicago forever. At the door stood a tall stranger with a pockmarked face and a gun. After that day, Arline Davy was different. ''Look at this.'' Until he was six-years-old, he lived a fairly normal life in a small town in Illinois. When John Schmale talks about what happened that night, he uses the words "anger," "rage," "mourning.". When her father was at work and her mother was taking care of the house and Billy, she took Susan along while she ran family errands on 79th Street, where the shopkeepers knew her name. 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. A. I screamed there for about five minutes and nothing. He managed to deflect police questioning and escape once again, but police discovered some of Harris' personal effects in his vacant hotel room that conclusively tied him to her attack. She probably wouldn't still wear her hair in a perfect flip. And Carol Burnett. he said. He told Greene one of his pleasures in prison was "getting high." When Greene asked him if he compared himself to celebrity . How do you talk about something so terrible? (Curtis Thatcher & Assoc.). Speck's death came as a relief to Wilkening and to the families of the other women he killed. A funeral parlor jammed with mourners. By the time they were in their third year, they had helped deliver babies, treated sick children, watched people die. 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. Rare photos, interviews honor 8 nurses slain by Richard Speck in 1966 At age 10, she walked her sister Susan to her first day of kindergarten. Life in the new country must have brought surprises, but it was hardly dramatic. 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. Asked if she recognized the killer, she stepped off the stand and pointed: Since then she has rarely spoken to the media, though in a 1970 court hearing she described her fear of the night, of being alone, of a knock on a door. But she still can't stand the smell of roses. Billy loved her tremendously.". What would Nina, who died at 24, look like today, at 74? "Life is looking good for Suzie.". But 50 years ago, the murders were perhaps as shocking in the Philippines as they were in Chicago. It may be difficult for those who weren't alive half a century ago to understand how profoundly Speck's crime shook the city, how far the ripples ran through time and space. They were the last women to arrive at the townhouse that night. A photo that appeared in Life magazine after the murders shows her sitting with three of her housemates. She laughs to see the pictures Schmale found, like the one of her and Nina dressed up like cats. The radio said some nurses had been killed; the police wouldn't give out information. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. 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. John Farris carries a photo of his sister Suzie in his wallet. They were excited. Often after a day of classes at Fenger High School, Pat Matusek walked to Roseland Community Hospital to see her cousin Tommy. 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. Around 10:30 p.m., she went upstairs to bed, in the high bunk in the room she shared with Merlita. It reinforced his sense of mission and its urgency. After it was aired on TV, Wilkening obtained a copy of the video. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. Lori tries to live by her mother's words. He touched on feelings of pressure from police and investigators to help solve cases, as well as the empathy and duty he felt towards families of victims. News item: Richard Speck sentenced. "I'm home.". Look at her. "I think there was somebody up there who was hiding me from him. On this day, Amurao personally identified Speck as the killer. Ate an early supper with Merlita and Tina. "You know," he said, "older sisters take care of you and I always felt taken care of. Richard Speck - Born to Raise Hell | Crime Scene Database On many of those days she walked home crying, yet it was her afternoons with Tommy that made her think she could be a nurse. The next time he saw her, her body was on a gurney behind a window in the coroners office. The children suffered considerable abuse at the hands of their drunken stepfather, and Speck's childhood was marked by juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, which soon led to petty crime. In those postwar years, most residents of Chicago's Far South Side were white and working-class, still close to their immigrant roots. John and Nina grew up on an acre of land near suburban Wheaton, a remnant of the Schmale family farm. His leisure tastes? She still gets a kick out of playing poker at casinos in Nevada with her husband. His little sister. 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. The particulars could have come from a college fraternity boy. Before then, he had been responsible for other acts of violence against his family and others but had a knack for escaping the police. The close quarters helped turn most of the women into close friends, and for all their dedication and discipline, they loved pranks. Her experience there whetted her interest in nursing. 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. News item: Speck's death sentence reversed. Speck laughed. Who are the victims of the mass murderer? Richard Speck - Interesting stories about famous people, biographies His sister and seven of her fellow student nurses and nurseswere murdered 50years ago in one of Chicagos darkest crimes. I watched `Magnum Force` the other night. 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. In the townhouse's unofficial sorority, Pam was the quiet one. John and Nina walked together to the one-room Queen Bee schoolhouse, carrying tin lunch pails. Where Is Acquitted Murderer Candy Montgomery Now? "The Nurse Killer" Richard Benjamin Speck - Happy Scribe
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