Going West: True Crime - Margaret Rudin // 66

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

In 1994, a Las Vegas real-estate tycoon disappeared. After finding some incriminating and peculiar details surrounding his life, a lengthy investigation unfolded and police spent years looking for a suspect on the run. This is the case of Ron and Margaret Rudin. SOURCES https://caselaw.findlaw.com/nv-supreme-court/1417075.html https://www.ktnv.com/13-investigates/some-terrified-as-infamous-killer-margaret-rudin-is-set-for-release-from-prison https://murderpedia.org/female.R/r/rudin-margaret.htm http://www.ejfi.org/DV/dv-126.htm https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/convicted-killer-margaret-rudin-readying-for-life-after-prison-1926652/ https://people.com/archive/till-death-did-them-part-vol-53-no-9/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Teef and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Big thanks to Michelle for telling us about this case. I had never heard of it until she brought it to my attention. Thanks, girl. And we would like to give thanks to everyone who gave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts this week. Thank you so much to Dan from Manaceette, New York. Please don't come after me.

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This is episode 66 of going west, so let's get into it. Margaret Rudin, the infamous black widow of Las Vegas, continues 20 years after she was indicted for the murder of her husband-law. Margaret Rudin's run from the law went on for nearly three years. She was a fugitive living on her dead husband's cash. One has to ask if your spouse is missing, is the first thing you're going to search for, his financial documents?

She removes the carpeting that we later recover and find blood on. She started rubbing her eye, and then it occurred to me that she was really digging her She started rubbing her eye and then it occurred to me that she was really digging her knuckle into her eye and I thought that she was trying to make herself cry. It just was no emotion in her response when I told her that her husband's remains were found at the lake and he was a merchant. I am innocent. Margaret Lee Frost was born on May 31, 1943 in Memphis, Tennessee to Eloise and Hollis Frost. Margaret was the eldest of two other sisters, Donna and Barbara. Their

father Hollis worked as a barber while Eloise worked as a store manager, and for whatever reason, the frost moved quite often. And so much so that by the time that Margaret was finishing her high school years, she had already lived in 15 different states. And around the same time when she was finishing high school, they settled into Zion, Illinois. And Zion is a blue-collar beach town that's very close to the Wisconsin border, and it's around 50 miles or 80 kilometers north of Chicago. And Zion is where Margaret Metamand named Gerald Mason, and they married on February 2, 1962, when she was just shy of 19 years old. Gerald worked as a construction worker and carpenter, so he lived pretty modestly.

The most he would make a month would be equivalent to around $2,500 today. And this is good to know for later on. Within two years of being married, they had their first child, a son named Michael, and a couple years after him, their daughter Christina, who went by Tina, was born. Margaret and Gerald stayed together for just about nine years before Margaret demanded a divorce in 1973. She said her husband was emotionally abusive, and her requests per the divorce were to take the family car and to be given $160, which is about $933 for child support each month.

And this was around half of Gerald's income at the time. Weirdly enough, Margaret got married again just the year after her divorce with Gerald. And no one really knows this man's identity and the marriage lasted just about two years, which is why I say it's weird. Because another two years after this divorce, she was married again. And this time it was to a man named Philip Brown, who was a very well-known horse dealer and farmer. And Philip knew about Margaret's first husband, Gerald, but even

he didn't know who her second husband was, and in fact, he thought he was her second husband. So kind of weird, weird details surrounding that. Yeah, it's kind of strange that she wouldn't tell her current husband about her previous one. And this doesn't come back later, I really don't know who this second husband is or if it's even relevant, but there it is. So he didn't find out until much later that he was actually her third husband. And Margaret and Philip had two weddings.

The first was in Las Vegas and the second was in Illinois where they both lived. By the following year, Margaret was supposedly causing trouble in the relationship. She constantly talked about wanting to pick up and move to Vegas, even though Philips' business was located in Illinois, and he was doing pretty well for himself. Apparently, she also told him that she regretted marrying him at all. So the following year in 1979, Philip was the one to file for divorce. According to the court documents, his reason for filing was due to emotional abuse and cruelty by Margaret. A few months later, Margaret had a hysterectomy, which is

a procedure that removes a woman's uterus, and it's unknown if she did this for medical or personal reasons, we really don't know. And around this same time, her mother passed away. At this point Margaret was 36 years old and while recovering from her history rectomy she had her divorce hearing with Philip. Since Philip didn't want to pay Margaret's alimony he instead gave her a $10,000 settlement which is equivalent to about $35,000 today. In 1980 just after their divorce Margaret did exactly what she had been wanting to do. She picked up and she moved to Vegas with her two kids, who remember are from her first

marriage. For the first few months of living there, they shared a mobile home with four other people, because they didn't have very much money. I think there were just living on this settlement and she wasn't working, so this was just an in-between situation. But Margaret soon found opportunity in a man named Richard Krov. He was a business man, a struggling one at that, but he had inherited a large sum of money from his dad, who had previously been an executive with Ford Motors, so he had big money from

his dad. But Richard got smart here because knowing Margaret had no money and that he was rich, he had her sign a pre-napp. So if they did end up getting divorced, she couldn't take his fortune. So now Margaret is 38 years old and on her fourth husband, and things start falling apart for them a bit too. Her kids really didn't like living in Las Vegas, and Christina particularly wanted to finish her high school career in Illinois with her friends, so Margaret left with her kids while Richard remained in Las Vegas.

About five years into their marriage, Margaret requested a divorce, and she claimed that Richard was consistently abusive towards her and would sometimes threaten her. During their divorce hearing, Margaret asked for a $32,000 settlement, which would be about $72,000 today, instead of receiving Alimony. By the time their divorce was settled in 1987, both of her children were adults and they were living away from home. So Margaret admitted to her friends that she felt pretty lonely and hoped to meet a cowboy someday, because she herself was described to be somewhat of a southern bell. And just four months after her divorce with Richard, she married a man named Ron Ruden,

a Las Vegas resident who often wore cowboy boots and hats. They had met shortly before their wedding at the first church of religious science in Las Vegas, so they really sped things up and just decided to get hitched. They just went for it. Yeah. And he was really smitten by her, you know, she was very sociable, she was very outgoing, and she dressed nicely. You know, she was really charming when people first met her, and she gave a really good first impression. And this is when she would take her final name, Margaret Rudin. A little bit more about Ron. He was born Ronald Julian Rudin on November 14, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, to

parents Stella and Roy Rudin. So he was about 13 years older than Margaret. He being 56 when they married and she being 44. So his father passed away when Ron was just about 20 years old and two years after his marriage to Margaret, his mother passed. After serving in the Vietnam War, Ron began working in real estate and over the next 30 years, he would also, weirdly enough, be married four times, Margaret being his fifth wife, just as he was her fifth husband.

By this time, he was an extremely successful real estate developer and millionaire. So now she's in with basically the big bucks. And there's nothing like that real estate money, you know? That's how you get in big. Oh, yeah. Yeah, especially in Las Vegas. I'm sure Real estate agents probably make quite a bit of money and at this time, you know in the late 80s

Vegas was really turning into that that hotspot, you know where smaller buildings were coming down and big buildings were being built So this was a really good time to be a successful real estate developer in Vegas But just like Margaret's other relationships, things between she and Ron started to fail as time went on. And on one occasion, Margaret told her sister Donna that she hated how stingy Ron was and that she wished that he would just die since he wasn't in the best of health anyways. Burn. Ouch, yeah, that's really fucking harsh.

But in 1988, so just a year after being married, Ron filed for divorce, but they decided to work on things instead of splitting up. In 1991, so about four years into their marriage, Margaret caused a huge scene at Ron's real-tie office after she got into a fight with one of his employees. And after that point, Ron forbade Margaret from coming into his office. Which is a pretty big deal because they're married. Imagine if you have to ban your wife from your office because she's acting so inappropriately. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I could see how that could cause a lot of problems.

Ron's Realty Company's office was located in a strip mall that Ron also owned, and their house was just behind this mall so he was very close to work. Ron also had previously had a phone line that was shared between his home and his office so he could take calls from home if need be. But some of his employees claimed that Margaret was listening in on work calls so he disconnected this phone. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of trust or happiness in their relationship here.

And even further, the same year of these two events, Ron went to those in charge of his estate and told them to take extraordinary steps to investigate his cause of death, whenever that would be, especially if his death was suspicious or violent in any way. And if it turned out that he was killed or that there was suspicion on someone who was supposed to receive his assets after his passing, his trustees must make sure that this person gets nothing. But then two years later, Margaret's share of Ron's estate increased to 60 percent, and his estate was about $11 million, so she would have gotten a lot.

Damn, and that really says a lot about this marriage. He's basically like, hey, if I just end up disappearing or something like that, you know, you should probably check into my fucking wife or whatever, just make sure she doesn't get any money. Yeah, if you're gonna go so far as to tell those in charge of your estate to look into your death, there's definitely some suspicions in his head. But a part of me does think this is pretty normal for someone with as much money as him, because as we know, people kill for money and even family does it sometimes. So this was probably also a general precaution, but I'm sure he had some suspicions.

Well, sure, I'm sure he had suspicions, and I think, you know, for previous wives and for previous husbands, kind of says a lot about the whole situation, but I'm not going to read too much into that, but I could see how that would cause some concern. But after this, Margaret opened up her very own antique shop, One Floor Blow Rons Office. Just a year or so after Margaret's share in Rons' estate increased, which was in 1993, Margaret discovered that Ron was having an affair, and this affair was with one of his previous employees. Margaret found this out by doing what it seems like she did semi-often, which was e-dropping. She had set up a recording device on his business phone so she could employees. Margaret found this out by doing what it seems like she did semi-often, which was e-dropping. She had set up a recording device on his business phone so she could

listen in on his calls, and the other woman came forward later and stated that her children received anonymous letters regarding the affair. So it's been confirmed that the affair was indeed happening. But it's also been said that Margaret was having one too, but with an Israeli man named Yehuda Sharon. The woman Ron was having in a fair with, also later reported that Ron told her he thought he was being poisoned. And shortly after this, Ron disappeared. On the morning of Monday, December 19th, 1994, Ron's employees went into work as usual, but as the morning went on, Ron still hadn't shown up. Ron was very business-oriented.

His life was his career and his success, and he always showed up to work on time and even always parked in the same parking spot. Although Christmas was approaching, he didn't have any trips planned, so his employees became really worried that something had happened. One of the employees went over to Margaret's new antique shop, but her store was closed, so they decided to call the house and check in on them, and they didn't get an answer. But later on, when they called again, Margaret answered the phone, and she said she didn't know where Ron was, and she didn't seem to be worried

about it at all. Two days passed before Margaret reported her husband's disappearance to police. When they asked her why she had waited a couple days to file a report, she said it was because their marriage wasn't doing so well, so she wasn't surprised when he didn't come home. According to Margaret, she had last seen Ron Ruden on the evening of Sunday, December 18, so the night before his employees called the house worried. She told police that they had gotten into an argument because Ron was upset that Margaret spent all of her time working at the antique shop.

So Margaret said that she figured he went away somewhere, but he would be back. But after two days of not hearing from him, she decided to file a report. On the night of December 18th, 1994, one of the tenants at the Strip Mall, Ron owned, spotted Ron approaching Margaret's antique shop. That same evening, around 8 pm, one of Margaret's friends said that she called the house and spoke with Ron, and that he said Margaret wasn't home. Between 8.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m., Margaret told police that she had called Ron on her cell phone. But when they looked into her phone records, they couldn't find evidence of this call being made. Then

she supposedly stayed at her antique shop working very late until around 1.15 AM. And one of her friends, Jean, told police that she was with her there between 9.15 PM and 12.45 PM. So there is this window around maybe 8.30 PM to 9.15 PM, where we're not sure where Margaret was. An hour after Margaret left her antique shop, which was at 2.20am, a woman named Carol, who had her office in the strip mall, stated that Margaret stopped by her tax preparation

office. Carol had been working late with her husband when Margaret came in. So Margaret, again, she said she left her own antique shop at around 1.15 a.m. But then again, we're not sure where she was for this hour until 2.20 a.m. when she showed up at this office in the same plaza. And what's funny about this is Carol and her husband had really never met Margaret. Margaret spent around 30 minutes in the office with them chatting and making conversation. Then Margaret states she returned home and noticed that Ron and his car weren't home.

The following evening, which was Monday, December 19, 1994, Margaret's thought to be lover Yehuda, rented a cargo van from an agency in Las Vegas, a little bit about Yehuda. He was born in June of 1954 and was previously an Israeli military officer who became a businessman. He would mostly go around buying holy oils and he would bottle and sell them to various Catholic churches. And this is how he and Margaret met. He apparently then started helping her with her finances. And he was 21 years younger than Margaret and fairly handsome guy. We posted a photo on our Instagram at Going West Podcast and on Twitter at Going West Pod. So it's not very hard to believe that she would have had an affair with him, but aside from that,

there was eventually love notes found between them, which we'll talk about later, and that brings us back to Yehuda renting a cargo van. So he told police he rented this van to pick up a shipment of holy oils from Santa Fe Springs, California, which is about a four-hour drive from Las Vegas. When he rented it, he told the rental company to remove the backseat from the van, which would make sense if you were picking up a shipment. Four days after renting the van, on December 23, 1994, he returned it with 348 miles or 560 kilometers put onto the car. Round trip would have been around a 530 mile or 850 kilometer trip.

So when police asked him about this, Yuhuda said that he didn't end up going all the way to Santa Fe Springs, California after all, because a trucker he met on the way told him that it was raining in California. So again, that's about a 200 mile difference or about a 300 kilometer difference in travel. And I don't know his delivery history, but this seems kind of weird that he would turn around after driving that much just because it was raining. And this is California, so the rain couldn't have been that bad. You know, it's not like a snowstorm where he needed chains on his tires and he didn't have them so he had to turn around. And why did he have the truck for four days when this trip would

have taken him eight hours tops? Just a little weird. On December 20th, 1994, so two days after Ron was last seen, two of his employees went down to the police station to file a missing persons report for Ron, and that's when police informed them that Margaret had already done so just hours earlier. The next day, Margaret hired a cleaner to come by the house and remove some stains from her carpet in the laundry room. According to the cleaner, the stain was dark brown in color, and it appeared that Margaret had tried to clean them before the cleaner actually arrived. Hence why she called them.

The following day, so December 22nd, police interviewed Margaret at her antique shop and asked permission to do a casual search of the home, which she actually agreed to. The police didn't find anything unusual, but Margaret's sister Donna later stated that earlier that day, she had gone by the house and found Margaret looking through Ron's will, which Margaret had taken from his real de-office the day before she reported him missing. This is very suspicious, so she said she got into an argument with Ron, and then she didn't see him for a day, so she went to his office and got his will, and then reported him missing the next day and then ordered a

cleaner to take a dark stain out of the carpet. Yeah, that pretty much doesn't get any more suspicious than that. But in Margaret's defense, Ron's car was nowhere to be found too, so he very well technically could have picked up and gotten out of town to clear his head or whatever. But on December 23rd, 1994, so about five days after he went missing, Ron's black Cadillac was found parked in an alleyway behind a gentleman's club, aka a strip club, in Las Vegas called Crazy Horse 2, which kind of looks like a huge, slightly upscale, yet somehow still tacky Greek palace. So, when Ron's car was found, it was locked, and there was two sets of keys inside the car. There was also dirt found on all four floorboards of his car, and weirdly enough,

out of the fingerprints that were found in the car, neither of them belonged to Ron nor Margaret. And this is weird because it's his car, so you would assume that his fingerprints would be found somewhere. But this just makes me think that someone may be wiped the car of fingerprints, even though police did find some. They're just should have at least been Ron's in there, it's just really weird. Exactly. So on Christmas night, Margaret hired a locksmith so she could get into Ron's office to supposedly collect documents regarding someone in Ron's ex-wife's family,

threatening to kill Ron years prior. So this would likely help prove that someone else had intent to kill Ron, therefore it would point police to a potential suspect since they were now thinking that foul play had been involved in Ron's case after finding his car abandoned. There were a lot more suspicions surrounding Margaret though, and her own sister Donna told police about it much later. But around this same time, Donna helped Margaret collect more documents from Ron's office. Donna was able to take a peek into what Margaret was looking for and noticed that Margaret had itemized Ron's office. Donna was able to take a peek into what Margaret was looking for and noticed that Margaret had itemized Ron's assets. She also found a certificate from one

year earlier stating that Margaret had completed a firearm safety course. With this certificate was a note in Margaret's handwriting that stated, it's you or him, get him first. Less than a month after Ron's disappearance, Margaret had their master bedroom converted into an office. With this construction, she also requested that the carpet be removed and all the furniture disposed of. When the handyman moved the bed to lift the carpet, he noticed dark reddish brown stains and a horrible rotten smell. He also noticed reddish brown spatters on a photo hanging on the wall above the bed, which was moved to the guest bedroom.

When he went to look at this photo again later, he claimed that the stains on the framed photo were gone. He didn't immediately go to police. It wasn't until Margaret gave him a package addressed to her mom and asked him to mail it for her. He ended up forgetting to mail the package and when he went to police to tell them about the stains, he gave them the package. Because of this new and incriminating information, police obtained a search warrant to open the package because they were thinking that it could relate to Ron's case. Inside were some of Margaret's personal belongings, including postcards and a letter from Yehuda that made it very

apparent that the two were romantically involved. Inside was also a letter to her mom asking her to hold on to those items. Just about a week later, on January 21, 1995, so almost exactly a month after Ron was last seen, a grisly discovery was made at Lake Mojave. Lake Mojave is a reservoir located about 70 miles or 110 kilometers south of Las Vegas. It defines the Nevada Arizona border. That January night, a fisherman came upon a human school

at Nelson's Landing, which is a cliff that overlooks the reservoir. When he called police over, they discovered various charred bone fragments with the skull. These remains were tested against Ron Rudens' dental records, and it turned out to be a match. And his cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to his head, made by a 22 caliber gun. As soon as they found the remains to be those of Rons, they went to Margaret to tell her the news, and both detectives noted that she didn't show any emotions, just that she was kind of rubbing her eyes. I always think it's important to note how people react to such news,

but it's also important to note the circumstances react to such news, but it's also important to note the circumstances. You know, their marriage wasn't going well at all, and they were both having affairs, so I don't know if she would really show very much emotion anyway, but everyone reacts to bad news differently, but I mean, it's also kind of sketchy. Along with Ron's remains, there were also burnt fragments of an antique trunk, but you could still tell what it was, so it hadn't gotten burnt too, too bad.

When Margaret's sister Donna saw it, she told investigators that it looked like a trunk that she'd seen in Margaret's shop before. Investigators even reached out to an antique dealer in the area to see if he could identify it, and he told them that he sold such a trunk to Margaret month's prior. After this discovery, law enforcement felt very positive that Margaret was behind the murder. So on January 27th, 1995, just six days after finding Ron's body, they took their search warrant to the Rudens Vegas home to do a full inspection. At that time, Margaret

wasn't home, and when they searched the property, they found minuscule spots on the walls and ceiling that appeared to be blood. The handyman also disclosed the location of where Margaret had him dump her bed, and that's when they found the Rudens mattress box spring, which also had spots that appeared to be blood on it. While police continued to search the rodent's home, some officers noticed that Margaret's car was driving towards her home. But when she came inside of police cars, she turned around and drove in the opposite direction. And this was obviously very peculiar to police, so one of the

squad cars followed her discreetly. First she went to a mini-mar, where she made a few phone calls, and then she went to her sister Donna's house. After spending some time there, she went to Yehuda's house for a couple of hours. So at this point, they're very suspicious of Margaret, but they don't have like that smoking gun, quite yet. They needed just a little bit more evidence to nail her for the murder. So all they could do was follow her and watch her closely since they couldn't officially arrest her. But Margaret didn't leave Yehuda's house alone, and he was actually in the car with her when she drove off.

And together, they drove towards California, and eventually seemed to be trying to go over state lines. And since the Nevada police wouldn't have jurisdiction in California, they phoned the Los Angeles Police Department and told them to keep an eye on Margaret Routin and Yohuda Sharon. The following morning, Margaret was on a plane to St. Louis, Missouri. Months passed, and Margaret still did not return to Vegas

or Nevada, at all, despite the fact that her home and shop were there. So she was officially on the run and police had no idea where she was. And I mean, this is weird off the bat because innocent people don't run. Yeah, it looks really bad because not only is she, did she leave for California, but now she's in St. Louis, Missouri, like, yeah, like, you can't run, I mean. I mean, if you're trying to drive away

and go to a different state, and even though you have a business and a home, and if you're trying to run from police, which she obviously was trying to do when she turned around after seeing them outside her house, then when else is fainted? Yeah, she's not very good at covering up this situation at all, I'd say.

The police took the potential blood samples from the mattress and sent them in for testing, which would take a while to get back. The following year in July of 1996, a scuba diver was diving at Lake Mead, which is a man-made lake that's about 24 miles or about 40 kilometers east of Las Vegas, so not close to where Ron's remains were found. While he was diving, he discovered a 22-calibre

handgun with a sound suppressor wrapped in multiple plastic bags and rubber bands to keep them secure to the gun, likely to avoid fingerprints or DNA evidence. The diver turned this into police, and after looking up its serial number, they found that it was registered to Ron Ruden. But, the gun was reported stolen in 1988, which was just a year after Ron and Margaret got married. And remember, that same year, Ron had filed for divorce, but they ended up settling things. And in Ron's report to the Bureau regarding the stolen gun back in 1988, he stated that he believed Margaret had taken it, along with other items,

since she was planning to move due to their upcoming divorce. And even after they patched things up, she never turned it over and he didn't see the gun again. Soon after, the police received the results back of the potential blood samples on the box spring and walls of the rodents home, and it came back as a positive DNA match for Ron Ruden. It wasn't until the following year on April 17, 1997, that a grand jury indicted Margaret Ruden for the murder of her widowed husband Ron Rudin. Law enforcement searched for her, but again, they had no idea where she had gone.

It took two and a half years until law enforcement and revere Massachusetts, which is a coastal town next to Boston, found 53-year-old Margaret living there, where she had been hiding for a few years. Police found her in a dingy apartment wearing a black wig and colored eye contacts, and she wasn't alone in the apartment. She was living with a retired firefighter named Joe Lundergen, and she met him in Mexico during her time in hiding. Another telltale sign a guilt, running away to Mexico.

Yeah, if we haven't heard that story before. While they were arresting Margaret, they asked her if she knew why she was being arrested. And she said, yes, this is about Las Vegas, isn't it? Like not, oh, why would you arrest me for my, you know, like, what? This is about Las Vegas. Yeah, I think she probably knew at that point. She was, she just was not getting away. It's just weird that she assumed and said it's about Las Vegas, not about, it's about Ron, you know? Right, yeah, exactly.

Well, and it also makes me wonder like, did she kill any other husbands or something along the way? Yeah, she just was being broad saying Las Vegas. She's like, was this about the Las Vegas guy that I fucking killed or was it about the guy that I killed in California? I don't know. I'm getting it all mixed up. But when Margaret was interrogated again after her arrest, she maintained her innocence, so she wasn't admitting that she did anything at all.

And her trial didn't begin until March 2001, which was about a year and a half after they extradited her back to Nevada from Massachusetts. Everything that we have mentioned so far was brought up in the trial, so everything her sister Donna knew that helped incriminate Margaret, the handyman's discoveries, the DNA samples, the gun, everything. 59 witnesses testified during this trial, so there was a lot going on. And as part of her defense regarding the blood stains found, her attorney told

the court that due to Ron's health issues, he suffered from nosebleeds, and that could have had something to do with it. Really now, so he just has nose bleeds and then kind of like shakes his head and just sprays blood all over the paintings and the bedroom and stuff like that. Yeah, that makes a lot of fucking sense. Well, exactly, because we know that the blood found was spattered on the wall and ceiling and it was in miniscule amounts, meaning likely leftovers from like a not very thorough cleanup job.

But I mean, if you're not a complete moron, then you would understand that nosebleeds don't cause blood spatter. So, I mean, unless you're like blowing your nose into a tissue, you're definitely not gonna get blood spatter on a picture frame that's hanging in a room. Yeah, very silly on her defense as part to make that the story of what happened. Like, that's what you say? That it was from a nosebleed? Yeah, really silly claim. So, even Ron's friends were convinced that Margaret had murdered Ron. One of his best friends named John Ruther remembers just a few weeks before Ron's disappearance. Ron told John that he had found a piece of paper in the house that calculated how she was going to split up Ron's disappearance, Ron told John that he had found a piece of paper in the house

that calculated how she was going to split up Ron's assets between herself, her family, and her friends. He told John that he was very nervous that she was going to try something, and John told him to watch his back. A few days later, he went to John again, stating that he was getting really scared because their relationship wasn't going well at all, and there was a lot of greed and jealousy between them. Ron also mentioned the fact that Margaret had divorced four other men, and that each new husband was more wealthy than the last. He said that he was worried that she was trying to get all of his

money. Before John knew it, Ron had disappeared, and he knew exactly what happened. The prosecutor tried to paint a picture of what happened, and they think the murder went down in their home master bedroom after an argument. As we know, their marriage wasn't going well, and Margaret could have suspected that he was going to divorce her. But from her previous divorces, she knew she wouldn't get hardly any money out of it. The only way to get real money was if Ron was dead. And there's no way their relationship would last long enough for him to die on his own. So she murdered him, and they think her lover Yehuda

helped dispose of the body and the gun. And that the reason that Margaret killed or had Ron killed was because she was afraid Rod was going to divorce her and that she wouldn't inherit his estate. The old Murder for Inheritance plot. Okay, so now we're going to talk a little bit about some calculations, so try and keep up. I'm going to have some numbers coming off right now. So let's break down the miles that you who to put on his rental car. We know he went 348 miles. We don't know his home address nor the rooton home address, so we can't calculate exact miles, but we can get pretty close. Lake Mojave is around 70 miles away from the center of Las Vegas. From

Lake Mojave to Lake Mead, where the gun was found, it's about 100 miles, and Lake Mead back to the center of Las Vegas is another 80 miles. In total, that's about 100 miles, and Lake Meade back to the center of Las Vegas is another 80 miles. In total, that's about 250 miles, so there's 100 miles missing. For all we know, he could have driven around for a little bit longer, or taken different, more secure routes to these locations that would require extra miles. But the point is, it's definitely possible that he was the one who disposed of the gun and the body to help Margaret. Meanwhile, Margaret's defense attorney tried to convince the court that Ron was murdered by someone involved in the same illegal activities that Ron was involved in.

But they didn't have proof of such a thing. After nearly two months on trial, Margaret was found guilty on May 2, 2001 for the murder of Ron Routin. A few months later, she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years served. The following year, Margaret filed an appeal, but that was denied. But in 2008, Margaret Routin was granted a new trial. This was because a district judge felt like Margaret's defense attorneys during her 2001 trial were not prepared enough, and multiple people stated this. The judge also ruled that her main attorney during trial wasn't effective, so she felt like Margaret deserved another chance.

But in 2010, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled against the new trial because they didn't agree that she deserved a new one. But the appeals court overturned this, so Margaret was to be given a new trial despite the Supreme Court's wishes. But the new trial continued to depend for the coming years, despite the letters that were sent stating that Margaret should be given the opportunity to present her claims. But the reason for this was because the ninth circuit court of appeals and the Supreme Court continued to fight against whether or not she should get a new trial. Finally, in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for a new trial,

but she was still eligible for parole after 20 years served, so just a few months ago, on January 10, 2020, Margaret Rudin was released from prison on parole. She had spent nearly 20 years at the Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center in Las Vegas and was released at the age of 76. To this day, Margaret Rudin has not taken responsibility for the murder of Ron Rudin. She currently lives in Chicago where she's close to her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandchildren. And one of her awesome listeners and friends

Michelle was the one who told us about this case, and her mom is actually Margaret's cousin. She told me that Margaret never did get Ron's full estate, but she did receive about $200,000 of it, and the rest went to Ron's trustees. And I asked Michelle what the general consensus in the family was regarding Margaret's guilt, and Michelle said that they pretty much all know that she did it. So that's coming from family. They think that she's guilty, and to me it doesn't seem like her kids are sure if she would be capable of such a thing from what I read about them. Margaret was apparently very hot and cold.

She was a really good first impression, but after that people would realize that she was actually very manipulative. So it's definitely not hard to believe that Margaret committed this crime. [♪ music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music photos from this case head on over to Going West Pod on Twitter or at Going West Podcast on Instagram. And don't forget we still have merch up in our store if you go over to GoingWestPod.com click the shop tab we've got t-shirts, sweatshirts, stickers and also if you want to join the community that's growing over on Patreon make sure you check out patreon.com slash Going West Podcast and get yourself some bonus episodes

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