The Other Side of Fear - Part 5

The humidity of the midwestern summer evening wrapped around us like a wool shawl.  All of the neighbor Moms were gathered in an uncomfortable circle whispering in that way that you know they don’t want the kids to hear what they are talking about.  I crept up to the group hoping they didn’t notice my stealthy advance into their inner circle.  As I listened I heard muted words here and there - nurses, strangled, stabbed, under the bed, window, screams, eight, there were eight, armed and dangerous . . .  

They were talking about one of the most grisly mass murders that occurred in 1966 south of Chicago not far from my childhood home.  The systematic killing of eight nursing students in their apartment - tied up and gagged and taken into a room one by one tortured and killed by a man named Richard Speck.  And as of this particular evening he was still at large and considered unstable and dangerous.  To this day I can still picture the artist’s drawing of Speck that was drawn from the memory of the one student who survived.  It was in every newspaper and on every TV station.  

Many of the families in our neighborhood had husbands that traveled and were currently out of town and the Moms were discussing their strategies for keeping their families safe.  Much to our disappointment my Mom cancelled our “camp out” in the backyard that night.    For the rest of the evening my Mom sat in front of the TV to get updates on the man hunt.  The killer still had not been located.  People were warned to stay in their homes after dark and there was a palpable tension in the neighborhood.  That evening the headlines read “Search for Mass Slayer”.  Below the headlines were the faces of 8 nurses looking out at us and a picture of the screened window of an apartment.  The screen was pushed out and the curtain was blowing through the window.  A sketch of the murderer was in the upper right hand corner.  I read the newspaper in fascinated horror and on that day my life changed.   

A few days later, Richard Speck was captured but he and his crimes would be with me for years to come. I was nine years old and for many many years after I lived in fear.  I refused to go to the second floor of our home alone.  When I went to the bathroom I insisted that my Mom or one of my siblings go with me and wait outside the door.  Our basement had become to me a chamber of horrors that I avoided at all costs. I started sleeping with the lights on and every night my Mom would need to check under the bed and in the closet for any “bad guys” before I could go to sleep.  Long after my Mom quit checking my bed and my closet for me, I would still check before I could settle into bed.  My Mom, bless her heart, was very understanding and tried to wean me from these needs.  She had me count or sing loudly whenever I needed to go upstairs or down in the basement and told me that she would listen and if I stopped singing or counting she would come running.  And so I did. 

At 6:00 every morning I left the house to ride my bike on my paper route. Often it was still dark and a time that I used to love for its peacefulness before the day officially began. But once Speck struck the mornings instead turned to utter terror.  I would cautiously venture into the dark streets singing aloud in a quavering voice to distract me from my fears.  Instead of taking my time and enjoying the peace and quiet of the empty streets I would race through my route looking over my shoulder, always with a sense of someone following me and ever eager to get home and once again feel safe.

The years passed and although I was still afraid of the dark my fears slowly ebbed.  As I entered High School I thought less and less about Richard Speck.  One evening at college I was talking to a friend and somehow we got on the subject of Richard Speck.  He told me that his father had been the mortician for the girls who were murdered.  Goose bumps rose on my arms as the memories of my old fears returned.  After some time, once again I soon forgot about the man.  But Richard Speck was not so easily purged. My Senior year of college I had a boyfriend named Rob.  One day I came across an old newspaper clipping in Rob’s wallet.  It was just a picture but I knew instantly that it was a photo of Richard Speck.  “Why on earth are you carrying a photo of Richard Speck??” Rob laughed, “Ah, we used to tease my friend Stephanski about looking just like him.”  Just seeing his picture brought back memories of that time.  Was it just a coincidence that I went into nursing school and became a nursing student myself? Or a forboding? Really, I was in need of an exorcist to purge this man from my life.

When I was in my 20’s I finally decided that it was time to face this particular fear.  Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I had remembered.  I decided to go back and look through the newspapers from that time and read the whole story about Richard Speck, get it out of my system and never think of him again. At the local university library I requested the microfilm of the old newspapers from that time.  I knew it had happened in 1966 and I remembered that it had been in the summer because we weren’t allowed to sleep out in our tents at the time.  I started in June flipping through one local newspaper after another trying to find the story.  Alas in July of 1966 I came across the sordid tale.  I took a deep breath and started reading it and it was as horrific as I had remembered. I kept reading. About half way through the story I wondered what the exact date was that this had all happened.  I looked up at the date and it said July 15, 1966.  That meant that the crime happened the day before, on MY BIRTHDAY!!   I had seen enough. I pulled the microfilm out, ran it over to the librarian and got the hell out of there.  There are some fears that you just shouldn’t face.