Richard Speck - False Reports That Speck Was XYY

False Reports That Speck Was XYY

In December 1965 and March 1966, Nature and The Lancet published the first preliminary reports by British cytogeneticist Patricia Jacobs and colleagues of a chromosome survey of Scotland's only security hospital for the developmentally disabled, that found nine patients, averaging almost 6 ft. in height (range: 5'7" to 6'2"), had a 47,XYY karyotype, and mischaracterized them as aggressive and violent criminals.

In August 1966, based on those mischaracterizations, Eric Engel, a Swiss endocrinologist and geneticist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote to Speck's attorney, Cook County Public Defender Gerald W. Getty, who was reportedly planning an insanity defense, and proposed confidentially karyotyping the 6 ft. 1 in. tall Speck. Getty agreed, a chromosome analysis was performed, and the results—showing Speck had a normal 46,XY karyotype—were reported to Getty in a September 26, 1966 letter, one month before a court-appointed panel of six physicians concluded that Speck was mentally competent to stand trial.

In January 1968 and March 1968, The Lancet and Science published the first U.S. reports of institutionalized XYY males by Mary Telfer, a biochemist at the Elwyn Institute. Telfer found five tall, developmentally disabled XYY boys and men in hospitals and penal institutions in Pennsylvania, and since four of the five had at least moderate facial acne, jumped to the erroneous conclusion acne was a defining characteristic of XYY males. In January 1968, Getty contacted Telfer for more information on her findings. She not only incorrectly assumed the acne-scarred Speck was an XYY male, but leapt to the egregiously false conclusion Speck was the archetypical XYY male.

In April 1968, The New York Times introduced the XYY genetic condition to the general public for the first time, using Telfer as a main source for a three-part series on consecutive days that began with a Sunday front-page story. The second story in the series, "Ultimate Speck appeal may cite a genetic defect", incorrectly reported a chromosome analysis of Speck by Chicago geneticist Eugene Pergament in the summer of 1967 had shown Speck to be an XYY male. The third story in the series included a denial by Pergament he had done a chromosome analysis of Speck, but continued to incorrectly report a chromosome analysis had shown Speck to be an XYY male.

The following week, a Time article using Telfer as a main source reported "Richard Speck is said to be one such" man with two Y chromosomes and a Newsweek article using Telfer as a main source reported that "according to some doctors" Richard Speck "exemplifies the XYY type" and "His chromosomes have in fact been analyzed, but his lawyer will not reveal the results of the test."

In May 1968, after reading news stories about Speck being an XYY male, a dumbfounded Engel contacted Getty and learned the news stories were false—other than Engel's September 1966 chromosome analysis which had shown Speck to have a normal 46,XY karyotype—no other chromosome analysis of Speck had been done. Engel performed a second chromosome analysis of Speck in June 1968 and the results—again showing Speck had a normal 46,XY karyotype—were reported to Getty in a July 3, 1968 letter, three weeks before Getty filed his 193-page brief in Speck's appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

In November 1968, five days before the Illinois Supreme Court's decision on Speck's appeal, a Sunday front-page article in the Chicago Tribune that again used Telfer as a main source, reported that prison records showed blood samples were taken from Speck in Stateville prison in June 1968 to determine whether he was an XYY male, and Getty had confirmed that a chromosome analysis had been performed outside of Illinois, but refused to disclose the results. On November 25, 1968, three days after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld Speck's conviction and death sentence, Getty held a press conference at which he outlined the basis of his forthcoming appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and also made public the chromosome analysis results from Engel showing Speck to have a normal 46,XY karyotype.

In September 1972, Engel published his account of the story and a photograph of Speck's normal 46,XY karyotype in the American Journal of Mental Deficiency, but by then the false association of Speck with the XYY genetic condition had been incorporated into high school biology textbooks, college genetics textbooks and medical school psychiatry textbooks, where misinformation still persists decades later.