Further Reading for Richard Speck & Martin Bryant

The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation

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It’s unfortunate that the world remembers Richard Speck at all. He was an insignificant man that was dealt a shit hand in life and managed to play it in the worst way possible. Born to a reasonably stable family, Richard’s father, to whom he was very close, died when he was only six years old and his mother remarried a few years later to the absolute worst dude imaginable. Richard’s stepfather was not only a petty crook, and a drunk, but he was also abusive as all get-out and this series of unfortunate events put Richard on a path that would lead to eight dead nursing students, with a string of unsolved murders in between.

In July of 1966, Speck was living in Chicago. Armed with a knife, he entered a dormitory serving as housing for a bunch of nursing students. He gathered eight women into a single room and across several hours, singled each one out, tortured, raped and murdered each, either by stabbing or strangulation. Unbeknownst to Speck, one of his would-be victims managed to give him the slip by hiding under a bed. Two days later, Speck was arrested. His fingerprints were found at the scene and the only living witness provided a description to a police sketch artist, noting the tattoo on his arm which read, “Born To Raise Hell”. Many people around his neighborhood identified him and turned him over to police.

Speck was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murders but the sentence was later commuted to life. Speck would die in prison from a heart attack. In the mid 1980’s, videos surfaced of interviews in prison with Speck, whose attitude about prison life was pretty great. He was having a blast, using drugs, being passed around for sex, and having grown breasts from hormone injections. The dude seemed to be having a party.

Episode: 34

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