A Tribune freelancer in the Philippines had no success either, and reported that the Philippine Nurses Association in Manila had no contact information for their families. In one photo that captures her impish side, she's tucked in bed with a housemate, the covers pulled to her chin, her hair in a shower cap. After she married and had three children, she told her kids that Aunt Gloria had died in a car crash. 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. "When Merlita (Gargullo) cooked adobo filipino and pancit and they came home from the hospital and smelled the food and they say 'it's good' so we invited them to join us to eat, and they really like it. During the summers she accompanied Billy to nearby Rainbow Beach, splashed with him in the water, hugged him a lot, made him laugh, a boisterous laugh he copied from her. Subsequent nationwide enquiries also raised the other incidents in which Speck was suspected, as well as his criminal record. 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. (R.K. Davidson). Lori Davy Sivek remembers her sister Gloria Davy, one of eight student nurses and nurses murdered together 50years ago on Chicago'sSouth Side. He unearthed his ancient 35 mm slide projector, marveled that the bulb still worked and began projecting images on a wall. And Carol Burnett. A few days later, 8,000 miles from their native land, Merlita Gargullo and Valentina Pasion were memorialized at a Mass led by Archbishop John Cody. He told me that he drank moonshine and took barbiturates in his prison cell. Its why he wants a 50th anniversary commemoration that reclaims all the womens names, all their lives. She teaches her students about them and what they meant in both countries. The student nurses' white and pale-gray uniforms had to be strictly starched, their crisp white caps perfectly placed a tough trick on bouffant hair. She rang the bell. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. What would Nina, who died at 24, look like today, at 74? 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. In 1996, five years after he died, a video surfaced of Speck in prison, doing drugs and engaging in lewd acts with other prisoners. (Schmale family ). It was the kind of childhood that half a century later people look back on and call simpler, innocent, a time when city kids were raised to be independent and unafraid. Merlita grew up on the island of Mindoro where bananas, rice and coconut grow. "Always very playful and very compassionate. Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. On the night of the crime, 24-year-old Speck snuck into a townhouse in Chicago where the nurses lived. Before long, she, Merlita and Cora were huddled in a small bedroom closet, holding the door shut. After Speck was arrested for burglary and assault, he fled to Chicago to seek shelter with his sister, Martha, a couple of months later. Lori Davy, center, accepts a nursing school diploma on behalf of her slain sister, Gloria Davy, at a ceremony at McCormick Place in 1966. Life in the new country must have brought surprises, but it was hardly dramatic. With her salary, she paid tuition for college night classes downtown, after which she commuted home to 111th Street and Avenue E. Eventually she enrolled in nursing school, and though it wasn't a field she had dreamed of as a girl, she had a knack. When her father was at work and her mother was taking care of the house and Billy, she took Susan along while she ran family errands on 79th Street, where the shopkeepers knew her name. 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 still gets a kick out of playing poker at casinos in Nevada with her husband. In March of 1978, during an interview I had with him inside the walls of Stateville, Speck confessed for the first time to murdering the eight young women in 1966. I was gonna get that tattoo removed. Episode #1.9: Directed by David Fincher. Here`s half the country down on a person, they call him all kinds of names-and these women are trying to get to meet him. No more parole hearings, no more fear that he might be released. She had the guts to move (under the bed), which saved her life," Martin said. But before she was gone, she placed four carousels of slides neatly in a box. There, next to his kitchen near the village of Mahomet, 140 miles south of Chicago, the lost women flickered back to life. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}G. Gordon Liddys Wild Career After Watergate. She helped raise eight younger siblings, swam in the river and was good enough in school to be admitted to the nursing program at Arellano University in the big city of Manila. God was so nice," she said in an email to Martin. ''What`s that dude who played in `Shaft`? News item: Richard Speck dies in prison, of a heart attack, the day before his 50th birthday. I had that put on me when I was 14 or 15. Many fans can agree that the interview with Richard Speck was high in terms of tension. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. In the Davy family, according to Lori, grieving openly for Gloria was considered weakness, especially by her father, the military man. And the mail. That was almost true; the man whose crimes introduced the term ''mass murderer'' to the American lexicon did not like to talk. By the time Pat was 5, she had another best friend, also named Arlene Arlene Kubasek and through the years the three girls laughed a lot together. Seeing them together, it's hard not to wonder what Pat would be like at their age. Mary Ann is 8. Once, remarking on her diligence and steady temperament, her brother told her she'd make a good military nurse. In the townhouse, she was known to sing while doing the dishes or the laundry. Menudo Star Says Jos Menendez Assaulted Him. In 1996, five years after Speck's death, a TV journalist made public a prison video, which showed Speck taking drugs and engaging in sex with another inmate during the 1980s, while he was an inmate at Statesville Correctional Institute; Speck appears to have breasts in the video, apparently as a result of hormone treatment received while in prison, and is wearing women's underwear. So do their lives. Changing his mind at the last minute, he summoned help, and was taken to Cook County hospital, where, again, his tattoo gave him away, and he was arrested and taken into custody. Speck died of a heart attack after 25 years in prison. The United States needed nurses, and Filipinas helped relieve the shortage. Richard Speck - Born to Raise Hell | Crime Scene Database When John Schmale talks about what happened that night, he uses the words "anger," "rage," "mourning.". Marriage was prohibited for student nurses. After his father died, his mother married an abusive alcoholic who savagely abused Speck and his seven siblings. He watched it once and hurled it into a corner. He spent a few days there before traveling to Monmouth, Illinois, where he stayed with some family friends from his early childhood. It's where Suzie taught him, as a 10-year-old, to play solitaire. 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. In the days before automated fingerprint identification, it took almost a week to identify the prints found in the townhouse as his. Their father, John, had attended seminary, changed his mind about the priesthood and married a young woman, Mary, who had grown up three blocks from him. On some summer days, because it gives him a warm feeling he can't entirely explain, he drives around, top down, in a car he bought a few years ago. Their mother, of English and Czech stock, stayed at home to take care of her children. With Sonny Valicenti, Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Greg Harpold. Speck, a companion and a third man who did the taping did not appear to be fearful of being caught. 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. ", "But work is easier than in the Philippine Islands," she continued, "only the patients are as big as water buffalo.". By the time I was 16 or 17 I knew it was nasty and cheap. In 1991, while still in prison, Speck died of a heart attack. All Rights Reserved. The True Story Behind Netflix's Mindhunter - Men's Health Her brother Phil, who lost both his sister and his fiancee on that July night, died at 64. (Schmale family ). Richard Speck was born on December 6, 1941, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Billy, the spirited boy who rarely spoke more than two words at a time, blurted three: "Mary Ann's dead!". Videos by Chicago Tribune's Chris Walker. When their bodies were flown back to Manila, however, more than 100 people relatives and friends waited in the rain to watch their caskets unloaded from an airliner and hefted into funeral coaches. Would she still love water ballet? Elmhurst Blotter: Man charged with battery for allegedly punching a security guard at a bar, Hinsdale police blotter: multiple thefts reported by patients at Hinsdale Hospital, Glenview police blotter: Harwood Heights woman charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Lori tries to live by her mother's words. Abigail Atienza followed in her mother's footsteps and became a nurse practitioner, and Christian is a certified public accountant. Cora came from Batangas, a province south of Manila known for its volcano, its beaches and the balisong, a traditional folding pocket knife in which the blade can be concealed. . 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. I watched `Magnum Force` the other night. "I was just as amazed as everyone that this despicable person landed on my surgical service that evening," Dr. LeRoy Smith said in an email this month. "You are surprised I survived?" "It was just awful," Siouchoff said. But to this day Atienza suffers nightmares that Speck will come back and kill her. Pat was born in 1945, the year World War II ended, to Joe and Bessie Matusek, both of Czech descent. Just a few glimpses of the video have been shown (in the A&E) documentary about Richard. Her childhood resume wasn't flashy. Next door was a funeral home, run by Arlene Baskys' dad. He pulled it out recently as he talked for the first time publicly about the sister he lost when he was 15. A photo shows four of the eight slain student nurses at South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. It took Nina a while to choose nurse. When Speck realizes he's being played, he. Editor's note: This story was first published on April 28, 2016, and is being republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the murders. In Lori's words, Gloria was driven, independent, intelligent, headstrong, poised, creative and snippy when she didn't like what you were doing. He'll never forget the cards and letters that flooded in from strangers all over the world. 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. Richard Speck had a troubled past and a rap sheet a mile long. He'd turned on the TV news in Pennsylvania. Would Kubasek go with her to the townhouse to get Pat's nursing cap and uniform? Mary Ann brought her Irish humor, her sense of duty and her talent for friendship to nursing school and to the townhouse on East 100th Street. Atienza became friends and learned to play penny-ante poker with the policemen and bodyguards who watched over her for an entire year while she was in protective custody. Speck'S High Life Shouldn'T Have Been a Shock Sat down to write letters. In 1972, Speck's death sentence was commuted to 50 to 100 years in prison, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment. Despite concerns about her ability to testify after her harrowing ordeal, she gave a faultless performance, impressing the jury with every detail of that evening, identifying Speck unequivocally. Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. As you all know, in 1988 Richard Speck and Ronzelle Larimore made a video in prison that is half talkshow, half pornography. ''Just tell `em to keep up their hatred for me,'' Speck said. Another time, according to a different news account, Tina wrote her sister saying she wished she could live in Chicago forever. As part of their psychiatric rotation, they dealt with mentally disturbed patients. She was home on the night of July 13, when her brother Phil stopped by. Like Schmale, she talks about opening the box of her sister's life, and now that it's open she thinks, "Wow, wow, this was my sister. "I'm home.". ''I stay up at night as long as it takes me to fall asleep or pass out from the hooch or from whatever we have at the time.''. In 1966, Richard Speck committed one of the most horrifying mass murders in American history when he brutalized and killed eight student nurses living on Chicago's South Side. At the door stood a tall stranger with a pockmarked face and a gun. Jordan Morin, who was 15 when Mary Ann died, has never before spoken publicly about her sister's death, and she doesn't talk easily about it now. No answer. `Parents ought to be careful about their kids,'' Richard Speck said. On this day, Amurao personally identified Speck as the killer. He could be seen doing what appeared to be cocaine and in an interview-like discussion he answered questions about the murders of the nurses . John and Nina grew up on an acre of land near suburban Wheaton, a remnant of the Schmale family farm. At her father's urging, Lori considered becoming a nurse, but she finally told him that she couldn't, she was just too emotional for the job. It is being republished for the anniversary with updated sections, including one about Atienza. Speck was the seventh of eight children. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. Outrage Over Explicit Prison Video of Richard Speck | AP News Martin and Dennis Breo are co-authors of a 1993 book called "The Crime of the Century." (Schmale family ). 30 Strange And Bizarre Facts About Richard Speck As they snuggled, the phone rang in the nearby den. One of eight young nurses killed in a Chicago townhouse on July 14, 1966, by a man who became notorious: Richard Speck. 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. Richard Speck | The Chicago Nurse Killer - YouTube No immediate relatives were there. How do you talk about something so terrible? Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. Corazon Amurao Atienza has moved on with her life and wants to be happy every day. Despite fears that Cora, in one doctor's words, would "lapse into a psychosis" and never be able to discuss the murders, she testified boldly at Speck's trial. My mother had an appointment for me at Parkland Hospital, the same place where Kennedy ended up dying. Nursing school exposed Pam and her classmates to life's wide range of joy and trouble. Law- enforcement officials familiar with the 1966 mass murder said there was no chance an accomplice existed. 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. 'Mindhunter': The True Stories Behind The Show's Killers And Profilers "It was him," she said. Police, cameras, gawkers were everywhere, and someone said something about "the bodies.". You climbed down to the ledge on 100th Street? "The Nurse Killer" Richard Benjamin Speck - Happy Scribe Books, documentaries, countless news stories, a 2007 film called "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" were dedicated to the so-called crime of the century. Only recently, since John Schmale got in touch with her about a 50th anniversary commemoration for the women, has Lori let herself believe that it's OK to remember, OK to cry. She loved Elvis, cats and the color pink. So eight people got killed. Life, though not idyllic, felt safe. Stewardess. During one of Pam's shifts, a patient slugged her. His horrifying violence had made him a murderous celebrity on the level of John Dillinger. By the time he left, around 3:30 a.m., eight women were dead, some stabbed, some strangled, some both. Her father, who had become a familiar figure on TV, with his cane or in his wheelchair as he protested the possibility of Richard Speck's parole, died in 1990 on Pat's birthday. The camera also catches the misery on those women's faces. Only Cora would survive. Together they helped prepare Pat's body for burial, at the funeral home run by Arlene Baskys' dad, next door to Joe Matusek's bar. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. Losing his parking spot as he carted all that food here and there. She displayed uncommon ease with the dying and never balked at the mess that came with tending to the human body. She went home, not knowing that a little more than an hour earlier, a drifter with a knife, a gun and a history of violence had broken in and was holding her friends hostage upstairs. From left are Mary Ann Jordan, Judith Dykton, in cap, Suzanne Farris, Nina Jo Schmale, an unidentified woman and Pamela Wilkening, seated. The two Arlenes still laugh easily when they think of Pat, but the memory of her death brings them quickly to tears. I don`t know why it happened to me. After the death of his father when Speck was six, his mother remarried, moving the family to Dallas, Texas. There was also Billy. On a trip to Florida with her classmates not long before she died, she sent a postcard home to report that immediately after their plane landed, they had gone to Mass. She worked part time at a bakery. It was Wednesday, July 13, shortly after 11 p.m. Richard Speck was already upstairs. "But I come from the place where they make balisong. Her mother, Bessie, passed away in 2005. she reportedly told friends a few days after the murders. "Gloria's been murdered," Lori remembers her saying. In winter they went sledding. "A lot of people will be here shortly. On a June day in 1966, when she was 20, she went to one of his races, and afterward waved goodbye. 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. 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. Kubasek is 71, Baskys 68. There's another kind of sealed box many of them have carried around as well. ''A lot of them send pictures,'' Speck told me. She laughs to see the pictures Schmale found, like the one of her and Nina dressed up like cats. Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses in one night in 1966. ''You`re talking about two different categories of people,'' Speck said. It reinforced his sense of mission and its urgency. A native Tagalog speaker, she began learning English in first grade. Among Pam's favorite pleasures was watching Jack, who was seven years older, race cars. His sister and seven of her fellow student nurses and nurseswere murdered 50years ago in one of Chicagos darkest crimes. Mary Ann was at the Jordan bungalow on the night of July 13, 1966, when Phil and Suzie stopped by. She perpetuated the ruse until the day her daughter, then in high school, was watching a TV show about Speck, the women he murdered and the families left behind. Phil taught public school, had a sailboat and was nice to him, the kid brother. 'Mindhunter' Episode 9 Recap: Born to Raise Hell | Decider After it was aired on TV, Wilkening obtained a copy of the video. Him and Eastwood and Bronson. Richard speck video noorvideo 81 subscribers Subscribe 253 Save 164K views 11 years ago Notice Age-restricted video (based on Community Guidelines) Almost yours: 2 weeks, on us 100+ live channels. She wanted to make her sister look like her sister, Kubasek said, choking up on the word sister., Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. A photo that appeared in Life magazine after the murders shows her sitting with three of her housemates. I stabbed them and I choked them. She worked at the hospital from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Like the other Filipina nurses, she sent money home. The police arrived to scenes of carnage, and took Amurao into custody, interviewing her and proceeding with the construction of an Identikit image. These days, Farris is retired from his job as an administrative services manager at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago. Mary Ann Jordan grew up hearing her father's tales of her Irish grandmother, Grace. These attacks, however, paled into insignificance on July 13, 1966, when Speck arrived on the doorstep of a townhouse in South Chicago, which served as a communal home for a group of eight young student nurses from nearby South Chicago Community Hospital. If that one girl wouldn`t have spit in my face, they`d all be alive today.''. A funeral parlor jammed with mourners. Tina, as her family called her, had graduated the year before among the top 10 nursing students in her class at Manila Central University. After the murders, the nursing students in the nearby townhouses moved back into the dorms connected to the hospital. 28. She knew before she was officially told: Pat was dead. (Chicago Tribune historical photo / Chicago Tribune). Richard Speck - Interesting stories about famous people, biographies