In the summer of 1966, a sense of promise filled the air for Nina Jo Schmale, a 24-year-old woman dedicated to a life of caregiving. She was a student nurse, living with several of her classmates in a townhouse on East 100th Street in Chicago that served as a dormitory. Described as a quiet and well-liked individual with a good sense of humor, Nina was a few years older than most of her classmates and was deeply committed to her chosen profession.
Her life, along with the lives of seven of her fellow student nurses, was brutally cut short on the night of July 13th and the early morning of July 14th, 1966, in a crime that would send shockwaves across the nation.
On that fateful night, a drifter named Richard Speck broke into the townhouse. Armed with a knife and a gun he had stolen earlier, Speck systematically rounded up the nine women present in the home, initially telling them he only wanted money for a trip to New Orleans. Over several terrifying hours, he took the women one by one to different rooms, where he proceeded to stab or strangle them to death. Nina Jo Schmale was found in a bedroom, having been stabbed four times in the neck and strangled. The horror of the night was survived by a single student nurse, Corazon Amurao, who managed to hide under a bed, her presence apparently unnoticed by the killer who had lost count of his victims.
The lone survivor's harrowing account and description of the attacker, including a distinctive "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo, were crucial for law enforcement. A few days later, on July 17, Richard Speck was arrested after a physician at Cook County Hospital recognized the tattoo while treating him for a failed suicide attempt. The evidence against Speck was overwhelming, including his fingerprints found at the crime scene and the powerful eyewitness testimony of Corazon Amurao. In April 1967, after a trial that lasted less than two weeks, a jury took less than an hour to find him guilty of the eight murders. Speck was initially sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to a long prison sentence after a Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty. He ultimately died of a heart attack in prison in 1991, the day before his 50th birthday. The case remains a dark chapter in Chicago's history, a stark reminder of the senseless violence that extinguished the promising futures of Nina Jo Schmale and seven other young women dedicated to helping others.
