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Winnie Ruth Judd

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Winnie Ruth McKinnell Judd (January 29, 1905 – October 23, 1998) was a Phoenix, Arizona medical secretary found guilty of murdering one of her two former roommates and later sentenced to death. Known in the press as "The Trunk Murderess", her trial was marked by sensationalized newspaper coverage and suspicious circumstances; the sentence she received raised debate over capital punishment.[1]

Background

Born Winnie Ruth McKinnell, Judd was the wife of William C. Judd, M.D., a practicing physician 22 years her senior. After their marriage, Dr. Judd practiced medicine in several cities; Judd and her husband eventually relocated to Arizona. While employed at the Grunow Medical Clinic in Phoenix, Judd met Agnes Anne LeRoi, an X-Ray Technician who worked at the clinic, and her roommate, Hedvig Samuelson. LeRoi and Samuelson had become close friends while living in Alaska and then moved together to Phoenix for its drier climate after Samuelson contracted tuberculosis.

The Grunow Medical Clinic

In August 1931, Dr. Judd left Phoenix to start a practice in Los Angeles, leaving his wife in Phoenix. At this time, Judd moved in with LeRoi and Samuelson, but moved out a few weeks later into her own apartment. [2] At the time of the murders Judd was 26 years old, LeRoi 32, and Samuelson, 24.

The murders

According to police, on the night of October 16th, 1931, LeRoi and Samuelson were murdered by Judd after an alleged fight among the three women over a conflict of interest--reportedly, all three were interested in the same man, prominent Phoenix businessman John J. "Happy Jack" Halloran.[3] Halloran, 44, was a married local businessman and a friend of all three women. The prosecution at Judd's murder trial would suggest that quarrels over men and the relationship between LeRoi and Samuelson broke up the friendship of the three women, and that jealousy was the motive for the killings.[4]

The two victims were killed with a .25 caliber handgun in their rented bungalow located at 2909 N. 2nd Street[5]. According to prosecutors, after the two women were murdered, Judd and an accomplice dismembered the body of Samuelson and stuffed the head, torso, and lower legs into a black shipping trunk, with the upper legs into being placed in a beige valise and hatbox. LeRoi's body was stuffed intact into a second black shipping trunk.[3]

Flight to Los Angeles

Present-day photo of Phoenix's Union Station where Judd departed with the trunks for Los Angeles

Two days after the murders, on Sunday, October 18, Judd boarded the Golden State Limited passenger train from Phoenix's Union Station with the trunks containing the bodies; with her left hand bandaged from a gunshot wound, she traveled overnight to Los Angeles. Upon arrival at 7:45 the next morning, the trunks were immediately under suspicion because of the foul odor detected by station personnel as well as fluids escaping from the trunks. Thinking at first the trunks contained contraband such as a dead deer, the baggage agent, Arthur V. Anderson, wanted the trunks opened and tagged them to be held. He asked Judd for the key, but she stated she didn't have it with her.

Burton McKinnell, Judd's brother and a junior at the University of Southern California, picked Judd up from the train station unaware of the crime or the bodies. At around 4:30 that afternoon, Anderson called the Los Angeles Police Department to report the suspicious trunks. After picking the locks of each trunk, the police discovered the bodies. Meanwhile, Judd's brother had dropped his sister off somewhere in Los Angeles where she proceeded to disappear. Judd hid out until she surrendered to police in a funeral home the following Friday, October 23, 1931.[6] The murder was reported in headlines across the country and Judd came to be referred to in the press as "Tiger Woman" and "The Blonde Butcher". Eventually, the case itself came to be known in the media as "The Trunk Murders."

Trial and conviction

Present day photo of the house where Samuelson and LeRoi were killed

On Monday evening, October 19th, the Phoenix police entered the bungalow where LeRoi and Samuelson resided for the first time; neighbors and reporters were also allowed in and subsequently destroyed the original integrity of the crime scene. The following day the bungalow's landlord took out ads to be placed in The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Evening Gazette newspapers informing the public that tours of the home were available for ten cents per person. In the next three weeks, hundreds of curiosity seekers toured the three room bungalow. During the trial, Judd's defense protested by stating, "By the advertisements in the newspapers, the entire population of Maricopa County visited that place." The police maintained the two women were shot while asleep in their beds. The two mattresses were missing the night the police entered. No explanation was ever offered as to what had happened to them.[6]

The trial began January 19, 1932, three months after the bodies had been discovered in the trunks. The state argued that Judd acted with pre-meditation, that the relations between the three women had deteriorated over some weeks, and that they had argued over the affections of Jack Halloran. According to the prosecution, all of this culminated with the murders. They maintained that Judd had self-inflicted the gunshot wound to her left hand to try to bolster her self-defense explanation. Judd's defense took the stance that she was innocent because she was insane, but did not introduce the "self-defense" argument for the record. None of the dismembering aspect of the double slaying was addressed in court because Judd was tried only of the murder of Mrs. LeRoi, whose body was not dismembered. Judd did not take the stand in her own defense.

The jury found her guilty of first-degree murder on February 8, 1932. An appeal was unsuccessful. Judd was sentenced to be hanged February 17, 1933, and sent to Arizona State Prison in Florence, Arizona. The death sentence was repealed after a ten-day hearing found her mentally incompetent; she was then sent to Arizona State Asylum for the Insane [7] on April 24, 1933.

Jack Halloran

When it was discovered during the course of the trial that Halloran and Judd had been involved in an illicit affair, Halloran also became suspect of having complicity in the killings. A known playboy and philanderer, Halloran was indicted by a grand jury as an accomplice to murder on December 30, 1932 following new testimony from Judd. Judd referred to this testimony as "the whole truth".[8]. A preliminary hearing on the charge against Halloran was held in mid-January 1933; Judd was the star witness. In testimony that lasted almost three days, an emotional Judd told her story, saying

"I am going to be hanged for something Jack Halloran is responsible for ... I was convicted of murder, but I shot in self-defense. Jack Halloran removed every bit of evidence. He is responsible for me going through all this. He is guilty of anything I am guilty of."[6]

Judd testified she had gone to the apartment on an invitation to play bridge, and a fourth woman who had also been invited to the get-together had already left. She testified that there was and argument about Judd's introduction of Halloran to another woman, and that she killed LeRoi and Samuelson in self-defense after they physically attacked her.[9]

Present-day photo of north side of bungalow where the murders took place; downtown Phoenix high-rise buildings in background

According to Judd, she met up with Halloran shortly after the killings and returned with him to the apartment. After seeing the bodies he went out to the garage, returned with a "great, heavy trunk" and told her not to tell anyone.[10] Under cross-examination, Judd admitted repacking Samuelson's dismembered body in a trunk and other luggage two days after the murders.[11]

Halloran did not take the stand in his own defense. His attorney told the court that Judd's story was nothing more "than the story of an insane person" and argued that since Judd had testified that the two women were killed in self-defense, there was, in fact, no crime committed, therefore Halloran could not be tried for anything. Halloran's attorney then asked for the charges against his client to be dismissed.[6] On January 25, 1933 the judge freed Halloran, saying that the state's case was inconsistent, and that trying him would be "an idle gesture".[12]

Escapes and parole

After her death sentence was repealed, Judd was committed to the state's only mental institution, Arizona State Hospital in Phoenix. From 1933 to 1962 Judd escaped from the institution seven times, in one instance walking all the way to Yuma, Arizona, along the old Southern Pacific railroad tracks. She escaped for the final time on October 8, 1962, using a key to the front door of the hospital a friend had given her.[6] Judd ended up in the San Francisco Bay Area where she became a live-in maid for a wealthy family living in a mansion overlooking the bay, using the name Marian Lane. Her freedom lasted six and a half years. Her identity in California was eventually discovered and she was taken back to Arizona on August 18, 1969. After hiring famed San Francisco defense attorney Melvin Belli, Judd was paroled and released on December ww, 1971 after two years of legal wrangling. Following the trial, Judd moved to Stockton, California. In 1983 the state of Arizona issued her an "absolute discharge," meaning she was no longer a parolee. She died 23 October 1998 at the age of ninety-three; by coincidence, this was the same date she had surrendered to Los Angeles police after the killings in 1931.

Subsequent investigations

Subsequent unofficial investigations, most notably by investigative journalist Jana Bommersbach, revealed many people close to the investigation believed Judd was guilty only of killing in self-defense—what Judd had maintained all along—not of first-degree murder. After Bommersbach had initially written about her investigation of the Judd case as a series of articles in the Phoenix New Times, she then published a book about Judd, The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd. For the book, Bommersbach extensively interviewed Judd herself. During the course of Bommerbach's investigations, the police and prosecution were found to have been biased against Judd in a number of ways. According to the book, due to Phoenix's small population in 1931, members of the Phoenix police knew Jack Halloran well, who he associated with, and who his friends—and girlfriends—were. Some police also knew the victims. Some even believe Judd hadn't killed anyone, even in self-defense, but was only covering up for the misdeeds of Jack Halloran, and possibly other people. Many believe Judd wasn't capable of dismembering Sammy Samuelson's body, of being "The Blonde Butcher," as the mainstream press had labeled her, or of being able to lift the bodies. There are indications that someone with surgical skills had performed the dismembering, a skill Judd hadn't possessed. According to autopsy photos,[13] the body was not "butchered," but cleanly dissected in several places. Jack Halloran being let go was considered by many a miscarriage of justice; his exoneration a political cover-up. His gray Packard had been spotted at the crime scene the night of the murders, and again there the next day. At the very least, he should have been tried as an accomplice. Although officially exonerated by the law, Halloran eventually fell out of favor with the local Phoenix population, losing his valuable business associates and social status.

Bommersbach also discusses the possibility that a second gun may have been involved because of early newspaper reports that LeRoi was shot with a larger caliber bullet. The October 20, 1931 edition of The Arizona Republic stated, "Two different calibre revolvers were used, autopsy surgeons said." On the same date, The Los Angeles Times reported, "The killer is believed to have used a .25 calibre automatic to murder Miss Samuelson, but a larger calibre weapon was used to kill Mrs. LeRoi." No police reports, however, say anything about a second gun and no written autopsy reports could be located. Eventually, the unfounded reports of a "second gun" ceased.

Addressing the possibility that a person who possessed surgical skills dissected Samuelson's body, Bommersbach writes about a nurse she interviewed for her book named Ann Miller who said that while she was working at the Arizona State Mental Hospital in 1936 and had become friends with Ruth Judd, Judd had confided in her that a Dr. Brown had come to see her while she was in prison and told her he was going to confess everything. Later, after Miller told a Phoenix attorney of Judd's story, he stated, "I'm sure she told you that. Dr. Brown came up to my office and wanted to tell the whole story. He made an appointment for the next week, but he died the day before the appointment." Dr. Brown died in June 1932 of heart disease at the age of forty-four.[14] According to Bommersbach, some speculate he might have been contemplating suicide. Bommersbach writes, "As the New York Mirror reported the day Halloran's indictment was announced,

'A second man would probably have been indicted, according to widespread rumor, if death had not intervened. Mrs. Judd's story included the declaration that a physician, who has since committed suicide, was summoned to the murder bungalow to aid in the disposal of the bodies.' "

References

  1. ^ Goldstein, Richard (October 27, 1998). "Winnie R. Judd, 93, Infamous As 1930's 'Trunk Murderess'". The New York Times. Retrieved January 12, 2010. Winnie Ruth Judd, who spent three decades in an Arizona state mental hospital as the notorious trunk murderess in one of the most sensational criminal cases of 1930s, died in Phoenix on Friday. She was 93.
  2. ^ Haines, Max (2003). True Crime Stories: The Corpse Travelled by Train. Barnes & Noble. p. 280. ISBN 978-0760762585. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ a b Geringer, Joseph. "Winnie Ruth Judd: 'The Trunk Murderess' In Perspective". Women Who Kill. truTV. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
  4. ^ "Ruth Judd Is Declared Sane: Reveal Love and Jealousy Over Freind of Trunk Murder Victims". The Gettysburg Times. February 5, 1932. Retrieved June 30, 2010. Mrs. Judd, the witness said, named Jack Halloran, Phoenix lumber dealer and sportsman, as a man 'I love with all my heart and soul more passionately than I ever loved my husband.'
  5. ^ Correct location of where the murders occurred
  6. ^ a b c d e Bommersbach, Jana (2006). The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd. Poisoned Pen Press. ISBN 978-1590580646. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
  7. ^ Arizona State Hospital History http://www.azdhs.gov/azsh/history.htm
  8. ^ "Business Man of Phoenix Indicted in Ruth Judd Case". Ellensburg Daily Record. December 30, 1932. Retrieved June 29, 2010.
  9. ^ Winnie Ruth Judd Sobs As Witness in Halloran Trial, Associated Press
  10. ^ Mrs. Ruth Judd Accuses Halloran in Trunk Murders, Gettysburg Times
  11. ^ MURDER TRUNK SHIFT ADMITTED, Los Angeles Times
  12. ^ Halloran Is Freed Of Charges Made By Mrs. Ruth Judd, Ludington Gaily News
  13. ^ "Hedvig Samuelson autopsy photos". Retrieved 2010-07-05.
  14. ^ Bommersbach, Jana (2006). The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd. Poisoned Pen Press. ISBN 978-1590580646.

Further reading

  • Winnie Ruth Judd: the Trunk Murders by J. Dwight Dobkins and Robert J. Hendricks Grosset & Dunlap: 1973. ISBN 0-448-02187-0
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