True Crime Campfire - #GreedIsGood: The Crimes of Alan Hruby

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

I saw a meme one time that said, “It’s funny how sometimes the people you’d take a bullet for are the ones behind the trigger.” Most of the time that’s just a metaphor, a way to describe the way it feels when a loved one betrays you. But not always. Sometimes betrayals come written in blood—and more often than not, from somebody you loved and trusted. You couldn’t find a clearer example of that than this week’s case, a story where two of the most powerful forces in the world—love and greed—clash, and three innocent people end up paying the price.Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--tickets go on sale February 7: CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRESources:CNBC's "American Greed," episode "Blood Relatives"OU Daily: https://www.oudaily.com/news/former-ou-student-alan-hruby-to-serve-three-life-sentences-for-family-murders/article_694a7d1e-e6f6-11e5-9140-5bdaa97cf79f.htmlOU Daily: https://www.oudaily.com/news/university-explains-precautions-taken-during-duncan-murders-investigation/article_f6e27d1a-5643-11e4-910c-001a4bcf6878.htmlOU Daily: https://www.oudaily.com/news/alan-hruby-gave-a-fake-name-when-he-was-pulled/article_c5de1850-5b02-11e4-b5ea-001a4bcf6878.htmlJim Fisher: https://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-alan-hruby-murder-case-in-cold.htmlThe Lawton Constitution: https://www.swoknews.com/police-find-pistol-linked-to-hruby-case/article_af4bb9d6-dbd4-5c4f-80fa-ee8b5f5342b9.htmlFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. I saw a meme one time that said, it's funny how sometimes the people you'd take a bullet for are the ones behind the trigger. Most of the time that's just a metaphor, a way to describe the way it's. feels when a loved one betrays you, but not always. Sometimes betrayals come written in blood,

and more often than not, from somebody you loved and trusted. You couldn't find a clearer example of that than this week's case, a story where two of the most powerful forces in the world, love and greed, clash, and three innocent people end up paying the price. This is hashtag greed is good, the crimes of Alan Ruby. So, campers, for this one, we're in the little town of Duncan, Oklahoma, October 13th, 2014. At about 9 o'clock that morning, a 911 call came into the local dispatch. I need somebody at Bent Tree, a woman said. She sounded terrified.

I think there's been a murder. The rubies, hurry. Breathless from panic, the lady explained that she was the Ruby family's housekeeper, and she'd just arrived to clean the place. Mr. and Mrs. Ruby and Catherine Ruby are laying on the floor, she said. I think they're dead. People all over town had been getting worried about the rubies. They'd been missing appointments the past few days, and 17-year-old Catherine had missed

school two days in a row, Friday and Monday, without calling. As investigators arrived at the Ruby's big brick house, they noticed a couple of important things. First, there was a security camera perched on top of the roof. That meant there might be footage of the killer or killers. And second, as they approached the door, they detected a familiar smell, the sharp copper tang of blood, and a lot of it. Getting closer, the smell of death hit them like a slap. It's a smell you can't mistake for anything else.

They knew what they were about to see would be bad, and it was. Inside the house, investigators found three bodies. Teenage Catherine Ruby and her parents John and Joy, who everybody called Tinker. They'd all been shot, and their blood was all over the floor. It looked like a scene from a nightmare, and it was clear that the family had been dead for several days. For Detective John Byers, it was extra horrific.

He'd known the rubies for years. And as he surveyed the awful scene in front of him, Byers realized that somebody was missing. There were four members of the Ruby family. Where was Alan, their college-age son? The first thought that ran through, the investigator's minds was, could this be a murder suicide? John, Tinker, and Catherine all seemed like happy people, a happy family, but you really never know what goes on below the surface.

Sometimes the people who look like they have it all figured out are falling apart inside. We've seen that on this show a million times, haven't we? It's almost a cliche at this point. It's like every episode of Dateline. But it didn't take long to rule out the murder suicide theory. For one thing, everybody was shot more than once. Not unheard of in a suicide. suicide, but rare. And second, one of the first things the detectives did was look for the surveillance equipment connected with the camera they'd seen on top of the house. But although nothing else seemed to be missing, the CCTV system was. Interesting. Somebody didn't want to be captured on camera. The Ruby's owned the local paper, the Marlow Review, and Tinker was one of its

most enthusiastic reporters. She was especially interested in crime stories. She'd hang around the courthouse, chatting up and charming lawyers and court staff and cops chasing all the latest stories. Definitely a camper at heart. Tinker was one of those people who was so much a fixture of her community that it seemed impossible to imagine the town going on without her. In addition to her work as a reporter, she was a booster for her kids' sports, a volunteer at their school, and a terrific cook. They called her the casserole queen, and y'all know that is some serious prestige in the Midwest. John was passionate about photography. Catherine was a rock star on the volleyball team at her high school and had tons of friends.

Alan was two years older than his sister, and he was enrolled at Oklahoma University. None of the investigators were looking forward to giving him the devastating news about his family. John Ruby's dad had been in the newspaper business, owning a paper called The Banner. John inherited the paper when his dad died, and he and Tinker sold it for a nice chunk of change. Enough, in fact, to establish a million-dollar trust fund for the kids. Alan and Catherine would have access to it when they turned 21. College was already paid for. And the rubies seemed to be a great family.

John and Tinker were the kind of loving, involved parents we all wish we had. They were at every one of their kids' school events, Catherine's volleyball games and Allen's tennis matches, and Tinker cheered louder than anybody else. They had fun with their kids, and John used his photography talent to document it all. It should have been pretty idyllic. but there was one icky little fly in the soup. For some reason, oldest kid Alan was obsessed with designer stuff.

Clothes, shoes, sunglasses, pretty much anything that had the word Versace or Gucci or coach on it. It was all he seemed to care about. While his sister's Instagram feed was full of her and her friends and her volleyball games, Allen's was clogged with his posts about the expensive things he wanted his parents to buy for him. Some of them were absolutely Dulu. The rubies were well off, but they weren't the flipping Kardashians. They're not getting you a $6,000 watch kid. You are in high school. Oh my God. On what planet? Wow. In his yearbook picture from senior year, he's wearing a burberry button-down shirt that probably cost as much as a new couch. And this was not the kind of school where that was a thing. We're not in

Beverly Hills here, kid. Dude already had more high-end stuff than any kid he'd ever met in his life, including a nice car his parents bought for him and almost 30 pairs of expensive designer shoes. Holy. Like well into the five figures' worth of shoes. But it wasn't enough.

He was fixated on acquiring as much fancy crap as he could and making sure everybody saw he had it. Well, of course. If nobody sees it, it's meaningless, right? appearance clearly meant everything to Alan, which you can tell by looking at his terrifyingly perfect teeth. Veneers, obviously, and white enough to sear your retinas right out of your skull. And the way this kid dresses, oh my God, it's exactly like that annoying, like, golf course, rich boy aesthetic with the polo shirts and little iron khaki shorts, just like all the little finance bro larvae wear to the country club. Yeah.

he was also obsessed with travel and we're not talking about a trip to like dollywood he wanted to see the world and he wanted to do it first class last but not least and this is bananas for a high school kid in his junior year he developed a taste for gambling where a 17 year old kid even finds the opportunity to do that i don't know maybe online was the online gambling thing as big a problem in 2012, 2013 as it is now? I don't think it was, but who knows? Alan's obsession with stuff and things was on full display for the whole world to see. Here are just a few posts from his Twitter. People who say money can't buy happiness have obviously never been on a jet ski.

When they crash it, they crash it with a huge smile. Okay, that's just unhinged, my two cheeks. Well, first of all, it's unhinged and unoriginal. Like, I've heard that like a million times. Shut the fuck up. I wish my whole closet of shoes was Louis Vuitton like Kanye West. We all do something to fill a void. I shop to fill it.

Hashtag shopaholic. Oh, my God. Money isn't everything. It's just the basis of our world. I want a watch for Christmas and not a Walmart one. And I love this one. For Christmas, I want a trip to Paris, smiley face. That would be my dream.

Hashtag hint, hint, hashtag mom, hashtag dad, hashtag Christmas. Okay, Ellen, honey, that's not a hint. It's not a hint when you just tell them I want a trip to Paris. That's just telling them. Okay, a hint would be like, what do I want for Christmas? Well, I don't say, pa, but apropos of nothing, don't I look great in this beret? That's a hint, hint. John and Tinker definitely spent plenty of money on their kids.

They gave them a nicer lifestyle than like 90% of the people in the world will ever have, but it was never enough for Alan. And the thing is, print media wasn't doing so great anymore. Newspapers weren't selling like they used to. Tinker and John had to sit both kids down and explain that the money tree was a little scragglier than it used to be, and they couldn't just buy any and everything they wanted. The only impression this made on Alan was to annoy and frustrate him. And whenever mommy and daddy said no to one of his absurd demands, he'd go to Plan B, aka Grandma. And y'all,

if you didn't already hate this little viper, you are going to hate him now. Alan's grandmother had dementia, and this was just gravy for our little wannabe princeling. He became an expert at manipulating her into thinking she'd agreed to give him money. This woman was suffering from mental deterioration, and this little shit would hustle her out to the car and drive her around to ATMs and banks to get her to take out cash for him. And we're not talking five bucks, we're talking thousands of dollars. And he'd straight up steal her credit cards and rack him up on whatever took his little fancy.

Who steals from their grandma? Who does that? What are you, dude? His grandma, bless her, noticed that her money was disableness. but never really understood that her grandson was stealing from her. When his parents realized what had been happening, they were horrified, but they didn't want to do anything to ruin the little pooky bear's future. So instead of turning him into the cops, they took him to meet with the sheriff instead, for a stern talking to, which was, it sounds to me like a complete joke, like, okay, son,

now if you keep doing crimes, you're going to end up in prison someday, all right? Give me a freaking break. I'm sure everyone was hoping this little micro dose of law enforcement contact would be enough to scare Alan straight. How do we think that's going to work out? Well, let's check in with Alan's Twitter account. Shopping isn't an addiction. It is pleasure. Why does that sentence make my skin want to crawl off my body?

Alan was still in high school at this point, so if he thought about consequences at all, he might have. just assumed he'd get tried as a juvenile and walk away with a slap on the wrist. But apparently he was absolutely indignant that his parents had dared to embarrass him in front of the sheriff like that. Around Thanksgiving of 2012, Alan posted a cryptic tweet. All I want for Christmas is a less psychotic family. Hashtag getting ridiculous. Yes, Alan, they're psychotic because they find grand theft objectionable and a bunch of assholes. Things in the Ruby House were indeed getting hashtag ridiculous. On December 21st, Alan got so enraged during an argument with his mom

about his spending habits, what else, that he tried to choke her out. The police came. Although she was shaken up by her son's violent outburst, she refused to press charges against him, which, as infuriating as it is, I'm sure a lot of mothers would. But despite all of this, the choking incident, the theft from his grandmother, Alan's parents gave him an amazing gift the summer before his final year of high school. They cashed in a bunch of their airline miles to get him a plane ticket to Europe so he could spend the summer backpacking around.

Now, I'm sure what they had in mind was the usual student trip to Europe, staying in hostels, eating on the cheap, which is great, by the way. I mean, I wouldn't want to stay in hostels now because, A, I'm old and I need a comfy bed, my back will go out, and B, those hostile movies have taught me what happens in those places, and I do not want to be tortured today. But for a student on his first trip abroad, like, come on. It is so much fun to hang out in hostels. You get to meet all kinds of new people. Some of them will be your friends for life. Some of them will be absolute freaks that you'll tell stories about for the rest of your days. There's kind of a college dorm atmosphere.

You'll have stories to tell forever. But, of course, our boy didn't want to travel on a budget. So he went back to his favorite unwilling and unwitting ATM. Grandmother. He fraudulently opened a credit card in her name, faking her signature on the application, and then he lived it up in Europe, Paris, Rome, London, all on Nana's dime. All told, Alan ran up a $5,000 bill on the credit card he'd taken out in his grandmother's name. Five grand's worth of fraud.

God, this kid needs to be mulched. Put his dumb ass in the woodchipper. My only consolation for this is that all this jet setting cost him his spot on the high school tennis team because he missed so much court time over the summer. By the way, of course, this little dorklet chose tennis as a sport. It's probably the boogiest one they had at his high school. No offense if you play tennis, by the way, but it is pretty bougie. It's a little bougie. I was just talking to a tennis dad like a couple weeks ago who was telling me that his,

son goes through one pair of tennis shoes per month. Whoa. Per month. He has to buy a new pair of tennis shoes. That's crazy. Wow. And it's so funny because on the American Greed episode, his coach is like, yeah, he always had to have the most expensive racket and the most expensive bags, even though it sounds

like he wasn't that spectacular a player. I'm not surprised. I mean, practicing would cut into valuable shopping time. That's right. Seriously, though, how do you spawn a little greed goblin like this? I mean, his sister wasn't like this at all. It sounds like she was a really sweet, grounded kid who prioritized her family and her friends, not designer BS. Yeah, and I mean, people want to say like, oh, it's the parents' fault.

But again, you've got two kids two years apart, raised in the same exact family by the same exact people. She's not like that at all. She was just a complete sweetheart who prioritized, you know, the right things in life. And I don't know how he happened, really. That's wild. Alan spent six glorious weeks in Europe spending his grandma's money like his plane was going down. But when he got home, it didn't take long for John and Tinker to find out about the credit card fraud. And that was apparently finally the last straw for them.

They knew if they didn't nip this in the bud now, their son was going to continue down a dark path. He needed to experience some consequences. So they turned him in. And this was not a small deal. $5,000 worth of fraud is a felony, and Alan was 18 now, so he was a grown-up in the eyes of the law. Police put the grabbis on him and hauled him in for questioning, and Alan came clean. Sort of. She authorized one of the charges, he told the detective, and then I abused it and did the other ones.

I meant to pay it off before you got caught, the detective finished. Yeah. Alan said, my dude, she didn't even know it existed authorized one of the charges my ass. We watched the recording of that interview and there's something unsettling about it. He's admitting to the crime, but his affect is all wrong. His face almost looked like he's struggling to hold in anger, struggling not to say something like, I'm entitled to whatever I want. How dare you question me? Yeah. But although I suspect he had zero remorse for how he victimized his grandma, Alan took a plea deal. He was accepted into a deferred sentencing program,

the terms of which included paying restitution, participating in a cognitive behavior therapy program, and attending drug and alcohol counseling. I think that last one is a pretty standard condition of probation. I'm not sure if he had any drug or alcohol issues. With deferred sentencing, as long as you complete your probation and do what the court tells you, you're probably not going to end up with any jail time. Never hide from the truth, he tweeted. Always embrace it. Hashtag rules of life. The credit card fraud, remember, was only part of the equation. That was just the most recent thing he did. That was the first thing the family had turned him in for. But just brace yourself, because in total, he had built his family out of almost 80 grand over the past couple years. His punishment could have

and should have, I think, been a lot worse. But it doesn't seem like he learned a damn thing from his brush with the law. All throughout his senior year, his Twitter feed was full of all his hashtag big city dreams and more expensive things he wanted to buy. And his spending didn't even slow down. There was increasing tension in the Ruby family. He was still very much loved, though, especially by his sister Catherine. She adored her big brother and looked up to him. One of her friends told the TV show American Greed about how excited she'd get whenever Alan came to her volleyball games or took her out to lunch.

She was so proud of him, and if that does not make you want to beat the bricks off of this little dweeb, I don't know what's going to. Anyway. Alan graduated from high school in 2014, and in the fall started his freshman year at Oklahoma University. He picked a major in political science, which I find kind of strange. Like, if money's so important to you, you'd think you'd at least want to do like pre-med or some shit. He's probably thinking he'd become a lobbyist for like the fracking industry or something. Lots of money in that, I'm sure. Yeah, or like law maybe, but lawyers don't have time to spend the money they make.

They're working. Absolutely true. Most people have a blast their first semester of college. It's your first taste of real freedom from mom and dad, but there was something peeing on Allen's parade, his parents. After the whole stealing grandma's money thing, they decided to cut his financial support drastically. No more luxury goods or European vacations. Most college kids are used to living on hope, streams, and ramen noodles, but for Alan, losing access to the money spigot was unthinkable. What were these idiots thinking? All they were doing was forcing him to steal again, and how was he supposed to concentrate on school and manage a bunch of check fraud at the same time?

John and Tinker were really failing his parents here. Alan decided he had to do something about it. He knew, of course, about the million-dollar trust fund his parents had set up for him and Catherine. And he knew that both his parents had sizable life insurance policies, not to mention the beautiful house on Bent Tree Street and the cars and all the furniture. With his parents gone, he'd be set to inherit a big, gorgeous chunk of change. With Catherine gone, too, it would be even bigger. So on the night of October 9th, Alan made the drive down to Duncan to murder his family.

He had an alibi all planned out. He'd arranged to spend the weekend in Dallas with some friends for the OU. Texas football game at the Cotton Bowl. He'd go up there right after the murders, and he'd have plenty of witnesses who'd say they spent the whole weekend with him. Footage from the Ruby's security camera captured a normal-looking day on October 9th. Catherine watched her car in the driveway. It was bright and sunny. But there was one thing that, in hindsight, raises a red flag, a little touch of foreshadowing for the nightmare that was coming. That day, John Ruby realized that a 9-millimeter handgun was missing from his truck.

He called the police, and they came out to take a report on the theft. You can see John standing in the driveway talking to the detective on the security camera. I can only imagine what he must have been feeling as he said this, but he admitted that his son Alan might have stolen the gun. He had a history of theft. In fact, he was still on probation for it. Where was Alan now, the investigator wanted to know? He's at college, John said.

I'm sure it hurt this father. to have to suspect his own kid of stealing from him. I hate that this had to happen to him on his last day of life. Back up at Oklahoma U, as the sun began to set, Alan left his cell phone in his dorm room so it couldn't give away his location, and he got into his Jeep. Alan arrived back in Duncan at about 7 o'clock that night. It was October, so it was already dark now,

and he parked a few streets away from his family's house. He had the gun he'd stolen from his dad's truck as he slipped in through the back door and waited. He shot Tinker first, shot her in the head as she came into the kitchen, then shot her again to make sure she was dead. Catherine heard the shots and came running into the room to see what was happening.

Alan shot her dead. The sister had looked up to him her entire life. And for me, this is the most unsettling part. Once he'd murdered his mother and sister, Alan sat and waited for his dad to come home. Oh my God. hour he sat with the bodies of the two women he'd killed. He had an hour to think about what he was doing, to make the choice to stop, to turn himself in. But instead, as John Ruby came

through the door into the kitchen, expecting to be greeted by his family, Alan shot him twice in the head. John said, ouch, then fell to the floor dead. Did he see his wife and daughter lying in blood on the floor before his son ended his life the way he had theirs? I hope not. I hope he never knew what hit him. Alan Ruby had murdered the three people who loved him more than anything else in the world. All for a closet full of Louis Vuitton. Once the job was done, he walked back to his car, drove back to OU to grab his cell phone in his suitcase,

and went to Dallas with some friends for the OU Texas game. In typical Allen style, he booked them a room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, one of the fanciest in town. Hotel security cameras captured him at the front desk that night, checking in. His friends later said there was nothing weird about Alan's mood or mannerisms that night. He was his normal self. If anything, he was in an especially good mood, taking pictures of his friends and posting them on Instagram. On October 12th, Alan popped up again on the Ritz Carlton's front desk security camera, checking out.

He drove back to OU that day. The Ruby's housekeeper found John, Tinker, and Catherine's bodies the next morning. The investigation was just a few hours old. Detectives and CSI still working the scene when Alan Ruby showed up. Nonchalantly, as Detective Byers later said, as a homicide investigator, Byers had seen plenty of family members show up at crime scenes over the years. Usually they were panicked or furious or sobbing or even catatonic.

Many of them would run toward the house and have to be held back. They'd cross the crime scene tape. Most importantly, they'd ask, What are you doing here? What happened? Alan Ruby did none of those things. It gave the investigators a little chill. Alan just stood and watched until an officer approached him

and offered to take him to the police station to talk. Alan didn't ask a single question on the way there, which is just bizarre. There's crime scene tape up at your family's house. Detectives and CSIs running around and you're not a little curious to find out what's up? Interrogation room footage from that day shows Alan scrolling on his phone as he waited for someone to come in and talk to him. When the detective did arrive, he had to tell Alan to

turn off his phone so they could talk. He didn't mince words. There are three people there in that house that are deceased, the detective said, your mom, your sister, and your dad. Oh, no, Alan said and covered his eyes with his hands. Body language enthusiasts call this move eye-blocking and say it can be a sign of deception. To me, it looks like he was pushing his knuckles into his eyes to try and muster up some tears. He made a few sniffly noises, but I didn't see any waterworks. As the detective worked the interrogative mojo on him, Alan sat with his head down, occasionally sniffling. He claimed to have no idea who would want to hurt his family. Certainly not him. Oh, no, sir. When asked about the theft of his dad's 9mm handgun the day before the murders,

Alan said he hadn't known anything about it. I don't do guns, he said. I guess now's as good a time as any to tell you that this man has the voice of a depressed cartoon rat. Oh, no, detective, it wasn't me. It increases his general punchability factor by about 40%, and it was already pretty damn high. His Twitter, his Twitter alone was like, it brought it over 100%. Like, it was bad. God Almighty.

So as they usually do, the detective slowly ratcheted up the pressure as the interrogation went along. Are you a cold-blooded killer? He asked Alan. No, Alan said, because I love my family. They've done so much to help me in my life. Oh, you mean like turning you into the cops for credit card fraud? Alan swore up and down that he'd worked everything out with the family, that the money he'd stolen was just going to come out of his trust fund. And no matter how hard the detective pressed, he insisted he didn't kill his parents and sister.

Fortunately, they had a reason to hold on to him anyway. Alan had violated his probation by going to Texas for the football game, so they tossed him an orange jumpsuit and let him stew overnight in a cell. Meanwhile, a search of Alan's dorm room and car turned up some interesting stuff. stuff. Some stolen checks. A crazy expensive designer watch probably bought with some kind of illicit funds. And they found a bathrobe from the frickin Ritz Carlton. Y'all, this little bitch stole the bathrobe out the hotel. That is so funny to me. Every time this dude has the chance to act like a grubby little cockroach, he takes it. And it's so fucking gross. Someone else's naked bits have been in there. A bunch of someone's. I can't imagine something worse to steal from

a hotel than like blankets, towels, robes, like all of that is fucking gross. Stop it. It's gross. But it just shows you how much he loves a designer logo. Like he just wanted a robe that said Ritz Carlton on it. Oh, what a dweep. The next morning, for some inexplicable reason, Alan consented to a polygraph exam. Why he would do that, I cannot imagine.

Dumb idea, but he took it. Maybe his brain was all scrambled from the trauma of having to wear the jail-issued uniform, which didn't even have the word Prada on it or anything. Unsurprisingly, Alan flunked the polygraph, and as the detective drops that news on him, you can see him have a real emotion for the first time

in either interview. His breathing picks up, his cheeks flush, he looks like he's about to cry. The detectives must have realized this was the time to pounce. They laid on the pressure, and Alan, bless his heart, tried to throw a Hail Mary.

I owe money, Alan said, to a low shark about three grand and he told me he was going to get revenge he was going to make me suffer for not paying him back oh yes the old lone shark technique of murdering everybody in your family but you because you know that gets you your money back somehow the detective wasn't having it he was like yeah right no lone shark on planet earth would kill your entire family like this and not steal anything while he's there it's just not going to happen oh oh yeah Yeah. Yet another fail for our boy Alan, but he's like, it happens in the movies, I think. Yeah, a lone shark is going to break your kneecaves before they ever get to the murdering part of the show.

And certainly not over $3,000. I know. You're worth more alive, scared, but compliant. And no one is going to comply when you go ice man on someone's family. This isn't the godfather and you aren't a made man. I know. when Alan realized the detectives weren't buying his absurd little loan shark story he finally caved i did it he said he laid it all out who he shot first second third how he stole his dad's gun a few days before the murders

stole his mom's credit card too that was new information later they'd discovered that he'd used it later that night to book the room at the ritz Alan told the investigators that he'd thrown the murder weapon his dad's 9mm handgun into a lake, the security video equipment too, and he agreed to lead the detectives to the lake so they could hopefully recover the evidence. They loaded him into a car and drove all the way out there, spent hours looking where he told them he'd chucked the stuff in, but much to everyone's frustration, they found nothing. And soon, they figured out why. I know this is going to shock you, But Alan had lied. Officers had been reviewing a ton of surveillance footage of the area around the murder scene,

and one eagle-eyed fella happened to notice a Jeep that looked an awful lot like Allen's, turning into a storage facility at about 8 p.m. on the night of the murders. The investigators got a search warrant for the storage facility, and... Yep. Turns out, Alan's grandma had a storage unit there. Poor grandma again. I know, man. And when they opened it up, there was the murder weapon and the stolen surveillance equipment. Strangely, he had told them the truth about where to find the clothes he'd been wearing during the murders,

and they recovered those pretty quickly. As Alan sat in jail, word of his arrest spread through OU like wildfire. His dormmates watched as police posted up at Heddington Hall, where Alan lived, to make sure he didn't come back if he made bail. They issued a no trespass warning, and the university rushed to officially ban him from campus for life. The town of Duncan was reeling from Allen's confession. Everybody knew the guy was into the luxury lifestyle, but nobody could have fathomed he'd do something like this. Some of the Ruby's friends felt some guilt about the murders, like they should have seen something, should have done something. That's so sad.

Over a thousand people came to the Ruby's funeral service, a testament to how much they were like. loved and respected in the community. Catherine's volleyball coach was one of the people who spoke at the service. She later got a tattoo to remember her star student, a Valentine heart with Catherine's number three in the middle. Oh my God, that's so sweet. Catherine's high school made a memorial to her two, with pictures in her letterman's jacket and letters from her friends.

The prosecutor, who knew John and Tinker, wanted the death penalty for the triple murder, but the Ruby's family members didn't, and they made it known. It wouldn't bring their loved ones back. And they'd rather have him sit in prison for the rest of his life and let the realization of what he'd done sink in. And, you know, sit in prison without any of that designer shit forever.

Exactly. Yep. So they showed Alan Mercy, despite the fact that he'd shown his family none. And although he claimed he 100% welcomed the death penalty, Allen apparently didn't really want to die for his crime. With the blessing of the family who dreaded the ordeal of a trial, he took a plea deal. He pled guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and received three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Mr. Gucci is going to sit in prison until the day he dies. On the day of his sentencing, a lot of people expected some tears, some remorse, an apology to the remnants of his family, but nope.

Even when they gave him a chance to meet privately with family members, he had nothing to say. Just didn't have it in him, I guess. He looked like his eyes were a little red as they led him away in shackles, maybe from crying, but that was all we got. There's an interesting little detail from this case that I saved for last. Early on the morning of October 9th, which was the day of the murder, Alan got pulled over for speeding, and he gave the cop a fake name and birth date, Dakota Moore. Apparently, Dakota was a guy he knew and really, really disliked, so I guess he probably had himself a little giggle at the thought of getting this due to ticket he didn't deserve.

And the birth date was correct. Alan had apparently gone to the trouble of finding that out, which is super creepy to me, and Alan said he didn't have his driver's license or insurance on him, so the cop didn't figure out he was being lied to. He just gave Alan several tickets and sent him on his way. Later, it came out that Alan had used Dakota's name in a couple of previous transactions. traffic stops, too. Just a little more evidence, if we needed it, of what an absolute horror show of a human being, Alan is, and how comfortable he is with lying. And then there's this.

When they searched the Ruby's house after the murder, investigators found a stack of fake IDs. Four were stashed away in a gun safe and two in a bathroom drawer. They were, of course, Allen's. I think this is interesting. I think it shows us that this isn't a case of a dumb kid who made one or two bad decisions with this family's money and got caught and was going to do better, this guy was prepping for a life of crime. He was learning the tools of the trade so he could feed his endless lust for money. Fortunately, for all the victims he probably would have had, he got caught before he could do any more damage. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get

together again around the true crime campfire. And if you haven't booked your spot yet on the Crime Wave True Crime Cruise from November 3rd through November 7th, get on it, y'all. We're starting to get really excited. Join Katie and me, plus last podcast on the left, scared to death, and sinisterhood for a rock and good time at sea. We're going to the Bahamas. It's going to be rat. You can pay all at once or set up a payment plan, but you've got to have a fan code to book a ticket. So go to crimewave at sea.com slash campfire and take it from there. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Kathleen, Liberty, Christina, Catherine, and Alexis.

We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And lately, we're reacting to bad reality TV, which has been so much fun. And once you hit the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin or fridge magnet while supplies last at 10, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.