Criminology - The Lady of The Dunes

Episode Date: March 5, 2023

On July 26th, 1974, the body of a woman was found on Race Point Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was an extremely gruesome crime scene, and parts of the woman's body had been removed, possibly to prevent identification. This woman became known as The Lady of The Dunes as the authorities worked for years to try to identify her and solve her murder. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the case of The Lady of The Dunes. There were some leads over the years, and theories emerged as to the woman's identity. As advancements in DNA came about, those were used to try to identify the woman. It wasn't until 2022 that part of the mystery of The Lady of The Dunes was solved. She was officially identified as Ruth Marie Terry. With identification came very interesting leads into who her likely killer was. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 247 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. I'm having a little bit of downtime this week and trying to squeeze in some extra work around the house. And I thought about watching a Netflix documentary or two, but I never got that in.

So maybe by the weekend. What are you up to? You got to find time to squeeze in those documentaries, man. You got to do it. I don't know what you mean by downtime, though. That's a word that I'm not familiar with, but, uh, well, downtime, I mean like an hour or two. There's not a, oh, okay.

Not a day off, put it that way. I got you. I got you. Let's go ahead and get into our Patreon shoutouts. We had Andrew Britton, Anna Gonzalez, B. Bell 74, ERISA Williams, Leah Dowdell and Donna Steffey. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks so much for supporting the show. That helps us get the show out and keep going. And we appreciate that. For anyone that would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology. So we are into a new month, March, which means we're one month closer to CrimeCon, 2003.

And I think you know and I talk more. If we've been getting excited about it, we will be on podcast. podcast row, and we'd love to see you there and maybe hang out at our meetup. Yeah, CrimeConn, 2023 is happening September 22nd for the 24th at the World Center Marriott in Orlando here in Sunny, Florida. And there's a lot of great stuff to do there. If you're a true crime fan, you'll definitely be in your element.

So if you want to go and save some money in the process, when you register at crimecon.com. Use our promo code criminology at checkout, and that'll save you 10% on your standard badge. And we hope to see everyone there. So now that we have all of that out of the way, it's time to get into this week's case. The case we're covering in this episode is another one of those kind of semi-solved cases. Some of the puzzle pieces have fallen into place and it seems like the puzzle is almost complete. Last year saw the identification of many unidentified dose, including one woman who was known only as the Lady of the Dunes for 48 years. We now know her identity.

And with that, we learned who was likely her murderer. We don't know exactly when she was killed, and we may never know why. But it turns out that the person who likely killed her may have had other victims. On July 26, 1974, the dead body of a woman was found on Race Point Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts. A family was out for a hike when their beagle wandered off. 12-year-old Leslie Metcalf trying to corral the barking dog, thought she saw a deer carcass. As she looked closer, she thought it was a woman, and that she might be sunbathing on the beach before reality set in, and that it was the remains of a dead body.

She ran for her dad who went to check on her claim, and sure enough, she was right, and he called for help shortly after. Crime author Sandra Lee claims that she also saw the woman lying on the beach just a few days before Leslie did. Sandra Lee was just nine years old and had been walking her dog when she came upon the scene. She got close enough to observe injuries to the woman's head and neck. The site terrified her. According to Sandra, she was petrified and told no one. Now, some people may find that hard to believe that Sandra Lee found this body and didn't tell anyone. But at the time, she was camping nearby with her family.

And as she has said, she decided to run away. due to some friction with her family. And she took her dog with her. So having left her family behind, it wasn't as though Sandra could let them know about what she had found. And more if this is an interesting aspect to this case, many people believe that. Obviously, Sandra Lee would later go on to become, you know,

a crime author. I don't think there's any way to verify whether or not this claim is true. I'm not sure why she would lie about it. it or I'm not saying she's lying, but I find it interesting that you have a nine-year-old girl who later becomes a crime author who says that she sees this sight. Yeah, you think as a young girl that had to affect her and would be pretty frightening and stick with her for a long time. And then, you know, you have this other young girl who's the one that finds the body again

and reports it to her dad. and that had to take a toll on her, too. You know, as young children, seeing a dead woman on the beach has to be pretty horrific. Police responded to the scene and began to survey the area. There were two sets of footprints leading up toward the scene and no sign of a struggle. About 15 feet away from the woman's body was a set of tire tracks. Someone had used a Jeep to lead park rangers to the scene, and it's unclear from the research whether the tracks belong to that Jeep,

a suspect vehicle, or run related to the crime. at all. The woman was lying face down, partially on top of a light green, terry cloth, beach blanket, on top of a layer of pine needles that remain undisturbed, despite at least three people and two dogs having been in the area. As they looked closer, investigators discovered just how grisly the details were. The woman's hand and one forearm were gone. It appeared to be an intentional removal to prevent identification. Perhaps she had prints on file or a tattoo that would have helped idea. A folded pair of of blue jeans and a blue bandana were underneath her head, which had been nearly severed from her body, possibly from strangulation, but more likely an attempt to cut it off. One golden barrette was

in her long Auburn hair, securing it into a ponytail. Seven of her teeth had gold crowns, which were worth a considerable amount of money, but multiple teeth were also missing. There were signs of sexual assault with something made out of wood. Cause of death was ultimately ruled to be from blunt force trauma to the head. She had been beaten to death. Some articles mentioned that authorities narrowed down the weapon to an entrenching tool. Authorities believe that she had been dead for weeks before she was found. Due to the way she was lying with her head on her folded clothes and on the beach blanket,

investigators felt that she had either been asleep when she was attacked, possibly by a stranger, or she knew her attacker and was relaxed when she was suddenly attacked and overwhelmed. She could have been lounging next to someone she trusted who waited for her to fall asleep before attacking her. There were no tags or riding in the woman's jeans or on the bandana to give investigators anything to go off of in their search for her identity. Her shirt was never found. Dental records were sent all over the country, but authorities never received a match. The body of the Lady of the Dunes was buried in St. Peter's Cemetery in Providence, but her skull was kept as the best hope of eventually figuring out who she really was.

News of the horrible crime shocked area residents. Provincetown is a quiet seaside town at the northern tip of Cape Cod, and the community was not used to this kind of thing happening. I think the police had an uphill battle trying to figure out who this victim was, let alone trying to figure out who murdered her, because this is the 1970s, well before DNA, obviously, and some of the techniques they have today. But also, her body had been out in the elements near the beach for weeks. So a lot of evidence could have been lost along the way, which would make it even harder for police.

Yeah, I mean, you know, go back to the scene. As we described it, pretty grisly. I mean, this woman was killed in a particularly savage way. And you know, something that we discuss on this show a lot, especially when it comes to unidentified people. When investigators are working those types of cases, very, very tough to solve a case, to figure out what happened to somebody and who did it when you can't identify the body. Because where do you go, morph, who do you talk to? You don't know who this person is. So you don't know who their friends were. You don't know who their family is. Just absolutely very, very difficult.

Eventually, the news headlines faded and discussion of the Lady of the Dunes died down. Life for Provincetown residents got back to normal. But police didn't try to stop figuring out who the victim was. In 1979, a clay bust was made in an attempt to reconstruct the face of the Lady of the Dunes. She was estimated to have been between 25 and 40 years old. Police hoped that the bust would help idea, but no one came forward saying they recognized her. In 1980, her body was exhumed to look for additional clues. By 1987, the unidentified woman's skull was in a cardboard box in the office of the Provincetown police chief, James J. Meads, along with a case file stacked nearly three feet tall.

It seems like an odd place to store the skull of a murder victim, but could also show the dedication Meads had to solve the case, keeping the skull close to him as a reminder that she needed her name back. Chief Meads had been on the case since the day she was found. He told the Boston Globe, with most murders, you try to figure out who the murderer was. I've spent years trying to figure out who the victim was. Yeah, I mean, to me it does seem a little odd

that someone would sit in their office day after day with a skull sitting there. And then you know, you think about this case file stacked nearly three feet tall. Okay. That's that's a lot of work over the years. But the one thing that I want to talk about is, and you see this in many cases where an investigator or a team of investigators really latch on to a case. And, you know, it becomes very personal. They won't let it go.

Sometimes throughout an entire career for some people. And this kind of reminds me of that. I get the sense that Meads was, I don't want to use the word obsessed, but very intent on, you know, trying to figure out who this person was. I pictured in my head this town, this chief as being sort of like chief brodie and jaws,

that town where there's a little C-Sever. side town and not much happens there. And the biggest issues are, you know, people knocking down fences, things like that. So I have a feeling that this was something that this police force was not used to dealing with. And this was a big challenge for them to try and solve this case. So I think it stuck with them. And like you mentioned, sort of stayed in their minds and day in and day out when they went into the office. Well, and it could have been, you know, like you just said, that the biggest case that any of them had ever kind of worked on, right? When I say biggest, most memorable, most tragic.

I mean, you can use a lot of different words. But there are a lot of towns, small cities where, you know, like you said, there, there's not a lot of crime. There's not a lot going on. So when you have something to this magnitude, my thought is, yeah, it sticks with you. In 1987, a woman from Western Canada reported to a friend of hers that in Provincetown, Massachusetts, around the year 1972, she had witnessed her father, strangle a woman. She wondered if it may have been the Lady of the Dunes. The friend alerted the Royal Canadian

Mounted Police, who called the Massachusetts State Police. By the time they followed up and tried to find her, she had moved to somewhere near Montreal. They were unable to interview her as far as we can tell, but it could have also not been widely reported when it turned out to be unrelated if they did actually interview her. Chief Meads told the Boston Globe, from what I've been told, she said she saw her father strangle somebody. If that's true, then it's not our victim because she wasn't strangled. There were few other leads.

Also in 1987, a woman reported that the reconstruction resembled her Auburn-haired sister, who was last seen when she moved to Boston in 1974. Some within the police department thought that the bust of the Lady of the Dunes looked familiar. Then they realized she seemed to resemble a woman named Rory Kessinger, who was a 24-year-old fugitive that had escaped from Plymouth County Correctional Facility on May 27, 1973, while she was awaiting trial for robbery and assault. Someone managed to smuggle in a hacksaw for her, and she used sheets as a rope to get out. Her accomplice waited for her in the car, and after escaping, Kessinger was never seen again.

But there was no way to confirm that their Jane Doe was Rory Kessinger. Others had ideas about who had killed the Lady of the Dooms, even if they couldn't idea her. Whitey Bulger, the Boston mob boss, was in Provincetown, Massachusetts around the time the Lady of the Dunes was killed, and it was known that he killed a young woman named Debbie Davis. She was found in a marsh with no hands and had missing teeth, but there was nothing solid that linked Bulger to the Lady of the Dunes. But I think more you can see why some people might make the connection to Whitey Bulger. You know, obviously he was, you know, kind of an infamous dude, later became even more infamous when, you know, he went on the run and was caught. But I think to have a known victim who was found with.

no hands and missing teeth. Very similar to the way that the Lady of the Dunes was found, it makes sense that some people would try to make that connection. Yeah, and I think a lot of cases in areas where a high-profile killer, criminal is known to have operated. A lot of people make those connections and try and tie them, sort of like in California, all kinds of crimes are tied to the Zodiac that he probably wasn't responsible for, but, he was a well-known killer and so a lot of people just try and make that connection. In March 2000, the body of the Lady of the Dunes was exhumed for a second time. This time, armed with DNA tools at their disposal that they didn't have years earlier.

Investigators extracted DNA and said about creating a DNA profile for her. Now, those who thought that they were related to the Lady of the Dunes could help definitive. rule out or hopefully rule in possible matches. Unlike genetic genealogy, which today solve so many cases, investigators in 2000 could only use the profile generated from the Lady of the Dunes to rule in or out potential matches. In 2002, a DNA profile from escaped prisoner Rory Kessinger's mother proved that Rory was not the Lady of the Dunes.

It was always a long shot that the Lady of the Dunes would turn out to be Rory Kessinger, but it was a letdown for police nonetheless. In 2004, convicted murder had an Irvin Clark wrote a letter to one of his friends, claiming that he had murdered a woman in Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Mailed with the letter was a map of where to find the body,

and also a drawing of a naked woman lying on her stomach. Like the Lady of the Dunes, the woman in the drawing had no. hands. Clark is in prison in Maryland for the 1986 murder of six-year-old Michelle Dore and the 1992 murder of 23-year-old Laura Hotling. He has paranoid schizophrenia and has falsely confessed to other murders, so authorities didn't take him seriously. In May of 2010, a CAT scan was performed on the Lady of the Dune's skull in order for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to create a second, hopefully more accurate, reconcernment.

Two versions of the new reconstruction were released, one with and one without freckles. In that image, once again brought the case into the spotlight. In 2015, Joe Hill, the son of author Stephen King, the best-selling horror writer, was watching the film Jones. When he spotted an extra in the foreground, Joe Hill had recently read about the Lady of the Dunes. In the 2014 book, The Skeleton Crew, How Amateur Slews are Solving America's Coldest Cases, and the blue bandana and jeans, stood out to him. Hill wrote on his Tumblr blog, Joe Hill's Thrills, now suddenly, impossibly there she was, life size, and looking over her shoulder at me,

a female extra on a beach scene in Jaws, had a blue bandana on her head, long brown hair, and was also wearing jeans. The movie was shot just about 100 miles from where the Lady of the Dunes was found, and filming had started in May. And Hill was pretty sure that the scene in question was shot in June. Time-wise, it could have been heard. Hill wrote, My Subconscious kind of spun up this possibility.

Taking after his father, he wrote, if nothing else, it's a pretty good little ghost story. Unfortunately, the casting director, of Jaws, Sherry Rhodes, passed away in 2009, and archivists at Universal Studios were unable to track down the extras name. And more of you've already brought up Jaws once as kind of saying that, you know, Provincetown reminded you a little bit of, you know, a scene from Jaws. And this is a, you know, another little tidbit in this case that I think intrigues people. Number one, you have the son of Stephen King, one of the best known writers, you know, out there who has this theory that this person, this extra in the movie Jaws could possibly be the Lady of the Dunes.

It's kind of compelling. And the picture of that extra is out there. And if you compare the imagery, it sort of does look reminiscent of the lady. of the Dunes. So I could see why he would think that, but trying to track down who that person was, you know, was sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack after so many decades. In 2019, Michael O'Keefe, the district attorney for the Cape and Islands, reopened the active investigation into the identity of the Lady of the Dunes. The identification of the Golden State killer Joseph DiAngelo inspired him to pursue the use of brand new technology, forensic genetic genealogy,

in his search for the victim's identity. Alyssa Metcalf, the younger sister of Leslie Metcalfe, who found the Lady of the Dunes, told NBC Boston, it's kind of always stayed with the family. She and her family hoped that new methods and technology would bring answers in the case. And sure enough, that would turn out to be the case. In 2002, Othrum Laboratories received the Lady of the Dunes' skeletal remains and extracted enough DNA to create a profile using forensic, genetic genealogy,

Othram sifted through family trees and eventually found the true identity of the Lady of the Dunes. At the time, her case was the longest the dough had remained unidentified in the entire state of Massachusetts. On October 31st, 2022, the Lady of the Dunes was publicly identified

as Ruth Marie Terry. She was born on September 8th, 1936, in Whitwell, Tennessee to Johnny Terry and Eva Keener. Sadly, Eva died when she was just 27 years old. Ruth first married when she was only 13 years old. The marriage to Billy Ray Smith didn't last. However, in 1956, when she was 19, she remarried Billy Ray Smith. Again, it didn't last.

They divorced not long after the wedding. In 1957, she moved to Livonia, Michigan. where she worked at Fisher Body, an automotive company. The next year, she had a son. But he was adopted by Richard Hansett, Sr., the superintendent of the Fisher Body Plant and his wife. It was a decision made due to financial hardship on Ruth's part, but she felt that he would be well cared for by a family of that status.

Soon after the adoption was final, Ruth moved to California. In early 1972, when Ruth was 137, when Ruth was 35 years old, she made contact with her son Richard who had been adopted by the Hanchets years earlier. Ruth asked to meet him. Sadly, though, he was in no shape to meet her. He had recently overdosed on drugs and was in a coma for almost 20 days. If he could go back in time and take the opportunity to meet his mother, he would have. He told the Chattanooga Times free press, he would say to her, I love you, and I'm sorry. On February 16, 1974, Ruth remarried. this time the Guy Rockwell Moldavin, an antiques dealer.

They were married in Reno, Nevada. In March, 1974, Ruth and her new husband, Guy, visited Ruth's family back in Tennessee. Some of the family members that met Guy felt like he was sort of possessive over Ruth, and that she wasn't acting like herself when she was with him. Four or five months after they had visited her family, Guy Moldavon showed back up in Tennessee, but without Ruth. He claimed that she had gone missing in California where they lived. Ruth's sister-in-law, Jan Terry, told NBC Boston he was so blunt and just said he didn't know

where she was and all that, but he didn't stay very long. James Ruth's brother went to California and hired a private investigator to try and find more information about his sister's whereabouts. According to that PI, Ruth had willingly sold all of her third. things before leaving California to join a religious cult. After that, there was no trace of Ruth. There's been some debate as to whether all of the info provided to the family by this PI was true or accurate. Whatever the case, armed with his report, the family gave up hope of finding Ruth by the 2000s family obituaries listed Ruth as being deceased. Her sister-in-law Carol held out

hope. Maybe she thought Ruth was alive, but couldn't make contact with anyone because she was in the witness protection program. Now, that may sound far-fetched to some people, but Carol was clinging on to anything to give her hope. And this is one thing that I don't think we've ever talked about, not that I can remember, but when you have a family who has lost a loved one, they're missing, They really don't know what happened to them. I think there are many people who cling to one idea or another that some people would call far-fetched or think is far-fetched, but you're clinging to something. Because number one, I don't think most people want to believe that their loved one is dead. They want to believe that they're out there.

they're going to be reunited with them. So, you know, witness protection program, is it far fetch? Well, maybe. But at that point, can you blame someone for clinging to any idea that provides them hope? And I would say no. Yeah, I think this case really demonstrates how there's such a difference from the mid-1970s to today. If you wanted to stay in touch with a family member who had moved away, it was, simply a phone call or a letter. Those were the only two ways to really stay in contact.

Today we have all kinds of apps, social media, you can track people, just a night and a difference. So, you know, back then, when your family wasn't close to you and you had to see what was going on with them, if you didn't get a call or a letter, there's not much you could do to really know what was going on with them. Yeah. Sometimes I think we forget about the days before email, texting, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. You know, I mean, just now there's so many ways to stay in touch with people to communicate that just simply didn't exist in the early 1970s. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Ruth's son Richard, who had been adopted and raised in Northern Michigan, knew his mom was missing, but always hoped she was out there someplace alive. And if she was alive, she would have been in her 80s. In 2018, Richard finally felt ready to meet her, unlike in 1972, when she had tried to contact him when he was 13 years old.

Richard sent his DNA to Ancestry.com and was connected to members of her family, his family, in Tennessee. They explained what happened in 1974 when Guy visited them alone. They also told him what a wonderful mother he had. He told the New York Times, everybody that I talked to who knew her, adored her. She took after the rest of her family in that way. All the family I've met are nothing but beautiful people. Investigators contacted Richard to ask for a DNA sample. It was this sample that confirmed the identity of the Lady of the Dunes as being Richard's mother Ruth.

The news was bittersweet. He told NBC Boston, I didn't think I'd ever figure anything out, actually. And then to find out she was lost. He also had a roller coaster of emotions when the FBI. I contacted him. Richard said at first I thought, oh, she's alive, you know. Then I quickly found out that that was not the case. Thanks to modern DNA technology and ancestry.com,

Richard was able to meet his mother's remaining family. After spending Thanksgiving 2022 with them, he said, I've never been this happy in my life. It's awesome. But it was a bittersweet meeting for all of Roos family, learning that she had been discarded. like a piece of trash. Sadly, Ruth's brother, Jim,

the one who hired the private investigators searched for Ruth in California, passed away in 2015, never known what happened to his sister. Ruth's niece, Maryland, who used to work with Richard to try and find his mother, passed away in 2021, also never known that the mystery would soon be solved.

Ruth's half-brother, Ken Terry, last saw Ruth when she and Guy visited Tennessee shortly after their marriage. Jim Terry, Ruth, Ruth's nephew remembers her fondly. He told the New York Times, I just remember a big smile in her Auburn hair. The last time he can remember seeing his aunt was in the summer of 1973 in a Chattanooga motel room. Jim's parents had differing memories about where Ruth and Guy Moldovan were headed when they left Tennessee. One thought they were going to California, but the other thought they were going up north.

Jim's sister, Marilyn Renee Hill, also remembered Ruth and wanted to solve their family's mystery. He told the New York Times, my sister was kind of hell-bent on trying to find her. Marilyn and Richard would work together to look up addresses, names, and other information, trying to track Ruth down. Not finding his mom was disappointing for Richard. He told the New York Times, I wish I could have talked to her, touched her once. Sadly, Richard still doesn't know who his biological father is, but he did confirm that it was not Ruth's ex-husband, Billy Ray Smith.

Since the Lady of the Dunes was found in 1974, the paths for just about everyone involved in the case somehow had been different. Leslie Metcalf, who was just 12 years old when she discovered Roos' body, sadly passed away due to a drug overdose in 1996. Sandra Lee, who was nine years old, when she said that she saw Roos body, had left a flower at her gravestone, marked unidentified female body, found race point dunes every year. since she was buried. Lee, who is now in her 60s, says that the day she saw Ruth's body on the beach changed her life

and made her reach out to her grandparents for help, escaping her abusive home life. She told CBS News, here I was running from a bad situation, and I ended up finding a worse one. She and her younger brother ended up moving in with their paternal grandparents. Sandra Lee said of Ruth that she felt that she owed her a debt of gratitude ever since that day because finding Ruth inspired Sandra to make a better life for herself. Ruth's family remembers her as a free spirit. Her great niece, Brittany, told NBC Boston she wanted to explore. She wanted more than what she thought her life was in Tennessee.

In December 2022, Ruth's name and photo were added to her grave marker. She's no longer listed as unidentified female body. She's Ruth Marie Terry. Days after Ruth's identity was revealed to the public, the Massachusetts State Police made an announcement regarding Bruce's husband, Guy Moldovan, who had died in 2002. He was a person of interest in Ruth's case.

He used multiple names throughout his life, including Raoul Guy Moldavian, Raul Guy Rockwell, and Guy Moldavian Rockwell. They wanted any information the public had on him in order to connect any dots they could. What is known about Moldavian is that he was born in 1923. Some articles say he was born on October 27th, and some articles say it was December. The article is also very unwearery of his born, some say in New Mexico, and others mentioned New York,

and that he was adopted by Abram Albert Zad Rwanski, Moldavian, and Sylvia Lilly Silverblatt, who were quite wealthy. Moldovan was raised on the family's farm and went to school in Switzerland, New York, and Connecticut, when he was 24 years old, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. Eventually, he began working as a professor. In 1947, when he was 28 years old, he married Jo Ellen May Lou. They married in Bellevue, Pennsylvania, but moved multiple times living in New York, in California, before settling in Seattle, Washington. Eventually, the two opened and antique store together.

It was advertised as nocturnal, being open from 6 p.m. until midnight. The couple had one daughter in 1948. Soon after this, they moved to Fortuna with Joe Ellen's parents. In June 1950, 28-year-old Henry Lawrence Baird, a truck driver, most people called Red,

was found dead on the beach near Table Bluff, a cliff in California. He had been shot in the back of the head. He was found news, except for shoes and socks, and he was lying face down. His clothing was on top of the clothing of his missing 17-year-old girlfriend, Barbara Joe Kelly, which had been neatly folded. Her shoes and stockings were not in the pile. Barbara, who lived in Fortuna, and Red, who lived in Eureka, had been together on June 17, 1950, the last time she was seen. According to SFGate.com,

authorities said that Moldavian, who had once lived in Fortuna, was believed to have left this area several weeks before the table bluff mystery occurred. But he would become a suspect in late 1960 after making national news for another suspected crime. In 1963, someone else confessed in the Baird-Cellie case, Gail Patrick Irish confessed to the prison chaplain at the California men's colony near San Luis Obispo, where he was serving his sentence for a sex crime in Kern County.

He had a long history of sexual assaults, some against children. He claimed that on July 18th, 1950, he had forced Henry Baird and Barbara Joe Kelly to strip before he shot Henry and kidnapped Barbara Joe. He then claimed he drove her 35 miles away, sexually assaulted her, and then killed her. The case does not seem to have been officially closed, leaving a possibility that it wasn't really Irish who was responsible. On July 15, 1956, just over 10 years after they were married, Moldovan and Joe Ellen divorced. In a case of love at first sight, it's reported that Moldavon quickly fell in love with a woman who had come into the shop with her daughter, and he ended his relationship with his wife immediately. He blindsided Joe Allen in the shop when there were customers and told her that he was leaving and that she couldn't live in their home anymore.

According to Caro News 7, a witness who was there said, it was the cruelest thing I ever saw. Joe Ellen filed for divorce and obtained full custody of the couple's nine-year-old daughter. So that's pretty rough. You know, when you think about it, you've been married for just over 10 years. And all of a sudden, you mentioned it more of love at first sight. This guy spots a woman who'd come into the shop and is immediately captivated by her to the point where he tells his wife, we're done and get out of the house. Now, we're getting ready to

talk about, you know, this guy being a killer and some other things. So we know he's not a good guy, but, you know, this is kind of rough if you think about it. I think at the very least it shows he's really cold-hearted to just in the middle of, especially in the middle of his workday at the antiques store in front of people to say, hey, I'm leaving. it's over. I'm in love with someone else that's really cold. Yeah, I mean, that's one thing that kind of went through my mind. You can't at least do it behind closed doors. You're doing it in front of customers in the shop.

That's just brutal. On September 30th, 1958, Moldovan, then going by Raoul Guy Rockwell, married Manzanita Eileen Ryan, who was called Manzi by friends and family. This is the woman who he saw in the shop, who he left his wife for. Manzanita had three children with her ex-husband, a teenage daughter named Dolores, a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old. Dolores lived with Manzanita, and the younger two children lived in Canada with their father. On April 1, 1960, 18-year-old Dolores and 40-year-old Manzanita disappeared in Seattle.

Dolores's father, Manzanita's ex-husband, William Merns, was the one to actually report them missing, and not her current husband, Guy Moldovan, aka Rockwell. William Merns had been married for 17 years to Manzanita before their marriage was dissolved, but they remained close. Manzanita and Dolores would visit the rest of the family in Canada once a month, but hadn't shown up in March. When her daughter in Canada called to ask what was going on, Guy answered, telling her that her mom was sick. But Manzanita wasn't just ignoring her family, because she also hadn't shown up to work on April 1st. On July 26, 1960, Maldavan divorced Manzina, claiming she had abandoned him. Just three days later, Maldavon married Evelyn Marie Emerson in King County, Washington. He had met Evelyn when her parents had brought her into his antique store, while he was still married to Manzan.

And just like with Manzanita, Maldavan was immediately interested in Evelyn. Manzanita was so upset by this, understandably, since she knew firsthand how it played out for the first wife, for Moldavon's wife the first time, that she went to a doctor. She had no plans to divorce her husband, though. By August, Guy was apparently nowhere to be found. It's not clear if he went into hiding, left town, or what, but authority searching his home found that both Manzanita and Dolores had left all of their clothes behind in the unfinished basement investigators found something disturbing there were human remains in the septic tank

which they searched because they noticed there had been recent digging around it as well as fresh cement sealing it obviously this was back in 1960 way before DNA so it's not clear what police were able to do in regards to identifying the remains. In September 1960, a pair of women's legs were found in the Columbia River in Washington State. Manzanita apparently had distinctive feet, and her sister felt that the legs were hers. The authorities finally caught up with Guy. On December 1, 1960, Guy Moldavian was taken into custody by the FBI for unlawfully fleeing to avoid giving testimony before a grand jury concerning mutilation of a human body. When he was arrested, he was living in the Greenwich Village area of New York City.

At the time, he was going by the name Michael Strong. He was questioned about Dolores and Manzanita, but wasn't charged with their death somehow. In newspaper articles from that time, Guy was described as 235 pounds and 6 feet 3. Based on his size, it's easy to see how he could have overpowered an unsuspecting young woman like Dolores, Manzanita or years later, Ruth Terry. In 1961, Moldovan was convicted on larceny charges related to the theft of $10,000 from Evelyn Emerson's stepmother, Jermaine Winkler. He was supposed to buy antiques from Canada with that money.

Instead, he bought himself a nice car and drove to Provincetown where his father, Albert, had a home. This caused friction between Guy and his wife, Evelyn. and Marie Emerson, so they divorced. In March 1962, his up to 15 years sentence was suspended on the condition that he pay back what he stole. Despite the shadow of two unsolved murders,

hanging over Moldavian, his sentencing judge could not use them as a factor in his punishment, explaining it is my duty to completely eliminate the fact that I know what the suspicions are of our police department and our community. despite the remains found in a septic tank, since it was pre-DNA days, there was no way to actually prove who they belonged to. There was also no way to prove how they died or if they were killed who was responsible.

And I found this to be quite interesting. You have this judge who is basically, you know, sentencing Moldovan on this theft charge and, you know, just, coming right out and saying that he can't use the suspicion of these two murders, possible murders, because the evidence isn't there. And I get that. Being suspected of something is one thing. Being proven guilty of something is completely different. If suspicion was used in sentencing, you know, all over the place,

sentences would be quite different. Yeah, and I go back to the issue of crime-fighting, crime-solving methods back then and the challenge that police had because here's a guy that basically skips town and his wife and stepdaughter are missing and, you know, they find these human remains in the basement of their home. Yet it's not enough to charge him with murder because they don't know how to tell that it's their remains. And if it is their remains, they can't definitively say that they were murdered. So that's got to be really frustrating to have human remains or body parts in the basement of this house where these two women are missing from. And this guy basically skips town and nothing comes from it.

Well, and I would say extremely frustrating for investigators because you know that in their minds they're positive that this guy was involved. You know that, but what can they do, right? You can only work with the evidence you have. And if you don't have the tools that definitively say one way or the other, that these are the individuals they believe they are, what can you do? But that has to be very frustrating. On August 10, 1963, Maldavon and Emerson got married for a second time in Los Angeles, but the marriage wouldn't last in February 1974, he and Ruth Terry married. Soon after, she was dead. It's worth pointing out, if Moldovan had stayed behind bars for his entire sentence,

he wouldn't have been released until 1975, and Ruth Terry may still be alive. On October 18, 1975, Guy married Phyllis Roper in Los Angeles. One month later, he sued his brother Michael to try and divide property in New Mexico. In 1980, Guy moved to Salinas, California, And there seems to be quite a gap in his activity after this. So it seems to me, and I'm sure we'll talk about it, maybe a little bit more. But, well, Davidin was not a good guy.

To what extent is the question? The one thing I want to talk about is what kind of Casanova was this dude? Because, you know, he's meeting people essentially marrying them very quickly. You know, I don't know if he was a good looking guy. I don't know if he was a smooth talker. I don't know what the situation was, but he was at the very least able to talk women into marrying him. You'd have to say that.

And then, you know, when it comes to Evelyn Marie Emerson, here's a guy who stole money from her mother. It was proven. There's no doubt about it. And then she ends up marrying him again. So I don't know. I just feel as though. maybe this was a guy who had the charm and charisma to talk his way into and out of things.

Yeah, he certainly comes off as some kind of grifter or con man. And with all these different identities and aliases, he seems pretty shady. You know, whether, you know, he can be connected to murderers or not. He's obviously got something going on to be using all these different names and moving around and all this other stuff. Whatever secrets Guy had about any of the missing or murdered women connected to him, he took those secrets to the grave because on March 14th, 2002, 78 year old Guy Moldavit passed away. At the time, he was still living in Salinas, California.

He left behind a widow, Phyllis Roper. She passed away in 2021. Guy's family had property in Provincetown, where Ruth was found dead. but Guy made sure to say she went missing about as far away from Massachusetts as he possibly could, claiming she left while in California. There's a real possibility that Guy Maldavin was a serial killer, and many of his victims could have been those closest to him that trusted him. Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe told NBC Boston,

I would only say that's something that we're certainly looking at, stopping short of confirming the suspicion that Guy was a serial killer. If you're a reader of True Crime Books, you may have heard of a recognize the name Guy Moldavian. In 2008, Anne Ruhl released the book Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder, which features the disappearance of Manzanita and Dolores. According to the Provincetown Independent, in the book, Rul described Manzanita as a vivacious, head. Rule did mention Ruth in her book, too, writing that Moldovan married a woman named Terry in Washoe County, Nevada. When she wrote that, she nor anyone else had any idea that the Terry

she mentioned was Ruth Terry and that she was the Lady of the Dunes. And this is one of the things that, to me, is very compelling about true crime. So here you have in Rule writing a book in 2008. And I'm sure the book was very well researched, well written, but true crime in certain cases evolve. New facts come out, new technology, reveals new information. And so later on, there are things known that Anne Rule couldn't have known about when she wrote the book in 2008. You know, that that's one thing to me that really jumps out. me about some of these cases, especially some of the unsolved cases and things like that. Yeah, I think it's really fascinating, too, that one true crime case somehow connects to

another true crime case. And there are sort of, you know, there are times when cases like that sort of intersect with each other. If you have any information about Guy Maldavan, aka Guy Rockwell, aka Raul Rockwell, you can still call the Massachusetts state police at 1-800 KAP-T-U-R-E to help them with their investigation. You can also email information to MSP-Tips at p-o-l.state.m.us or even send a text message to 2267-8-7. If the names that Ruth Marie Terry also went by, Terry Marie Vizna, Terry M. Bizna and Terry Shannon. Ring a bell.

You can also call in tips about her as well to help complete the picture of her last days. So morph as we wrap up this episode, you know, to me, a fascinating and compelling case, tragic, as so many of them are, you know, you have a number of women who lost their lives. a lot of these women had connections to Guy Mald David. So, you know, when investigators come out and say that, you know, this guy was possibly a serial killer or people theorize that he was a serial killer, I don't know if that's going out on a limb. Now, they've had a hard time putting together the evidence and they may never put together the full. slate of evidence against this guy. But on paper, you'd have to say that this guy looks good for at least some, if not, you know, a large number of these murders. Yeah. And it's clearly evident that

women connected to this guy just went missing or wound up dead. And you see a pattern there. And I think for the women in his life that escaped with their lives intact, you know, they were lucky. You know, looking back, the wife that he broke up with and embarrassed in the middle of the Antiques Office in front of customers was humiliating for her probably, but at the same time, she escaped alive. So, you know, maybe that was sort of a blessing. Yeah, I had that thought as well. That was probably a really bad day in her life. it happened years later when some of this stuff started to come out.

Do you go back and look at that day and think, okay, that was for the best. I think that worked out. Things could have been much, much worse. But obviously, you don't see that when you're in the moment. But to me, there's no doubt that guy was not a good human being. He treated people in a horrible, fashion. You know, he stole. He manipulated. Like you said, he was probably a master con man. And then add on top of that the suspicion that he was involved in these murders, including the

murder of Ruth Terry, who was, you know, for a long time, known as the Lady of the Dunes. And to me, there's an uplifting component to that story. Yes, very tragic that Ruth Terry lost her life. It was kind of heartbreaking that, you know, her son never really got to spend time with her. We talked about that. But in the end, investigators didn't give up. And they eventually, you know, figured out who she was, identified her. And so there were a lot of people who were affected by that process and that ultimate

identification, there had to have been some closure involved in that. Yeah, I think it's disappointing that guy went to the grave and carried wherever secrets he had with them, but hopefully, as we see here with genealogy and family trees, some of those secrets now are being revealed about these killers that die and never face justice. After their death, their secrets are still coming out. So hopefully there's more secrets to be revealed. and the true extent of what Guy was involved in will one day come to light. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But that's it for our episode on The Lady of the Dunes, Ruth Terry, Guy Moldovan. If you love the show, they haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a rating. You can leave a review, but also keep telling your friends, that word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. Or you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology.

But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.