‘Lady of the dunes’ cold case finally solved after 50 years
In July 1974, the decaying body of a brutally murdered woman was found on a beach. Her killer was not found – until now. WARNING: GRAPHIC
WARNING: GRAPHIC
On the 26th of July, 1974, a little girl was taking her dog for a walk on the beach when he suddenly began barking and pulling her along the sand dunes.
The unimaginable brutality of the scene she walked into would haunt her forever.
Laying face down on the sand was the badly decaying and insect-infested corpse of a woman.
Her naked body was posed on a green towel and both of her hands were cut off at the wrists, while her head had been almost completely decapitated.
The killer also pulled out her teeth, likely an extra step to ensure she could not be identified.
Her auburn hair had been slicked back into a ponytail and her toe nails had been painted pink.
A blue bandana and a pair of wrangler jeans were folded up like a pillow under her head.
Police were unable to determine the identity of the mystery woman, and she was buried just over two months later in October 1974.
“It was horrifying. There’s no doubt about it,” said Sandra Lee, the woman who discovered the body when she was just nine years old.
“I looked into the brush, and I saw at that point in my life, the single most gruesome sight I had ever seen.
“She was naked. I could see an injury to the right side of her head and a little bit of a slice, which I believe they tried to cut her head off.”
For 48 long years, she was known only as ‘The Lady of the Dunes’ – a name that would plague the small town of Provincetown in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, forever.
While the case went cold, detectives never stopped trying to uncover the truth, with authorities exhuming her remains in 1980, 2000 and 2010 in the hopes of finding clues but to no avail.
Using her skull, sketches were created, later followed by high tech computer generated images, however nobody seemed to recognise her face.
Over the years, police pored over the mountains of tips and potential leads that came through – including one that suggested the woman may have been an extra on the set of Jaws, as they had filmed the classic movie in 1974 not far from where her body was discovered.
Her grave remained nameless, the simple epitaph reading “unidentified female body, found race point dunes, July 26, 1974”.
As is with most cold cases, many had lost all hope that this harrowing investigation would ever be solved.
It had become one of the biggest mysteries in America, gripping the nation for half a century.
But then in October 2022, there was a major breakthrough.
Thanks to the power of modern technology, police were able to finally identify the mystery woman as Tennessee-born Ruth Marie Terry, who was 37 years old when she was killed.
She was identified using investigate genealogy, which combines the use of DNA analysis with traditional genealogy research and historical records to generate leads for unsolved violent crimes.
Their research led them to a Richard Hanchett, who was actually Ruth’s biological son.
She gave birth to Richard in 1958 when she was 22 years old, however due to financial difficulties, she placed him with a co-worker who adopted him.
The news came as a shock to her Richard, who had only learned his mother’s identity at the same time he found out she was a noted murder victim.
“It hurts,” said Hanchett in an interview with NBC10, after the news of the breakthrough in his mother’s murder case broke.
“A horrible thing happened to my mum in a beautiful place. She was a beautiful person and I wish I could have gotten to know her.”
The year before Ruth was killed, she tried to reach out to her son who was a teenager at the time but he was not ready to connect.
“It was a brutal death,” FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joe Bonavolonta said at the time.
“For the last 48 years, investigators with the Massachusetts State Police and Provincetown Police Department have worked tirelessly to identify her through various means, including neighbourhood canvasses; reviews of thousands of missing persons cases; clay model facial reconstruction, and age-regression drawings.
“This is, without a doubt, a major break in the investigation that will, hopefully, bring all of us closer to identifying her killer.”
When asked if the woman’s disappearance was ever reported, police noted that a member of her family did try to find her years ago after determining themselves that she went missing.
Her identification was the key to finding her killer.
Just 10 months later, in late August 2023, Ruth Marie Terry’s murderer was finally found after 49 years of mystery.
As it turns out, police have confirmed that the person who killed Ruth was actually her husband, Guy Rockwell Muldavin.
Newly married in Reno, Nevada, in early 1974, Ruth and Guy went on their honeymoon that summer, the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
He returned home alone, telling her family they had a fight – and that he never heard from her again.
“Based on the investigation into the death of Ms. Terry, it has been determined that Mr Muldavin was responsible for Ms Terry’s death in 1974,” the DA’s office said in a statement, as they announced the case was closed.
Muldavin passed away in 2002, without ever serving time or being brought to justice for the murder of his wife.
Police have not revealed how they made the discovery that he was the killer, or the exact circumstances around what lead to Ruth’s death.
Muldavin was a one-time successful antique dealer who was also an artist, actor and poet, according to his obituary, and died in 2002 at age 78 in Salinas, California, after a lengthy illness.
He was 52 at the time he murdered his wife.
Muldavin was previously the focus of an investigation into the killing of another one of his ex-wives and his stepdaughter in Seattle in 1960, but was never charged with their murders.
News reports from the time show that, after the women went missing, human remains were found in the septic tank of the family’s home.
Muldavin was arrested by the FBI and charged with unlawful flight for not giving testimony related to the mutilation of human remains.
He was later found guilty of grand larceny, but had his sentence suspended after 15 months in jail, according to The Seattle Times.
Ruth Marie Terry would be 85 years old if she was still alive today.
Family member Jan Terry described her as beautiful and caring.
“She loved her family and her family loved her,” she told NBC10.
“She was a free spirit.”
When her son Richard was asked if he has found any peace after the case was closed, he confirmed he had.
“Yeah there is actually. It’s the fact that we found her and she’s not missing anymore,” he said.
“I just wish I could have met her once.”
Despite the sad outcome of the case, Ruth’s family says they are beyond grateful that she was never forgotten.
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