why didn;'t they run ? ***Spoilers***

The movie greatly changes the physical situation by setting the murders in what appears to be some kind of old hospital or some other institutional facility. The actual setting of the murders was indeed a nurses' dormitory, but it was just a little townhouse, one of a few used to house the student nurses in a quiet little neightborhood. There were three small bedrooms upstairs, a living room and kitchen downstairs. The nurses even slept in bunk beds in the bedrooms, so clearly space was dear. Also, Speck did not enter or begin the attack the way the movie shows. He broke in and went upstairs, waking the sleeping girls in each room. Several of the girls were terrified at first and hid, but the one girl told them he'd promised not to hurt them, so they cooperated, and Speck then finished gathering them and tied them all up---lying on their stomachs, hands behind, not all sitting with their hands in front of them like in the movie. He also gagged them, and bound their feet, unlike in the movie.

People at the time of the murders did still wonder why the girls didn't scream more loudly (it's not certain anyone would have heard them anyhow, since the next dorm over was empty because of a trip), or try to make a break for it. However, even though Speck did take each girl out of the room when he murdered her, none of the other girls would have known exactly where he was going with the taken girl. And he did have a gun. One girl was found on the downstairs sofa, another in a bathroom. What path were the girls supposed to use to try to exit the townhouse? They didn't know if they would open the door and Speck would be there with his knife, or if while crossing a room or hallway he would appear at the other end of it with his gun. And though of course I'm sure after a while they feared the worst was happening to their friends, perhaps they really thought it was possible he was just knocking them out or hurting them, but not killing them, and worried if they tried to escape, he might actually kill them.

I know, I thought the same thing even just hearing about the story for the first time---why would they even let him tie them up! Nine girls, and no one tried to grab his gun? But I was born years after this happened, grew up in a time after Ted Bundy killed the girls at Chi Omega, after a decade (the 70s) filled with slasher horror movies that made people wonder why a girl would run upstairs or not try to use a household item as a weapon. I think in addition to everything else, time period plays a factor, and this was 1966. Sheesh, three years before this, people let the President ride around a town in a convertible! The student nurses might have actually believed Speck when he said he wasn't going to hurt them, he just wanted money. And remember, most of these girls were asleep in bed when he confronted them, and the others were taken by surprise when they came home after a night of drinking. Neither of those are the best time to be making judgment calls about the motivation of some guy sticking a gun in your face and waving a knife. Just a brief peroid of disoriented thought or believing him initially could have then gotten them stuck in the situation they couldn't get out of.

The only things this movie seemed to get right about the movie is the girl getting up in court and pointing Speck down and the fact that Speck accutally did say "If they knew I was having this much fun they'd let me out." other than that this movie is so much garbage. At least cast it right! There would not be an African American Detective Sgt. in the Chicago Police Dept. in the 1960s, nor would there be an oriental detective that high up.