Winnie Ruth Judd
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Depression Era United States was riveted by the sensational news and bizarre developments in the murder trial of Winnie Ruth Judd. Only the trial of Bruno Hauptmann garnered more interest during the 1930's.
Mrs. Judd was charged and convicted of the murder of Agnes LeRoi, one of her two lesbian friends she was alleged to have murdered in mid-October 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona. The fateful fight that led to the shooting of the two women reportedly was fueled by a conflict of interest -- all three women were interested in the same man.
Contrary to a popular myth that continues to insist she killed the two women and then butchered both bodies afterward, and was tried and convicted for both murders -- the fact is that she was tried and convicted only of the murder of Mrs. LeRoi, whose body was not dismembered. A quirk of circumstance led to the dismembering of Miss Samuelson's body.
Mrs. Judd was displayed in headlines across the country and the world as the "Tiger Woman"; "The Blonde Butcher"; "The Arizona Tigress"; and "The Velvet Tigress" due to her alleged ferociousness. The case quickly became known as "The Trunk Murders" as the one intact body and the dismembered body were shipped in trunks by train from Phoenix to Los Angeles.
≠==References==
- Winnie Ruth Judd: the Trunk Murders by J. Dwight Dobkins and Robert J. Hendricks Grosset & Dunlap: 1973. ISBN 0-448-02187-0
- The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd : The Truth About an American Crime Legend Revealed at Last by Jana Bommersbach. Simon & Schuster: 1992 ISBN 0-671-74007-5
The two most famous and infamous murder trials of the Depression Era 1930's were the Bruno Hauptmann trial for the kidnapping/murder of the Charles Lingbergh baby and the trial of Winnie Ruth Judd in Phoenix, Arizona for the murder of Agnes LeRoi.
Mrs. Judd was alleged to have murdered her two lesbian girl friends -- Miss Samuelson and Mrs. Agnes LeRoi. The two victims and Mrs. Judd reportedly were part of an intricate love quadrangle, invloving a married, wealthy businessman. The bodies were packed into a larger traveler trunk. When men came to pick up the trunk and take it to the Union (Train) Station they told Mrs. Judd the trunk weighed too much for normal shipping. She dismissed them. Later, at night with the light of matches -- she told the other men who came to pick up two packer trunks that the electricity was out. One of the men noted that the floor seemed sticky.
At some point between the time the men arrived to pick up the large trunk, and the time at night when men came to pick up the two packer trunks -- Miss Samuelson's body had been dismembered so that the two trunks would meet normal shipping weight standards.
Mrs. Judd accompanied the trunks on the train to Los Angeles. Sitting in a passenger car, she held a hatbox on her lap. The hatbox contained some internal organs from Miss Samuelson's body. While unnoticed, she threw the hatbox out a window. She was nearly apprehended at the train station in L.A. when fluid was noticed seeking from one of the trunks.
The largest manhunt at that time in Western U.S. history was launched, with "Winnie Ruth Judd" sightings reported in several states. She surrenderd a week later in a funeral parlor in L.A. She had hid the night before in a Broadway Department Store. She wrote a long letter to her husband, Dr. W. C. Judd, on ten postal telegraph blanks. After completing the letter, she had a change of heart and tried to destroy the letter by stuffing it into a toilet drain, which clogged. All of the postal telegraph blanks were recovered and painstakingly restored. Later known as "The Drain Pipe Letter," it was the "evidence" that ultimately let to her conviction.
She was sentenced to hang.
The trial, which lasted for three weeks -- longer than any previous murder trial in Arizona history -- was the biggest show in the United States at that time. Radio Station KOY announcer Jack Williams -- who also worked part-time at Union Station, and was on duty the night the trunks were delivered to the station and put aboard the train; he later would become Governor of Arizona -- prepared scripts of the day's most dramatic trial testimony that were then read by actors late at night. A huge audience turned in to pick up the broadcasts, listeners ranging as far to the west as Hawaii, and as far to the east as Newfoundland.
Neither Mrs. Judd nor the businessman testified during the trial. However, months later -- and after a stay of execution -- a hearing was convened by grand jury request. Mrs. Judd told a dramatically convincing story of self-defense, and accused the businessman of being an accomplice, arranging for the dismembering of Miss Samuelson's body, and also of being lover to all three women, including Mrs. Judd.
The hearing had a most bizarre ending -- which still is considered one of the most bizarre twists in U.S. courtroom history. At the hearing's conclusion, Mrs. Judd promptly was returned to prison and a new execution date set.
Why?
The State had first convicted Mrs. Judd of murder; then, putting her on the stand as a witness, proved a "prima faci" case of self-defense. The businessman's lead attorney then effectively argued that since there was no murder there could be no accomplice. The man was not charged with a crime.
The hearing was totally focused on the businessman -- and, ultimately was ruled to have no bearing on Mrs. Judd's prior conviction.
Mrs. Judd -- after another stay of execution -- was granted a sanity hearing in Florence, AZ. It was rumored that newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst had financed Mrs. Judd's defense. She was declared insane, and transferred to the Arizona State Mental Hospital for the Insane in Phoenix.
She served more time for the crime of murder than any other woman in Western U.S. history. She never went long without being in national and international news. She escaped seven times from the mental hospital, the last escape in 1963 lasting over six years.
California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the extradition papers for Mrs. Judd to be returned to Arizona. When the State Mental Hospital refused to accept her back, in essence, she was deemed legally sane. Once again she became a resident of Arizona State Prison. San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli assisted in obtaining her release on December 22, 1971.
The book published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1973, co-authored by J. Dwight Dobkins and Robert J. Hendricks was the first authoritative presentation of the Winnie Ruth Judd case. Its release spawned an almost cult-like fascination with the case. To this day -- over 75 years after her alleged crime -- people argue over whether she did it or did not do it; or that she had taken or not taken the rap for a wealthy businessman who had the connections to keep her silenced for much of four decades in the State Mental Hospital.
Attorney John Flynn, who gained fame for arguing the case before the United States Supreme Court that led to the "Miranda" law, wrote an extensive review of Winnie Ruth Judd: The Trunk Murders. He wrote the review on the basis of what would have happened had the Judd case been conducted under "Miranda" guidelines. He concluded that there would have not been a murder trial.
Jdobki 08:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Jdobki 08:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
