Newspapers clawed for information, anything they could find on the Indiana preacher's daughter gone haywire. They uncovered her clothing sizes, her favorite foods, her bouts with TB, her family's first names, her marital history, even that she had a suspected boyfriend named Jack Halloran. And in the morals-conscious milieux of 1931, the fact she may have been adulterous met with as much scorn as her alleged murder.

Major gazettes offered rewards for her capture, and every columnist in every city fell upon each other for "hot-button" tips and the latest police findings in Phoenix and Los Angeles, the two cities currently sharing a history of the Winnie Ruth Judd crime and getaway.

While Los Angeles police combed their city for Winnie, who had vanished into thin air after departing in haste from the train station, they wasted no time in tracking down her husband, Dr. Judd, and her brother, Burton McKinnell. After briefly questioning both parties, they quickly realized that neither of them, who had strong alibis for their whereabouts over the weekend, had any previous knowledge of the crime. William Judd was clearly overcome with shock and anxiety. Burton, because he had accompanied his sister to the train station to pick up the telltale luggage, had at first been labeled a solid suspect, but his explanation of how he innocently happened to be with her was quite satisfactory.

Ruth had showed up on campus looking for him after her L.A. contact fizzled out. Knowing there was no one else to help her, he dodged his classes and drove her back to the station. It was only after they pulled out of the depot that he realized his sibling had no intention of retrieving them and was, in fact, preparing to go into hiding from the law. As they cruised through Los Angeles' lunchtime traffic, she grew more frightened.

When he asked her jokingly, "Ruth, what's in that trunk, a man or a woman?" she answered, quite solemnly, "I'm not going to answer any questions, and I can justify everything." She refused to talk about what had happened, her brother said, interested only in getting away. "She asked me for money because she said she had to leave, and I said 'I think that is the best thing you can do. I wish you all the luck in the world, kid.' And she left." Making him pull alongside a downtown curb, she alit from his Ford and melted into the noonday crowd.

After an unparalleled manhunt, she was found on October 23 hiding in, of all places, a funeral parlor. When questioned, she replied, "I am Winnie Ruth Judd." Hungry, disheveled, worn, she accompanied police to the jail where reporters enveloped her. "I had to do it," she moaned, "I had to."

But, with the first stuttering of self-defense, the entire case turned topsy-turvy; no one, the public nor the police, expected it. When newscasters announced the killer was apprehended, America braced to meet a snarling Hydra gloating over her wicked, wicked ways; instead, they were introduced to photos in the newspaper of a wide-eyed, tearful waif in handcuffs whose visage bespoke a blend of crucifixion and apology, and whose sobs of I had to do it brought the house down. Almost from the start, America sympathized with her; all except Phoenix officialdom.

Looking back, Phoenix was very much a Coliseum of lions and Winnie Ruth Judd the hapless Christian. Awaiting her extradition back to Arizona, the town's administration turned curiously - and vindictively -- bent on Ruth's destruction.

To the point of sabotage.

City authorities closed ears to debate. Belief in City Hall Phoenix was that Ruth Judd had killed her two victims in cold blood while they slept. To corroborate this, they pointed to the fact that the mattresses of both the girls' beds were missing - a finding that, when Ruth first heard it, puzzled and shocked her. (The last glimpse she had had of the bedroom, the mattresses were in place upon Anne and Sammy's beds.) But, in the detectives' assumption, the only reason why a suspect would have disposed of them was because they were soaked by incriminating blood.

There was a splattering of blood on the walls near one of the beds - and Ruth knew that must have come from Jack Halloran's transporting of Sammy to the bedroom. But, they refused to listen to her explanations about the mattresses or the splatters. The intrigue was growing; she felt it tightening; and her words were not being heard.

After all, they were falling on those deaf ears.

To keep the smoky light of guilt on Ruth, Phoenix administrators kept autopsy reports of the murdered women vague. If they had not, the American public would have read that the mutilations performed on Sammy were not "mutilations" at all - whoever cut up the girl had been experienced in anatomy. The dissections were clean and accurate. And not performed by an amateur like Ruth.

As well, police also surfaced their discovery of an ominous letter written by Sammy Samuelson the day she died. The three-page document, addressed to her sister, was found un-mailed at the scene of the crime. To the press, a police spokesperson cited a fragment of that letter as reading, "We are much happier by ourselves as Ruth and Anne clashed on so many things and their quarrels were sometimes violent."

The actual letter read, "We are so much happier here by ourselves. Ruth and Anne clashed in many things. We get along so well but it shows there has to be a lot of tolerance which comes from love."

Quite different.

When Ruth told her story to the police, she spoke of a scuffle, of Sammy attacking her with a pistol, of a .25 caliber bullet entering her hand while she tried to ward off the attack, of Anne clubbing her with an ironing board. She was left with bruises that, if apprised honestly by the police and prosecution, would have held weight in her defense.

When arrested, Ruth received emergency surgery to remove the bullet that had lodged in her palm; the hand had turned gangrenous. In the same examination, Dr. Grace Homman found an extraordinary number of fresh welts, cuts and discolorations - 147 of them - across her body. They were the type usually produced by assault. (Photographs still extant today) were taken that graphically depict the extent of the injuries. The attending physician's diagnosis was that, as she later wrote, "Mrs. Judd put up a tremendous fight for her life."

But, somehow the diagnosis and photographs of the wounds that Ruth suffered evaporated from the investigation reports as if they had never existed.

Police called Ruth a liar. Of her hand wound, they proclaimed she shot herself after the fact on Saturday to insinuate a struggle the night before. They had not uncovered one person who saw Ruth with a bandaged hand the day after the supposed attack - so they asserted. Yet, in the most botched or plotted mishap of the whole investigation, they ignored the testimonies of five people who vouched they had seen her left hand bandaged early Saturday morning at work, as well as a crucial piece of testimony given by the streetcar driver who drove her home Friday night after the fracas.

Patients Grace Mitchell and Stella and Mike Kerkes saw the bandage and commented on it that Saturday morning at Grunow Clinic. Medical Secretary Faye Ayres and handyman Emil Clemmons vividly remembered her left hand in gauze. And as for the trolleyman B. Jurgemeyer, he had told police that when he picked her up at approximately 11:30 Friday night, to take her back towards her home, "her left hand was completely wrapped."

In retrospect, the bandaged hand did not fit with what the police wanted to say: that Ruth shot and killed her two friends in their sleep, butchered the bodies, shoved the pieces into an array of portables, went home to sleep soundly, appeared at work the following morning, blew a bullet into her hand for illusion of innocence in case she was suspected, then proceeded to machinate her escape plans to Los Angeles.

The reason for the suspected cover-up: to shield Phoenix's man of the hour, Jack Halloran. Ergo, had Ruth's hand been accepted as actually invalidated during the melee, then there wouldn't have been a ghost of a chance for any sane man or woman to believe that a 100-pound woman, by herself, with tuberculosis, and with one good hand, had lifted the much-heavier Anne LeRoi into a trunk, cleaved Sammy, cleaned the house and disposed of the mattresses.

Quite evident of Phoenix's fear of itself - that is, its reputation - was the fact that when Jack's name became implicated in the bloody mess - as either Ruth's boyfriend or as an alleged accomplice - all papers across the country, except in Phoenix, printed his name. According to Miss Bommersbach, the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette referred to him only as Mr. X.

Several neighbors had spotted Halloran's automobile on North Second Street, parked near the scene of the fatality, on both Friday and Saturday evenings. Ruth's neighbor, idling in the suspect's driveway on Friday, had also seen it. Police heard them out, checked the reported license plates against state records and concluded the car, a gray Packard, was indeed registered to Halloran. Sharp newspapermen got a hold of this bit of dynamite and, as every other major news outlet in the union ran the information page one, the local press in Phoenix simply disregarded it. As did the police when they failed to include the findings in the prosecution's dossier.

While American newspapers continued to consider a possible "other-person" theory, Phoenix mouthpieces refuted it. They disregarded Mr. X's presence as hearsay and never took pains in pursuing either an abettor or, for that matter, a motive that might have involved anyone else outside of Mrs. Judd's personal jealousy/animosity.

Considering all this, imagine the behind -the- scenes dither that must have ensued when the International Wire Service leaked a report that a diary belonging to Anne LeRoi had been discovered in her home, a diary that named certain members of Phoenix's upper-elite who had patronized the two women. According to the Wire, the alleged diary contained "intimate details" of the slain girls and their beaus. The State's Attorneys office was forced to admit its existence, but refused to comment.

Everyone wondered what was in that diary - and [whom]. From its suggestion, it sounded like it name-dropped not only Jack Halloran but also several other married and prominent men in town of recognized high standing and moral caliber. "Hanky was the name and panky was the game," wrote Don Dedera, a well-known Arizona journalist in afterwards summing up the hypocrisy that these men led. They played the community pillar, but cracked its foundation in the interim. Respected and likeable, they glossed their activities by pose and charm.

But, of the general public, very few were fooled. They learned about the "summer bachelors" who sent their wives and children away to the cottage every June and July so they could party with the single pert young girls who saw their chance for a job promotion, a diamond ring, a fur coat or perhaps an advantage they could store away until they thought of something specific.

Releasing LeRoi's diary would have probably meant ruination for too many people, instant ejection from high seats and an embarrassing scandal all around for Arizona. But, whatever chaos ran amok among the conspirators was brief, for soon all further mention of the reputation-breaker was muzzled. Prosecutors forgot it and the diary never found its way into Ruth's trial.

The dissemblers remained safe.

Pondering

Among the dark knights of Phoenix there was one - one - who wore shining armor, and meant it. Sheriff John McFadden believed that there was much more to the story than the local yokels were being fed. From Ruth's incarceration through her trial and afterwards he would prove to be Winnie Ruth Judd's greatest ally - and lifesaver.

What set McFadden on his course were the autopsy pictures of Sammy Samuelson's cut-up body. Helen McFadden, the sheriff's daughter, recalls that in viewing the photographs her dad came to the conclusion that the dismemberment "had to be done by a professional - a surgeon or a doctor. He said Ruth was incapable of doing it."

Ruth had remembered that Jack Halloran had told her Sammy was "operated on". She assumed he was telling her, in a most polite way, that he disjointed her carcass. In her confused and frightened state, she hadn't stopped to consider anything else. Unless autopsy prints lie, which of course they do not, Halloran could not have performed such a neat, clean job, as illustrated.

Who could have done it? Scholars point to one man: Dr. Charles W. Brown, the same physician who Halloran claimed lay in his debt. One theory is that Halloran, who had earlier tried to reach Brown to remove Ruth's bullet, may have at last found him after he brought Ruth home. The two men very likely returned to the death house on North Second Street where the intimidated Brown conducted the dissection.

Not long after Ruth was incarcerated at Arizona State Prison, the warden heard from the guards that a man calling himself Dr. Brown, drunk and disorderly, had wobbled into the front office insisting to see Winnie Ruth Judd. When they asked why, he blurted, "Because I am the only man alive who knows the truth!" Before they could quiz him further, he hotfooted.

A few days later, he died. The coroner pronounced it a coronary, but many believed he had committed suicide.

Sheriff McFadden's initial suspicions were becoming concrete as incidences such as these prevailed. The lawman's real contribution, however, will be discussed later, but it adds to the story now to mention that, during his independent investigations, he was proving a source of worry to someone. Says Helen of her father, "He was getting telephone threats that something would happen to his family if he didn't back off."

Ennis

McFadden would have had a confederate had Hugh Ennis worn a badge in 1931. Ennis, a 22-year veteran with the Phoenix Police Force was not a professional lawman during the Judd trial, but joined the muster roll later, working in the homicide, vice and narcotics departments. The force that he knew was nothing like the politically run group of the Thirties; he is proud to have been a member of what he considers an honest, hard-working and intelligent organization. He retired as captain in 1981.

However, he openly condemns the botched and suspicious way the Winnie Ruth Judd investigation was handled by his predecessors. "So much...smacks of exactly what it probably was -- political interference," he told Jana Bommersbach when she interviewed him for her expose, The Trunk Murderess early in the 1990s

Ennis has studied the case for years, he has read the original police reports and has gone over everything relating to the case that he could get his hands on, published and non. In reviewing the trial transcripts and copies of police interviews with eyewitnesses, he presents his overall judgment of the case: the police indeed "took care" of the investigation so that the pieces fit someone's private puzzle, not the truth.

He focused on four particular areas:

"(The police) sent officers out there who let reporters traipse all through the place. Right then, they no longer had a crime scene. Any crime scene integrity was gone...Who knows what evidence was destroyed as those people were milling around? Who knows what was moved or taken away? Who knows what fingerprints were wiped out? The police clearly acted like this was a small hick town the way they handled this case."

To make matters worse, says Ennis, the county's blood expert didn't arrive to take blood samples until twenty-eight days after the murders - and after the landlord had opened the place to the public, charging admission to literally thousands of curiosity seekers who paraded through it. By then, Ennis reports, blood sampling became "a useless gesture".

Determining where the victims were slain

Ennis cannot understand how the state could uphold their claim that Winnie shot her two friends in their bedroom while they slept. He attests, "There just wasn't enough blood in that bedroom. If she'd shot the women as the prosecution said...there should have been a lot of blood in that bedroom around both beds. You don't kill somebody - especially shooting them in the head - without a lot of blood.

"The (lack of) blood in the bedroom alone shows the state's theory was wrong. So...where and how were those girls killed?" Ennis continues. "And why would Ruth Judd make up a story where she admits shooting them, but puts the shooting in the wrong place? What did she have to gain? If she was there, she's got to know what the physical evidence shows. Why didn't she say the fight happened in the bedroom if that's the only place she knows the blood will show up? It doesn't make any sense that she'd insist the girls died in the kitchen unless that's what she remembered. Those are the questions the police should have been asking, but they weren't."

His views on the disappearing mattresses is plain and simple: "There was either something on the mattresses the perpetrator didn't want seen, or the mattresses didn't fit the state's case - if there was no blood on them, how do you explain a scenario where the girls were shot in their beds?"

Ennis notes that the missing-mattress factor should have been considered a highly important focus. The police quickly dropped the issue and no investigation took place. A conscientious police force would have recognized the value of those mattresses as evidence and a hunt to find them would have been mandated.

One more point: Why would Ruth Judd conceal the bloody mattresses, yet leave blood across the walls that the police claimed was there?

Proving a defendant's premeditation of his or her criminal activity is a vital part of a prosecutor's job; but, again, the state failed in that area. "To show premeditation, you have to show where the gun was that night. If she came over to kill them, they had to show she brought it with her. They didn't do that. My guess is they didn't because they couldn't explain where the gun was. There were never any tests done to see if she'd ever fired a gun...a dermal nitrate test. It can even tell what kind of gun was fired."

Of her actions in the week prior to the killings, there was nothing to suggest a plan. "She wasn't conserving her resources to make a getaway," adds Ennis. "The evidence you see presents a picture of a person caught in a predicament who has to improvise. I couldn't take the evidence the police gathered and get the case through a preliminary hearing or a grand jury, to say nothing of a murder trial. You'd pull the stunts today that they pulled and the judge would tell you, 'Get outta town.' He'd throw the case out."

Shadow of a Trial

Jury selection for the long-awaited trial of Winnie Ruth Judd commenced on January 19, 1932, at the Maricopa County Courthouse in downtown Phoenix. Both the defense and the prosecution were very particular whom they selected to sit on the panel; the high-profile nature of the murders had generated distinct opinions by everyone in the county and worries of a mis-trial over a slip of a tongue or a nuance of bigotry were very real.

The state chose to try her for the death of Anne LeRoi only, to be followed with a separate trial for Sammy Samuelson afterwards. The second would never occur due to subsequent events.

Presiding over the three-week LeRoi murder trial - an event in itself that condemned Winnie Ruth Judd in a comparatively unsensational manner - was Judge Howard Speakman, who, as a former state prosecutor and defender, had cued up a brilliant career. Popular County Attorney Lloyd "Dogie" Andrews headed the case for the state.

 Ruth had a combine of three lawyers, directed by well-known criminal attorney Paul Schenck. But none of these, even Schenck, was effective on her behalf. Less being more, they acted to surrender to her guilt before the trial began, more concerned with pleading insanity than exonerating her.

The most anticipated event of the trial, the testimony proffered by the defendant herself, surprisingly and sadly never happened. That Ruth was not called to the stand disappointed Americans. Reporters in the courtroom described how she sat at the counsel's table, day after day, wringing her handkerchief, tugging at her bandage, pathetic in character, miserable by accusation, silent and dismal throughout. Much of the nation, in commenting on the suspicious nature of her being kept "under wraps," so to speak, questioned her lawyers' ability and the basic honesty of the ritual.

Jury foreman Scott Thompson later revealed that much of the evidence laid forth against Winnie Ruth Judd was hard to understand because, he felt, it was presented by the prosecution in a confusing and illogical manner. The defense did next to nothing to contradict the prosecution nor clarify said testimony. Scott wasn't alone in his opinions. In researching the evidence on their own after the trial had ended, Thompson and other jurors were alarmed to find that certain important elements of the case - elements instrumental in helping them formulate their verdict - were not satisfactorily explained. Much seemed twisted to shape a particular conclusion.

One of these concerned the mattresses supposedly removed from the girls' bedroom. The juror claims that he and his peers were led to believe that a mattress found in the alley parallel to the murder scene was definitely proven to be to one of the victim's mattresses and was definitely blood-soaked. Neither proved true.

Prosecutors stood their ground on accusing Mrs. Judd of having killed in jealous rage. To support the motive of jealousy born from illicit love, they conjured up only two hazy witnesses - one that claimed Ruth was at one time angry at Sammy for trying to steal Jack, and another who spoke of seeing Ruth and Jack kissing and cuddling. Neither had heard her state words of violence, nor of revenge, nor of anything pertaining to a murder to come. And yet, by dropping from the jury all evidence that would have given another side to the story of Winnie Ruth Judd's relationship with the girls or her last night in their company, they convinced it that the defendant was guilty. Defense counselors waivered, unarmed because they hadn't done their homework, then whithered under the duress of a kangaroo court they assumed, going in, couldn't be beaten.

Mrs. Kate Kunz, whose husband sat on the jury and who watched the trial proceedings daily, "came away from the trial with two major impressions about what had happened," writes Jana Bommersbach in The Trunk Murderess. "One, that Ruth Judd was guilty of shooting the girls, and two, that 'there was no question' she had help somewhere along the way...'We never understood why Jack Halloran was never called,' (Mrs. Kunz) remembers. 'His name was brought up so often in the case. He was sworn in, but he was never called to the stand.'"

The jury reached its verdict on the afternoon of February 8, 1932. She was pronounced guilty. And before the session ended, they elected that she should hang by the neck.

Winnie Ruth Judd was placed on death row at the Arizona State Prison at Florence. Over the next several months, an appeals court juggled a verdict, her proponents wanting a mistrial. But, eventually the court reached its decision. It upheld the original verdict and punishment.

Ruth was sentenced to die February 17, 1933.

To Be or Not To Be...Insane

Sheriff John R. McFadden was not content with the jury's verdict.

After the trial, he convinced Ruth to talk, to tell her side of the story, an opportunity she shamefully had not been given in court. . As head of the jail where she was brought when extradited back from Los Angeles, he had heard her initial self-defense story the night she was brought in -- a story so simple yet blown out of proportion and rebuilt in the meantime by others. Over the months as she sat in his cells, he and his wife often visited her, extending her kindness, listening to her informally describe that bloody evening of October 16, 1931. On his own, McFadden had investigated elements of the crime, and from the sidelines he watched those elements disregarded by the state; and his conscience bothered him. He felt that he needed to do something to save the accused from the burning stake. He made a last-ditch effort to, metaphorically, douse the fires the witch hunters had ignited.

In the shadow of the gallows, her execution less than two months away, Ruth was brought from her cell at the state prison and placed at a table among several witnesses whom McFadden had gathered to listen to her. His aim was to bring the transcript to the grand jury to force a fresh hearing. He believed he could do it. Around that table that evening of December 18, 1932, were, besides Ruth and Sheriff McFadden, Oliver Willson, Ruth's new lawyer; William Delbridge, the prison warden; Jeff Adams, one of McFadden's deputies; and a court stenographer.

And she talked...

*****

Whatever method McFadden used to convince the grand jury to listen - Judd biographer Jana Bommersbach suggests he might have even threatened to arrest Jack Halloran himself -- he was successful. The efforts given by the convening grand jury proved to be not just another sideshow, but a body of jurors interested in American Justice. On the stand, Ruth related the entire story, the way it happened: the argument... the fight...the attack on her person...the gunshots...the deaths...Jack Halloran's admitted "operation" on Sammy Samuelson...her flight to Los Angeles, funded by Halloran.

Van Beck, one of the jurors, in recalling the case, remembers how the courtroom was "spellbound" as it heard, for the first recorded time, an altogether new version of the crime, new revelations spilling out of Winnie Ruth's mouth, revelations that not only made sense, but were traceable to a source of truth. "We didn't believe it was cold-blooded murder," he summarizes. "We felt positive she was unable to cut up the body. We were told it took a professional...Most people in the valley knew other people were involved in this crime, but there was nothing they could do -- the other s involved were prominent married men."

Then, two amazing things happened. Not only did the grand jury request that the Parole Board commute her death sentence to life imprisonment - it was manslaughter, it said, not premeditated murder -- but it also attempted to lighten Ruth's term further by bringing in someone who could support her story. It indicted Jack Halloran. McFadden eagerly volunteered to deliver the subpoena personally.

The Parole Board chose not to make a decision concerning Ruth's death sentence until it heard the results of the Halloran hearing, although it postponed the execution to Friday, April 14. In mid-January, "Happy Jack" appeared in court to a tremendous popping of flashbulbs and scratch-scratch-scratch of scores of reporters' cartridge pens recording everything from his expression to the flashy necktie he wore.

On the stand, Ruth re-told the story of Jack's abetting, but this time she often lost herself to hysteria when she saw her former lover's sneers. His presence in the courtroom was lethal, and his intimidating manner not discouraged by the court. During testimony, the defendant would begin crying hysterically and, instead of answering questions, would rush off into a string of epithets. The horrors she was re-living were aggravated by the appearance of the victor who gazed at her in triumph.

The proceeding showed the system had little sympathy for Ruth. Again, after hearing her testimony, frenzied maybe but considerable nonetheless, it freed Jack of all involvement in the case. Judgment, said the court, was based on the fact that the woman's eccentric manner and personal involvement with her one-time lover spoke of a personal vendetta. No one ventured further investigation nor was Jack brought to the stand; his lawyers spoke for him; and on January 24, "Happy Jack" sauntered out never to be pulled back into this mess again.

Ruth returned to death row to die.

But, the final hearing had not been a total waste, for it spurred public sentiment like never before, especially in Arizona. The public simply believed she was innocent. McFadden had stirred the nation's - and in particularly - the state's conscience. Local newspapers began asking questions. The largest paper in the Arizona, the Republic, headlined McFadden's doubts.

The new warden of Arizona State Prison, A.G. Walker, intervened - probably not without a "reassuring wink from the governor," says Bommersbach - and pleaded for an insanity hearing for his prisoner. It would mean, most likely, a life-term stay at an institution, but it was better than watching the lady being executed.

"There is good reason to believe that (Judd) has become insane after the delivery...to the superintendent of the Arizona State Prison," Walker wrote to the parole commission. If the McFadden/Walker faction was suddenly pulling strings, at least they had learned that to beat a game one had to play as rough as the opponent. As if to get this business over with - Arizona's reputation and its judicial system were on the firing line - the state agreed to a sanity hearing, which convened almost overnight in Pinal County Courthouse, near the prison. It opened on April 14, the day Ruth would have died. About the hour she had been destined to enter the execution chamber she instead shuffled into the county's courthouse.

This time, Ruth's newly appointed defense team maneuvered well; one of them was a young, brilliant attorney named Tom Fullbright, who would go on to become one of the state's most honored - and honest -- jurists.

What happened over the next ten days was, speculatively, much of a staged show, rehearsed by the "good guys." Their efforts may have been effected, on the surface, for the benefit the governor, but they were most assuredly done for the woman, Winnie Ruth Judd.

"(The) sanity hearing began. Winnie laughed uproariously, clapped her hands and, at one time, rose up and said of the jury, 'They're all gangsters!'" Jay Robert Nash explains the theatricals in Bloodletters and Badmen. "Another time, she said loudly to her husband, William C. Judd: 'Let me throw myself out that window!'

"In desperation, Winnie's mother (took) the stand to state that insanity ran through her family like a wild river. Then, Winnie's father...rattled off numerous...loonies in his family tree."

Eventually, the defendant was pulled from the courtroom, but, as Nash replies, "Winnie won". On April 24, 1933, Ruth returned to Phoenix. Her new home was located at the corner of Van Buren and 24th streets: the whitewashed, stucco edifice locals called "the looney house" but, to be correct, it was the Arizona State Mental Hospital.

In-and-Out Inmate

The Arizona State Mental Hospital, like most institutions of that nature in the first half of the 20th Century, lacked proper facility and offered little guidance. Hot, understaffed, short in benevolence but long on razor-strap discipline, these types of places were more Bedlam than TLC. The establishment in Phoenix to which Winnie Ruth Judd was commuted was the most overcrowded in the country.

Ruth found herself alive, true, but thrust into a world of abstracts, a place she could not understand. They said she was crazy - she often wondered herself if perhaps she was -- but then how come she was sane enough to sense the insanity of her situation? By now, having been yanked by fate to all corners of hysteria, she learned to accept small gifts of luck. She coped, and made the best of her new "home". Ruth became the unofficial beautician for many of the women patients, fixing them up for the occasional dances that the hospital sponsored for the inmates. Her work was so good that the nurses began visiting her, glad to pay her the small renumeration she charged.

An aide at the asylum, Anne Keim, remembers Ruth distinctly: "She was more like a member of the staff than a patient. She worked unusually hard - did more for that hospital than any two or three people. She wasn't crazy, either, she was sane as anyone..."

Only one thing, Keim remembers, would drive Ruth over the edge, something very understandable considering all she'd been through: Jack Halloran would often show up at the dances, said she, merely to "sneer and laugh real nasty at her and she'd just go to pieces." The provoker was eventually banned from the grounds.

Harry Whitmer, the institution's business manager during the 1940s, who came to know Ruth Judd well, became convinced of two things: "As for being insane, no...(Also,) there was a major question in a lot of people's minds if she (was guilty) or not, or if she was just taking the rap."

Ruth became an escape artist. During her 30-plus years of incarceration (1933 to 1971), she continuously gave the place the slip - usually for a brief period of time, then ultimately for nearly seven years. The board of directors babbled; they could not figure out how she was able to duck out despite precautionary measures. Years later, after she was given official freedom, Ruth admitted that one kind nurse, who realized the injustice handed her, had given her a key to the front door.

Between 1939 and 1962, Ruth escaped seven times:

October 24, 1939 (for six days). She returned on her own.

December 3, 1939 (for several days). Grabbing a bus to Yuma, Arizona, 180 miles away, police found her there. For this escape she was put into solitary confinement for 24 months, retained barefooted and in pajamas.

May 11, 1947 (for 12 hours). She absconded in broad daylight, but was picked up that night hiding on the grounds of a nearby resort.

November 29, 1951 (for a few hours). Authorities located her, stuck in Phoenix.

February 2, 1952 (for five days). While on the lam, she remained at abetting friends' homes the while, eventually turning herself in.

November 23, 1952 (for two days). Escaped after Thanksgiving dinner, and was found by police in the home of a friend.

October 8, 1962 (for 6-1/2 years).

This latter escape requires more than a capsule summary. Traipsing around Arizona for several months, hiding out, particularly in Kingman, Ruth wound up in Oakland, California. There she utilized a pseudonym, Marian Lane, and even dared to apply at an employment agency for a local job. Her brother was financing her, but she wished to make a go of it on her own. Passing herself off as a maidservant, Ruth was hired by the extremely wealthy Nichols family of San Francisco to serve as both maid and sitter for the aging matriarch, affectionately called "Mother Nichols".

Her employer lived in a huge mansion overlooking the Bay area. Up in years, she found "Marian Lane" the ideal helper and companion. Ruth worked hard, but loved it. She tended to the laundry, the cooking, the general housecleaning, and when Mother Nichols entertained, the setting up of delicate luncheons and afternoon teas. Ruth was in heaven.

When the old lady passed away just before Christmas of 1967, the Nichols relatives invited Marian to stay with them in a cottage they owned on their property north of San Francisco.

Police found her there on June 27, 1969. They had traced her through the records of the state drivers' license bureau

When Ruth had been found "insane" in 1933, the ruling had not altogether eradicated a possibility that she might eventually return to the gallows if she ever recovered her mind. With this looming fear, she time and time again appealed to the authorities to have that aberration removed. In 1952, with the help of some supporters, she was given another hearing to have the death penalty officially voided...again she described that terrible night, again she described Jack Halloran's flimflam. Again Jack Halloran dodged punishment. But, first things first, and this time the first thing being her petition for leniency, the state freed her once and for all from the noose. 

Now, back in the custody of the asylum after her latest and longest escape, Ruth  demanded a sanity hearing knowing that if she was found sane enough for the outside world it wouldn't mean that she must die there.

Having had a taste of the normal life, she yearned freedom more than ever. She phoned the world-famous attorney Melvin Belli in 1969; he took her case immediately. Assisted by local (Arizona) attorney Larry Debus, Belli convinced the state parole board to review the case pending the possibility of release. In October, 1969, Belli appeared before the hearing with a brilliant summary of her case, her life, and brought forth many witnesses to attest to Winnie Ruth Judd - her character, her innocence, her sanity.

Over decades, some things don't change. This was proven when the board denied parole.

The attorneys campaigned; they built up a such a cry for her release from among the American public and press that, when her case came again before the same parole board in February, 1971, it listened this time. After the parade of paparazzi, the testimony, the repetitions and memories of so many years, the board declared:

"...The case is not one you sweep under the rug and forget about...As time passes, more and more people will join the ranks of those who think her sentence should be commuted. What we will see is not a question of modern penology, but the portrayal of out-and-out persecution of an elderly grandmother type unfortunate woman. It is incumbent upon the board to give her a commutation of sentence now..."

Early morning, December 21, 1971, Governor of Arizona Jack Williams put pen to paper. That evening, Ruth walked out of the asylum, this time without dodging the lights.

*****

Winnie Ruth Judd returned to California, as Marian Lane where she lived in Stockton with her dog, Skeeter.  She died at the age of 93 in her sleep, peacefully, on October 23, 1998.

John McFadden, the lawman who saved her from the gallows in the nick of time, found his career politically ruined afterwards. Expecting such, he retired from active duty. Embittered at the foulness of the men who ran him out of office for trying to help a human being, he claimed he would do it all over again, the same way, had he the chance.

Jack Halloran was fired by his silent partners in his lumber business for the scandal he created. He eventually disappeared into oblivion. Many people today believe that he may have even been the man who killed the two girls, but of course that cannot be, at this point in time, substantiated. Theorists say he promised Ruth that if she stood in for him on the killings, he would see that she was freed. He then paid his way out and walked away.

Virginia Fetterer is one who believes Halloran was the killer. A daughter of an Arizona legislator in the state's early days, Fetterer stands by the story she told writer Jana Bommersbach in 1990 about her meeting with him in the late 1930s.

It was New Year's Eve, and Fetterer and her husband dined at the Adams Hotel, a hangout for local politicians. There, she says, they met Halloran. She goes on: "Somebody asked him a question, like if he could take care of a problem. And he was bragging that, sure, he could fix it. Then he said - I can't recall his exact words, but it was to the effect that if you knew the right people you could fix anything in this town. He laughed and said that Winnie Ruth was out in the state hospital paying for what he'd done. He was bragging about it."

Remembering Winnie

What sort of person was Winnie Ruth Judd?

According to those who knew her - who spent real time with her - she was the flip-side of everything the criminal court painted: not a tigress; not vehement; [not] prone to either jealousies or abandon. Rather, she emanated, throughout her life and despite her troubles, a considerate quality of good will.

Dark Horse Multimedia is fortunate to have among its readership Lyn Cisneros, who shares with us her personal recollection of Winnie Ruth Judd. As a child, Lyn spent three days and nights with the woman whom the world sadly knew only as the "Trunk Murderess".

Her memories speak fondness and affection.

Dark Horse is sincerely grateful to Ms. Cisneros for the following anecdote.

*****

After Ruth's seventh escape from the asylum in 1962, and before she ventured to California, she spent several months in the town of Kingman, Arizona. Kingman sits plunked in the scenic desert along the intersection of Interstate 40 west of Flagstaff and U.S. Highway 93, south from Las Vegas. While in town, Ruth the fugitive posed simply as Mrs. Ruth Judd, a married woman fleeing an abusive spouse. The local minister, Reverend Geesey, and his wife - as well as the members of the local First Assembly of God church -- welcomed the woman with open arms. Asking no questions, inviting her into its community of worshippers, the congregation found its newest member, whom they called "Sister Ruth," to be a sweet, intelligent, soft-spoken lady who demonstrated a kind smile and expressed a warm heart to all she met.

"Sister Ruth was allowed to live in a small trailer adjacent to the church parking lot and accessible to the church. She lived alone with her Persian cat whom she called Whitey; the animal's color being obvious," laughs Cisneros. "I've often wondered if the pastor knew her real identity and accommodated her because he recognized the true value in the real woman. He was that kind of man, very insightful. I really do believe he might've known."

The congregation, Cisneros states, loved Ruth. "They brought her food and helped her out in a number of ways. And, in turn, she returned whatever favors she could by doing domestic work for different families, cooking for them, cleaning for them. She earned a small income performing various chores, the money which would keep her in food and clothing."

Cisneros remembers that Sister Ruth often led the singing at church and assisted in activities presented by the Missionettes, a girls' Christian club sponsored by the church in which Cisneros belonged.

"To a child my age - I was 11 years old at the time -- Sister Ruth was a curiosity. She came out of nowhere and, well, was just there one day, as big as life. She didn't say much if encountering her on the streets or crossing the church lot, but she always extended a friendly greeting and magnificent smile. I'd see her out front her place, talking to the pastor or just petting Whitey. She loved that cat."

Cisneros remembers vividly that scar on the lady's left hand. One day she asked her about it, and Sister Ruth explained that a long time ago she had been bitten by a spider. "It was a terrible bite," she remarked. "My index finger still occasionally goes numb."

One day, little Lyn (who was then Lyn Dowling) received the shock of her life. "I was and still am an avid reader, and I poured over the pages of the Arizona Republic with veracity. My father, then head of the town council, subscribed to that paper. Anyway, I happened to be reading the paper when I caught an article about the latest flight-from-justice of Winnie Ruth Judd, the 'Trunk Murderess'. I felt my child's eyes nearly burst from their sockets when they fell on the accompanying black-and-white of the infamous figure. I recognized that face immediately as our beloved Sister Ruth."

The paper described the escapee's hair as fair, whereas Kingman's newest citizen had black hair. "But," Cisneros adds, "I was old enough to know about hair dye. As well, the article mentioned a [scar on her left hand], from the gunshot wound. Imagine my shock!"

Bursting with news, she told everyone - her parents, her neighbors, others in the church, even the pastor - that she had uncovered a deep, dark secret about mysterious Sister Ruth, but, says she, "they all rolled their eyes and laughed. The pastor smirked, patted me on the head and told me, ''Now now, Lyn, don't worry about such things.' You see, I was immediately tagged as the kid with an overactive imagination."

Cisneros will never forget the day her parents announced they were taking a little trip out of town for three days - but, not to worry, for they were keeping Lyn and her nine-year-old brother in capable hands...Sister Ruth's! "Alone with the 'Trunk Murderess'! Just think how I felt!" she shakes her head at the absurdity of the situation. "I mean, this was something right out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie - two defenseless kids, whom no one believes, dropped into the hands of a psycho!"

They were three long days --- and nights. "The worst part of it was bedtime. I distinctly remember pressing a chair under my bedroom doorknob, cramming the chair dead right against it to keep her out. I slept with a butcher knife beside my bed - that is, if I did sleep at all - actually, I don't think I closed my eyes once. I just laid there, listening, waiting, expecting to hear the thump-thump-thump of a trunk being dragged up the stairs toward my room."

She suddenly laughs. "What a silly child, but that goes to show the power of the media, even in 1962. Now, in my maturity, I think back to recall how consistently gentle she was, so loving to me and my brother during those three days she watched us. She made us excellent meals, looked out for our welfare and, for that matter, might as well have been our godmother for all the care she proffered. She was a wonderful woman."

When asked to give her overall impression of Winnie Ruth Judd the person, Cisneros doesn't hesitate. "Everything about her seemed positive, she wanted to please and she tried hard to do it. I believe in my heart she was innocent of all crimes alleged against her. To me she'll always be Sister Ruth.

"She is, no doubt, resting in peace today."

Bibliography

Bommersbach, Jana: The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd   NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Nash, Jay Robert: Bloodletters and Badmen; NY: M. Evans & Company, Inc., 1995.

CrimeLibrary.com