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Richard Speck

• Chicago Sun-Times

Speck admits for first time

he slew nurses

CHICAGO (AP) Richard Speck has admitted for the first time that he killed seven of eight young nurses slain here 12 years ago, and said they would be alive if one of them had not spit in his face, the Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday.

Speck also said in a copyrighted interview that the eighth nurse was killed by another person an "effeminate homosexual" Speck killed later because he "would've turned state's evidence."

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Police disputed Speck's statement that there was an accomplice. "Speck's a liar," said Joseph DiLeonardi, city-wide homicide commander.

The slayings occurred in July, 1966. Speck, serving eight consecutive 50-year to 150-year prison terms, was interviewed at Stateville Pentitentiary.

"It was just one of them weird coincidences," Speck said. "I was high on heroin and whisky. I'd never shot heroin before. So eight people got killed. Eight girls and that effeminate homosexual."

He said he and the other man planned to knock on doors until they found a house with no one home and burglarize it.

ye. “We knocked on the girls' door," he said. "No one answered. When we got upstairs we seen them all in the bedrooms alseep. There were three or four bedrooms.

"Some girls woke up. We said, 'Stick up! We want your money!' I told one of them to get the money. She spit in my face and said she'd pick me out of a lineup. I just blew.

"I can't even tell you what she looked liked, to be truthful. She got stabbed in the heart."

"I can't tell you if the girls put up any resistance or not," Speck said. "I killed seven of them, the other guy killed one. We left. He was frantic. He said he didn't want any of the money at all. He's dead now.”