Prosecutor in 1966 nurses murder case dies at 80
Apr 17, 2018Martin convinced a jury to send a man to the electric chair for the killings of eight student nurses in Chicago."It is your responsibility ... to this sovereign state to say that a man cannot murder eight innocent girls in their beds and expect to spend the rest of his life in a prison cell," Martin told the jurors. "Courage is what is required of you."In less than an hour, the jury found Richard Speck guilty of eight counts of murder, and he was sentenced to die by electrocution, the state's method of capital punishment at the time.Martin had won one of the most infamous murder cases in the country's history. In recent interviews recounting the 50-year observance of the 1966 murders, Martin said the Speck case shocked and changed the nation."The nightmares aren't completely gone and never will be," Martin said on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" last year. "It was a time when people didn't lock their doors and felt comfortable in their beds, and that was shattered."Martin went on to become a well-known private defense attorney, representing lawyers and judges who faced disciplinary or criminal charges. But it was the Speck trial that thrust him into legal prominence.Martin, 80, died Friday at Elmhurst Hospital after a long battle with cancer."We were very close," said Marc Martin, his oldest son and a Cook County judge. "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so I followed in his footsteps at St. Patrick's Academy, then Fenwick High School, then Loyola University and law school."In 1993, William Martin and Chicago author Dennis Breo co-authored a book on the subject, "The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murder of Eight Nurses." It won critical acclaim, and Martin described Speck as the first modern mass murderer, someone who had no connection to his victims and killed at random.The book was re-issued last year on the anniversary of the murders.Martin was not always the tough prosecutor. Breo once described Martin as a bleeding-heart liberal when he joined the state's attorney's o... (Chicago Tribune)
