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On June 27, during his third voyage, Speck returned to the boat drunk, quarreled with an officer and was fired. He showed up in Chicago, borrowed $25 from a married sister who lives there, and went to the N.M.U. hall to apply for a berth on a ship headed for New Orleans. None was available. After spending the night in a rooming house, he returned, only to be told that there had been a job but someone else had taken it. Discouraged, Speck took his two bags and, according to one version, went to sit in Luella Park, immediately behind the victims' apartment. That night he left his bags at the service station, slept in another park. He spent most of his third job-hunting day drinking in a grubby nearby tavern, the Ship-Yard Inn.
"Remain Calm." Late that night an intruder worked his way into the nurses' residence, stabbed and strangled eight of them to death. It still seemed unbelievable that the girls had made no effort to scream or escape while they were being led away, one by one. However, Survivor Corazon Amurao confided one explanation to the Philippine consul general in Chicago: "Those of them who were not gagged tried to decide what to do. All the Filipino girls were for fighting for their honor and for their survival." But the American women argued that "maybe if we are quiet and calm, he will remain quiet and calm "—possibly because they were more disciplined to the nurse's creed of going to almost any length to calm a disturbed patient.
As for the slayer's motivation, Dr. Edward Kelleher, director of Chicago's Psychiatric Institute, noted that "sex maniacs strike out against women rather than men because of their hatred for all women. Very often it is the mother who is the real object of their intense abomination. In this case, it is conceivable that nurses were chosen as vic tims because they represent tender, loving care and thus are identified with motherhood." There may have been another motive. Like Oswald, Speck apparently suffered from a distorted craving for recognition. Once, seeing a friend's name in the papers, Speck reportedly remarked: "One of these days it won't be just a little item with me. It will be the whole front page."