Candyman: The True Story Behind The Bathroom Mirror Murder - Ruthie Mae's Reflection: 6

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

The judge and jury announce the fates of the two men accused of killing Ruthie Mae McCoy. Host Dometi Pongo looks at how the fourth Candyman film upends the franchise and the new exhibit honoring Ruthie Mae set to open in Chicago.Get ad-free access to episodes of Candyman: The True Story Behind The Bathroom Mirror Murder by subscribing to 48 Hours+ on Apple Podcasts or Wondery+ on the Wondery app.Subscribe to 48 Hours+: https://apple.co/4aEgENoSubscribe to Wondery+: https://wondery.com/plus/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

48Hours Plus and Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to new episodes of Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, one week early, and ad free right now. Join 48Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts or Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Listen to the 48Hours Podcast for shocking murder cases and compelling real-life dramas from one of television's most watched true crime shows, and then go behind the scenes with Post Mortem, a weekly deep dive from the team at 48 hours. Listen to 48 hours early and ad free on Wondry Plus. In the spring of 1990, a judge and jury considered whether John Hondras and Edward Turner were guilty of killing Ruthie Mae McCoy.

Their attorneys argued they were innocent, but throughout the investigation, their names came up most frequently as suspects. And when the time came for the prosecution's key witness to take the stand, he changed his story at the last minute. Now their fates were up in the air. We're talking a lot about Ruthie Mae now, but back then, her murder got very little attention. Not a lot of folks came to the trial. And it's thanks mostly to the doggedness of Steve Beguera that we're talking about Ruthie Mae's case now. And we aren't the only ones turning our attention to Ruthie Mae. A new museum set to open later this year will highlight her story.

We tell the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lisa Yun Lee is the executive director of the National Public Housing Museum. They renovated a three-story public housing building in Chicago. The museum will showcase how apartments looked decades ago. The objects and artifacts that we've found that we've saved and salvaged and that people have given to us. One object they salvaged from back then was a medicine cabinet. Lee knows that there's no story related to those medicine cabinets that's more well known than Ruthie Mays. For so many people, one of the most famous stories in public housing.

They'll hang a cabinet on the wall, and then on each side of the cabinet, they'll put two different portrayals of life in public housing. On one side, this medicine cabinet tells the story of really incredible health programs and medical care that was always available in public housing complexes. And then on the other?

There's the story of Ruthie McCoy, which is also true about this medicine cabinet. To Lee, the tragedy of Ruthie Mae's death holds lessons for how the country approaches public housing today. Housing precarity being what it is today, it's like one of the biggest issues facing all of us. This history is incredibly relevant. And even as history reminds us of its failures, Ruthie Mae's story still shows us some of the valuable things that public housing can do for people.

She had a consistent place to stay after her home flooded and was provided access to a psychiatric center where she received care. Despite so many challenges, Ruthie May used public housing to set a path toward a better life. We're asking people to take a moment and take care to look a little more deeply. The Medicine Cabinet Exhibit is called Care to Look. It's a capacious history. History is big and never again will a single story

be told as if it's the only one. For how big history is, Ruth Emay's story manages to stay relevant for generations. I think I wrote a lot of stories that really shed light on what poverty was like in Chicago in the 80s and 90s. Here's reporter Steve Baguera. But people don't pay attention to most of those stories. But this one is kind of revived so that people do pay attention to it more than three decades

later. He credits Candyman for generating attention around Ruthie Mae's legacy. But plenty of real life events get mentioned in movies. There's something deeper at play when we remember Ruthie Mae. Ruthie Mae's experience was concentrated poverty. It's a combination of deep poverty and racial segregation. What is her legacy?

What has come of these public housing projects today? And were her killers ever brought to justice? You never know what a jury is gonna do. I'm Dometi Pongo. From 48 Hours, this is Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder. Episode 6, Ruthie Mae's reflection. Ruthie Mae McCoy's legacy will forever be intertwined with the 1992 Candyman film. I mean, mainstream stories and myths have a lot of power.

Lisa Yun Lee from the National Public Housing Museum believes the film and its sequels have kept Ruth Emay's story alive. But each one has also done something different. I think the original Candyman contributed to inscribing some terrible racialized stereotypes about these places. And on the flip side, I kind of feel like the remake

of Candyman actually did something very different. In 2021, fans of the franchise got to see Candyman in a new light. It was the first time a Candyman film was written and directed by people of color. Director Nia DaCosta used the remake to challenge stereotypes around public housing in historically Black neighborhoods. It'll take a minute and then people will be studying over and talking about her film for years to come. Remember Robin Means Coleman? She's a media professor at the University of Virginia.

She told me that this more recent film is part of a movement to use horror to examine deeper issues within American society, especially about race. So inevitably, that real-life horror is going to inform entertainment horror. And the social issues appear in lots of horror films, but they're particularly acute in Black horror films. The fourth Candyman is set in 2019, decades after the original.

Helen, the graduate student who investigated Candyman for her research paper and died in a bonfire, is referenced but is not the film's focus. Instead of a white protagonist, the central character is Black. He's an artist named Anthony McCoy. The kind of connective tissue is like trauma. It's violence. The Candyman is sort of violent. Cabrini is violent. The government is violent. There's structural violence that sends people to where they are in these films.

A reference to the details of Ruthie Mae's murder is in the fourth film too. The main character, Anthony, starts researching Candyman and gets a tape recorder from the library. As he becomes more obsessed with Candyman, there's a scene where Anthony is vigorously painting and listening to a recording of two women from the original film as they retell the murder

of a woman named Ruthie. But when they finally got there, she was dead. By 2019, Cabrini-Green and the Abbott Homes where Ruthie Mae lived were long gone. In the movie and in real life, the high-rise projects had been demolished. Many low-income residents of the neighborhood were forced to leave. Their homes were replaced by new development and housing designed to attract wealthier residents. I should warn you if you haven't seen the movie yet, there are going to be some spoilers as we get into the differences between the fourth and the first Candyman. I think that the chief difference is now certainly

there's the absence of Helen and a focus on black communities, black families, black relationships, extended families. That's the other thing. In the 92 movie, you're like, where are these people's kin? It's revealed that Anthony, the painter, was the baby that Helen, the blonde grad student from the first Candyman, saved from the fire in the original film. At the end of the 2021 film, Anthony becomes Candyman.

And this movie makes some big changes to the lore surrounding the Candyman character's history. The police gun down the character, Anthony McCoy, at the end of the most recent movie. Keep in mind, this film was released only a little more than a year after George Floyd's death and his murder was weighing heavy on America at the time. But in the movie, Anthony gets his revenge. Once he's Candyman, he kills the officers who murdered him.

Even though Anthony is turning into something, he's an unwilling martyr to the kind of black pain and trauma that we see. Coleman read me something the director, Nia DaCosta, once said. So Nia says, I love this quote. Can I read this quote? Absolutely. She says, Candyman at the intersection of white violence

and black pain is about unwilling martyrs. The character Anthony McCoy is an unwilling martyr in the 2021 film, The Police Kill him. The original Candyman character, Daniel Robitaille, was an unwilling martyr. He was tortured and lynched by an angry mob. And in a way, Ruthie May was an unwilling martyr too. She's remembered for how she died, remembered for how she was let down. When we talk about speaking names and saying names and reminding about justice denied, we do want to say Ruthie Mae McCoy's name and keep saying her name because it isn't just about her murder. That's a core to how we know her. But Ruthie Mae McCoy symbolizes

all of the sort of failures. One of the reasons Ruthie Mae's story still resonates today is we're still reckoning with these failures. A lot of us can relate to not feeling safe in our own homes, worrying that when a call for help is made, no one will come. safe in our own homes, worrying that when a call for help is made, no one will come. In the 2021 movie, a Black woman summons Candyman for protection, which is much different from the original. And that subtle change makes saying the name Candyman an act of empowerment rather than victimization. Coleman thinks that that idea echoes the real-life movement to keep the names of victims of injustice alive.

So when saying Candyman's name in 1992 doesn't get us justice, in this Candyman, you say his name because we're asking for justice. For Coleman, Ruthie Mae is on a long list of names that she intends to say out loud. Ruthie Mae McCoy is a real life person. Her family are alive and out there. Back in 1990, Ruthie Mae's family was still waiting for justice. They were about to learn whether the two men accused of killing Ruthie May would be found guilty. Her older brother, Willie McCoy, had watched the whole trial unfold. Finally, after three years, he was about to find out what would happen to the two young men accused of her murder. They wanted to make sure that the right people got convicted. Steve Beguera was there as the prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments.

I always feel it's pretty poignant to see these cases where there's an awful lot on the line and there's so little interest, but that is quite common in Chicago. The family of the defendants and Ruthie Mae's brother, Willie McCoy, were there to watch. John Hondras had chosen a bench trial where Judge Michael Getty decided his fate, while Edward Turner had chosen a jury. Both trials were taking place simultaneously. Turner's attorney focused his closing arguments

on the circumstances of Turner's life and the choices available to him, like the choice not to call the police. He argued that if Turner had called 911, police might have thought he was a suspect, or his neighbors could consider him a snitch, putting his life in danger. Steve said the jury left the room

and came back with the verdict in less than four hours. Turner was sweating as he looked down at the table. Edward Turner told me that he was scared when the jury came back. He said, I would have went off if they told me I was guilty. I wouldn't have known how to take that garbage garbage life in prison for something I didn't do. The clerk read the verdict on the charge of first degree murder. Not guilty.

Steve remembered someone in the court cheered, to which the judge threatened jail time. The clerk continued, reading off three more verdicts. Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. The jury decided Turner had not committed armed robbery or invaded Ruthie Mae's home beyond a reasonable doubt. And even though Turner had admitted on the stand that he had taken Ruthie Mays TV, the jury also found him not guilty of burglary. He was free to go. Back in April, 1990,

Steve watched Turner sit back in his chair and smile. His ordeal was over. Steve said Turner told him back then. He didn't know who killed McCoy and he didn't regret any of his actions on the night she was killed. Not even his failure to call police after he saw McCoy's body. If he had it to do over, he said to me, I would have seen it and didn't seen it just like I did. I wasn't going to jeopardize my family's life. Willie had spoken to family members of the accused. Edward Turner's mother, Aletha, repeated something to Willie

that she'd said to Steve. The fact that Edward Turner wouldn't call police when he saw Ruthie Mae lying in the apartment, his mother, I think, said he should have called police. But if he did, he should have called police. But if he did, he would have been suspect number one. So she could understand how in the milieu of the projects, that would be an understandable response. And Willie was okay with that explanation. He said that he felt the defendants

aren't the only ones that should be on trial. He said that the people who designed these projects should be on trial. Willie showed his understanding once again when he walked past Turner's family on his way out of the courthouse. In the hallway outside the courtroom, Turner's mother is screaming,

my child's coming home and crying. And Willie McCoy walked past the relatives and he looked relieved, not disappointed. And he told me maybe he was innocent, but even if he wasn't, you can't convict an individual on such little evidence. Willie left and didn't return to hear the verdict in John Hondras' case. He wanted justice for Ruthie Mae, but he also wanted the right people convicted

if anyone was gonna be convicted. Steve wrote that in the closing arguments of Hondras' case, the prosecutor admitted Tim Brown had been a flawed witness, but argued the detectives had conducted an honorable investigation. He said, quote, they didn't choose their witnesses, and neither did we. But the detectives wouldn't be the focus of Judge Michael Getty's frustration. He was upset with the responding officers the night Ruthie Mae died.

Well, this was a veteran judge. He knew how police were supposed to work. So to him, it was unconscionable that the officers didn't go into the apartment that night that they got that call, not just from Ruthie Mae, but from two neighbors reporting gunshots that they could somehow leave without going in and seeing what was up in that apartment. Judge Getty said, quote, "'This case was lost not by the state's attorneys. This case was not even lost by the detectives,

who got the only evidence that they got in a damaged and sanitized crime scene. This case was lost by the patrol division of the Chicago Police Department, who stood by with a deaf ear to the multiple reports of gunshots being fired in 1109. They just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of entering a locked door,

so they let them get away with it." End quote. When on a say about John Hondras, this defendant may or may not be guilty, but the state has clearly failed to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This court must accordingly find the defendant not guilty. He's discharged. And with that, no one would be held accountable for Ruth Umay's murder. Hondras never spoke to Steve for his story back in the day,

and never responded to our attempts to reach out to him either. But Steve did speak with Hondras' half-brother, who had attended the trial. His half-brother, Darnell De trial. His half-brother Darnell Deed told me in the hallway, I feel good about him getting out, but there's no reason to celebrate. He wanted the truth to come out as to who really did it.

But everyone over there, meeting in the projects, knows who killed that lady. Just ain't nobody had liberty to say. But it wasn't John. Willie McCoy hadn't come back to hear the Hondras ruling. Prosecutors had already told him that Hondras was going to walk as well. Steve decided to call Willie and tell him the prosecutor's prediction was correct. His sister's killer, or killers, whoever they were, got away.

The first thing McCoy did was lean on his religious faith. The first thing McCoy Duh did was lean on his religious faith. I thought it was a travesty. Former Chicago detective Anthony Menina thought it was a travesty that the two men he arrested for Ruth Emay's murder were acquitted. Judge Gettie, you know, he gave a fair statement of what he believed. And his statement was that it wasn't on the detectives. You know, it was even claimed it was on the patrol division. But in actuality, I also add that to the CHA police. In a phone call, he reiterated that he believes the CHA police, not the patrol officers, are

the ones at fault for not letting patrol officers into Ruthy May's apartment sooner. How could you show up in an apartment with a wrong key and just say I'll be back tomorrow? From his perspective, the patrol officer's hands were tied. Even though police regularly break into private property, he simply doesn't think the patrol officers had enough cause in this situation. They were on CHA property and the CHA did not want to break down the door. It's a CHA property, the CHA would have to give the okay. He said this might have been

handled differently if the police had permission to break in from a relative, but that wasn't the situation. Plus, to Menina at least, they ultimately arrested the right men. He doesn't consider this a cold case. A cold case is a case that occurred where the offender was not caught and the case is still pending but cold. In this circumstance, we believed we had the right guy. So therefore, it's already in the courts. So with that fact, it's not a cold case as far as I'm concerned. Again, this is former Detective Menina's opinion.

Hondras and Turner were found not guilty of killing Ruthie Mae. Still, for Menina... As far as we were concerned, we cleared this case. Clearing a case means that the officers met the criteria to consider the case solved. Once cops say a case has been cleared, that means from their perspective, they don't have to reopen it. As for Willie McCoy, Ruth Emeigh's brother, he dealt with the fact that the criminal justice system failed to catch his sister's killer. His reaction wasn't, that's so unfair. He dealt with the fact that the criminal justice system failed to catch his sister's killer. His reaction wasn't, that's so unfair.

There was, as often happens in these cases, some meeting of the minds between family and friends of the defendants, and in this case, the relative, Willie. Steve said that Willie relied on his religious faith. He said, God will take care of them eventually. I believe that. The killers are free, but they're not free in spirit. They know what they did, and it's always gonna be in their mind.

They can boast, they can say, oh man, we beat it. But that's just gonna open a trap door for them. They'll think they can get away they can say, oh man, we beat it. But that's just going to open a trap door for them. They'll think they can get away with something again, but sooner or later the axe will fall. As their conversation went on, Willie did let some of his anger seep out. Here's Steve again, reading straight from his notes. If that would have been a white woman that called police like my sister did, you know they would have gone in her apartment. You know it. This whole system we're living in is corrupt," he said. He tries not to dwell on the injustices in

it. If you do, you will explode. You will explode," he said. Steve didn't stay in touch with Willie, and we tried different contact information for him, but never heard back from anyone. If he's alive, he'd be in his 90s. According to Edward Turner's mother, Aletha, her son went on to have a good life. He died in his 50s from cancer. But John Hondras was arrested again, about a year after his acquittal in Ruthie Mae's case. In 1993, he was convicted of second-degree murder for a different killing. Steve Baguera was the one who posed the question. What killed Ruthie Mae? A bullet in the chest or life in the projects? The answer was both.

I do think that things are much better because habit homes no longer exist. Nor does the high rises at Cabrini and Robert Taylor and Stadeway. Everything was knocked down around the year 2000. Now, at Ruthie Mae's old address was a resource center for unemployed adults. It's next to an empty field.

Steve has written a book and retired from the Chicago Reader. For his book, Courtroom 302, Steve spent one year in a Cook County courtroom. He said that way back when he wrote his stories about Ruthie Mae, his intention was never to write an indictment of all public housing. The concentration of deep poverty, in my mind, was the more important factor.

People can get along just fine in high rises and with back-to-back medicine cabinets. But because concentrated poverty leads inevitably to more violence. Filling those high rises with deeply poor is a recipe for disaster. A disaster that the buildings themselves then exacerbate. And then the violence worsens physical and mental health, and the residents are caught in a downward spiral. Deborah Lastly, Ruthie Mae's neighbor, blames those circumstances for her friend's death. And when asked the question, what killed Ruthie Mae McCoy, she blamed the projects

and the people who used to run them. So to me, it's people that go to the project and because the project didn't get themselves together, they didn't care because they wasn't living there. The way whoever killed Ruthie Mae entered her apartment can make any of us question whether something could be lurking behind our own reflection. Ruthie Mae's reflection is her legacy, and that we say her name all these years later. We retell again and again how she died. And it's not that different from how the 2021 Candyman

explains the ghosts relevance in the 21st century. But a story like that, a pain like that, lasts forever. That's Candyman. In the same way the latest film helped to change the narrative, maybe this telling of a story does too. The scariest part is that the film is fictional, but not the horror. From 48 Hours, this is Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder. I'm your host and co-executive producer, Domitri Pongo. Judy Tygard is the executive producer of 48 Hours.

Jamie Benson is the senior producer for Paramount Audio and Maura Walls is the senior story editor. Development by 48 Hours field producer Morgan Canty. Recording assistance from Marlon Policarp and Alan Pang. Special thanks to Paramount Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus. Candy Man, the true story behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder is produced by Sony Music Entertainment. It was reported, written, and produced by Alex Schumann. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Our associate producer is Summer Tamad. Theme and original music composed by Cedric Wilson.

He sound designed and mixed the episodes. We also use music from APM. Fendel Fullerton is our fact checker. And our production manager is Tamika Balanskalasny. If you enjoyed this series, please take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, you can listen to the next episode one week early and ad free by joining 48Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts or Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.