A couple of days after his basement flooded, John Schmale finally mustered the energy to head downstairs and investigate the damage.
In the basement's dim overhead light, a big, brown cardboard box caught his eye, a box so soggy its bottom was ready to fall out. He lugged it upstairs. He opened it.
Inside sat four square, off-white boxes labeled "Kodak," and on top of them lay a sheet of thin pink paper. He instantly recognized his mother's cursive handwriting.
With a rush of excitement and a pang of dread, he read her penciled note: "Nina South Chicago Hospital."
Nina. His little sister. One of eight young nurses killed in a Chicago townhouse on July 14, 1966, by a man who became notorious: Richard Speck.
"I don't believe this," Schmale said to his wife on that day half a century later, gazing inside the box. "What do I have here?"
