The Crime of the Century

"They are all dead! My friends are all dead! Oh, God, I'm the only one alive!" Chicago, 1966: a drifter from Texas named Richard Speck broke into a small townhouse one hot summer night. He tied up nine student nurses, then methodically raped and killed eight of them, one after another. One of the roommates, a tiny Filipino woman, hid under a bed for hours, and survived to crawl out a window the next morning and scream for help. The Cook County coroner, having surveyed the carnage, said to a gathering crowd, "It's the crime of the century." After Speck died in jail, 25 years later, the prosecuting attorney for the case (Bill Martin) and the journalist who won an award for his coverage of the crime (Dennis Breo) teamed up to write this brilliantly crafted book. A bizarre murderer, a spunky heroine, a stormy period in U.S. history, fascinating legal maneuvers, a dramatic trial, and sensitive treatment of human suffering--The Crime of the Century brings it all together for a classic of true crime reporting.