Richard Speck's Real Name: Richard Benjamin Speck

Quick answer: He was known as Richard Speck. Encyclopaedia Britannica lists him in full as Richard Benjamin Speck, born December 6, 1941, in Kirkwood, Illinois, and records his death on December 5, 1991, in Joliet. A Chicago History Museum account independently records the same full name, birth date and place, and the same death date in a Joliet hospital.

Real name and early life

Britannica lists him in full as Richard Benjamin Speck, born December 6, 1941, in Kirkwood, Illinois. The Chicago History Museum independently gives the same full name, date, and Kirkwood birthplace. Britannica says the family later lived in Monmouth, Illinois, and that in 1950 his mother moved with him to Dallas. The museum independently says he spent most of his youth in the Dallas suburbs. Britannica says that in 1963 he was convicted of theft and check fraud, sentenced to three years, and paroled after 16 months. The museum independently says that in July 1963 he was convicted of forging a signature on a stolen check and of robbing a grocery store, was to serve three years, and was paroled after 16 months.

Career highlights

Convictions and death

Britannica says that in 1966 eight nursing students were killed in a Chicago town house, and that Speck was sentenced the following year. Its opening identification says he was sentenced to life in prison, then that after the Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972 his sentence was changed to eight consecutive terms of 50 to 150 years. A later section of the same article instead says that in 1967 he was sentenced to death, later changed after the 1972 ruling to those same eight terms. The Chicago History Museum independently says that on April 15, 1967, a Peoria jury found him guilty and recommended death, and that in June a judge imposed a death sentence. The museum says that after the Supreme Court's June 29, 1972, decision in Furman v. Georgia he was resentenced in November to 400 to 1,200 years, made up of eight consecutive sentences, later reduced to 100 to 300 years, which he served at Stateville in Crest Hill, Illinois. Both say he was refused parole repeatedly; the museum specifies seven unsuccessful petitions. Britannica records his death on December 5, 1991, in Joliet, of a heart attack, at age 49. The museum independently says he died that day in a Joliet hospital, of what is largely believed to have been a heart attack

Name notes for searchers

People looking up Richard Speck or Richard Benjamin Speck are looking for the same man.