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    The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation
    The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation
    The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation
    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

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    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 31, 2017
    ISBN9781515989271

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    Reviews for The Crime of the Century

    4/5

    41 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I 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

    • 3/5
      This 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.
    • 3/5
      My 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
    • 3/5
      Detailed 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.
    • 4/5
      I give it a 9 out of a 10.