THE PINCHED NERVE IS A NICE TOUCH:

Dogged detectives, alert physician nailed Speck (SCOTT FORNEK, 7/10/06, Chicago Sun-Times)

The bloody guy on the gurney was brought in to Cook County Hospital as a Skid Row bum named B. Brian. He had tried to kill himself by cutting his arms with a broken wine bottle.

But something caught the eye of 25-year-old Dr. LeRoy Smith when he looked at the scruffy, sandy-haired man with the acne-scarred face.

"I said, 'This guy looks awful familiar to me,'" Smith remembers.

The first-year surgical resident went into the office where he had just tossed a fresh copy of the Sunday Chicago Tribune with a photograph of fugitive murder suspect Richard Franklin Speck. It looked like his patient.

Smith read that the man wanted for the murder of eight student nurses less than three days earlier had a bunch of tattoos, including one on his left arm reading "Born to Raise Hell."

The emergency room physician went back to the gurney, moistened his fingers with spit and rubbed away the dried blood caked on the man's arm, revealing a B, an O, an R, and finally the entire tattoo. Wanting to be sure, Smith grabbed the man's neck, pinched a nerve and whispered, "What's your real name?"

"Speck. Richard Speck," the man answered.