Going West: True Crime - UPDATE: SOLVED? Ruth Price 911 Call // 162 Part II

Episode Date: January 8, 2022

Last week, we broke down the ever-haunting Ruth Price 911 Call that has stumped the internet for nearly 20 years. But with new information, this mystery has finally been solved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime Vans, I'm your host Tee and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Surprise random episode here, thanks for tuning in. We are here because one of our listeners named Tess is a legend and we think that she cracked the Ruth Price 911 call. And we also got a ton of other responses on that episode and we had other people like sending some interesting information, which we will share here as well. So also a big shout out to Brittany and Amy. Yeah, definitely. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Tess. Thank you to Brittany and Amy. Yeah, definitely thank you guys so much, thank you Tess, thank you Brittany and Amy.

So we're gonna give you guys all the additional information that they found with their permission of course. But if you're listening to this and you have no idea what we're talking about, go listen to episode 162 of Going West on the Ruth Price 911 call. Or else, none of this is gonna make any sense. So alright guys, this is episode 162, part 2 of Going West. So let's get into it. So before going into this episode, we want to play that call again. And if you don't want to hear it, just fast forward one minute, but we'll play it again

right now. This is your Ruth Christ, a 3870 sort of apartment. I hope there's some guy been kicking the place out. Well, you went up and I went up and the apartment in the back and he said he was looking for a guy. He comes to my door. Yes. And, uh, said he's looking for an apartment.

So I'm going to, I live alone and I'm an already. I don't have no idea. So to kind of recap on our episode from a week ago on the Ruth Price 911 call, we came to a pretty concrete conclusion that the Ruth Price in the call was the one from San Diego who died in 1994 and lived at 3877 35th Street, which led us to believe that she did not die during the call, but instead was either just afraid or attacked and then she later died from something else. But we got so much feedback on this episode, because in the end of the episode we mentioned that maybe if we figured out who lived there, they could have some information on how Ruth Price died, and if the call actually included her death, or if it was something else.

So one of our wonderful listeners named Brittany, who is a realtor in Arizona, even though that she looked into the property owner of 3877-35th Street via tax records, and found that it's owned by the Oram Brothers LLC. And it's been exchanged within the family since at least 1998, which is after Ruth died, of course. But since other records state that the home was last sold in 1986, Britney's records could indicate that it stayed in that family, the Oram family, between 1986 and 1998 as well, and then up until today. So another listener named Amy found their tax records too, and sent us a bunch of information that also proved the Oram brothers own it.

Just meaning that it was not owned within Ruth's family, nor was it owned by Ruth, meaning she just likely rented. So in our last episode, we also mentioned that we found the home to be a multi-family home, and these records from Brittany and Amy also proved this, and it's actually a duplex. So Ruth sang in the call that she had an apartment in the back, that would make sense. Right. And I also want to mention, if you sent us something and we're not mentioning your name, like if you gave us some information after listening to the episode, it's probably because

we didn't see it because there's been so much feedback on this episode, but we appreciate you all the same. So let's get into the meat of this and you know what we would call the lowdown. So one of our listeners' tests, as we mentioned in the intro of this episode, Doug really deep and Ruth Mildred Price, who remember was born Ruth Mildred's Star after listening to our episode. And she used her ancestry.com account to uncover that Ruth went to Central High School in Pueblo, Colorado and later married a man named William Walter Price. So there's the husband's name that we couldn't find. They also had two daughters and Walter died in 1972, so this confirms that Ruth would

have lived alone. Now back to Amy for a second. So Amy sent us an obituary the other day via email for Ruth Mildred Price and this came from Obytsarchive.com. So it shows via the San Diego Union Tribune that on Tuesday, May 17, 1994, Ruth Price died quote after a long illness. We don't know what this illness is died, quote, after a long illness. We don't know what this illness is, but she died after a long one. Then it goes on to say, quote, she's survived by two daughters, Barbara Gray and Patricia

Mashburn, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Family requests contributions to gross-m Hospice, and lieu of flowers. The obituary that we found from ancientfaces.com that we discussed in last week's episode states this very same date and location so we can kind of confirm this, but it didn't include any other information regarding cause of death or family. So this is actually a really great find on Amy's part that really doesn't look like it's anywhere else online. Not even through ancestry or newspapers.com, so really good job, Amy.

And by the way, both Tess and Amy sent us a screenshot or a snapshot, whatever you want to call it, of Ruth's high school yearbook photo, which we posted on our socials in case you want to see. And also, I think it's interesting that it states that she passed after a long illness, because this is legit exactly what it says that Ruth Price of Springfield, Missouri, died from, in 1988, who we briefly discussed in last week's episode. You know, not that dying after a long illness is like rare later in life, but I just thought that was kind of interesting. So anyway, I didn't mention this in the last episode, but a few days before we recorded the Ruth Price episode I did reach out to the San Diego Police Department Eastern Division because Ruth Price of San Diego lived in the Eastern portion And I you know, I asked them if there were any records of an assault or a break in at 3877

35th Street in San Diego between 1986 and 1994. So I picked 1986 to give a little space between what we had originally believed with the correct year of the call, 1988, which spoiler alert, it's not. Yeah, no, it's not. But anyway, they were super nice and they emailed me back right away directing me to the records division, saying that they didn't know how they stored old police records, but that he knew that they were handwritten back then. So after transferring me via email, the police records clerk said, quote, sorry, no, we

do not have those reports anymore. Those reports have been purged when SDPD went to CRMS. The only reports records we have from that long ago are homicide, sex crimes, and child abuse. So this morning when we saw all of Tess's findings, I was gonna email them regarding 1980, which is the year that we're gonna be talking about here, but if they didn't have 1986 to 1994, they certainly will not have 1980.

Right. So sadly, there isn't any information from the very helpful San Diego Police Department, but Test pulled through. And before we get into that, by the way, I did also ask if there were any homicides at that address between those dates since they apparently have those records, but I never heard back. And this was right before New Year's, so it's understandable. So, Test checked out our episode last week on Ruth Price and began doing some digging, since her big time hobby is genealogy, and she's obviously pretty good at it as you'll see. So as we stated, she uncovered information about Ruth's family, and she also discovered

that Ruth lived at 3877 35th Street from at least 1973, right after her husband died, to the late 1980s. So in the last episode, we had said that we looked into old newspapers, thanks to newspapers.com, for anything regarding a Ruth Price in San Diego, California. But we didn't find anything at all, no matter what year range we looked in. Nothing matched up to this call. But when Tess was trying hard to find the obituary for Ruth Mildred Price, it wasn't coming up either. But after checking newspapers.com and finding no luck either, she started looking through

various archives for the San Diego Union Tribune. And that's when Tess hit a fucking gold mine. On Monday, November 3rd, 1980, so eight years before this call was widely thought to have taken place, the San Diego Union Tribune posted the following under their assaults column, quote, police are looking for a youth who tried to strangle a 76-year-old East San Diego woman yesterday. Officer said Ruth M. Price of the 3800 block of 35th Street was calling police to advise them of a prowler in the area when she was grabbed from behind and choked. She was able to break the attacker's grip after dropping the telephone, screaming, and pulling at the attacker's hands, the youth fled.

Price said she did not know why she was assaulted and had never seen the suspect before. Like holy shit, that is literally the call. This is literally the call. So this means that while Ruth was on the phone in this very real call people, not a 911 training call, a real F&C call, the man did attack her and choke her and that's why she was screaming.

Then she dropped the phone and the man fled after she fended him off. And this also means that Ruth would have called the police back to report what happened, which is something that we pondered in last week's episode. Exactly. We were wondering, you know, did she call police back or was she even able to if she was murdered, you know? I'm like, this is crazy. I can't believe that we now know exactly what happened. Thank you, Tess.

So let's listen to that call one more time with this information. This is your list price of 3870 for the Papa man. I told you there's some guy been kicking the place out. Well, you're in the apartment in the back and instead of looking for a guy, they come to my door. Yes. And steady, slow, looking for an apartment. So I'm going to hire a living loan, and I'm an already.

I'm pretty sure she kind of slows down. We can assume that this youth may be entered her home at this point and maybe she was thinking that she heard something. And then seconds later, when she starts screaming, it's because this guy came up behind her so suddenly, while she was on the phone with the 911 operator, and started choking her. So crazy to have this information

and be able to put all this together. So whoever said on Reddit that they had heard that this was from 1988 was actually wrong here. And obviously we're not trying to blame them or say that they were wrong since this is just basically what they were told. But this call probably took place on either Saturday, November 1st, or Sunday, November 2nd, since the newspaper article was posted on Monday morning of 1980. So it all seems pretty silly when you put it all together that we just did two episodes

on this random and seemingly wonderful lady who experienced a terrifying evening 14 years before she actually died. And this has been an internet mystery for nearly 20 years because of the fact that no one knew what exactly happened to this woman or if the call was real since her screams are so terrifying and you kind of just automatically assume the worst. But we can finally confirm here with the help of Tess, Brittany, Amy, and all of you that this call is real.

And thankfully, it did not cause the death of one Ruth price. Thank you guys so much for listening to this update episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this update. Yes, and thank you guys so much for everybody who shared and listened to the Ruth price episode. And everybody who commented, we got so many comments and so much feedback, whether you thought it was real or fake. Now we know, so I can't believe that this actually came to a conclusion so wild, so thank you guys so much. And also, I just have to say that I'm very thankful

that Ruth Price is a badass and she fought off this douchebag. I know, I'd so good to be able to hear her screaming, not good to hear it, but it's good to hear it and know that it was just like not like just just being choked, but I mean, like know that the guy left and she ended up being fine and lived another 14 years like, whew! Alright guys, thank you so much for listening, so for everybody out there in the world. Don't be a stranger. Thank you. you