True Crime All The Time - Margaret Rudin

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Margaret Rudin lived in fifteen different locations before she graduated high school. She married young and had children. By the 1980s, she was living in Las Vegas when she met and married Ron Rudin. It was the fifth marriage for both Ron and Margaret. But it was a rocky marriage filled with deceit and infidelity. Ron Rudin vanished just before Christmas in 1994, and when his body was found in a steamer trunk, the police zeroed in on his wife Margaret.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss "Black Widow" Margaret Rudin. She did a lot of strange things before and after her husband's death. She was definitely on police radar but they couldn't put enough evidence together to charge her. That changed when a diver found the murder weapon in a lake near Las Vegas. But, Margaret wasn't going to go quietly, she ran. It took authorities two years, and the help of America's Most Wanted, to track Margaret down. Even after her conviction, and recent release from prison, questions remain about what really happened to Ron Rudin and just exactly who was involved. You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 214 of the True Crime All The Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, what's going on? Hey man, how you doing? Good. I haven't seen you in like two weeks. I know. How about that? Does it been two weeks? I always have a hard time thinking time-wise. It's really been two weeks. It has been because we took last week off. Yeah. Which was nice. It was nice. It was a nice break. I didn't have to, you know, do any research or put anything out, edit. It was just very nice. My wife and I watched a ton of stuff. I was so happy not to edit. Yeah, because you do so much editing. Right. But you and I have already talked,

but we both had good holidays. And we're taping pretty early. So New Year's Eve is coming up. By the time this comes out, obviously, we'll be in the new year. Yeah. And I've already said it, man. I am looking forward to a really good 2021.

I am too. You know, getting back to whatever normal is going to be. And let's get it on. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, we're on our way up, whatever that song is. So let's give our shoutouts. We had Charlene Beck. Hey, Sharden.

Has a birthday this week. Oh, yeah. According to her husband. Jerica Havard. What's going on? Havar. Felicia Ferris. Hey, Felicia.

Yogi Sleuth jumped out of our highest life. I like that, man. Yogi. Melvin Rowe. What's going on, Melvin? Deborah Freestone. Hey, Deborah. Rindy Kern.

Hey, Randy. July Larson. Hey, thank you, July. Catherine, Lily. What's going on, Catherine? Mystic U. Hey, you. Jeremy Brown.

Hey, J.B. Bex Watts. What's going on, Bex? Hannah Hussein. Ooh, H.H. Chassity Codill. Hey, appreciate it, Chastity. She jumped out at our highest level.

Yeah. Jacqueline Applicano. Applicano. Sounds kind of interesting. Yep. Yep, we had Abby Johnson. Hey, Abby. Thor, Olov, Gunval Jor.

I don't know if it's the Thor. The Thor. Jumped out to our highest level, so we got that. That's cool. Matthew Walker. Hey, Matthew. Brian Vincent. What's going on, Brian?

Alana North. Hey, Alana. Rhonda Norris. Chuck Norris' niece. Terza Allen jumped out of the highest level. What's up, Terza? And Mike Giborino, Fergusamanda. Yeah, that's an amazing person right there.

It is. It's an amalgamation. of some stuff. Yeah, it is. Then we go back into the Volk Gibbs. This week, we selected Zoe Pearson. What's going on, Zoe?

So a big shout out to our new Patreon supporters and the people that continue to support us month after month. All amazing. We had some great PayPal donations from Richard Sims. What's going on, Richard? Jennifer Aylman. Hey, Jennifer. And some really big donations, Gibbs from both Pamela Mattson and Megan Pacifica.

Well, thank you, Pamela and Megan. Yeah, thanks to everyone. Right now, we have an episode out on True Crime All the Time Unsolved. We're talking about the 1987 Akron murder spree. Yeah, that was a crazy part of the end of 1987 when they had four murders. Yeah, four Unsolved murders. We'll get into all the details of the victims and all of that. All right, Gibby, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time?

I'm ready. For the first episode, episode of 2021. We're headed out to Las Vegas, Sin City. Play me some slots. You want to play some slots? And then go see Wayne Newton. Yeah. Just like Chevy. That's what I figure you would do. Yeah. We're talking about Margaret Ruden. So we've got a black widow situation here where a woman killed her husband gives. I think the media has got to come up with another term, more terms. I feel like they use that black widow for every woman who kills a husband. Yeah.

We can't get a little creative, expansive, inventive. Come on. Let's come up with our own term. Maybe we should. We should. Maybe I should have had one instead of railing about the fact that people don't have more. Well, I feel bad for Black Widow Spider because he's like, or she's like, why you keep using my name, man? In such a derogatory fashion.

Mm-hmm. Margaret was born in 1943 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Hollis and Eloise Frost. She has two younger sisters. The family moved around a lot before finally settling in Zion, Illinois. Many outlets reported that Margaret had lived in as many as 15 different places. It's a lot of moving. By the time she graduated high school, yeah. That is a ton of moving.

And this wasn't even, as far as I know, a military. family. You kind of hear a lot about, you know, the military family's moving quite a bit. Yeah. I think they were just moving around. Margaret married her first husband at the age of 18. And the marriage lasted about 10 years. The couple had two children. But after that marriage, Margaret married several more times, but those ended as well. She moved to Las Vegas sometime in the 1980s. And it's really there, right, in Las Vegas, where the story takes place. In 1987, Margaret met a man named Ron Rudin at the first church of religious science. Ron was a lot like you, Gibbs. He was a self-made millionaire, real estate developer in Vegas, who was described by many of his friends as

kind of a Johnny Cash type figure. Hello, I'm Johnny Cash. Yes, you are. He liked to dress all in black. He even liked all of his cars to be black. He was a gun guy. I think he was even a gun dealer on the side. And he routinely carried a 45 pistol and a holster on his side. And then he would tuck in like a small 22 in an ankle holster. Because you never know when you're down there tying your shoes.

Mm-hmm. That you might need that. Or somebody takes away your main gun, boom. That's right. You got to spare. Yeah, just lift your leg up and shoot. He served in the Korean War. Friends characterized Ron as a very generous person who was, like you, again, very frugal.

But in a good way. He was. And as you are too, right? I've known a lot of people like this. They have some money. Now, he had a lot of money, but they're very judicious about spending it. I'm trying to use as many euphemisms as I can. I notice that.

In talking about you. right frugal judicious with your money yeah we've we've said some other more derogatory terms about you so i'm trying to be i see that i appreciate that you know upbeat about this is a change for the new year maybe okay we'll see so you know they don't like to spend their money but at the same time very quick to help out others in need and that's why i made the comparison i mean that's that's that's kind of the way you are you're a no frills guy you don't like to to open your wallet and buy a bunch of stuff that you don't need. I don't even bring my wallet in certain places just so I can't even open it if I had to.

You don't like to open your wallet for things you do need, but you are very quick to help other people. And that's why I'm making that connection. It's not a bad way to be, you know, if you ask me. So Margaret and Ron fell pretty hard for each other because in the fall of 1987, really within months of meeting, they were married. This was a whirlwind romance. It happened very quickly.

It was marriage number five for both of them. So they had been married, what, four times previously? Obviously, they're searching for something. Or they were people that weren't easy to get along with or they were bad pickers. I mean, you could look at or talk about a number of different scenarios for why you would be married four or five times. I think eventually you just have to kind of come to the realization that you should probably just not get married, be alone.

See, and I think there's a lot of people that can't do that. They don't want to be alone. And so, you know, yeah, one didn't work out. Two didn't work out. Three, four didn't work out. Number five is going to work out. And if it doesn't, number six will work out. You know, there's people that just think that way.

I think after the third, maybe you got to start. Wow, you might question yourself. I get it, but I do think there's a lot of people that will not give up on finding their soulmate. My grandma, my one grandma, four times, my aunt five times. Yeah. You know, but there's a lot of people like that. Yeah. But they're both, you know, well, my grandma passed away since then, but she passed away single and my aunt's single now too.

So that's where you come up with your, at some point, you just, you have to give it up, you have to say, all right, this is not going to work. I quit chasing. Margaret would have been about 43, 44. Ron was about 57. So you're talking 13, 14 year age gap. And, you know, I mentioned the fact that they'd both been married a number of times. One of the things that's important because it does come up later in the story is one of Ron's wives, I believe his third wife, killed herself.

Years, obviously years prior to this marriage. but as in quite a few of the cases we talk about this marriage was a little rocky they fought it sounds like to me quite a bit several outlets reported that friends said margaret once fired a gun at wrong now she missed in the in the heat of an argument yeah now my wife and i have our share of dustups but when you whip out a firearm during one you know you've definitely crossed the line in my book it's kind of reminds me of good fellows when she's on top of that bed with a gun in his face and he has to talk her out of it. Yeah, I remember that scene. She had some reasons to pull a gun. I mean, I just, I got the sense that these were just kind of arguments and she was just like, hey, yeah, I'm whipping out my gun,

taking a shot. It's a way to spice up the relationship. Well, I think it was spicy. I don't, I don't think there's any doubt about that. I just don't know how you can go all wide Earp on your spouse or your significant other every time you disagree. And I don't know how you recover from that too. Like, oh, just that was silly. Don't worry. We're good. Let's watch Family Feud. Let's put that behind us. I don't know where you go from there. I'll turn my back on you. I don't feel like you're going to shoot me or stab me as soon as I walk away at all. To me, it seems like a recipe for the quick deterioration of a relationship. But it must have worked on some level because they stayed together even through what I think was a pretty good amount of fighting.

There were separations over the years and they did talk about divorce on a number of occasions. So I mentioned it, right? Ron a multi-millionaire. He owned a strip mall where he had his realty office. Margaret developed an antique store in the same strip mall. and then the home that they lived in was right behind the strip mall. Convenient. Very convenient. So as the years went on, the tension and the marriage kept building in 1991.

Ron told Margaret that she wasn't allowed in his realty office before 5 p.m. anymore because she got in a fight with some of his employees. I guess Ron had a phone line in his office that was somehow shared with the house. right, because it was so close. It was like a shared phone line. He found out that Margaret was eavesdropping on his conversations. So he had the line removed. Well, Margaret wasn't happy about that. I guess she was big on listening in on his conversations. So she asked her sister to help her. And I think together they bugged Ron's office. So that she could continue to, to listen in. Back then, that would a little bit more difficult.

Today, it's easy. I mean, I bugged this studio, man, years ago. You've bugged a lot of things. I have. And a lot of people. And a lot of people, but, yeah. Yeah, I don't know about the early 1990s and, you know, obviously the availability of those type of electronics is not the same as it is today, for sure.

I mean, everything's super small. You can get your hands on just about anything. You can. There's little cameras that go in teddy bears. alarm clocks. You'd be surprised how good the quality is on those little tiny, tiny little cameras that hardly anybody can tell that's in a room. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not sure why you're giving a lot of your secrets away, but. Well, you know. People see it on the news one day anyway. They will. It'll come out. But I already said the marriage was deteriorating, right? And how could it not be after some of the things we talked about?

I think Ron started to get a little wary, Giz, because it was around this time that he updated his will to read that if he died by violent means, the trustees of his estate were to take extraordinary measures to investigate the cause of his death. Wow. Kind of paranoid, isn't he? I would think so. Now, maybe for good reason. this new update also said that any beneficiary who caused his death was not to receive any assets from his estate. Well, I don't know.

To me, that seems like it should just be a given. I wouldn't think you'd be like, well, let's reward them for killing me. Yeah. But who do you really think he was referring to here? I think we both believe, I mean, his wife. Yeah. I think he's referring to Margaret. You know, she was set to receive, I think, 60% of.

his estate, which I've seen valued somewhere in the ballpark of $10 million. That's a nice little payday for her, $6 million. She'd be the $6 million woman. She would be. Now, one of Ron's employees later told police that Ron had talked about cutting Margaret out of his will completely. So, you know, you think about it Gibbs. If she has all these listening devices in his office, he's having these conversations with

one of his employees. And she hears that she's about ready to get cut out. Yeah. That's a motive for sure. How unhappy did they have to be to go through all this, right? She didn't trust him. He didn't trust her. Yet they're staying together, probably because of the money.

Yeah, I think there were a number of reasons. I mean, I think for sure she's staying because of the money. Yeah. Because they must have had a pre-up. I couldn't find it for sure. but there was a lot of talk about if they were to get a divorce, she wouldn't get anything. So obviously there must have been some type of pre-nup in place. Right.

Now, I did read some things about Ron, like him telling his friends that, hey, look, I've already been married not four times. This is a fifth time. Yeah. I'm not looking anymore. I got to make this work. Right. So I know some of his friends later came out and said that. that his mindset was kind of in that area.

Yeah. The, yeah, things aren't perfect, but I'm not looking for number six. The other thing that Margaret learned as a result of, you know, this kind of wire bugging, wiring, whatever you want to call it, was that in 1994, Ron was having an affair with a woman who used to work for him. So, I mean, I think with everything we're talking about, not too hard to see where this thing is headed. Yeah. And it's not going to be good. Ron Rudin disappeared on December 18th, 1994, which was a Sunday. He didn't show up the next day in the morning to open his office.

And that was something he did every, you know, weekday. Like clockwork. Like clockwork. His employees tried to reach out to him at home. They got no answer. The next day. So this was Tuesday, December 20th. Some of his employees went to police to say, say, hey, we don't know where our boss is. He's missing. But you know who had not gone to police? Well, yeah, his wife. Yeah, his wife had not filed a missing persons report.

So police called her to say, hey, you know, these people are down here. They want to file a missing persons report. She says, no, I'll come today and I'll file one. And she did, but it was two days after that anybody had seen him. So. A little delay there. Yeah, delay doesn't make you as the spouse look great if you're waiting two days to file the report. In the days that followed Ron's disappearance, Margaret gained entry into his office,

as she said, to get some important papers, which you could see, I mean, I think you can make an argument that if somebody goes missing, a spouse would need certain things. Sure. To move forward. Right. She hired a person to clean up some stains. in the home that she shared with Ron. And obviously, police interviewed her.

Of course, she said she didn't know what happened to Ron. They did a quick search of the home and they didn't see anything unusual. This will crop up later. But I think quick is the key word here because there was plenty in that house to find. But they just glossed over everything. Well, I think, yeah, if you're doing like a cursory search for a person, I don't think they were in. We're looking for forensic evidence mode.

More of a welfare check. Yeah. That's the way that I took it because there were things I think they should have or could have easily seen if they would have done like a really thorough search. Ron's car was found on December 23rd in an alley behind the crazy horse two saloon in Las Vegas. One of your favorite places. Yeah. Yeah.

It's actually a toppless dance. club, I think. So, or so I've been told. You get the VIP card, so. So police are working the disappearance case of Ron Rood. And I'm sure they had to be looking at Margaret to some degree. That's pretty natural in a case like this. But it's still a disappearance.

And they don't really know if there's foul play. So I don't really know how hard they were looking at her. Now, the disappearance case ended and a murder case began when, And Ron's remains were found by fishermen on January 21st, 1995 near Lake Mojave, which is about 45 miles from Vegas. And this was a pretty gruesome find. They were only able to identify Ron through dental records and a very distinctive bracelet inscribed with the name Ron that was found at the scene. He was decapitated and set on fire.

Brutal. Very brutal. So basically what they found was his skull. They found some bone fragments. But thank goodness they had the skull because then they can determine how he was murdered. Yes. Yeah. He was shot several times in the head.

Ultimately, I think they ruled it was a 22. But along with Ron's remains, they found what was left of and one of those old kind of large steamer trunks. Yeah. And that had been burned as well. So as if the body was placed in there? Yes. You know, I have one of those steamer trunks. You mean you had one before you used it?

I can't really say that on... Because you jumped... You jumped very quickly to the fact that the body was found in the steamer trunk. Yeah, I'm just saying, I have one. Yeah, I think they're pretty cool. I've never had one, though. Now, when investigators interviewed Margaret's sister, she said she had seen a similar trunk in the antique store years ago, but hadn't seen it in a while. Authorities tracked down an antiques dealer who verified

that he sold the trunk to Margaret Rudin in 1994. Things were heating up. Heating up and definitely enough to get a search warrant, right, for the Rudin home. Inside the master bedroom, they found some minute blood spatter in various locations. But this goes back to when they did the cursory search, because by this time, the master bedroom had been completely redone. Yeah. At Margaret Rudin's direction, she had replaced nearly everything and basically turned the bedroom into, uh, into an office. But police were able to track down the bed that had been dumped in an alley and they found

some blood on that. So, you know, it's not looking good, right, for Margaret Rudin. No, not at all. And she had to have known. that police were most likely going to find something inside that house. Police actually saw her drive by the house while they were doing their searches. So they followed her. She spent some time at the home of Yehuda Sharon.

This is a man who many have called her boyfriend, friend, but a lot of people have said boyfriend. Police were still surveilling her. When the two left headed towards California, when they crossed the state line, police in Los Angeles were called. They picked up their surveillance. And I think within a day or two, they saw Margaret go to the airport and she took off on a flight to St. Louis, Missouri. Now, I don't know what police really could have done to stop her from taking off.

If anything. They didn't at that point have enough evidence to arrest her. I know that because they came out in papers and said it. in 1996 Ron's heirs filed a civil suit against Margaret basically trying to prove that she had something to do with his death. Well, probably didn't want her to get her hands on that $6 million. Yeah,

because she was trying to. They were fighting her. She eventually settled with the trustees of his estate for, I think, around half a million. That's a great win for the estate. It is, but when it comes to $6 million,

Right. It's still a hell of a lot of money to get your hands on if you're getting it as the result of killing someone. Exactly. Yeah, she shouldn't have got anything. Right. Yeah. But at the time, they didn't know that, right? They're still investigating trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

And at that point, there just wasn't enough pieces to show that she had something to do with it. But then on July 21st, 1919. A scuba diver found a 22 caliber Ruger handgun in the water at Lake Mead in Nevada. The gun was wrapped up in a whole bunch of plastic bags. Basically, one around the other, right? Plastic bag after plastic bag. It was kind of sealed up using a bunch of rubber bands. Actually, it was kind of stupid of whoever threw that gun in there.

It really was because you're helping to print. preserved the gun. Yeah. If you just tossed it in as it was over time, you know, it's going to rust. The corrosion and all that. It was sealed up pretty good. The gun had a silencer attached. And eventually they traced the gun back to Ron Rudin. It was his gun, but he had reported it stolen in 1988. At the time, he stated that he thought his wife Margaret had taken the gun when they were on the verge of divorcing. So I think she was packing up her stuff and she took it. So to me, that tells you something right there. Yeah. They were married in the fall of 1987. Ron is saying they were on the verge of divorce in 1988. Not a good relationship. No, no. But, you know, now the authorities have this

gun that they believe to be the murder weapon. They know it ties back to Ron and possibly Margaret. Yes, and possibly Margaret. So Margaret Ruden was indicted for the murder of her husband in April of 1997. She was also indicted on a charge of unauthorized intrusion of privacy by a listening device. So basically, she was charged for bugging her husband's office. You can get around that a little bit better today. I'll tell you later. After the podcast, I got you.

Police ran into a big problem, though. Margaret had fled about three weeks before the indictment. She got a little heads up. She either got a heads up or she was smart enough to see the writing on the wall. And she said, you know what? This is not going to turn out well for me. I better get the heck out of Dodge. And that's what she did.

She went on the run in the summer of 1997, America's most wanted featured Rudin's case. They featured it again in 1999. So basically for two years, Margaret was on the run. She spent time in Mexico and she did what people on the run do. She changed her looks, went by fake names, moved around a lot. She kind of Jason borne it. Yeah. Well, no doubt she didn't want to be found.

No, I agree. I think that part is very obvious. She was reportedly in custody in Phoenix in 1998, but they left. let her go because they didn't either didn't know who she was couldn't confirm who she was. And it really was a tip from the last America's most wanted segment that did her in. The tip said she was in Revere, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. And that's where they found her. They arrested her in a small apartment that she was sharing with the 61 year old firefighter

that she had met while on the run in Mexico. Hmm. This is a woman that did not have trouble meeting men, but I thought the way that they arrested her was pretty interesting. They had a police officer pose as a Domino's pizza delivery driver. So they went to the Domino's. They got an outfit. They got, you know, like one of those things for the top of the car.

They even got like a box. I got one of those too. Just for emergencies. Just to see what would happen. Yeah. I'll make like my own pizza at home. and put it in the box and they'll deliver it randomly and to somebody they always seem surprised most people are yeah if you didn't order a pizza yeah but they still pay me for it well i wonder i wouldn't pay for it but i wonder

what the number is of people that would actually accept it if you just kind of rang the doorbell and handed them a box of pizza would they be like i didn't order it but i'm gonna take it anyway i think it would surprise you on how many would yeah yeah i just thought that was interesting that they posed as a a a domino's delivery driver to gain entry into the home. So they got her. They know it's her. They arrest her. But Margaret Rudin,

she wasn't going to go back to Nevada to face the music so easily. You know, she vehemently denied killing her husband. She fought extradition for months. And it wasn't until March of 2000 that they got her back to face her charges. Rudin was arraigned on March 31st, 2000. And she pleaded not guilty to all counts. Her trial began on March 2nd, 2001.

And this is a case Gibbs or an episode where we're a little heavier on the trial, I think, than some. Yeah. You know, the prosecution's case was based on a lot of circumstantial evidence. They didn't have anybody who had seen Margaret Rudin kill her husband. They didn't have anybody who had seen her take the body, burn the body. Didn't have anything like that. Now, they had over 70 witnesses lined up to testify.

The prosecution contended that Margaret Rudin or an accomplice, and I think this is a very interesting aspect of this case, right? This accomplice theory, always unknown. There is, there is a person that people speculate. late that it could have been. But they thought, you know, Margaret and an accomplice shot and killed Ron Rudin while he slept in the master bedroom. He was then stuffed into an antique steamer trunk, which was taken out to the desert and set on fire. And I mentioned it. He was decapitated. It would be a lot for just her to do. Well, yeah, because Ron Rudin was about 220 pounds. And Margaret was,

was pretty small. She was not a big person at all. She was kind of tiny, really, even. A lot of reports called her diminutive. Really? Yeah. Interesting choice of word. Yeah, it's kind of descriptive, right?

If you think of someone that is diminutive, small, maybe frail, not somebody that you're thinking is going to be able to handle a 220 pound human that, as you've often said is literally dead weight right and that is a much different type of lifting experience unless you're ant man if you're ant man you can handle it well sure well if you're a marvel character any of them i think can handle that they all have that uh strength but i think you hit it right i think that's where the there had to have been an accomplice theory comes in the thought is she just could not have done all of this by herself. Prosecutor said that their marriage was about ready to implode and we've already talked about it. Margaret stood to lose a lot of money, about $6 million if the

couple divorced. Now, one of the big things brought up at trial was the gun. Prosecutors introduced the fact that Ron had reported stolen and they actually had a letter that he had written to the ATF in which he claimed his wife had taken it. Pretty compelling. Yeah, this wasn't just him telling a friend, oh, I think my wife stole that gun. He actually sat down and took the time to write into the ATF that he thought his wife had done it. The prosecution pointed out that the rudens had a high-end state-of-the-art security system. You know, I think they parlayed that into, there was only two people.

who had access to that gun, they introduced ballistic evidence that it was the gun used to kill Ron Rudin. And they introduced forensic evidence that they said proved Ron was shot in his bedroom. Again, more compelling evidence, right? Yes. You got who could have had the gun, where he was shot. But again, it's all circumstantial. Oh, sure.

None of that on its face proves that Margaret Rudin pulled the tree. trigger or that she hired someone. It doesn't prove any of that. A police detective testified that Margaret showed no emotion when he informed her that they had found her husband's remains. He also said Gibbs, she didn't ask a single question, which would be bizarre. I think after your initial shock, you would have all kind of questions. Even as simple as how did he die, do you think he suffered. I mean, you can think of a lot of questions that maybe a grieving spouse might want to know right off the bat. Can I see him? Sure. All that stuff. But not a single question, I think, kind of leads investigators to think, well, you're not asking questions because you already know the

answers. Augustine Levato, the handyman that Margaret hired after her husband went missing, testified. He said that she had hired him to clean up some stains that he thought looked and smelled like blood. And then later she hired him to redo the master bedroom. He took out everything, the bed, the bed frame. He cut out a large piece of carpet underneath the bed that he thought appeared to have blood on it. Yeah. He took everything and he kind of dumped, I don't know, everything. He took some of the stuff and dumped it in an alley because I already mentioned it, right?

Police later found, I think at least the bed spring, maybe even the mattress. But he also said that he saw what he thought was blood spatter on the walls and on a portrait of Margaret that hung over the bed. Gibbs at one point, the prosecutor asked him to describe the smell in the room. And he said, it smelled pretty rank in there. like when my dogs in Arizona have been chewing on rabbits. Wow. So fleshy. Pretty descriptive.

Yeah. To me, the key to this guy's testimony is that he's describing things that happened before Margaret even knew that Ron was dead. Right. So think about it. You're going to transform your master bedroom into an office while your husband is missing. And then what? If he shows back up, you're going to say, surprise.

Hope you like what I did with our bedroom. Right. This was our master bedroom and now we don't have one. Definitely doesn't make sense. It doesn't. And it's not going to make sense to a jury. Margaret's a strange sister, Donna Cantrell Robinson, testified for the prosecution that she helped Margaret bug Ron's office.

She said that Margaret was furious when she found out. Ron was cheating. She was worried about losing out on her share of the money. So it was all about the money. Yeah, to her, I think it was. But it's definitely establishing a motive. Right. There's no doubt about that. Right. She also testified that she had seen a trunk in the antique store that looked like the one Ron's remains had been found in. She told the jury, her sister had asked her how Ron could be killed and the house could be cleaned in a way where no one would know what happened to him. Well, that's compelling. That's pretty damaging. She also said she saw red stains in the home after Ron disappeared. So I think you look at the

testimony of those two people, the handyman and Margaret's sister. Both of them had to be very damaging to Margaret. It's not looking good for her at all. No, no. The prosecution called Ron's attorney to the stand who told jurors that Ron had expressed concerns to her that Margaret might kill him for money. Again, not good.

No, very specific too. I think my wife might kill me for my money. To get her hands on money. Not a friend, not, he's telling this to his attorney. And then you had Mark, Margaret's friend, possibly boyfriend, Yehuda Sharon. He took the stand. Now, he was given immunity by the prosecution.

My thinking gives is that they must have felt as though he could have been the accomplice that helped Margaret murder Ron. Well, we said she probably needed some type of help. Yeah, we mentioned it, right. Ron weighed about 220. So I think police knew she had help. They probably doubted she could have put his body in the trunk. and disposed of it all by herself.

But Sharon never admitted that he played a part in Ron's death or that he helped Margaret dispose of Ron's body. He did testify that he rented a van on December 19th and returned it on the 23rd with 348 miles on. There was some reporting that he had asked for the backseat to be removed. So you know that the authorities believe this van. was used to transport the body. Sure. And the trunk, but he never admitted to it.

They even had some people from the rental car agency confirmed the mileage and the timing and all that. I guess the thing that jumped out at me on this one, Gibbs, is they must have thought he was going to incriminate Margaret and possibly himself. Why else would they have given him immunity? It'd be the only reason why, right? Yeah. I'm thinking he got up there and didn't say the things that they thought he was going to say.

Yeah, I think they were hoping for a little bit more out of his mouth than what occurred. Because he could have and they wouldn't have been able to do anything to him. But he also could have figured, hey, they don't have anything on me or else they would have charged me. Why help him out? Why help him out? Why open my mouth and make myself look bad, which obviously you would. you wouldn't go to jail, but everybody's going to know that you're either a killer or you're part of it. Margaret's defense team said that Ron was into a lot of shady business deals.

And it was one of these shady business associates who murdered him. And then they tried to frame the murder on Margaret Rood. They brought an expert forensic witness who argued against the state's assertion that the evidence all shows. Ron was killed in his bedroom. But the defense had to tackle the issue of Margaret running before she was indicted. And they tried to do so by claiming that she went to visit a daughter in Illinois at first. She had no idea that she was about to be charged. Then, you know, Gibbs as you do, she just meandered about, went to different countries, changed her appearance, multiple times, changed her name.

Because that's what people do. Sure. Yeah. It's just a normal, a normal vacation time. But they got to do something. They got to say something, right? Exactly. Because the jury knows that this woman fled.

They, they've got to try to put some spin on it. And the way that they did it was to say that Margaret was afraid that her husband's killers would come after her. They tried to show the jury that the police work into Ron's murder had been shoddy. Police had no records that they interviewed people at the bar. where Ron's car was found. They tried to impeach the testimony of both the handyman and Margaret's sister.

Levato was a convicted felon. So obviously they wanted to point that out. He was also set to collect about $25,000 from the trustees of Ron's estate if Margaret was convicted. Hmm. So there was something about, hey, if you. provide evidence or clues that lead to solving the murder of Ron Rudin, you get money.

There's your reward. Now, he would say he didn't know anything about that when he came forward to police. It was, it was kind of a very big deal that was made about because on the stand, I think he said, hey, I'm not getting anything for testify, which was true as it pertained to the state. They weren't offering him anything. But the estate. Yes, but he didn't say, well, I could get $25,000.

Which you're on trial for your life. You know, if you're on trial to stay out of prison, whatever it is, you want the jury to know that there could be an incentive for this person to say what he's saying on the stand. Yeah, I think you want the jury to know that. Yeah. And then it's up to them to make of it what they will. The defense said that Donna was bitter because Margaret had kicked her out of her house. They also tried to put in the mind of the jury that any blood found in the master bedroom could have come from Ron's third wife. I mentioned it.

She shot herself in that bedroom. But it was many years prior to this incident. They also brought on a witness who said, said Ron was prone to these bloody sneezing attacks. Oh, that's terrible when that happens. You know, I know I covered this whole wall here that one year. I know. I had to repaint the whole wall.

Yeah. So they said, well, that could explain the blood spatter, right? He sneezes. The blood goes everywhere. It's Ron's blood. That's the reason why you found it. I think the droplet sizes are quite different in that manner. You would think so.

So the defense did what they could. But Margaret's lead defense attorney came under a lot of fire. Gibbs, you read this guy's opening statement. It's like nothing I've ever read, nothing I've ever heard. It was like this rambling diatribe. He was admonished by the judge a whole bunch of times. At one point in the trial, Rudin said she didn't feel as though her attorney was competent.

And this was like a two week long thing. they had to shut down the trial. The judge was weighing whether or not to, you know, consider a mistrial. I don't think the judge felt her defense attorney was competent either. Yeah, I don't believe so. And her attorney even came out and said to the judge that he really hadn't had time to prepare properly and that he would fall on his sword if there was a mistrial and say, hey, I didn't do a very good job.

Yeah. But it was really strange, the things that, you know, the attorney did, the things that he didn't do. But mostly that opening statement talked about himself as a kid. It was just weird. Like it had nothing to do with why she was on trial, what they were going to present, why the state's case didn't make sense. It was strange.

very strange. It's almost as if you have no legal training at all. It's almost like I was there representing. But the judge considered it and he allowed the trial to go on, something that, you know, all of this is going to come up on appeal later. The handyman in the $25,000, her attorney. The defense did bring on a witness named Gene Nakashima who testified that she was with Margaret at the antique store for about four hours on the night of the 18th. Now, she really couldn't provide an alibi, though, because police didn't know exactly when the shooting took place. So it was interesting testimony, but it didn't really prove anything. Margaret Rudin never took the stand. On May 2nd, 2001, after 38 days of trial, about 25 hours of

deliberation. The jury returned a verdict against Margaret Rudin, guilty on both counts. But after the trial ended, a female juror came out to the media and said she was the loan holdout for acquittal, but she was pressured by the other jurors and she eventually gave in. And I mean, I guess pressured is kind of a euphemism. This woman said that they called her names, they called her stupid. Really, really kind of being bullies about it. Yeah, they were, they were bullying her. So it was much more than pressure in the sense of, hey, you know she's guilty. You should be voting guilty. They kind of forced her, according to her, into changing her vote, something else that would come up on later appeals. Right after the trial, but before she was

sentenced. Margaret filed a motion for a new trial. She blamed her lead defense attorney. She said he was on drugs. He grossly mishandled her defense. And I'm not so sure he didn't. Also, she made a big deal about saying that he had tried to secure the media rights to her story. That comes up in a lot of cases we do. It really does. But it's not normally your attorney trying to do it as the case is going on. In August, the judge ruled against Rudin's motion. So in September, she was finally sentenced. She received one year in prison on the unauthorized listening device conviction and life in prison with the possibility of parole on the murder conviction.

Margaret Rudin tried unsuccessfully through a number of different courts over the years to get a new trial. But just this year, on January 10th, Margaret Rudin and. at the age of 76 was released from prison. She served around 19 years in prison Gibbs after her conviction. Yeah. I'm not sure how much time she spent in jail before that, before her trial actually,

you know, happened. Her attorney called it a happy day for Margaret Rudin and her family, but he said that Margaret was innocent. And he planned to ask a federal judge to order a new trial to clear her of the conviction. Because if she's not cleared, that conviction will keep her on parole for the rest of her life. But she's 76. Yeah, she is 76 years old. Yeah. She continues to maintain her innocence and she blames her guilty verdict mainly on the authorities saying they lied during her trial. I think for

Margaret, you know, some of the things that I read is, okay, yeah, I'm out. Right. I'm 76 years. old, sure, but I'm a convicted felon. Yeah. You know, I can't vote. I can't do this. I can't leave the country. I can't, you know, do all of these things that I could do before I was convicted. Isn't she the one that coined the phrase what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? Yeah, I think that's older than this case, but boy, it kind of fits here, right? Right. So Gibbs, as we wrap up this episode, it is somewhat of a strange case. I mean, there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Right.

I think that points to the guilt of Margaret Ruden. But there are still some questions that I think a lot of people have. You know, number one, where's the smoking gun? That one thing that kind of proves beyond a reasonable doubt that she did it. Yeah. You know, for me, it's who was this a? accomplice. Or if not, how'd she do this by herself? I think it'd be hard for her to do it by herself, but not impossible. No, not impossible. Not impossible. I think it's implausible to the police.

Yeah. And that's why they think most likely she had an accomplice. Now, even if she did and that person pulled the trigger, it would have been at her urging. Sure. She would still be the reason behind. the murder. Right. And would be just as guilty. Just as guilty as anybody else. But to me, those are still kind of lingering questions. And I don't know if they'll be answered. She has hinted about writing a book. Yeah. Which technically she can. Right. Now she's free. I don't know how that, that law kind of works after you're out. Can you still then profit? off of the crime that you committed once you're out and paroled? I wonder if you write about your life and that's mixed into that maybe.

I just don't know if you can just write about the specific crime and benefit off of it. I don't know. What if she was to, you know, name her accomplice or, I mean, what else can they do to her? She's already served her time for that. Yeah. She could do a tell all and really lay it all out there. I don't think she would do it that way because she has maintained her innocence the whole time. That would be such a reversal of everything that she has said.

Yeah. I think if you're in a camp that believes she didn't do it, which I don't know how many people would be, but there might be some people in that camp. Then you really have to work hard to explain all of these different things. Yeah. You know, these, these things that all kind of add up to point towards her. You know, we talked about the money. It was a lot of money. It was a lot of money.

It was a big motivation for wanting Ron Rudin out of the picture. Okay. Is it possible that he was into some shady stuff and somebody killed him? Sure. Anything's possible. Yeah. But then you do have to explain all of the actions by Margaret. grit rootin. You know, why run? Why go on the lamb? Why go to Mexico and, and use fake identities and

work so hard not to be caught. If you didn't do anything wrong. If you knew in your heart, you didn't do anything wrong. I don't know. I usually come down on the side that they did it. Yeah. That's where I'm at. And I think one of the big things for me is that that master bedroom renovation. Bizarre. That is very hard to explain. Yeah. You know, if my wife is missing and I have no idea what happened to her. Right. Either she left me, she got sick of my you know what, or something, you know, bad happened to her, but we don't know what it is. Yeah. The last thing in the world I'm going to do is change a damn thing in this house. Right. Number one, because she wouldn't want me to. Number two, I wouldn't even be thinking about it because every ounce of energy would be

on, where is she? We've got to find her. What happened to her? And thirdly, what if she comes home the next day? Yeah. You're like, oh, I didn't think you're going to ever come back. So I got it, the master bedroom. Right. It's so strange. Yeah, it just doesn't add up. But that's it for the episode on Margaret Rudin. By the way, you know you can never touch anything in this house and redecorate. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because your wife would just... I'd be flogged. Or we'd be making a...

Well, we wouldn't be. I would be in doing an episode about you. Yes. Yeah. Yes, you would. All right, we've got some voice emails. You want to check those out? Let's hear them.

Hi, Mike and Debbie. This is Catherine from beautiful Boston, Massachusetts. I actually just found you guys this podcast this year because of the pandemic. I was kind of cooped up inside all the time. And so I was looking for some new podcast. and I found you guys, and I ended up getting through all of TCAT and all of PCAT installed in the end of about three months. And then I decided to support you guys on Patreon, so I could get the extra episodes and just

show my, you know, appreciation for you guys. Then I got through all of those, too. So now I'm kind of with everybody else and just waiting every week for the new episodes, which is tough, but worth it. I just wanted to say thank you for all that you've, you know, done for this community, especially this year. It really feels like having kind of a friend by your side all the time. And it just made the whole experience less lonely.

So thank you so much for doing that for us. And I guess you guys probably won't hear this until after the holidays in the new year. So I hope that both of you have a wonderful, relaxing, safe holiday and new year with your family. And I really look forward to hearing you guys in the new year. So stay safe and keep your own time chicken. Wow. Thanks, Catherine. Yeah, that was very nice.

She's going to hear herself in the new year. She will. Very soon into the new year. Hi, Mike and you'll be. My name's Alia from Fort Collins, Colorado, a short-time listener. I love the podcast. I just finished listening to the Joseph Paul Franklin one, so I am way, way, way behind. I found you guys a couple months ago, and I'm catching up, and I just wanted to leave myself

a little Easter egg to when I get to the most recent episode at today. I thought that'd be kind of cool, but I love the podcast. You guys do amazing work. It's a lot of fun. It keeps my days busy, and I love it. So thank you guys. Stay safe to keep your own time ticking. This is a message from the future.

So I found that one interesting because of the word Easter or the phrase Easter egg. Right. And I thought that's pretty cool. It is. I never even thought about it like that. Yeah. You know, you're enjoying the podcast or the episodes that you're on. Eventually you're going to catch up and you're going to be like,

like, hey, there's this thing that's going to happen in 2020. It's called COVID. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Stay away. I don't think she's in the past. She's in the present with us. She knows what's going on in the world. Roll with me on this, man. She's just in the past on the episodes. Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is a down call from Denver. Just giving you guys a shout out. I'm such a fan of the podcast. I've been listening for the past four months now. I'm just living through the content. I am so addicted. I have a story request for you guys, a true crime story, the story of Brandy DeVall. My mom used to tell me this story when I was little, and this story just stuck with me.

It's just a crazy story. One that needs to be discussed on a podcast. Such a fan, Team Giddy here. Keep your own time ticking, guys. All right. Love it. Writing that down. Brandy DeVall.

Not familiar with the story, so we'll have to check it out. Don't even know if it's a T-Gy-Divac. cat or an unsolved episode, but we'll check it out. I will. Gives, we had quite a bit of mailbag, so much that I'm going to have to carry some over for next week. Yeah. Cam sent us some wingsaws from Washington, D.C., that you're actually familiar with. You say is kind of a, the end thing right now. It is. Very hot item. Nicky Francis sent in a bunch of goodies from the UK, all kinds of cool stuff. Awesome. A book. I mean, just a cornucopia of of nature's treasures.

Oh, cornucopia. You like that one. I do. Nina Walter sent in some Harley chips from Germany. Yeah? Yeah, so those are very cool. And then John Eaton sent in some Harley chips as well. So we appreciate all that stuff.

I think we get more around the holidays. And so I had to save some for next week. Well, your Harley Chip collection is booming. It is. It is. It's quite impressive. Yes. when you think about the different countries, places I will probably never visit in my life.

Yeah. Or if I did, I don't know if I'd get the chance to even stop in a Harley place, but. Where my motorcycle, the you build, you ride brand, I just haven't got that many chips for it. Yeah. I don't think they make chips for that. Well, they don't make chips for imaginary shit that you make. All right, everyone. That is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time.

So for Mike. And Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.