Gone with the Winnebago PT 2

On today’s episode, the conclusion of a two-parter, Paul and Kate head back to 1974 Washington state where an RV has gone off a cliff and the body of a woman is found near the wreckage site. Many theories arise as to what happened at the scene and ultimately who is at fault.   

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well. I left you with the big cliffhanger.
I feel like several cliffhangers from last na. Last week,
the story of Ruth Fernandez, there was a lot. What
do you remember? I'm going to make you do the summary.
What do you remember about this case from last week?

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well? I remember that.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
A fraudster, Tony, had gotten into a relationship with Ruth.
They were both in their forties, Tony being about six
years older, and as the relationship progressed from nineteen seventy
one to nineteen seventy four, it appears that it fell apart.
Ruth had gone to Texas for about a month and
complained to her daughter or was it a friend both.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
She complained to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I think, yeah, okay, so I complained that the relationship
was in shambles. Meanwhile, Tony had convinced Ruth to give
him power of attorney and he starts selling off some
of her assets. It sounds like land. And then when
she gets back into town, he convinces her to go
on a camping trip and they stop at a restaurant.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
They have a few drinks. Everything seems fine.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
As they drive up closer to the campsite, he stops
off at a timber company and some witnesses see them.
Nobody's concerned about the way that Ruth and Tony are interacting,
and then they go up to the campsite, and around
eight thirty that night, Tony is now calling a couple
of restaurants saying Ruth has walked off by herself, and
he's concerned about her and is wondering if people at

(02:28):
the restaurants have.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Seen her, And then he.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Calls Washington State Patrol and changes his story and says
that Ruth has driven off in their RV Winnebago, and
they happen to have a jeep with them or a
similar type of SUV, and he's driving that. And then
ultimately he is with Ruth's future son in law and
they're driving and they see some skid marks on a

(02:54):
logging road and look over the edge and there's a
crashed RV and the future son in law goes down
and finds Ruth's body away from the RV, further down
the slope, and she's dead.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
You're hired. You need to do all my summaries from
now on. That was excellent, Oh better better than I
could have done. And it proves that you've been listening,
which is just a bonus for me. That's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
I always listen to you.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
You got it all right. He takes the suv back,
made some bone calls, takes the SUV back to Auburn.
She's not there. He takes the future son in law
with him. Now this is where things get a little complicated.
So Donald had said he saw skid marks on the
road and that's why he gravitated towards this section. She
was found one hundred feet down from the embankment. You know,

(03:45):
she's got signs of trauma to her head, into her stomach.
So when investigators show up to come look, they immediately
zero in on the conditions of this logging road. Now,
let me ask you, logging road. Does that mean dirt
or does that mean pavement or could it be either.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I don't think it mads pavement, and I think it's
either dirt or maybe gravel, you know, depending on the
type of traffic they're expecting. So that's where again i'd
love to see photos of this, you know, these skid marks,
and then you know, is it in the dirt, is
it in the gravel? Is it just you know, the

(04:21):
skid marks going over the edge or their skid marks
leading up to where the Winnebago went over the edge,
because I would indicate that there is some either some
type of speed, depending on if it's upslope or downslope.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Okay, well, I'm sorry about the photos. My apologies. I
know you would think we would have some seene photos here,
but we don't. We're just going to have to go
off what the investigators saying, what Anne Rule says, who
did pretty extensive research on this. So the inconsistencies are
with the skid marks. So Donald had said, I mean,
I don't know how he described skid marks, but he said,

(04:54):
this is the reason I look down the embankment. The
investigators sort of there's inconsistent with whether or not they
see skid marks nearby. What everybody agrees on is there's
a big rock four inches tall that is near the
edge of the embankment. And I think what the presumption
is is that she was driving her wheel hit this rock,

(05:15):
it spun her off. Maybe she was going too fast
and it was getting dark anyway, or was dark at
this point, and it sent the RV down the embankment.
There's no real consistent source that says there were definite
skid marks. How would skid marks work on a dirt
road to begin with?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, Well, first you said that there's a real tall rock,
and you said it was four.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Inches I mean, is that enough if you hit it
with an RV tire, a big tire, Is that enough
to make it kind of veer off?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
No, not in an off road capacity. If it's just
four inches tall, you might feel the bump, you know,
for sure, Like where I go out here in Colorado.
I have boulders that are four feet tall that are
on the sign of some of the roads I go on. Right,
You know, if I were to hit something like that,
that could cause my jeep to take an impact and

(06:07):
may affect you know, my course on the road. Four
inches wouldn't do anything I wouldn't expect. But when you
start talking about the skid marks on this road, is
this you know? This is where Okay, do we see
if it's a dirt road? Are we seeing where tires
have locked up and you have this, you know, true
skid marks because you know the person driving is trying

(06:31):
to stop the RV before it goes over the edge
but fails to do that. Or are we talking about
a scenario if this is a dirt road and it's logging.
Oftentimes you'll have the heavy equipment like these big scrapers
that will come along in order to maintain the road,
and you'll see the dirt gets piled up on the

(06:52):
side of the road before it goes down the embankment.
And do you have a scenario where you don't necessarily
see the dirt being disrupted because a tire have locked up?
What you see is you see the driver and passenger
side tires going through this softer a mound of dirt
where they shouldn't be going. Has the Winnebago is going
over the side of this cliff. It comes down to

(07:14):
and I know where the scenario is going to go.
Is was Ruth really driving and did this scenario occur
where she's slamming on the brakes, you know, and then
fails to be able to maintain the Winnebago on the
road versus was she already dead or unconscious and the
Winnebago is allowed to drift off the road with her
in there. And that's again the skid marks become kind

(07:37):
of critical because it's kind of hard for an external
person outside of Winnebago to apply brakes, you know, to
make it look like or simulate that this Winnebago is
traveling at speed and the wheels lock up and just
fail to keep the Winnebago on the road.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, what investigators say and what ann Rule records in
her book is that the markings on the road indicate
that no one had stomped on the brakes as some
desperate attempt to keep it from plunging over, and it
actually seemed like the Winnebago was not moving very quickly
on the road. That's what their investigators are saying. So

(08:14):
whatever the skid marks, Donald thought he saw. Whatever that
description is. Investigators, when in they get out there, say
this is not some RV going at a high rate
of speed and she makes a mistake or a deer
jumps out in front of her and she's slamming on
her brakes. This is something else. So I don't know
if that helps, and we'll have a little bit more
information in a bit, but it does not convince investigators

(08:37):
that she, if she were driving, is the cause of
this accident, that this was an accident. They become immediately
suspicious based on her body, the road, and what's inside
the RV, or rather what is not inside the RV.
There's no blood, there's no nothing. There's no blood, no
torn flesh, no hair. She had been wearing a loosely

(08:59):
woven bloe that would have like caught up on something
during this terrible, you know, bucketing down the steep hill,
but her blouse had no tears in it, there were
no snags in it. There's no blood, As I said,
inside the RV. Investigators say there are no signs that
a body was tossed around inside the RV at any point,

(09:19):
even those of this thing is completely crunched up at
the bottom of this embankment.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Now the question is going to be, at what point
during this RV going over the embankment could Ruth have
been thrown out. If she's thrown out very early, then
it's possible you're not going to have the blood staining
and other types of tissues and the clothes tearing as
they're describing inside the RV because her body is out

(09:47):
before the RV is really impacting as it's tumbling down,
and this is where autopsy's critical.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Well, I got it, buddy, Okay, Okay, So there is
a post mortem exam and it is in Seattle, which
is probably good news for US Medical Examiner, which is
great news for US. So let's talk about the condition
of the body and then her blood alcohol level or

(10:15):
which one do you care?

Speaker 2 (10:16):
It really doesn't matter because you know, I'm going to
be assessing the totality of the findings the toxicology in
addition to what types of injuries and other things that
the pathologist is observing.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Okay, So there's three things that we need to talk about.
So we'll do the injuries to her body, because we
just talked about the fact that there doesn't seem to
be anything tossed around really inside this crunched up RV.
We'll talk about the blood alcohol level of Ruth, and
then we'll talk about how the RV is positioned and
kind of what year it's in, because I think all
of that is important. Okay. Medical examiner who is a

(10:51):
guy named doctor Donald Ray. He looks at Ruth's body
shortly after it's recovered. He says that there were no
lacerations on her the skin was not broken. She had
minor bruises and abrasions on her arms and legs. He
said that there was an injury to her abdomen which
looks like it was struck with some sort of a

(11:13):
blunt object, and there was a skull fracture and that's
what they think is what killed her. And most of
the other injuries were superficial. He says, this is not
what you would expect from somebody who was thrown out
of a vehicle. You would have had many other, you know, injuries.

(11:33):
So what do you think about this so far? There's
some you know, injury to her abdomen, crushed skull, but
everything else is just sort of scrapes. And the medical
examiner are saying, no way, this woman was thrown going
down an embankment out of an RV with all of
this brush in these trees around.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, and it's also assessing geology, if you will, you know,
is this a very rocky area. She's separated from the
RV's down slope a distance from where the RV came
to rest. What is her body going to be hitting?
You know, of course there's going to be the side
of the slope, there's uh, you know, maybe bushes and

(12:13):
different trees, not knowing you know how veget you know
what the vegetation type is here. But then were there
also you know, lots of rocks and minimally I would
be expecting with a body that is having to tumble
likely you know, if if she fell, I don't even
know how far down as you know the RV from
the road. Are we talking ten ten feet? Are we

(12:35):
talking one hundred feet? Do you have any of that
type of information.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Well, what they had said was she was found not
far from the wreckage, about one hundred feet down the embankment.
So I'm assuming that's what one hundred feet down from
the road, that's where she was.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
And how steep, like what could her body have fallen?
You know, I'm trying to trying to figure out is
this a scenario where she fell, you know, she free
fault fifty feet before impacting something, or she just kind
of rolling down this slope.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I'll describe it better for you. So we've got the road.
It is described as a steep, rocky embankment off the shoulder.
It's a slope or a cliff which goes into what
they call a ravine, So it's definitely going down. It's
definitely like a cliff slope. Her body is one hundred
feet down the embankment. The RV is three hundred feet

(13:28):
down the embankment. So she goes first, and then the
RV keeps going down past her. Okay, does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yep, Nope, for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
It also tells me that there aren't a lot of
big tall trees like pine trees that's catching the RV,
you know, right after it goes over the slope. So
sounds like both the RV and Ruth were able to
tumble to their final resting spots. This type of tumbling
on Ruth would most certainly be causing a fair amount

(13:58):
of abrasions on various surfaces of her body. The lack
of lacerations, you know, a laceration technically is when there's
been kind of a blow with a blunt object on
the surface of the skin that causes the skin to split.
I'm not sure without seeing the scene if I would

(14:18):
be expecting to see true lacerations. If she's just tumbling
and she's not impacting rocks like she's falling and having
these massive impacts against the rocks. The skull fracture, again,
that's going to be dependent upon what is the cause
of the skull fracture. Does it look like it's you know,
something that could be caused from the way that she's

(14:39):
tumbled down.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
It's kind of a tweener, you know.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
And this is this is part of the complexity of
assessing this type of case. Is is there anything you know,
Let's say there, I'm going to be very obvious here.
Let's say her throat is cut. That becomes easy. But
when you have her injuries that you know could be
caused by her tumbling down this slope, then this is

(15:04):
where now it's relying upon doctor Ray's observation. Who's going
These do not appear to be consistent with what you know?
The idea of this is an accident. All she's thrown
from the vehicle and is tumbling down this particular terrain.
At this point in time, I have to rely on
doctor Ray in his conclusion and say, okay, well, if
he's drawing that conclusion, that's something which will now lend

(15:28):
suspicion as to Okay, what truly did happen to Ruth?
And then now it's okay, what's going on with the Winnebago.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Before we get to the Winnebago, which is interesting, let's
talk about Ruth and her blood alcohol level, because, as
you can imagine, the defense is going to be all
over this. I don't know anything about blood coal levels.
I probably should know more, but it's at about zero
point one point five, okay, but it could have been
as much as point two four at the time of

(15:59):
her death, because he thinks she lived about an hour
and a half before she died. Now I don't know
how he knows that, but those are the two pieces
of information that are new for you.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
Point one five to point two four. This is a
high blood alcohol level.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Of course, everybody's familiar that. Typically here in the United States,
what is considered to be too impaired to drive is
the point zero eight percent. The point one five is,
of course, almost double the legal driving limit in most
states here. So she's ingested a fair amount of alcohol.
Now it sounds like we know she had a few

(16:34):
cocktails earlier in the day four thirty ish, but it
doesn't sound like she drank enough to get her up
to a point one five at that restaurant, And most
people at a one to five are visibly intoxicated. It's
pretty obvious unless you are a very tolerant drinker, point
one five is a significant alcohol level. So she leaves

(16:59):
the restaurant and then at some point she likely is
consuming more alcohol, and that's where you know, obviously, interviews
with Tony, what did you guys do when you get
to the campsite, how much did you have to drink?
Investigating the winnebag or the crime scene, you know, what's
the source of the alcohol that's in her system? To
try to correlate that, I kind of disagree with the

(17:21):
pathologist saying that she could have been as high as
a point two four and her just laying there. Typically,
on average people will burn off roughly about an O
two per hour, and it can vary from person to person,
you know. So to say, well she laid there for
an hour and a half, so she dropped from a
point two four down to a point one point five,

(17:41):
I don't agree with that. I would say, if she's
alive and she's eliminating the alcohol in her system, she
maybe max would have been around one to seven. You know,
And for the average person, like for one hundred and
fifty pounds mail to be up at a one seven,
and generally it's like you, you rise up about an

(18:03):
O two per drink. So now you are taking a
look at somebody who's had one hundred and fifty pound mail,
you know, roughly eight and a half drinks.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
All at once. Wow, you know.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
And typically what happens, of course, is you drink over time,
and as you drink, you're also eliminating. So for Ruth
to get up to a one five and she's I'm
assuming she's a more petite woman, She's not one hundred
and fifty pounds like one hundred and fifty pound mail,
let's say she would rise per drink point oh three.
You know, now she had you know, roughly five plus

(18:37):
drinks in her system at the time that they tested her,
and she likely had more than that. And a drink
is you know, a twelve ounce beer, standard glass of wine,
or a shot of one hundred proof spirit. You know,
that's generally how we define these drinks. So she would
have had a fairly significant amount of drinks in her

(18:59):
system prior to her ending up dead.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
And she would have been the one to do this, right.
I know that sounds like a silly question, but you know,
with drugs, you know, we know that there are cases
where people inject victims with heroin different drugs to kind
of set this up as an overdose. But you can't
do that with alcohol. I mean, this is a significant
amount of alcohol. So she probably at the camp site
between four thirty when somebody last saw her and eight thirty,

(19:26):
when Tony starts making phone calls. Between this time drank
a significant amount of alcohol, probably on her own accord.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
It's really tough to have somebody ingest alcohol. You know,
the idea of let's say, injecting pure ethanol into somebody's
body that seems a little far fetched, so I would say, yeah,
she probably voluntarily drank this alcohol. And and now this
is going, okay, what happened between four thirty and eight
thirty ish.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, and her kids have said, yeah, she drank. She
didn't have a drinking problem, they believed, but that she
was not somebody who would turn down alcohol necessarily. And
probably she's up at this campsite with this miserable guy
wanting to kind of take it all away, and drinking
a lot of alcohol. So you can see where this

(20:15):
is going. This is a defense. She drank a lot
at the campsite, She got in the RV, he didn't
leave for another twenty or thirty minutes. She ends up
off the embankment, thrown out of the car, drunk driving accident,
steep hill. She shouldn't have been doing it. And that's
where we're going to land except some weird things. So

(20:35):
tell me what you think about this. The RV is
crumpled after this crash because it's three hundred feet down
this embankment, this rocky embankment. According to a report from
the Associated Press, the vehicle, the RV is in park
and the emergency brake is engaged. When this is discovered,
let me just tell you this one little bit, and

(20:56):
then you can go back and address that if you want.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
So.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
There was a mechanic who had service this RV that
they rented before the Fernandez has picked it up, and
he says that the vehicle was in poor condition, that
it had a dead battery and a loose fan belt.
But the company says, we did plenty of work on it.
It was just fine when we lint it out to them,
What does it mean that it's in park and that
the emergency brake is engaged.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
It most certainly is suspicious.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
This is where you know anything involving vehicles, and there's
a question about the vehicles, the mechanics, and whether or
not the various hypothetical scenarios of what happened could occur
with the way the vehicle is found and this RV,
I don't know what its mechanics are. In terms of
the parking, it sounds like it had automatic transmission, and

(21:44):
typically when you put something in park, there's actually a
metal barrier that prevents you know, the wheels from turning.
You know, it's very different. I have manual transmission my
jeep and I don't have a park, you know, I
have to rely on the emergence break, so.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
You know, this is where?

Speaker 2 (22:04):
How is this this vehicle in park with the emergency
brake on? How could it end up over the slope
as it did? Do you have you know, the ability
to could you expect Ruth as let's say she's recognizing
that this vehicle is is possibly going to go over
the edge? Is she pulling up on the emergency brake?

(22:26):
Is she slamming the transmission park in order to be
able to get it to to further come to a
halt because the brakes themselves aren't slowing it down.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
You know that that.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Seems a little bit far fetched. Is it possible that
you know, let's say a third party Tony, you know,
could have Ruth unconscious or dead inside this RV or
and have it just teetering on the edge, you know,
and have it it's in park with the emergency brake
on and it's over on the edge just enough to

(22:59):
where at events just slides right down. Now you've got
the scenario. I would have expected it to have been
in gear with the emergency breakof or she went over
the edge. Is this a flat part of the road.
Is it downslope or is it must be either flat
or down versus up.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
I think it's flat. No, I don't think it's up.
I think it's flat.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Okay, I'm just trying to envision myself being outside an RV.
You know, Let's say the driver's door is open and
I want this huge vehicle to go over the edge.
I mean that's risky in and of itself, you know.
So how how would Tony be able to get this
RV over the edge if it is in park and
the emergency break is on? You know, and this again

(23:40):
is working with experts and trying to figure out is
that a possibility. But it is suspicious that it is
in park and the emergency break is engaged.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yes, it's really suspicious. And you know, as this case
gets going, her daughters are panicking because he has now
inherited her state, which is two hundred and fifty thousand
to four hundred thousand dollars millions of dollars now. So
in nineteen seventy six they take Tony to civil court

(24:09):
over the estate, and there are witnesses at these proceedings,
these medical experts to call into question, of course, whether
Ruth died in an accident or whether she was a
victim of homicide, and the judge comes away feeling that,
you know, it's clear that Fernandez, Tony Fernandez killed his wife.
There are no criminal charges yet, but they're coming. Fifty

(24:30):
three year old Tony then is blocked from getting his
wife's estate. He is kicked out of their Auburn home,
and of course he goes on and on about this
being a hoax and a fraud, and the stepdaughters are
out to get him. But the King County prosecuting attorney
gives Tony much more to worry about because he has
now launched these criminal charges against Tony for his wife's

(24:52):
death in nineteen seventy eight, four years after she died.
So it's a huge amount of of media attention. Of course,
Anne Rule writes part of her book about it. He's
framed as a gold digger, which it sounds like he was.
I'm surprised you haven't asked about this. She has so
many assets. This seems minor to me. But he had
taken out one hundred thousand dollars accidental death policy on

(25:15):
her two months and six days before her untimely death,
and it sounds like he forged her signature on that
document and she had other life insurance policies totaling about
eighty four thousand dollars. Well, I mean, this guy, that's
a lot.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
No for sure, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
And it's always suspicious when you see a policy taken
out that is, you know, contemporaneous to the time of
the death, you know, And so why is he taking
out that accidental death policy?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
You know, it's just that's a red flag.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's circumstantial, you know, but it most certainly kind of
adds up to the totality of what's going on. He's
interested in her for her finalinancial assets. He's doing everything
he can so he can control our financial assets by
getting power of attorney. He's got the past criminal history
of fraud. You know, everything adds up to where, okay,

(26:12):
he's he's planning on, you know, several months ahead of
time by taking out this policy.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
He's already in his mind going.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
To be killing Ruth, and he's going to be the
beneficiary of that policy.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
So he's planned this for a while.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
You know. I've often wondered, and maybe you have the
answer to this about these accidental death policies. How often
do these insurance companies investigate these types of deaths. I
guess it's clear on the majority of them that these
truly were accidents. But obviously this is not the first
time that this has come up, that somebody's taken out
a policy like this and then the person becomes a

(26:48):
victim later on.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, I most early don't have the volume of exposure
to say how often the insurance companies, let's say, don't
disperse the funds. I do know select cases I've had
involvement in that insurance companies they do pay attention. They're
not just going to willy nilly pay out tens of thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. If there's any

(27:13):
chance that the death was something that is not covered
by policy, let's say suicide, or if the beneficiary is
the suspect of a homicide, they're going to hold on
to their money, you know.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
So that's where you know, in.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
This particular case, the criminal side of it is it
was it an accident or was it homicide. At a
certain point, the insurance company may end up, especially if
this drags out long enough and there's no criminal charges,
you know, they may request from the you know, the
investigating agency or the district attorney. Hey, do you think

(27:52):
the beneficiary is responsible or not? Is there going to
be criminal charges down the road. But at a certain
point if it's still no criminal charge, and I think
they're going to pay out, you know, and then maybe
try to recoup the money if all of a sudden
criminal charges are filed. But I just don't have enough
you know, experience to be able to say exactly how
this all plays out.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Well, speaking of premeditation, it turns out that Tony has
been telling friends and family that Ruth had been experiencing
health problems in the months before the crash, which included
blackouts and memory lapses. So he's been saying this before
her death. Of course, the daughters are saying, no, we

(28:34):
don't think so, we've never heard of this before. And
then Ruth's doctor says, this is bs. She was in
great health, so he is, you're right, continuing to plot beforehand.
We can talk about what the prosecutor says he thinks happened,
and we can also talk about, you know, what the
motivation was, because it sounds like there's actually a couple

(28:55):
of motivations.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, and maybe before that. You know, I still go
back to the blood alcohol and Ruth. Was there any evidence,
you know, and did Tony make any statements as to
you know, where's Ruth getting this alcohol?

Speaker 1 (29:07):
It sounds like it was something like they were drinking
at the campsite and she got in and decided to
go home, and he didn't stop her because she had
driven an RV before. And then that was that this
was a drunk driving accident. Nobody is saying this happened
on purpose, No one. It seems to be saying that
she was accosted and somebody else set this up. It
just sounds like she drank a lot with Tony at

(29:28):
the restaurant and at the campsite and then got in
and made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, because you know, right now my thought is Ruth
was killed at the campsite and that's the homicide scene,
you know, and so that's where you know, I'm wanting
to know what kind of activities were occurring at the campsite.
How thoroughly did they process this campsite. She has a
skull fracture, Did she have any external bleeding at all?

Speaker 1 (29:50):
No? Not what the emmy says. Now, it sounds like
he did a pretty good job setting this up as
an accident. I know he's made some mistakes, but the
DA's nervous about.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
This, yeah, because it is it is tough with exactly
the injuries that she does have. It's it's hard to
pull out something that you can say this was done
by a person versus her body going down the slope.
And if she wasn't externally bleeding and you have no
you know bleeding at the campsite or you know, within

(30:22):
the cheap or within the the Winnebago, that's not in
a location where you'd expect Ruth to have any bleeding
inside the Winnebago as a result of the fall. You know,
bodies can you know, you think bodies tumbling inside this
huge RV can actually be you know, shifting all throughout
this this RV potentially, But if she's only one hundred
feet down in this RVs three hundred feet down, if

(30:43):
this was an accident, she's ejected very quickly, you know,
so I would not expect her to have been tumbling
all throughout this RV. So that's where if if there
was no blood in the RV, or if there was
blood in the RV and she had some bleeding injuries
and that would be suspicious and that maybe is a
homicide scene. But yeah, this is a tough case from
a physical evidence in a crime scene reconstruction aspect.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Okay, well, let's talk about what the DA things happened.
He says, Tony bludgeon heed to death. He does not
say where, but we're assuming at the campsite would probably
be the smartest place to do it. That he managed
to get the winnebago to go over the cliff without
anybody inside, and then he left her body near the wreckage,

(31:26):
you know, two hundred feet from the wreckage, hoping to
make it look like she had been involved in a
fatal accident. And this is what they think the scenario is.
There were other scenarios floated that a rule went through,
but this was the one that the DA was going with,
and this is what we assume happened, right.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
I don't have a problem with that hypothetical. I just
kind of wonder, why not just leave or put her
body in the winnebage and somehow push the winnabagel over
the embankment. You know, Yeah, that would be something that
I think would be easy versus now you're seeing potentially
at risk, you know, from somebody driving by holding a
body right right.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
I mean, I think either could be a possibility. I
agree that I think, just out of the practicality of it,
that she is somehow killed at the campsite with a
blow to her skull in a way that does not
fracture her skull, because it doesn't sound like any of
her other injuries unless this blood force trauma to the

(32:31):
abdomen caused significant internal bleeding, but it doesn't sound like
that that was found at autopsy, so kind of a
I would say there was a blow to her head
with a probably a large, somewhat softer object that did
not cause a laceration, but was able to put enough

(32:51):
force on her skull to cause the skull fracture. And
then he is able to get her out there. And
I think if he's not putting her in the winnebago,
he's making two trips. I think, you know, because he's
going to need a vehicle to get away from that location.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
And rule summarized the I would say, we'll call this
four very popular opinions, which all seemed reasonable in some
weird way to me. So here's what has been floating
around the courthouse and in the newspapers. The theories that
have been kicked around. One that Ruth was distraught and
drunk and accidentally drove off the cliff without even applying

(33:29):
the brakes of the motor home and her body fell
out halfway down. So let me just do these four
and you can tell me what you think. Number Two,
Ruth drove deliberately off the cliff and her body was
thrown out halfway down. Three someone bludgeoned and beat her,
pushed the motor home off the cliff and flung Ruth
down after it. Or someone carried her body to make

(33:53):
it look like she had been in an accident, so
was able to carry her body down this embankment and
kind of place her where they wanted to place her.
This sounds to be similar to what the prosecutor was saying.
And four was the most interesting one to me. Someone
pushes the Winnebago over the cliff and then talks Ruth
into going down to help retrieve the valuables, and then

(34:14):
kill her right there. I mean, I don't know that
that's your look. Is the same thing I felt internally
when I heard that one. So what do you think
about these four theories? But this is what's floating around.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
I'm really not liking them, any of them. And again,
I have to see the side of this cliff. But
somebody caring Ruth, who minimally I'm assuming is weighing one
hundred hundred and twenty pounds down the side of this
cliff and placing her body there, I don't buy that
at all. I think, you know, there'd be an assessment
if she were to be pushed off the edge, her

(34:48):
body just kind of dumped off the edge of this
would it have been able to tumble or slide down
to where she was at? And if so, that seems
like the most likely way that her body ended up there.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
You know, the.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Ejection out of the Winnebago is an absolute possibility. The
problem that I'm I'm really struggling with is how do
you get this winnebago over the edge, which obviously it
was it went over the edge, but it's in park
with the emergency brake on.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
How is that done? You know?

Speaker 2 (35:19):
The only thing I can think of is you literally,
whoever has got this winnebago, drives it all the way
up to the you know, the point of no return
is able to get out, you know, puts it in
park and the emergency brake on and then just maybe
on the outside, you know, it's teetering just enough to
where now you're able to kind of, you know, give

(35:41):
it enough of a shove and is it possible the
jeep was used to shove it where now you have
you have a you know, the power of the jeep.
I mean, this Winnabago is just absolutely torn up. So
any contact that jeep makes, you know, in terms of
paint transfer or dense or anything to the Winnebago wouldn't
never necessarily be considered, you know, in this scenario, it's

(36:05):
just like all the damage to the Winnebago must have
come from the thing. And now that I'm literally thinking
out loud, now they think about it.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
I think that's the most.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Likely way to be able to do that is you
get that Winnebago close enough to the edge and then
you just take your jeep and you slowly push it over.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
And now you've got the power of.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
A jeep to be able to get this huge Winnebago
over the edge while it is still in park with
the emergency break.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
On and I would think you're crazy, that's too much exposure.
But this is a very rural area, logging road, middle
of nowhere, narrow, Nobody's going to be driving this at night.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
No, I mean, there's always a chance somebody could drive by.
That's the risk the offender takes any anywhere they're at, right,
but the location, and they've been to this location before.
It sounds like he's got some familailiarity with this this area.
The likelihood of somebody driving by at this time of

(37:07):
night sounds like it would be very unlikely. I've been
out in the middle of the day on roads I
don't see anybody for hours, right, So I think it's
easily accomplished. And now I think about it, I'm liking
I don't know about was Ruth, you know, pushed over
the edge after she had been killed, or was Ruth

(37:28):
ejected out of the Winnebago, But I like the idea
of the jeep being used to push this much, this
large vehicle that's in park with the emergency brake on
over the edge. I think that's probably the most likely scenario.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
And there's no way that the emergency brake would have
somehow slowed down the momentum of the wheels or is
it like literally gravity just pulling it down. It doesn't
matter whether there's the emergency brake on once it's in
motion going down the embankment.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
So this is also now taking a look at the
structure of the Winnebago. I'm assuming this in the nineteen seventies,
and I'm envisioning a Winnebago in which the very heavy
engine is let's say in the front of the vehicle.
You park this Winnebago with the front wheels just right
up on the edge, and you've got the weight of

(38:19):
the Winnebago is right there in front. And now you
get behind it with a jeep and you just push,
and that will cause once you get that heavy front
of the Winnebago over the edge, now you can see
where it's going to teeter, and the front is going
to now go and just everything you know, the mass
is going to cause going to pull this Winnebage over

(38:40):
the edge. And that could potentially explain these skid marks
if those were true skid marks to where now you
have a big vehicle that's in park being pushed, you're
going to see some disturbances that look like skid marks.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Going over the edge.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
If you think about the Winnebago, and I don't know
exactly what model year this Winnebago is, based on just
a quick research, it looks like the engine could be
in front and so therefore you could have this heavy,
heavy mass that's in front. So imagine the Winnebago being
pushed from behind by the jeep until that engine, that
heavy engine gets over the edge and now that Winnebago

(39:20):
could just tip and tumble. Even if the engine is
in the rear of this particular make model the Winnebago,
the jeep just has to push it so much further
off the edge, and then the whole thing is just
going to end up ultimately going It's just a soft
dirt edge in all likelihood where this thing went over.
So I really like the idea considering the condition of

(39:43):
the Winnebago, the mechanics, it's in park, the emergency brake
is on, that you use the power of this jeep
to push this large vehicle over the edge.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
That is what makes sense to me.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Okay, I was thinking about the theory that he can
carried her down, or somebody kind of carried her down
to place her in the right spot. And it occurred
to me. Sometimes I don't think it's useful to show,
you know, photos of the alleged killer and the victim,
but it occurred to me it could be useful with this,
so I'm gonna show it to you. Here's a photo

(40:15):
of like it looks like an anniversary or there was
a champagne toast. So you see Tony on the left
and Ruth on the right. Yeah, I don't know if
their sizes are significantly different. She does not look like
a petit woman to me, and he does not look
like a large man. I don't know if it would
be that easy for him to take her down in

(40:37):
this precarious cliff embankment scenario that people are talking about.
What do you think though, I don't.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
I don't think it'd be easy at all, you know.
And again it's you know, what does this terrain look like?
But still to carry a body I always bring up,
you know, we talk about let's say a petite woman's
body one hundred pounds, Well, pick up one hundred pound
bag of cement. It's heavy, and now make this floppy

(41:05):
dead body that's still one hundred pounds it takes strength
to be able to do that. You know, this is
going to be hard to carry across flat land, over
tree trunks and through bushes and stuff like that. Let
alone to try to navigate downwards on a slope that
you yourself might fall down without seeing it. I have

(41:29):
to couch my opinion. I think it would be more
likely to discard the body from the top, because that's
what we see with body disposals. They're usually disposed of
in remote locations off of sides of roads that have
a steep embankment. Why because they slide down the embankment
and the offender doesn't have to do a lot of work.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
I agree with what I make things harder on yourself. I
guess prosecutor says, of course motive is money, but he
is having an affair sleeves bag that he is so
add that in there too. He was right to suspect that.
Let's see, moving through the defense puts on its case. Also,
they say she drank a lot, she got into an RV.
He shouldn't have let her go, he did, she drove

(42:11):
off the edge. This was just a really bad accident.
By the way, Ruth knew everything that was happening with
selling off the land and signing off on things. She
wasn't bothered by it. She trusted Tony. And the biggest
thing that the defense flatches onto is that the prosecutor
couldn't say, and you've said this, how she died. There's

(42:32):
no bloody rock, they don't have a weapon. The prosecutor
just said they believed she was killed, and they couldn't
even say where. And that is what the defense is saying,
how do you know, based on scratches and a crack
skull that the accident did not cause this? And that
is the problem that the prosecutor is having. That's what

(42:54):
they're trying to overcome.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
No for sure, And this is where my guess is,
Doctor Ray the patholous testimony could be critical in this case.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
You know, first, I'm assuming he ruled.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Homicide as the manner of death from okay, So now
he has to get on the stand and he has
to justify that ruling of homicide, his observation saying, based
on his experience, that the extent of her injuries or
lack of is not consistent with a body having fallen

(43:29):
the distance it did, and that this is more consistent
with being killed blunt force trauma causing the skull fracture,
and then the body was slid down the side of
the embankment or tumbled down. But it really didn't have
like huge boulders or trees that it's bouncing off of.
And I could see where this would set up a
battle of experts, because another pathologist would come in and say, oh,

(43:51):
this is entirely consistent with her, you know, being ejected
from the Winnebago having accidentally driven it off, you know,
So it is. That is a tough thing, but I
think the pathologist's testimony probably was key in this case.
And how convincing was his testimony to the jury.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, and let's stick with that. So the defense puts
on a guy who is a physician, a well known
physician named doctor F. Warren Lovell, and he says that
he thinks the injuries to Ruth's abdomen were caused by
her pressing against the steering wheel during the impact of
the fall. She was in the vehicle, this is what
he thinks happened, and she got ejected out of it

(44:27):
and of course hit her head on something coming down
the embankment, and that was that The prosecutor across examines
him and says, are you saying there is no possibility
that she was murdered let's say, by having a man
hold her by the hair after she drank a lot
of alcohol and slamming her head against the rock. And

(44:49):
doctor Lovell said, I can't say that that didn't happen.
I'm just telling you what I believe. Another physician got
on the stand, not for the defense, but for the
prosecutor that said, those scratches and the bruises on her
arms look like defensive wounds. To me, they do not
look like even the brush of some dead body being
rolled down the hill. So you're right, big battle of

(45:10):
experts here, No for sure.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
And you know, I think the idea like of her
head being slammed against a hard surface like that would
likely produce a laceration. But imagine her head being slammed
against let's say the carpeted floor inside the Winnebago or on,
you know, kind of a softer dirt area where there's

(45:32):
significant force, maybe enough force to cause this internal skull fracture,
but it doesn't cause the splitting of the skin that
we see. You know, what's called the laceration. I can
see that as being a scenario, you know, And whether
or not, let's say Tony is one that is slamming
her head against something, does he recognize that he's killed her?

Speaker 3 (45:55):
He's obviously planned this, you.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Know, He's in essence, has rendered her a conscious in
his mind, and now he has the ability to manipulate
her body in order to set up this scenario of
an accidental driving over the edge. You know, fundamentally, you know,
there's circumstances with what Tony was doing leading up to

(46:18):
Ruth's death that point to his interest in her being dead.
The accidental death policy taken out two months before is huge.
And then the mechanics of the Winnebago it's in park,
the emergency break is on. How does the defense explain
that I would want to hear from mechanical experts to say, okay,

(46:39):
with Winnebago tumbling down the side of this this cliff,
is there a way for these mechanical objects, both of
which could be you know, shifted into park and the
emergency break put on.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Is that a possibility? Is it a even a likelihood?
You know?

Speaker 2 (46:58):
And my guess is, you know, having some mechanical background
is like, no, that just doesn't add up.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
So why did he do that to keep control of
the Winnebago so that it doesn't go over the edge
before he has a chance to do everything he needs
to do. Is that why he did those two things,
setting the brake and putting it in a park.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Well, let's say he's the one and he's the one
that's driving it up to the edge.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, he doesn't want to be trying.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
To step out of this large vehicle, you know, and
possibly being caught up, you know, going over the edge himself.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
You know, he's got the jeep that can push it
over the edge.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Well, let's talk about some, in my opinion, some pretty
prejudicial stuff that comes up. So the prosecutor eventually submits
some evidence in the form of a transcript from that
federal trial. So there was a conspiracy. He did have
a business partner. That kind of comes into play, not
really regarding paperwork. Two violent incidents happened regarding these fraud charges. One,

(47:58):
he is in a car with a lumberman who owns
a bunch of land that Tony was interested in, and
Tony and the guy are talking. They're in Tony's suv.
Tony loses control of the vehicle and bails out as
it careens off the road and fell down a twenty
foot embankment before crashing into a tree with this lumberman

(48:20):
inside who survives and finds paperwork later on that's been
forged selling all of this stuff to Tony Fernandez. So
the prosecutors bring this in. I thought this sounded prejudicial,
but they're obviously saying this is a guy with violent
tendencies who did something very similar. So what do you
think about that?

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, that, I mean, I can see where you draw
the conclusion where it's prejudicial. However, most certainly and evaluating
this case and looking at Tony's past, the investigators must
have run across that and they're going, Okay, he's tried
this once before, and he did this while he was

(49:02):
driving and bailed out. Now, why the change. Why wouldn't
he be driving the Winno Bagel and bailing out in
this scenario. Well, he learned from the last one. Bailing
out of a moving vehicle probably was not fun, which
also speaks to him putting it in park in the
emergency brake on to ensure that he doesn't, you know,
get caught up in a moving vehicle again.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Well, then he tries something else. Also coming from this
fraud trial, he had met up with another lumberman in
Canada and the guy said that they got into a
conversation about a timber deal that you know, he wanted
to buy some timberland. There he and Tony were going
to talk about making a deal, and he said that

(49:46):
he remembers lighting a cigarette and talking to Tony and
then everything went dark. He woke up beside a railroad
track with a horrible headache. Railroad workers took him to
a local hospital. His wife later fought you know, a
contract between her husband and Tony as well as a
receipt for forty thousand dollars, and somebody Tony we're assuming,

(50:08):
called an Oregon bank and said, you know I want
to get I need to get forty thousand dollars transferred
out of Bill's account into this account that he had
opened up for this deal. So he's making a deal
while this guy is unconscious in the hospital. I'm assuming
thinking that he killed him. So now he's tried to
kill two different people and it didn't work. And obviously

(50:30):
with Ruth, he wanted to make sure it was going
to work.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, he's showing a pattern of behavior. I'm kind of
curious as to what drug he gave that second guy.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yeah, me too, and how.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
He administered it.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
But this is all adding up, you know, there's I
think ruth ky stands alone with the circumstantial and the
physical evidence, even though there is the weakness of how
was she exactly killed? I think that her case stands alone.
But now you consider his past history, and he's basically
has done the same thing twice before. He's showing a

(51:05):
willingness to attempt to kill in order for financial gain,
and everything is made it's the same, it's the same pattern.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
And I don't understand why he didn't go to prison
for these violent acts. I mean, it was fraud where
they got him. I guess there wasn't enough evidence. I
don't know enough about those two cases. But good lord,
I mean, this just seems like a huge amount of
horrible incidents is violence following this guy, and obviously this
was not stuff that was reported, and Ruth must have

(51:37):
only known about the fraud and that was it.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Absolutely. You know, if he's not charged with the I don't.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Know if you want to call him attempt homicides for
these two other business associates. Then that's never entered into
the fraud trial, and that's never reported in the newspapers.
It's looking like it's strictly just financial fraud versus is. Oh,
he's willing to kill his business associates and take advantage
of the opening that creates in order for him to

(52:06):
have financial gain.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
And I visualized this happening in twenty twenty four and
somebody on Reddit or some message board hearing about this
from somebody somebody. Even if this doesn't these two incidents
of violence don't enter into the fraud trial, this would
have gotten out somewhere. We would have been if this
were my mom, I would have been googling this guy

(52:28):
backwards and forwards, paying some service to do background checks.
I think if this were a different era, they would
have known a lot more information and maybe Ruth would
have gotten out of this. But who knows, no.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
For sure, you know, today versus nineteen seventies is an
entirely different era when it comes to being able to
gather information.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
It's so unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Well, actually, I guess I should ask you, so, what's
the jury find guilty?

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Thank goodness.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Okay, okay, good.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
So I'll just tell you life without parole. And he
serves almost twenty years. He serves eighteen years, and he
has a heart attack and dies in prison. Okay, and
that's the end of that. He never admits any involvement.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
The reality is this is a type of predator and
he's not your sexually motivated predator like the types of
cases that I typically go after.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
But his behavior, his greed, causes.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Him to pursue inflicting violence on others. He's showing that
willingness to kill for his own financial gain, you know.
And in many ways, when we talk about serial killers,
and there are female serial killers, one of the primary
reasons females kill in a serial fashion is for financial gain, right,

(53:53):
And so in many ways, he has that kind of psychology.
He just happens to be a guy.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
And boy, he could I gotten away with this. I'm
glad he didn't. But this is one of those cases
where you just kind of go it is the battle
of the experts, and thank goodness, they believe the right
experts well and rule. It sounds like did a great
job on this case. It was part of a compilation
of stories in that book that I mentioned. This was
a case I would not have heard of had I

(54:19):
not known that this was something that came up in
her book. And the purpose for a lot of us
who write about true crime, and my case historical true crime,
is to shine a light on cases that a lot
of people might not have known, and really to illuminate
something about society or about a new forensic tool or circumstances.

(54:40):
And again, this is from the seventies, and we just
see this repeated over and over and over again. So
next week we're off for a well deserved break, but
I will see you here in two weeks well.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
As always, I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
This has been an exactly right production for.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com
slash Buried Bones sources.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
ary Bones.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Pod Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a
Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
the criminal mind, is available now

Speaker 1 (55:36):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, my life solving America's
cold cases, is also available now