Audiobook18 hours
The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation
Written by Dennis L. Breo and William J. Martin
Narrated by Christina Delaine
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
On July 14th, 1966, Richard Franklin Speck swept through a quiet Chicago townhouse like a summer tornado and stabbed, strangled, and killed eight young nurses in a violent sexual rampage. By morning, only one nurse, Corazon Amurao, had miraculously survived, and her scream of terror was heard around the world. As the eight bodies were carried out of the small building, the coroner, who had seen the carnage up close, told a gathering crowd: "It is the crime of the century!"
Now, the prosecutor who put Speck in prison for life (William J. Martin) and the author and journalist who won an award for his coverage of the crime (Dennis L. Breo) have teamed up to recreate the blood-soaked night that opened a new chapter in the history of American crime: mass murder. Corazon Amurao, the nurse the killer left behind, confronted Speck at trial and told jurors, "This is the man!" Richard Speck was spared execution by Supreme Court rulings and here is the inside story of how he confessed to the murders in a sordid prison video made three years before his death of a heart attack in 1991. And here is the life today of the nurse who survived the crime that murdered American innocence.
Now, the prosecutor who put Speck in prison for life (William J. Martin) and the author and journalist who won an award for his coverage of the crime (Dennis L. Breo) have teamed up to recreate the blood-soaked night that opened a new chapter in the history of American crime: mass murder. Corazon Amurao, the nurse the killer left behind, confronted Speck at trial and told jurors, "This is the man!" Richard Speck was spared execution by Supreme Court rulings and here is the inside story of how he confessed to the murders in a sordid prison video made three years before his death of a heart attack in 1991. And here is the life today of the nurse who survived the crime that murdered American innocence.
Related to The Crime of the Century
Related audiobooks
Fiend: The Shocking True Story Of America's Youngest Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shallow Graves: The Hunt for the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders: The True Story of Serial Killer Peter Sutcliffe's Reign of Terror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mad City: The True Story of the Campus Murders That America Forgot Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deliver Us: Three Decades of Murder and Redemption in the Infamous I-45/Texas Killing Fields Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cries in the Desert: The Shocking True Story of a Sadistic Torturer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Duct Tape Killer: The True Inside Story of Sexual Sadist & Murderer Robert Leroy Anderson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Darker than Night: The True Story of a Brutal Double Homicide and an 18-Year Long Quest for Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfect Poison: A Female Serial Killer's Deadly Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5He Killed Them All: Robert Durst and My Quest for Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The I-5 Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spider and the Fly: A Reporter, a Serial Killer, and the Meaning of Murder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hillside Stranglers: The Inside Story of the Killing Spree That Terrorized Los Angeles Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Murder Houses: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Want-Ad Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Murder For You
If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghosts That Haunt Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Name of the Children: An FBI Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stranger Beside Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trigger: Narratives of the American Shooter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Little Secret: The True Story of a Teenage Killer and the Silence of a Small New England Town Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-blooded Murder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Gucci: A True Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The I-5 Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Crime of the Century
Rating: 4.121951341463414 out of 5 stars
4/5
41 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I was 14 years old and lived 100 miles from Chicago when the nurses were killed. I was terrified and was sure the killer was coming for me next. Now I'm a lawyer though not a criminal lawyer. This was an excellent book - as a story and for its focus on the legal proceedings. Much better than I expected
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is an exhaustively detailed account of the horrific crimes of Richard Speck and the eight nurses who died by his hands. More than that, however, this is an excruciatingly in-depth look at the trial process and the work that the lawyers and experts put into building a case against Speck that would ensure his elimination from society. I suppose that this is not surprising as the book was written by the prosecution. I could eventually come to appreciate the pages upon pages of research, mind games, testimony, etc, but it was a bear to slog through. The authors are not concerned with constructing a compelling narrative but rather with explaining the criminal justice process. In that way, this book isn't really about the crime, but about the system that went into motion following the crime.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My heart goes out to those eight nurses and their loved ones God be with them Ms Amaraou god bless you she was and is so brave
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Detailed account of the infamous and shocking nurse murders committed by Richard Speck in 1960’s Chicago. Having been written by the lead prosecutor in the case no detail was left out of the narrative. Hence my problem. This book often slowed down to a crawl while each piece of evidence or each expert witnesses’ testimony was examined from every conceivable angle. Did we really need to spend several pages exploring why one finger print expert was substituted for another on the eve of that testimony? Having said all that this book does show the evil and horror one man can create and the depths that good men and women will go through to prevent that person from ever being given a second opportunity.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I give it a 9 out of a 10.