"There's No More Parole Hearings": The Victims' Families in WBBM-TV's "Richard Speck Speaks", Part 6, 1996

Name: "There's No More Parole Hearings": The Victims' Families in WBBM-TV's "Richard Speck Speaks", Part 6, 1996
Uploaded: 2024-08-30T00:00:00Z
Duration: 5 min 23 s
Description: The last segment of Bill Kurtis's 1996 series: John Schmale, whose sister Nina was one of Speck's eight victims, on the morgue, the verdict, seven parole hearings and Speck's death in 1991.

The last segment of Bill Kurtis's 1996 series: John Schmale, whose sister Nina was one of Speck's eight victims, on the morgue, the verdict, seven parole hearings and Speck's death in 1991.

Subject: Richard Speck
Recorded: May 10, 1996
Runtime: 5:23

Content warning: Concerns the murders of eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966, a brother's identification of his sister's body at the morgue, and a remark about violence against Speck. No graphic description of the murders.

The Interview

This is the sixth and last segment of "Richard Speck Speaks", Bill Kurtis's series for WBBM-TV (CBS 2 Chicago), first broadcast on the 10 p.m. news on May 10, 1996, and posted by CBS Chicago in 2024. It runs 5 minutes 23 seconds. Its subject is the families of the eight murdered student nurses, told chiefly through John Schmale, whose sister Nina was among the victims. Speck himself is heard for only about 11 seconds, in an exchange from the 1988 Stateville videotape in which he denies having attempted suicide. The rest is Kurtis's narration, a 1996 remark by an unnamed police officer, two short archive news clips and a studio exchange.

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. Nina Jo Schmale, 24, was one of them. Speck was convicted on eight counts of murder in Peoria on April 15, 1967, and sentenced to death on June 5, 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the death sentence in 1971, and in November 1972 he was resentenced to 400 to 1,200 years. He was denied parole seven times between 1976 and 1990 and died on December 5, 1991, after being taken from Stateville to a Joliet hospital with chest pains. In May 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. After five nights on the crime, the manhunt and Speck's life in prison, this closing segment turned to the families. It ends with a studio exchange promoting a replay of Speck's "confession" and a further report on a post-mortem of Speck's brain.

What the Interview Covers

John Schmale recalls driving into Chicago with his father to identify his sister at the county morgue, amid television cameras and photographers. Kurtis covers the Peoria verdict and Speck's attorney, Gerald Getty. On the tape, Speck calls the suicide attempt "propaganda" used by Getty to win sympathy; Kurtis says Speck did attempt suicide and that the prosecution used it as evidence of guilt. A police officer says that had police caught Speck first, there would have been "no need for an inquest or a trial." Schmale describes his shock that Speck was eligible for parole within seven years, the ordeal of the hearings at Joliet, and the closure he felt when Speck died: "There's no more parole hearings. He doesn't have my sister's picture in his jail cell anymore."

What Makes the Recording Significant

It gives the family's side of the landmark 1996 series, in the words of a victim's brother thirty years after the murders, and records how the repeated parole hearings weighed on the families.

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 11 seconds, and the inmate's question is not legible in the machine text; it is bracketed in the transcript. The series title "Richard Speck Speaks" applies to the whole series. The segment says the jury took "barely 45 minutes" (Wikipedia: 49) and that Speck's sentence was "commuted to life" (he was resentenced to 400 to 1,200 years). The studio anchor is addressed as "Lester"; his identity is not confirmed from the broadcast. The promised brain post-mortem report is not part of this video.

Anchor: All week long we have seen and heard mass murderer Richard Speck living a life of drugs, sex and good times while in prison. But while he was having fun, the families of the eight nurses he murdered were in agony. Now, 30 years after the murders, those families are talking about their pain. Bill Kurtis joins us with more of "Richard Speck Speaks." Bill?

Bill Kurtis: It's true, Lester. For five nights we've examined the Richard Speck crimes, the manhunt and his life in the big house. Tonight, how over the years that he spent at Stateville, he kept on killing.

John Schmale: My dad and I drove into Chicago and went to the county morgue.

Bill Kurtis: In July of 1966, John Schmale lost his sister Nina at the hands of Richard Speck.

John Schmale: I can still picture the, the weather and where I parked the car, and there were all these TV cameras and, uh, photographers, and, you know, it was, it was a zoo.

Bill Kurtis: Thirty years later, the memories still bite.

John Schmale: They, uh, put all the family into a separate room, and then one by one they brought, um, took the family members out.

Bill Kurtis: He went to a viewing room to identify the body.

John Schmale: Um, and then you just went home.

Bill Kurtis: Eight families came to a Peoria courthouse looking for some measure of justice, a salve for their pain. On April 15, 1967, they got it. It took the jury barely 45 minutes to come back with a verdict: guilty on eight counts of murder. Speck's attorney, Gerald Getty, had never had a client sentenced to die. According to Speck, he tried every maneuver in the legal book to keep that record intact.

Inmate: [unclear: question about a suicide attempt; captions "have you to miss"; not in Whisper]

Richard Speck: No, that's propaganda stuff Gerald Getty used in the courtroom to try to get [unclear: "sympathy" / "senty" (captions)] from the [unclear: "jury" / "jurors"] so they wouldn't give me [inaudible; the excerpt cuts off]

Bill Kurtis: Like much of what the killer says, that's a lie. Speck did attempt suicide. In his sentencing hearing, that attempt was ignored by his defense but seized upon by the prosecution as overwhelming evidence of guilt. On June 5, 1967, Judge Herbert Paschen agreed and sentenced the killer to die in Illinois' electric chair. Given a chance, the cops who put him on death row would have done the job themselves.

Police Officer: Well, all I can say is that if we would have caught up with Speck first, there would have been no need for an inquest or a trial. All we'd have was just an inquest on him, and [unclear: "that would be" / "may be"] the end of Richard Speck.

Bill Kurtis: But that was far from the end for Speck. In 1972, he escaped execution, his sentence commuted to life.

News Anchor: Good evening. Ten years after murdering eight student nurses in the South Side townhouse, Richard Speck had his first parole hearing today.

John Schmale: When they commuted the death penalty, I thought that it meant that he would have life in prison. I had no idea that despite the fact he'd murdered eight nurses, that he was up for parole within seven years. [03:03 to 03:07: music (captions).]

Bill Kurtis: While Richard Speck enjoyed a life of drugs, sex and good times behind bars, John Schmale got to relive the nightmare. Seven parole hearings in all, seven chances for the families to cut their wounds fresh.

John Schmale: It's so traumatic to have to go to Joliet, and you have to go through a shakedown, and it makes you so angry that, uh, the State of Illinois could even be considering, I mean, why are we even talking about this man [unclear: "should go out on parole?" (Whisper) / "Mansion Garden Pearl" (captions)]

John Schmale: And you have religious people have come up to me and said, "If you don't do something about them, we will. We'll cut them into pieces with a razor blade."

Bill Kurtis: As the years rolled on, the parole hearings continued, but there were fewer and fewer family members there to protest. Within five years of the murders, at least four parents would die. A decade later, nearly all had passed away. Even in jail, it seems, Richard Speck had found a way to kill.

News Anchor: Richard Speck, one of Chicago's most notorious criminals: he's dead.

Bill Kurtis: On December 5, 1991, Richard Speck died of a heart attack. Ironically, a medical crew worked for more than four hours to try and save his life.

John Schmale: When he died, for me anyway, there was a closure. And it was, it wasn't a happy event or anything like that. It was just finally, well, there's no more parole hearings. He doesn't have my sister's picture in his jail cell anymore. You know, this is over with.

Bill Kurtis: During the past week, we've been deluged with inquiries about the Speck tapes, and more specifically, the killer's [unclear: "chilling" / "studying" (both sources)] account of the night of the murders. Tomorrow, we'll replay Speck's confession. And Sunday at 10, an even more incredible story: for the first time, details about a post-mortem performed on Richard Speck's brain, and some startling new evidence that shows he may very well have been a natural-born killer.

Anchor: You didn't even know that such a post-mortem had been done.

Bill Kurtis: Never before known. We found out as a result of some reaction to, uh, to these reports that we have been doing. But scientifically, there will be some astounding findings.

Anchor: We'll see that on Sunday.

Bill Kurtis: Sunday night.

Anchor: Thank you, Bill.

Bill Kurtis: Thank you. ---