Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. And did he have any particular feelings about the American people? There was a man with a gun in the house. On this day, Amurao personally identified Speck as the killer. A camera caught the moment: a pretty girl in a plaid dress with a Peter Pan collar, reaching, with white gloves, for the document her sister had worked so hard to earn. The last time John Farris saw Suzie, 21, he had just come home from a track meet, carrying his victory medals, and she was visiting with her boyfriend, Phil. I screamed for about 20 minutes. "What wonderful people they were.". "Awful, awful. He instantly recognized his mother's cursive handwriting. After it was aired on TV, Wilkening obtained a copy of the video. "The mailman would bring them in boxes," he said. And it turned out that it reopened her life.". I was high on heroin that night. Pat was 20 on the hot evening of Wednesday, July 13, 1966, when Arlene Kubasek dropped her off at the townhouse, well before curfew, which was 10:30 p.m. except for the two nights a week the women were allowed to stay out until 12:30 a.m. Do you want to come in for coffee? Theyre smiling and wearing regular clothes. Between their second-floor apartments stretched a low, flat roof, and Pat and Arlene often ran across it to tap on each other's windows, looking for a playmate. Tina, as her family called her, had graduated the year before among the top 10 nursing students in her class at Manila Central University. Seeing them together, it's hard not to wonder what Pat would be like at their age. Who Is Richard Speck? Would she still love water ballet? I`d never shot heroin before. I asked him if he wasn`t afraid of getting in trouble for talking about the contraband he kept in his cell. One of eight young nurses killed in a Chicago townhouse on July 14, 1966, by a man who became notorious: Richard Speck. For the past few years, Schmale, a friendly, white-haired man of 78, has searched for a way to honor exactly those aspects of his sister and her friends, a way that would emphasize not how they died but how they lived, that would focus on them more than on their killer. And Carol Burnett. Billy loved her tremendously.". In the family's two-bedroom Cape Cod home, Suzie and her older sister, Marilyn, shared a bedroom. One summer night in 1966, when her father, who worked for a steel company, was in Pittsburgh on business, Lori and her two younger sisters crowded into their parents' bed. He pushed up his left sleeve to reveal ugly scars on his arm. But she came with a coveted distinction: She had a car, and not just any car, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible in pale yellow "Colonial Cream," a gift from her father, who could barely afford it and who himself drove a run-down pickup truck. ''Here,'' he said. He was arrested and stood trial for murdering the eight nurses. Richard Speck has been described as a drifter, a loner, a high school dropout, a sociopath, a heavy drinker, a violent man who could be charming. Pat was born in 1945, the year World War II ended, to Joe and Bessie Matusek, both of Czech descent. She liked clothes, and since the family didn't have a lot of money, she made her own. In recent months, John Schmale has tried, with no luck, to find friends and relatives of Tina and Merlita, hoping to connect with them for the 50th anniversary commemoration. Speck is in jail for murdering and raping a group of women. Books, documentaries, countless news stories, a 2007 film called "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" were dedicated to the so-called crime of the century. After that day, Arline Davy was different. Meanwhile, the women he murdered were relegated to the role of victims, their names largely forgotten except by the people who loved them and cannot forget. She wrote her daughter's name, Nina, on a piece of pink paper. In 1965 she became president of the Student Nurses Association of Illinois. What made headlines about the interview was Speck`s confession, after years of proclaiming his innocence, that he had, indeed, done the murders: ''Yeah, I killed them. In the spring of 1966, she stepped into an airplane bound for Chicago. Speck died of a heart attack after 25 years in prison. "This is the man," she said as pandemonium erupted. A photo shows four of the eight slain student nurses at South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. ''You`re talking about two different categories of people,'' Speck said. Speck's death came as a relief to Wilkening and to the families of the other women he killed. She married Alberto Atienza, and then, with her husband, a lawyer, moved back to the United States. Gloria's brother and three of her sisters are still alive. For her to discuss an event she calls "still unbelievable" is an act of faith, one she commits only because she'd like the world to pause and think about Mary Ann and her friends. She played baseball in the alley, badminton across the back fences. Who are the victims of the mass murderer? He killed more than eight people., Lori Davy Sivek remembers her sister Gloria Davy, one of eight student nurses and nurses murdered together 50years ago on Chicago'sSouth Side. Before then, he had been responsible for other acts of violence against his family and others but had a knack for escaping the police. A lanky man in dark clothes, with slicked-back hair and marks on his face, was standing there with a small black revolver in his right hand. Atienza visits the Philippines every three years to see relatives. I watched `Magnum Force` the other night. It was around dawn when she made her way to an upstairs window. Fortunately, Amurao remembered the distinctive "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo that, along with the image, enabled police to identify their suspect as Richard Speck. Marriage was prohibited for student nurses. It may be difficult for those who weren't alive half a century ago to understand how profoundly Speck's crime shook the city, how far the ripples ran through time and space. Billy died at 42, with Susan as his caretaker. The two Arlenes still laugh easily when they think of Pat, but the memory of her death brings them quickly to tears. Atienza was the states key witness when Martin prosecuted Speck in the 1967 trial. Their lives are what John Schmale wants the world to see, and he can't help but believe that's what his mother wanted too. Indiana authorities wanted to interview Speck regarding the murder of three girls who had vanished on July 2, 1966, and whose bodies were never found. The townhouse Gloria shared with the other student nurses was often a mess, so she sometimes paid her little sister a dollar or two to clean. From left are Mary Ann Jordan, Judith Dykton, in cap, Suzanne Farris, Nina Jo Schmale, an unidentified woman and Pamela Wilkening, seated. He has never discussed it with them in depth or with his sister Marilyn, who has moved away from Chicago. Amurao, she believes, saved her life. According to a news account at the time, she thought it was a safer place to raise a family. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. They shoved their beds edge to edge in a single room and lay there at night listening to the newly hired security guard's shoes click along the hallway tiles. One of them, Corazon Amurao, steered him to the front door. Him and Eastwood and Bronson. As you all know, in 1988 Richard Speck and Ronzelle Larimore made a video in prison that is half talkshow, half pornography. I`m not a violent man.''. Kubasek hurried to her car and drove to the townhouse. Speck is played by Jack Erdie on "Mindhunter." Netflix/AP Speck is one of the later interviewees in "Mindhunter." He was a high-school dropout and alcoholic by age 15. She also had a hard time believing he actually died of a heart attack in prison in 1991 and wonders why she was spared. Years later, when Nina moved into the townhouse where she died, she installed an old "Schmale Rd" street sign in her bedroom. Richard Benjamin Speck[1][2] (December 6, 1941 - December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight stude. It's a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible painted in Colonial Cream. Today the townhouses on East 100th Street are still standing and occupied, but no longer by student nurses. Mary Ann Jordanin her nursing uniform in an undated photo. Speck laughed. She'd bring him water, fluff his pillow, hold his hand, tell him that she loved him. It was all right. Girls, we need to clean the house.". Richard Speck | The Chicago Nurse Killer 10,333 views Apr 17, 2020 61 Dislike Share Real Ghost Stories Online 67.8K subscribers In 1966 residents of south Chicago were traumatized by a deviant. Too tired. But she still can't stand the smell of roses. After the death of his father when Speck was six, his mother remarried, moving the family to Dallas, Texas. It took Nina a while to choose nurse. In this interview, Speck confessed to the murders for the first time publicly and said he thought he would get out of prison "between now and the year 2000", at which time he hoped to run his own grocery store business. After the trial, she went home to the Philippines, got a job as a nurse and was elected to the town council in her hometown of San Luis. Took a nap. She walked off the stage, shoulders back, carrying a diploma dated July 14, 1966. On the night of the crime, 24-year-old Speck snuck into a townhouse in Chicago where the nurses lived. Nurse. The Farris family lived in a quiet, tree-lined Far South Side neighborhood called Fair Elms. She loved swimming, ice skating and softball. '', He said that if he were ever paroled, and someone annoyed him, ''I`ll be back in prison. She appreciates every day of life and wants to be happy all the time, because life is not long, Martin said she told him recently. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. (Schmale family ). He managed to deflect police questioning and escape once again, but police discovered some of Harris' personal effects in his vacant hotel room that conclusively tied him to her attack. The particulars could have come from a college fraternity boy. Only one of her siblings, a brother, is still alive. Grace Jordan wasn't the only family member to stir Mary Ann's interest in nursing. What would Nina, who died at 24, look like today, at 74? Fifty years later, Pat Matusek's two best childhood friends are the primary custodians of her past. It was the early 1960s, before the flowering of the women's liberation movement, an era when it wasn't assumed that women would leave the house to work, and those who did had few choices. He'll never forget the cards and letters that flooded in from strangers all over the world. Subsequent nationwide enquiries also raised the other incidents in which Speck was suspected, as well as his criminal record. Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. ''A lot of them women are pretty,'' Speck said. "It was him," she said. In the basement's dim overhead light, a big, brown cardboard box caught his eye, a box so soggy its bottom was ready to fall out. Lori Davy, center, accepts a nursing school diploma on behalf of her slain sister, Gloria Davy, at a ceremony at McCormick Place in 1966. Washed clothes in the bathroom sink, hung them to dry in the basement. When he agreed to talk about his sister, he asked to meet at the Lansing Public Library, which used to be the Indiana Avenue School where he and Pam attended first through fifth grades. She climbed out on a window ledge and screamed for help, at which point concerned neighbors summoned the police. Now, with the 50th anniversary of the massacre by Speck approaching, we are recuing our report on the compelling interview with the sole survivor of this grisly attack. Speck, however, seemed to have a knack for making a quick escape and keeping police forces guessing. No answer. I was gonna get that tattoo removed. When Speck realizes he's being played, he. "She walked within two inches of his forehead and pointed . With whom? "A lot of people will be here shortly. She worked part time at a bakery. ''I know it keeps up their morale. But whatever the veracity of his account of that murderous night (''It was just one of them weird coincidences. Here are five things to know about Richard Speck. Inside sat four square, off-white boxes labeled "Kodak," and on top of them lay a sheet of thin pink paper. The following stories, accompanied by Schmale's photos and a few others, are a glimpse of who they were and how their deaths have marked the people who remain to remember them. During this period he had the words "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his arm, a sentiment that wife Shirley had experienced firsthand: She filed for divorce in January 1966. A. I screamed there for about five minutes and nothing. It hurt to see Nina in her yellow swimsuit he thought back to the Life magazine photo after the murders that showed it hanging on a rod in her bedroom but it also made him glad, glad to be reminded of who his sister was before death defined her. His leisure tastes? A funeral parlor jammed with mourners. Cook County Assistant States Attorney William Martin, left, watches as witness Corazon Amurao uses a scale model of the townhouse crime scene to detail the murder of eight nurses by Richard Speck, center background, during Specks 1966 trial in Peoria, Ill. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. Her father, Charles, was a former Marine who expected as much from his five daughters as he did from his son. Her brother, John Farris, still carries the photo and prayer card in his wallet 50 years later. Jack Wilkening is 79 now, retired from his job as a Standard Oil cashier. I don`t want nothing to do with them women.''. According to news accounts published at the time, Merlita, 23, was quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. ", "But work is easier than in the Philippine Islands," she continued, "only the patients are as big as water buffalo.". Shes in her nurses uniform, gazing down. ''A lot of them send pictures,'' Speck told me. By the time they were in their third year, they had helped deliver babies, treated sick children, watched people die. Politicians delivering food to the wake. But to this day Atienza suffers nightmares that Speck will come back and kill her. Her dad was on the line. `Parents ought to be careful about their kids,'' Richard Speck said. It sure gets way out. (Chris J. Walker / Chicago Tribune). On what occasion? When he recalls the terrible summer of 1966, much of what he remembers is conspicuously small. Its a typical 1950s school photograph, small, black-and-white, cropped with pinking shears, showing Suzie at about 10, wearing what looks like her Brownie uniform. Through the end of spring and on into summer, Tina and her Filipina friends were sometimes spotted walking to a nearby shopping center, and they took occasional field trips, but they spent a lot of their nonworking time in the townhouse, frequently writing letters home. Come spend the night, Suzie suggested. She worked at the hospital from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Like the other Filipina nurses, she sent money home. Holden's methods during a disturbing interview with mass murderer Richard Speck create dissension among the team and kick off an internal FBI probe. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. (Schmale family ). Many people are unaware of the case, which was the first random mass murder of the 20th century. Pat and Arlene Kubasek could hardly stop laughing on the night, during their high school sophomore year, that they went to the drive-in with four other girls, then sat in the car eating popcorn and rolling their hair on giant curlers. "Always very playful and very compassionate. No immediate relatives were there. Lori tries to live by her mother's words. She also wrote about Chicago's weather, which she described in one letter as "really terrible. Corazon Amurao Atienza has moved on with her life and wants to be happy every day.
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