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Details: Copyright 1992, Simon and Schuster
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "Winnie Ruth Judd, who allegedly committed one of the most heinous crimes in the history of America, at long last speaks-- and blows the lid off an age-old true crime cover-up.
True crime, social history, psychological insight-- it's all here in The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd by award-winning investigative journalist Jana Bommersbach. Along with Bugsy, Dillinger, and Lizzie Borden, Winnie Ruth Judd entered the pages of true crime history when, in 1931, the twenty-six-year-old medical secretary and daughter of a minister allegedly shot and killed her two best friends in their Phoenix home, dismembered one body, stuffed them both into trunks, and checked them as baggage on a train to Los Angeles. That night-- Friday, October 16th, 1931-- marked the beginning of her nightmare and of the birth of the crime legend known as "The Trunk Murderess."
Judd was immediately arrested-- her motive determined to be jealousy. Though she was married to a doctor, it was widely known that she was dating a handsome married man, prominent in Phoenix society, and that this same man had also been more than a little "friendly" with the two dead victims, Anne LeRoi and Hedvig "Sammy" Samuelson.
Winnie Ruth Judd never stood a chance in Phoenix in 1931-- not as a woman, not against a so-called male pillar of society, and not against lawyers who found it more valuable to protect one of their own than to fight for justice. Never once was she given the opportunity to speak in her own defense. Winnie was sentenced to hang, but was saved from the gallows when her lawyer persuaded her to plead insanity. She was then committed to an insane asylum from which she repeatedly escaped, only to be found and returned again, for the next thirty-nine years of her life. Finally in 1971, after spending more time in prison than any other convicted murderer in the history of the United States, Winnie Ruth Judd was paroled by the state of Arizona.
The amount of information Bommersbach uncovered is phenomenal and is documented for the first time in the pages of this book. There is the original transcript of Winnie's testimony to the sheriff,; hospital and police records; forensic reports; and personal letters. And, there are sixteen pages of absolutely incredible photographs.
Bommersbach interviewed hundreds of people who were involved with the case, including the only living member of the jury. Most importantly, she has spoken with the only person who knows the absolute truth: Winnie Ruth Judd.
Winnie Ruth Judd, who is in her eighties and lives under a false name in California, revealed to Bommersbach openly and honestly her painful and frightening memories of that fateful night in Phoenix, the terrible years of imprisonment in the asylum, and the people who were behind the massive cover-up which destroyed her life.
This is not just the story of a puzzling crime that still fascinates, nor an investigation of one of the most twisted, bizarre murder cases in American history. It is a story of a backwater town that would become a major city; the story of a moment in time filled with social taboos: the story of a woman whose courage to survive has been nothing short of heroic. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: I was unfamiliar with this case and the premise seemed intriguing.
How I Liked It: Why do you read true crime?
If you're interested in true crime, be it in documentary, book, podcast, or other forms, you'll inevitably be asked why you're interested. What people are really asking is usually
"That's so SCARY/horrible/awful/weird, why do you willingly seek it out?"
The answers vary from person to person, but it's generally agreed that for most it's a form of fear confrontation and/or anxiety control. But it has to be said that forensic science and detective work are fascinating all on their own.
And then there's the true crime that's a story worth reading even if you're not "into" true crime. A good friend with whom you've worked beside for years who you learn is the serial killer you're covering? Your loving father you discover is a notorious serial killer? A controversial classic novel was based on the case of a real life little girl named in the text but people still don't know who she is? All of those are fascinating premises.
But generally when you pick up a true crime book, or watch a documentary, or listen to a podcast, you do it because you want to know more about that particular case (or cases, as it may be).
The Trunk Murderess is not the first book written about the infamous 1930s Arizona case, but it came at a kind of interesting period in history.
Before DNA evidence became widespread and both disproved and proved a number of cases, both famous and cold, and therefore calling further into question a great deal of police work, but after the large shift in gender roles in Western culture and the embracing of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, the book clearly has an agenda from the cover and introductory text alone, but it's going to try to have it both ways (it's both a fair investigation and a call to arms against the persecution of a purportedly innocent person) and it can't, as we'll see.
It's worth stating up front that the author is a first-time author.
I've talked before about the fact that short-form authors (as in magazine articles) sometimes have difficulty making the transition to book form. This particular author is a textbook case of that theory, although her writing in general makes me truly question even her short form writing. The setting the scene for the case (arguably one of the most important parts of the book, particularly a book of this nature), the backstory, the lead in to the action, the action, and the trial are a pretty jumbled, indecipherable mess. The author quotes what I'm sure is truly laudable amount of individuals and witnesses, and tries to give some perspective on the lore and depth of pop cultural significance on this case (which too often comes off as hype) but the integration of the quotes and the lore is so messy that it's just about non-existent. It's a series of quotes from a series of sources but without enough of a story thread to keep it flowing.
Also, I'm aware that when the author is technically a part of the story (for example, they're privy to information no one else has in a way that has to be noted, like perhaps a casual conversation with a witness with whom they strike up a rapport), they have to note that, and I've seen it done fairly smoothly.
This particular author however will recount a witness interview ("In interviews with this writer throughout 1990") and after awhile the author referring to herself as "this writer" or "this author" starts to chafe, particularly when the author was fine with using "I", "me", and "mine" when recounting how she came to this case at the beginning of the book. It would flow more easily to write "When I interviewed her throughout 1990" than "this writer/author" over and over again, but that is certainly not the most awkward self-insertion (that'll be later).
After some other reading helped me straighten things out, the story is about this: this was an outrageous murder at the time and a scandal on a number of levels.
Winnie Ruth Judd was a starlet-pretty young woman, daughter of a
reverend and married to a doctor old enough to be her father, and
running around (runnin' wild?) with a well-connected and married cad
named Jack Halloran who was also running around with some other women.
Her two friends and former roommates, Anne LeRoi and Hedvig "Sammy"
Samuelson, had her and a fourth woman over for bridge one night, the
fourth woman left, and versions vary about what happened next, but her
two former roommates ended up dead and one body dismembered in (you guessed it)
trunks. It's generally accepted that Judd had a accomplice, probably
male, and according to most theories including the official one,
probably Halloran, but given the small-town shittiness of Phoenix at the
time (and Halloran's aforementioned standing in the town), there was
pretty much no way he was going to jail.
The trial was a particularly messy circus because of course it was, and Judd's lawyers tried a number of things, including a bid for not guilty by reason of insanity.
As
for the versions of what actually happened, missing evidence and
conflicting statements (for various purposes; Judd's defense as I said
tried a number of angles) muddle it, but the prosecution generally
believed that one or another of Judd's former roommates was a romantic
rival for Halloran and either Judd shot the woman while she slept (for the "shot while sleeping" theory, one mattress was never found, another was found with no blood stains miles away in a vacant lot; Judd and/or her accomplice being faulty or police cover-up to fill a theory?) and shot the
other as a witness, or shot the woman in an argument (and shot the other
as a witness), and had help dismembering and disposing of the bodies
(since physically, there was no way she could do it herself).
Judd
claims an argument broke out (there's a bit of particularly salacious
rumor that perhaps there was no romantic rivalry at all; they might have
threatened to expose her affair with Halloran, and she in turn
threatened to expose the fact LeRoi and Samuelson were lovers) but she
acted only in self-defense and her wounds attest to that fact (her
detractors claim she inflicted the wounds on herself). Horrified and not
knowing what else to do, she called Halloran and he took care of it
(there's also some speculation that he called in a doctor they both knew to dismember one of the bodies).
The book also goes so far as to suggest
that Judd possibly didn't kill anyone at all, in self defense or
otherwise, but was made to cover for someone else's killings
(possibly/probably Halloran). Sure, she has her story about doing it but
in self-defense, but she also at various points gave probably false
confessions to help her legal strategy, so what's one more story?
Whatever
happened, given the fact Halloran was apparently untouchable, Judd's
lawyers did their aforementioned scrambling to both implicate him and/or
find a defense. This was further complicated by a confused and messy
jury situation, including one juror who was biased against Judd from the
beginning and pledged to send her to the gallows, a fact her attorneys
tried in vain to get a charge of juror misconduct but no deal.
The
book seems to pick up speed once the accused finds herself in a mental
hospital.
Possibly because the author is not trying to cover so many
angles, the story finds some footing, including of Judd as coming into
her own, possibly for the first time, in the community she found in the
hospital.
"More like a member of the staff than a patient," as a
former staff member noted, Judd flourished, giving hairstyles and
cheering people up, even setting up a beauty salon in the hospital (with
help from sympathetic beauticians outside the hospital that donated
supplies). Soon women from town were coming in and bringing their
daughters to have their hair done, and a least a few young girls
recalled her as a "dear aunt" when interviewed for this book. Even the
local papers at the time which had sold considerable copy on "the Trunk
Murderess" remarked on the good work Judd was doing, noting the way she
"lavishes her love on other patients" and them adoring her in return.
One even went so far as to dub her "the Queen of the Hospital."
She
wasn't limited to hair-styling, though. A particularly heart-rendering
story involves the childless Judd finding herself with a child of her
own, however informally and temporarily. Three-year-old Diane Gales
McClinnon and her infant sister were dumped in the hospital after their
mother was "declared insane" in the mid-1940s.
According to the
woman who was a grandmother at the time she was interviewed for this
book, Judd "treated me like a mother would," and shares the
heartbreaking realization that if it wasn't for Judd's care and
attention, McClinnon would have never escaped the hospital, particularly
given the system at the time (not to mention the fact she and her
sister were Black).
"Because of Ruth Judd, I didn't regress. I've
always wanted to thank her," the woman recalled, along with memories of
Ruth tenderly doting on her. "I've wondered all these years if she
remembers the little black girl she used to carry around," says the
woman who was later adopted and grew up to graduate from high school,
and have children and grandchildren of her own. The woman, whom we can
hope was reunited with Judd at some point, wanted to tell Judd "Here's
one person you helped stay normal. I escaped that place, too."
Judd
of course remembered her ("She was cute as a bug") and had sweet
stories that sound like any parent's: putting her to bed, doing her
hair, having friends bring pretty clothes to dress her up.
A bit after
this, Judd's own mother was admitted to the hospital and they shared a
room, with Judd caring for her. Which leads us to the fact that despite
Judd making quite a community and purpose for herself at the hospital
(and having so many stories about how beloved and needed she was), she
escaped at least six different times, so regular it was almost a joke.
Judd's cozy (and no doubt cost-effective for the staff of the hospital)
arrangement with her mother was broken up inexplicably and she was
forbidden to see her mother, even on Mother's Day, which lead Judd to
escape, yet again.
Also the fact Judd was teased with parole numerous times only for it to be yanked was probably also a factor.
Finally
in 1963, Judd made her most important escape ever, for over half a
decade, living under an assumed name as a caretaker to a wealthy,
elderly woman to whom she became beloved family (and beloved family to
the woman's actual family as well). She found herself with a nice
inheritance and her own little cottage (and adopted family) and then the
law had to come along looking for a Trunk Murderess. But her adopted
family (and their stellar character references and money for attorneys)
wasn't giving her up so easily, and with two years of high-powered legal
wrangling, she was out on parole, and then released from parole a little
over a decade later. She granted very careful (and very cozy)
interviews to the author of this book nearly sixty years after the
murders, and not quite a decade after being released from parole.
The
book ends with the author giving her impassioned, sometimes
over-the-top defense of all that she's learned in favor of Winnie Ruth
Judd (who by then went by Marion Lane)'s innocence. But that's tainted
just a bit by the fact right before that, we're treated to a strangely
personal story about her visit to Winnie Ruth Judd's home to interview
her. She ended up actually going grocery shopping with Judd (and
assuring us they fought over who would pay the grocery bill with Judd
insisting on taking it along with paying for their lunch in a
restaurant), and sleeping over at her home, along with being
served meals (in once instance Judd literally has breakfast waiting for
her when she wakes up). "She treated me as a guest, played the role of
the gracious hostess," the author remarks. Judd shares her stories and
"pitched the story she wanted me to write" which was not about the
injustice done to her, but to her friend Mary, a parolee who "became her protector and friend in prison."
While
it's understandable that you would want to establish rapport with your
interview subjects, certain things seem like they'd cross the line into
limiting one's subjectivity. I'm not the only one who was taken aback by
how friendly the author got with the subject. When I went to try and
make some sense of what I'd read, apparently most authors and scholars
of this case have generally dismissed the author's conclusions given how
close she (by her own detailed admission in the very book that she
doesn't appear to see as admission) got to the accused.
As with
most true crime stories, part of the appeal is that you're asked to play
detective, and the author rather accidentally does that here. It's not
so much "Did Ruth really do it?" so much as it's "Did someone with years
of experience sway and manipulate an inexperienced author to write
favorably about her?"
For the record, I believe there's a good
chance Judd's most consistent version of events (they had a fight, she
fought back in self-defense, she called her golden boy boyfriend for
help and he botched it) is true, as some of the author's suggestions
(that the media at the time wanted to sell papers and a lurid story was
going to push pulp during the Depression) I believe are also true (no
matter what you believed happened, the newspapers benefited from
scandal, and this was when even Hearst himself had taken a hit).
But
I'm not above thinking that Judd could've killed the women not in
self-defense but cold blood or temporary anger, and had years to finesse
her story and found a willing listener and champion. While the stories
about Judd's relationships were the best and most interesting parts of
the book, character witnesses aren't the proof of innocence that a
better look at the evidence might be. Pretty much any book that claims to solve a decades old murder generally means they found a new, probably dismissable form of evidence, and that's pretty much the case here.
The
author's interview with Judd and the various character witnesses
(including a few that don't actually believe she killed anyone at all)
are apparently the author's new evidence and while interesting, it's not the open and shut case she attempts to the convince the reader it is.
While crime forensics has
come a long way in the nearly thirty years since this book was first
published, something new on that front (the author rather limply puts
forth a possible "second gun" theory, that maybe the victims were shot
by two different guns; the 25 caliber gun was found in the trunk but
there's no mention of the caliber of bullet) would've gone a lot longer
in convincing the public of Judd's innocence.
This isn't a good
first book for someone who had never heard of the case. But it's not
completely without value, either. Interviews with the accused are worth
something be they guilty or innocent and there's genuine value in the
stories of the friends she made and the people she helped whether or not
Judd was innocent.
When we read true crime books about a case,
we want to know more about the case. It's just a shame in this book you
don't learn enough about the case itself.
Notable:
This book was published in 1992 and apparently was reissued in 2011. I
don't know if the new version has an ever-so-handy prologue to the new
edition (in which case some mea culpas could go a long way) but I do
know that both books were released before the 2014 discovery of a
confession letter by Judd.
Written in 1933 to one of her
attorneys, she claims she and she alone carried out the murder of LeRoi
(who she cites as her romantic rival) and Samuelson walked in and tried
to fight her, so she shot her, too. She also claims to have acted alone
in handling and transporting the bodies (which given Judd's size and the
weight of the bodies of both women, would have been almost physically
impossible).
While finding a letter over seventy years after the
case is a bombshell, apparently opinions on the value of the letter
differ. Judd did, after all, "confess" various times as her attorneys
tried different legal strategies to implicate Halloran and also the
criminal insanity defense. But I mention it here for the purposes of
explaining what the author of this book would probably make of it.
Also
worth noting is that in the "sixteen pages of absolutely incredible
photographs" (mostly of Judd, largely personal photos of her from
childhood until her appearance at the time of the book's publication,
but also some court pics, newspaper clippings, and evidence from the
trial including a beaten Judd demonstrating her injuries), no pictures
of the victims appear.
The closest we get is a very degraded, barely visible tiny photograph
of them in one of the newspaper reprints which features them alongside a
long, nearly glamour shot of Judd with the headline "WILL JUSTICE
TRIUMPH/ Indictment of Halloran as Accessory May Yet Save Beauty From
Gallows."
Final Grade: C
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