July 25, 2025 • 9 mins
The Idaho killer was sentenced this week to life in prison for stabbing to death 4 college students. But 60 years ago, another mass murderer stabbed and strangled 8 nursing students in Chicago. As in the Idaho case, he made one crucial mistake that got him caught.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, did you catch this week's sentencing of the Idaho
killer who murdered four university students. It kind of reminded
me of another random mass killing that took place in
Chicago almost sixty years ago. Richard Speck broke into a
dorm where eight nursing students lived. Over the course of
three hours during a summer night in July. He methodically
(00:22):
stabbed the young women to death, raped his final victim,
and then slipped away. I'm Patty Steele. However, as in
the Idaho case, the killer made a crucial mistake. That's
next on the backstory. The backstory is back. If you
watch the sentencing of the Idaho killer who murdered four
(00:44):
Idaho University students, you saw the emotional impact statements from
family and friends of the victims. But trying to understand
why the murderer did what he did is an impossible
task because there's nothing he could say that it allow
the vicious killings to make any sense at all. It's
happened before, and it was a case the change the
(01:06):
prison system, especially for the most notorious killers. Richard Speck
was born in nineteen forty one in Kirkwood, Illinois. He
was the seventh of eight kids in a really chaotic,
troubled household, and it got worse. His father, Ben died
suddenly when Richard was just six, and his mother remarried quickly.
Her new husband, Karl, was an abusive alcoholic, which brought
(01:30):
even more violence and instability into the family's world. With
so much turmoil and neglect at home, Richard had a
rough time in school. He dropped out at sixteen. He
started drinking at the age of twelve, and by the
time he was fifteen was drunk almost every day. He
got involved in petty theft, drug use, and there were
constant clashes with the cops. At twenty, he got a
(01:53):
fifteen year old girl pregnant after dating her for just
three weeks, and he wound up marrying her. He was
in jail for disturbing the peace after getting drunk in
public when his daughter was born. By his early twenties,
Speck had done time for theft, forgery, and all sorts
of violence, including threatening people with a knife, even stabbing
(02:13):
a couple of guys during bar fights. Now it's the
spring of nineteen sixty six and Speck is twenty four
years old. While robbing a house. The sixty one year
old homeowner arrives back in her house, he threatens her
with a knife and rapes her. The cops don't find him.
In a week later, after a night of drinking at
a bar called Frank's Place in Monmouth, Illinois, the bartender,
(02:37):
a thirty two year old woman, disappears. Her body is
found in a shed out back that Speck had helped build,
so cops decide to question him. He says he feels sick,
but he's going to come back for more questioning when
he feels better. Of course, that's when he skips town
and he heads for Chicago to stay with his sister.
(02:57):
At this point, his wife has left him and he
finds himself drifting. He's unemployed, angry, and really resentful. His
brother in law takes him to look for a job
at a place just a block away from the dormitories
where young nursing students live who are studying a nearby
South Chicago Community Hospital. Now it's July thirteenth, nineteen sixty six.
(03:22):
He spends the day drinking and then pulls a knife
on a fellow drinker. He takes her to his rooming house,
where he rapes her and then steals her twenty two
caliber pistol. It's a hot summer night, and Speck seems
to want a quieter, more personal mode of attack instead
of a gun, so armed with a knife and intense rage,
(03:43):
he breaks into the townhouse dormitory where the student nurses live.
What happens next shocks the entire nation. Over the course
of that horrifying night, Speck systematically ties up, gags, assaults,
and murders eight young nurses, stabbing or strangling them to death,
one at a time, sometimes waiting twenty or thirty minutes
(04:06):
between each murder. He rapes his final victim and then
murders her as well. Speck finally leaves the bloody scene,
but miraculously, one student nurse, Coorson Emoto, has survived in
the chaos. As he takes each victim into the next
room to kill them, she manages to slide under a
(04:27):
bed and quietly hide, terrified and silent. He'd apparently lost
count of how many girls were in the dorm. She
stays under the bed for seven hours after Speck leaves,
too terrified to move, But Cooron had witnessed the horrifying
attack and later provides police with a detailed description of Speck,
(04:48):
most notably a tattoo on his arm. The brutal crime
scene is discovered the next morning. The story spreads all
over the nation. The city is terrified, and cops mo
out a massive man hunt throughout Chicago. Two days later,
Spec attempts suicide and he's rushed to Cook County Hospital. There,
(05:09):
a young doctor in the er recognizes the tattoo that's
being talked about in the news. It reads born to
raise Hell. The police are called and they quickly arrest Speck.
His trial begins in April of nineteen sixty seven, and
it becomes one of the first major criminal trials heavily
covered by television. Spectators in court are horrified by SPEC's demeanor, cold, detached, unemotional,
(05:36):
with just an occasional outburst. The defense tries to plete insanity,
but it's clear Speck is aware of what's going on.
The prosecution, meantime, gives overwhelming evidence, including survivor Corrison's haunting testimony,
as well as fingerprint matches and that distinctive tattoo I
d After deliberating less than an hour, the jury come
(06:00):
back with a guilty verdict on April fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven,
Spec is sentenced to die in the electric chair, but
just a few years later, while his appeals are playing out,
the US Supreme Court vacates his sentence because anybody morally
opposed to execution had been excluded from the jury. He
(06:20):
then gets re sentenced to life in prison. His story
doesn't end there, though, he turns prison basically into a
frat house. He dies in jail in nineteen ninety one,
the day before his fiftieth birthday, but he apparently had
a raucous party going for the twenty five years he
spent locked up. Five years after his death, a video
(06:42):
shows up shot in nineteen eighty eight. It shows Richard
Speck bragging about his crimes, showing off drugs and money
in prison, and engaging in sex acts with fellow inmates.
At one point, he's laughing and says, if they only
knew how much fun I was having, they'd turn me loose.
Lots of questions followed, how is it possible for a
(07:04):
notorious inmate like Spec to get all that contraband and
enjoy all those privileges? What's going on in our prisons?
The public reaction was fierce, and the scandal led to
significant prison reforms. There's now higher standards for correction officers,
as well as stricter supervision and tougher enforcement of inmate
(07:25):
conduct rules. If you watch the sentencing in the Idaho
killer case this week, you saw the maximum security prison
where he'll likely spend the rest of his life. Once
in his cell, he'll spend twenty three hours a day there.
He'll only be let out under strict supervision, but depending
on his behavior and psychological needs, he could eventually be
(07:47):
placed in the general prison population, which, as experts will
tell you, presents a whole different set of problems for him.
Watching the family and friends impact statements this week in
Idaho also reminded me of the Speck case, since the
Idaho killer will never be allowed to apply for parole
thirty years after the Speck murders. One man whose sister
(08:10):
was one of the eight student nurses, said when Speck
died in jail, he felt an immense sense of relief.
He said he had spent those decades living in between
Richard Speck's seven parole hearings, reliving his sister's murder at
each one of those hearings. I hope you're enjoying the
Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and follow
(08:33):
or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
(08:57):
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Production. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
(09:19):
you didn't know you needed to know.
Okay, did you catch this week's sentencing of the Idaho
killer who murdered four university students. It kind of reminded
me of another random mass killing that took place in
Chicago almost sixty years ago. Richard Speck broke into a
dorm where eight nursing students lived. Over the course of
three hours during a summer night in July. He methodically
(00:22):
stabbed the young women to death, raped his final victim,
and then slipped away. I'm Patty Steele. However, as in
the Idaho case, the killer made a crucial mistake. That's
next on the backstory. The backstory is back. If you
watch the sentencing of the Idaho killer who murdered four
(00:44):
Idaho University students, you saw the emotional impact statements from
family and friends of the victims. But trying to understand
why the murderer did what he did is an impossible
task because there's nothing he could say that it allow
the vicious killings to make any sense at all. It's
happened before, and it was a case the change the
(01:06):
prison system, especially for the most notorious killers. Richard Speck
was born in nineteen forty one in Kirkwood, Illinois. He
was the seventh of eight kids in a really chaotic,
troubled household, and it got worse. His father, Ben died
suddenly when Richard was just six, and his mother remarried quickly.
Her new husband, Karl, was an abusive alcoholic, which brought
(01:30):
even more violence and instability into the family's world. With
so much turmoil and neglect at home, Richard had a
rough time in school. He dropped out at sixteen. He
started drinking at the age of twelve, and by the
time he was fifteen was drunk almost every day. He
got involved in petty theft, drug use, and there were
constant clashes with the cops. At twenty, he got a
(01:53):
fifteen year old girl pregnant after dating her for just
three weeks, and he wound up marrying her. He was
in jail for disturbing the peace after getting drunk in
public when his daughter was born. By his early twenties,
Speck had done time for theft, forgery, and all sorts
of violence, including threatening people with a knife, even stabbing
(02:13):
a couple of guys during bar fights. Now it's the
spring of nineteen sixty six and Speck is twenty four
years old. While robbing a house. The sixty one year
old homeowner arrives back in her house, he threatens her
with a knife and rapes her. The cops don't find him.
In a week later, after a night of drinking at
a bar called Frank's Place in Monmouth, Illinois, the bartender,
(02:37):
a thirty two year old woman, disappears. Her body is
found in a shed out back that Speck had helped build,
so cops decide to question him. He says he feels sick,
but he's going to come back for more questioning when
he feels better. Of course, that's when he skips town
and he heads for Chicago to stay with his sister.
(02:57):
At this point, his wife has left him and he
finds himself drifting. He's unemployed, angry, and really resentful. His
brother in law takes him to look for a job
at a place just a block away from the dormitories
where young nursing students live who are studying a nearby
South Chicago Community Hospital. Now it's July thirteenth, nineteen sixty six.
(03:22):
He spends the day drinking and then pulls a knife
on a fellow drinker. He takes her to his rooming house,
where he rapes her and then steals her twenty two
caliber pistol. It's a hot summer night, and Speck seems
to want a quieter, more personal mode of attack instead
of a gun, so armed with a knife and intense rage,
(03:43):
he breaks into the townhouse dormitory where the student nurses live.
What happens next shocks the entire nation. Over the course
of that horrifying night, Speck systematically ties up, gags, assaults,
and murders eight young nurses, stabbing or strangling them to death,
one at a time, sometimes waiting twenty or thirty minutes
(04:06):
between each murder. He rapes his final victim and then
murders her as well. Speck finally leaves the bloody scene,
but miraculously, one student nurse, Coorson Emoto, has survived in
the chaos. As he takes each victim into the next
room to kill them, she manages to slide under a
(04:27):
bed and quietly hide, terrified and silent. He'd apparently lost
count of how many girls were in the dorm. She
stays under the bed for seven hours after Speck leaves,
too terrified to move, But Cooron had witnessed the horrifying
attack and later provides police with a detailed description of Speck,
(04:48):
most notably a tattoo on his arm. The brutal crime
scene is discovered the next morning. The story spreads all
over the nation. The city is terrified, and cops mo
out a massive man hunt throughout Chicago. Two days later,
Spec attempts suicide and he's rushed to Cook County Hospital. There,
(05:09):
a young doctor in the er recognizes the tattoo that's
being talked about in the news. It reads born to
raise Hell. The police are called and they quickly arrest Speck.
His trial begins in April of nineteen sixty seven, and
it becomes one of the first major criminal trials heavily
covered by television. Spectators in court are horrified by SPEC's demeanor, cold, detached, unemotional,
(05:36):
with just an occasional outburst. The defense tries to plete insanity,
but it's clear Speck is aware of what's going on.
The prosecution, meantime, gives overwhelming evidence, including survivor Corrison's haunting testimony,
as well as fingerprint matches and that distinctive tattoo I
d After deliberating less than an hour, the jury come
(06:00):
back with a guilty verdict on April fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven,
Spec is sentenced to die in the electric chair, but
just a few years later, while his appeals are playing out,
the US Supreme Court vacates his sentence because anybody morally
opposed to execution had been excluded from the jury. He
(06:20):
then gets re sentenced to life in prison. His story
doesn't end there, though, he turns prison basically into a
frat house. He dies in jail in nineteen ninety one,
the day before his fiftieth birthday, but he apparently had
a raucous party going for the twenty five years he
spent locked up. Five years after his death, a video
(06:42):
shows up shot in nineteen eighty eight. It shows Richard
Speck bragging about his crimes, showing off drugs and money
in prison, and engaging in sex acts with fellow inmates.
At one point, he's laughing and says, if they only
knew how much fun I was having, they'd turn me loose.
Lots of questions followed, how is it possible for a
(07:04):
notorious inmate like Spec to get all that contraband and
enjoy all those privileges? What's going on in our prisons?
The public reaction was fierce, and the scandal led to
significant prison reforms. There's now higher standards for correction officers,
as well as stricter supervision and tougher enforcement of inmate
(07:25):
conduct rules. If you watch the sentencing in the Idaho
killer case this week, you saw the maximum security prison
where he'll likely spend the rest of his life. Once
in his cell, he'll spend twenty three hours a day there.
He'll only be let out under strict supervision, but depending
on his behavior and psychological needs, he could eventually be
(07:47):
placed in the general prison population, which, as experts will
tell you, presents a whole different set of problems for him.
Watching the family and friends impact statements this week in
Idaho also reminded me of the Speck case, since the
Idaho killer will never be allowed to apply for parole
thirty years after the Speck murders. One man whose sister
(08:10):
was one of the eight student nurses, said when Speck
died in jail, he felt an immense sense of relief.
He said he had spent those decades living in between
Richard Speck's seven parole hearings, reliving his sister's murder at
each one of those hearings. I hope you're enjoying the
Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and follow
(08:33):
or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
(08:57):
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Production. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
(09:19):
you didn't know you needed to know.
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