(Some Spoilers) Based of the brutal 1966 murder of eight student nurses in their dormitory in the Jeffers Manor section of Chicago "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" is far more upsetting in what went on after mass murderer Richard Speck, Corin Nemec, was arrested for his crimes then the crimes themselves.
Speck had a run of good luck in prison that within five years after his conviction and sentence to the Illinois electric chair the US Supreme Court overturned his, and every other, death sentence in it's June 29, 1972 ruling stating that the death penalty was unconstitutional.
Speck was to spend the remainder of his life behind bars living the life of Riley with him having all the drugs and sex, he somehow even had female hormones smuggled into his cell to enlarge his breasts, he can ever want. He also did his best in rubbing mud in the faces of the families of the victims that he so brutally and sadistically murdered! It was this wild lifestyle, of unlimited use of drugs and sex with fellow prisoners, Speck had while incarcerated that may well have lead to his death from a massive heart attack on December 5, 1991, just one day before his 50th birthday, in the Joliet Illinois Correctional Facility.
The film has Speck commit is horrendous crimes in a piecemeal fashion spicing them in between his life in both Texas and Illinois. Having had suffered severe brain damage as a boy when he accidentally hit himself in the head with a claw-hammer Speck turned to alcohol and drugs becoming addicted to both before he was even a teenager. We also get to see in the movie a young Speck being abused both physically and sexually by his drunken step-father which may have added more fuel to the fire to his already screwed up mind.
Speck's life of crime isn't exclusively that of the brutal massacre of eight student nurses on the evening of July 13/14, 1966. There are suspicions that he in fact murdered some eight other women in Texas Michigan and Indiana in the two years prior to the infamous Chicago Massacre.
Not being the brightest of criminals Speck was quickly apprehended, after a failed suicide attempt, and booked for murder with his only defense, which could well have been true, in that he didn't remember committing the murders. With his brain so saturated with booze and drugs Speck may well have been telling the truth for once in his life. It only took the jury 49 minutes to deliberated Speck's fate sending him straight to the electric chair followed later by, after the death penalty was overturned by the courts, sending him to jail for a millennium like 1,200 years!
Even though he died in prison some five years earlier the A&E network's Bill Kurtis had obtained a video of Speck's escapades behind bars and had it shown on his show "Investigative Report". The broadcast of the video not only outraged Speck's victims family members in his gleeful and disgusting description in how he strangled their loved ones but most of the audience who happened to see it as well. The sight of a grotesque looking breast enlarged Speck bragging about all the good times he's having behind bars was just too much for anybody to stomach!
What A&E should have done with the "Speck Tapes" is what was done with Speck himself! Have the tapes burned or, like in Speck's case, cremated and scattered to the four winds to never have them see, or be seen by the public, the light of day.
Speck had a run of good luck in prison that within five years after his conviction and sentence to the Illinois electric chair the US Supreme Court overturned his, and every other, death sentence in it's June 29, 1972 ruling stating that the death penalty was unconstitutional.
Speck was to spend the remainder of his life behind bars living the life of Riley with him having all the drugs and sex, he somehow even had female hormones smuggled into his cell to enlarge his breasts, he can ever want. He also did his best in rubbing mud in the faces of the families of the victims that he so brutally and sadistically murdered! It was this wild lifestyle, of unlimited use of drugs and sex with fellow prisoners, Speck had while incarcerated that may well have lead to his death from a massive heart attack on December 5, 1991, just one day before his 50th birthday, in the Joliet Illinois Correctional Facility.
The film has Speck commit is horrendous crimes in a piecemeal fashion spicing them in between his life in both Texas and Illinois. Having had suffered severe brain damage as a boy when he accidentally hit himself in the head with a claw-hammer Speck turned to alcohol and drugs becoming addicted to both before he was even a teenager. We also get to see in the movie a young Speck being abused both physically and sexually by his drunken step-father which may have added more fuel to the fire to his already screwed up mind.
Speck's life of crime isn't exclusively that of the brutal massacre of eight student nurses on the evening of July 13/14, 1966. There are suspicions that he in fact murdered some eight other women in Texas Michigan and Indiana in the two years prior to the infamous Chicago Massacre.
Not being the brightest of criminals Speck was quickly apprehended, after a failed suicide attempt, and booked for murder with his only defense, which could well have been true, in that he didn't remember committing the murders. With his brain so saturated with booze and drugs Speck may well have been telling the truth for once in his life. It only took the jury 49 minutes to deliberated Speck's fate sending him straight to the electric chair followed later by, after the death penalty was overturned by the courts, sending him to jail for a millennium like 1,200 years!
Even though he died in prison some five years earlier the A&E network's Bill Kurtis had obtained a video of Speck's escapades behind bars and had it shown on his show "Investigative Report". The broadcast of the video not only outraged Speck's victims family members in his gleeful and disgusting description in how he strangled their loved ones but most of the audience who happened to see it as well. The sight of a grotesque looking breast enlarged Speck bragging about all the good times he's having behind bars was just too much for anybody to stomach!
What A&E should have done with the "Speck Tapes" is what was done with Speck himself! Have the tapes burned or, like in Speck's case, cremated and scattered to the four winds to never have them see, or be seen by the public, the light of day.