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Ruth Marie Terry Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

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Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our coverage on the
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murder of Ruth Marie Terry, and now I'm going to be sharing more details
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about the case. It does sound like Ruth did have a good relationship with
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her family, like they did stay in touch and she didn't really have any
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issues with them. But I think she figured, I need to go out
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and explore the world. I cannot stay here because getting married at thirteen years
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old, no matter what the circumstances, is very creepy. It's super creepy.
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And then what you get divorced a couple of years later and then decide
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to remarry this person. But it's like you're not even of the age to
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consent yet, but you're already deciding you want to get divorced and remarried.
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And it's just like, this is a child. So to think that she
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went through that at the age of thirteen to be married to a man.
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And do we know how old the guy was. I'm actually going to look
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that up because I think they have his name on find a Grave. So
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yeah, he was born in nineteen thirty one, so he technically would have
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been nineteen at the time. She was married, which is creepy. A
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nineteen year old marrying a thirteen year old, it's super creepy. So Ruth
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got a fresh start in Lavonia, Michigan. She got a job working at
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an automotive plant, but she wound up becoming pregnant and giving birth to a
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son. And to this day, the identity of this child's biological father is
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still a mystery. It just might have been someone she could have had like
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a brief sexual relationship with before he took off, But at the time,
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she was still in her early twenties and she knows she knew she could not
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provide for her son as a single mother, so she made an arrangement with
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this couple, this married couple that she was close to. This man,
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Richard Hanschett Senior, was I think the supervisor at the automotive plant where she
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worked, and Richard's wife was also an employee there. So they pretty much
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said that we will pay your living expenses, Ruth will we will give you
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a place to live while you were pregnant and give birth to the child,
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and in exchange, once you have this boy, you will give him over
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to us, sign over the custody and we will legally adopt him. And
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of course this is what happened, and the boy was raised under the name
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Richard Hanschett Junior. After Richard's adoptive parents died, he became interested in tracking
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down his birth mother and submitted his DNA to the website ancestry dot com and
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wound up making a genetic link to Ruth's nice in twenty eighteen. At that
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point, Ruth had still not been identified as the Lady of the Dunes,
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but Richard got in touch with ruth surviving relatives, who said that yet we
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have not seen her since nineteen seventy four. We have no idea what happened
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to her, which was already a big shock for Richard, but it became
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an even bigger shock in twenty twenty two when he was informed that your mother
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is an infamous murder victim who was once known as the Lady of the Dunes,
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and that she was murdered a short time after she disappeared. Yeah,
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that's a lot to take in. I can imagine it's difficult when both of
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your parents have died and they're your adoptive parents, and you feel this freedom
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to be able to now look into your lineage, and then to find out
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that your mother is this famous murder victim. That had to be really heartbreaking,
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because I mean, it's like trauma on top of trauma. For one,
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she's deceased, you're never going to be able to meet her. And
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number two, she died in an extremely violent way, exactly, and Richard
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was also regretful about another thing. Apparently, Ruth moved to California, and
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sometime during the early nineteen seventy she decided to reach out and reconnect with her
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son. But Richard had a kind of a tumultuous teenage years, and he
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actually suffered a drug overdose sometime during the seventies and was in a coma for
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eighteen days when Ruth tried to reach out and speak to him. Thankfully,
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Richard made a full recovery and found out that his mother was looking for him,
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But because he was trying to get himself clean and deal with some other
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problems, he felt, this is not the right time. I'm not going
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to reach out to my mother until I feel ready. And now, of
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course he regrets it, thinking that Ruth was likely murdered only a short time
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after she tried to get in touch with me, and he was thinking to
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himself, if I had reached out to her at that time, then maybe
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I could have met her before she was killed. So now we've got to
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tack on survivor's guilt. That's just so sad, because of course you're going
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to play those scenarios in your head. What if she actually was successful and
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getting a hold of him, things could have turned out differently, because we
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just truly don't know how things would have turned out, and like what hidden
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variables would have made a difference in the trajectory of the life of somebody.
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Could she have lived if that was the case, We just don't know,
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And to kind of ascribe any type of blame to oneself in that situation is
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something that we see family members of victims do all the time, exactly.
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And even though Richard had a tough teenage years, it's good to know that
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he turned his life around and he's still alive today in his sixties, and
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he recently made a trip to Provincetown for the first time to visit the site
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where his mother had been murdered. And even though her remains, part of
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them are still buried in the original grave in Provincetown. He has been given
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some of her remains and some ashes that he's kept in his possession, So
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it sounds like he's at peace with the whole situation. Well that is at
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least a little bit of catharsis to be able to have some of your mother
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return to you and to know that she's with you. So my heart really
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goes out to Richard because I can't imagine what it would be like to find
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out that information and then to just to never get to know your mother and
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to know that she did everything that she could in order for him to have
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the best life possible. And he saw and she saw that with you know,
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her boss, Richard Senior, and Richard Hensch senior and his wife what
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was his wife's name, Her name was Thelma, Thelma Handget. Yeah.
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So this idea that Ruth decided to give Richard Junior a better life by providing
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him a family with Richard Henshey Senior and his wife Thelma. And obviously he
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had some tumultuous years in his you know, his teenage years were a bit
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tumultuous. But I think that can often be the case with children who are
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adopted and don't get a chance to meet their families, because there's often a
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sense just from what I've seen, obviously I can't speak from personal experience.
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My mom was adopted, like she didn't know who her father was. So
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I know that my grandma kept a lot of secrets, and she found out
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through genetic I guess through genealogy right through like ancestry dot Com. She basically
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ended up being able to trace back who her father was. But my grandma
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held a lot of secrets during her life and she never knew that. And
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I know that she always felt that sense of like not really knowing where she
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came from because there was just it was so shrouded in secrecy. And so
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I can imagine that Richard felt the same way, because there's just this huge
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part of his life that he was just completely unaware about. I mean,
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he did know who his mother was because Richard and Thelma could Richard Senior and
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Thema could tell him about her because she worked for them. But actually being
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able to meet her himself and being able to know her is a completely different
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thing exactly. And we saw so many examples of this on the original Unsolved
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Mysteries where they had to have lost's love segments where people would meet up with
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long lost relatives, and more often than not, she would be have this
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happy reunion in front of the camera where they finally met each other for the
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first time. And I'm sure Richard was hoping that this would happen with his
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mother, but it turned out to be exactly not what he expected. So
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now this is when the story gets really crazy. It turned out that in
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nineteen seventy four, while Ruth was living in California, she got married to
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a man named Guy Maldovin, and marriage records showed that they officially got married
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in Reno, Nevada on February sixteenth, nineteen seventy four, though for some
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reason, Ruth used a fake name on the marriage certificate. She was listed
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under the name Terry Marie Vizna. We're not entirely sure why, but as
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we're going to talk about, there are a number of red flags in this
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marriage. Shortly thereafter, Ruth and her new husband, Guy decided to visit
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relatives in Tennessee, and it said that Guy was like it antiques art dealer
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and that they were now traveling through the United States searching for old antiques.
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But a lot of her relatives said that Ruth didn't appear to be herself whenever
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she was a round guy, that he gave off the impression of being very
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controlling and possessive. But nonetheless, they were going to continue on with their
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trip around the United States. They were going to go on a honeymoon.
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And I guess which state Guy said that they were planning to travel to sometime
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in the near future. Rhode Island, Massachusetts. Oh, Massachusetts. Yeah,
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that's what I'm just saying to keep hearing Provincetown and I think Rhode Island.
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No, it's Massachusetts. But surprise, surprise, this turned out to
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be the last time they ever heard from Ruth, and sometime during the summer
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of nineteen seventy four, Guy returned to California. He also got in touch
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with Ruth's family and said that shortly after they got back, they got into
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a fight and then Ruth just decided to take off on him and run away,
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and she and he had no idea what happened to her, And of
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course this made Ruth's family very suspicious. They hired a private investigator to travel
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to California and look into the matter and discovered that Guy had stold pretty much
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all of Ruth's belongings, but he couldn't find any evidence about what happened to
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her. But I'm sure at this point alarm bells are going off in your
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head like crazy. Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine what it was
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like investigating crimes before law enforcements were able to talk to each other, you
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know, through different programs and whatnot, and be able to share information.
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And then when you have missing persons cases not being taken as seriously as they
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are today, it's a completely different ballgame. So the idea for families having
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to hire your own private investigator so at great expense, and then at the
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end of the day not being able to come up with really any information because
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you don't have anybody looking into it right away. He's had guys had all
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of this time to be able to dispose of any potential evidence exactly. And
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of course Guy never filed an official missing person's report with the police. I
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know Ruth's family tried, but there were all sorts of jurisdictional issues. Because
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they had been traveling through the US, they suspected she might have gone missing
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from Massachusetts. But Guy is telling people that after they got back to California,
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that's when she ran away, and there was no direct evidence of foul
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play, so of course there was no missing persons report on file for Ruth,
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so that when investigators discovered the Lady of the Dunes that same year and
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were combing through reports, they never found anything about Ruth, so they wouldn't
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have had the opportunity to put two and two together. Well that makes total
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sense. If guys the one that committed the murder, you want to be
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able to go, oh, yeah, she ran away from California, don't
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look over there in Massachusetts exactly. Yeah. So I'm not surprised at all
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that this case she remained unidentified for a total of forty eight years. But
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this is when the story goes in all sorts of crazy directions, because guy
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Maldavin is quite a piece of work, and after Ruth was identified in twenty
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twenty two, they started looking into his background and discovered that he may have
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been responsible for many other crimes, and it actually turned out that he was
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part of a very infamous crime from Seattle, Washington, which was chronicled in
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the book written by noted true crime author and rule titled Smoke, Mirrors and
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Murder. What Ann Ruel would do is she would release all these true crime
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anthologies which had a number of different stories in them. And this particular book
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was published in two thousand and seven. But because it took place while Guy
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Muldavin was living under a completely different identity, no one put two and two
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together and figured that he might be connected to the lady of the Dunes case.
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Well, that's interesting. What was the infamous crime, like, what
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was the nature of it? Well, I'm going to go into a lot
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of detail about it because it's pretty complicated. It turns out that Guy mal
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David it is his legitimate birth name. He was originally born in New York
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in nineteen twenty three. Apparently he was adopted. I don't think anyone was
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able to figure out who his biological parents were. But at some point in
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his life, maybe the nineteen forties or sometime in the early nineteen fifties,
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he decided to change his name to Raoul Guy Rockwell, and he went by
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the nickname Rocky. So that's how I'm going to refer to him from here
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on out. But in the nineteen fifties, he was living in Seattle,
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Washington with his wife named Joe Ellen. They were running an antiques shop together,
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but sometime in the mid to late nineteen fifties, a woman named Manzanita
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Merns, who went by the nickname Mansie, started frequenting the store a lot,
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and Rocky started an extramarital affair with her, even though Mansie was married
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and had children of her own. And to show you what a great guy
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Rocky slash Guy is, he wound up dumping Joe Ellen and telling her that
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he wanted a divorce right in their antique shop in front of customers, and
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then he kicked her out, and then he later divorced her and went on
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to Mary Mansey, whoa, this guy's a real piece of work. That
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is some balls on him to do that to your wife in front of other
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people at your place of employment. Talk about missing a sensitivity chip. The
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lack of compassion and the lack of empathy is astounding, exactly. And can
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you imagine how awkward it be to be a customer in the store where you're
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just shopping for antiques and then you see a man dumping his wife and saying
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he wants a divorce right in front of you. I'd be like slowly edging
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my way out the door saying I'm not going to do any business here.
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I mean, I would be, but I would also be listening, because,
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oh my god, that would be good dinner table conversation later when you're
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hearing about how this guy did this to this woman and you don't know who
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they are, right, you're just in this antique shop. It would provide
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it an interesting story. But at the end of the day, it's like
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when you're watching reality TV or something like that and you're talking about how this
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guy is behaving in this horrific manner towards this woman and you're so shocked,
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but like, this is actual, real people in front of your eyes,
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I guess, before the advent of reality TV. So it had to have
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been equal parts entertaining and just really upsetting for anybody that had to witness that
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exactly. So you have to feel bad for the poor woman to because I
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have no idea at that point if she even suspected that her husband was having
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an affair, So for all we know, this could have happened completely out
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of the blue that day and like way to victimize her by having the affair.
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But then to dump her publicly. It's like, did you just not
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want her to react in a way that was like above and beyond that had,
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you know, emotions attached, and you didn't want to actually have to
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be sorry for what you've done, so you just do this publicly and kick
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her out, Like I can't even believe this guy. He's horrible. Oh,
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yes, he definitely is. And it gets a lot worse, believe
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it or not. So Mansi wound up divorcing her own husband, and by
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nineteen sixty she was living with Rocky, and she also was living with her
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eighteen year old daughter, Dolores, from her previous marriage. But sometime in
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April of nineteen sixty, Mansie and Dolores were officially reported missing because Mansie's ex
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husband had not heard from them in a while and he was wanting to get
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in touch with his daughter. But not only had Mansie and Dolores gone missing,
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but Rocky was gone as well. They couldn't find him anywhere and it
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looked like they had just abandoned their house, and it was not until a
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few months later that they finally decided to perform a full search of the house
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and check inside a septic tank, and they wound up finding some skeletal remains.
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Now keep in mind, everyone at the time figured that these remains belonged
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to Mansie and Dolores, but this is nineteen sixty before DNA testing, and
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it does not sound like they had any distinctive things like teeth or a skull
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to make a positive identification. So officially they were not inclusively identified as belonging
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to Nansi or Dolores. But I'm pretty sure they were because one of the
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odds that the remains of a completely different people would be found inside this septic
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tank. Wow, this just took a real dark turn. I thought,
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what a horrible guy. I mean, obviously, this is behavior that clearly
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sounds like almost sociopathic, the way to break up with somebody like that,
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just completely lacking compassion. And then we see he takes up with the woman
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he's having the extra marital affair with and her eighteen year old daughter, Dolores,
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and then they all go missing, the houses quote unquote abandoned, and
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then skeletal remains are found in the septic tank. Obviously, Rocky Slash guy
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is responsible. He's even worse than he sounded initially. Oh yeah, exactly
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and wait until you hear the circumstances of what he did during this time period.
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When he disappeared, he was carrying on an affair with another woman,
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and this particular woman was named Evelyn Emerson. I don't think that she had
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any idea that Rocky was already married and had an eighteen year old stepdaughter living
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with him. I think she just figured that he had lived in Seattle but
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now was planning to relocate. But Rocky became friendly with Evelyn's mother, and
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I think he was like a very fast talking con artist, so he convinced
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the mother to invest thousands of dollars with them so that he could take a
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trip to a British Columbia and purchase I think thousands of dollars in Native American
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artifacts because she was interested in collecting them. But it turned out that he
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never actually went there. He just ran off with his mother in law's money.
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So she decided to file grand larceny charges against him, and he would
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become a wanted fugitive for several months. And it would later turn out that
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Rocky used this money that he got from his mother in law to purchase a
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sports car so that he could pretty much travel around the country, and interestingly
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enough, at one point he stayed in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which is where
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his wealthy father owns some property, and as you well know, Province down
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is where Ruth would be discovered fourteen years later. That is pretty intense to
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think that you'd feel so awful being broken up with in an antique shop when
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he ends your marriage. But to know was his wife's name was Joellen,
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right, his first wife was Joellen and his third wife was Evelyn. Yeah.
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Yeah, So to know that, like Joellen got off really lucky,
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because he seems to have this pattern of just starting this new affair with another
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woman and then just leaves either heartbreak or bodies in his wake. I'm shocked,
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but like not shocked at this point because we just see this pattern of
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this guy who seems to be a pervasive con artist who behaves in an incredibly
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sociopathic manner with just callous disregard for the emotions, the well being just any
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other human being that is in his wake. They are expendable. He will
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take their money or end their lives. He's he's insidious, oh exactly.
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And that's what's crazy about this is that if people had known about Ruth's marriage
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to Guy back in nineteen seventy four and that she had gone missing, then
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he would have seemed like the obvious suspect. It probably would not have taken
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nearly fifty years for the Lady of the Dunes to be identified, especially when
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you look at his pattern of behavior. But of course, since he was
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living under a completely different name, Raoul Guy Rockwell, nobody put these two
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cases together. But he was eventually found in New York City in December of
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nineteen sixty, several months after he fled Seattle, and he was extradited back
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there, but prosecutors determined that there was not enough evidence to file murder charges
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against him for the murders of Mansie and Dolores, because even though they found
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remains in his septic tank, they weren't one hundred percent certain that the remains
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belonged to them, and they could prove that he killed them and put them
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in there, because for all, he could just say that, well,
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I already left Seattle before I need this happen, so they were probably killed
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by someone else. But he did get a charge for a grand larceny for
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ripping off the money from his mother in law and was found guilty and received
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a fifteen year prison sence. However, we only had to serve thirteen months
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because the judge decided to suspend a sentence on the condition that he repaid all
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the money he stole to his former mother in law. And this revelation has
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pretty much pissed off Ruth's family because if he had served the fall fifteen year
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prison sentence, he would not have gotten out until nineteen seventy five, so
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he never would have met Ruth. He likely never would have murdered her,
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So they pretty much have said that this decision to let him out early,
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even though he was a suspect and a double murder, in the long run
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wound up costing Ruth her life. But the information that he was a suspect
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and a double murder might not have been released during the court case because that
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would be deemed highly prejudicial, would it not. He was already convicted of
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grand larceny and people were well aware that he was already like a suspect and
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a double murder, but the judge still said that, well, he was
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only technically convicted of grand larceny, so we'll have like a well, we'll
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suspend a sense and let him out early as long as he repays the victims.
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But I'm pretty sure the judge did know that he was a suspect and
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another murder and probably thought maybe we should let him serve his full sentence because
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this guy could be dangerous. Yeah, I mean, if the judge knew,
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that was a poor choice, clearly, because Ruth would still be alive
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if he'd served the full length of his sentence, But it gave him the
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opportunity to be out there committing more crimes, exactly, And that's exactly what
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he did, apparently several years down the line, because at some point,
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I guess because of all the notoriety surrounding this case, because I know that
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it got a lot of publicity in the Seattle area at least in nineteen sixty
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though when he was released from prison, I think it pretty much dropped off
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the radars. So he just decided to change his name back to his birth
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name, Guy Maldovin. And I think no one had any idea that he
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was a suspect in a double murder when he met Ruth and married her over
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a decade later. But believe it or not, There's even more to this
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story because when Ruth was identified in twenty twenty two, they started doing more
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research into Guy Maldovn's background and they found out that while he was still living
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under the name Raoul Guy Rockwell, he was wanted for questioning in a double
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murder which took place in Eureka, California, in nineteen fifty. On June
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eighteenth of that year, a twenty two year old bread truck driver named Henry
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Baird was found murdered after he was found shot in the back of the head
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on a beach near Eureka. When his body was found, he was clad
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only in his shoes in his socks, and his clothing was neatly piled nearby.
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And Henry had last been seen with a seventeen year old waitress named Barbara
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Kelly, and her clothing was found neatly piled at the murder scene. But
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they never did find Barbara's body, so whoever committed this murder presumably disposed of
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her body at another location. So at the time, Raoul Guy Rockwell was
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living in the nearby town of Fortuna with his first wife, Joe Ellen.
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Joe Allen's parents owned one of the two restaurants in the town, and Rocky
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just happened to work there as a short order cook. The main reason there's
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a connection to him is because Henry Baird often visited this restaurant since it was
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on his route as a bread truck driver, and Barbara Kelly just happened to
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work as a waitress in the town's of the restaurant. The crime was ever
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solved, and there really isn't anything to conclusively tie Guy Rockwell slash Guy Maldov
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into this crime. But one reason that they find it interesting is the detail
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about the victim's clothing being neatly folded at the crime scene, because, as
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you recall, Roof's clothing was found neatly folded under her head when she was
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found murdered twenty four years later. So there's been speculation that perhaps got I
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committed his first murder all the way back in nineteen fifty and that he could
25:03
be a serial killer responsible for the murders of at least five victims. It's
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an odd dichotomy or juxtaposition, this idea of this chaos scene with murder,
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but then to fold the clothes. It's like his attempt to try to find
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this order in chaos, and it is a strange parallel to have this other
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case in the same town where he was, where he obviously knew Baird because
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Baird is delivering the bread, and he probably knew his girlfriend as well because
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she worked at the other restaurant in this town. It doesn't sound like it
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was that big. It sounds like people knew each other there. So I
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mean, he's a good suspect because we know that he seems to just commit
25:48
murder whenever things don't go his way or when he wants something. So the
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idea that maybe he wanted to sexually assault her, maybe he wanted to rob
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them, I don't know. He just seems like the type of guy that
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we can't really discount the possibility that he could be capable of pretty much doing
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anything exactly, because at the time, I don't think anyone thought he was
26:08
a serious suspect. They just wanted to question him, but he had not
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been not yet been linked to any other murders back in nineteen fifty. And
26:15
I think it's only in retrospect now that people are looking through the newspaper archives
26:19
again and seeing his name and they realize, well, was he probably killed
26:23
Ruth. He probably killed Mansy and Dolores in nineteen sixty, so who's to
26:27
say he couldn't have committed another double murder ten years earlier. So what's also
26:33
crazy is that when all this stuff about Guy Maldovin became public after Rue's identification
26:38
in twenty twenty two, people started doing searches for the newspaper archives trying to
26:42
find out like all the information they could about him, and they wound up
26:47
finding a full article about him in the June fifth, nineteen eighty five edition
26:51
of The Californian, a newspaper based out of the town of Salinas, where
26:55
he was living at the time. And what's crazy is that it's a whole
26:59
profile on Guy because he had become a disc jockey and was the host of
27:03
this very popular late night talk radio show. And they show like these photographs
27:07
of him like hamming it up in front of the camera, screaming into the
27:11
mic, and they interview him and say that, yeah, I was a
27:14
guy who worked as like a salesman, but by the time I reached my
27:17
fifties, I decided I wanted to go into a more artistic feel to get
27:19
a change in my life, so I became the host of this late night
27:23
radio show. It's pretty much a fluff piece, but it's just so creepy
27:27
to read because guy Maldovan seems like this ordinary, likable guy in the article,
27:32
and no one has any inkling that he may have killed as many as
27:36
five people at that point. This is giving me major Rodney Alcala vibes,
27:41
like the dating game killer. Oh yeah, yeah right, Like this guy
27:45
goes out there, everyone thinks he's this charismatic guy. I mean, I
27:48
guess with Rodney al Kala, the woman that ended up being matched with him,
27:52
or she picked him, she didn't go on a date with him.
27:55
She thought he was creepy, so at least she was able to accurately read
27:59
him. But it's just so gross and weird to think that he was beloved
28:04
in any capacity exactly like he must have been a chameleon, Like he must
28:08
have had a very charming side to his personality to make people think he was
28:11
a likable guy, but then showed his darker side when he was alone with
28:15
women with spouses that he wanted to take advantage of. And that's the thing
28:21
is that even though the raul guy Rockwell case from Seattle had gotten a lot
28:25
of publicity. He was now living under a new name in nineteen eighty five,
28:29
so people reading that article are going to have no idea that this guy
28:33
was a suspect in a double murder twenty five years earlier. It's just wild
28:37
how you could go from state to state and just you know, change your
28:41
name when you felt like it, take up new identity, just be whoever
28:45
you wanted whenever you got to this new place. And that's exactly what he
28:51
did. He became the popular DJ. It's so weird. As an aside,
28:56
you've probably heard of Rex Huerman, who was recent arrested for the Long
29:00
Island serial killings, and after his arrest, people did a Google search and
29:03
found out he had been interviewed on a YouTube series several years ago about people
29:08
who ran successful businesses in Manhattan, and you look at the interview, he
29:12
just seems like an ordinary guy and you would never guess that he has probably
29:17
murdered about like ten twelve people at that point. So it's always shocking when
29:21
suspects are arrested for murdering. You look at their personal history and you find
29:25
like interviews or YouTube videos or articles in which they just come across as normal
29:29
people. Speaking of DJs too, with regards to Rex Hugerman, Howard Stern
29:36
when they were talking about the case like years ago, said, Oh,
29:40
he's probably an architect. Oh really, I didn't know that. Yeah,
29:42
that's crazy. Isn't that weird? Yeah? But I know. This was
29:47
kind of a small YouTube channel, and the guy who runs it said that
29:48
after Rex was arrested, the views on this particular video just skyrocketed because people
29:55
would just google his name and then find it. Well, yeah, you
29:59
want to have any instance where you can see this person talking, where you
30:03
can kind of get a feel for who they are, what's their cadence,
30:07
Are they hiding something? You know, these types of things that we try
30:11
to kind of intimate these details from these little sound bites or from these little
30:15
videos or audio whenever we have it of killers, because we feel like we
30:21
can get some kind of insight into who they are and why they do what
30:23
they do exactly. And another example, look back at Steve Panky's campaign videos
30:29
when he ran for governor of Idaho, and he's doing, like god,
30:32
a pro life, pro Second Amendment platform, even though he had already abducted
30:36
and murdered a twelve year old girl, which is pretty creepy. It was
30:40
wild, Yeah, he was. He was something else, so Guy Maldovin.
30:45
Other than the larceny charge, he was never officially charged or convicted of
30:48
any major crimes. He was never conclusively linked to any murders, and he
30:52
pretty much lived his whole light most of his life as a free man before
30:56
he died of natural causes in March of two thousand and two at the age
31:00
of seventy eight. And what's crazy to me is that Guy had gotten remarried
31:04
for the fourth I think it was the fifth time, to a woman named
31:08
Phyllis in October of nineteen seventy five. And even though he ran through so
31:14
many wives during his early days, Guy actually stayed married to Phyllis for twenty
31:18
seven years until he passed away. And I found an obituary for Phyllis.
31:22
She did not pass away until twenty twenty one before any of these revelations came
31:27
out about Guy maul Davin. So I really would love to speak to her.
31:32
I'd love to know if there were any warning signs during the marriage that
31:34
there was something off about him, because it just seems crazy to me that
31:37
after going through so many women and using them, that he would be willing
31:41
to stay married to the same woman for twenty seven years and settled down before
31:45
he passed away. Well, we're assuming he settled down. Maybe she was
31:49
just one of those like, you know, kind of don't ask, don't
31:52
tow type of people with regards to an affair. You know how sometimes in
31:57
situations it's like, well, do aishure do, but don't embarrass me type
32:01
of a thing. And maybe that was her attitude or her outlook, and
32:07
it didn't give him a situation where he had to do anything extreme because she
32:12
wasn't putting pressure on him to stop his gallivanting around town with you know,
32:16
all these different women. Or maybe he really did just love her and decided
32:21
to settle down. But I think it's more likely the former than the latter,
32:24
because he just doesn't really sound like somebody who's capable of any kind of
32:29
depth of feeling exactly, or like we never know. He could have killed
32:32
other people between nineteen seventy four and two thousand and two, but he was
32:37
getting up there in age, and I know that's the main reason that Joseph
32:39
DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer stopped because he was just getting too old to
32:44
break into people's houses and murder them. So maybe guy just decided I'm too
32:47
old for this and just lived a normal life working as this disc jockey,
32:52
this talk radio show host, and then just lived a quiet life until he
32:55
passed away. Yeah, and we saw that with BTK as well. Right.
33:00
I think he just got older and then he started to feel like he
33:02
was fading into obscurity, and so he decided to talk law enforcement and it
33:07
got him caught exactly. He likely wouldn't have been caught, or maybe not
33:12
for many years after he actually was, if he didn't decide to get this
33:17
big ego and want to remain relevant exactly. Yes, So that might be
33:22
why by Guy mal David was able to stop killing. Like maybe he thought,
33:25
I'm already a semi famous radio host, so my ego is being placated,
33:30
I'm getting attention, so this maybe this is my substitute for being a
33:32
killer. Oh, good call. That sounds like that would be accurate for
33:38
sure. That would be like a good surrogate situation where his ego is getting
33:43
stroked. He doesn't need the papers to write about him. He doesn't need
33:45
to have his crimes be plastered everywhere because he's this beloved you know, talk
33:50
radio host or DJ. Yeah. Pretty crazy. So as an aside,
33:55
I mentioned that Ann Rulebook which was published in two thousand and seven, and
33:59
wrote like a chapter about the uh murders which took place in Seattle in nineteen
34:04
sixty And I looked at the chapter and it just has this thing at the
34:07
end as saying that Raoul Guy Rockwell changed his name to Guy mal Davin and
34:10
public's records show that he got married to a woman named Terry and Nevada in
34:15
February of nineteen seventy four, but we don't know what happened to him afterwards.
34:20
And of course I mentioned that for some reason, when Ruth got married,
34:22
she used this fake name Terry Marie Vizna on the marriage certificate. But
34:28
when Amrul wrote that chapter, I'm sure she had no inkling that Terry would
34:31
later turn out to be the Lady of the Dunes. Oh my god,
34:36
No, I'm sure she had no clue. This case just has so many
34:39
twists and turns. Yeah, it's just so crazy. It's just gone in
34:44
so many unexpected directions. Which is why I felt we had to do an
34:46
entire podcast episode about this. So obviously, after Ruth was identified in twenty
34:53
twenty two and all this information was coming out against her former husband, everyone
34:58
was thinking to themselves, yet, it's obvious he did this, but how
35:01
are they going to conclusively prove this? After all this time, they kept
35:06
sending out public pleas for information, saying that if you cross pass with Guy
35:09
Maldovin or Ruth Marie Terry in nineteen seventy four, please come forward with information
35:15
anything that'll help the investigation. Of course, we've seen in recent years that
35:20
a whole bunch of cold cases have been solved when people have used genetic genealogy
35:23
in order to link DNA to the perpetrator, so you can officially name it
35:29
as the killer, even if they're already deceased. But the problem is that
35:32
there was no DNA evidence in this case which belonged to roost killer. Because
35:37
it turned out that when a lot of the items found at the murder scene,
35:40
like the towel and the clothing, were sent to the Massachusetts State Police
35:45
in the nineteen eighties, they just got rid of it. They apparently needed
35:49
more space and their evidence lockers, so they just decided to throw all this
35:52
evidence out, never realizing that it could be tested for DNA at some point
35:58
in the future. So when they went to look for and try to see
36:00
if it might have Guy's DNA, I found out it was missing, so
36:05
very very frustrating. Oh that is so frustrating. But we see it in
36:08
so many cases because they just didn't know to preserve things like they do today
36:14
exactly, So it happens in a lot of these older cases. But in
36:19
August of twenty twenty three, after performing extensive investigation the Cape and Islands District
36:24
Attorney's Office, who had jurisdiction in Provincetown, they announced that this case was
36:30
officially closed and they were comfortable naming Guy Maldovin as Ruth Marie Terry's killer.
36:37
It was base. They didn't have anything conclusive like DNA or physical evidence or
36:40
eyewitnesses, but they did learn some new information that made it obvious that Guy
36:45
was the killer. I previously mentioned how Guy had spoken to Ruth's family and
36:50
claimed that when they went to Massachusetts for their honeymoon and returned home to California,
36:54
they got into a fight and Ruth just decided to run away and he
36:59
didn't know what happened to well. Investigators would speak to other witnesses who had
37:02
interacted with Guy back in nineteen seventy four, and he claimed that when Guy
37:07
returned home from California, he was alone and he was driving Ruth's carr There
37:13
was no evidence that Ruth was in California at all during the summer of nineteen
37:17
seventy four, which just seemed to poke holes in this story. He provided
37:21
that they had gotten into a fight there and she had run away. And
37:24
not only that, is that even though Guy had told Ruth's family that she
37:29
was missing, he flat out told some of the other people living in California
37:32
that Ruth had died during their trip. So investigators were looking at this and
37:37
pretty much just said that, Yeah, there's no way that this guy could
37:40
be innocent. It's just too much a coincidence that they would go on a
37:44
hodimoon and the same period where Ruth was murdered, and that he would come
37:49
back without hers. So they just said, I'm confident that he's the killer
37:52
and we can finally close the investigation. Yeah, I think just his tie
37:58
to all of these different crimes the fact that he's giving different degrees. Well,
38:02
he's giving varying stories, one that she died during the trip, one
38:07
that she ran away in California. He can't keep his story straight, which
38:13
obviously alludes to the fact that he's lying and he is the one who is
38:16
responsible for murdering Ruth. Exactly. Yeah, And there's one more piece of
38:22
evidence I wanted to discuss that was uncovered the last year, which is even
38:24
creepier. It turned out in nineteen seventy six that guy had published a cookbook
38:30
about these weird like Northeast recipes titled Cooking with Rump Oil, and there was
38:37
one section which had a recipe titled cape Cod Shid, which showed this weird
38:40
drawing of a creature which had this long, flowing hair. But since they
38:45
looked at it recently, they're realizing this is disturbingly similar to Ruth's hair at
38:51
the time she was killed. And next to the drawing was this message,
38:53
I'm going to read it word for word quote. Out of the water and
38:58
into the pan. The only way to cook the shit after the shit is
39:01
caught, anything over five minutes ends it. The sweet turpentine will turn that
39:06
of a burnt glove, and the tender look will become one of despair.
39:08
Remember, just five minutes. Don't cook the shit out of it. End
39:13
quote. So this passage was given to an FBI profile or retired one named
39:16
Julia Cowley, and she looked at this and was just so creeped out about
39:21
it, thinking that guy is covertly using this recipe to describe his own wife's
39:25
murder, That he has a drawing of a creature who has similar hair,
39:30
and this whole thing about how it only takes five minutes to kill her and
39:32
they will have a look of despair. He think that she thinks that this
39:36
is him covertly describing how he killed Ruth, that maybe it took five minutes
39:40
she had a look of despair and then after five minutes he ended it and
39:44
she was murdered. And this is just all sorts of creepy. I just
39:47
have no idea where to begin trying to describe this. I'm really disgusted because
39:54
all elements of that are really gross, especially to think that he drew her
40:00
and then describe murdering her. Don't cook the shit out of it, Like,
40:05
what does that even mean? In reference to the murder yeah, I
40:08
try looking up shit. I guess it's kind of a like a sea creature
40:13
or something like that, and he's trying to say that you grab this creature
40:15
and cook it somewhere in Cape cod But it's like we talked about how killers
40:21
will sometimes have their own avenues where if they've gotten away with a crime and
40:24
they can't tell anyone about it, it will drive them crazy. And this
40:28
is the first example I found about someone publishing a recipe book. It's pretty
40:32
much the cookbook version of OJ Simpson's If I Did It, where he's almost
40:37
covertly describing him murdering his wife in the passage of describing a recipe. It's
40:42
the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. Is Julia Colly, the lead person
40:49
on that show, The Consult Uh good question. I know she is a
40:52
prominent figure, so I'm just going to look that up. I really love
40:55
that podcast. They just did a three part on Jody Who's in truet Oh
41:00
okay, cool? It was. It was really good hearing different retired FBI
41:05
profilers takes on who did it? And you know, the guy who'd been
41:08
the main suspect basically saying that the strong likelihood that he isn't responsible. Yes,
41:16
Julia Cally was the host of the consult and I would really love to
41:21
see her do an episode about this case because I think she just looked at
41:23
the recipe book and said, yeah, this guy is the killer. We
41:27
can just close this case. There's nothing else to solve here. Yeah,
41:31
you should definitely. Have you listened to the podcast. I haven't. No,
41:36
you should listen to it. It's really good. It's just so unique
41:38
getting to hear profilers takes on different cases. They don't put out episodes all
41:45
that often, Like over the last couple of years, I think they've only
41:47
put out a handful of episodes. But it's incredibly good. And I really
41:52
like Julia Cally. That's good, so I definitely would take her word for
41:54
it with her analysis of the recipe. Here's a quote she said, what
41:59
I do wonder, especially the last line, the tender look will become one
42:02
of despair. You have to think that perhaps that was the moment he watched
42:06
life go out of her eyes and when she realized he's going to kill me.
42:09
It's really horrifying. End quote. And then you just look at the
42:13
circumstances where investigators suspected that she was just son bathing, that it could have
42:17
been an ordinary routine day where she's son bathing with her husband, but then
42:22
something happens which makes him realize that my husband is going to murder me in
42:27
the most brutal, fashioned, imaginable And it's just so horrifying to think about
42:30
when you read that passage and think about how the major overkill, the fact
42:36
that she was killed by her own husband, and for all we know,
42:37
could have come completely out of left field. She may not have been expecting
42:42
it. Yeah, and you have to think that she's absolutely correct in her
42:45
assessment that he's talking about the murder, because that lies specifically. The tender
42:51
look goes to that of despair. You'd never talk about a fish ever having
42:55
a tender look like looking at you in any tender capacity. Fish aren't capable
43:00
of tenderness. You know, maybe they are with their little fish babies,
43:05
but not with us humans. So to say that the tender look goes to
43:08
that of despair, I don't think you see a lot of change on the
43:12
face of a fish when they realize that they're going to die. I mean,
43:15
I've done a lot of fishing. My dad was a fisheries biologist,
43:19
so I spent a lot of time with the fish, and I've never seen
43:22
a tender look. And I've also never really seen a look of despair.
43:24
Maybe I'm just not that keenly aware or like acutely tuned into fish expressions,
43:31
but I think that he's absolutely talking about Ruth's look on her face, and
43:36
that is bone chilling exactly. Yeah, And since Maldovin is now deceased,
43:42
will probably never know the full story about why he killed her. I mean
43:45
when he married her, was he originally planning to kill her sometime down the
43:50
line, or did he just get tired of her or did they have a
43:52
major fight or something and that just led to things escalating out of control.
43:57
We'll probably never know the full truth because we know that some of his other
44:00
relationships he would get involved with women and then use them and then kill them
44:05
when he was finished with them, So it could have been the same thing
44:07
with Ruth because they'd only been married I think something like five months at that
44:12
point when the murder likely happened. So it's just a very bizarre situation and
44:16
it's crazy to think that he maybe one of those serial killers who flew under
44:21
the radar where he managed to kill multiple people throughout the course of his lifetime
44:25
without ever getting charged with any crimes, and he went to his grave completely
44:30
getting away with it. He sounds like he came from, like you said,
44:34
an affluent family that had some kind of money, but he was a
44:37
bit of a grifter or you know, a wheeler dealer, and that he
44:42
was just really opportunistic and he would kind of make and take money wherever he
44:45
could. So I wonder if in the beginning when he met Ruth that he
44:50
was like love bombing her type of a thing, and maybe he had money
44:53
at that time, because it could be if you're that type of person,
44:55
could be very feast or famine, so you could have a lot of money
45:00
one time and then be completely broken another. So maybe he is responsible for
45:04
paying for all of her expensive dental work, and that's why he ended up,
45:08
you know, taking the time to remove as many teeth as he possibly
45:13
could, because he thought maybe the dental work could be tied back to him
45:16
specifically. Yeah, exactly. It still has never been conclusively determined when she
45:21
got the dental work, but it would make sense that it happened after they
45:23
got married because she may not have had enough money for that, but guy
45:28
seemed to have a decent amount of money, so he probably paid for it,
45:30
and maybe that was one of the reasons she decided to marry him.
45:34
But he figured, well, it'll be easily traced back to her, so
45:37
that's why he went to the trouble of removing some of her teeth and also
45:40
her hands. And I think the theory was correct that this was not a
45:44
first time killer. This was someone who had a lot of experience and knew
45:47
the methods of identification and why they wanted to go to the trouble of removing
45:52
this because obviously, if she was identified as Ruth back in nineteen seventy four,
45:57
he automatically would have become the prime suspect. But because she could not
46:00
be identified, he was able to just go on living his life under the
46:04
radar without anyone knowing better, and he probably would have gotten away with it
46:08
indefinitely. But back in nineteen seventy four, he did not know about an
46:13
invention like d in April filing, which led to the resolution and her identification.
46:19
Yeah, I think you could very easily say that this is not a
46:22
first timer there's a level of forensic sophistication with regards to countermeasures. For nineteen
46:28
seventy four. You wouldn't think that most killers would be adept enough to be
46:32
thinking about removing hands and removing teeth. But yet this is something that just
46:38
seems to come naturally, that this person is in this remote spot at this
46:44
beach and has the tools to do something like this, And also just the
46:51
you know, almost like reptilian nature to be able to turn on somebody that
46:55
you love in such a way. It's disgusting, but it also speaks to
47:01
somebody that has some kind of experience with killing for sure, oh exactly.
47:06
And that's a good point about the tools, because we were discussing that we
47:08
don't know what was used to remove her hands and remove her teeth. But
47:13
the idea that he's going on a honeymoon to this nice beach area and just
47:16
happens to have pliers or a hacksaw in his vehicle to do this really does
47:21
point to this being premeditated and that he knew what he was doing. Yeah,
47:25
and from like what we didn't really know in the beginning when I said
47:30
I wonder if this person it wasn't random and that they decided to take the
47:34
teeth and take the hands because it could be tied back to him because there
47:37
was a connection. And that ended up being true because maybe he paid for
47:42
the dental work and she was his wife, so she could absolutely be tied
47:45
back to him. So that is really interesting. Yeah, the case has
47:50
been such a wild ride because when I covered it in twenty sixteen, we
47:53
had all these theories about Rory Jean Kessinger and the serial killer had In Clark
47:59
and Whitey Bulger, and also the possibility that she was an extra in the
48:04
movie Jaws. But it turns out these were all red herrings and it's just
48:07
a much simpler solution. She was just a woman who was in a bad
48:10
marriage who was killed by an abusive partner. But because this was nineteen seventy
48:15
four and things just didn't get communicated as much and it was much harder to
48:19
report someone missing, nobody put two and two together for nearly fifty years,
48:24
and that's why the case was unsolved for so long. It's incredible when all
48:30
the pieces come together and you're able to get a resolution, But there as
48:34
few cases that are as wild a ride as this one. All these crazy
48:38
details, like I can't even I can't even process all of them. It's
48:44
just been a lot. It's true, like I mentioned that in the intro
48:46
that in so many of these cases involving unident identified decedents, there are all
48:52
these wild theories about who they were, what their backstory was. But when
48:54
they finally do get identified, it turns out to be very mundane that they
48:59
were just a right person who maybe was suicidal or just cross passed with the
49:04
wrong person. But here we have a bunch of wild theories and the real
49:07
truth turns out to be even wilder than anyone imagined. I mean, if
49:10
it was just a simple marriage gone wrong, that would be one thing,
49:15
but the fact that it involved a guy who was linked to other murders in
49:17
his past and had lived under different identities just makes this one piece of a
49:22
very large and crazy puzzle. I guess this will conclude our episode. But
49:28
even though it was a pretty sad story, I am just so glad that
49:30
Ruth has her name back and that her surviving relatives know what happened to her,
49:35
and that her son, Richard finally has answers about his biological mother.
49:39
So it's great to say that in this particular case, the trail is no
49:44
longer cold and the path is no longer chilly. Thank you so much for
49:49
sharing this case with me. I am so pleased to that Ruth got her
49:52
identity back and that her son, Richard Junior, has a piece of his
49:57
mother. Although to know that she was murdered is a horrific conclusion, at
50:01
least he has some kind of resolution, and especially in knowing who is responsible
50:07
and what happened to her exactly, Like, it's very hard to close murder
50:12
cases after the perpetrator has already deceased, but here it just seems obvious.
50:16
There is no mystery and everyone is at peace with what happened. And it
50:21
was fun sharing all the details of this case with you, because a lot
50:23
of the time I will give all these shocking stories and see your reaction where
50:28
you're like, I can't believe this happened, and I'm sure this happened multiple
50:30
times on this particular episode. Oh yeah, with every little tidbit of information
50:36
that you were sharing, it's like, how is this even possible? And
50:39
then you consider the time period and you consider how easy it was for people
50:43
to move around and change their identities, and that just seems to be what
50:47
happened here. But like you'd pegs, he was just a real chameleon.
50:52
I think he was able to move through the world what Rocky or Guy whoever
50:55
you want to call him, He was able to move through the world,
50:59
and he was able to be what people needed him to be at that moment.
51:02
But he wasn't able to really follow through with the emotion and the complexity
51:07
and nuance of being an actual human being in relationships. So he ended up
51:10
just leaving this carnage in his wake, exactly. And it will not surprise
51:15
me one day somebody releases a long form podcast on the story in the entire
51:21
life of Guy Maldovin in general, because I would like to see if they
51:23
can link him to any other unsolved murders. Oh, I'm sure it's completely
51:29
plausible that he killed other people, Like there's got to be. He just
51:32
seems like the type of person that just so easily disposes of human beings.
51:37
And to think that anytime somebody is standing in his way of whatever he wants,
51:40
whatever is his set objective, that he will resort to murder exactly.
51:45
So it's a good thing he's no longer with us, So on that note,
51:51
thank you everyone for joining us, and have yourselves a happy holiday and
51:53
a happy New Year. And Ashley will be back now that the holidays are
51:58
over on our next series of episodes, so join us then. So until
52:00
then, have a good few weeks, Robin. Do you want to tell
52:04
us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail
52:07
Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard
52:12
bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and
52:16
sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If
52:21
you join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes
52:25
in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's
52:30
original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest
52:35
tier tier three, the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
52:38
is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries, where you can
52:44
download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon
52:49
Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
52:53
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
52:58
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
53:01
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track
53:07
in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure
53:10
to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit
53:14
about the jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The
53:17
Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over
53:22
an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
53:24
turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope
53:28
you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes. So
53:31
I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to
53:35
share us on social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
53:38
appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwent Chili at gmail dot com.
53:43
You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time,
53:45
be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
53:51
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy