Monster: The Ed Gein Story - 5 harrowing details about The Birdman's crimes, revisited

Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn't just dive into the twisted psyche of America's most infamous criminal, but during the final episode titled "The Godfather," the Netflix anthology series also shines a light on another real-life criminal who left behind an equally chilling legacy: Richard Speck, the Birdman.

Speck is seen in the final episode with his story blurring the lines between what's real and what's isn't. But who exactly was Richard Speck? What made his crimes feel so unforgettable?

To truly understand why his crimes, we're revisiting five unsettling truths about the Birdman that Monster: The Ed Gein Story reimagines.

5 harrowing details about The Birdman

1. The birth of the Birdman: A life shaped by chaos and cruelty

Before Richard Speck became one of America's most feared mass murderers, his life nearly came undone in the worst way possible. He was born on December 6, 1941, in Kirkwood, Illinois, the day before the Pearl Harbor attack.

Richard Speck. (Image Via: Serial Killers Documentaries, YouTube)

According to CBS News Chicago, Speck often joked:

"The day I was born, all hell broke loose the next day. And it hasn't stopped since..."

His words, in hindsight, feel weirdly prophetic. After losing his father at six and growing up under an abusive stepfather in Texas, Speck started to consume alcohol at an early age and even to dropped out of school by sixteen.

Arrests soon started to follow, including crimes such as theft and assault. The instability of the man, the violence, and the addiction would soon turn into one of the darkest crimes of the 20th century in America with a rampage that Monster: The Ed Gein Story only begins to capture through its creepy dramatization of Speck's personality.

2. The night that changed Chicago: Eight lives lost all at once

Monster: The Ed Gein Story only somewhat fictionalizes Speck's story. On July 13, 1966, Chicago witnessed a crime so horrifying it would scar the city forever.

That night, Speck broke into a townhouse which was shared by nine young nursing students from South Chicago Community Hospital. Over several hours, he tied them all up and brutally murdered eight of the women right there.

Only one survivor, Corazon Amurao, lived to tell the event by hiding under a bed until next morning. Her detailed description helped police identify Richard Speck days later. As William Martin, the assistant Cook County district attorney who prosecuted him, told NBC News;

"It really was the end of an age of innocence."

With Speck's small cameo in Monster: The Ed Gein Story, it's hard not to remember that dreadful night that forever shifted Chicago's sense of safety.

3. “Born to Raise Hell”: The tattoo that lead to his arrest

Speck's arrest felt like it jumped straight out of a crime novel or a movie script. After committing the mass murder, he went into hiding and attempted suicide in a hotel.

Richard Speck. (Image Via: CBS Chicago, YouTube)

The doctor who treated him noticed the now infamous tattoo — "Born to Raise Hell" - the same tattoo that the lone survivor had described. That tattoo is what finally sealed his fate.

Within hours, police knew they had their man. The phrase would later come to symbolize not only Speck's rebellion but also the violence that defined him.

4. The Birdman in prison: A nickname with a sinister twist

The nickname "Birdman" wasn't given to him out of love or compassion, but cruelty. According to FBI profiler John E. Douglas in Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, Speck once rescued a sparrow that flew into his cell. He nursed it back to health, until a guard reminded him that pets weren't allowed.

Without hesitation, Speck threw the bird into a fan, killing it, saying;

"If I can't have it, no one can."

The story reveals his lack of empathy. Ironically, the nickname also mirrored another criminal named Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz," who cared for canaries while being in prision. Yet, unlike Stroud, Speck's connection to birds reflected destruction. It's this psychological cruelty that Monster: The Ed Gein Story briefly highlights while reflecting on Richard Speck's time in prison.

5. A legacy of horror: Richard Speck’s final years

Despite multiple appeals, Richard Speck never saw freedom again. After being sentenced to death in 1967, his punishment was later converted to 400 - 1,200 years in prison when the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty and he lived out his life in the Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois.

During a 1978 interview with the Chicago Tribune, he admitted being drunk and high during the murders but claimed he also had an accomplice, a statement investigators never verified. In a later prison video; filmed in 1988 and released posthumously, Speck was seen using drugs and mocking his crimes.

"If they only knew how much fun I was having in here, they would turn me loose..."

Monster: The Ed Gein Story may center on its titular grave digger, Ed Gein. However, The Birdman's story, from his troubled childhood to the horrors of that July night, remains one of the most terrifying true crime cases in American history.