Mary Ann was at the Jordan bungalow on the night of July 13, 1966, when Phil and Suzie stopped by. Susan is 3. Today the townhouses on East 100th Street are still standing and occupied, but no longer by student nurses. The real-life Speck who tortured, raped, and murdered eight Chicago student nurses in a. The next morning, Pat's mother called Kubasek, worried. Billy loved her tremendously.". He had pried open the screen of a first-floor window, reached inside for the back-door handle and slipped into the house. She probably wouldn't still wear her hair in a perfect flip. The kitchen was also home to the family cookie jar, a white canister that said "Cooky" on the front, a detail he retains because "Cooky" was his father's nickname for Suzie. 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. It was around dawn when she made her way to an upstairs window. Kubasek is 71, Baskys 68. Baskys says that for a while she slept with a flashlight or a knife, but eventually, determined not to raise her children in fear, went through five years of therapy to retrain her thinking. Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. She also wrote about Chicago's weather, which she described in one letter as "really terrible. ''Because any kid can end up to be like me. Kubasek recalled one day not long ago, sitting with her old friend Arlene Baskys. 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. ", "But work is easier than in the Philippine Islands," she continued, "only the patients are as big as water buffalo.". He was the man Nina planned to marry but only after graduation. The children suffered considerable abuse at the hands of their drunken stepfather, and Speck's childhood was marked by juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, which soon led to petty crime. Life in the new country must have brought surprises, but it was hardly dramatic. Their mother eventually forgave Richard Speck and urged her children to do the same. Finding those carousels of slides, in September 2015, may have been a fluke, but it felt like a providential sign. A funeral parlor jammed with mourners. He plays a lot of solitaire. Cora has gone on to have a life that appears normal. They laughed as they sunbathed on the roof between the tavern and the funeral home, watching the people and the cars down on Michigan Avenue, which they called "The Ave.". Shortly after the Filipina women arrived, the Chicago women threw them a welcome party, and over the next few weeks helped them learn their way around the city. 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. 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. It's the psychological kind, full of memories and emotions, the kind Schmale means when he says: "Opening the box at first meant to me that I was going to reopen her death. He thinks of his sister every day. High school nursing club. "She was great with him," recalled their sister, Susan Jordan Morin. Many people are unaware of the case, which was the first random mass murder of the 20th century. Lori Davy, center, accepts a nursing school diploma on behalf of her slain sister, Gloria Davy, at a ceremony at McCormick Place in 1966. She played baseball in the alley, badminton across the back fences. They'd see each other Friday, go hang out on Rush Street on the Gold Coast. Speck was captured two days later when an emergency room doctor at Cook County Hospital thought a patient he was treating for self-inflicted gashes looked familiar. 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. 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. "Coming back from the past.". ''I know it keeps up their morale. On the way back, they got lost. After she married and had three children, she told her kids that Aunt Gloria had died in a car crash. Over his 25-year career with the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, Douglas interviewed hundreds of America's most notoriously brutal killers, from Charles Manson and Ted Bundy to " Son of Sam " David Berkowitz and the " BTK Killer ," Dennis Rader. Atienza did not respond to Tribune requests for an interview. After his killing spree in 1966, a manhunt ensued and he was captured two days later. "Life is looking good for Suzie.". She roller-skated in the basement of the family's three-bedroom bungalow. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. Before long, she, Merlita and Cora were huddled in a small bedroom closet, holding the door shut. Who Is Richard Speck? News item: Speck's death sentence reversed. After graduating from Glenbard Township High School in Glen Ellyn in 1959, she worked as a secretary but didnt like it. Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. 1. In the townhouse, she was known to sing while doing the dishes or the laundry. John and Nina walked together to the one-room Queen Bee schoolhouse, carrying tin lunch pails. The book is a detailed account of the months before the crime and ends with the drama of the trial. The video's release caused a major scandal within the Illinois Department of Corrections, and was widely cited as justification for the reintroduction of death penalty. And it turned out that it reopened her life.". Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. She told him she had never forgotten his sister Nina's kindness and that she still misses her. She has rarely spoken in detail about what happened, not even to her husband. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,.css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}contact us! Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. 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 Farris family lived in a quiet, tree-lined Far South Side neighborhood called Fair Elms. Gloria Davy was the second of six siblings, born in the same hospital where she eventually studied nursing, raised not far from the townhouse where she died. A doting mother and grandmother, she enjoys baby-sitting her grandchildren about twice a week and the constant companionship of her children. The doctor had just had a. On that Monday, she was taken to a townhouse on East 100th Street rented by her new employer, South Chicago Community Hospital. Theyre smiling and wearing regular clothes. 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. Richard Speck - Born to Raise Hell | Crime Scene Database Speck was captured two days later when an emergency room doctor at Cook County Hospital thought a patient he was treating for self-inflicted gashes looked familiar. The knocking was done in a normal manner, she would later testify. Holden's methods during a disturbing interview with mass murderer Richard Speck create dissension among the team and kick off an internal FBI probe. "This is the man," she said as pandemonium erupted. 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? Repacking it. Jewelry, makeup and nail polish were forbidden on duty. 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. What he had, in this mysterious box he had inherited when his father died, were four carousels of slides, many of them corroded, warped, moldy, ravaged by water and time. "Awful, awful. It was small and nothing fancy: One bathroom and three bedrooms upstairs. Phil was engaged to one of Mary Ann's classmates, Suzanne Farris, who still lived in the townhouse, and Suzanne was with him that evening. Abigail Atienza followed in her mother's footsteps and became a nurse practitioner, and Christian is a certified public accountant. Richard Speck had a troubled past and a rap sheet a mile long. 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. In the days before automated fingerprint identification, it took almost a week to identify the prints found in the townhouse as his. Her father, Charles, was a former Marine who expected as much from his five daughters as he did from his son. He opened it. 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. Despite the horror of what happened, Atienza carries warm memories of her friends, Martin said. Martin talked recently in his Oak Park law office about Cora's bravery. `60 Minutes,` the news, keep up on the outside world. After several minutes, they heard a female voice urging them to come out. News item: Another Speck parole hearing at Stateville Correctional Center. One victim was also raped prior to her murder. Speck's trial began on April 3, 1967, and his claim that he had no recollection of the eight murders committed placed Corazon Amurao in the spotlight as the star witness. The judge sentenced Speck to death. So do their lives. But before she was gone, she placed four carousels of slides neatly in a box. After the murders, the nursing students in the nearby townhouses moved back into the dorms connected to the hospital. Some bunk beds, some singles. Where Is Acquitted Murderer Candy Montgomery Now? Tina was known as a good cook. Born on December 6, 1941a day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that dragged the US into World War IIRichard Benjamin Speck was born in rural Illinois, the seventh of eight children. Girls, we need to clean the house.". With a rush of excitement and a pang of dread, he read her penciled note: "Nina South Chicago Hospital.". For those girls, and for their families, and for me. Shes in her nurses uniform, gazing down. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune). You're afraid in life, and here's someone who is comforting you.''. Nina Jo Schmale appears in an undated photo. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. THE VOICE OF RICHARD SPECK - Chicago Tribune Clint Eastwood, he always plays good. 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. Suzanne Farris appears as a young girl with a prayer card from her funeral on July 18, 1966. Speck laughed. Mary Ann Jordan grew up hearing her father's tales of her Irish grandmother, Grace. Here's an image she holds on to, one her father captured on a Super 8 movie camera: A sunny Easter morning. In the video, Speck also casually admits to the killing of the nurses, describing the strangulations in some detail, and bragging about the strength required to kill someone in this manner. According to news accounts published at the time, Merlita, 23, was quiet, shy, hardworking, efficient, pretty and blessed with a rich singing voice. 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. There was also Billy. 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. Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. Thats why he and his wife established the Nina Jo Schmale Scholarship Fund at Wheaton College; Ninas name, and hers alone, is now attached to something good. According to a news account at the time, she thought it was a safer place to raise a family. 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.
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