Serial Killer of the Month: Richard Speck

Richard Speck died one day shy of his 50th birthday on December 5th 1991; ordinarily that would have been the end of the story. But in Speck’s case, it was the end of an American Success story. A tremendously ugly man, Speck left the world an 

unnerving, twisted little valentine: a prison-style porno video and confession/interview made shortly before his death. In the video Speck is seen living as no other Serial Killer ever has in prison, at least, not in America. Speck is shown with his lover, a young Black convict. They are shown in various rooms interviewing Speck about the murders, about life in the hole, about sex and drugs. The film also shows Speck talking about how much he likes to get fucked up the ass, and saying the actual number of times he has had sex in prison is so great that he “can’t even count that high.” It shows Speck and his lover snorting a mountain of cocaine — I mean at least five ounces, and smoking doobies the size of a Marley Zeppelin. Most disturbing of all — the film shows Speck wearing women’s panties, and having developed feminine secondary sexual characteristics, i.e. breasts. The lanky pompodored, apparently heterosexual, definitely destitute, mass murderer of 1966 had become a transvestite, homosexual, living the life of luxury — all expenses paid.

Speck, the child, had been in the habit of getting violently knocked unconscious in different accidents. On various occasions he was knocked senseless by a hammer blow, fell from a free onto his head — where he was discovered half an hour later foaming at the mouth and twitching, but still unconscious. Once he ran full steam into a rod which had been supporting a storefront awning — Speck sometimes pointed out a patch of lighter hair where the rod had penetrated and said half-jokingly that it must have gone straight into his brain. In his early teens he took up drinking and drugs. This was done to ward off the headaches he continually suffered. Speck also had a habit of carrying knives, and using them to kill and skin various house-pets he might encounter. Usually cats. He soon began to beat people up, and rob, and write bad checks. And as often as not, he would get clubbed unconscious by the police.

Speck, who was basically a total loser — he had the IQ of a 10 year old when he was mentally examined in prison — attracted the attention of a 15 year old Shirley Annette Malone. Speck had already beat his mother up, had beaten his step-father, had been arrested 36 times for drunkenness, trespassing, and burglary; so it is not altogether unclear what Shirley Malone saw in speck. But what Speck saw in Shirley? There is the question.

Speck suffered a Madonna-Whore complex. So when Shirly married him she immediately became a whore to be despised and hated, and because she had sex with him, this made it a personal betrayal. (The logic doesn’t work itself out, you are not confused). When Speck served fourteen months for robbery, he assumed his wife had been unfaithful, because, of course, she had had sex with him.?.?. Anyway, he beat the living shit out of her, and she discovered him and re-married the next day??? So about a year later, crazy, violent, sick, stupid, drug-addled Richard Speck ends up in Chicago looking for work as a sailor. Sleeping in a park near the hiring office, he decides to rob an apartment where some student nurses live. And everything is cool. The nurses are giving Speck his money, and listening to his stories, when another nurse, a friend of the house-mates named Gloria Davy, knocks. Speck answers the door, and at gun point brings her upstairs where the rest of the house mates are tied up. Then he gets weird. Davy looks exactly like his ex-wife. There are nine young women, each bound hand and foot with sheets from their beds. And Richard Speck starts to lead them one by one out of the room, where in various areas of the house, he stabs and strangles them to death. And they do nothing. Who knows why? One young woman, Corazon Amurao survives by hiding under a bed. And the last one killed is Gloria Davy, the ringer for his ex. She gets the worst of it. Raped, and mutilated, Speck takes his time killing her. Then he runs away. Using the stolen money, he hires several prostitutes, and is stopped several times by police officers. None of whom know who he is. When the news of the murders hits the newspapers, Speck freaks. He tries to commit suicide. And only in the hospital do the doctors, having read the paper, realize this is the murderer. They make a positive ID from a description of his tattoo’s and a drawing from Amurao’s description of Speck. Speck even admits to his own name. Speck is convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair, but instead of frying like he deserves, Speck gets an upper body sex change, and all the drugs he can use, and all the sex he wants. That’s what’s so great about America. Even for a mass-murderer, no matter how mindbogglingly stupid it is, there is no setback which cannot be overcome with hard work and a bit of initiative.

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