The Manhunt for Richard Speck: WBBM-TV's "Richard Speck Speaks", Part 3, 1996

Name: The Manhunt for Richard Speck: WBBM-TV's "Richard Speck Speaks", Part 3, 1996
Uploaded: 2024-08-30T00:00:00Z
Duration: 6 min 58 s
Description: Part 3 of Bill Kurtis's 1996 series: the detectives, doctor and prosecutor who tracked down and convicted Richard Speck in 1966 tell how it was done, with 1966 police audio of survivor Corazon Amurao.

Part 3 of Bill Kurtis's 1996 series: the detectives, doctor and prosecutor who tracked down and convicted Richard Speck in 1966 tell how it was done, with 1966 police audio of survivor Corazon Amurao.

Subject: Richard Speck
Recorded: May 7, 1996
Runtime: 6:58

Content warning: Concerns the murders of eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966 and Speck's suicide attempt. No graphic description of the murders.

The Interview

This is the third of six segments in "Richard Speck Speaks", Bill Kurtis's series for WBBM-TV (CBS 2 Chicago), first broadcast on the 10 p.m. news on May 7, 1996, and posted by CBS Chicago in 2024. It runs 6 minutes 58 seconds. Its subject is the 1966 manhunt. Speck himself is heard only for a few seconds, in an exchange from the 1988 Stateville videotape in which, as CBS reports it, an inmate asks whether none of the nurses got away and Speck answers that one did, "that's why I'm sitting here now." The rest is Kurtis's narration, a 1966 police audio interview with survivor Corazon Amurao, 1966 news film, and 1996 interviews with burglary detective Eddie Wielosinski, another detective, Dr. Leroy Smith and prosecutor Bill Martin.

Historical Context

On the night of July 13 to 14, 1966, Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses in a townhouse on Chicago's South Side. A ninth, Corazon Amurao, 23, an exchange nursing student, survived by hiding under a bunk bed. Speck was arrested on July 17, 1966, after a suicide attempt, convicted of eight counts of murder in April 1967 and sentenced to death; in November 1972 he was resentenced to 400 to 1,200 years. He died in December 1991 while serving his sentence at Stateville. In 1996 WBBM aired a videotape that inmates had secretly recorded inside Stateville in 1988.

Circumstances

The 1996 series was built on the Stateville tape, which an unnamed attorney gave to Kurtis. This segment uses the tape only briefly and turns to the people who caught Speck. The 1966 police interview with Amurao is presented in the segment as "never made available before"; that claim is WBBM's.

What the Interview Covers

Kurtis traces the manhunt: Amurao's description and the composite sketch; Speck's two suitcases, still in the Cook County evidence locker; the tip from gas station attendant Dennis Ryan to detective Eddie Wielosinski about a seaman who wanted to leave his bags; the steward at the seamen's hiring hall across the street from the townhouses who recognized the sketch, and the assignment slip pulled from a wastebasket with Speck's name on it; Speck's move to Skid Row and the Starr Hotel on West Madison; the fingerprint match and Superintendent O. W. Wilson's press conference; and Speck's suicide attempt. Dr. Leroy Smith recalls wiping blood from the patient's arm at Cook County Hospital and finding the "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo he had just read about in the Tribune. Prosecutor Bill Martin describes Amurao leaving the witness stand, walking to within inches of Speck and saying, "This is the man."

What Makes the Recording Significant

It preserves, in their own words thirty years later, the accounts of the detective, the doctor and the prosecutor at the center of the 1966 manhunt and trial, together with 1966 police audio of the sole survivor.

Archival Importance

The 1996 series led to hearings on the Speck tape by a committee of the Illinois House of Representatives.

Important Caveats

Speck is heard for only about 5 seconds, and his words are hard to make out in the machine text; they are bracketed in the transcript. The series title "Richard Speck Speaks" applies to the whole series, not to this segment. The segment calls O. W. Wilson "commissioner of police"; his title was superintendent. It says the jury took 45 minutes; Wikipedia says 49. The 1966 police audio is partly unintelligible. Several 1996 detective bites are not identified on air.

Anchor: Richard Speck. The mere name may send chills down your spine. Thirty years ago, he murdered eight young student nurses in their Chicago townhouse. Tonight, in part three of "Richard Speck Speaks," Bill Kurtis shows us how a massive manhunt put Speck behind bars. Bill?

Bill Kurtis: To those who were around [unclear: "Lester" (both sources)] in 1966, the hunt for Richard Speck is remembered like Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination, an unforgettable moment in time.

Unidentified Speaker: People stayed home. They were afraid to go outside.

Bill Kurtis: It was basic police legwork that finally paid off, and the help of a tiny witness to the killing of eight young women, the one student nurse Speck missed.

Inmate: [unclear: "Did none of them get away?" / "None of the women" (Whisper) / "away" (captions)]

Richard Speck: [unclear: "One did." / "wondered" (Whisper) / "one dude" (captions)] [unclear: "That's why I'm sitting here now." / "why we were here now" (Whisper)]

Bill Kurtis: The one that got away. Twenty-two years after his crimes, Richard Speck reflects on the woman who put him behind bars, a 23-year-old nursing exchange student, Corazon Amurao. [00:55 to 01:00: music (captions).]

Richard Speck: [unclear: "If none of them got away, I wouldn't be sitting here." / "none of them got away I would be sitting here" (captions; not in Whisper)]

Bill Kurtis: For three hours, Cora hid under a bunk bed and listened as Speck murdered her eight roommates. On the morning of July 14, 1966, she emerged shaken but determined to help police find the killer.

Voices On 1966 Police Recording: [unclear: "Well, who are you, the three of them? Police." (Whisper) / "well are very" (captions)]

Bill Kurtis: Never made available before, this scratchy recording is the first police interview with Cora, made just hours after the killings.

Police Interviewer: But when you see this [unclear: "fella" / "show"], you know, you'll know in your own mind, because the voice, the way he walks, the way he holds his hand, you know.

Voices On 1966 Police Recording: [unclear: "But they mean the person." / "they pardon"] Right. [unclear: "They mean the person." / "they"] Oh, no, no.

Bill Kurtis: Cora fears the killer will somehow return for her. Still, she is determined to help. Her description results in this composite sketch. Police had put a face to their killer. Now they needed a break. In the Cook County evidence locker are two battered suitcases, still filled with the clothes of Richard Speck. Thirty years ago, they helped provide that break. 8:45 a.m., just hours after the murders, at 100th and Torrence, burglary detective Eddie Wielosinski stopped to question Dennis Ryan, a gas station attendant.

Eddie Wielosinski: The attendant told us about some guy prior coming in there with a, with a couple of suitcases, and wanted to leave him there for the night, and, uh, mentioned the fact that he said something about being a seaman.

Bill Kurtis: That tip led Wielosinski to the hiring hall for seamen shipping out of Calumet Harbor, directly across the street from the townhouses. There, a steward recognized Cora's sketch. Speck had been in looking for a job.

Detective: He was looking for the assignment slip, and he went into the wastebasket by [unclear: "it" / "his"], and he pulled out [unclear: "the assignment slip" / "his assignment"], and there was the name of Richard Franklin Speck.

Bill Kurtis: As Speck's name was being picked out of the trash, the killer was sleeping in at the Shipyard Inn, less than a mile from the crime scene. Speck woke the morning after the murders around 11 a.m. The following afternoon, Speck drifted west, to Chicago's Skid Row.

Detective: Skid Row, we never thought of looking at Skid Row. Here's a merchant seaman, money in his pocket. What would he be doing at Skid Row?

Bill Kurtis: Carl Sandburg had dubbed it the Boulevard of Forgotten Men: drunks, down-and-outers, people who needed to disappear, none more so than Richard Speck. Using an alias, he checked into the Starr Hotel on West Madison, one of the row's finest.

Detective: I tell you, [unclear: "pigsties and farms" / "pigstyzer farms" (Whisper) / "pig St and Farms" (captions)] would be a lot better than what the Starr Hotel was. You'd walk through human waste and urination and everything else.

Bill Kurtis: On Friday night, Speck slept off yet another drunk as police scoured the city. He hoped to catch a freight train out of town the next day. The noose around Speck's neck, however, was tightening. Cora had picked out his snapshot. Fingerprints had been lifted from the door of the townhouse. Speck's prints were flown into Chicago for comparison. Police experts found a match. There was no doubt Speck was their man. The commissioner of police, O. W. Wilson, broke the news at a press conference.

Detective: [unclear: "Speck was, in fact," (captions; not in Whisper)] that was broadcast throughout the world. Speck knew it. Uh, he couldn't get the freight.

Bill Kurtis: He had run, in every sense, from his identity. Now he had nothing to run from but his life.

News Reporter: Richard Speck's alleged murder rampage stopped here on Chicago's Skid Row early today, as he apparently tried and failed to end [unclear: "another life" / "a nightlife" (Whisper) / "a night life" (captions)], his own.

Bill Kurtis: In an envelope in the Cook County evidence room were the bloody newspapers found in Richard Speck's room. After reading about his crimes in these papers, Speck walked into a bathroom and slashed his wrists. Around midnight, he was wheeled into Cook County Hospital, and a young resident, Dr. Leroy Smith, was called back from his dinner break.

Dr. Leroy Smith: And I got a call from the trauma unit, and they told me that there was a guy that was over there, and, uh, he was [unclear: "in" / "amid" (Whisper) / "a m" (captions)] critical condition. And as I was leaving, the Tribune truck had pulled up and dropped off these newspapers. I was reading about the tattoos, "Born to Raise Hell." So I went back there, and, uh, I took some alcohol swabs, and, and I wiped the blood away. And, uh, I saw this B, this large B up here, and I wiped more, and there was "Born to Raise Hell." And I looked at the nurses, and I said, "This is the fellow that the, uh, police are looking for." Then I went over to him, and I asked him what his name was, and then he told me his name was Speck.

Bill Kurtis: Richard Speck was taken into custody. He would live to stand trial 10 months later. On April 5, 1967, the state's star witness, Corazon Amurao, took the stand to face her attacker. Prosecutor Martin asked if she could identify the killer.

Bill Martin: Corazon stood up, unlatched the door to the witness stand, stepped down, walked past the jury and the counsel table where we were seated, walked to the defense table, walked to within inches of Speck, pointed directly at his head, and said in an unmistakably clear voice, "This is the man."

Bill Kurtis: It took the jury only 45 minutes to come back with the verdicts: guilty on eight counts of murder. Corazon Amurao had gotten her man. Tomorrow night at 10, the unthinkable: Richard Speck's unbelievable life in Joliet's Stateville prison, how he apparently tried to make himself into a woman and led a life of drugs, sex and good times in a maximum security prison.

Anchor: The telling is still chilling and fascinating 30 years after, isn't it?

Anchor: Especially for people who were too young then to actually remember the details. They may remember the name Richard Speck, or the crime, or someone who refers to it, but it is a piece of Chicago history. [unclear: "See it all retold" / "I see it all retold"]. Thanks, [unclear: "Jo" (captions) / "though" (Whisper)]. We look forward to tomorrow night. [06:58: clip ends.] ---