Empire of Care (American EncountersGlobal Interactions) by Catherine Ceniza Choy

Author:Catherine Ceniza Choy [Choy, Catherine Ceniza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2003-01-31T05:00:00+00:00

THE STAR WITNESS, BUT A SPECK SENSATION

After the massacre, lone survivor Corazon Amurao emerged as the star witness in the case against Richard Speck. Although Amurao suffered from shock immediately after the massacre, soon she was able to give details of Speck’s description to a police artist during a two-hour interview. The artist’s sketch eventually led to a gas station attendant’s recognition of Speck as a seaman seeking work at the nearby National Maritime Union. Police discovered Speck’s name on a job application. As Speck had had several jobs as a seaman, his photograph had been filed with the U.S. Coast Guard. Amurao then identified Speck as the intruder from over one hundred photographs of men registered with the U.S. Coast Guard. Her identification set in motion a number of events that led to the location of his whereabouts and his arrest. Amurao was then able to personally identify him in a prison hospital.

Amurao’s status as the star witness combined with the American public’s fascination with mass murder and bodily violence to make her into a celebrity. Soon after the crime, Amurao appeared in the society pages of the Chicago Tribune, leading the gossip column by Herb Lyon, who mused, “Was or wasn’t that surviving nurse, Corazon Amurao, lunching at the Sherman’s Celtic room with Philippine consul General Provido? At any rate, there’ll be no exclusive story sale to any national mag. by courageous Amurao.28 Amurao’s photo appeared next to the column, which then continued to divulge more celebrity sightings of and gossip about Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. American mainstream magazines Life and the Saturday Evening Post competed for photographs of Amurao and exclusive rights to her story about the night of the massacre. The Post ’s reported offer of $25,000 for her story was a newsworthy sum at the time.29 Unlike the Philippine and American lawyers who argued about the potential profits from her story, Amurao rejected these offers, claiming that such publicity tainted the memory of the victims. However, the Post paid for Amurao’s mother’s flight from the Philippines and a writer from the magazine accompanied the mother from the airport. Life had also offered to pay the plane fare, but only in exchange for exclusive rights to photographs of the mother and daughter greeting each other at the airport.

The consistency of Amurao’s identification of Speck through police interviews and photographs climaxed with her identification of him in court. Amurao’s modest physical appearance and demeanor during the prosecution’s three-hour direct examination made her the perfect prosecution witness. In the nonfiction book Born to Raise Hell, authors Jack Altman and Marvin Ziporyn described the courtroom drama of Amurao’s identification of Speck in slow motion with visual and emotional detail:

The young, bespectacled prosecution counsel gripped the sides of his wooden lectern, his knuckles showing white as he asked in a dry, metallic voice: “Now, Miss Amurao, if you see that same man in the courtroom today who came to your bedroom door on Wednesday night, July 13, 1966, would you please step down and point him out.

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