Who Is the Birdman in Monster: The Ed Gein Story? What to Know About Serial Killer Richard Speck By Christopher Rudolph

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is filled with fictional killers like Norman Bates, Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, but the Netflix original also features real murderers from American history, like Richard Speck, a.k.a. the Birdman.

Speck was a mass murderer who went on a rampage and killed eight nursing students in 1966. The killer, played by Tobias Jelinek in season 3 of the Monster anthology series, appears in the eighth and final episode of The Ed Gein Story, where he’s seen writing fan letters to Gein (Charlie Hunnam). But who was Speck, and was he really a fan of the “Butcher of Plainfield?”

Here’s everything to know about Richard Speck, a.k.a. the Birdman, and his connection to Ed Gein.

Who was Richard Speck?

According to the Chicago History Museum, Speck was born on Dec. 6, 1941, in Kirkwood, Ill.

“The day I was born, all hell broke loose the next day,” Speck said, per CBS News Chicago, referring to the attack on Pearl Harbor the following day. “And it hasn’t stopped since.”

On July 14, 1966, Speck broke into a Chicago townhouse and murdered eight female nursing students who lived there. A ninth woman, Corazon Amurao, escaped Speck’s murder spree by hiding under a bed. She would later describe Speck to the police, helping lead to his arrest.

Speck was finally apprehended days later, after he tried to commit suicide in a hotel. The doctor who was treating him noticed Speck’s infamous tattoo, which read “Born to Raise Hell,” and had been mentioned in reports about him.

“It really was the first random mass murder of the 20th century,” William Martin, the assistant Cook County district attorney who prosecuted Speck, told NBC News in 2016. “It really was the end of an age of innocence. It changed everything. We all became much more conscious of our security.”

In 1967, Speck was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the death penalty; however, he was resentenced to 400 to 1,200 years in prison (eight consecutive sentences) in 1972 after the Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional.

Why was Richard Speck called the Birdman?

According to John E. Douglas, one of the authors of Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, Speck was called the Birdman because of his pet bird, which he later killed.

In the book, Douglas recounted how Speck found an injured sparrow who had flown into his jail cell. He nursed it back to health, but when a guard said pets weren’t allowed, Speck threw the bird into a spinning fan, killing it. He told the guard, “If I can’t have it, no one can.”

However, Speck wasn’t the first murderer to be called Birdman. Robert Stroud — one of the most famous inmates at Alcatraz — is known as the “Birdman of Alcatraz.” He developed a fascination with canaries and conducted informal research during his 30-year imprisonment at Leavenworth. He was eventually transferred to Alcatraz, where he spent 17 years. He died at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., in 1963, per Alcatraz History.

Did the Speck really write letters to Ed Gein?

In the final episode of Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Speck calls Gein “his idol,” adding, “He’s who I wanted to be, and he’s who I became.”

In the series, Speck sends fan letters to Gein, but according to Biography, there is no evidence that the two murderers ever actually corresponded.

The last episode also features a fantasy sequence, showing the killers who were inspired by Gein’s “dark legacy,” as executive producer Ryan Murphy explained to Tudum.

“There were many, many dark creatures in our world — Richard Speck, Ted Bundy — who were influenced and obsessed with Ed for all the wrong reasons,” said Murphy.

What happened to Speck?

Speck served his prison sentence at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Ill, where he unsuccessfully petitioned for parole seven times.

He died of a presumed heart attack on Dec. 5, 1991, one day before his 50th birthday.

Has Speck been fictionalized in other works?

Monster: The Ed Gein Story isn’t the only TV series to feature the Birdman.

Speck also appeared in the first season of another Netflix original, Mindhunter, where he was played by Jack Erdie. Based on the book of the same name, Mindhunter follows two FBI agents in the 1970s as they expand criminal science and explore the psyches of serial killers.