April 19, 2021 • 55 mins
Join us as we discuss a mass murderer from the American heartland: Mr. Richard Speck. Part young man just trying to get ahead in life by drinking and couch surfing, part murderous, knife-wielding woman-hater, Speck tortured, raped (at least one victim), and murdered 8 nursing students on the night of July 13, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois. He would be easily captured and convicted for these crimes that left an indelible mark on the community of South Chicago. Did I mention the female hormones and sex tape scandal from his time in prison yet? I didn't? You don't believe me? Well, you'll just have to listen to the episode to see if this is fake news or not.
If you prefer looking and listening, you can find our episodes in video form over at YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOfvqpv0LvHGC7ss3USYuEA. Be sure to subscribe/rate/review and why not go ahead and satisfy your curiosity and check out our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/terriblepeopledoingterriblethings. We appreciate the continued support!
All music (Creepy Comedy and Monsters in Hotel) is adapted from Rafael Krux original works (https://filmmusic.io/artists/rafael-krux) and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
If you prefer looking and listening, you can find our episodes in video form over at YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOfvqpv0LvHGC7ss3USYuEA. Be sure to subscribe/rate/review and why not go ahead and satisfy your curiosity and check out our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/terriblepeopledoingterriblethings. We appreciate the continued support!
All music (Creepy Comedy and Monsters in Hotel) is adapted from Rafael Krux original works (https://filmmusic.io/artists/rafael-krux) and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Welcome to terrible people doing terrible things. I'm Laura, a true crime and
horror fan who enjoys researching dark andtwisted stories. And I'm Amanda, and
I'm a licensed psychologist who enjoys studyingthe worst of humanity. So today,
Laura, I am going to tellyou about Richard Speck. Okay, have
you heard of him or sounds familiar? Yeah, but like, I can't
(00:38):
recall any any facts about him,but I feel like I've heard the name.
You definitely have. And the reasonI know this for certain is he
was featured on a mind Hunter episode. Ah, okay, like one or
two of them. Okay, sohe's got an interesting, interesting little wrap
up at the end about things inhis life. Oh like his recollections are
(01:03):
no no, um, some interestinglittle scandal that went down after he was
already in prison. Okay. Interesting. I'm ready for it. And I'm
not going to do a lead inbecause I think this one is going to
be a little little more towards ourlonger kind of episodes, but not a
two parter to two part that istime. Yeah, we're taking breaks from
(01:26):
those. Yeah, I'm gonna takea little bit of a break from that.
Ship. So Richard Speck was bornRichard Benjamin Speck in December nineteen forty
one to a large family in Illinois, and a little over twenty years later,
he would be arrested for the tortureand murder of eight nurses in Southside
Chicago. Nurses interesting like victim poolor victim type. So it's a more
(01:53):
of a mass killing. But Ithink he's still technically is considered a serial
killer based on some other things.Yeah, I think there's like a lot
of details that go into that,Like you killed a bunch of people,
Well so did you? Yeah,but you like did it in like a
really like you did it over sevenyears, You did it over the span
of one night. But then yougot the sprinkling of other people over here
(02:15):
to kill. So yeah, yeah, And I'm gonna do what I always
do and start by discussing a littlebit about his background. So Richard had
seven siblings growing up, so againa big family, and he was the
second to youngest child of the spechousehold. Okay, his family was described
as very religious. It's always religious, I know. So when Richard was
(02:42):
just six years old, his fatherdied. Okay, so he has that
tragedy happening at a young age,and his mother ends up remarrying pretty quickly
after this, and the whole familyrelocates from Illinois to Dallas, Texas,
where they were then living with theirabusive alcoholic stepfather. Oh great, it's
always an abusive alcoholic Yeah, itseems to be. So it's like you
(03:07):
have this initial very religious family thathas a lot of siblings, so I'm
sure they're not all getting quality attention, and then tragedy where the dad dies
and mother remarries an asshole. Whatis the there's a word for like,
um, it's probably not even likeculturally appropriate it or not culturally appropriate,
(03:29):
but like politically correct. But Iknow my parents used to like call people
um, Like if they were thekind of Baptist that would go into church
every Sunday or whatever, then assoon as they were at a church,
they were in the bar, butlike nobody could know or they like,
they would drink at home, youknow, and it was very alcoholics,
I guess, or closet. That'swhat we refer to like some FIM family
(03:51):
members as teetotal. It's not ateetotaler that someone that doesn't drink. I
can't. It's called a something Baptist, like, it's it's specifically in the
South, like you know whatever.It's just like, oh, yeah,
I'm you know, I'm the greatestperson ever. And then they go home
and like drink a fifth and beatthe shit out of their kids, and
(04:11):
you're like, oh, yeah,that's it's really working out for you.
Like only on Sundays. I've heardlike they're Baptists only on Sundays or something
like yeah, something something like that. I think it's I was gonna say,
just hypocrite. That's I mean,that would be the you know,
the technical term for it is herea hypocrite. Yeah, but I wish
I could think of that. Iknow I can't. Maybe I'll think of
it while we're because I think I'veheard of that phrasing too at some point.
(04:35):
But so there's an interesting little bitthat I looked into before just diving
back into Richard's story. So Icame across an article from a renowned professor
and consultant on many areas in psychology, including forensics and criminal justice. And
his name is doctor Michael Amatt.It's a a m O DT. So
(04:59):
I think it's a yeah, yeah, and he I think is based out
of the University of Radford in Virginia. They have a forensics program. So
the article titled the Incidence of ChildAbuse and serial Killers was co authored by
Heather Mitchell and sought to determine whetherphysical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse,
(05:19):
and or neglect occurred at higher ratesamong serial killers. So they were
looking specifically at the prevalence of theseindividuals having experienced one or more types of
abuse growing up. And another littleinteresting piece, they were specifically looking at
those who kill for sexual gratification.Gotcha, So the lust killers the Jerry
(05:42):
Brutos Jerry Frutos type definitely, andthe authors not surprisingly found that every form
of abuse other than neglect, sophysical, sexual, psychological, was more
prevalent among the lust killers. Okay, so I thought that was interesting.
It's not surprising, but no,but I mean it's so so complicated on
(06:08):
like he's there are people who experience, you know, the same type of
traumas and don't become you know,like serial killers and stuff. So it's
such an interesting like spiderweb of youknow, or butterfly effect. I would
guess I would call it where it'sjust like something something snapped. Yeah,
they just couldn't take it anymore.Yeah. And why these specific individuals,
(06:30):
yeah, go down that path versusthe individual that doesn't end up killing a
bunch of people over their life stillhad these horrible tragedies in their lives.
Yeah. So I'm going to getback to the story. I just thought
that was an interesting little article.And during Richards early teenage years, so
I think, like this was middleschool, early high school, he was
(06:53):
not performing well academically in the Dallasschool system and he ends up dropping out
of school altogether by age of sixteenyears. Okay, so just just a
childhood that's just not going great.Again, this is nineteen fifties, I
mean that wasn't uncommon. Yeah,but you know, still it's gonna like
(07:14):
probably mean like you know, hardphysical labor jobs things like that, Yes,
difficulty in terms of financial opportunities possibly, So, And it's just one
more little piece of it, Ithink where it's like he's falling through the
cracks, right. And it alsoseems that by just thirteen years old,
he was a full fledged alcoholic.Wow, and he had been spending time
(07:36):
with much older boys or men atthis point. Well that's bad. Thirteen.
I can't imagine what the effects ofalcohol on a developing brain are.
Yeah, I mean, I meanobviously, like when you're twenty one,
your brain is not fully developed either, but like an adolescent brain is,
you know, susceptible to Yeah,you're still well in the horn. One.
(07:59):
Impact it's gonna have on hormones.What impact it's going to have on
some of those parts of the brain, like the frontal lobe that are still
developing, Yeah, because I knowfetal alcohol syndrome fetal alcohol effects and how
damaging that can be. But yeah, one would assume it would have some
negative effects. Not to mention thecrowd he's hanging out with. Yes,
it's not like it's not it's gottanot be good if somebody has given this
(08:22):
thirteen year old liquor bunch of booze. Absolutely in nineteen fifty five, so
I think he would have been fourteenor fifteen, Yeah, fourteen or fifteen,
Richard was arrested for trespassing, andthis appears to have been that first
crime that would kind of follow thisstring of crimes later on. Okay,
and basically he's just budding into thisdelinquent at this point. Yeah, so
(08:46):
thirteen alcoholism, fifteen, fourteen orfifteen first crime, sixteen, he's done
with school and then the string ofcrimes just continues. Just a bad puff.
Yeah, and not that like notthat everyone and has to go to
school. That's a weird one forme. That's not really not to college
or go down that traditional path exactly. Yeah, that's not the issue here
(09:07):
though, is like school and likedropping out of school is the least of
my concern for this kid. Like, if you're an alcoholic of thirteen,
that would be my major concern becauseobviously you're coping for something that is very
difficult for you to deal with.So absolutely absolutely well, and it's also
(09:28):
where's that parental influence? Like,I know, parents can't prevent everything.
But so outside of these ongoing delinquentbehaviors, it appears that Richard was also
cultivating a bit of a romantic relationship, and at the age of twenty years
old, Richard married fifteen year oldShirley Malone. You know, it was
(09:50):
already pregnant with their daughter, RobbieLynn Gross. Yeah, that it's the
fifties, I guess by now it'sthe sixties, like very early sixties.
Yeah, but I still don't thinklike super underaged marriages are, like it's
NII no no. And did theynot have laws yet about the aged marriage?
(10:13):
I guess if her parents signed consent, it wouldn't matter anyway. Yeah,
if her parents signed consent. Andthis is Texas, I think now
you can get married at sixteen withyour parents consent, you can. And
she's fifteen, and this is backin nineteen sixteen, nineteen sixty one.
There were probably no regulations or anything. I doubt it. There weren't enough,
I'm sure. So they get married, but alas, this is not
(10:39):
a happy marriage, at least notfor surely, as it's reported that Richard
was abusive towards his wife and wouldgo so far as to rape her at
knife point. Great. Great,Yeah that's a great relationship. Yeah.
Well and for a fifteen year oldgirl. Yeah, if she's experiencing this,
I can't imagine from the get go. Yeah. And in nineteen sixty
(11:01):
five, so this is still whilethey're married, Richard ends up in prison
for attempting to rob a woman atknife point. It's got a thing for
knives, and only one year later, his wife, Shirley, files for
divorce, so they lasted a whoppingfour years, which is a long time
considering abuse and getting raped at knifepoint. I would dip too, like
(11:24):
yeah, yeah, good for her. Yeah yeah. During the marriage,
Richard was in and out of policecustody for various offenses, including theft,
robbery, assault, etc. AndJanuary nineteen sixty six, pretty much right
after Shirley had filed for divorce,Richard ends up being arrested and awaiting trial
for burglary and assault charges. Okay, but so it's you know, it's
(11:50):
still kind of these I guess assaultisn't, but he's only being arrested and
charged for like more non l Robbery'spretty violent, it's yeah, but like
under under like law, and it'snot. Um well, actually that's not
true. If he was using aknife, then it is robbery with a
deadly weapon or assault with a deadlyweapon, so that carries a higher charge
(12:11):
than like, you know, assaultwith your hands. Um sure, yeah,
so I mean I guess, yeah, but almost everybody like robs with
some type of weapon because otherwise it'shard to get people to comply to what
you want them to do. Yeah, we'll just punch you in the fucking
face. Yeah, but yeah,so, I mean, I get it.
It's it's violent, but you know, he's already been like raping his
(12:35):
wife at knife point, so yeah, it seems it seems like this is
like the very entryway into violent crimesfor him, where he's like, oh,
yes, I can get things myway with a knife everywhere. Okay,
yeah, yeah, you can robpeople and assault them, take all
their ship, take it all,give me a shit, and lieu of
(12:56):
spending any more time behind bars.Can up fleeing back to Chicago. So
he evades police. Okay, Iflees from Texas, ends up back in
Illinois, and now he's spending hisdays living with his sister, Martha Anne.
So he's kind of CouchSurfing with her. She's got her own family.
(13:16):
This is only for a few daysbecause he ends up moving back to his
hometown of Monmouth, Illinois. AndI think this is around the Chicago South
Side area. Okay, he's stillkind of homeless though he doesn't have a
job yet. He's you know,didn't have a plan in place. He's
been getting out of Dallas. Yeah, yes, he's CouchSurfing with some family
(13:37):
friends. He was evading the law, So I mean, I guess you
don't really get a whole lot oftime to plan in those scenarios like,
yeah, unless a job in ahouse. Yeah, he's got this vision
board he's been working on in thebackground of when I returned to my hometown,
I'm going to work here and havea little condo with a picket fence
(13:58):
and a dog. No, notthis guy. No. He does end
up settling in a nearby hotel andbegins hitting up the local bar scene,
all of which likely eases the wayfor him to continue down his path of
depravity naturally. Yeah, so hegets work as a carpenter, but he
(14:18):
has a lot of difficulty holding downany jobs for long because of these frequent
binges and late nights where he's justout drinking. He's an alcoholic, He's
not a functional alcoholic. Yeah no, no, he's not a functional alcoholic.
Name Booze comes first. Booze ishis mistress in his life. And
before we get any further into thestory, let's talk some numbers. Laura,
(14:43):
how many people do you think Richardis accused of killing? I know,
accused is interesting, but I'll explainit. Ten. Yeah, pretty
much. So the insw eight tothirty eight to thirteen. Okay, it's
happy, happy medium ted kind ofan average, Yeah, heck yeah,
have an average. Yeah, Okay, and I'm gonna win. You win
(15:05):
nothing. I win nothing. Ilove winning nothing. So I'm gonna elaborate
a little bit on this range ofnumbers, on what the why there's this
five person gap in between. Thereare a few crimes Richard is strongly suspected
of, or at least was suspectedof, and um, I'm going to
(15:26):
talk about that, and then I'mgoing to get into the eight murders he
was actually convicted for. Okay,so there are a couple of crimes that
he was pretty much the main suspectfor. But he again, he ends
up fleeing the area before he canbe detained and questioned by police. Sure
easy to avoid cops back then.Yeah, apparently there were no systems first
(15:46):
vacation between precincts and stuff like that. Yeah, it's you pretty much.
You cross state lines, you're Scottfree. Here's that way. Yeah,
unless they put out like an APBfor you and you're like a national like
uh issue, I guess, yeah, that's how we have de Like,
Um, what's what's the America's MostWanted List or yes, the FBI's Most
(16:10):
Wanted. Yeah, yeah, likethat, like unless you're on there,
you know, which, I don'teven know if they had them. I
don't know. I don't know whenthey came up with the FBI's Most Wanted
List. That's an interesting question.I don't know. I know, I
know. I watched America's Most Wantedon TV when I was like four,
and the Wanted List then, andthe sketches a lot of times, it's
(16:30):
like the police sketches. There's there'ssome bad We'll have to do a like
a Patreon thing about police sketches forcertain criminals and stuff. There are so
many that you're like, is thata human? Well, it doesn't know
what artist did you pick? Too. It doesn't look like the person.
Some of them don't even look likepeople, Amanda. I've seen flat like
(16:52):
child drawings and I'm like, weused to, you know, for forensic
No, you didn't know you usedto SHYLD you used a child and you
were like and a mouth and hair. Yeah yeah now yeah that and that's
a big thing with them. Wejust finished the night Stalker series on Netflix.
(17:14):
Yeah, the sketches are terrible somebodylike that. It'll show the sketch
and then it'll cut back to thetwo cops that were the main investigators,
and they're like, and it lookedreally, you know, it really looked
like him. We had a reallygood sketch, and me and Ward were
just like, who are you protecting? You protecting the sketch? Argets?
(17:34):
Did you draw it? Did probably? Do you like? Some of them
were like, bro, nobody wasgonna guess that guy from that. I'm
standard soon you should these sketches.Do it bumping? Do it? Okay?
(17:56):
So anyway, getting back, thefirst crime he is accused of or
suspected of committing is the rape ofVirgil Harris, and this occurred back on
April second, nineteen sixty six.The sixty five year old woman survives the
attack that takes place in her ownhome, So that's one crime he is
(18:18):
strongly suspected. This is making melike, this is bringing back memories because
I think I remember the raping ofan elderly like neighbor or something like,
oh okay, yeah, elder,I mean sixty five is not elder well,
but I mean no, she's asenior citizen. Discount at that point,
you're sixty five. Where is itfifty five? Is it fifty five?
(18:41):
I'm looking forward to those days.It's not you. It's not fifty
five, is it. I thinkyou qualify for aaar. You're not looking
forward to those days somethings of retiredpersons. By that point, when you
become an adult, all you worryabout is the discounts and shit you get
for being old and eating early andpeople not jet any form. Yes,
I had dinner at three o'clock andthen I was asleep by sent Fuck you
(19:06):
living my dream life. Next wehave the murder of Mary Catherine Pierce on
or around April tenth, just afew days later. Mary Catherine was a
barmaid at Frank's place, and thisis a tavern that Richard was reported to
have frequented. Yeah, he probablywere fried all the taverns he was,
everywhere he was, if there wasa tavern, he would. If I
(19:30):
hoop served alcohol there, just shownies. Yeah, so don't don't disparite Showiest
I love. I've never been toShow so I can't. Okay, I
can't comment. Imagine Golden Corral noton steroids. Well kind of dial back
(19:53):
buffets but they also have a fullmenu, so they're not They're a thing.
Isn't necessarily buffet sal It's like itwas like a beefed up salad bar.
I would order from the menu.I didn't. I loved man.
I loved fucking buffets and salad bars. I was like, I'm building the
biggest salad possible. Bro. Iloved buffets like when I was jugger two,
(20:15):
and then I learned about like germs, and I've seen children stick their
hands and things, and it's justnot appealing anymore. It's not No,
I'm not a buffet person now thatI don't want e coal lie. It
may not last for much longer.The predicaments that we're in these days,
well, someone needs to get thememo of Golden Corral. No shit,
still doing their chocolate ecal salmonella fountain. But so, Mary Catherine's body was
(20:41):
discovered April thirteenth, so three daysafter they project she was killed, and
it was discovered behind the tavern anda recently built hogpin. I don't know
why there's a hogpin behind the tavern, Amanda. It's Texas in the sixties,
it's nineteen sixties. Yeah, it'sprobably bumble fuck ass nowhere, Like,
(21:03):
yeah, you know how it is. You've been, We've driven through
and been places in the South thatare like, oh, there's a gator
pan outside the back of the barfor an attraction, like or a gas
station even worse, a gas stationwith a fucking gator display. Well,
who's gators? One comfited gators?Get your hand ripped off? Who launched
their kid to come in and getthe hand ripped off? Like me,
(21:26):
I have twelve children. I needone of them to go away. No
shit. So Mary Catherine was justthirty two years old, and she had
died from what appeared to be aruptured liver that they believe was caused by
a blow to her abdomen. Damnor I guess multiple blows. That's a
(21:47):
hard hit. Yeah, I wouldassume kicking yeah, or some instrument,
another one of those. What wasthe stove that was supposedly used by the
oh, the anemic guy. Ohthe fucking cast iron stove. Yeah yeah,
no cast iron stove murders happening inthe area. No, but yeah,
(22:11):
I feel like people often like onceyou fall, like kicking you in
the stomach is always like a goto it seems to be or the head.
Yeah, we're god stomping, butdepending on if they're trying to like
actually kill you or yeah, whattheir intent is. But yeah, so
and that to me, that's justa lot of rage and aggression. Yeah,
he an angry boy, he isvery angry. Yeah, and he
(22:34):
doesn't like women. Yeah. No, And these are two that he is
very strongly associated with. And nowone was rape, no murder, second
was I think just murder. Idon't remember if there was sexual assault involved
by boy something something. Soon afterthis comes even more tragedy as Michigan police
(22:56):
are investigating the deaths of four womena once a young girl seven, nineteen
thirty seven and sixty years old nearBitten Harbor. So Great Lakes, I
think the Great Lakes kind of regionnow large age rage for his yes,
for his type, like it seemsto be just women. Oh yeah,
(23:17):
in general. Yeah, it's justwomen, doesn't matter if they're seven or
sixty. That's some rege. Itwell, And it's interesting because I can't
remember if I read somewhere that heblamed his mother for not protecting him from
his stepfather and held her accountable forthe abuse. So I don't know again,
it's this misdirected fuck all these womenand kind of thought his mom was
(23:38):
a whore. I mean, tenbuddy was slighted by his girlfriend and fucking
murdered a bunch of women that lookedlike her. So I pushed him over
the edge. Yeah. So inthis case, the first body was discovered
in February nineteen sixty five, andthe other three were discovered in April nineteen
sixty five, so they're back toback sort of. And then there's the
(24:00):
cluster of the three yeah yeah,okay, and they're all in that same
area of the Benton Harbor region,so that's why they're kind of tying it
together. But who knows. Youcan always be more than one serial killer
operating in an area, unfortunately,so well, like kind of like Long
Island serial killers. God yeah,yeah, it's like, how many people
(24:22):
are rememb ordering people in this neighborhood? Can we not just have one?
I know, is there some likeclub we don't know about that exists probably
for serial killers? I mean I'msure, yeah, dive into that.
Well that and then I think aboutlike Bohemian grove that shit, I don't
know, Oh, supposedly it's anarea. I think it's kind of been
(24:48):
proven where the elites, the peoplewith all the money gather and do some
interesting shit. Oh, you've beenlike hunting humans. Ah, that's what
I always gone that far, Mart, That's what I mean. I assume
hunting humans and like heads mounted ondeer mounts. Yeah, some interesting plays
(25:10):
gross take place. Oh and it'smen. It's just men. Oh man,
I think so ben are weird?Been with money or even weirder,
old white men with power weird.Yeah. So one year later, so
this is nineteen sixty six, Julysecond, three young women disappear near an
(25:33):
Indiana harbor. And again this isthe Great Lakes. These are harbors right
around the Great Lakes regions, andthe Great Lakes are a great place for
dromping bodies. Apparently so or justpopular people want to Is it just so
cold and you're at the beach andyou're pissed and you want to kill people?
No. I think it's because it'scold and the lakes are extremely deep.
(25:56):
And I think when the body,when a body is hold it sinks
better or stays down, well,it wouldn't bloat as much. It's something.
There's some there's some reason people dropbecause like Tahoe in California, it
is also used for or was usedfor, like mob yes, casino murders
and stuff. Okay, yeah,yeah, I mean that would make sense.
(26:19):
It's going to definitely have an impacton where your ship's sinking or floating.
And I would think, yeah,so in both of these cases.
This is where it all kind ofcomes together and why Richard was, at
least at one point a big suspect. Richard was working on a ship that
docked on or around the Great Lakesregion, and the ship happened to be
(26:41):
docked at these two harbors in atime frame that corresponds to the disappearances and
murders. When it comes to aserial killer, and you're like, oh,
who killed these women? If there'sa dude who's just running around murdering
women, raping women, holding women, and point, he would be my
prime suspect. Well sure, yeah, yeah, and you know he's got
(27:06):
their reports of him being in oraround the area at that time, right,
I'd be like, Okay, wellyou did it. Even if he
didn't do it, like I'd belike, yeah, you did it,
because like, how can you notlook at that guy and be like you're
in the same place at the sametime, and always women are dead.
It was you, buddy, itwas you did it. Yeah. I
don't know why they don't like abat tosh it either well or they admit
(27:27):
they do the false confessions kind ofthing where and not the ones coerced by
police, but where they're bragging sayingthey killed these people hundreds of No,
you didn't. You killed four people. I killed four hundred and fifty people.
Yeah. Yeah, and one wasan accident because you, yeah,
you fell on top of them witha knife, and you don't get to
(27:48):
claim that. I'm not putting themin the books. Yeah. So there
are refeating reports that Richard could nothave actually committed those first four murders,
the Benton Harbor killings because he wasincarcerated for charges of aggravated assault from January
ninth, nineteen sixty five to Junesixteenth, nineteen sixty five, and the
(28:12):
Dallas County jail and these killings happenedFebruary and April of that year. So
okay, so maybe he didn't doit. He's claiming he was behind bars.
I think there's a little bit ofuncertainty as to whether that's true or
not. You should be able toprove that you should. But although bubble
fuck asked nowhere never mind? Well, and what kind of records they were
(28:36):
keeping? And was he parolled beforehand, even though that was his initial sentence.
So I think there's some questions withthat. But so that's the suspected.
That's why that number could be likeup to thirteen, and now I'm
going to get to the eighty eight. He's convicted four and pretty much confesses
too. By July nineteen sixty six, spec was living between his sister's place
(29:00):
in various hotels in the Chicago area, and then he's also bouncing between jobs
at the National National at the NationalMaritime Union. Okay, and the reason
he lost his most recent job wasthat he threatened a superior officer with a
gun. Sounds right on par onwhat he's been doing so far. Yeah,
(29:22):
although it's a man this time.I'm guessing because I assume doubt sixties,
highly doubt that. Yeah, hissupervisor was a female in the sixties
because you know, in the kitchen. Yeah, barely let out of our
homes. Yeah, So looking forwork, Richard returns to the n MU
(29:47):
and visits their hiring hall to applyfor another sea time job. So this
is where he's been getting these seafaringjobs. On jobs, yeah, boat
jobs. They're very temporary. Italmost sounds like a contract kind of position
where if it's for an indefinite periodof time. Yeah, kind of like
fishing or a mechanic or like whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And one day
(30:07):
when he's there and I couldn't nailthis date down, it was sometime again
in July nineteen sixty six. He'svery upset frustrated that he couldn't get a
job that day, So he wasthere all day, he was waiting.
They never set him up with anything. So he leaves the NMU and checks
into a local inn, the ShipyardInn. And this is important because it
(30:29):
appears that while he was at thehiring hall, he may have happened to
notice in nearby townhouse that serves adormitory for several nursing students who were employed
at a local community hospital. Great, great, yep. And I don't
know if he noticed these young womenkind of walking around. I mean,
if he's at this hiring hall alot, he did he did he saw
(30:52):
them? Yeah. July thirteenth nineteensixty six. Richard is spending the day
like any other typical day for him, you know, tavern hopping, getting
shit faced drunk, and sometime thatsame day or evening, he rapes fifty
three year old elm May Hopper afterhe invites her back to his room at
the shipyard end. So they wereout at a tavern together. He invites
(31:15):
her back to his room and yeah, one thing leads to another, and
he rapes her. One thing leadsto another. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
the student's a tool. It's sucha piece of garbage. During the
assault, the papers and some otherreports said he managed to steal a twenty
two caliber revolver from LM. May. She ends up surviving, he doesn't
(31:38):
kill her, and this gun kindof comes into play a little bit,
and then it's like poof gone.He likes his knives. We'll just leave
it at that. Richard ends upmaking his way to the student nurse's dormitory
that same evening because it's only afew to several blocks from his room at
this end, he has nothing elseto do. I guess, well,
(32:00):
and he's I guess drunk. Therereports that he's high at this point.
Oh yeah, just constantly, andyou're gonna go take it out on some
innocent nursing students who didn't do shit, didn't do shit to him, and
take it out on them. Hedoes so. Around eleven PM that evening,
there is a knock at the frontdoor of the town house that twenty
three year old Corazon Pieze a'm araushared with seven other nursing students, and
(32:25):
on this fateful evening, it justso happened that a ninth nursing student was
staying the night in the dormitory,so we're up to nine instead of eight.
Cora would later report the following eventsto police, who arrived at the
murder scene the next day. Shestated that she opened the door to see
a man in his twenties who waspretty much of average build, and noticed
he had a tattoo on one ofhis arms that simply stated born to raise
(32:51):
Hill. That's a good sign.Yeah, I like, no, thank
you close. I don't want anygirl, scout cookie sir, or you're
married, hey, please leave,or whatever you're selling. And it's unclear
whether she notices other body art,which included tattoos on each of his knuckles.
You know, and they love toget the tattoos on the knuckles and
(33:12):
fingers that spelled love and hate.Jesus. This guy is a fucking cliche.
He is he is? Yeah,yeah yeah. Accounts stated that the
man abruptly pushed his way into thetown home, brandishing a revolver and shoving
Cora back inside. So that's kindof how he's just pushing his way in.
(33:32):
But one point to make here.The Illinois Supreme Court later established that
Richard had only ever had a knifeand never actually used a gun during the
rampage. So I don't know whythere are reports of the gun. It's
all very disorganized. It's very disorganized, and she may have thought he had
a gun. It's hard to recallin the you know, the heath of
(33:52):
the moment. Yes, yes,eyewitness testimony. She's one of the victims.
Also, it sounds like she livedand a lot of other people didn't.
You know. She's probably having somesome some issues remembering and macaulay details.
She's fine, she's perfect, it'sfine, perfectly fine. It's something
(34:14):
nothing happened. Two other roommates,twenty two year old Merlita Gargoulo and twenty
three year old Valentina peision overheard thescuffle, and we're likely shocked and unsure
of what to do when they comein and they encounter what's happening in the
front room. Richard ends up usheringall three of the women down the hall
of the town home to a backbedroom, which is occupied by three more
(34:37):
nursing students. We've got twenty oneyear old Nina Joe Schmail, twenty four
year old Pamela Wilkining, and twentyyear old Patricia Anne Matusick. So they
are girls. I think twenty fouris the oldest so far. Yeah.
Yeah, So they're in their twenties, nursing students. Having forced all of
(34:57):
the women into one room, andthe rest of the girls were probably a
little startled when yet another woman,nineteen year old Gloria Jean Davy, returned
home from a date and entered theroom where he was holding the other women
captive, unfortunately for her. Sowe are up to gosh, Kora,
Merlita Valentina other three. Four,I can't, okay, one, I
(35:21):
can't. I started counting on myfingers and I stopped at four and I
was like, it's more than four, okay, three, six, We're
up to seven, got seven womenget room captive in this back bedroom.
Yeah. All of the women wereordered on the floor while Richard tore one
of the bed sheets into strips ofcloth that he then used his restraints.
(35:43):
So the women were all tied upat the wrists and ankles. And then
the two remaining roommates, twenty oneyear old Suzanne Ferris and twenty year old
mary Anne Jordan, entered the townhome encountered this terrifying situation with a strange
man holding the makes at NiFe point, so they are also bound in order
to lie on the floor of theNow I'm assuming very cramped room because you
(36:07):
got nine in a one room,ten people including him on the floor.
Yes, somehow all on the floor. Yeah. One by one Richard leads
the women out of the bedroom andinto another room where he stabbed, strangled,
and for at least one victim.They're not sure how many has happened
to raped them. While this istaking place, a lot of the women
(36:29):
try to hide under beds they tryto get out of view of him.
Unfortunately, only one, Cora,the one that first encountered him, is
able to actually stay hidden and survivedthe whole ordeal. So he just never
realizes she's still there. Fuck thatsucks for Cora. Yes, there's no
telling what she's hearing, Like,she just listened to eight people, eight
(36:51):
of her friends we stabbed, strangled, and murdered, yeah and raped.
Yeah, possibly at least one ofthem. Yep in the room. There's
no way you can't hear that.And you have to just lay there and
for your own safety, yeah,just not come out now, Like,
so what is the there's a termfor so obviously I know these women are
(37:14):
young and he's a big dude whatever, but there are very many of them,
Like there's at least six when hefirst like ushers everybody in. What
is it called when people like they'reso afraid of being hurt themselves that like
they don't act because there was obviouslyenough of them that they probably could have
(37:34):
overpowered or ye him got the knifewhatever. Yeah, Like you know,
it's hard to fight off six people. That's but for some reason people don't
do that. They don't. It'sit's like it's similar to buy standard non
intervention in its own way. You'relike waiting for somebody else to like,
(37:57):
yeah, take action. Yeah,I think you're waiting because you know,
whoever's the first to kind of jumpat him may get stabbed. So I
don't know how much that element playsinto it. The other piece is there
are a lot of I think it'sthree fs, it's three or four fs
of what happens when you're encountering atraumatic event for a lot of people.
So even though there's power in numbers, everyone's experiencing their own trauma and their
(38:21):
own reaction at that point. Andit's fight or flight, freeze, and
fawn. Yeah, I think it'sfour So it's yeah, there's everyone thinks
a fight or flight, Like fightor flight are the only two run or
your fight. It's not the onlyoptions. Yeah. No, there's freeze,
which is I think more typical tolike how a literally a rabbit if
(38:45):
it encounters a snake, well youjust you pause, and you just it's
natural predator. It just it freezes. It doesn't fight, it doesn't flee,
and humans have a similar reaction inthat way. And fawn, I
can't remember what fawn is. Ifeel like fawn is going along with or
like um not going along with,but like it's like a it's like a
(39:07):
trauma response where you just kind oflike cowtow to things. I don't know.
See, I just looked it up, like I don't know, Okay,
So fawning I just look this uprefers to a trauma response in which
a person reverts to people pleasing todiffuse conflict and re establish a sense of
(39:28):
safety. So it's when you becomevery compliant, like Stockholm syndrome, and
it's not yes, yes, exactly. So that would be the fourth thing
that is also very common for alot of people. And the piece there
is you want to survive, soyou're going to comply. Yeah, so
perhaps for a lot of these womenthere's freezing. It probably just freezing and
fawning is what's happening. And yougot to think about how we're socialized too.
(39:51):
Especially back in the nineteen sixties,women weren't taught to fight back.
No, no, not at all. You comply. It's just so like
it's it's so sad to me tohear of eight women being killed by one
man. That is so frustrating tome. With a knife with a knife,
So like, don't get me wrong, knives can actually be more dangerous
than guns, especially in close combat. Yeah, but like if all of
(40:15):
them, like you're going to dieanyway. I know you're going And I
don't know if I have that thoughtbecause of the things that we research and
the things that we discuss and areyou know, interests and stuff like that.
But and I've I've been in somescary situations and stuff like that.
Sure, But for me, italways just triggers like anger is my first
(40:40):
like go to is just like rageat like how fucking dare you the audacity
of somebody to think that they havethe right to take your life? Yeah,
yeah, you know what I mean. Is just blows my mind.
And and you are right, Imean the way that women were brought up
and how you know, how longwe weren't able to vote and whatever ye
(41:01):
did. Definitely like I could seeit adding to the likelihood they're going to
respond this way. It's just sadbecause like if if you would think,
like, we're going to die anyway, does it will die like before he
can rape us all? Well?Or maybe a couple of us will live.
Yeah, yeah, like maybe someof us will make it out okay,
(41:22):
And maybe he doesn't know what thefuck he's doing with a knife.
Maybe if we all bum rush himat the same time, he's gonna get
fucking like weirded out because a bunchof little women are running at him and
raged, I mean, even graba pillow and beat him. I mean,
but it's easy to say. Ihave no idea how I would respond.
It is, and like what yousaid, it's it's a different decade,
(41:43):
it's a it's a whole different situation. We have a lot more freedoms
and things as women now than womenthen did. So it's just it just
makes me sad. Well, itfeels like it could have been avoided or
at least lessened. Yeah, yeah, maybe four of them would have lived,
you know, or some of themmight have gotten stabbed and had to
(42:04):
go to the hospital and like,but would have lived, you know exactly.
So yeah, I don't know,but I've never I've never been held
at my point with a bunch ofother women before, so I definitely can't
say for sure how I would reactto that exactly. Hopefully we won't ever
experience that. I'm telling you firstis anger. I'm gonna be the first
(42:28):
one to die. You cultivate thatanger, Laura, because it's cultivating I'll
be cultivating my frightening mechanism over you. You learn into the whole sense of
comfort, and I will spider monkeyfrom behind. I'll go into counselor mod.
Yeah, just psychology mode, andbe like, look, I understand.
(42:49):
Would you go understand your fi adick and your mother was a cold,
cold Protestant woman, and I'm sorry. Yeah. So, after Richard
was done killing what he probably thoughtto be all of the town home's occupants,
he went through the woman's purses,took whatever cash or valuables he could
find, and then he left.The lone survivor, Cora, stayed hidden
(43:13):
until about six am, when sheemerged and ran to the closest window,
screaming that all of her friends weredead. Alarmed and concerned, our neighbors
notified the police, who arrived toinvestigate the crime. So the good news
here, if there is any Richardis easily identified as the perpetrator of these
(43:35):
crimes. No shit. He hasidentified tattoos, all of his fucking arms
tattoos, He leaves fingerprints. There'sa composite which we know is so reliable,
super accurate. There's a composite ofhim that's passed around to the employees
of the NMU, and he's recognizedalmost immediately, so maybe the composite was
actually pretty solid. And while policeare searching for him, Richard ends up
(43:59):
making an unsuccessful full suicide attempts onlya few days after these mass killings.
Good, well, I'm glad itwas unsuccessful. Oh yeah, yeah,
exactly. Fucking I hate it whenlike it's always like suicide is not a
coward's way out, Like people saythat all the time, you know what
I mean, And that's not truebecause it depends on a fuck load of
(44:20):
circumstances and like you have no ideawhat somebody else is going through. But
when you commit to a crime likethis and then you're like, oh,
I'll just kill myself. No,no, no, sir, no no
no, we're gonna You're gonna liveout the rest of your life in misery.
God damn it. That's too easyfor you. You're gonna pack to
answer for it somehow at some point. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like
(44:43):
cheating the like justice, the likefamily, Yeah, like the justice of
the situation, because it's like,well, he's just dead, Yeah,
yeah, he got to do whatfeels like the easy way out for him.
Yeah, But as in many thingsin his life, he or a
guy I mean, I don't knowhow much of that is part of his
(45:04):
issue. If he's got failure syndrometo some extent or feels like a failure,
he's got to prove himself. Idon't know. Obviously he didn't try
very hard. He had a knife. Yeah, no, well, he
cut his wrists and arms kind ofdoes that standard suicide attempt we all think
of left to right? Oh,I don't know. But then apparently he
cries out for help, tries outfor help after the attempt, So I
(45:25):
guess he regrets his decision and thisends up alerting the front desk at the
Star hotel. So he's at adifferent hotel now where he's currently lodging,
doing drugs, hanging out with vagrants, hands up getting transported to a local
er for treatment, where a residentsurgeon at the hospital just happens to notice
the born to raise hell tattoo thathad been mentioned in these local newspapers covering
(45:46):
the crime. So he's very quicklyarrested and taken into custody. Surprisingly no
one. Yeah, well, andthank god. Pre trial, at the
request of the federal court judge whowas overseeing case, Richard was evaluated by
a panel of several physicians, includingfive psychiatrists, to determine, you know,
(46:07):
is he insane? Is he competentto stand trial? Yeah? And
they determined he was competent. He'snot insane. There are also these interesting
reports that he spent substantial amounts oftime being assessed and treated by the Cook
County jail psychiatrist, doctor Marvin Ziborin. But I couldn't find any primary sources
on this, so I'm going totalk about it. But maybe don't maybe
(46:30):
true, Maybe don't, yeah,maybe don't hold me to this. So
Richard was described by multiple sources ashaving antisocial personality disorder and which again not
surprising, and doctor zupport and supposedlylisted issues such as and this is a
direct quote from the Richard spec Wikipediapage because this is the only place I
(46:52):
found this information, but I thoughtwas interesting. So the quote is obsessive,
compulsive personality and a Madonna prosta toattitude towards women, which is just
the Madonna whore complex, Madonna horrorcomplex. Madonna whore is so Madonna is
synonymous with a horror like complex opposite. Oh, so Madonna, I think
(47:17):
is a Greek like goddess or oh, we're not talking about the artist.
Yeah, no, no, no, we're talking about like ancient Greece.
This is like this madonna whore complexhas been around for hundreds of years,
I think. Okay, so theidea here is spec takes on this madonna
(47:37):
whore dichotomy. So he perceives womenin one of two categories. You can
fall into one of two categories andthere's not a spectrum. You're one or
the other. So that's the dichotomy, and it describes this polarized perception of
women by some men, some menwhich sees women is either good, so
the madonna means they are they're chased, they're pure, or they're good or
(48:02):
bad, meaning that they are promiscuousand seductive horrors. Okay, you can't
be both. You can't be both. You can't sprinkle in a little of
one and a little of the other. Yeah, you're either a horror or
not. No, you can't beboth good and dad lovely. Yep,
neither horror. You're pure And asyou can already kind of see this,
(48:22):
this creates a lot of problems interms of a man's relationship with women,
because as soon as they fall fromthe madonna pedestal their horse. No redemption,
and there's no coming back from it. Can't say any hail marries to
fix this one pitch, no redemption. So Richard's trial finally took place on
April third, nineteen sixty seven,where he is charged with eight counts of
(48:45):
murder and initially he has given thedeath penalty. And this trial wraps up
just twelve days. I think thejury deliberates for like an hour and they're
like, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty. Yes. Death. However, the sentence is later reduced to
eight consecutive life sentences and then subsequentlyends up being reduced even further to up
(49:07):
to one hundred years of prison,still one hundred years after the Supreme Court
rules that the death penalty is unconstitutionalin nineteen seventy two. So he gets
that little loophole where we temporarily saythat the death penalty is unconstitutionalize a nation.
It's a it's a tricky subject,yeah, to the death penalty,
it sure is. But h Man, well, and especially with the wrongful
(49:32):
conviction. Yes, that's the majorissue of it, is you put somebody
to death who didn't even commit thecrime. That's a big, big problem
because you just murdered somebody essentially.Have you heard of the Innocence Project?
Yes, yeah, yeah, theirinformation the podcast Wrongful Conviction that I highly
recommend, all makes me very concerned. We have put a lot of innocent
(49:55):
people to death, we for surehave, but there are cases where the
right person is pegged and they deserveto die. Sure, not by their
own hand, but be put todeath. Yeah. It just it depends,
and it doesn't surprise me. He'shis sentence got fucking reduced. Especially,
(50:16):
I mean he only killed eight women. We killed the young twenty year
old women that weren't twenty year oldworld from the less because a lot of
them were foreign exchange students. SoI don't know how much that just starting
their like careers and lives. Yeahyeah, yep, piece of shit.
(50:37):
So ultimately, Richard dies in prisonfrom a heart attack at age forty nine
December nineteen ninety one, after servingless than twenty five years behind bars.
Probably all that alcohol, well andpossibly some other ship. Yeah, god
knows. And I am getting veryclose to wrapping this up. There's one
other little caveat I have to mentionbecause it's so interesting. So this is
(51:00):
not the end of the story forRichard, so I think, and this
happens yeah, post posthumous, thisis after he's already dead. So some
scandalous shit went down while he wasstill in prison, okay, and I'm
going to give you the details verybriefly. So while in prison, Richard
is apparently being given female hormones,okay, as there are reports that he
(51:22):
has developed relatively substantial women's breasts,although there don't appear to be any other
significant physical changes taking place, Andthere is a video and he does have
breasts some big knockers by this point. Were they giving him hormones to um
like to make him list rage?I don't know. I didn't look that
(51:43):
far into it because because I knowthey use estrogen to like, you know,
that's a possibility rage hormone. LikeI got the impression he wanted them.
Oh oh, I don't know.Maybe maybe he was just tired and
not seeing anything titties and he wantedhis own titties and he my own titties
to play with. There's also thiscondition where men develop breasts. Yeah,
(52:07):
anty much just developed breasts. AndI can't think of the term though,
but it is this hormonal condition thatsets in for some men later in life.
Yeah, same thing with us.I mean we get chin hair and
stuff if we have too much testosterone. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
So in nineteen ninety six, sofive years after he's dead, a TV
(52:27):
journalist discovers a bizarre sex tape thathad been shot while Richard was incarcerated during
the late nineteen eighties. And inthe tape, and this is filmed in
the prison somehow. In the tape, Richard can be seen topless. His
female breast is very apparent, asis also the fact that he's wearing women's
panties and he is performing oral sexon other inmates and potentially even doing cocaine
(52:53):
in a few shots as well.What kind of prison is this? Just
having a blowjob party in the backwith cooking Well, and they said that
they believe Richard and the other inmatestook the video camera. I guess they
had camp quarter in like the thea V or the wreck room or something
(53:15):
and took it back with him.I don't know. I feel like somehow
guards knew about this and just forsure turn the other way. Potentially just
a bunch of inmates helped just somewhere. Yeah, yeah, okay, well
that's weird. So at the mosttroubling part of the video, at least
to me, is when Richard describesthe night of the murders of these nurses
(53:37):
in great details, and he makesthe following statement while laughing, it just
wasn't their night. So and he'sdescribing, you know, the details of
the case. He's laughing about itand it just wasn't their night. M
Yeah, yeah, this is whyI like revenge movies. It's like,
(53:58):
somebody needs to fucking stay do this. What's the like I spit on your
grave? I've never seen them becauseI don't watch a rape scene, but
I know it's a revenge it is. It is, and it's like I
just don't I'm not. It's avery uncomfortable it's a very uncomfortable movie.
And yeah, like it's it's tooreal. I guess I would say I've
(54:21):
gotten that from the descriptions of peoplewondering how the actress handle certain scenes and
stuff. So I've I've decided it'snot going to be on my list.
No, not worth watching. Butyes, that does fall under the revenge
category of films. Yes, verymuch so, and that is it,
my friends, Thank you so muchfor joining us. As always, if
(54:44):
you have any feedback, be sureto leave us a message on social media
or at our website which I againneed to update, damn it, which
is simply terrible people doing terrible thingsdot WordPress dot com. And remember,
terrible people are everywhere and you mightjust be even Take a man, then
the goat the game, the game, get the date of the taking the ta
Welcome to terrible people doing terrible things. I'm Laura, a true crime and
horror fan who enjoys researching dark andtwisted stories. And I'm Amanda, and
I'm a licensed psychologist who enjoys studyingthe worst of humanity. So today,
Laura, I am going to tellyou about Richard Speck. Okay, have
you heard of him or sounds familiar? Yeah, but like, I can't
(00:38):
recall any any facts about him,but I feel like I've heard the name.
You definitely have. And the reasonI know this for certain is he
was featured on a mind Hunter episode. Ah, okay, like one or
two of them. Okay, sohe's got an interesting, interesting little wrap
up at the end about things inhis life. Oh like his recollections are
(01:03):
no no, um, some interestinglittle scandal that went down after he was
already in prison. Okay. Interesting. I'm ready for it. And I'm
not going to do a lead inbecause I think this one is going to
be a little little more towards ourlonger kind of episodes, but not a
two parter to two part that istime. Yeah, we're taking breaks from
(01:26):
those. Yeah, I'm gonna takea little bit of a break from that.
Ship. So Richard Speck was bornRichard Benjamin Speck in December nineteen forty
one to a large family in Illinois, and a little over twenty years later,
he would be arrested for the tortureand murder of eight nurses in Southside
Chicago. Nurses interesting like victim poolor victim type. So it's a more
(01:53):
of a mass killing. But Ithink he's still technically is considered a serial
killer based on some other things.Yeah, I think there's like a lot
of details that go into that,Like you killed a bunch of people,
Well so did you? Yeah,but you like did it in like a
really like you did it over sevenyears, You did it over the span
of one night. But then yougot the sprinkling of other people over here
(02:15):
to kill. So yeah, yeah, And I'm gonna do what I always
do and start by discussing a littlebit about his background. So Richard had
seven siblings growing up, so againa big family, and he was the
second to youngest child of the spechousehold. Okay, his family was described
as very religious. It's always religious, I know. So when Richard was
(02:42):
just six years old, his fatherdied. Okay, so he has that
tragedy happening at a young age,and his mother ends up remarrying pretty quickly
after this, and the whole familyrelocates from Illinois to Dallas, Texas,
where they were then living with theirabusive alcoholic stepfather. Oh great, it's
always an abusive alcoholic Yeah, itseems to be. So it's like you
(03:07):
have this initial very religious family thathas a lot of siblings, so I'm
sure they're not all getting quality attention, and then tragedy where the dad dies
and mother remarries an asshole. Whatis the there's a word for like,
um, it's probably not even likeculturally appropriate it or not culturally appropriate,
(03:29):
but like politically correct. But Iknow my parents used to like call people
um, Like if they were thekind of Baptist that would go into church
every Sunday or whatever, then assoon as they were at a church,
they were in the bar, butlike nobody could know or they like,
they would drink at home, youknow, and it was very alcoholics,
I guess, or closet. That'swhat we refer to like some FIM family
(03:51):
members as teetotal. It's not ateetotaler that someone that doesn't drink. I
can't. It's called a something Baptist, like, it's it's specifically in the
South, like you know whatever.It's just like, oh, yeah,
I'm you know, I'm the greatestperson ever. And then they go home
and like drink a fifth and beatthe shit out of their kids, and
(04:11):
you're like, oh, yeah,that's it's really working out for you.
Like only on Sundays. I've heardlike they're Baptists only on Sundays or something
like yeah, something something like that. I think it's I was gonna say,
just hypocrite. That's I mean,that would be the you know,
the technical term for it is herea hypocrite. Yeah, but I wish
I could think of that. Iknow I can't. Maybe I'll think of
it while we're because I think I'veheard of that phrasing too at some point.
(04:35):
But so there's an interesting little bitthat I looked into before just diving
back into Richard's story. So Icame across an article from a renowned professor
and consultant on many areas in psychology, including forensics and criminal justice. And
his name is doctor Michael Amatt.It's a a m O DT. So
(04:59):
I think it's a yeah, yeah, and he I think is based out
of the University of Radford in Virginia. They have a forensics program. So
the article titled the Incidence of ChildAbuse and serial Killers was co authored by
Heather Mitchell and sought to determine whetherphysical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse,
(05:19):
and or neglect occurred at higher ratesamong serial killers. So they were
looking specifically at the prevalence of theseindividuals having experienced one or more types of
abuse growing up. And another littleinteresting piece, they were specifically looking at
those who kill for sexual gratification.Gotcha, So the lust killers the Jerry
(05:42):
Brutos Jerry Frutos type definitely, andthe authors not surprisingly found that every form
of abuse other than neglect, sophysical, sexual, psychological, was more
prevalent among the lust killers. Okay, so I thought that was interesting.
It's not surprising, but no,but I mean it's so so complicated on
(06:08):
like he's there are people who experience, you know, the same type of
traumas and don't become you know,like serial killers and stuff. So it's
such an interesting like spiderweb of youknow, or butterfly effect. I would
guess I would call it where it'sjust like something something snapped. Yeah,
they just couldn't take it anymore.Yeah. And why these specific individuals,
(06:30):
yeah, go down that path versusthe individual that doesn't end up killing a
bunch of people over their life stillhad these horrible tragedies in their lives.
Yeah. So I'm going to getback to the story. I just thought
that was an interesting little article.And during Richards early teenage years, so
I think, like this was middleschool, early high school, he was
(06:53):
not performing well academically in the Dallasschool system and he ends up dropping out
of school altogether by age of sixteenyears. Okay, so just just a
childhood that's just not going great.Again, this is nineteen fifties, I
mean that wasn't uncommon. Yeah,but you know, still it's gonna like
(07:14):
probably mean like you know, hardphysical labor jobs things like that, Yes,
difficulty in terms of financial opportunities possibly, So, And it's just one
more little piece of it, Ithink where it's like he's falling through the
cracks, right. And it alsoseems that by just thirteen years old,
he was a full fledged alcoholic.Wow, and he had been spending time
(07:36):
with much older boys or men atthis point. Well that's bad. Thirteen.
I can't imagine what the effects ofalcohol on a developing brain are.
Yeah, I mean, I meanobviously, like when you're twenty one,
your brain is not fully developed either, but like an adolescent brain is,
you know, susceptible to Yeah,you're still well in the horn. One.
(07:59):
Impact it's gonna have on hormones.What impact it's going to have on
some of those parts of the brain, like the frontal lobe that are still
developing, Yeah, because I knowfetal alcohol syndrome fetal alcohol effects and how
damaging that can be. But yeah, one would assume it would have some
negative effects. Not to mention thecrowd he's hanging out with. Yes,
it's not like it's not it's gottanot be good if somebody has given this
(08:22):
thirteen year old liquor bunch of booze. Absolutely in nineteen fifty five, so
I think he would have been fourteenor fifteen, Yeah, fourteen or fifteen,
Richard was arrested for trespassing, andthis appears to have been that first
crime that would kind of follow thisstring of crimes later on. Okay,
and basically he's just budding into thisdelinquent at this point. Yeah, so
(08:46):
thirteen alcoholism, fifteen, fourteen orfifteen first crime, sixteen, he's done
with school and then the string ofcrimes just continues. Just a bad puff.
Yeah, and not that like notthat everyone and has to go to
school. That's a weird one forme. That's not really not to college
or go down that traditional path exactly. Yeah, that's not the issue here
(09:07):
though, is like school and likedropping out of school is the least of
my concern for this kid. Like, if you're an alcoholic of thirteen,
that would be my major concern becauseobviously you're coping for something that is very
difficult for you to deal with.So absolutely absolutely well, and it's also
(09:28):
where's that parental influence? Like,I know, parents can't prevent everything.
But so outside of these ongoing delinquentbehaviors, it appears that Richard was also
cultivating a bit of a romantic relationship, and at the age of twenty years
old, Richard married fifteen year oldShirley Malone. You know, it was
(09:50):
already pregnant with their daughter, RobbieLynn Gross. Yeah, that it's the
fifties, I guess by now it'sthe sixties, like very early sixties.
Yeah, but I still don't thinklike super underaged marriages are, like it's
NII no no. And did theynot have laws yet about the aged marriage?
(10:13):
I guess if her parents signed consent, it wouldn't matter anyway. Yeah,
if her parents signed consent. Andthis is Texas, I think now
you can get married at sixteen withyour parents consent, you can. And
she's fifteen, and this is backin nineteen sixteen, nineteen sixty one.
There were probably no regulations or anything. I doubt it. There weren't enough,
I'm sure. So they get married, but alas, this is not
(10:39):
a happy marriage, at least notfor surely, as it's reported that Richard
was abusive towards his wife and wouldgo so far as to rape her at
knife point. Great. Great,Yeah that's a great relationship. Yeah.
Well and for a fifteen year oldgirl. Yeah, if she's experiencing this,
I can't imagine from the get go. Yeah. And in nineteen sixty
(11:01):
five, so this is still whilethey're married, Richard ends up in prison
for attempting to rob a woman atknife point. It's got a thing for
knives, and only one year later, his wife, Shirley, files for
divorce, so they lasted a whoppingfour years, which is a long time
considering abuse and getting raped at knifepoint. I would dip too, like
(11:24):
yeah, yeah, good for her. Yeah yeah. During the marriage,
Richard was in and out of policecustody for various offenses, including theft,
robbery, assault, etc. AndJanuary nineteen sixty six, pretty much right
after Shirley had filed for divorce,Richard ends up being arrested and awaiting trial
for burglary and assault charges. Okay, but so it's you know, it's
(11:50):
still kind of these I guess assaultisn't, but he's only being arrested and
charged for like more non l Robbery'spretty violent, it's yeah, but like
under under like law, and it'snot. Um well, actually that's not
true. If he was using aknife, then it is robbery with a
deadly weapon or assault with a deadlyweapon, so that carries a higher charge
(12:11):
than like, you know, assaultwith your hands. Um sure, yeah,
so I mean I guess, yeah, but almost everybody like robs with
some type of weapon because otherwise it'shard to get people to comply to what
you want them to do. Yeah, we'll just punch you in the fucking
face. Yeah, but yeah,so, I mean, I get it.
It's it's violent, but you know, he's already been like raping his
(12:35):
wife at knife point, so yeah, it seems it seems like this is
like the very entryway into violent crimesfor him, where he's like, oh,
yes, I can get things myway with a knife everywhere. Okay,
yeah, yeah, you can robpeople and assault them, take all
their ship, take it all,give me a shit, and lieu of
(12:56):
spending any more time behind bars.Can up fleeing back to Chicago. So
he evades police. Okay, Iflees from Texas, ends up back in
Illinois, and now he's spending hisdays living with his sister, Martha Anne.
So he's kind of CouchSurfing with her. She's got her own family.
(13:16):
This is only for a few daysbecause he ends up moving back to his
hometown of Monmouth, Illinois. AndI think this is around the Chicago South
Side area. Okay, he's stillkind of homeless though he doesn't have a
job yet. He's you know,didn't have a plan in place. He's
been getting out of Dallas. Yeah, yes, he's CouchSurfing with some family
(13:37):
friends. He was evading the law, So I mean, I guess you
don't really get a whole lot oftime to plan in those scenarios like,
yeah, unless a job in ahouse. Yeah, he's got this vision
board he's been working on in thebackground of when I returned to my hometown,
I'm going to work here and havea little condo with a picket fence
(13:58):
and a dog. No, notthis guy. No. He does end
up settling in a nearby hotel andbegins hitting up the local bar scene,
all of which likely eases the wayfor him to continue down his path of
depravity naturally. Yeah, so hegets work as a carpenter, but he
(14:18):
has a lot of difficulty holding downany jobs for long because of these frequent
binges and late nights where he's justout drinking. He's an alcoholic, He's
not a functional alcoholic. Yeah no, no, he's not a functional alcoholic.
Name Booze comes first. Booze ishis mistress in his life. And
before we get any further into thestory, let's talk some numbers. Laura,
(14:43):
how many people do you think Richardis accused of killing? I know,
accused is interesting, but I'll explainit. Ten. Yeah, pretty
much. So the insw eight tothirty eight to thirteen. Okay, it's
happy, happy medium ted kind ofan average, Yeah, heck yeah,
have an average. Yeah, Okay, and I'm gonna win. You win
(15:05):
nothing. I win nothing. Ilove winning nothing. So I'm gonna elaborate
a little bit on this range ofnumbers, on what the why there's this
five person gap in between. Thereare a few crimes Richard is strongly suspected
of, or at least was suspectedof, and um, I'm going to
(15:26):
talk about that, and then I'mgoing to get into the eight murders he
was actually convicted for. Okay,so there are a couple of crimes that
he was pretty much the main suspectfor. But he again, he ends
up fleeing the area before he canbe detained and questioned by police. Sure
easy to avoid cops back then.Yeah, apparently there were no systems first
(15:46):
vacation between precincts and stuff like that. Yeah, it's you pretty much.
You cross state lines, you're Scottfree. Here's that way. Yeah,
unless they put out like an APBfor you and you're like a national like
uh issue, I guess, yeah, that's how we have de Like,
Um, what's what's the America's MostWanted List or yes, the FBI's Most
(16:10):
Wanted. Yeah, yeah, likethat, like unless you're on there,
you know, which, I don'teven know if they had them. I
don't know. I don't know whenthey came up with the FBI's Most Wanted
List. That's an interesting question.I don't know. I know, I
know. I watched America's Most Wantedon TV when I was like four,
and the Wanted List then, andthe sketches a lot of times, it's
(16:30):
like the police sketches. There's there'ssome bad We'll have to do a like
a Patreon thing about police sketches forcertain criminals and stuff. There are so
many that you're like, is thata human? Well, it doesn't know
what artist did you pick? Too. It doesn't look like the person.
Some of them don't even look likepeople, Amanda. I've seen flat like
(16:52):
child drawings and I'm like, weused to, you know, for forensic
No, you didn't know you usedto SHYLD you used a child and you
were like and a mouth and hair. Yeah yeah now yeah that and that's
a big thing with them. Wejust finished the night Stalker series on Netflix.
(17:14):
Yeah, the sketches are terrible somebodylike that. It'll show the sketch
and then it'll cut back to thetwo cops that were the main investigators,
and they're like, and it lookedreally, you know, it really looked
like him. We had a reallygood sketch, and me and Ward were
just like, who are you protecting? You protecting the sketch? Argets?
(17:34):
Did you draw it? Did probably? Do you like? Some of them
were like, bro, nobody wasgonna guess that guy from that. I'm
standard soon you should these sketches.Do it bumping? Do it? Okay?
(17:56):
So anyway, getting back, thefirst crime he is accused of or
suspected of committing is the rape ofVirgil Harris, and this occurred back on
April second, nineteen sixty six.The sixty five year old woman survives the
attack that takes place in her ownhome, So that's one crime he is
(18:18):
strongly suspected. This is making melike, this is bringing back memories because
I think I remember the raping ofan elderly like neighbor or something like,
oh okay, yeah, elder,I mean sixty five is not elder well,
but I mean no, she's asenior citizen. Discount at that point,
you're sixty five. Where is itfifty five? Is it fifty five?
(18:41):
I'm looking forward to those days.It's not you. It's not fifty
five, is it. I thinkyou qualify for aaar. You're not looking
forward to those days somethings of retiredpersons. By that point, when you
become an adult, all you worryabout is the discounts and shit you get
for being old and eating early andpeople not jet any form. Yes,
I had dinner at three o'clock andthen I was asleep by sent Fuck you
(19:06):
living my dream life. Next wehave the murder of Mary Catherine Pierce on
or around April tenth, just afew days later. Mary Catherine was a
barmaid at Frank's place, and thisis a tavern that Richard was reported to
have frequented. Yeah, he probablywere fried all the taverns he was,
everywhere he was, if there wasa tavern, he would. If I
(19:30):
hoop served alcohol there, just shownies. Yeah, so don't don't disparite Showiest
I love. I've never been toShow so I can't. Okay, I
can't comment. Imagine Golden Corral noton steroids. Well kind of dial back
(19:53):
buffets but they also have a fullmenu, so they're not They're a thing.
Isn't necessarily buffet sal It's like itwas like a beefed up salad bar.
I would order from the menu.I didn't. I loved man.
I loved fucking buffets and salad bars. I was like, I'm building the
biggest salad possible. Bro. Iloved buffets like when I was jugger two,
(20:15):
and then I learned about like germs, and I've seen children stick their
hands and things, and it's justnot appealing anymore. It's not No,
I'm not a buffet person now thatI don't want e coal lie. It
may not last for much longer.The predicaments that we're in these days,
well, someone needs to get thememo of Golden Corral. No shit,
still doing their chocolate ecal salmonella fountain. But so, Mary Catherine's body was
(20:41):
discovered April thirteenth, so three daysafter they project she was killed, and
it was discovered behind the tavern anda recently built hogpin. I don't know
why there's a hogpin behind the tavern, Amanda. It's Texas in the sixties,
it's nineteen sixties. Yeah, it'sprobably bumble fuck ass nowhere, Like,
(21:03):
yeah, you know how it is. You've been, We've driven through
and been places in the South thatare like, oh, there's a gator
pan outside the back of the barfor an attraction, like or a gas
station even worse, a gas stationwith a fucking gator display. Well,
who's gators? One comfited gators?Get your hand ripped off? Who launched
their kid to come in and getthe hand ripped off? Like me,
(21:26):
I have twelve children. I needone of them to go away. No
shit. So Mary Catherine was justthirty two years old, and she had
died from what appeared to be aruptured liver that they believe was caused by
a blow to her abdomen. Damnor I guess multiple blows. That's a
(21:47):
hard hit. Yeah, I wouldassume kicking yeah, or some instrument,
another one of those. What wasthe stove that was supposedly used by the
oh, the anemic guy. Ohthe fucking cast iron stove. Yeah yeah,
no cast iron stove murders happening inthe area. No, but yeah,
(22:11):
I feel like people often like onceyou fall, like kicking you in
the stomach is always like a goto it seems to be or the head.
Yeah, we're god stomping, butdepending on if they're trying to like
actually kill you or yeah, whattheir intent is. But yeah, so
and that to me, that's justa lot of rage and aggression. Yeah,
he an angry boy, he isvery angry. Yeah, and he
(22:34):
doesn't like women. Yeah. No, And these are two that he is
very strongly associated with. And nowone was rape, no murder, second
was I think just murder. Idon't remember if there was sexual assault involved
by boy something something. Soon afterthis comes even more tragedy as Michigan police
(22:56):
are investigating the deaths of four womena once a young girl seven, nineteen
thirty seven and sixty years old nearBitten Harbor. So Great Lakes, I
think the Great Lakes kind of regionnow large age rage for his yes,
for his type, like it seemsto be just women. Oh yeah,
(23:17):
in general. Yeah, it's justwomen, doesn't matter if they're seven or
sixty. That's some rege. Itwell, And it's interesting because I can't
remember if I read somewhere that heblamed his mother for not protecting him from
his stepfather and held her accountable forthe abuse. So I don't know again,
it's this misdirected fuck all these womenand kind of thought his mom was
(23:38):
a whore. I mean, tenbuddy was slighted by his girlfriend and fucking
murdered a bunch of women that lookedlike her. So I pushed him over
the edge. Yeah. So inthis case, the first body was discovered
in February nineteen sixty five, andthe other three were discovered in April nineteen
sixty five, so they're back toback sort of. And then there's the
(24:00):
cluster of the three yeah yeah,okay, and they're all in that same
area of the Benton Harbor region,so that's why they're kind of tying it
together. But who knows. Youcan always be more than one serial killer
operating in an area, unfortunately,so well, like kind of like Long
Island serial killers. God yeah,yeah, it's like, how many people
(24:22):
are rememb ordering people in this neighborhood? Can we not just have one?
I know, is there some likeclub we don't know about that exists probably
for serial killers? I mean I'msure, yeah, dive into that.
Well that and then I think aboutlike Bohemian grove that shit, I don't
know, Oh, supposedly it's anarea. I think it's kind of been
(24:48):
proven where the elites, the peoplewith all the money gather and do some
interesting shit. Oh, you've beenlike hunting humans. Ah, that's what
I always gone that far, Mart, That's what I mean. I assume
hunting humans and like heads mounted ondeer mounts. Yeah, some interesting plays
(25:10):
gross take place. Oh and it'smen. It's just men. Oh man,
I think so ben are weird?Been with money or even weirder,
old white men with power weird.Yeah. So one year later, so
this is nineteen sixty six, Julysecond, three young women disappear near an
(25:33):
Indiana harbor. And again this isthe Great Lakes. These are harbors right
around the Great Lakes regions, andthe Great Lakes are a great place for
dromping bodies. Apparently so or justpopular people want to Is it just so
cold and you're at the beach andyou're pissed and you want to kill people?
No. I think it's because it'scold and the lakes are extremely deep.
(25:56):
And I think when the body,when a body is hold it sinks
better or stays down, well,it wouldn't bloat as much. It's something.
There's some there's some reason people dropbecause like Tahoe in California, it
is also used for or was usedfor, like mob yes, casino murders
and stuff. Okay, yeah,yeah, I mean that would make sense.
(26:19):
It's going to definitely have an impacton where your ship's sinking or floating.
And I would think, yeah,so in both of these cases.
This is where it all kind ofcomes together and why Richard was, at
least at one point a big suspect. Richard was working on a ship that
docked on or around the Great Lakesregion, and the ship happened to be
(26:41):
docked at these two harbors in atime frame that corresponds to the disappearances and
murders. When it comes to aserial killer, and you're like, oh,
who killed these women? If there'sa dude who's just running around murdering
women, raping women, holding women, and point, he would be my
prime suspect. Well sure, yeah, yeah, and you know he's got
(27:06):
their reports of him being in oraround the area at that time, right,
I'd be like, Okay, wellyou did it. Even if he
didn't do it, like I'd belike, yeah, you did it,
because like, how can you notlook at that guy and be like you're
in the same place at the sametime, and always women are dead.
It was you, buddy, itwas you did it. Yeah. I
don't know why they don't like abat tosh it either well or they admit
(27:27):
they do the false confessions kind ofthing where and not the ones coerced by
police, but where they're bragging sayingthey killed these people hundreds of No,
you didn't. You killed four people. I killed four hundred and fifty people.
Yeah. Yeah, and one wasan accident because you, yeah,
you fell on top of them witha knife, and you don't get to
(27:48):
claim that. I'm not putting themin the books. Yeah. So there
are refeating reports that Richard could nothave actually committed those first four murders,
the Benton Harbor killings because he wasincarcerated for charges of aggravated assault from January
ninth, nineteen sixty five to Junesixteenth, nineteen sixty five, and the
(28:12):
Dallas County jail and these killings happenedFebruary and April of that year. So
okay, so maybe he didn't doit. He's claiming he was behind bars.
I think there's a little bit ofuncertainty as to whether that's true or
not. You should be able toprove that you should. But although bubble
fuck asked nowhere never mind? Well, and what kind of records they were
(28:36):
keeping? And was he parolled beforehand, even though that was his initial sentence.
So I think there's some questions withthat. But so that's the suspected.
That's why that number could be likeup to thirteen, and now I'm
going to get to the eighty eight. He's convicted four and pretty much confesses
too. By July nineteen sixty six, spec was living between his sister's place
(29:00):
in various hotels in the Chicago area, and then he's also bouncing between jobs
at the National National at the NationalMaritime Union. Okay, and the reason
he lost his most recent job wasthat he threatened a superior officer with a
gun. Sounds right on par onwhat he's been doing so far. Yeah,
(29:22):
although it's a man this time.I'm guessing because I assume doubt sixties,
highly doubt that. Yeah, hissupervisor was a female in the sixties
because you know, in the kitchen. Yeah, barely let out of our
homes. Yeah, So looking forwork, Richard returns to the n MU
(29:47):
and visits their hiring hall to applyfor another sea time job. So this
is where he's been getting these seafaringjobs. On jobs, yeah, boat
jobs. They're very temporary. Italmost sounds like a contract kind of position
where if it's for an indefinite periodof time. Yeah, kind of like
fishing or a mechanic or like whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And one day
(30:07):
when he's there and I couldn't nailthis date down, it was sometime again
in July nineteen sixty six. He'svery upset frustrated that he couldn't get a
job that day, So he wasthere all day, he was waiting.
They never set him up with anything. So he leaves the NMU and checks
into a local inn, the ShipyardInn. And this is important because it
(30:29):
appears that while he was at thehiring hall, he may have happened to
notice in nearby townhouse that serves adormitory for several nursing students who were employed
at a local community hospital. Great, great, yep. And I don't
know if he noticed these young womenkind of walking around. I mean,
if he's at this hiring hall alot, he did he did he saw
(30:52):
them? Yeah. July thirteenth nineteensixty six. Richard is spending the day
like any other typical day for him, you know, tavern hopping, getting
shit faced drunk, and sometime thatsame day or evening, he rapes fifty
three year old elm May Hopper afterhe invites her back to his room at
the shipyard end. So they wereout at a tavern together. He invites
(31:15):
her back to his room and yeah, one thing leads to another, and
he rapes her. One thing leadsto another. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
the student's a tool. It's sucha piece of garbage. During the
assault, the papers and some otherreports said he managed to steal a twenty
two caliber revolver from LM. May. She ends up surviving, he doesn't
(31:38):
kill her, and this gun kindof comes into play a little bit,
and then it's like poof gone.He likes his knives. We'll just leave
it at that. Richard ends upmaking his way to the student nurse's dormitory
that same evening because it's only afew to several blocks from his room at
this end, he has nothing elseto do. I guess, well,
(32:00):
and he's I guess drunk. Therereports that he's high at this point.
Oh yeah, just constantly, andyou're gonna go take it out on some
innocent nursing students who didn't do shit, didn't do shit to him, and
take it out on them. Hedoes so. Around eleven PM that evening,
there is a knock at the frontdoor of the town house that twenty
three year old Corazon Pieze a'm araushared with seven other nursing students, and
(32:25):
on this fateful evening, it justso happened that a ninth nursing student was
staying the night in the dormitory,so we're up to nine instead of eight.
Cora would later report the following eventsto police, who arrived at the
murder scene the next day. Shestated that she opened the door to see
a man in his twenties who waspretty much of average build, and noticed
he had a tattoo on one ofhis arms that simply stated born to raise
(32:51):
Hill. That's a good sign.Yeah, I like, no, thank
you close. I don't want anygirl, scout cookie sir, or you're
married, hey, please leave,or whatever you're selling. And it's unclear
whether she notices other body art,which included tattoos on each of his knuckles.
You know, and they love toget the tattoos on the knuckles and
(33:12):
fingers that spelled love and hate.Jesus. This guy is a fucking cliche.
He is he is? Yeah,yeah yeah. Accounts stated that the
man abruptly pushed his way into thetown home, brandishing a revolver and shoving
Cora back inside. So that's kindof how he's just pushing his way in.
(33:32):
But one point to make here.The Illinois Supreme Court later established that
Richard had only ever had a knifeand never actually used a gun during the
rampage. So I don't know whythere are reports of the gun. It's
all very disorganized. It's very disorganized, and she may have thought he had
a gun. It's hard to recallin the you know, the heath of
(33:52):
the moment. Yes, yes,eyewitness testimony. She's one of the victims.
Also, it sounds like she livedand a lot of other people didn't.
You know. She's probably having somesome some issues remembering and macaulay details.
She's fine, she's perfect, it'sfine, perfectly fine. It's something
(34:14):
nothing happened. Two other roommates,twenty two year old Merlita Gargoulo and twenty
three year old Valentina peision overheard thescuffle, and we're likely shocked and unsure
of what to do when they comein and they encounter what's happening in the
front room. Richard ends up usheringall three of the women down the hall
of the town home to a backbedroom, which is occupied by three more
(34:37):
nursing students. We've got twenty oneyear old Nina Joe Schmail, twenty four
year old Pamela Wilkining, and twentyyear old Patricia Anne Matusick. So they
are girls. I think twenty fouris the oldest so far. Yeah.
Yeah, So they're in their twenties, nursing students. Having forced all of
(34:57):
the women into one room, andthe rest of the girls were probably a
little startled when yet another woman,nineteen year old Gloria Jean Davy, returned
home from a date and entered theroom where he was holding the other women
captive, unfortunately for her. Sowe are up to gosh, Kora,
Merlita Valentina other three. Four,I can't, okay, one, I
(35:21):
can't. I started counting on myfingers and I stopped at four and I
was like, it's more than four, okay, three, six, We're
up to seven, got seven womenget room captive in this back bedroom.
Yeah. All of the women wereordered on the floor while Richard tore one
of the bed sheets into strips ofcloth that he then used his restraints.
(35:43):
So the women were all tied upat the wrists and ankles. And then
the two remaining roommates, twenty oneyear old Suzanne Ferris and twenty year old
mary Anne Jordan, entered the townhome encountered this terrifying situation with a strange
man holding the makes at NiFe point, so they are also bound in order
to lie on the floor of theNow I'm assuming very cramped room because you
(36:07):
got nine in a one room,ten people including him on the floor.
Yes, somehow all on the floor. Yeah. One by one Richard leads
the women out of the bedroom andinto another room where he stabbed, strangled,
and for at least one victim.They're not sure how many has happened
to raped them. While this istaking place, a lot of the women
(36:29):
try to hide under beds they tryto get out of view of him.
Unfortunately, only one, Cora,the one that first encountered him, is
able to actually stay hidden and survivedthe whole ordeal. So he just never
realizes she's still there. Fuck thatsucks for Cora. Yes, there's no
telling what she's hearing, Like,she just listened to eight people, eight
(36:51):
of her friends we stabbed, strangled, and murdered, yeah and raped.
Yeah, possibly at least one ofthem. Yep in the room. There's
no way you can't hear that.And you have to just lay there and
for your own safety, yeah,just not come out now, Like,
so what is the there's a termfor so obviously I know these women are
(37:14):
young and he's a big dude whatever, but there are very many of them,
Like there's at least six when hefirst like ushers everybody in. What
is it called when people like they'reso afraid of being hurt themselves that like
they don't act because there was obviouslyenough of them that they probably could have
(37:34):
overpowered or ye him got the knifewhatever. Yeah, Like you know,
it's hard to fight off six people. That's but for some reason people don't
do that. They don't. It'sit's like it's similar to buy standard non
intervention in its own way. You'relike waiting for somebody else to like,
(37:57):
yeah, take action. Yeah,I think you're waiting because you know,
whoever's the first to kind of jumpat him may get stabbed. So I
don't know how much that element playsinto it. The other piece is there
are a lot of I think it'sthree fs, it's three or four fs
of what happens when you're encountering atraumatic event for a lot of people.
So even though there's power in numbers, everyone's experiencing their own trauma and their
(38:21):
own reaction at that point. Andit's fight or flight, freeze, and
fawn. Yeah, I think it'sfour So it's yeah, there's everyone thinks
a fight or flight, Like fightor flight are the only two run or
your fight. It's not the onlyoptions. Yeah. No, there's freeze,
which is I think more typical tolike how a literally a rabbit if
(38:45):
it encounters a snake, well youjust you pause, and you just it's
natural predator. It just it freezes. It doesn't fight, it doesn't flee,
and humans have a similar reaction inthat way. And fawn, I
can't remember what fawn is. Ifeel like fawn is going along with or
like um not going along with,but like it's like a it's like a
(39:07):
trauma response where you just kind oflike cowtow to things. I don't know.
See, I just looked it up, like I don't know, Okay,
So fawning I just look this uprefers to a trauma response in which
a person reverts to people pleasing todiffuse conflict and re establish a sense of
(39:28):
safety. So it's when you becomevery compliant, like Stockholm syndrome, and
it's not yes, yes, exactly. So that would be the fourth thing
that is also very common for alot of people. And the piece there
is you want to survive, soyou're going to comply. Yeah, so
perhaps for a lot of these womenthere's freezing. It probably just freezing and
fawning is what's happening. And yougot to think about how we're socialized too.
(39:51):
Especially back in the nineteen sixties,women weren't taught to fight back.
No, no, not at all. You comply. It's just so like
it's it's so sad to me tohear of eight women being killed by one
man. That is so frustrating tome. With a knife with a knife,
So like, don't get me wrong, knives can actually be more dangerous
than guns, especially in close combat. Yeah, but like if all of
(40:15):
them, like you're going to dieanyway. I know you're going And I
don't know if I have that thoughtbecause of the things that we research and
the things that we discuss and areyou know, interests and stuff like that.
But and I've I've been in somescary situations and stuff like that.
Sure, But for me, italways just triggers like anger is my first
(40:40):
like go to is just like rageat like how fucking dare you the audacity
of somebody to think that they havethe right to take your life? Yeah,
yeah, you know what I mean. Is just blows my mind.
And and you are right, Imean the way that women were brought up
and how you know, how longwe weren't able to vote and whatever ye
(41:01):
did. Definitely like I could seeit adding to the likelihood they're going to
respond this way. It's just sadbecause like if if you would think,
like, we're going to die anyway, does it will die like before he
can rape us all? Well?Or maybe a couple of us will live.
Yeah, yeah, like maybe someof us will make it out okay,
(41:22):
And maybe he doesn't know what thefuck he's doing with a knife.
Maybe if we all bum rush himat the same time, he's gonna get
fucking like weirded out because a bunchof little women are running at him and
raged, I mean, even graba pillow and beat him. I mean,
but it's easy to say. Ihave no idea how I would respond.
It is, and like what yousaid, it's it's a different decade,
(41:43):
it's a it's a whole different situation. We have a lot more freedoms
and things as women now than womenthen did. So it's just it just
makes me sad. Well, itfeels like it could have been avoided or
at least lessened. Yeah, yeah, maybe four of them would have lived,
you know, or some of themmight have gotten stabbed and had to
(42:04):
go to the hospital and like,but would have lived, you know exactly.
So yeah, I don't know,but I've never I've never been held
at my point with a bunch ofother women before, so I definitely can't
say for sure how I would reactto that exactly. Hopefully we won't ever
experience that. I'm telling you firstis anger. I'm gonna be the first
(42:28):
one to die. You cultivate thatanger, Laura, because it's cultivating I'll
be cultivating my frightening mechanism over you. You learn into the whole sense of
comfort, and I will spider monkeyfrom behind. I'll go into counselor mod.
Yeah, just psychology mode, andbe like, look, I understand.
(42:49):
Would you go understand your fi adick and your mother was a cold,
cold Protestant woman, and I'm sorry. Yeah. So, after Richard
was done killing what he probably thoughtto be all of the town home's occupants,
he went through the woman's purses,took whatever cash or valuables he could
find, and then he left.The lone survivor, Cora, stayed hidden
(43:13):
until about six am, when sheemerged and ran to the closest window,
screaming that all of her friends weredead. Alarmed and concerned, our neighbors
notified the police, who arrived toinvestigate the crime. So the good news
here, if there is any Richardis easily identified as the perpetrator of these
(43:35):
crimes. No shit. He hasidentified tattoos, all of his fucking arms
tattoos, He leaves fingerprints. There'sa composite which we know is so reliable,
super accurate. There's a composite ofhim that's passed around to the employees
of the NMU, and he's recognizedalmost immediately, so maybe the composite was
actually pretty solid. And while policeare searching for him, Richard ends up
(43:59):
making an unsuccessful full suicide attempts onlya few days after these mass killings.
Good, well, I'm glad itwas unsuccessful. Oh yeah, yeah,
exactly. Fucking I hate it whenlike it's always like suicide is not a
coward's way out, Like people saythat all the time, you know what
I mean, And that's not truebecause it depends on a fuck load of
(44:20):
circumstances and like you have no ideawhat somebody else is going through. But
when you commit to a crime likethis and then you're like, oh,
I'll just kill myself. No,no, no, sir, no no
no, we're gonna You're gonna liveout the rest of your life in misery.
God damn it. That's too easyfor you. You're gonna pack to
answer for it somehow at some point. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like
(44:43):
cheating the like justice, the likefamily, Yeah, like the justice of
the situation, because it's like,well, he's just dead, Yeah,
yeah, he got to do whatfeels like the easy way out for him.
Yeah, But as in many thingsin his life, he or a
guy I mean, I don't knowhow much of that is part of his
(45:04):
issue. If he's got failure syndrometo some extent or feels like a failure,
he's got to prove himself. Idon't know. Obviously he didn't try
very hard. He had a knife. Yeah, no, well, he
cut his wrists and arms kind ofdoes that standard suicide attempt we all think
of left to right? Oh,I don't know. But then apparently he
cries out for help, tries outfor help after the attempt, So I
(45:25):
guess he regrets his decision and thisends up alerting the front desk at the
Star hotel. So he's at adifferent hotel now where he's currently lodging,
doing drugs, hanging out with vagrants, hands up getting transported to a local
er for treatment, where a residentsurgeon at the hospital just happens to notice
the born to raise hell tattoo thathad been mentioned in these local newspapers covering
(45:46):
the crime. So he's very quicklyarrested and taken into custody. Surprisingly no
one. Yeah, well, andthank god. Pre trial, at the
request of the federal court judge whowas overseeing case, Richard was evaluated by
a panel of several physicians, includingfive psychiatrists, to determine, you know,
(46:07):
is he insane? Is he competentto stand trial? Yeah? And
they determined he was competent. He'snot insane. There are also these interesting
reports that he spent substantial amounts oftime being assessed and treated by the Cook
County jail psychiatrist, doctor Marvin Ziborin. But I couldn't find any primary sources
on this, so I'm going totalk about it. But maybe don't maybe
(46:30):
true, Maybe don't, yeah,maybe don't hold me to this. So
Richard was described by multiple sources ashaving antisocial personality disorder and which again not
surprising, and doctor zupport and supposedlylisted issues such as and this is a
direct quote from the Richard spec Wikipediapage because this is the only place I
(46:52):
found this information, but I thoughtwas interesting. So the quote is obsessive,
compulsive personality and a Madonna prosta toattitude towards women, which is just
the Madonna whore complex, Madonna horrorcomplex. Madonna whore is so Madonna is
synonymous with a horror like complex opposite. Oh, so Madonna, I think
(47:17):
is a Greek like goddess or oh, we're not talking about the artist.
Yeah, no, no, no, we're talking about like ancient Greece.
This is like this madonna whore complexhas been around for hundreds of years,
I think. Okay, so theidea here is spec takes on this madonna
(47:37):
whore dichotomy. So he perceives womenin one of two categories. You can
fall into one of two categories andthere's not a spectrum. You're one or
the other. So that's the dichotomy, and it describes this polarized perception of
women by some men, some menwhich sees women is either good, so
the madonna means they are they're chased, they're pure, or they're good or
(48:02):
bad, meaning that they are promiscuousand seductive horrors. Okay, you can't
be both. You can't be both. You can't sprinkle in a little of
one and a little of the other. Yeah, you're either a horror or
not. No, you can't beboth good and dad lovely. Yep,
neither horror. You're pure And asyou can already kind of see this,
(48:22):
this creates a lot of problems interms of a man's relationship with women,
because as soon as they fall fromthe madonna pedestal their horse. No redemption,
and there's no coming back from it. Can't say any hail marries to
fix this one pitch, no redemption. So Richard's trial finally took place on
April third, nineteen sixty seven,where he is charged with eight counts of
(48:45):
murder and initially he has given thedeath penalty. And this trial wraps up
just twelve days. I think thejury deliberates for like an hour and they're
like, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty. Yes. Death. However, the sentence is later reduced to
eight consecutive life sentences and then subsequentlyends up being reduced even further to up
(49:07):
to one hundred years of prison,still one hundred years after the Supreme Court
rules that the death penalty is unconstitutionalin nineteen seventy two. So he gets
that little loophole where we temporarily saythat the death penalty is unconstitutionalize a nation.
It's a it's a tricky subject,yeah, to the death penalty,
it sure is. But h Man, well, and especially with the wrongful
(49:32):
conviction. Yes, that's the majorissue of it, is you put somebody
to death who didn't even commit thecrime. That's a big, big problem
because you just murdered somebody essentially.Have you heard of the Innocence Project?
Yes, yeah, yeah, theirinformation the podcast Wrongful Conviction that I highly
recommend, all makes me very concerned. We have put a lot of innocent
(49:55):
people to death, we for surehave, but there are cases where the
right person is pegged and they deserveto die. Sure, not by their
own hand, but be put todeath. Yeah. It just it depends,
and it doesn't surprise me. He'shis sentence got fucking reduced. Especially,
(50:16):
I mean he only killed eight women. We killed the young twenty year
old women that weren't twenty year oldworld from the less because a lot of
them were foreign exchange students. SoI don't know how much that just starting
their like careers and lives. Yeahyeah, yep, piece of shit.
(50:37):
So ultimately, Richard dies in prisonfrom a heart attack at age forty nine
December nineteen ninety one, after servingless than twenty five years behind bars.
Probably all that alcohol, well andpossibly some other ship. Yeah, god
knows. And I am getting veryclose to wrapping this up. There's one
other little caveat I have to mentionbecause it's so interesting. So this is
(51:00):
not the end of the story forRichard, so I think, and this
happens yeah, post posthumous, thisis after he's already dead. So some
scandalous shit went down while he wasstill in prison, okay, and I'm
going to give you the details verybriefly. So while in prison, Richard
is apparently being given female hormones,okay, as there are reports that he
(51:22):
has developed relatively substantial women's breasts,although there don't appear to be any other
significant physical changes taking place, Andthere is a video and he does have
breasts some big knockers by this point. Were they giving him hormones to um
like to make him list rage?I don't know. I didn't look that
(51:43):
far into it because because I knowthey use estrogen to like, you know,
that's a possibility rage hormone. LikeI got the impression he wanted them.
Oh oh, I don't know.Maybe maybe he was just tired and
not seeing anything titties and he wantedhis own titties and he my own titties
to play with. There's also thiscondition where men develop breasts. Yeah,
(52:07):
anty much just developed breasts. AndI can't think of the term though,
but it is this hormonal condition thatsets in for some men later in life.
Yeah, same thing with us.I mean we get chin hair and
stuff if we have too much testosterone. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
So in nineteen ninety six, sofive years after he's dead, a TV
(52:27):
journalist discovers a bizarre sex tape thathad been shot while Richard was incarcerated during
the late nineteen eighties. And inthe tape, and this is filmed in
the prison somehow. In the tape, Richard can be seen topless. His
female breast is very apparent, asis also the fact that he's wearing women's
panties and he is performing oral sexon other inmates and potentially even doing cocaine
(52:53):
in a few shots as well.What kind of prison is this? Just
having a blowjob party in the backwith cooking Well, and they said that
they believe Richard and the other inmatestook the video camera. I guess they
had camp quarter in like the thea V or the wreck room or something
(53:15):
and took it back with him.I don't know. I feel like somehow
guards knew about this and just forsure turn the other way. Potentially just
a bunch of inmates helped just somewhere. Yeah, yeah, okay, well
that's weird. So at the mosttroubling part of the video, at least
to me, is when Richard describesthe night of the murders of these nurses
(53:37):
in great details, and he makesthe following statement while laughing, it just
wasn't their night. So and he'sdescribing, you know, the details of
the case. He's laughing about itand it just wasn't their night. M
Yeah, yeah, this is whyI like revenge movies. It's like,
(53:58):
somebody needs to fucking stay do this. What's the like I spit on your
grave? I've never seen them becauseI don't watch a rape scene, but
I know it's a revenge it is. It is, and it's like I
just don't I'm not. It's avery uncomfortable it's a very uncomfortable movie.
And yeah, like it's it's tooreal. I guess I would say I've
(54:21):
gotten that from the descriptions of peoplewondering how the actress handle certain scenes and
stuff. So I've I've decided it'snot going to be on my list.
No, not worth watching. Butyes, that does fall under the revenge
category of films. Yes, verymuch so, and that is it,
my friends, Thank you so muchfor joining us. As always, if
(54:44):
you have any feedback, be sureto leave us a message on social media
or at our website which I againneed to update, damn it, which
is simply terrible people doing terrible thingsdot WordPress dot com. And remember,
terrible people are everywhere and you mightjust be even Take a man, then
the goat the game, the game, get the date of the taking the ta
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