The Murderess by Laurie Notaro

 

I had heard of Winnie Ruth Judd, the woman who murdered her two best friends and was caught when she shipped their bodies to Los Angles from Phoenix in the summer heat.  But this book showed me how much I didn't know about Judd.

I didn't know anything about her two victims, Anne LeRoi and Hedvig 'Sammy' Samuelson.  I didn't know anything about her marriage.  I definitely didn't know about her story after the murders.  Laurie Notaro has given me that information in a blend of novel and true crime fiction.

Judd was born into a family in Indiana and married at 19, a man who was twenty-two years older than her.  He was a doctor but he didn't share with her until they were married that he was also an addict.  Due to this the couple spent long periods apart as he tried to deal with his addiction over and over.  One of those separations led to the murder.

One of those separations happened in 1930 with her husband in Los Angeles and Judd in Phoenix where she was expected to make her own way.  She found a job in a medical clinic and that's where she met Anne, who also worked there.  She, Anne and her roommate Sammy became friends.  But Judd was also seeing a local married man and soon he was coming over to Anne's house as well, and the three became known for hosting raucous parties for the local businessmen who had 'summer wives', married women who left Phoenix in the summer for cooler environments.  Over time, Judd became dependent on drugs and jealous of Anne, who had begun to flirt with the man Ruth was seeing.  One night, Anne and Sammy were killed.  The married man and a friend helped Ruth put them in trunks and she sent them to Los Angles, where he said someone would meet her and take care of the bodies.  But he was lying, leaving her to be arrested.

After the trial, Ruth was sentenced to death.  She was weeks away when she was declared insane and sent to the state mental hospital instead.  Although there is no firm diagnosis, Ruth was probably either bipolar or schizophrenic, her mother ending up in the same mental hospital later.  Ruth was the star of the hospital and allowed to become a hair dresser for the women of Phoenix and the hospital staff.  She remained in the hospital for thirty years and was finally released in 1971.

Laurie Notaro is known for her humorous memoirs but has done a great job in this foray into recounting a true case.  She grew up in Phoenix so would have heard about Judd as a local celebrity.  The book is recounted in great part from Judd's point of view, making her sympathetic and putting much of the blame on the men in her life and her underlying mental issues.  In the afterword, Notaro was able to locate and first publish Judd's own account of the murders.  This book is recommended for true crime readers.