Company apologizes for using photo of Richard Speck victim

Nearly 60 years ago, the face of the Chicago mass murderer Richard Speck captivated headlines after he killed multiple women.

A sharp-eyed CBS News Chicago viewer recently spotted something that made her and the family of one of Speck's victims very upset.

Those in the Chicago area in the 1960s might have heard the name Pamela Wilkening, one of Speck's victims. Her nephew, Keith Wilkening, said his father thinks about Pamela "every day."

Georgeann Georges has never met the Wilkening family, but she knows about them.

"I was 16 when the murders happened," Georges said. "It was on the news constantly."

Georges was going into her junior year of high school in 1966 when a townhome on East 100th Street became the center of the headlines. Speck broke in and brutally murdered Pamela Wilkening and her seven classmates, who were all studying to become nurses.

"I'll never forget those faces," Georges said. "Never. It really hurt to see it."

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Georges was hurt by an internet advertisement that popped up on her iPad recently. The ad read the "Average nurse salary in 2024 is just mind-blowing (Take a look)." The clickbait ad featured a photo of a 1966 murder victim.

"When I saw this picture come up on the screen, I was appalled," Georges said.

She was appalled when she realized the ad included a photo of Pamela Wilkening.

"How and why is her picture used to attract nurses to the profession?" Georges said. "This is horrible."

She said she saw the advertisement featuring Wilkening's image more than once. CBS News Chicago shared a screenshot of the ad with the Wilkening family.

"It's just an old picture of a nurse to anyone who doesn't know that happened and who it was, so I was just trying to figure out why out of all the pictures of nurses did you pick this one?" Keith Wilkening said.

University of Illinois Chicago communications professor Steve Jones showed CBS News Chicago search terms content creators might use to find free, nostalgic nursing photos online like "vintage," "nurse," and "nursing."

"I don't know how they got hold of this image," Jones said.

While Pam's photo did not come up in one database he used, Jones speculated a computer program was responsible for finding, and then pairing the picture of her wearing a nursing hat with a headline about nursing salaries.

"There were probably not humans involved in determining that image should pop up," Jones said.

Keith Wilkening said the explanation of how his aunt's image popped up was "fascinating, but I think it's the editor's due diligence and the people who are putting it together to not just take whatever."

That's how MGID, the California-based international marketing company behind the ad, said it operates. CBS News Chicago found MGID guidelines that state a "compliance team thoroughly reviews" each advertisement, including its "thumbnail image." They also stated, "We use automatic algorithms and manual checks" and "all ads are proofread."

So what happened here?

MGID company executives declined an interview request but said in an email, "An internal investigation is underway to determine how this image passed through our moderation process. We deeply regret this oversight and apologize to the Wilkening family and the concerned viewer."

For Pamela's nephew, the oversight still hurt.

"It doesn't anger me, it's just frustrating," Keith Wilkering said.

Georges added, "To see that used in a way to advertise, it was just not right to me."