Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck 2007

Richard Speck grows up in rural Texas under the shadow of a harsh, physically and psychologically abusive home. His turbulent adolescence steers him toward delinquency, and a period of psychiatric counseling becomes a hurdle he avoids by hopping a train out of town. After a failed marriage to a woman named Sissy, whose departure underscores his pattern of controlling and demeaning behavior, he relocates to Chicago and crosses paths with a student nurse named Sharon.

In 1966, while intoxicated and in need of money for a trip, he breaks into Sharon’s dormitory to rob her eight roommates. During the nighttime intrusion, Speck slips into a psychotic state and commits a brutal rape and murder spree, killing Sharon and seven other women. The sole survivor, Sondra Azano, hides under a bed and makes it through the night. The aftermath leaves Speck drifting through motels and bars in a dazed haze, recounting his crimes to a prostitute and later assaulting her as well. The responding officers, unaware of the man they’ve found, confiscate his firearm and fail to connect him to the high-profile crime.

Speck’s grip on reality loosens further as he ends up in a flophouse and attempts suicide by slitting his wrists. He survives, is hospitalized, and a physician treating him recognizes the tattoo reading “Born to Raise Hell” as proof that the killer they’ve been chasing is in custody. He is arrested and identified by the survivor, Sondra Azano, at the hospital.

The legal proceedings begin with a death sentence, but it is later reduced to a range of 400–1200 years to be served at Joliet Correctional Center. Throughout his time in prison, he remains uncooperative with therapy and refuses to attend parole hearings, resigning himself to a lifetime behind bars. He dies of a heart attack in 1991, effectively ending the official pursuit of the case.

Four years after his death, a disturbing video surfaces showing Speck, who has taken hormones that alter his physical appearance, engaging in drug use and banter with a cellmate and lover. In one segment, he quips, > Hell, if they knew how much fun I was havin’ in here, they’d let me loose!