Winnie Ruth Judd: The Trunk Murderess | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elina I'm Ash and this is [Music] Morgan that's crazy I wanted to end that
intro on a bang you did Bang Bang Pow crash boom I couldn't think of another thing
that's I wish you guys had seen her face she literally went she like pursed her lips and like raised her eyebrows
like I was like Bang Pow crash boom that's all that's all I got I'm still laughing at the the diet coke uh
decoration on my side of the Shelf it's not fine I can I know for 100% certainty
that I didn't put that there we like you know we we did a big clean sweep of the
Pod lab and we just like wanted to clear out all the yuckiness and anything that
needed to get we needed to get rid of we salted the rugs like we said we were going to we organized the bookshelves
and somehow and I don't drink diet I know it's not you I'm sorry Mikey call out 2024 I'm old and I only drink so or
water no you drink diet coke and apparently when you're finished with it you decorate my nice beautiful sound
bath Candle sage poos Santo Shelf with another sacred thing yeah Diet Coke I I'm going to leave it there I love that
is who I am that shelf that is who you are that is who I am candles Paulo Santo my passion the sound bowl a big whole
thing of black obsidian more candles and an empty bottle of Diet Coke see Mikey was just trying to make it more you yeah
that's all you you really you uh you jazzed up the Shelf succeeded I appreciate you I love it I'm looking
like yesterday I was like oh I got to throw that out today I'm looking at it I'm like no I'm going to leave that
there that's not trash maybe you should gild it what is how do you gild it in gold in Gold no no you know make a she's
already she's good at school as Shea Shay would say she's already doesn't even have her cap wow some she'll
evaporate into this air there you go or maybe not cuz she's probably just toxic probably aren't we
all it's early it is me and Elena went to a bar class this morning together and it was [ __ ] crazy I have never felt
so uh both Dead Alive and heaving in my life I'm not joking you I actually did think I was going to throw up on the way
home a little bit wow I did not this was this is one I've been going to cuz I tried to get into my into my fitness
routine recently so I've been going early and then Ash came for the first time today and it happened to be like a
little more of an intense class it wasn't like crazy more intense but it was a little
more crazy intense that [ __ ] rocked my world it was more than normal I will say
that no it definitely was it was fun though yeah I would do it again I will you know working on your Fitness that's
all you can do that's all you can do all you can do is decorate your shelf the way that you see fit and work on your
Fitness exactly all right well and tell us a scary story and I can tell you yeah
this is a scary St judging by the uh title of this one it's it's got some stuff yeah if somehow you are hearing
and you didn't see the title this is uh the story of Winnie Ruth Jud the trunk murderous yeah that alone is really is
really it it sucked me in yeah so Winnie Ruth Jud is in fact the trunk murderess
uh but before that she was just win Winnie Ruth mckennell yeah mckennell she went by Ruth most of her life so instead
of calling her Winnie we're going to be calling her Ruth throughout the story okay uh so she was born January 29th
1905 in Oxford Indiana her early life was pretty difficult right from the start uh after she was born like not too
long even after she was born she ended up getting pneumonia like as a newborn o and when she was four she contracted
tuberculosis which obviously affected her throughout pretty much the rest of her life yeah you don't just shake that
one off no she's a sickly child and then obviously kind of just traveled into adulthood like that there's really not a
lot of documentation related to her life before she got arrested but she herself
did claim that her early years were pretty happy ones like even though she was sick a lot she was still happy
that's good in a letter written to her attorney in 1952 she said my brother was 19 months younger than me and we were
very very affectionate toward each other my father was one of the most kind L and
godly Souls wow he believed that everyone had some good in him he addressed everyone as my good man and my
good woman the world would seem brighter just to talk to him that's really sweet
I want someone to say that about me I will someday thanks the world seems brighter just to talk to her that's
really nice it is I just also love how people spoke back then that's the thing like it's it's like Poetic it's so much
it's like people just spoke on such a deeper level about the people that they loved like cuz at first I was like her
and her brother were really affectionate toward each other like is that weird but
it's like no they were just like affectionate like they just like loved each other yeah like that's the thing
it's like we look at it from a lens of now where we're like what the [ __ ] does
that mean we're jaded as it's like no they just talked they just talked different like they they um they explain
different things in like more flowery pros and it's yes it's nice I like it to us it's a little jarring sometimes we're
like what do you mean by that right but they really just mean like I love them I
assume yeah that's what they mean find anything like I'm hoping I'm not I took my jaded cap off for a second I'm like
should I put it back on wait a second do I need this wait a minute no I don't think you do for for this particular
segment Ruth spoke similarly of her mother who she described as a kindly Christian woman a bit timid but a
hardworking person always willing to make a sacrifice for her family and others who needed her services and
sickness it seems like they're a pretty normal family it seems pretty lovely pretty loving you know um so yeah it
seems like her home life was happy it was positive but other areas of her life were a bit less ordinary she said that
when she started going to school she really realized pretty quickly that she didn't fit in with the other kids she
was brought up in a really rigid religious household so she had never gone to Carnival she had never gone to
like a baseball game a sports event couldn't go to movies oh jeez she really couldn't participate in any of the
social activities that kids her age would have been engaging in at that point she wrote my mother did not think
these things were wrong but our church did not approve of it so it wasn't so much like the parent like I think at
home things were a little more loose happy and positive but the parents like lived by the church's teachings and said
like well we won't go to movies and we won't enjoy those things but like it wasn't like sit down and read the Bible
and play hours we have a loving home but it's it doesn't sound like it's a fun home yeah no I don't think there was a
lot of room for fun and that limited so ization and lack of experience without with really anything outside of her
religious world it would go on to play an important role in her adult life especially when it related to her
romantic relationships because sometimes when it's like overly rigid your romantic relationships get a little
weird other things get a little weird a little it's got to leak out somewhere you know so in 1924 when she was 19
years old Ruth married William Jud a doctor and World War I veteran with uh he was more than 20 years her senior so
a little bit old all right all right having grown up in a loving household Ruth had a lot of ideas about what
marriage should be but she quickly learned uh life as Mrs William Jud was not going to be anything like her
parents happy marriage author Jana I think it's bomersbach uh she wrote the trunk murderous said forget the image of
a nice family doctor who settled in a community supplying his wife with a home and
respectability unfortunately that's not what was going to happen at all Jud was addicted to
Morphine uh which may have actually been the result of injuries that he sustained
during the war but because his addiction was so strong he struggled to find and keep steady work after their wedding in
1924 they packed up everything they owned and decided to move to Mexico where William started working for an
American mining company which I think we talked about mining in one of my last episodes it was like a I mean he was a
doctor like damn he and I think just because of his addiction he couldn't really swing it anymore like mining was
like a last Stitch kind of seriously like it was the last job you were really going to go for but so at first the
judge marriage was a happy one like in the beginning it was it seemed pretty all right and Ruth was writing letters
home telling her parents that she was enjoying Mexico the people were were so nice she was working on learning how to
speak Spanish and that happiness seemed to last a few years and Ruth eventually became pregnant but unfortunately in 19
27 her tuberculosis got worse and she had to be hospitalized for a short period and during that period she lost
the baby oh that's sad and she and William decided that her health was probably too poor for her to Really Ever
carry a child it just didn't seem like something that was going to be likely yeah so from there things really only
got worse cuz that's like a big blow obviously if the if you think you want to have children and then one day you
realize like it's probably not the best idea like I can't imagine how that would
feel that's a tough yeah so Ruth returned to Mexico but the humid climate of the region seemed to make her TB
worse so she was never in good health while they were there and to make matters worse jud's addiction had
finally caught up with him and he got fired from his mining job which caused even more stress and really further
strained their already fragile relationship Bo in letters home to her parents Ruth never mentioned jud's
addiction problems never mentioned their marital troubles or really how unhappy she'd become instead her letters were
quote always cheery always filled with the promise that the setbacks would be overcome very positive yeah she scking
it out mhm and the lack of her sharing her frustrations was probably an attempt to keep her family from finding out that
her husband was uh not really a a successful doctor and she was uh not really content with life but the truth
was Ruth and William hadn't been happy for quite some time by this point and Ruth had grown really tired of making
excuses and lying to her family yeah so in 1930 they decided toally separate with Ruth moving to Phoenix Arizona
where she hoped the dry climate would help and improve her TB at the time this was pretty risky it's 1930 she's a woman
she has no income she really doesn't know anybody in the area and she didn't have a ton of skills that were going to
help her find a job but luckily she was able to find a job as a medical secretary at the gr I think it's gruno
Clinic um after she lied in her interview and assured her new employer that she had experience as a typist she
did not she did not but she was like I can do it yeah uh her lie became apparent rather quickly they were like I
don't think you know what you're doing but and she just like couldn't keep up with the pace or anything but her boss
liked her so much just thought like she was such a nice person that he was like I'm going to I'm going to bear with you
and you'll learn how to do this we're going to stick this up yeah so her position required her to work six days a
week and she was paid $75 a month which is not a lot no uh like I said the salary was small and after paying her
rent and her other expenses she sent what was whatever was left over to her husband at that point he had moved to
California looking for a new job so with little free time and essentially no money Ruth treasured the time that she
spent with her new best friends Agnes an Leroy who went by an and her roommate hedvig Samy samulon they were co uh
Sammy was a cooworker from the clinic an and Sammy had been friends for a while while and then all three women bonded
over having moved to Arizona around the same time and trying to make it on their
own with no man to support them yeah so they were like we're girly pops we're out here we're new in town and we're
getting it done we're new in town yeah so not long after Ann and Sammy arrived in Phoenix uh William Jud joined his
wife in Arizona and for a time things were good again William got along with Ruth's new friends and the four of them
hung out a lot of a group at one another's Apartments but unfortunately the good times didn't last really long
jud's addiction problems were just as bad as they had been if not worse and his inability to find Steady work meant
that he was gone for a lot of the time as he was looking for work in other places yeah and at the same time things
had actually started to take a downturn for Ruth's friends like Ruth Sammy had chosen Phoenix in the hope that the
climate would improve her tuberculosis but by late spring her her condition had gotten worse and she had
to make the decision to enter a sanitarium in Portland Oregon for treatment I said Oregon you heard it
Oregon Oregon I said it correctly not like not to be confused with the Oregon Trail cuz that's what it
is Oregon Oregon oron Oregon anyway Oregon don't worry just kidding unable to maintain her job and support Sammy and
made the decision to leave her job and travel with her friend to Oregon so Sammy and Anne are now in Oregon for a
little bit in August of 1931 Sammy got discharged from that sanitarium and she and Anne moved back to Phoenix so they
were all reunited again so it like a little I think it was like about a year maybe like nine months to a year yeah uh
so now without jobs or income Ruth offered to move in with them and the three shared a small pretty cramped
apartment they had been the best of friends for months but there's a big difference between hanging out together
when you want to in having to be together all the [ __ ] time and sharing a living space and a
very small one at that abely that's a very different situation and also with stress of like having no money and a lot
of things going on in your personal life so before long they started having what
one friend described as quote unquote Petty arguments over everything cool yay fun also three girls doesn't usually
work out yeah in my experience three is not the best number for friendships yeah with girls specifically
yeah I was going to say that I can speak from that point of view too like it's never that's a tough one it can work
like I'm not saying it never works but but it has the it has the more of a tendency to go AR ride because one
person ends up feeling left out a lot of times and like they say three is a crowd
three is a crowd but fortunately in early October Ann managed to get her job back at the clinic and Ruth happily
moved out of the apartment and found her own place just a few blocks away in a letter to her fiance sent in late
September Anne wrote Ruth is leaving us in a few days it really hasn't worked out so well having the three of us we
are very fond of her and she's a sweet girl but three just seems to be a wrong number when one is used to living by
oneself and just one other very congenial one so when William was in town the four friends tended to
socialize as a group like I said they got along really well when he was away though the three friends all really
young all very beautiful women were known to throw parties that were attended by by large numbers of
businessmen married and unmarried oh Scandal that is Scandal waiting to happen it sure is journalist Don dear uh
dearer I think it is said in this town at the time this is my favorite quote of this entire thing are you guys ready he
said I'm ready hanky was the name and Panky was the game shut the [ __ ] up I will never recover that's an amazing
quote it's my favorite quote I think in a case ever hanky was the name and Pinky was the game I feel like I see
some like old gum shoe like detective with a big old cigar hanging out of his mouth smoking standing on in like an
Alleyway with like a one beam of light coming down from a from a a street light yes and this fog rolling through he says
hanky was the gay what was it hanky was was the name and Pinky was the game wow it's my favorite thing ever love I love
that a lot I love it so much so among the more popular and uh more like regular of their party guests was uh
jack happy jack hollerin a they called him happy jack happy jack oh I saw a face there he might have been a douche I
don't really know oh no yeah he was a Phoenix area businessman he was in his 40s he lavished the three friends with
gifts he was just like you know Happy Jack just giving you gifts showing up at your party so he's like happy time Jack
yes kind more like that because in addition to being what one friend described as a quote about as prominent
of a man as you'd find in Phoenix in those days he was also married and a father of three children but that rarely
stopped him from spending his nights in the company of other women like aside from his wife yeah I
kind of got that idea yeah so unknown to an Sammy and William Ruth had actually met happy jack in early January and they
had had been carrying on a clandestine Affair since then wow yeah yeah things escalated quickly yeah apparently yeah
according to Jana bomersbach Ruth quote wanted to get pregnant by hollerin and he'd pledged to her that regardless of
his other flirtation she was the only one he wanted but despite what he told her Ruth
knew Jack had also been spending time with an and Sammy and he had been supplying their parties with alcohol so
she had reason to Dev to doubt his Devotion to her she also knew that he'd been giving uh an and Sammy some money
and she also was like seeing him flirt with them and other people at their party shamelessly yeah constantly and
while they may not have known the extent of Jack and Ruth's relationship Sammy and an definitely realized that she
captured a certain amount of his attention whenever they were together so basically everybody's just suspicious of
everybody at this point that makes sense yeah and when it came to Jack hin they all had reason to be jealous of each
other of course so it's a mess yeah that's I was going to say this is just a this is so messy and it escalates so
quickly like so quickly it usually does yeah on the night of October 16th 1931 Ann and Sammy called Ruth and they were
like hey um do you want to come over for dinner but since she had planned a date
with Jack she declined and said she just had lots of work to catch up on okay yeah then several hours passed and she
still hadn't heard from Jack who she was supposed to have a date with with so she
she's like pissed off she's annoyed she's irritated so rather than you know just stay at her apartment and wait for
him she was like no you know what I'm going to go take an and Sammy up on their invitation good for her yeah and
she figured that if Jack did end up showing up she would be sending the message that she wasn't the kind of girl
who was just going to sit around and wait for him no all the guys know it wouldn't be right to leave your best
girl home on a Saturday night what's that from The Beach Boys look listen to you listen to you so so she arrived at
Ann and Samy's apartment a little after 9:30 that night and she's like oh I finished all my work sooner than I
expected they're like okay and she's like yeah I just figured I would take you up on your invitation so they sat up
they had dinner together you know they're shooting the [ __ ] gossiping girls just being girls but since Ann and
Ruth had to work the next day they decided to call it a night a little before midnight they said by that time
the Charlie had stopped running though and Ruth would have had to walk home so they just like uh Sammy and an were like
no you shouldn't walk home in the middle of the night why don't you stay on the couch and she was like yeah that's
that's a good plan now what happened next has been a matter of debate for decades and even Ruth herself has given
various slightly different explanations like depending on when she tells the story so it's kind of unclear what what
exactly happened between the three of them okay in the statement that Ruth would give less than a week later she
claimed I had gone to their girls home to remonstrate with Miss Samuelson Sammy for some nasty things she said about
Miss Lee man miss Samuelson got a hold of a gun and shot me in the left hand I struggled
with her and the gun fell Miss Leroy grabbed an ironing board and started to strike me over the head with it in the
struggle I got hold of the gun and Sammy got shot Miss Leroy was still coming at
me with the ironing board and so I had to shoot her I told you it escalated quickly that
I feel like it just was like bam like just whoo yeah a gun is now involved in yeah in an ironing
Bo for some reason the notion of like bopping someone over the head with an ironing board sounds funny
in theory yes and then when you actually think about it you're like damn Hur like
that is gnarly so I'm like damn that would be scary cuz at first I was like that's a silly image of somebody like
bopping someone with an ironing board but then I'm like no that's a little scary actually cuz it's really just like
metal with like a it's not even like a cushion on top it's like a bored I think it's just like and it's like somebody's
like slamming you with an irony that's crazy yeah who knows if that really happened damn I know cuz there was
another version of the incident where Ruth said that she and Sammy got into a heated argument and Sammy had quote come
at her with a gun in the kitchen and then in order to defend herself Ruth said that she grabbed a bread knife off
the counter and stabbed Sammy holy [ __ ] and then she ended up shooting her while
they were both struggling on the floor for the gun and then she said and tried to break up the fight by hitting her
with the ironing board so that's why she shot her next well and here's the thing
the iron back to the ironing board you don't shoot someone that's coming at you with an ironing board you don't bring a
gun to an ironing board fight like you just don't welln that's wild Behavior like that's
reckless something in her I think just snapped it certainly seems that way and then cuz there's no justification here
that I'm seeing yeah and I don't mean like Snapped as like I don't know if she there ends up being like this whole
debate over whether she's insane like criminally or not yeah and I don't know that she is or isn't like when you find
could just be like Snapped as in like like the TV show Snapped yeah like she'd come to a point where she couldn't take
it anymore and she snapped not that she snapped from reality right exactly thank
you I don't know I'm interested to see what you think because things escalate even more from here to the point where
you're just like but it goes on for so long that you're like well it's not just a moment where where she snapped out of
reality for a second and like lost it right it feels like there's probably more that's going to happen here that
I'm going to be like um considering like a trunk is in the title yeah the trunk is coming up yeah yeah that's the thing
so so that she has her stories she has a couple different versions of them they're all pretty similar but there's
just like little aspects that change from time to time this State meanwhile would present a very different version
of events during trial in their version all three women were arguing over Jack hollerin and after Anne and Sammy had
gone to bed the prosecution claimed that Ruth snuck into their bedrooms and shot
each one of them in the head shooting Anne first That's cold blooded and then they said when Sammy heard the gunshot
she woke up and threw her hand out in a defensive gesture and that's why she had
a bullet hole in her hand that makes sense and they said that was quickly followed by the Fatal gunshot to her
head which would make sense cuz you get shot through the hand and then you're like reeling from getting shot in the
hand it leaves you vulnerable to exactly a shot in the head and you're sleeping in bed like You' just W already
vulnerable you know according to Ruth's biographer uh Jenna bomb bomersbach the most likely account of the murders is
kind of like an amalgamation of Ruth's version of events but with the inclusion of a few key details that she would
later describe in a letter she was going to send to her husband William because remember she's still married to William
I forgot about that yeah in the letter Ruth claimed that she did stay the night at an and Samy's apartment and then the
next day they were sitting in the living room and an argument broke out days before that Ruth had set jack up on a
date with a woman that she knew through the clinic but she knew that this woman had
syphilis so she was telling them that and whether the comment was made jokingly or out of jealousy Samy
threatened to tell Jack that Ruth had knowingly set him up with a woman who had syphilis and allegedly she told when
I tell them you associate with and introduce them to girls who have syphilis he won't have anything to do
with you damn so [ __ ] got like this got so that's all the only way you can describe it is just like [ __ ] messy
yeah like I'm looking at this and I'm like I would want to be a 100 miles away from this situation and if that's the
truth how [ __ ] up like you can't be doing that syphilis is a serious [ __ ] disease absolutely it is come on damn
and the thing is if Jack hollerin had found out about Ruth wanting to set him up with somebody that had syphilis out
of in like a vengeful Spirit you know well and not like not telling him not going to be a consensual yeah that would
be non-consensual if he didn't know and she was like and definit like she wasn't
going to tell him because this whole thing was like he had [ __ ] her over yeah so she was like haha so she was
like I'll you damn that is feels not proportionate agreed but yeah so if he had found out he would uh obviously
think pretty poorly of Ruth and their relationship and end things yeah which would jeopardize everything that she had
hoped for with her future with Jack so in a moment of anger Ruth said Sammy I'll shoot you if you tell that and in
response Sammy went into the other room returned with the gun and pointed it in a threatening gesture and reacting
without thinking Ruth grabbed the barrel of the gun and it went off bullet grazed
Ruth's hand and then the pain from the bullet wound and the shock from The Sound Of The Gunshot that sent Ruth out
of her chair she knocked Sammy to the ground grabbed that bread knife and stabbed her in the process and then she
managed to get the gun away from Sammy and quickly killed her two closest friends holy [ __ ] so this is like
another version of the events that may or may not be true there's like 16 up until this point there's I think there
might even be more damn bombers boach believes Ruth had planned to send because that all of what I just said was
those were details laid out in the letter that Ruth was planning to send to William and bomersbach believes that
Ruth planned to send this letter to her husband in order to explain what had happened and then she was possibly going
to take her own life but the letter never made it to William and would eventually be used against her in court
EK yeah bombers box said she would eventually tell this story many times all of them after she'd been convicted
of murder but she would always tell this same story so she told like all these different versions but then when she was
convicted that last one is the story that she stuck with and it's the one that she ped to her husband like right
after everything happened so I tend to believe this one out of all of them I could yeah that does make sense I I I
believe it to a degree yeah you know after shooting both women Ru and this is where it gets really dark just so
everybody knows uh Ruth moved each back into their beds cleaned up the best she could and then went to work for the day
oh just went to work yep and later that afternoon after she was finished with her shift she went back to the apartment
and in Samy's apartment and loaded both bodies into an's steamer trunk and had it moved from their apartment to her own
where she dismembered Samy's body placing her head torso and lower legs into the smaller shipping trunk and her
remaining body body parts went into a smaller suitcase and a hat box damn worried that she would be caught
and wanting to distance herself from the crime scene on the morning of October 18th she booked a ticket to California
on the Golden State limited which was a railroad that went from Phoenix to LA and she checked the trunks with the
baggage handlers at the station holy [ __ ] so she has two bodies dismembered in multiple Trunks and checks her
luggage which contains two dismembered bodies she is Wy Wy that is Wy that's a bold move the boldest one might say so
the next day the Golden State limited pulled into the station in La where the baggage handler HJ Maps noticed a strong
odor and saw quote what he believed to be blood leaking from one of these trunks so he goes and gets his
supervisor Arthur Anderson and he's like hey I think that this is just wild what he thought
was in there bleeding he said I think this trunk might have some Contraband meat in it I mean okay I don't know a
lot about like what people were smuggling throughout the country in the 19 1930s but I will tell you I didn't
know that there was Contraband meat I just love that that is the that's the first thought yeah I also
feel like that'd be a really good band name Contraband me we are Contraband me yeah that is a good band name when you
yell it you are right so Anderson set the luggage aside and was like oh you know what when like the owner gets off
the train we'll ask what the [ __ ] is going on here but when they found Ruth she just told them she didn't have the
keys but that she would quote phone her husband and have him bring them to the baggage station oh okay and they're like
yeah totally so you're just traveling with luggage that you don't have the keys to like that's interesting that
makes sense okay so they waited and she used the phone at the baggage counter to
make that call but she claimed she got no response and she said she'd have to drive downtown to locate her husband but
after slipping away into a crowd she jumped into a waiting car of her brother The Waiting car of her brother Burton
mckinnel and they just sped off leaving the bags there [ __ ] so she called her brother and was like you need to pick me
up in LA and he was sitting there waiting for her and she was able to get away holy [ __ ] and and left the bags
there and left the bag so concerned about the contents of these Trunks and their suspicious as [ __ ] owner Anderson
notified the LAPD and they forced the locks open on the trunks obviously of course revealing the horrific contents
inside in addition to the bodies contained within the trunks detectives also found the women's purses which
allowed them to identify both bodies as Sammy and Annie and an excuse me she just put their ident like just just put
an IDs with them just put their purses in there in case you need with their identification I was like why didn't you
just like I'm glad that you didn't but you why didn't you just leave their purses at home damn you really just gave
it to them cuz also that would have made it look like they had like disappeared exactly but I'm I'm glad you didn't I'm
glad she was so thoroughly thinking that yikes wow they also she put everything in these suitcases they also found the
spent shell casings from the 25 caliber pistol that was used to kill both women in their
purses like here's their IDs in the murder weapon essentially oh yeah the murder weapon as well oh the actual
murder weapon or like not the murder weapon but something that was used in the murder the green handled bread knife
that Ruth had stabbed Sammy with was also in the trunks wow the evidence inside was uh also covered in bloody
fingerprints which investigators assumed would probably be a match for the trunks
owner once she was located they were like you know what I'm going to go out on a limb and say yeah yeah going to say
as soon as we get her I feel like these fingerprints match most importantly though somebody had managed to write
down the license plate number of the car that Ruth had escaped in and a day later
her brother Burton was found and arrested but still no Ruthie damn in an interview with police Burton insisted he
didn't know where the hell his sister was and he didn't know anything about the bodies in the trunks he's like she
called me man I just just came I just came to pick her up he's like I'm just that [ __ ] sucker who has to pick
somebody up from the train station I'm that guy in the town who says whose C we take it I don't know anything about it
just I'll pick you up he said I don't know why she did it if she did it she must have been insane according to him
Ruth had met him on the college campus shortly after she arrived in California and asked him for a ride he said she
said she wanted me to pick up her trunks which she had brought from Phoenix Arizona and throw them in the ocean I
asked her why she wanted me to do such a strange thing but she got angry and said
the less I knew the better off I'd be baby um that's when you should I mean that is a police Moment Like that's when
you're when you somebody tells you please pick up those trunks and throw ran away from and throw them in the
ocean and when you say like why would why would I throw your trunks in the ocean and they say like it's probably
best that you not know a lot about it don't touch those trunks dude don't touch those trunks you got to you got
got to call someone you just wipe your hands in that situation you walk the other way you call someone and you say
they said it's the best the less I know the better yeah so I'm going to stay with that but I'm going to pass this on
to you exactly exactly but this poor guy he's like this is my sister I don't know
what the [ __ ] is going that's really hard like that's a [ __ ] position in I keep forgetting it's her actual brother
yeah exactly but still I mean I would do a lot of [ __ ] for you I'm not throwing
[ __ ] in the ocean for you I'm not throwing bodies in the ocean yeah and I'm I'm way too conspicuous yeah so true
after the bag of Chandlers at the station started questioning them about the contents of the trunks Burton said
he also became suspicious and insisted that they leave the station he said outside in the car I opened her valise
which I think is a is the trunk okay he said what I saw nearly made me faint nearly drove me nearly drove me insane
and he was referring to the portion of Samy's body that Ruth had put in the suitcase when it didn't fit in the trunk
oh my God so there was the trunks at the station and she has her suit but she has
her suitcase which has part of Sam's body part of Samy's body in the suitcase yes my jeez yeah he said I knew then
what was wrong why she acted so strange he claimed he drove her downtown and gave her $5 and then dropped her off in
the middle of like a very busy La Street and that was the last time he had seen her but he said I hope she gets away she
was forced to do it I know the poor kid damn that's some brother [ __ ] yeah like
wow so while the police combed the city looking for Ruth the Press had managed to gather a ton of information on the
victims the suspected killer and a number of friends and family members all in like a pretty short amount of time
like a surprisingly short amount of time well she wasn't really uh super careful
no she definitely wasn't but still I was like wow you guys got a lot but the most
significant finding was the letter that Ruth had supposedly written William after the murders where she disclosed
pretty much all the details of the crime as well as letters written by back and forth between Ruth and William based on
what little they had learned from investigators most press figured out that there was not only marital trouble
between Ruth and her husband but also they were like yeah we're pretty sure she was seeing another guy the Tucson
citizen among others reported that the County Attorney from Phoenix Lloyd Andrews speculated that quote a woman of
Mrs jud's stature could not have committed the slangs and packed the bodies into the trunk alone and
therefore she must have had an accomplice so now people are starting to think somebody did this with her he'd be
surprised he continued on it would be foolish considering all we have learned to go on the theory Mrs Jed alone was
responsible for these slayings she's a woman of slight build and it would have been impossible for her alone to have
handled these bodies there's little doubt a man was involved in the packing of the
trunks I mean you'd be surprised what you do in a desperate situation regardless of how big or small you are
right agreed so so in an attempt to distance his own self from this crime and from the innuendos and rumors
appearing in the press that she had some help William Jud reached out to her husband reached out to a reporter from
the LA Times to comment he said I wish the police would exceed to my wishes and permit me and her brother to start in
the hunt I believe that my wife would find me in some way and then we could start to unravel this appalling mystery
honestly good for William he's just like [ __ ] that he's like I have nothing to do
with this and actually I'd like to help you find her so we could figure find what the [ __ ] happened also be that way
he also refuted reports in the press that his marriage was in trouble or that he and Ruth had been experiencing any
Discord in the relationship he said my wife is the quiet refined type there's nothing vicious or criminal in her
makeup and we never quarreled except the usual spats between husband and wife I'm
like that's not necessarily true she moved all the way to Phoenix because things were so bad yeah and I forgot how
bad it was yeah yeah yeah I he didn't know about Jack it doesn't sound until yeah until he did know he did know but
but they did have issues yeah but when it came to whether Ruth had murdered Sammy and an he rejected the theory
entirely he said I know she's mixed up in it in in some way but she's too frail too small and too weak to have committed
these Deeds uned H she did commit spoiler alert she did she never named another accomplice don't discount just
based on how somebody's stature yeah they never found anything any evidence to that it was anybody else other than
her mhm so while the Press quickly built a strong case against Ruth and her unnamed accomplice hundreds of LAPD
officers were Fanning out across the city and what the LA Times were calling quote the greatest police hunt in the
history of the West damn which I love that was really intense yeah according to the times police searched a small
cabin owned by Burton mckinnel where they found quote two pieces of cream pie and four sandwiches had been brought
there two days earlier they said leading them to believe that the location was being used as some kind of Hideout I was
like or the guy just really likes pie and sandwiches I mean I'd be in trouble if that's what they're looking for I was
literally just going to say I'd be screwed I'm like you looking for snacks because uhoh because I got a lot of
those I'm in trouble but the cabin it went under heavy surveillance and Ruth never returned so he might have just
been a hungry guy he just like creep eyes or she might have been there at one point and he was like have a pie but
between the time the bodies were discovered at the train station and the day Ruth was arrested residents of Los
Angeles and readers around the country probably were terrified of some maniacal butcher running around on the loose and
possibly hunting for more victims yeah cuz you don't know what the what happened here no exactly and it's
remember this is in the 1930s so it's really hard for people to think that a woman could do this fathom this yeah
yeah even in 1960 what we when we talked about the barle case and Ruth was involved a different Ruth people were
like no way she's too pretty and she's a woman yeah exactly so people just couldn't believe it too pretty too
pretty and actually this Ruth was also pretty and it played into the case mhm so after Burton dropped Ruth off
downtown on the evening of the 19th she made her way to the Lavina sanitarium which she was previous she was familiar
with from a previous day to her surprise nobody stopped or questioned her when she walked in so she found an unoccupied
room and laid down on the bed later she said I went to bed there and I remember nothing else for 4
days I love that she was just able to Walt in there and just lay in a bed she just walked into a hospital and laid in
a bed for 4 days yeah like like okay hello we were doing okay I guess yeah I guess so on the morning of October 23rd
she left the sanitarium and placed a call to a doctor that she knew at another area sanitarium asking if he
would be able to mail the letter that she had written to William but the doctor was like no Ruth and I know that
they're looking for you you need to turn yourself in like I I'm not playing any part in this good for that doctor so
instead she walked around the city for a while until she overheard a woman reading an article from the paper and
she heard the woman say her husband wants her to call this number like they were talking about her wow this woman
yeah so she found a copy of the newspaper that the woman was reading and she called the number that William had
given to the reporters she said immediately I called that number and my husband answered in Spanish and told me
to me him meet him at the builtmore theater when they arrived she found her husband in the company of another man
and she found out that he was the attorney that William had hired to represent her damn so they both
convinced her to turn herself into the police and together they made arrangements for her to surrender at a
nearby funeral parlor interesting I'm not sure what the point of that was to make it really intense and Theatrical I
guess so and it was on the condition that she immediately be submitted for psychiatric evaluation smart yeah so a
little past 6 p.m. la P officers arrested Ruth at the Alvarez and Moore Funeral Home just a few blocks from the
Hall of Justice whatever condition she had put on her surrender were not honored and instead of being taken to a
local psychiatric hospital she was taken immediately to an interrogation room which makes sense where they were like
what the [ __ ] yeah they might not have thought she was insane at the time but most people were surprised by her
appearance when she was taken into custody they like I said like they're picturing like this maniacal butcher
like dangerous psychopath yeah but what they found was a very small frail woman who looked disheveled confused and in
real bad need of a shower and clean clothes I love that they're like and she stunk they were like she was smelly and
she looked like [ __ ] her hair looked a mess which also it didn't there's pictures of her surrendering she looks
[ __ ] great I was like well [ __ ] what what would anyone think of me on any given day I'm not even surrendering ever
capture me going to the local coffee shop and I'll look like I need to been on I've been on the lamb for it's
the yam it's the yam excuse I've been on the sweet potato for a few days exactly
but in her confession Ruth told the version of the story where she went to Sam Sammy and an's home to confront
Sammy about quote unquote some nasty things she had said about an and then a conflict escalated and she ended up
shooting both of them and with her face buried in her hand she just kept repeating I had to shoot her I had to
shoot her like she just kept saying it when the bodies were discovered at the train station though detectives and
District Attorneys the uh the District Attorney's Office had assumed that they had a pretty easy case before them as
long as they could capture the killer if even half of what the Press was reporting turned out to be true this
murder was motivated by jealousy and there was a grim evidence found in possession of the killer yeah but the
confession threw a wrench into their plans for like this open shut case because Ruth didn't deny killing Sammy
and Anne but she claimed that she had done it in self-defense yeah that's going to be a
problem for them yeah completely different from first-degree murder and in addition to that there was scratches
on her arms and face and the remember she had been shot in the hand as well so the Bullet had that it had literally
lodged in her hand and it had become uh gangrenous o so that suggested that oh [ __ ] may have been some truth
to would make me second guess if there's like ual wounds on her and she's claiming self-defense how do you get
away from that and especially back then too they you know I mean that's a pretty
good defense pretty good case so later that evening detectives got a hold of the letter that Ruth had planned to send
to William before tearing it up and leaving it behind in an empty store on the night that she arrived in California
I don't know how they were able to find us oh Jesus but the letter which Ruth denied she ever wrote contained a
description of the incident where they fought over Jack who claimed who Ruth claimed knew all about the murders oh no
which fueled the accomplice Theory yep the letter said it was horrible packing those things as I did it I kept saying
I've got to got to or I'll be hung I've got to go I've got to O in her statement
to the Press after her arrest she exclaimed I am not a fugitive from Justice and I am not a criminal I did
the only thing any decent woman would do um I fought for my life and I'm fighting
for it now because I am very ill ah I like to consider myself a decent woman and I don't think i' do any of that [ __ ]
this has got me second guessing cuz I'm like I don't know I I don't think I'd do
that maybe I don't want to call myself a decent woman decent I don't know I'm like you are in fact a criminal what a
thing to say yep I did what any decent woman would do we all say huh what no no not me I don't she doesn't speak for us
I think you could have done a lot better things I I just met with the Coalition of decent women and they they agree she
does not speak for us they said no they said no said she's always trying to get herself in this club no no no we keep
saying no thanks now despite her efforts to fight extradition she was returned to
Phoenix on October 30th where nearly 3,000 people were waiting to catch a glimpse of what the Press had named the
trunk murderous damn later that day County attorney Andrews announced to the press that he intended to bring the case
to trial quickly and he had every intention of pursuing the death penalty he told the reporters he was willing to
try Ruth separately for each murder and he continued by saying thus if she has acquitted on a charge of murdering one
of the women she will then be tried on the other charge who so he meant business he was like you're not getting
out of this yeah no and it turned out that he was true to his word not long after she got back to Phoenix Ruth was
indicted for the murders and a trial date was set for January in the meantime the press and the Phoenix police
continued digging into Ruth's story looking into her personal life they were just determined to figure out
which version of the murder was the accurate one Ruth took some advice from her lawyer though and uh decided to stop
speaking to the press and the police since she was arrested and instead she insisted that she acted alone in the
murders and the dismemberment of Sammy and an now some of the comments that she made previously though only strengthened
speculation that she had an accomplice in either one or both of these acts in late November she finally sat down with
a psychiatrist Dr Joseph Katon and for the first time she spoke on record about happy jack there according to K quote
she showed scorn for Jack hollerin stating that he was acting as do the rest of men he had forsaken her he would
not raise a finger to help her even though she may be hanged damn so she was making it sound like he had helped her
in some way but he was going to let her take the wrap for he was going to let her hang for it yeah wow years later it
would become clear that since her arrest she had been covering up for two men but
not for the reasons that most people expected knowing that she'd be arrested she concocted the first story about
confronting Sammy over the nasty things that she said about an this was intended
to cover up her affair with Jack hollerin which she figured would destroy his reputation and devastate her own
husband yeah I wondered if that was the reason for that one yeah that's why she had lied in her interviews with Dr Kat
and Ruth explained that there never would have been a case against her if it hadn't been for hollerin though she felt
that if she hadn't engaged in this affair with howerin that there would never have been an argument with her
friends and nobody would have ever ended up dead wow that's so [ __ ] up so that
was the role he played he didn't help her it was just that because of the affair yes they got in this fight and if
it was never happened in the first place they wouldn't be fighting over this thing and it never would have escalated
exactly it all came down to jealousy and like really cattiness so it's like he didn't do anything except for have an
affair with this yeah he was just like a shitty dude yeah you know uh this Revelation didn't change the outcome for
Sammy and Anne though but it did offer some explanations as to why her story had changed several times depending on
who she was talking to if Ruth believed that Jack had abandoned her in November though she had completely changed her
opinion by mid January just before her trial was about to begin she told Dr katton Jack hollerin still loves me and
always has oh no she was completely certain that he was going to come through with her in his defense no or in
her defense excuse excuse me when Katon asked why she had such a big change of heart she said he has sent word to me in
jail here that he still loves me and that makes things different he would come up to see me if he could but you
know as well as I do he can't do that because there's a warrant out for his arrest
wow it was clear to Dr katton that Ruth had fallen for whatever Jack hollerin had told her y uh there was no warrant
out for his arrest I didn't think so and whatever he told her was probably just an excuse to keep distance between
himself and her oh man yeah but on the verge of trial she remained committed to the idea that should things not go in
her favor Jack would come to her rescue he would offer some kind of testimony that would explain everything and she
would be acquitted which is really sad yeah that's that's some serious dulu that's the thing like I don't think
she's criminally insane but I definitely think she's a very mentally ill woman there's something off here that kind of
delusion is you can understand it to a point but then it comes to like there's more here
yeah I don't know what it is but there's more here it feels like that's the thing
exactly so the trial began on January 21st 1932 in Phoenix Arizona in his opening statement Lloyd Andrews laid out
the state's case for the jury according to him Ruth's jealousy and fears over losing her lover Jack and her husband
had motivated her to murder the only two people who knew the truth about her relationship with Jack Hollin or at the
very least suspected it on the night of the murder she got to her friend's home around 10:30 after the two had gone to
sleep she snuck into the room and after quickly entering the bedroom she pressed
the revolver to an's head and pulled the trigger killing her immediately the sound of The Gunshot they said woke Samy
who threw up a hand either in protest or protection which explained how she got that gunshot wound through her hand and
then after shooting her in the hand she Ruth pointed the gun at her head and killed her instantly yeah or uh Andrews
argued that this was supported by the statements taken from the girls neighbors who recalled hearing gunshots
right around 10:30 p.m. but when they looked out the window Sammy and Ann's home seemed like it was dark and quiet
so they didn't really think anything yeah and it was also supported by the so-called drain letter where Ruth
confessed the murder to her husband with just slightly different details while the accuracy of the details were in
question a handwriting analysis did confirm that the handwriting matched ru and that she had written the letter now
among the first Witnesses called by the prosecution was Dr Katon who was there to testify on Ruth's sanity or lack
thereof however before he even reached the witness stand Ruth started shouting at him and demanding that he leave the
room oh she screamed get out of here I won't have you near me seemingly angry that Dr katton had made statements about
her to the prosecutor and the Press she jumped out of her chair and continued on
saying you talked about me I won't have it you stay away from me what in the middle of her trial the middle of her
trial which again I feel like there's something there cuz it didn't seem like she was
acting like like this is over-the-top behavior but it didn't seem like it was like a farce you know like it was
actually like genuinely happening yeah so and that's the thing because Dr Katen was like startled by her Outburst so he
left the room to collect himself and he came back a short time later uh through a different entrance this time smart
eventually he did provide testimony on behalf of the prosecution and he told the court that in his opinion she was
sane damn which is wild her emotional Outburst was exactly the type of courtroom Antics that so many spectat
Spectators had hoped to see and expect everyone showed up for exactly but more than that everyone was very very eager
to hear from Jack halin oh I would be he had been subpoena so and people knew that they were ready they wanted to hear
what this man had to say yeah so he was waiting in the anti chamber waiting to be called and he and
likely everyone else was surprised his name was never called in court that day or any other what when asked why he
never called howerin to testify Andrew said I guess I must have overlooked him he's my witness I'll admit that I'm what
he just never called him he's like a star witness and he's like oh [ __ ] he's a star witness and I love that he's like
I will admit he is my my witness like thank you for admitting that like I don't know if you should admit that
yikes what I must have overlooked him yeah he overlooked him the truth was though that Jack really didn't have
anything to offer the prosecution and his presence in the courtroom really would have only added to the chaos and
that is very true and I was thinking that like I'm I'm shocked that like he's using the I must have overlooked him and
not just said like he would have caused a a scene a scene and we just didn't need any more scenes in that courtroom I
think that's way more the answer and I think he just maybe didn't want to I honestly now that I'm thinking about it
I feel like the prosecutor didn't want to say that because if he says he's trying to avoid a scene it makes it seem
like he is doubtful that she's has something to say that could blow him up you know exactly and I almost wonder
like cuz we don't have like actual You Know audio of him doing it I wonder now that I'm looking at it if he was just
like yeah crazy must have overlooked him just like shrugging his shoulders like he's my witness I'll admit to that like
just kind of like that like wink wink nudge nudge like tongue and cheek kind of thing I bet that's what it was more
than anything I think so that makes more sense yeah that's the thing they like there was really no point in calling him
because really the states case against Ruth Jud wasn't just backed up by the evidence they collected it was also
supported by her multiple multiple multiple confessions regardless how one varied from the other she always killed
the women yeah and that fact was not lost on Ruth Jud who saw how things were going and was definitely starting to
worry that she was going to be found guilty and sentenced to hang on January 26th just a few days into the trial
during a recess she broke away from the jail matron guard and fled into the Hall
trying to make an escape and she called out to her brother as she was running by
get my lawyer Sheriff MC mcfaden is telling the witnesses what to say just like running by she's just like hey uh
get my dry cleaning and call my lawyers like she's just like throwing out to do list to be she's like the sheriff is
trying to [ __ ] me over I got to get out of here Fu this it doesn't sound real no
uh she was quickly captured because they're literally in a [ __ ] Courthouse yeah and she was returned to
the courtroom where trial resumed after a very short break wow and this was just
a small disruption in the grand scheme of things which is wild that like the person on trial trying to escape with a
small small little bump they're like oop sorry about that there also weren't really any immediate consequences like
yeah they were just like sit down pretty much yeah but it was part of an emerging
pattern of very highly emotional and very disruptive behavior from Ruth that would continue well beyond the trial to
that point Ruth's mother testified that her daughter was quote a woman under mental strain who struck when be when
best friends turned on her okay so she's like I mean that happens sometimes we've
all had that happen right and like that's not an it's not a proportionate response yeah I lost a whole friend
group I never I never lost it like cucko nuts oh yeah you know I had a best friend turn on me in like Middle School
yeah exactly you know Junior High you don't you don't do this about it you don't do this about it yeah yeah I mean
nice that her mom came to her defense but I mean yeah it's your mom I think I would have kept quiet on that one I'm
not a mom though so I don't know yeah when it came time for the defense her attorney Paul shank invoked the
irresistible impulse Doctrine what a Doctrine he argued that while she may have confessed to the crime Ruth was not
sane at the time and thus unaware of the consequences of her actions an irresistible impulse Doctrine
sounds spicy it does you know yeah another good band name irresistible impulse yes yeah and even add Doctrine
onto it it would be a really cool like emo band I like that like pop punk emo band if you're talented do that do it I
like that uh but unfortunately the testimony from Dr katton and another state psychiatrist Dr Paul Bowers
refuted shank's claim yeah according to Bowers quote regardless of testified delusions and hallucinations and a
strain uh and a strain of insanity in her ancestry it was his opinion that Ruth was in fact quite sane he said I
think she was trying to fool me she did not display any demented actions and he went on to explain that rather than show
no awareness of the consequences Ruth had actually gone out of her way not only to conceal her crimes but to
conceal her Affair from her husband that's the part that really that's why she me with the sanity thing is she had
so much like a a forethought here like she had so much like she wanted to cover up several things yeah exactly she part
of this was the affair in covering it up like that shows that she's thinking of the future and rationally mhm exactly
when shank asked whether the dismember of another human being was not a sign of psychosis Bowers replied quote that was
exactly the best thing for her to do if she wanted to get away with it that's the thing I feel like we're we're very
like conditioned to immediately assume like well if you dismember someone you have to be psychotic which is a normal
reaction very normal reaction cuz you're like that's psychotic I can't put my brain there like who would do that but a
sane person who is choosing to get rid of a problem M will do Unthinkable things anything just to get away from
things and it's not psychotic it's just Unthinkable that's the thing it's like that's where you have to put your it's
just Unthinkable exactly it's good you can't put your brain there that's the best way to psychotic that's the best
way to to say it on February 7th both sides rested and they gave their closing arguments with Andrews reminding the
jury of the complete wealth of evidence they had against Ruth and making yet another push for the death penalty Paul
shank on the other hand spent his sick 6 hour closing I don't understand those statements because you talk at me for 6
hours and I'm going to say you lose just based on principle how do you don't talk
at me for 6 hours how does one do that no you don't to lecture for 6 hours is impressive but no also that's not cruel
and unusual yeah exactly for the people who have to sit there and listen yeah but he spent his 6-hour closing
sarcastically attempting to undermine the critical testimony of the psychiatrist and he heavily implied that
even if she was lying to either of the state psychiatrists that was a symptom of mental illness in and of itself which
ultimately supported their case of insanity no it didn't if she was lying to the psychiatrist that shows that she
even more so is trying to get out of everything and would show more for her sanity exactly like I'm sorry did you
run this by anyone first me thinks no one near you be like that's actually not at all what that means he like you're
going to sound dumb when I was reading this I said to myself Paul shank doesn't have a Raymond no like Rusty had a
Raymond in you need a Raymond Presumed Innocent it's a great show you guys got to watch it yeah but in closing he quote
begged that she be not sent to the Gallows or to a felon cell but treated as a sick woman and committed to an
asylum before retiring for deliberation judge Howard Speakman instructed the jury of their opinion to or sorry their
option to return one of six verdicts they could do Dam guilty of first it's a lot I know guilty of first deegree
murder with death penalty guilty of first-degree murder with life imprisonment guilty of second degree
murder manslaughter not guilty or Not Guilty by reason of insanity okay so the jury deliberated for nearly two days
before finally finding Ruth Jud guilty of first deegree murder I didn't do it which so I'm not sure I understand that
correctly because first-degree murder aren't you supposed to like she snapped in the moment so that's not premeditated
and don't you have to have premeditation for first-degree murder that is interesting cuz I would more think of
this as second deegree murder me too because it it seems like it was in the I I would 100% convict of second degree
murder me too I would have I think I would have trouble with first degree because I don't think this was planned
she didn't go there with a gun the gun was there yeah she didn't go there with the trunks she went to work and had to
get the trunks you know what I mean yeah I wonder if it has to do and I'm not sure if that's what it is if it has to
do with all the steps after like the cover up and everything all the coverups and all like and going to work while
they're just like laying in their beds yeah that is I feel like that maybe all that played into it a little bit but I
agree that I would more likely thought I was going to see a second degree murder
that's what I thought too I'm glad you felt the same cuz I was like am I just not understanding this right somebody
who understands it better let us know yeah uh but when the verdict was read Ruth showed no emotion she gave no
response she simply bandaged and unbandaged her left hand obsessively while she listened to the jury Foreman
speak yeah so on February 24th she was back in court for her formal sentencing her lawyer motions for a new trial had
all been denied and when she asked well when she was asked whether she had anything to say for herself she
attempted to tell a quote rambling story and to charge an insufficiency in the states proof but she was ultimately
overruled by judge Speakman and in response she shouted those women were not murdered and then stood defiantly
behind the the defense table as the judge read her death sentence out loud for the court setting an execution date
for May 11th 1932 those women were not murdered I'm like yes they were like come on yes they
were also there might be some states where that was not required PR premeditation for degree murder and I
was just looking at it up the fact that it was uh what 19 yeah 31 32 yeah yeah that makes sense so I think things have
since changed oh okay thank you for looking that up no problem but Ruth ex uh execution date was put on hold
petting an appeal to the Supreme Court of Arizona but after hearing her case they upheld the lower Court's ruling
they said the evidence particularly the letter she had written to William quote conclusively refutes any argument of
insanity yeah despite their decision she was deemed mentally ill just 72 2 hours
before her execution date and was moved from the prison uh from the prison that she was staying in to the Arizona State
Hospital for the insane where she remained quote under sentenced to be hanged if she ever recovered her
sanity in the 12 years that followed she was there 12 years she escaped a total of six times holy [ __ ] in one attempt it
is believ that she had outside help but every time she managed to escape she was
recaptured and returned to the hospital six times single time holy [ __ ] after 20
years in the state hospital she petitioned the State Board of Pardons and paroles to have her senten uh
commuted to life in prison and on May 5th 1952 her commutation was approved with the provision that if she was ever
deemed sane she'd be moved to the state prison in Florence oh okay in 1962 she made her seventh holy [ __ ] and arguably
most successful escape from the hospital this time she traveled to California where she found work as a domestic
worker what and stayed out for 7 years stop before being recaptured in 1969 she just went out there and found a
job she in California wow like hello what wow so nearly so they found her they put her back in jail in prison and
then nearly 20 years after her commutation she was granted Parole in late 1969 assuring the state uh State
parole board that she would quote live as quietly as I can upon her release she returned to the home of Dr John blemer
and his wife who she had been living with after like during that last Escape jeez Dr blumber died in 1982 and she
sued his wife for $48 million claiming that she'd never been paid any wages for her work while she
was there and had essentially been kept as an indentured servant for 11 years the court agreed with her and she was
awarded a $225,500 cash settlement from the doctor's estate I am speechless Yep this woman she is
something wow after that lawsuit which uh was in 1982 if I didn't say she faded Into Obscurity lived out the rest of her
life in Phoenix Arizona and October 23rd 1998 Winnie Ruth Jud died from natural causes at the age of 93 years old 1998
1998 and while she spent most of her life associated with one of the most notorious cases completely shrouded in
mystery and controversy many people still believe the jury and American people were biased by all the Sens
Sensational coverage of the story huh according to attorney Larry uh debus who represented Ruth in the 1960s he said if
the body hadn't been cut up this would have been just another homicide and nobody ever would have heard of Winnie
Ruth Jud which I agree with but but all but also the bodies were cut up yep um so so like that's a nice thought but
were that if they weren't but like but they were she did dismember a body yeah so and even still that's fun to talk
about that like if she didn't but she did if she shot two of her friends and then went to trial I feel like it still
would I don't think it would have as Sensational no because the it is the it's the trunk of it all I mean that
that what a weird thing to posture like it's just like if she didn't dismember this person nobody would know about her
and it's like correct yep what else do you have very cast and obvious yeah like it's like what
yeah yeah Larry debus there I don't know that's like if somebody gets in a car accident you're like if this car did not
exist you wouldn't have you wouldn't have been in this accident it's like yep thank you but it does and I did so like
I don't understand how that helps anybody it was a weird statement to make that's saying anything it yeah it's not
if Jeffrey dmer did not kill people you would not know who he was yep correct true true so much for pointing that out
cuz he did so that's why what that's just so weird it's a hot take what a hot take trly a hot the hottest take but
absolutely wild that she W escaped seven times and one time seven times was out for 7 years and then when she did get
out she just went and worked for this family who wasn't paying her I guess yeah cuz like there was proof that they
weren and then she got the money and the fact that she lived until 1998 like I was alive when she died she
was old yeah she 93 yeah she lived to be old which is not really I know fair I'm
Dam there's some people who die much younger and it's like and they I mean didn't dismember their friends and them
into a trunk like the people that you killed didn't really get to live that long true cuz you killed them holy [ __ ]
Winnie Ruth J kind of saying like what that guy said they didn't get to live that long yeah and it's like cuz you
killed them correct oh so yeah what a case damn the trunk murderous the trunk murderous what
a case we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird
that you have an affair on your husband with a guy named Happy Jack and Hanky is
the name and py is the game and kill your friends and dismember them I don't ever think you should keep it that
weird thanks thank you pinky pinky was the name and pink it was the game [Music]
[Music]

On October 20, 1931, baggage agents in Los Angeles received a tip that two trunks on the incoming Southern Pacific Railroad could contain contraband material. When the agents located the suspicious trunks, they opened them and were horrified to find within them the dismembered remains of Anne LeRoi and Hedvig Samuelson, two young women who had gone missing in Arizona days earlier. Both women had been shot to death.

Railroad agents quickly traced the trunks back to twenty-six-year-old Winnie Ruth Judd, but Judd disappeared into the crowd before authorities could apprehend and question her. Two days later, Judd surrendered to the LAPD, setting off one of the decade’s most sensational murder cases and making Winnie Ruth Judd, the “Trunk Murderess,” an object of public curiosity for decades to follow. Some called her a butcher and a psychopath, yet many others found it impossible to believe that she’d acted alone or that she was anything more than an unwilling accomplice.

Winnie Ruth Judd was ultimately found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but her life was spared, and her sentence was overturned when psychiatrists determined her to be mentally incompetent and she was sent to a psychiatric institution. Judd spent thirty years in an Arizona mental institution, from which she escaped and was recaptured six times, before finally winning parole in 1971.

Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me The Axe Podcast for research and writing support!

References Arizona Daily Star. 1932. "Testimony in Judd trial is before jurors." Arizona Daily Star, February 7: 1.

—. 1932. "Winnie Judd breaks under trial's strain." Arizona Daily Star, January 22: 1.

Associated Press. 1932. "Winnie Judd guilty, must hang for murder." Arizona Daily Star, February 9: 1.

—. 1932. "Mrs. Judd guilty of first degree murder." New York Times, February 9: 1.

—. 1939. "Mrs. Judd, slayer, escapes asylum." New York Times, October 26: 27.

Bommersbach, Jana. 1992. The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Los Angeles Evening Express. 1931. "Youth reveals sister's story." Los Angeles Evening Express, October 20: 1.

Los Angeles Times. 1931. "Doctor wants to hunt wife." Los Angeles Times, October 21: 9.

—. 1931. "Trunk murder suspect dodges great dragnet." Los Angeles Times, October 21: 1.

—. 1931. "Trunk seeker ex-employee." Los Angeles Times, October 20: 2.

New York Times. 1932. "Alienist asserts Mrs. Judd is sane." New York Times, February 4: 9.

—. 1931. "Confession letter laid to Mrs. Judd." New York Times, October 25: 3.

—. 1931. "Mrs. Judd gives up in trunk murders." New York Times, October 24: 3.

—. 1932. "Mrs. Judd to die on scaffold May 11." New York Times, February 25: 44.

—. 1971. "Winnie Ruth Judd free on parole." New York Times, November 30: 53.

Stanley, Thiers. 1931. "Fears grip Mrs. Judd." Los Angeles Times, October 31: 1.

Tucson Citizen. 1931. "Accomplice sought." Tucson Citizen, October 20: 1.

—. 1932. "Eludes guard while mother is on stand." Tucson Citizen, January 26: 1.

—. 1931. "Student tells of trip to claim bodies of victims." Tucson Citizen, October 20: 1.

United Press International. 1982. "Trunk murderer wins big court settlement ." UPI Archive, December 31.

Winnie Ruth Judd v. State of Arizona. 1932. 41 Ariz. 176 (Ariz. 1932) (Supreme Court of Arizona, 12 December 12).

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Brief Summary

Winnie Ruth Jud, the trunk murderess, killed her friends and dismembered their bodies, leading to a sensational trial and multiple escapes from custody.

Key points

The Trunk Murderess. The story of Winnie Ruth Jud, a woman with a troubled life leading to murder.
Ruth's Marriage Struggles. Ruth's marriage to William Jud was marred by his morphine addiction and her health issues.
Scandalous Parties. Ruth and her friends hosted parties that attracted attention and scandal.
The Night of the Incident. Ruth stays at Ann and Sammy's apartment, leading to a night of chaos.
Dismemberment and Escape. After the murders, Ruth dismembers the bodies and checks them into a train.
The Discovery. Baggage handlers discover blood leaking from the trunks, leading to a police investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I want someone to say that about me.

A poignant wish about being remembered fondly.

5:14WatchSep 12, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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