Authors Interviewing Characters: Laurie Notaro

THE MURDERESS

Anne LeRoi moved to Phoenix in 1930 with her friend, Sammy Samuelson, so that Sammy could recover from tuberculosis. They met in Alaska when Sammy was an elementary school teacher and Anne was an X-ray technician. They quickly made the acquaintance with Ruth Judd, a medical secretary who worked at the Grunow Clinic, where Anne found a job. The three made fast friends, and spent almost every evening together playing cards, making dinner and listening to murder mystery shows on the radio. 

Both Anne and Sammy had a very short time left together; on October 16, 1931, both were shot and killed by their best friend, Ruth, seemingly over the affections of a man all three knew. Both victims were stuffed into trunks and shipped to Los Angeles, the baggage leaking blood all over the platform. When Judd went to claim them, the porters confronted her with the blood and the trunks, after which she promised to open them once she had the key, and then vanished into the crowd.

A week-long, nation-wide woman hunt followed until Judd turned herself in and was arrested. Ruth Judd went on to become one of the most notorious murderesses in the 20th century, as the tabloids named her “The Velvet Tigress” and the “Blonde Butcher.” After receiving the death sentence, Ruth Judd was declared insane and was instead sent to the Arizona State Hospital, from which she escaped numerous times, once for a period of five years. She was eventually paroled by Governor Jack Williams and lived a quiet, uneventful life until she died in her sleep at the age of 98. 

Laurie Notaro is the author of “The Murderess,” a new look at an old case that reveals new insights and perspective on the infamous case. Growing up in Phoenix, Notaro saw Ruth Judd as the bogeyman, but in her research and investigation, she learned who these three women were, and why the legend of Ruth Judd wasn’t exactly as it seemed.

Notaro interviews Anne LeRoi about her friendships with Sammy and Ruth, and why she’s still furious after almost 100 years after her death.

Laurie Notaro: When you met Ruth Judd at the Grunow Clinic, were there any indications of what would follow in barely the year afterwards?

Anne LeRoi: That is a ridiculous question. How was I supposed to know she was going to kill me? And Sammy? I never would have given her the time of day, yet alone invite her over for dinner the way I did.

Notaro: Tell me about the better times with Ruth; what did you have in common?

LeRoi: I honestly found her to be a very pleasant woman at first. She was very sweet; we would share sandwiches during our lunch break and sometimes she would bake something special for our lunches and bring it to work. I found her to be rather kind and harmless.

Notaro: And when did that change?

LeRoi: Oh, it wasn’t for a while. We became very close very quick; it was the Depression, and we helped each other get along. It was just as cheap to make a dinner for three as it was for two, so Sammy and I had her over nearly every night to eat. They weren’t fancy dinners, usually something pretty basic, but every now and then we’d pitch in and get a chicken, or a pork cut or something like that. Sammy and I couldn’t do that on our own; Sammy was very ill and couldn’t work. But by splitting it with Ruth, we all won. 

Notaro: What were some of your good memories of Ruth? Did you laugh a lot? Play games?

LeRoi: Ruth was very good at cards. The three of us would play Eights or if we got a fourth person, we could play gin or something like that. Usually, it was just us three. She didn’t live very far from us and was able to catch the streetcar right on the corner, so she came to us. We had a bigger place, with a kitchen, dining room, and living room. Her apartment was very small. Plus, Sammy had a hard time travelling anywhere. We had some howling fits of laughter, I’ll tell you, us three girls. It was good, I liked Ruth. I trusted her.  I even asked her to take care of Sammy when my sister got sick and I had to leave for a bit. Sammy loved Ruth, just adored her. Sammy loved everybody. Could never see a thing wrong in Ruth, not Sammy. I think she felt very sorry for her.

Notaro: Sorry in what way?

LeRoi: Oh, well, Ruth had a husband, older than her, much older. I never could understand why a pretty girl like that would marry such an old man. But he was in California, she told us he was practicing medicine out there, he was a doctor, but we soon found out the truth, she told us. He was a doctor, but he was also an addict, like so many men who came back from the war. He was trying to recover, you know, but wasn’t having much luck. So here was Ruth, this tiny little young girl, all by herself with not a soul in Phoenix. And Sammy and I didn’t have any family close either, except for each other. It just seemed like a lonely life. And we were happy, the three of us, in our small little family.

Notaro: And when did that change?

LeRoi: It all changed with Jack. It was all Jack. Jack was—he was generous, funny, a businessman in Phoenix who knew everybody. Drove a fancy car. He was Ruth’s boyfriend, you could say. With an old sick husband, you could hardly blame her, she was so young and pretty. Looked like a movie star. She was always perfect; she dressed well, her hair was always finger curled and set in the most lovely way. She brought him over one night for dinner and then he just never went away. He was with us a lot, brought us a grand radio so we could listen to programs. And then he brought his friends over, one by one, and we could play cards, joke around, you know, have a bit of fun. Jack had connections. He always brought something over with him, a bottle of this, a bottle of that. So while it wasn’t exactly champagne, you know, we had a fun time. But he was married too, and although it wasn’t any of my business, I wished that Ruth didn’t get so attached to him as she did. Maybe none of this mess would have happened.

Notaro: What were his friends like?

LeRoi: Well, I don’t know if you could really call them friends—they were clients, really. Jack was a lumber man, and he had a lot of other businessmen to entertain. So, he brought them to our house. It made times seems less hard at first. We were all having fun, drinking a little, having nice dinners—Jack would send groceries over or sometimes he’d just order from the hotel and bring it over. Fancy things, things we never could have afforded, steaks, lobster, just crazy things. It was not easy during that time, you know. Things were hard to come by, even if you did have enough money to spend on something out of the ordinary. But Jack and his friends knew where to find what they wanted or needed. He had a friend that took me to Los Angeles, bought me a fancy fur coat and all kinds of things. I sold the coat, hocked the jewelry, and I could pay for Sammy’s treatments. It was a way to get things to stretch a bit further. 

Notaro: What was expected of you in return?

LeRoi: Well, you don’t ever get something for nothing, now do you? Sammy needed medicine and care. She had to have it. I couldn’t stand watching her sick and see her suffering. This was a way to get Sammy well again.

Notaro: And Ruth was still friendly all of this time?

LeRoi: Of course. As long as I was with one of Jack’s friends, it was fine by her. But she started having a conscience about seeing Jack on the sly, you know, with her husband and everything. She broke things off. So, Jack started coming over without her. There was no funny stuff going on between him and me, but I wasn’t going to turn down groceries and a bit of help with the rent, you know? I thought I could still be friends with both. But Ruth didn’t see it that way. She thought I was moving in on Jack, and that was just crazy. Why would I ruin a good thing? But she couldn’t get over it, and believe me, that little girl, no matter how pretty she was, could get mean. I swear she tried to poison me with some terrible chili she made and brought for lunch. I was up all night. 

Notaro: Did you feel things were going in a direction that could end up with you and Sammy being in such danger?

LeRoi: No. Never. She was agitated, I knew that, she was impatient and seemed irritated. I thought it was over Jack, and it was, but I had nothing to do with that. Don’t ask me if she snapped,or went crazy, I don’t know. I don’t care. 

Notaro: What was that last night like?

LeRoi: It was typical, we had a girlfriend over and played cards, Ruth said she was staying home to wait for Jack and she had a lot of worry at the clinic. She was falling behind on her transcriptions, and she was in a state about that. But after dinner, she popped up, and we played a couple hands of cards, our friends left and then I told her I heard about something she had done that I was not happy about.

Notaro: What was that about?

LeRoi: She introduced Jack to a girl we knew had syphilis! Why would she do a thing like that? It was stupid. What if she went off with one of his friends, so on and so on, with a girl who was infected? I didn’t want syphilis! I asked her why she would do such a stupid thing. She said that girl knew about hunting spots in the mountains where Jack planned to take his friends to for some big hoo-ha before their wives came back to Phoenix because the summer was over. In any case, it was an awful thing to do, and she needed to know that. But she got all in a huff, and yelled back that she would tell Jack something terrible about me and Sammy, that we were perverts and “funny.” I wasn’t going to stand for that, and I told her so. I went to bed, and Sammy calmed her down. I just did not want to be with Ruth when she was in such a crazy state. 

Notaro: And then?

LeRoi: And then she shot me. She crept into my bedroom like a little mouse with a gun in her hand and pressed it to my temple. I felt the coldness of it, I started to open my eyes, there was a bright flash, and it was over. She killed me. And then she went after Sammy, who had been in the bathroom. Why did she do that? She didn’t have to hurt Sammy. Sammy loved her like a sister. Sammy never said a bad word about Ruth. And then Sammy was dead, too. And don’t ask me about anything after that, about what they did, because that was terrible. Why do that to Sammy? Sammy was so weak. They didn’t need to do that to Sammy.

Notaro: It’s been almost 100 years. Do you think Ruth paid for what she did? Did she suffer enough?

LeRoi: Never. She could never pay enough for what she did to Sammy. Sammy and I had our whole lives to live. Ruth got to live. She got to laugh again, she was able to enjoy things. She didn’t get Jack, he made sure of that. But why did she do that to Sammy? Why not me? They tore her apart, threw parts of her out a window. Into the desert for animals to eat. Ruth Judd was a horrible person. Sammy and I had so much left to do. Our lives were hard, Sammy might not have gotten better. But she could have. We might have traveled, moved back to Alaska where we were very happy. But Ruth took it away. I know she cried for us. When she was alone in her cell, in her hospital room, in her trailer, I saw her crying for us. I did see that she missed us. But she could never pay for what she took from us, what she did. She ended us. We had nothing more. And we could have had everything. The Depression was going to end, things were going to change. We would have had a nice life together. If it wasn’t for Ruth Judd, we could have had everything. We almost did, you know. 

We came very close. 

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Category: Interviews, On Writing