Richard Speck: The World's Most Bloodthirsty Mass Murder

On December 6, 1941, one of the world’s most bloodthirsty mass murder was born, Richard Speck. He was born in Kirkwood, Illinois to a very religious family. He was the seventh child in the eight-child family. Very soon after he was born the family moved to Monmouth, Illinois. At age six, Speck’s father passed away from a heart attack, and his mother soon remarried. Due to this, he gained a new stepfather and was uprooted from his home and moved to Dallas, Texas. Their new stepfather was nothing but a drunk. He often broke out in verbally and physically abusive episodes, and the children were always the victims. When Speck was a child, he was considered a juvenile delinquent. These factors would later lead to violent and senseless crimes. He
The Triad of Symptoms is “The triad states that three common behaviors during childhood can point to murder-prone children: bed wetting past the age of five, animal cruelty and fire-setting” (Brice). The Triad of Symptoms, if performed early in life couldn’t have showed us that Speck could have become violent later in life. Speck’s actions led him to be categorized as a serial killer, because he killed 3 or more women over a period of more than a month, and because he needed psychological gratification. Even though Speck didn’t leave a lot of evidence or a signature, he is considered a disorganized offender. Meaning, his attacks were sudden, he didn’t know the victims, and they were very chaotic. Speck has never come out and told people why he did what he did, but there is some evidence that leaves investigators questioning his motive on the murders. Some research conducted on Speck during the time he was on trial suggests that he may have had the XYY karyotype. Which could very well prove his violent behavior. Sadly, after many investigations these reports of Speck having the XYY chromosome proved to be false. So why did he kill? To show his male dominance over women? I believe that Speck could have killed because of his rough childhood and following the abusive path of his stepfather, but just because his life was bad isn’t an excuse to murder women and not care about it later. I even think it was to get revenge on his mother for marrying and bringing such a hateful man into their home. While Speck was in jail, a rather bizarre video emerged about him confessing to the killings his did. He said he doesn’t remember feeling any emotion during the time, and doesn’t even remember the blood that he left all over the house. Also in the video, there’s footage of him being sexually assaulted by another male inmate, and it looks like Speck has breasts. It’s very possible that Speck was trying to be a woman, and