The house where Richard Speck murdered eight women

This is the house where Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses.

It is located at 2319 East 100th Street in Chicago, Illinois.

At the time of the killings, it served as a dormitory for nursing students at the South Chicago Community Hospital.

National Maritime Union

On July 13, 1966, Speck went to the National Maritime Union hiring hall at 2335 East 100th Street, just 150 feet east of the house.

The union gave him a job on the SS Sinclair Great Lakes oil tanker in East Chicago. However, when he arrived for his assignment, he discovered that a more senior seaman had taken his spot.

By the time Speck returned, the hall had already closed. Furious about the situation, he spent the rest of the day getting drunk at local bars.

Speck rented a room at the Shipyard Inn on the day of the murders. Later that evening, he forced a 53-year-old bar patron named Ella Mae Hooper back to his room, where he held her at knifepoint and then raped her. He also stole her small .22 caliber pistol.

Murders

Following the crime, he began roaming the neighborhood, armed with both his knife and Hooper's gun. Around 11 p.m., Speck knocked on the front door of 2319 East 100th Street.

When one of the nurses answered, he produced the gun and claimed that he needed money to get to New Orleans. He also promised that he wasn't going to harm anyone.

Initially, three of the nurses ran into a closet. They eventually came out of hiding after one of their roommates assured them that Speck wouldn't hurt them.

After shepherding the women into a room and tying them up with strips of cut-up bedsheets, he began to lead them out, one by one.

All eight victims were either stabbed or strangled to death. Every 20 to 30 minutes, Speck returned to take another victim, continuing until he murdered his final victim, 22-year-old Gloria Davy.

Corazon Amurao, a Filipino nurse, managed to survive the attack by crawling under a bed that had a blanket hanging over the side.

Speck is believed to have miscounted how many women were in the room. Although Speck returned to the room, he didn't appear to look around for anyone else. Instead, he emptied some coins from his victims' purses and left.

Afterward, he walked three miles back to the Shipyard Inn.

Amurao remained hidden for another hour or two. After wiggling free from her restraints and cautiously exiting the room, she saw her roommates' bodies. At that point, she ran to a nearby window and screamed for help.

Capture

During questioning, Amurao described Speck's appearance, including a tattoo on his arm that read "Born to Raise Hell."

The police released a sketch of the killer along with details of his tattoo.

In the early hours of July 17, 1966, Speck was rushed to the hospital after attempting suicide at the Starr Hotel on West Madison Street. Shortly afterward, a doctor noticed the tattoo and immediately alerted police.

Speck's fingerprints proved to match those found at the crime scene. Amurao also positively identified him as the killer.

Conviction

In 1967, Speck was convicted of murdering the eight nurses and sentenced to death. However, that penalty was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971 after it emerged that people had been wrongly excluded from the jury because they were against capital punishment.

Speck showed no remorse for his crimes. During an interview in 1988, he said that he felt "nothing" and then joked that "it wasn't their night."

On December 5, 1991, he died from a heart attack in prison.

The Shipyard Inn closed in October 1969 after Mayor Richard Daley revoked its liquor license. Officials had learned that the real owner of the establishment was not listed on the license. Later, it became a restaurant called the Golden Shell. Old aerial photographs indicate that the building was torn down in the early 2000s.