Richard Speck, Born to Raise Hell

Someone flagged down Officer Daniel Kelly, a young patrolman who had only been on the job 18 months. He radioed in that there was trouble, then entered the house. Inside, he was shocked to learn that he knew Gloria Davy. He had dated her sister in the past. Upset, he drew his gun, searched the house and found the other bodies. Kelly ran outside to his car radio.

On July 13, Joe Cummings, WCFL radio police reporter, decided to roll on the city's southeast side. He was making the rounds to the different police stations to see if anything was happening. Past midnight, July 14, he had gone to a house fire he heard over the radio. It turned out to be nothing. Around 5:30 a.m., he headed back to the WCFL radio station in Chicago. While driving back, he heard something on his zone radio. He had city wide, but this call was coming in on the zone radio.

"Help! Help! Help!...Oh, my God, I dated her sister! Oh, my God, I never seen nothing like this!...Oh gimme the sergeant...gimme my lieutenant...Oh, God." Joe heard the dispatcher say, "Where are you...where are you?" over and over.

But Kelly kept saying, "Oh, my God, they're all dead!"

Now Joe was talking to the radio asking where, what address, just like the dispatcher, knowing something had happened. He could feel it right in the pit of his stomach...this was big. Finally, the cop said, "I'm at 2319 East 100th Street."

Dispatcher said, "Fine...we'll get some help over there." Joe said to himself," that's about a block away." He swung his car around, shot down the street, adrenaline pumping. He pulled up in front of 2319, grabbed his tape recorder, jumped out the mobile unit, and ran toward the cop. There was no one else on the street. Mrs. Bisone, Leona, and Judy were trying to calm down Cora inside 2315.

Joe noticed that Kelly was going in circles. He had his cap on backwards, his shirt tail hung over his pants, his face red, his eyes darting all over the place.

"I'm Joe Cummings, WCFL police reporter, what's happened? I'm not a policeman...I'm a police reporter...what do you got here?" he asked.

"It's a homicide," said Kelly.

"I'm going in...I won't touch nothing," Joe said.

Joe opened the door, stepped inside and saw the body of a white female that was murdered. He went back out and walked up to the cop again and said, "Say, you've got a homicide in the living room." At that moment, Joe couldn't understand why the cop appeared agitated with a routine murder.

"Go upstairs," Kelly said.

Joe went back in and looked for the stairs. He went up to the second floor, looked down the hall and turned right. It was still dark, the sun had begun to rise. He walked down the hall. To his right, he saw bodies inside the bedroom, their skin a sickly ochre. A little further down the hall, he saw another bedroom with three more bodies and said. "Oh my God." The same mantra as Kelly. He turned to go down stairs, passed a bathroom and found another body inside. That made seven upstairs and one downstairs.