American Monsters: Guy Rockwell Muldavin
Sources:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lady-of-the-Dunes-identified-nearly-50-years-17546994.php
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/lady-of-the-dunes-family-history-17552900.php
https://www.masslive.com/news/2022/11/lady-of-the-dunes-husband-suspected-of-1960-double-murder-in-seattle.html
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvmez7/jaws-lady-of-the-dunes-theory-unsolved-murder-cape-cod-vgtrn
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/after-nearly-50-years-fbi-identifies-lady-of-the-dunes-murder-victim/
https://kymkemp.com/2022/01/01/72-years-ago-two-humboldt-county-lovers-went-out-for-a-date-one-was-found-shot-dead-and-the-other-never-seen-again/
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nearly-50-years-after-murder-the-lady-of-the-dunes-is-identified/#:~:text=O'Keefe%20said%20there%20was,to%20conduct%20her%20own%20investigation.
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now. Hello everyone, and welcome
Speaker 1: to Kind of Murdery, a true crime podcast that's mostly
Speaker 1: about murder and always about the strange and compelling stories
Speaker 1: that arise when the path less traveled twists to darkness
Speaker 1: and those who walk its shadows surrender to violence and corruption.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Zevan Odelberg. We have a perilous journey ahead,
Speaker 1: so thank you for lending me your courage and good company.
Speaker 1: The murdered woman in today's story was found in the
Speaker 1: sand dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, in July of nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: Her hands were severed so that fingerprints could not identify her,
Speaker 1: and her skull was pulverized almost to the point of decapitation. Catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Head injury was determined to be the cause of death,
Speaker 1: and authorities believed that the unidentified woman had been killed
Speaker 1: approximately three weeks before she was found. The famous and
Speaker 1: infamous story that I'm about to tell, the tragic tale
Speaker 1: of an unsolved Massachusetts murder, somewhat remarkably like many stories
Speaker 1: I've told before, does in fact tie into my hometown
Speaker 1: of Humboldt County, California. Who would have thought. I suppose
Speaker 1: the long, dark tendrils of unforgivable violence have a way
Speaker 1: of linking murdery places together. Today's story is ripped from
Speaker 1: the headlines a one hundred percent current mystery, and I
Speaker 1: should mention that the sources for this story are included
Speaker 1: in the show notes, and that four articles in particular
Speaker 1: were especially helpful in putting this episode together. They are
Speaker 1: two sf Gate articles by Katie Dowd published on October
Speaker 1: thirty first, twenty twenty two, and November two, twenty twenty two, respectively,
Speaker 1: and a masslive dot com article by Ryan Mancini published
Speaker 1: on November fourth, as well as an article from People
Speaker 1: Magazine by Christine Pelisek published in August of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: In the interest of story flow, I may not always
Speaker 1: give real time attribution for everything cited, but those are
Speaker 1: my key sources, and again the links are in the
Speaker 1: show notes, so feel free to check out the articles yourself.
Speaker 1: My hat's off to misdoubt mister Mancini and miss Pelisek
Speaker 1: for their excellent work. All right, I'm ready to go,
Speaker 1: and if you are too, then I suggest that you
Speaker 1: put your personal items underneath the seat in front of you,
Speaker 1: stow your carry on in the overhead compartment. Let go
Speaker 1: of the cares of the day, but make sure your
Speaker 1: seat belt is fastened. There's turbulence expected a head. The
Speaker 1: Lady of the Dunes starts now. For almost half a century,
Speaker 1: Ruth Marie D. Terry was a nationally famous Jane Doe
Speaker 1: who lost her life as the result of a wretched
Speaker 1: crime committed by a relentlessly evil chameleon of a murderer. Ruth,
Speaker 1: known for nearly five decades as the Lady of the Doones,
Speaker 1: the anonymous victim of an unsolved Cape cod Massachusetts murder,
Speaker 1: was finally identified by the FBI barely one week ago
Speaker 1: in October of twenty twenty two. Before we dive beneath
Speaker 1: the deep dark waters of this story, a brief but
Speaker 1: firm reminder, although the Lady of the Doone's story cannot
Speaker 1: be told without also telling the story of her murderer,
Speaker 1: this is Ruth Marie Terry's story. She is the voiceless
Speaker 1: to whom we give voice. She is the human who
Speaker 1: deserves to be remembered. It's her family, friends and loved
Speaker 1: ones who deserve our prayers, our support, and our empathy.
Speaker 1: This is Ruth Marie Terry's story. It is not, and
Speaker 1: should never be, her killers story. I'm sure we can
Speaker 1: all agree on that, So let's get started. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top, the Lady of the Doones was
Speaker 1: found in the sand dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, in July
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy four. Her hands were severed so that
Speaker 1: fingerprints could not identify her. Her skull was pulverized, and
Speaker 1: catastrophic head injury was the cause of death. They believed
Speaker 1: she had been killed three weeks earlier. Her body was
Speaker 1: never identified until now. That is this is that story.
Speaker 1: In twenty ten, local Cape Cod authorities exhumed the Lady
Speaker 1: of the Doones and used computer imaging to create a
Speaker 1: composite sketch of her face. The discovery of the real
Speaker 1: person who belonged to that composite begins in an unexpected place,
Speaker 1: inside the sharp mind of horror writer Joe Hill, the
Speaker 1: son of the legendary Stephen King and a successful author
Speaker 1: in his own right, Hill became fascinated by the story
Speaker 1: of the Lady of the Dunes in twenty fifteen, after
Speaker 1: reading about her in a book entitled The Skeleton Crew,
Speaker 1: How amateur sleuths are solving America's coldest cases. As Hill
Speaker 1: detailed in his now famous blog post, he pulled up
Speaker 1: the composite sketch of the Lady of the Dunes and
Speaker 1: suddenly suspected he had seen her before. Specifically, he'd seen
Speaker 1: her in the legendary seventies summer horror blockbuster movie Jaws,
Speaker 1: about a murderous man eating shark. I think we're all familiar.
Speaker 1: You see, there was an extra in the Martha's Vineyard
Speaker 1: beach scene that Hill thought bore a striking resemblance to
Speaker 1: the Lady of the Dunes. He wrote about his theory,
Speaker 1: which he openly admits is quote out there on his
Speaker 1: blog in twenty fifteen, and it recently wound up on
Speaker 1: Wondery's Inside Jaws, a podcast about the making of the film.
Speaker 1: And sure, super blown up images of an extra don't
Speaker 1: make a theory, but there are some key details of
Speaker 1: about the production schedule of Jaws, and a few facts
Speaker 1: that we do know about the Lady of the Dunes that,
Speaker 1: when put together with the striking resemblance, and as Hill
Speaker 1: points out, the lady was alive in June during the filming,
Speaker 1: and her body was found in Provincetown, not too far
Speaker 1: from Martha's vineyard. And suddenly we have a far out
Speaker 1: theory that maybe holds a little weight. What if? Hill
Speaker 1: wrote in twenty fifteen, the Ghost of the Lady of
Speaker 1: the Dunes Haunts Jaws. Hill's suspicions were brought to the
Speaker 1: attention of the FBI, and national interest in the Lady's
Speaker 1: case was reignited. Even though Hill himself had described the
Speaker 1: theory as out there, was he in fact on to something.
Speaker 1: Was it possible that the Lady's mysterious identity had been
Speaker 1: in front of millions of movie watching eyes for all
Speaker 1: these years, just waiting to be discovered. The story of
Speaker 1: the Lady of the Dunes begins nearly fifty years ago,
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen seventy four, when, on July
Speaker 1: twenty sixth, a girl walking her dog along the Race
Speaker 1: Point Dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, stumbled onto what she initially
Speaker 1: thought was a dead animal. But it was not an animal.
Speaker 1: It was a woman who had been dead for perhaps
Speaker 1: several weeks. When police arrived, they found a nightmarish scene.
Speaker 1: The woman was nearly decapitated, with her hands and some
Speaker 1: teeth missing, likely an intentional move by her murderer to
Speaker 1: stymy identification of the body, a move that, as we
Speaker 1: now know, was successful for almost half a century. Investigators
Speaker 1: guessed that she was between twenty five and forty years old,
Speaker 1: but they had little else besides her physical description to
Speaker 1: go off of. She had long, auburn hair pulled into
Speaker 1: a ponytail, blue wrangler jeans, a blue bandana, and was
Speaker 1: about five foot six. She had been left face down
Speaker 1: on a beach blanket, and there was no sign of
Speaker 1: a struggle, so she must have been attacked while napping
Speaker 1: or by someone she knew. Her cause of death was
Speaker 1: blunt force trauma to the head. Although the grizzly murder
Speaker 1: scene was huge news in Cape cod no one came
Speaker 1: forward with the woman's identity. She was dubbed the Lady
Speaker 1: of the Doones, and as years turned to decades, she
Speaker 1: became massachusetts longest tenured unidentified murder victim. That all changed
Speaker 1: last week when the Lady of the Dunes was identified
Speaker 1: by newly available DNA evidence. As the body of Ruth
Speaker 1: Marie Terry and knowledge of the Lady's identity unlocked for investigators, journalists,
Speaker 1: and true crime audiences not only Ruth's story, but the
Speaker 1: mystery behind the Lady of the Dune's murder and probably
Speaker 1: the identity of her alleged brutish cameleon killer, which will
Speaker 1: arrive at later. For now, this is the Lady's story.
Speaker 1: This is Ruth Marie Terry's story, and that is how
Speaker 1: it should be. Her story began in nineteen thirty six
Speaker 1: in rural Marion County, Tennessee, when she was born to
Speaker 1: Johnny Terry and Eva Lois Keener. Following Ruth's first birthday,
Speaker 1: her mother, Eva died of epilepsy. When Ruth was twenty,
Speaker 1: she married Korean War veteran Billy Ray Smith, and it
Speaker 1: seems that she then left Tennessee for good sometime after
Speaker 1: the wedding. The FBI has said Terry has ties to Michigan, California,
Speaker 1: and Massachusetts, although specific cities were not named. It isn't
Speaker 1: clear if Terry and Smith had any children, but FBI's
Speaker 1: special agent Joe Bonavalanta referred to Terry as a wife
Speaker 1: and mother in Monday's press conference. It's unclear exactly how
Speaker 1: long Ruth Terry's marriage to Billy Ray Smith lasted, but
Speaker 1: we know that Terry and Smith were divorced at some
Speaker 1: point because because just a few months before her murder,
Speaker 1: Ruth Terry married Guy Rockwell Moldovin. Mouldovin seems to have
Speaker 1: been a persistent jack of all trades, impresario, cultish personality,
Speaker 1: and all around sleeves bag. He was an actor and
Speaker 1: a DJ in California, an antiques dealer in Seattle, and
Speaker 1: a quote bunco artist and quote again great lover everywhere
Speaker 1: he went. The New York Daily News reported that he
Speaker 1: had three wives and many sweethearts. By nineteen sixty, he
Speaker 1: was known around Greenwich Village, New York for his nightly
Speaker 1: soares with beat nicks, art lovers, celebrities, and celebrity hunters,
Speaker 1: all bound together by Muldevin's magnetism and offbeat philosophy, and
Speaker 1: as is often the final scathing injustice in murder cases,
Speaker 1: when the victim's life is tragically cut short, their story
Speaker 1: is stolen from them and appropriated by their killers or
Speaker 1: alleged killers, whom we often know more about simply because
Speaker 1: they lived longer. Sadly, the lady of the Doones story,
Speaker 1: even though we now know she is Ruth Marie Terry,
Speaker 1: is no different than most in this regard. And this
Speaker 1: is the point, the blood boiling point in the tale, when,
Speaker 1: no matter how much it might enrage us, Ruth's story
Speaker 1: is appropriated by the man who was her husband for
Speaker 1: just three short months before her murder. That man, as
Speaker 1: previously stated, was Guy Rockwell Moldovin born on October twenty sixth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three, in Santa Fe. Moldovin married several times
Speaker 1: between the nineteen forties and the nineteen sixties prior to
Speaker 1: his marriage to Terry in nineteen seventy four, three months
Speaker 1: before her body was discovered near Race Point Ranger Station
Speaker 1: in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Maldevin's name first appeared in the news
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty when, while living in Seattle with his
Speaker 1: then wife and stepdaughter, Manzanita Merns and Dolores Anne, running
Speaker 1: an antique shop, both women suddenly disappeared. According to s F. Gait,
Speaker 1: Muldovin fled, and the police searched his home, finding pieces
Speaker 1: of human flesh in a septic tank without any DNA testing.
Speaker 1: It was assumed, but never confirmed, that those were the
Speaker 1: remains of the missing women. A bulletin issued by detectives
Speaker 1: when Muldovin was wanted for grand larceny said the investigation
Speaker 1: definitely indicates subject is responsible for a double murder. The
Speaker 1: Boston Globe reported that after dyeing his hair red and
Speaker 1: receiving a nose straightening operation under the name Michael Strong,
Speaker 1: police arrested Mouldovin for unlawful flight to avoid testifying to
Speaker 1: the mutilation of human remains back in Seattle, but Mouldovin
Speaker 1: denied killing his former wife and stepdaughter without evidence. Seattle
Speaker 1: prosecutors dropped the unlawful flight charge. After the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: manhunt made Moldevin an infamous figure across the nation. Investigators
Speaker 1: in Humboldt County That's where I'm from, probed him as
Speaker 1: a suspect in the nineteen fifty murder of truck driver
Speaker 1: Henry Baird and his teenage girlfriend, Barbara Kelly at the
Speaker 1: Table Bluff Overlook. A deputy in the sheriff's office told
Speaker 1: the Eureka Humboldt Standard that Mouldovin had been a resident
Speaker 1: of Fortuna, but was believed to have left the area
Speaker 1: several weeks before the Table Bluff mystery occurred. At some point,
Speaker 1: after becoming nationally famous as the alleged murderer of his
Speaker 1: wife and daughter in Seattle and following the unsuccessful manhunt
Speaker 1: and the dropping of charges, Muldevin moved to Reno, Nevada,
Speaker 1: where he married Terry Marie Vezina, which, according to The Californian,
Speaker 1: was another name for Ruth Marie Terry. After Terry's death,
Speaker 1: Muldovin appeared again in California. The Californian would write a
Speaker 1: profile on him when he gained a cult following as
Speaker 1: a result of his popular radio program Take to Me
Speaker 1: on Kazu in Pacific Grove in the Monterey Bay area region,
Speaker 1: calling himself a quote Devil's advocate for former Governor Jerry
Speaker 1: Brown's nineteen eighty presidential campaign, Muldovin told The Californian in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five that he had retired from working as
Speaker 1: the executive vice president in a luxury shop on Rodeo
Speaker 1: Drive in Beverly Hills. In the story, Mouldovin claimed to
Speaker 1: have worked with youth through the Santa Monica Police Department
Speaker 1: and had once been told that the only job unemployment
Speaker 1: agency could find for him was as a Santa Claus
Speaker 1: at Macy's. But judging by his callers, he's attracted an
Speaker 1: audience both young and old. The profile said about his
Speaker 1: radio show. Branching out from Topics, which focused on old people,
Speaker 1: Moldovin has introduced programs dealing with homosexuality, the erosion of culture,
Speaker 1: and his belief that killing has become a habit. When
Speaker 1: Mouldovin described killing as a habit, he was perhaps being
Speaker 1: far more introspective and simultaneously forthcoming, as well as probably
Speaker 1: or at least allegedly self incriminating, than his audience could
Speaker 1: possibly have imagined. After all, authorities already believed that he
Speaker 1: had killed his wife in Seattle as well as his stepdaughter,
Speaker 1: and it now appears more than likely that he is
Speaker 1: the murderer of the Lady of the Dunes. So indeed,
Speaker 1: that supposed larger cultural observation could in fact have been
Speaker 1: a form of confession, because for Moldovin, killing was definitely
Speaker 1: allegedly a habit. Moldavin died in Selinas, California, on March fourteen,
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, with his obituary appearing in The Californian.
Speaker 1: It said he was survived by his wife, Phyllis and
Speaker 1: sister Joan Towers. Massachusetts State Police said on Wednesday that
Speaker 1: they are actively seeking information from the public about Moldovin
Speaker 1: as part of their investigation into Terry's murder. So in
Speaker 1: discovering the identity of the Lady of the Doones, it
Speaker 1: seems that investigators have probably uncovered the identity of her
Speaker 1: alleged killer, Guy Rockwell Moldovin, who, in a final twist
Speaker 1: of the knife of fate, appears to have also been,
Speaker 1: as I've already mentioned, the alleged multiple murderer of his
Speaker 1: previous wife and daughter in Seattle, as well as of
Speaker 1: the Lady of the Doones. And despite a life crammed
Speaker 1: to the brim with iniquity, crime, abuse, and alleged at
Speaker 1: least triple murder, Mouldavin was left for to marry again
Speaker 1: and die of natural causes at the age of seventy
Speaker 1: nine in two thousand and two. And look, I know
Speaker 1: I'm using a lot of qualifiers here, but this case
Speaker 1: is deeply, deeply infuriating because, of course, in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four they didn't have the instant communication, the instant access
Speaker 1: to information, the networking of systems, modern DNA, modern forensics.
Speaker 1: They didn't have any of that. But here's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: when a woman disappears or dies, wants the conventional wisdom
Speaker 1: the husband did it, right, It's always the husband. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's not always the husband, but that's where your mind
Speaker 1: goes right away. And sure enough, just three months after
Speaker 1: marrying Moldoven, Ruth Marie Terry was murdered Moldovin, who in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty was nationally famous as a murder suspect whom
Speaker 1: the police presumed did it but couldn't prove without modern DNA.
Speaker 1: So a woman marries a nationally famous murder suspect, then disappears,
Speaker 1: and somehow he's never convicted or even indicted for the crime.
Speaker 1: And look, I know there's some circular logic here, right,
Speaker 1: because they weren't able to bring Muldovin into the picture
Speaker 1: until Ruth Marie Terry's body was identified by modern DNA
Speaker 1: practices just a week ago. So sure, it's easy to
Speaker 1: say it all looks obvious now, But here's the thing
Speaker 1: that really upsets me. Had there been any suspicion surrounding
Speaker 1: Ruth Marie. Just a cursory look into her brand new
Speaker 1: husband's background would have revealed to the police that he'd
Speaker 1: already been a murder suspect and probably would have led
Speaker 1: to them doggedly investigating him until something cracked. But the
Speaker 1: FBI has stated has stated last week that there's no
Speaker 1: evidence or record that Ruth Marie was ever reported missing.
Speaker 1: So sure her body wasn't identified, so she couldn't be
Speaker 1: connected to Moldovin, but she quite clearly disappeared three months
Speaker 1: after marrying a new guy, but was never reported missing.
Speaker 1: That someone could be so alone in life that no
Speaker 1: one even notices they're gone, that is a tragedy all
Speaker 1: its own. Please do join me this coming Thursday, November
Speaker 1: tenth for another kind of murdery story. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here and helping me to find a
Speaker 1: pathway through the darkness. I'ms Evan Oldleberg and this has
Speaker 1: been The Lady of the Dunes. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to kind of Murdery. I hope if you haven't enjoyed
Speaker 1: The Lady of the Dunes, you've at least been absorbed
Speaker 1: by it by the drama and the tragedy of it.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you being here. I'ms Evan Oldleberg and this
Speaker 1: has been kind of murdery. See you. On Thursday, a
Speaker 1: Dutch peas repeated the lat
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