Going West: True Crime - The Ruth Price 911 Call // 162 // 3 Year Podiversary Episode

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

In 1988, a woman called 911 to report a strange man outside her house. After a brief moment of silence, she screamed before the phone got disconnected. Ever since the call surfaced on the internet in 2002, it’s been picked apart by internet sleuths, and has left people everywhere wondering: Is the call a hoax? Or is it a 30-year-old murder mystery waiting to be solved? This is the story of the Ruth Price 911 Call. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.familytreenow.com/records/death/price/ruth/area/ca https://libredd.it/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/db65nl/who_was_ruth_and_was_she_real/ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40033379/ruth-m_-price https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/45216716/ruth-price https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/134754949/ruth-price-tyre https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/details?name=Ruth%20Price&citystatezip=El%20Cajon%2C%20CA&rid=0x2 https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego/3877-35th-St-92104/unit-3879/home/5321131 https://www.ancientfaces.com/person/ruth-m-price-birth-1913-death-1994/88613986#family https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/qp9b7e/the_murder_of_ruth_price_a_lengthy_debunking/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/fv1k3z/any_updates_to_the_ruth_price_911_call/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host, Teeve. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Today, December 31, is our three year pot of Versailles. Yes, three years. Three years ago, we released our very first episode of Going West. And thanks to each and every one of you, we're still going and we don't have plants to stop. Woohoo! So I also want to give a huge shout out to Morgan of Doe by Moe for making us some very, very special and amazing three-year pot of her story cookies, she's based in Texas and truly is just wildly talented in designing and decorating these custom sugar cookies.

So please check her out. Her Instagram is at Doe, underscore by underscore Mo, mo, or go to doe by mo.com. Check out our socials. We put direct links there as well. And go look at the cookie she made us. We're blown away she did going west one, she did these like, bloody butcher knife ones, she did, some anti-serial killer club ones like they're just so great.

Yeah, they look honestly amazing and I'm going to eat every single one of them. So for today's episode, since it's our pot of her story, we wanted to do something a little bit different. So, I posted a poll on our Instagram last week to ask you guys what you wanted to hear for this episode, whether it be just a regular true crime case or spooky stories or Q&A, what have you, and the votes were very mixed. So I found a story that has absolutely captivated me for the past week. It is truly bizarre and perplexing.

It's such a mystery, and I can't wait to see what everybody thinks. Yeah, it's definitely still in the vein of True Crime, like we mentioned last week. Yes. But I think you guys are going to find this very, very interesting. Yes, it's definitely something different. So thank you guys so much for listening. Thanks for keeping our show going, and we love all of you. So without further ado, this is episode 162, also known as our Potiversary episode 3

years, so let's get into it. In 1988, a woman called 911 to report a strange man outside her house. After a brief moment of silence, she screamed and explained that she couldn't breathe before the phone got disconnected. Ever since the call surfaced on the internet in 2002, it's been picked apart by internet slutes and is left people everywhere wondering. Is the call a hoax? Or is it a 30 year old murder mystery waiting to be solved? This is the story of the Ruth Price 9-1-1 call. As you just heard, back in what is believed to have been 1988, an elderly woman called 911 to report a strange man outside of her home. And ever since this audio file was released on a website called officer.com back in 2002, though some claim it showed up as

early as 1999 or 2000, it has taken many armchair detectives by storm. But since it's been released, and a ray of web sluthers have tried to figure out if this call is even real, and if it is, what the hell happened in it? Now, before we go into all the details and findings regarding the call, we're gonna play it for you. And I just wanna give a bit of a warning,

so it's less than a minute long, and the majority of the call is a calm woman who is just trying to give details to the 911 operator. But after a moment of silence towards the end, or maybe about halfway through, this woman lets out a blood-curdling scream, and that keeps going for multiple seconds as she seemingly fears for her life. So we just want to reiterate that it's unknown to the public if this call is real or fake,

but we're going to go into that whole thing further in this episode. So although it sounds very disturbing and her scream is incredibly haunting, if it is real, we don't know if she just sees the man or if she's being attacked by the man, so please keep in mind while you listen, you know, we would never play an audio clip where we knew for a fact that someone was being injured or murdered in any way, so just keep that in mind. All right, here goes. This is your roofed car, it's 38.75, I don't know. Oh, there's some guy been taking the place out. Well, you're in the back. I live in the apartment in the back.

And instead of looking for a guy, he comes to my door. Yes. And, uh, studies looking for an apartment So I live alone and I'm already I'm pretty familiar She's male, man I don't have no idea It's legit hard to listen to, that's how real it sounds to me and I'm not saying it

is, but off the bat, when you hear it, it's haunting. Yes, it's extremely fucking haunting. Yeah, I listened to it for the first time, earlier last week, by myself at night, and I was scared for the rest of the night, and I had to listen to it so many times while putting together this episode, so anyway, now that we've all heard it, you know, let's kind of break it down a little bit. So first, let's break down kind of the beginning of the call. So this woman, who states her name is Ruth Ruth Price starts to give her address in the beginning

of the call only to be cut off by the 911 operator. And we're going to play the beginning of the call without the screams so we can revisit what she was reporting to the 911 operator in the call. But we're going to cut out the end so don't worry about hearing those screams again. Okay, so Ruth starts out by saying, uh, this is a Ruth price at 38.77 and then she's segueing into her street name and the operator cuts her off and says, what's the problem, ma'am? Ruth then says, oh, there's some guy been checking the place out. The operator then asks, how? Then Ruth says, well, he went in the back.

I have an apartment in the back and he said he was looking for a guy, and he comes to my door and then Ruth pauses for a moment. So it sounds like she's about to say, and said, as if the man told her something. But then she quickly pauses, maybe as if she had just seen something or maybe heard something. Then after a couple of seconds of silence, the operator says yes, and Ruth immediately continues and says, and uh, said he's looking for an apartment. So I live alone and I'm an old lady and then the operator cuts her off again and it sounds like she's maybe saying, and I'm kinda. The operator asks, where?

Where is he now, ma'am? And Ruth says, I don't have no idea. And then about four whole seconds passes of silence before you hear the phone move and then Ruth begins to scream. So right off the bat, to me, it sounded like maybe possibly she had some sort of southern accent. So I kind of picked up on that,

based on her saying, I don't have no idea. Yes, we're gonna get it into that in a little bit here because I definitely wanna talk about that, but first, I wanna talk about how imperfect this all is. And what I mean by that is it doesn't sound scripted. It doesn't sound like someone's going off of lines. Like Ruth says, this is a Ruth price. And then after being interrupted,

she sounds a bit caught off guard by that. And she says, oh, before saying, there's some guy, slight pause, Ben, Um, check in the place out. Like it sounds the same as how people normally talk, because we all talk with Um's and pauses and stumbles while trying to collect what we're trying to articulate. Yeah, and to me, that kind of southern draw that she has makes it feel even more genuine to me,

because it genuinely sounds like an older southern woman making this 911 call, in my opinion. Yes, and we're going to go into the accent again soon here, but I was thinking this because my grandma has a very similar kind of voice, but I was asking my mom this before because my grandma's from New York and then she lived in Florida, but to me, she sounds like, like she would say, Worshboard, you know, like, right, right.

And she says, oh, there's another word she says, but she, like she has this kind of accent and my mom was like, oh, I feel like that's a New York accent. And I'm like, to me, it sounds kind of like a Southern accent, but we also have to remember the times. Like, this lady is an older lady. And so maybe that has to do with it, which again, we're going to get into. That's what I was going to say.

Kind of sounds generational to me. Exactly. So, but also about the whole old lady thing, you know, I was reading online about some people saying that, you know, they think it's weird that she calls herself an old lady thing. You know, I was reading online about some people saying that, you know, they think it's weird that she calls herself an old lady, but speaking of my grandma again, that's totally something that she would do, like she calls herself the old woman.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I don't think this sounds weird or uncommon or scripted. Like, some people were like, that sounds scripted because she says, oh, I'm an old lady, but I feel like people say that. So, you know, everybody talks differently, everybody's different. I don't think that, I'm an old lady, but I feel like people say that. So, you know, everybody talks differently, everybody's different.

I don't think that I personally don't think that sounded scripted. Yeah, I don't think so either. But I also wanna just say here, you know, we're not here to say this is real and here's why we're saying this is how it could be real and this is how it could be a hoax. So we're gonna go back and forth. But also, you know, I do think just listening

to the various filler words used and the way that the conversation was, you know, it sounds very natural. But of course, are there good actors out there? I mean, you know, yes. So ultimately, the reason for Ruth's call is that a man came up to her door and said he was looking for a guy and an apartment. We don't know if she meant he was looking to rent an apartment or he was looking for a certain man who supposedly lived in an apartment right there. And of course, you know, this guy gave her a bad feeling hence why she called the police. So as we stated, she's quote an old lady and she lives alone. So she probably just wanted someone to come over and make sure he wasn't looking for any kind of trouble.

And obviously, we're not sure what time of day it is. We can maybe assume it's nighttime based on her fear towards the situation, but that is very unclear. So now let's get to the end portion of the call. We're not gonna play it again, but we're gonna discuss what is said towards the end amongst the screaming. So as Ruth is screaming, although it's pretty loud into the receiver, you can hear something hitting against the phone as if, you know, there's

either a struggle or she's fumbling with the phone. After a few screams, Ruth screams what sounds like help me, or honestly, what I think kind of sounds like he's coming. I can't explain it. It's really hard to determine what she's saying here because it's so muffled, but she's clearly freaking out. Then again, in a muffled voice, it sounds like she says, somebody help me to breathe, or can somebody help me please. Then the phone fumbles and hits something and then the line hangs up. And I think what makes those screams so hard to listen to is they sound incredibly primal. They sound like they're coming from the depths of her soul and they start so suddenly. Yeah, in my opinion, it sounds like she was kind of caught off guard because they do start so suddenly,

but also, you know, there's just some sort of genuine sound to them. It's really hard to explain how genuine that screaming really sounds. Well, I actually read on Reddit, like somebody commented they said they were a voice coach. So, you know, I don't know if they are, I don't know their credentials. But I thought it was interesting because they also said, you know, that her scream sounds very primal and that it's like coming from her diaphragm,

like it's something that feels and sounds very real, like it's really coming from her. Right, it's coming from like deep inside her body, like it's just like echoing out. Yes, and I think it's really interesting too. In the beginning of the call, she sounds very calm, just kind of like, hey, I just wonder who this guy is. And then after she has that one pause, the first pause.

Yeah, the part where the operator says yes, question mark, and then Ruth immediately continues and says, and said he's looking for an apartment. So basically at that point, it sounds to me like the reason why she's saying that sentence so slow is because she's either watching something that seems mysterious to her or curious to her in some way. She's either watching that or she's watching something. You know, it's possible that she's watching this guy come back around the side of the house. Well, but right after this, she said that she had no idea where he

was. So I think if she, if she had seen him or if she had like positively heard somebody, she would have said, I think I just heard him, you know, but because she said she doesn't know where he is, I feel like that moment. Yes, where she says it very like inquisitively. As if heard him, you know? But because she said she doesn't know where he is, I feel like that moment. Yes, where she says it very like inquisitively, as if she had heard of the breaking of a branch, or you know what I'm saying? Like something eerie, she suddenly gets a little on edge.

Where she's like, something makes her like alarmed. She's questioning the situation like, what was that that I just saw? Yeah, but she doesn't tell the operator like Oh, I thought I just heard something but when she pauses in the middle of her word It's you can kind of sense like oh did she just hear something and then the the way she talks afterwards is very like a It's it's like this suspenseful moment where you feel like danger is coming. Like, and you've all seen it in movies and TV shows and stuff like that,

where somebody has kind of that pause, where they're looking at something that kind of catches them off guard and rubs them the wrong way. Yes, and I think that's what makes her screams even scarier because those come only a handful of seconds after this part of the call. So, you know, as the call progresses, she's getting more and more maybe fearful. And then suddenly, she starts screaming and then you're like, oh shit. Yeah, yeah, you're like, okay, we went from alarmed to like danger, like danger is happening.

Yes, like calm to questionable, to alarm to danger. Yes, like there's this clear progression, but in a very natural way. And by the way, we're definitely going to get into, you know, who Ruth could possibly be. But let's finish dissecting the actual call first. So many people will point out, you know, how loud this scream is in the receiver. And this kind of leads them to think that maybe this call is fake, like, why scream directly into the phone instead of telling the operator what's happening. But of course, everybody reacts differently to fear, and you could also argue that the screaming is a genuine reaction because it's mostly screaming in no words.

Because maybe she's just so unbelievably afraid that she doesn't even know what to do or say. Which is totally likely like that, that can happen where you're just like, you're so overcome with fear that you literally cannot process what's happening so all you can do is scream. Yeah, and maybe she's screaming

because she's hoping that somebody's gonna hear it and kind of come to the rescue. That's also a possibility. So at the end of the day, it's impossible to base a conclusion off of this alone because everyone reacts differently like we just mentioned. If indeed Ruth says into the phone, somebody help me breathe, or something else about not being able to breathe, this could be either because she's so overcome with fear that she's lost her breath, or that potentially the reason for her screams is because the man came into her house

and started choking her with his hands, or used the cord of the phone to attempt to strangle her. Yeah, I saw someone bring up on Reddit that they think that she could have been strangled with the cord of her phone. So let's talk about that. So cordless phones were first introduced in about 1980 and they began becoming more popular around 1982 and as the years went on they just became more popular. So by 1988 they were quite common. You know, 1988 when we think this call potentially took place. But as we know, Ruth was an older woman so it's very possible that she still had a phone with a cord as

many people did and continued to have for many years. Yeah, she might have had like a rotary phone. I see her having that absolutely, but you know, we have no evidence at all that any of this happened. You know, it could just explain how the end of the call went down. But what's a bit bizarre is that after the operator asks, where is he now, ma'am, and Ruth replies with, I don't have no idea. There's that few second pause.

So the operator seemed to interrupt a lot. And now you have this three to four seconds of silence and she has no follow-up questions. We know just before this in the call, there was about a two second pause that we discussed. You know, after Ruth said, well, he went in the back, I have an apartment in the back, and he said he was looking for a guy, and he came to my door and then Ruth pauses for a moment.

And then after about two seconds of silence, the operator says, yes. So why didn't the operator have a question for Ruth after a four second pause? Like, this could lead to the call potentially being fake, I think, like as if the person acting as the operator was just waiting for the screams to come in. And then why didn't the operator make any comments whatsoever during the time that Ruth was screaming? Like, she wasn't like, man, what's happening? Yeah, that to me really was so odd in the call. It it's like she's just sitting there listening to this woman scream she says absolutely nothing she says nothing she's not like man what's going on are you okay like what like is there anything I can

do what's going on is he in the house yeah yeah like she's just asking zero questions there's so many things she could have asked so the fact that there's a few seconds of silence, and then she doesn't speak for the rest of the call, it's very weird. And by the way, from the time that Ruth starts screaming to the time the call gets cut off, is an entire 21 seconds. Plus, the four seconds of silence beforehand, that totals to 25 seconds out of a 54 second call, so nearly the entire second half, where the operator doesn't say a word. So it's possible that the operator wasn't taking this very seriously and was maybe writing

something down during the few seconds of pause before the screams, because Ruth herself is very, very calm throughout this call, and she doesn't seem too bothered. You know, she does seem pretty cautious throughout in some way, and almost like she's trying to listen or look for the man as we discuss, but not enough to where there's like this real fear until she starts screaming. And I don't think the operator not saying anything, like I don't think that's a general human reaction. You know, even though if this operator is real, is real, if this is a real call, I would say, and I think we

can all agree that they're horrible at their job, considering all the cutting off and the not seeming to take it seriously, but I think that unless the operator was maybe completely startled and horrified into silence, you know, that they would have reacted to those screams at least in some way. But, you know, isn't it the operator's job to ask questions and to help the person on the other line? Yes, like, like how could you remain silent during those screams?

I just think that element of this call could definitely kind of make you question the call's validity. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, there is that possibility that she's writing down information that Ruth is giving her, but still, I mean, you hear a blood-curdling scream,

and you're not gonna say anything, it just kind of catches me, I don't know, it just makes me think that it could potentially be fake. So, there's actually another angle to this, though. I think if it could potentially be fake. So there's actually another angle to this though. I think if it was fake, maybe you would think that the operator would ask questions. But again, if this call was, as we'll get into, you know, like a, don't do this kind of training call, that some people think it is, you know, as a training for 911 operators, maybe this could be an element of it.

Like, see, and she didn't even ask any questions while the woman was screaming, this is not how you do your job as a 911 operator. Right. And then you, you cut, you know, the collar off during certain sections of the call to ask a question like, you know, we're going to talk about this obviously, but when she cuts off her address, that's like kind of a big no-no nowadays. Right, and that's the whole thing of it. So, you know, maybe, maybe from start to finish, if this was a fake call that was created by, you know, a law enforcement agency,

this could be, see how horrible this 911 operator is at their job, don't be like her. And she's fake, and this is why we created this call. Right, they go through all the elements of why you shouldn't do it this way. Right, so that is definitely possible. So after 54 seconds, the call disconnects. It sounds like a general disconnect versus like a phone slam if you can even really

tell the difference from the other end. But this begs the question, why not call back? Assuming that Ruth is real and was not killed during this phone call, why did the phone hang up and why didn't she call them back? If it wasn't misunderstanding or the perp ran away, why not call back and explain that, or maybe she did? And maybe she got connected to another division or another operator, and the two were never linked up. But if she didn't and she survived, why wouldn't there be a follow-up call? It really all depends on what would've gone down.

During Ruth's screams, it doesn't really sound like she's struggling. There's no gurgling or choking or necessarily even sounds a pain or injury, it just kind of sounds like something's maybe hitting the phone or the phone slightly fumbling around or just hitting her own face as phones do. So you have to wonder, what was potentially happening on the other end? In my mind, I kind of see these type of screams occurring, you know, and so close to the phone,

as if she sees the man like either he's outside the window or even inside her house across the room. Because as we know, there is that four second pause from when Ruth says, I don't have no idea regarding where the man is to her screams. So it sounds like she answered her own question, like maybe she turned around or suddenly looked out the window and he was standing there. You know, like it's very horror movie-esque. And it had to have been something very startling. And not to sound like I'm not being sensitive to this call, but we also don't know how dramatic Ruth is as a person.

Did she just see something out the window or was there actually a man like attacking her coming after her inside of her home? Well, that's a good thing to bring up her if she's a dramatic person. So obviously, she's a concerned older woman and she wants to call 911 because she's not sure who this man is. But thinking about how calm and more nonchalant

she was in the beginning, I feel like if she was a super dramatic person, she would be like, there's a man outside, you know, like she would have been over the top the whole time. Very true, that's a man outside, you know, like she would have been over the top the whole time. Very true, that's very, very true. Yeah, she probably would have been more dramatic during the first portion of the call. And I do think too, if she was being attacked while she was holding onto the phone, you

know, that could be a thing. But also, you know, you don't hear any type of interruption like you brought up Heath. Like, if she were being choked, youoked, maybe she would be coughing or gagging. You know what I mean? But anything's possible. Let's get into the origins of this call. So as many of you are probably wondering, there is a reason why this call is believed to have occurred in 1988. Many 911 operators have come forward saying

this call was played for them during their training or their interview to become a 911 operator. And actually, one redditor in particular said that they were originally told that the call happened in 1988 and that it was real. And now the year 1988 has spread everywhere, and no one that we've seen has stated a different year. Many 9-1-1 operators also said that they remember hearing it back in the early 90s, years

before it even surfaced on the internet. But sadly, it's not publicly known for sure exactly when this call took place, but since the year 1988 has claimed the most, we're just going to go with that. And now, this call is actually used to this day as basically a, how not to do it. Because if the operator had only let Ruth speak when she was trying to give her address in the very beginning, she could have dispatched someone to the house to make sure that Ruth was okay. But without her phone number or her address, once that call hangs up, it could be anyone.

Now we have to remember that in the late 1980s, they didn't have the technology available to just quickly track or trace a call. And caller ID wasn't even introduced until December of 1988. And I'm not sure if police had access to it before the general public, but either way, in this call, the operator would have only had access to the information that Ruth gave her. Yeah, and nowadays, there's, you know, cell tower technology and just better GPS and tracking technology in general, and even a system called RapidSOS that can get very specific tracking

data from a person's smartphone to pinpoint their almost exact location like within feet, which is something that one of our listeners who is a 911 operator pointed out to us, which is great. And I just want to say thank you so so so much to all of our listeners on Instagram who did reply who work or used to work as 911 operators with so many great people respond because we just wanted to kind of ask questions. See if you've heard the call or, you know, what you thought of it. Yeah, and to get your take as a professional. Right.

So I talked to a lot of different people and I just appreciate all of you, Megan, Sarah, et cetera. But, you know, wonderful people came forward. This girl Taylor came forward and her mom sent me like this voice memo kind of explaining the whole thing and what she thought. And I just thought that was awesome. We had another listener who asked her stepmom and her aunt, so everybody who we talked to, thank you so, so, so much.

I know a lot of you wanted to remain anonymous, but I just appreciate all of you for giving your insight. So anyway, so some stuff like, you know, rapid SOS and this technology that we have today, it did not exist in 1988. And either way, getting the location of the emergency is top priority now, and it has been for quite some time. So calls like this is one of the reasons that 9-1-1 operators are now drilled to get the

location right away. And that's why they now answer saying 9-1-1, what's your location or what's the address of your emergency and not 9-1-1, what's your emergency. Like you got to ask for the address first above anything else. Although, if this call is real, Ruth did try to give her location right away, so she did the right thing. As we just explained, we ended up talking to a bunch of different 911 operators who listened to our show. And every one of them who have heard the call during training said that either they were

told it was real or they just kind of assumed that it was real. None of them said that this call was created for training purposes, but that it was a real call, at least as far as they knew. All the people that we spoke with also said that from their trained ears, it really does sound real. One of our listeners, who's been a 911 dispatcher for seven years, said that she was played the call during her dispatch academy back when she started, and although she can't be sure if it's real or fake, that it's definitely possible that it originated as a training recording.

She said recorded fake calls are made sometimes at her agency to help new dispatchers learn certain things, so this call being made for the purpose of getting the location first is not really out of the question. But if this 911 call is real after all, why didn't it make the news? After all the discussion about the phone call and all the internet sleuthing, how had no one been able to uncover who Ruth Price is and where the call came from, especially since it's so widely used in the United States during 911 operator training, meaning a lot of people have heard this call.

And even so, no one has come forward? Well, there's a lot of comments on various threads and forums that mention it's illegal to release a 911 call that includes a person's death. So this has led a lot of people to believe that this is the reason that no agency has come forward to explain the call because they don't want to get in trouble. Or the operator in particular didn't want to get in trouble for doing the wrong thing on the call that unintentionally either led to an unknown woman's death or injury. So we know a lot of cover-ups happen everywhere, so this is possible.

But as many of our 911 operator listeners have stated, 911 calls are typically public record. But from our research, it does seem to vary per state. And of course, as the years go on, you know, laws change. So laws that are in place today, certainly may not have been in place back in 2002 or 1988. Also, I just wanna say for anyone thinking it's fake because it didn't hit the papers, you know, not everything makes the news.

And people might think that upon hearing the call, you know, well, this would have had to hit the news or papers because it's just so crazy. But not necessarily, you know, not every case is brought to light or sensationalized. And we have to realize how many murders or break-ins or assaults occur every single day. And especially back in the late 1980s when there wasn't social media and the internet wasn't widely, you know, used like it is today, I mean things didn't spread like they do now, or at least not everything. And we also have to remember that if this did happen 30 years ago, any origin could be clouded

anyway kind of like a game of telephone. So unless the operator comes forward or someone else who was there when this happened, like we really may never know. I mean that being said, I do think that it's very odd that this is such a mystery and that people pick it apart so much like we do today. I think because the call is so jarring and terrifying, we just want answers. You know, we want to know what happened to this poor woman

and if she's okay and if this really did happen. Oh, absolutely. And it does seem awfully suspicious that it didn't hit the papers or the news at the time. But we also don't know what happened, or if a murder even occurred. But considering so many law enforcement agencies But, we also don't know what happened, or if a murder even occurred, but considering so many law enforcement agencies use the call as kind of an example for new employees,

and have for apparently 30 years, then this call had to have been released by someone originally. I mean, you know, somebody had to put it out there. So who did that? And why would they release it and not try to figure out who Ruth is? Or did they figure out who she was and they just couldn't release it? I mean, it's just endless questions here. Yeah, I agree. I think I think anything could have happened because like you're saying,

I don't know who released it on the internet or if this was somehow passed around before them, but we have to think about it. If this is a real call, somebody within the same agency as this 9-1-1 operator would have had to have kept it for whatever reason. So, oh man, yeah, just so many questions. If Ruth Price is real, an important piece to this puzzle is who she is. We scoured the internet for various obituraries for women named Ruth Price, and we found a few that interested us. To us, it sounds like Ruth has a tiny bit of a detectable accent. As we mentioned earlier, though the operator kind of sounds like she doesn't.

But this could have just been the times as well, not necessarily location. Because diction does change over time in general. You know, as we know from watching old movies, we're like, why do they talk like that? And I know a lot of people kind of put on a voice for sure, but we talk very different. As time has passed, people talk different. Yeah, and I think we actually, you and I actually talked about that like last week when we were watching a movie. Exactly, so it's definitely something to consider.

Right, so the first Ruth price that we have was born in 1908 and died in 1988, when this call is believed to have taken place. She died on September 1, 1988 at the age of 80 in Springfield, Missouri. Now it's possible that she lived alone because her husband Everett Price died in 1951 at the age of 45. But in a newspaper article, it stated that Ruth, who was a homemaker, died the morning of Thursday September 1, 1988, and Cox Medical Center

North right there in Springfield after, quote, a long illness. So although the name matches up and the time could be spot on, her cause of death was in fact an illness. And as we go through this, you know, we have to remember that Ruth price isn't a terribly uncommon name. So this is, you know, kind of a needle in a haystack situation. And by the way, currently, for reference, there are allegedly 799 people living in the US today with the name Ruth price. So there's that.

Wow. That's a lot of Ruth prices out there. I came across so many freaking obituaries, but there are a handful that stand out on Reddit, that stand out everywhere, and as I search far and wide, and I agree, these are the ones that come closest. So let's continue. So we only have a couple more anyway, by the way.

The next Ruth price was born on May 26th, 1919 in Petty County, Ohio, and she died on December 15th, 2002 at the age of 83 in Zayn'sville, Ohio. So to this day, her fine degrave does not list any sort of spouse, and she's actually buried next to her sister, so I don't know if she ever married. But all of her listed siblings, there's five of them, died well before her as well as her parents, so this could connect to the whole living alone thing. But the obvious thing here is that she died in 2002 when this call is believed to have occurred, again, if it's real, in 1988. But there's no record of this call surfacing on the internet until 2002.

So the very same year, unless it surfaced in 1999 or 2000, which is super freaking unclear. So essentially it's possible that this call could have occurred in 2002. Right, absolutely, in my opinion at least. However, the Times recorder and Zane's Villeux-Hio in their obituary section of the paper just two days after her death, so they stated that she died at 11.20pm at the Adam's Lane Care Center. So it doesn't state how she died, but we can kind of assume that this wasn't the Ruth from the call,

because if she had indeed died on the call, they likely would have mentioned something about it in their three freaking paragraph obituary. You know, they highlighted her schooling and her employment. You know, I can only assume that if she had died a tragic death, they probably would have mentioned that. Not that her death wasn't tragic anyway, but you know what I mean, if it had been something very brutal, like a murder, I'm sure they would have said that. Another Ruth price that comes up on various Reddit threads and other forums is one from Florida.

And the one we've found died on January 29th, 1994 at the age of 76. But she died at her daughter's home in O'Cala, Florida. No mention of cause of death here, but it doesn't seem like this would have been her either. Now let's discuss the one Ruth price that we actually think really could have been the Ruth price. The biggest piece to this puzzle other than the name Ruth Price is the street number that she was able to provide before being cut off by the operator, 3877. But she wasn't able to state her street name, and as we know, this call has no concrete origin. But there is a woman named Ruth Price, who once resided at a 3877 house.

Ruth Mildred Price. Born Ruth Mildred's star was born on December 7, 1913 in Colorado to parents Josie Eglier star and Thomas star, which would put her in her late 70s when this calls believed to have taken place. Sadly, we know that she did marry into the Price family, but there's no information anywhere that we could find in newspapers or on the internet that state who her husband was and if they were still together or if he was alive when this call would have occurred, you know, to confirm the whole living alone thing. There's actually no information at all in her obituary by the way that names any names

of actual family members except for her parents who were born in the late 1800s. So onto her death date. Ruth Mildrid Price of San Diego, California died on May 13, 1994, which is six years after the call supposedly took place. So this leads us to two possibilities. Either Ruth Price did not become fatally injured and possibly wasn't even attacked and maybe was just frightened by the man, or the call actually took place in 1994 and she was fatally injured. So her obituary does not state a cause of death and we weren't able to find, you know, what it was in the newspapers, actually didn't find anything about her in the newspapers. And obviously the third possibility that I didn't mention

is that this woman is not the woman from the phone call. But I just feel like what are the chances a Ruth Price, who was an older woman, lived at a 3877 address at the same time that this call took place. Because in 1988, this Ruth Price was living at a 3877 address. I mean, it's really hard for me to not connect these dots like they're there.

I fully agree, and something else as well is since, you know, we really don't know how Ruth died or this Ruth price died. Or when for sure this call took place, it is potentially possible that it took place in 1994. So we know for sure that one person who used to work as a 911 operator in the 1990s claims that they were told during training that the call took place in 1988 and that they heard the call in the early 1990s. So not to discredit this person at all, but we can't really base this whole story off of what one person remembers, you know, although their timeline could absolutely be correct.

According to TruePeopleSearch.com, this very Ruth price lived at 3877, 35th Street in San Diego, California, so there's the full 3877 address. According to Redfin.com, this home was last sold on March 17, 1986, for $79,000, meaning it hasn't sold since Ruth has passed, but looking at the Google Street Maps at the home, it honestly kind of looks abandoned and so does the house right next to it. Like the windows just kind of look boarded up and it looks a bit torn up. The house next to it that also looks abandoned has a lot of visual damage to the exterior of the home, but it has two private property signs posted on it. On the other side, Ruth's old house is directly next to a 7-Eleven convenience store on the

corner of University in 35th, and before that it was a grocery store called The Marketplace. Her house is also described as a two bedroom, two bath, but also a multi-family home. So not only can we not be sure if Ruth owned the home, but it's unclear if the home is split into two apartments. We do know that Ruth had mentioned the guy at the door was looking for an apartment, and we also know Ruth said, I have an apartment in the back. Does that mean that her apartment was in the back or that she also had an apartment in the back of her home

that she owned? It's kind of unclear here, you know? Yeah, and just kind of going off also what you were saying about what the houses look like today. It's hard because we don't know what they looked like back in that day. We don't know if this was like a safe street.

So it's really hard to say, but we can kind of just tell you guys what it looks like now. So also another side note, it's really interesting because back in 2015, the house next door seemingly took like a nose dive between February of 2015 and April of 2017. Like, it was freshly painted and intact for years. And then suddenly in 2017, it like seemingly burnt on the front roof area and the windows are all boarded up and there's graffiti all over it. And after this, Ruth's old house started to deteriorate as well.

So it just makes me wonder even more, you know, if this house hasn't sold since then, is the owner just renting it out or like, who lives there? I wish we had kind of more information as to whether or not there really was like an extra apartment in the back. Like, maybe it was being rented out to somebody else or we just don't have any of that information. Do you think it's interesting, though, that redfin.com said

it's a multi-family home and it's only two bedrooms? So that kind of leads me to believe that it's split So there's at least three ways to potentially find out if this very Ruth price is the woman behind the call and what happened So since we know where she last lived and we know the house hasn't sold since we can assume it may be stayed in the family If Ruth even owned it So if the family could be contacted and asked, you know, that could bring answers. And we're not in any way saying that any of us should do that because, you know, that's their home and that's their property and they deserve to live in peace. If someone even lives there, or, you know,

it could be abandoned. Or if someone else owns it and Ruth was just renting it, you know, they could likely know what happened to her during the call if this is the same Ruth price. But the ideal ways to find this out would be, you know, to see if there's any police reports that state, any assaults or break-ins at that address between 1988 and 1994 when Ruth passed. But I also want to mention that some believe that she moved somewhere else in San Diego in 1992, where she remained until her death in 1994, but the records on this are really not clear. So another way to figure this out is to access her death certificate and see where her cause

of death is. So all that being said, it is possible to find out if this woman is the same woman from the call. If this call even exists and this could bring us answers, but I don't really know how to accomplish any of this, so I just really want to know what you guys think. Is this call a hoax? Or did something really happen to a woman named Ruth Back in 1988. Thank you guys so much for listening to the 3 year Potiversary episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Let us know what you guys think, and we'll have an all new case in the new year for you

guys to dive into. Yes, I know this episode was so much speculation. I hope nobody's upset about that. We just want to do something different. This is so this whole episode was speculation and we know that. But isn't that kind of fun and interesting? I mean, this is one of the internet's most highly regarded phone call mysteries. So, you know, I'm really interested to hear what you guys think about this case. Yeah, I just thought it was something different to do, because now we do two episodes a week, we cover regular true crime all the time, and I just think that this was kind of a more,

quote unquote, fun angle, especially because we really don't know what happened here, if anything happened at all. So thank you guys so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Please comment on our social media posts and let us know what you think. Also, we hope everybody has a safe, happy, and healthy new year. And if you wanna leave us a nice review, that would be much appreciated. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world,

don't be a stranger and happy New Year! 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh Thank you. you