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Richard Speck Speaks: The Secret Confessions Of A Killer · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a completely closed, horrifying chapter of history. A case
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: that was solved, shut, and put away decades ago. Right.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Something the public assumes is just over and done with.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But then suddenly it reopens. And not in a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: traditional courtroom, you know, with a judge and a jury.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It reopens on a smuggled, grainy VHS tape.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a piece of physical media that just changes everything.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes the most chilling truths, they don't come out
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: during the trial. They emerge long, long after the verdict.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: So today, you and I are going on a deep dive.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: And this is a heavy one.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It really is. We are unpacking a monumental 1996 investigative
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: report series from CBS Chicago, spearheaded by the journalist Bill Curtis.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: We are looking at Richard Speck.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Right, the perpetrator of one of the most notorious crimes
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: in Chicago's history.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, July 1966. But the mission of this deep dive
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: isn't just to recount that awful night. We're examining that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: shocking 1988 prison video of him that surfaced years after
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: his death.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Because what's fascinating here is that this isn't just a
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: true crime story. It really isn't.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: No, it's so much bigger than that.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: It is a profound exposure of systemic failure. We are
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: looking at criminal psychology at its absolute worst and honestly,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: the agonizing endurance of victims' families.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Right. OK, let's unpack this. We have to start by
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: establishing the foundational events of July 1966. Because before we
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: can even begin to analyze that videotape, you really need
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to understand the sheer scale of the horror that Speck
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: was casually discussing on it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to know the baseline reality of what
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So we're on the southeast side of Chicago. It's July 13th,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: moving into the early morning of July 14th.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Right. And the setting here is so important. This is
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: 2319 East 100th Street.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It's just a regular townhouse.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Just a completely nondescript townhouse. Yeah. But it was
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: functioning as a dormitory for nine student nurses.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Nine young women in their early 20s. Yeah.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: And they were so close to the finish line. They
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: were just one single month away from graduating from their
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: nursing program.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Which is just heartbreaking. I mean, they dedicated their lives
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to health care, to saving people, and into this totally
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: normal domestic spacewalks. A guy who, at the time, was
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: basically a nobody.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Right. He was categorized as a third-rate burglar. A petty thief.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He wasn't some criminal mastermind. He literally gained entry by
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: just prying open a screen to unlash the back door.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: He was just looking for an easy score.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: But that's where the escalation happens. And it happens so fast.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It goes from a petty burglary to a historic massacre
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: in minutes.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And a big part of that escalation comes down to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: his physiological state, right? I mean, he was totally chemically altered.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Heavily altered. Speck later claimed he was incredibly high. He
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: was on drugs and acid. But the actual cocktail he
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: consumed is staggering.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that cocktail. Because he drank a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: full quart of whiskey. A whole quart. Plus he took
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: eight what they called redbirds, which are barbiturates. And then
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: on top of all that depressant, he took a shot
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of speed.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Right, amphetamines.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: And pharmacologically, when you mix massive amounts of central nervous
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: system depressants with a hard stimulant, you get a terrifying result.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It just completely fries your impulse control, doesn't it?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It creates this state of hyper-aroused dissociation. His risk
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: assessment mechanisms were totally severed, but his nervous system was
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: flooded with frantic energy.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Which is basically a recipe for total volatility. And that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: volatility completely explodes when he encounters the nurses.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he manages to gather some of them and bind them.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: But one of the nurses, likely 22-year-old Pam Wilkening, she
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: pushes back.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: She actually spat in his face, didn't she?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: She did. And she told him straight out that she
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: would pick him out of a police lineup.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Wow. I mean, that is just incredible bravery. She is
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: trying to assert authority in her own home.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: She is. But because of his chemically severed impulse control,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: he doesn't run away. Most burglars would flee. Speck's reaction
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: is immediate lethal violence.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Right. He stabs her directly in the heart.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: And that single act changes everything. He crosses the line
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: from thief to murderer.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But then the situation gets even more chaotic because two
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: other nurses arrive home right at that moment.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Mary Ann Jordan and Suzanne Ferris. They were both 22.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: They had been out on a late date.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: They walk through their own front door, having no idea
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: what's happening inside.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And they stumble right into this nightmare. A desperate struggle ensues.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: And Speck's mechanical violence here is just horrific. He stabs
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Ferris 18 times.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: God, 18 times.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: And Jordan, five times.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So now he's standing there, and there are three victims.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: And his altered brain makes this incredibly cold calculation. Right.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: He realizes there are still six women bound in the
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: other room. Six witnesses who have seen his face.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: And he decides he has to, quote, kill off all
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the witnesses.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: It becomes a literal procession of death at that point.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: It does. And he methodically takes them out of the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: room one by one. Gloria Davey, Nina Shmail, Valentina Pashin,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Merlita Gargulo, and Patricia Ann Matusik.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: He isolates them to eliminate them. It takes hours.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to 23-year-old Corazon Amaro. I am just,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I am constantly marveling at her survival.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It's an absolute test of human endurance.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: It really is. I mean, think about it. She manages
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to roll under a bunk bed while he's distracted and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: she is bound hand and foot.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Just lying there in the dark.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: For three hours. I always compare it to the ultimate
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: test of psychological endurance. It's a waking nightmare where absolute
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: total silence means the difference between life and death.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: You have to suppress every single autonomic reflex. You can't cough.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: You can't breathe too loudly. You can't even shake from
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: the adrenaline.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Because one creak of the floorboards and he finds you.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: How does a petty thief emotionally and physically escalate to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: annihilating eight people in one night like that?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Well, the timeline is key. He's operating in this sustained frenzy.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: But around 3.30 in the morning, he does one final
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: sweep of the room.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Right, before he leaves.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He looks around, but in his exhausted, drug-addled state,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: he fails to look completely under Amaro's specific bunk bed.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: And then he just walks out into the night.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And then the sun comes up and the police arrive.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And the scene they discover is just beyond words. The
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: reporting notes that the blood had already congealed in the
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: morning heat.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Which is such a visceral, awful detail. And when the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: news broke, it permanently changed Chicago, didn't it?
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The immediate terror that gripped the city was unprecedented.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: People who had never, ever locked their doors suddenly felt
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: this overwhelming need to install deadbolts.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: It shattered their sense of safety. Okay, but to understand
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: why we're talking about this today, we have to transition
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: from the historical record of 1966 to 1988.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Right, moving from the crime to Speck's own reflections 22
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: years later.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Because here's where it gets really interesting. This tape was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: made secretly inside Stateville Prison in 1988.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Smuggled out and eventually handed to Bill Curtis by an
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: attorney in May of 1996.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And the contrast is just jarring. At his original trial,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Speck's whole defense was that he had total amnesia. He
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: claimed he didn't remember a single thing about the murders.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: A total blackout, yeah.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: But on this VHS tape, he is really remorselessly admitting
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to everything.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: He's so casual about it. There's this chilling segment where
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: an off-camera inmate is interviewing him.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the inmate asks what you locked up for.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: And Speck says, eight counts of murder. The inmate asks,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: did you kill them?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And he just smiles and says, sure I did.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: But it's the next part that really exposes his complete
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: lack of empathy. The inmate asks him why he did it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And Speck says, it just wasn't their night.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It just wasn't their night. I mean, I ask people
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: to really consider the profound void in a person's soul
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: to refer to the slaughter of eight women like it
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: was just bad luck, like a coin flip.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying. And he goes on to explain his methods
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: with this awful pragmatism. He actually tells the guy on
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: tape that he brought a gun to the townhouse.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Right, but he didn't use it to kill them.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: No, he says, and this is a quote, Guns make
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: too much noise. I was in no shape to run.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: The knife was quiet.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: He used the gun for control and the knife for
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the actual execution. Very grim science to him.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: He even schools the other inmates on strangulation.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he corrects them about how it actually works.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Right, because the inmate thinks it's like on TV, where
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: it takes about three seconds.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And Speck tells him, no, it takes three and a
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: half minutes. And it requires immense sustained strength.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Which means you have to hold on while someone fights
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: for their life for over three minutes. You have to really,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: really want them dead. But I have to push back
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: on this whole tape thing for a second.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Why would a man who spent his entire trial clinging
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to this amnesia defense suddenly just confess on camera?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Was it just pure ego or was he just bored?
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Or did he feel so invincible inside that prison that
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: he knew nothing could touch him?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Well, if you look at other infamous killers mentioned in
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the source, guys like John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: They very rarely opened up so casually about the physical
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: mechanics of their crimes in a social setting like that.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: No, they usually try to spin it or justify it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But Speck felt a total sense of impunity. The
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: prison environment gave him no reason to hide anymore.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Which logically leads us to the psychology of Richard Speck.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Why did his rage matter so specifically and so brutally
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: against these women?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: To answer that, we have to look at Dr. Marvin Zipperin.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: He was the chief psychiatrist at the Cook County Jail
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: in 1966, right?
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: He was. And he spent hundreds of hours with Speck
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: doing deep psychiatric evaluations.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And he came up with a very specific diagnosis.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. Zeoporin diagnosed Speck with a severe... Madonna prostitute complex.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's break that down for the listener. Basically, Speck
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: divided all women in the world into two extreme categories.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: True binaries, yeah.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Right. They were either pure Madonnas, like his mother and
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: his sisters, who he revered. or they were prostitutes, who
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: he believed deserved to be destroyed.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: And to show you how deep that Madonna attachment went,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Speck admitted on the tape that the only time he
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: ever cried in prison was when he found out his
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: mother died.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: That was the only emotional response he was capable of.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: But how did that complex trigger the violence that night?
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It all centered on one specific victim, Gloria Davey.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Right. Dr. Ziporin noted something wild during his interviews. When
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: he showed Speck a picture of Gloria Davey, Speck literally jumped.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Ziporin said it was as if I put a rattlesnake
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: in his hand.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Because Gloria Davey was a dead ringer for Speck's ex-wife.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And he absolutely hated his ex-wife.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: The psychological projection there is undeniable. And when you connect
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: that to the crime scene evidence... It all aligns perfectly.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: It really does. Because Davy was the only victim who
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: was sexually assaulted.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: She was the last one to be killed.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And the violence used against her was distinctly different. Detective
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Jack Walenda noted she was strangled so tightly with a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: bed sheet that he could barely get his tool underneath
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it to cut it off.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: He exerted maximum physical force on her.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And even on the tape. 22 years later, he is
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: still projecting that hatred onto her. He claims she was
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: flirting with him.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Which is just a grotesque rationalization.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Total rationalization. He says, she didn't have nothing I wanted
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: and I killed her. It's like his underlying rage was
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: this highly combustible leak in a sealed room.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: The alcohol and drugs were the spark, right? But his
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: deep seated hatred for his ex-wife, which he projected completely
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: onto Gloria Davey, that was the explosive fuel.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: And if we connect this to the bigger picture of
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: criminal psychology... It shows how experts attempt to categorize this
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: kind of irrational hate.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Because Speck claimed he had, quote, no feeling and no sorrow.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Which completely aligns with Zipurin's early profiling. He was a
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: moral void.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: He really was. I mean, look at his God complex
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: on the tape. He literally declares, I'm God. And then
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: a second later, I'm the devil.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: He claims he wants to live forever, but then immediately
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: follows up with total nihilism.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he says, if I die, I don't give a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: damn if they throw me in the gutter.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate paradox of a narcissist who places zero
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: value on human life, including his own.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So knowing the monster that he was, we have
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: to step back to 1966 and see how the justice
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: system actually caught him.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Right. Pivoting from the darkness of his mind to the
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: bright light of actual police work.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Because the manhunt is fascinating. And it all starts with
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Corazon Amuro.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Despite enduring hours of absolute unimaginable terror. She managed to
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: provide a stunningly accurate description for the police composite sketch.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Which was their only real lead in the beginning. And
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: then you have Detective Eddie Vilasinski.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Right. He's out there pounding the pavement, questioning people.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: He talks to a gas station attendant named Dennis Ryan.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: And Ryan gives him a crucial piece of info. He
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: says a guy matching the sketch was in earlier and
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: mentioned he was a seaman.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: That tiny detail points them directly to the Calumet Harbor
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: hiring hall for seaman.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Where they catch a massive lucky broke.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. A steward recognizes the sketch. And while they're
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: looking around, they find a discarded assignment slip in a wastebasket.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And it literally has the name Richard Franklin Speck on it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I have to ask you, though, when you look at this,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: how much of this was brilliant detective work? And how
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: much was just Speck handing himself over? I mean, he
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: left a literal name tag in the trash.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a mix. In that era, before digital tracking,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: you relied entirely on community cooperation and physical legwork.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: But Speck's own self-destructive tendencies definitely accelerated things.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Because he flees, right. He sleeps at the shipyard inn,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and then he bolts to the Madison Street skid row.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: He checks into the Star Hotel under an alias. And
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Detective Valenda described this place as being worse than a pigsty.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It was absolute squalor. He's hiding out in this horrific flophouse,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: but the walls are closing in fast.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: The police matched his fingerprints from the townhouse door.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And then Police Commissioner O.W. Wilson... broadcasts a global alert.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Prosecutor Bill Martin later noted a great quote about this moment.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: He said Speck had nothing to run from but his life.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Which leads to his capture because Speck reads about himself
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in the newspaper, sitting in that filthy hotel room, and
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: he decides to slash his own wrists.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: He tries to take himself out, but he ends up
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: at Cook County Hospital.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: And this is where serendipity just takes over. Dr. Leroy
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Smith is treating him. Right. And Dr. Smith identifies him
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: because of a very specific tattoo.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Born to raise hell.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And Speck was actually born on December 6, 1941,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the day before Pearl Harbor. He used to brag that
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: all hell broke loose.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: The next day. So Dr. Smith sees this tattoo, remembers
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the newspaper article he literally just read, and makes the identification.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. The justice system worked almost perfectly to catch him.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: It did. The police work was textbook.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: But as that 1996 CBS broadcast revealed, the penal system
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: failed spectacularly at punishing him.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Spectacularly. The visual reality of that tape is shocking.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: We're talking about a maximum security prison. And Speck is
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: sitting there with dyed blonde hair.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: He's wearing women's silk underwear.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And his body appears chemically or hormonally altered to look female.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: How does a mass murderer get access to cosmetic hair dye, lingerie,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and hormone therapy inside Stateville?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: It points to a catastrophic collapse of institutional control.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just cosmetic. The atmosphere on that tape
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: is a literal party.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: They are performing sex acts on camera.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: They are snorting what the source described as a mountain
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of cocaine.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Rolling marijuana, drinking booze.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: And Speck is sitting there counting a massive roll of
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: $ 100 bills. He looks at the camera and says, if
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: they only knew how much fun I was having, they
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: would turn me loose.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: It's just sickening. So.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: What does this all mean? I mean, it's like locking
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a fox in a hen house, leaving for 20 years
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and coming back to find the foxes, running the farm,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: wearing a suit. How does a maximum security prison become
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a private resort?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: To understand that, the report talks to Martin Shifflett.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: He was a guard there, right?
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. And he explained how Speck manipulated the system. Speck
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: moved from strict segregation into the general population.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And he got jobs.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Right. He became the prison painter. And then worked in
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: sewer maintenance.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Which gave him free reign to wander around the facility.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He used that mobility to make and sell penitentiary brew.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: But prison wine is one thing. Mountains of cocaine and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: cash is another. That requires systemic rot.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: In Stateville, which, by the way, was set to close
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: in September 2024, was rotting from the inside. It was
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: massively overcrowded.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: They had two inmates in cells built for one.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And the guard-to-inmate ratio was insane. One guard for every
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: 20 inmates.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: You can't control a population with those numbers. But how
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: did the contraband get in?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Michael J. Mahoney for the John Howard Association explained it clearly.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: The contraband wasn't being thrown over the walls. No.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: It was walking through the front door. It came in
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: through the staff.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Which is terrifying.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: The state was hiring guards who were former gang members. Yeah.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Or guards were just being co-opted for money or violently
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: intimidated by the gangs inside.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So the inmates were literally paying or threatening the guards
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to act as delivery boys.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question, though, about the ultimate purpose
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: of the prison system.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Because the breakdown of control at Stateville didn't just allow
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: for contraband. It actively mocked the very concept of justice.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: It did. And when Bill Curtis aired this tape in 1996...
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: The political fallout was massive.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: It sparked immediate hearings by the Illinois House of Representatives
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Judicial Criminal Committee.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: They had to answer for how a mass murderer was
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: living like a king on the taxpayer's dime. But you
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: know who the ultimate victims of this failure were?
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: The families.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, the families of those eight slain nurses. They had
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to sit there and watch this play out on the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: evening news.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: It's just endless, endless trauma for them.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what they went through, starting from day one.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: John Schmale, who lost his sister Nina, he talked about
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: having to identify her body.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: He described the county morgue as a zoo.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, full of press and chaos. And then you get
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to the trial in April 1967.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Which was swift, at least. Corazon Amuro was the star witness.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: She stepped right down from the stand, walked inches from
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Speck's face, and pointed right at him. This is the man.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: The jury convicted him in just 45 minutes.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And the judge, Herbert Poshin, sentenced him to the electric chair,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: which should have been the end of it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It should have been. But then you have the sentencing loophole.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Right. Defense attorney Gerald Getty was always maneuvering. And Speck
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: actually claimed on the tape that his suicide attempt in
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the hotel was just propaganda stuff orchestrated by Getty for sympathy.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Which didn't work on the judge.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: No.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: But in 1972, everything changed.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court ruled on the death penalty.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And because of that ruling, Speck escaped execution. His sentence
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: was administratively commuted to life in prison. And here is
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: where I really have to challenge the legal structure of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: that era, because that commuted sentence automatically granted him parole eligibility.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Which is a catastrophic unintended consequence.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: How could the justice system be so blind to the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: psychological toll that would take on the victim's families? You're
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: telling them that the man who slaughtered their daughters might
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: legally be allowed to walk free.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: It's a massive blind spot in mid-20th century legal reform.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: The tension between constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: which led to the commutations, and the agony of the families.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just one hearing. Beginning in September 1976,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Speck had seven parole hearings.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Seven times the family said, to go through that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: John Schmal talked about how angry he was at the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: state for even considering parole. The state forced these traumatized
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: families to travel to Joliet, endure security shakedowns, and beg
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a board to keep a monster in a cage.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And over the decades, fewer and fewer family members attended.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Because the parents of the victims literally aged and passed
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: away while still fighting this bureaucratic nightmare.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: The hearings only stopped when Speck finally died.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: December 5, 1991, he had a heart attack.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And ironically, medical crews worked for four hours trying to
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: save his life.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: But he died. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And for John Schmal... That provided a very specific kind
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: of closure.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Right. He said it wasn't happiness. It was just the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: finality that there would be no more hearings. The sheer
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: relief that the state couldn't force them to look at
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: his face anymore.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: So as we wrap up this deep dive, the arc
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of this story is just incredible.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: It really is. You start with a horrifying, unthinkable crime.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Then you have this textbook, highly efficient police manhunt.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Followed by a very swift conviction.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: But then it all unravels into a total collapse of
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: penal integrity and an agonizing decades-long aftermath for the families.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: The 1996 broadcast didn't just expose Richard Speck. No. It
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: indicted the entire state-filled prison system. It ensured that Speck's
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: final legacy was actually exposing the institutional rot that allowed
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: him to thrive.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And that leaves us with a really provocative final thought
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: for you, the listener, to ponder.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Because we often think of video evidence, like a leaked tape,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: As a tool for justice and truth.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Usually, yeah. We want the truth out there.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: But in the case of Richard Speck's jailhouse tape, you
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: have to ask yourself, did seeing the absolute unfiltered truth
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: of his unpunished hedonistic final years actually serve the public interest?
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Did it fix the system?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Or, by broadcasting it to the world, did it merely
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: give a narcissistic killer the immortal horrifying final word he
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: always wanted?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Did we just broadcast his victory lap? It's a dark question,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: but it's one you have to ask when the system
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: fails this profoundly. Thank you so much for joining us
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: on this deep dive.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Keep questioning the narratives around history and keep demanding that
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: justice actually means something. We'll catch you next time.