May 4, 2025 • 25 mins
In early 1986, Austin, Texas was grappling with rising crime, particularly around the condemned Booker T. Washington housing project on the east side, which had become a haven for drugs and violence due to bureaucratic neglect. Amid this, Ruth Case—a beloved nurse, student, wife, and mother of two—vanished after attending a class at Austin Community College’s Ridgeview campus nearby. Her disappearance shocked the community, especially after her car was found untouched and no immediate leads emerged. Weeks later, her purse surfaced in a nearby wooded area, and soon after, her raped and murdered body was discovered in a vacant, unlocked unit within the housing project—one supposedly searched by police earlier. The failure of that search drew criticism and led to procedural reforms, while Ruth’s tragic death underscored the urgent need to address the dangerous conditions in the area. Although several suspects were considered, no one was ever charged, and the case eventually went cold. Today, Ruth’s family continues to mourn.
If you have any information about the murder of Ruth Helene Case, please contact the Austin police Department Homicide Tip line at 512-477-3588.
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The Austin American-Statesman was used as a source for this episode.
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If you have any information about the murder of Ruth Helene Case, please contact the Austin police Department Homicide Tip line at 512-477-3588.
You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast
Find us at https://www.gonecold.com
For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com
Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast
The Austin American-Statesman was used as a source for this episode.
#JusticeForRuthCase #Austin #ATX #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #ColdCase #MissingPerson #Disappearance #Vanished #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #UnsolvedMurder #ColdCase #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast #TrueCrimeObsessed #CrimeDocs #InvestigationDiscovery #PodcastAddict #TrueCrimeFan #CriminalJustice #ForensicFiles
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gone-cold-texas-true-crime--3203003/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. On Tuesday, March twenty fifth, nineteen
eighty six, and op ed ran in Austin, Texas's newspaper,
encouraging the capital city to demolish the Booker T. Washington
housing project on the East Side. It had been two
(00:23):
years since federal authorities had declared the Booker T. Washington
project condemned and ordered that residents vacate the premises, but
nothing had been done with the structures. Bureaucrats in Washington,
d C. The Department of Housing and Urban Development were
said to have promised funding to improve the remaining units
(00:45):
deemed livable, though they'd never come through, either as a
result of red tape or the projects themselves simply forgotten.
About about thirty percent of the housing project was still
fit for habitation, but fifty one vacant buildings and two
hundred ninety four apartment units were dilapidated and potentially dangerous structurally.
(01:09):
On many of the condemned buildings, boards once covering windows
and doorways had been removed, and the condition of them
were dangerous for the neighborhood kids exploring, but it was
the crime surrounding the housing that was the primary concern
of the Austin American Statesman. Peace Overall, crime in Austin
(01:29):
had increased substantially in nineteen eighty five over the couple
years before, up by about thirteen per cent, and major
crimes were up around twenty percent. The number of reported
rapes had risen a staggering forty one percent, partially due
to the fact that the crime had undergone a change
(01:50):
in how it was legally defined in the state, a
long overdue change that reclassified all sexual assaults as rape.
As the result of several social and economic factors, Austin's
East Side was also plagued by drugs, and the abandoned
Booker t Washington housing projects provided big and small time
(02:13):
dealers alike with ample cover while conducting business. All of
these problems, however, had been long pushed aside, if not
forgotten about, by local leaders until a shocking and abhorrent
crime took place in the area, which began with the
disappearance of a woman named Ruth Case on December sixteenth,
(02:59):
nineteen fifty five. Ruth Helene Olsen was born to parents
Myrtle and Robert in Middletown, Connecticut. After high school, Ruth
attended Baptist Hospital School in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she studied
to be a registered nurse. During the nineteen seventy four
nineteen seventy five school year, she attended a meeting of
(03:21):
Baptist students in Nashville, where she was representing her school's
Baptist student union. There, Ruth met a man named William
Case who went by his middle name Allan. Allan was
there representing his school's Baptist student union as well. He
lived in Knoxville and went to the University of Tennessee there,
(03:44):
but he and Ruth had never crossed paths. When they
did in Nashville, Allan asked her on a date all
but immediately, but Ruth couldn't. She was already in a
serious relationship, but she was interested in hooking him up
with her. Alan wasn't really interested in that. He wanted
a date with Ruth and is holding out. Paid off
(04:08):
A couple weeks after they met, Ruth's relationship ended and
she agreed to go grab a bite to eat with Alan.
As a college boy, he didn't have a lot of money,
but was intent on showing her a good time. Thinking
she'd probably never see Alan again, Ruth decided to order
the most expensive thing on the menu, something with lobster.
(04:32):
Alan didn't flinch. He was determined to make a good impression.
He did. Apparently a hopeless romantic type, the introverted Allan
wooed the outgoing Ruth with poetry, flowers, and gifts. After
dating for some time, they were married on April sixteenth,
(04:52):
nineteen seventy seven. The following year, they moved to Austin, Texas,
when Alan accepted a job with the state at the
Texas Rehabilitation Commission. Ruth went to work for Holy Cross,
a historic Austin hospital that was the first to allow
black physicians to practice alongside their white colleagues with equal privileges.
(05:16):
Ruth and Alan easily settled into life in the Texas
capital city, a place that at the time was about
the right size and attitude for those seeking a life
in the city without losing the friendliness of folks who
remembered what it was like in Austin's slower days. In
the next few years, Ruth and Alan made plenty of friends.
(05:39):
She was especially good in a crowd. Her friendly demeanor aside,
Ruth was a master at telling amusing anecdotes and jokes.
She liked comedy and had even considered going up on
stage during amateur night at a local comedy club, but
apparently talked herself out of it in the long run.
(06:00):
During the early years in Austin, Ruth and Allan welcomed
two daughters into the world, Emily and Julie. Her dream
of becoming a radio city roquet gave way to the
responsibility of having children and an important career in nursing.
The family was involved with their church, the Congregational Church
(06:22):
of Austin, where Ruth sang soprano in the choir, taught
Sunday school alongside her husband, and was active in church
fundraising activities. Although she had moved up the latter quickly
at Holy Cross Hospital and was now a three to
eleven PM shift supervisor, Ruth grew disillusioned with nursing, but
(06:43):
not because of the work itself that she found rewarding. Instead,
she simply wanted to be home more often, and particularly
on holidays, when her chosen profession was at its busiest.
Her and Allan's oldest was born on Christmas Eve, so
it was especially important to Ruth that she'd be able
(07:03):
to spend that time with her daughter. In nineteen eighty five,
Ruth enrolled full time at Austin Community College and set
her sights on becoming a veterinarian, another dream she had.
As the year turned, she continued to do well. Ruth's husband,
Alan told us she'd taken two or three classes and
(07:25):
had a four point zero average. She was brilliant, he continued.
She would take math and science courses and she'd ace
them all, so she would have made a good vet.
She was a good nurse. The lives Allan, Ruth, and
their two girls shared together was later described by police
as stable, though it was much more than that. Although
(07:49):
managing her career and family life had overwhelmed her at times,
she was finally on the right track to a new
career that would allow her to both live out a
dream of hers and have more time with her husband
and children. In nineteen eighty six, Ruth and Alan Case
lived in Hyde Park, a neighborhood that at the time
(08:11):
was a pretty even mix between longtime locals and college
students living off but close to campus. Though the area
had been the stomping grounds of the Hyde Park rapist
and home to several opportunistic murderers in the prior several years.
Hyde Park was considered a relatively safe place by its residents,
(08:34):
where Ruth was attending school. In contrast, was an area
well known for crime. Austin Community College's Ridgeview Campus was
located on the city's east side, and Ruth even knew
of the dangers that surrounded the area, having commented to
Allen that it was on the rough side of town,
(08:54):
but she was happy with her classes and instructors, she
had decided it was worth the risk. Wednesday, January fifteenth,
nineteen eighty six started out just like any other day
(09:17):
for the Case family. Ruth fussed Alan as he started
to step out the door. He'd forgotten to give her
a kiss. Alan walked to Ruth, planted a kiss, and
told her he loved her before heading out the door
with four year old Emily, who he was taking to daycare.
Before heading into work, Ruth finished getting six year old
(09:40):
Julie ready for school and then headed out herself. She
dropped her daughter off at school and headed to class
at Austin Community College's Ridgeview Campus in East Austin. Later
that day, at about five point fifty pm, Alan received
a call from Julie's school. Ruth hadn't picked her up
(10:01):
at the end of the day. Something was obviously wrong.
Ruth was about as punctual and reliable as they come.
You could set your watch buyer, and if by chance
she was going to be late, she generally made a
phone call to let someone know. Still, Alan's mind refused
(10:21):
to drift into imagining worst possible scenarios. Perhaps he thought
Ruth was having car trouble and stranded somewhere. In a
time before cell phones, alerting someone wasn't an instantaneous thing
and sometimes took a while. Alan rushed to pick up
the kids, hoping to get back home to answer his
(10:42):
wife's call for help. When they arrived back at the house,
he phoned his and Ruth's pastor at Congregational Church of Austin,
John Towery, who promptly made his way over. Pastor Towery
and Alan raced to the community college campus about three
and ns and half miles to the south, where they
discovered Ruth's brown nineteen seventy eight Ford Fairmont parked on
(11:06):
a street nearby. The car was locked and there were
no signs of a disturbance or struggle anywhere around it.
Everything appeared fine normal. They quickly located a security guard
who told them he hadn't seen Ruth, and if he had,
she'd have been mixed in with the hundreds of other
(11:26):
students he'd seen go to and from their vehicles that day.
Ruth's car, he told them, had been parked in that
spot all day. Alan and Pastor Towery headed back to
the Case home, holding back his panic for the good
of the children. Alan packed them up in the car
and took them for a quick meal. When they arrived
(11:48):
back home, it was eight o'clock. Alan began calling anyone
and everyone who knew Ruth, her friends, fellow churchgoers, fellow students,
and even the neighbor, but no one had seen her.
His last call was to the Austin Police Department. Allan
reported his wife, thirty year old Ruth Helene Case missing.
(12:13):
Police learned the location of Ruth's car immediately. Of course,
it was parked on the twenty nine hundred block of
Glen Oak Drive, not one hundred yards from the class
she attended, and not far from the Booker T Washington
low income housing project, a majority of which had been
condemned and set for demolition. Police learned that after attending
(12:37):
her chemistry lab class, Ruth planned to drive to a
bakery near her and Alan's house for lunch and then
return home for an afternoon nap before going to pick
up the kids. She never carried out those plans. The
last confirmed sighting of Ruth case was as she left
her chemistry class at about eleven thirty three a m.
(12:59):
The day after she was reported missing. On Thursday, January sixteenth,
nineteen eighty six, the Austin Police Special Missions Team searched
the housing project. They reportedly found nothing, no Ruth case,
and no clues as to her whereabouts. Sergeant Ed Belagia
(13:20):
was worried. The vacant properties were a known gathering place
for what they referred to as unsavory characters, and the
area crime rate was through the roof. It doesn't look
good at all, the homicide detective told a reporter for
the Austin American Statesman, adding that they didn't have a
lot to go on. At some point, a student came
(13:42):
forward and said they might have seen Ruth get into
a car, but they couldn't be sure it was her.
A week later, on Wednesday, January twenty second, friends of
the Case family passed out flyers at Austin Community College's
Ridgeview campus and the surrounding neighborhood. The flyers featured Ruth's
(14:03):
photograph and description. She stood five feet six inches tall
and weighed about one hundred and thirty five pounds, it read,
adding that she had short, curly brown hair. A description
of the clothing Ruth was last seen wearing apparently was
not available. By this point, the police had used a
(14:24):
helicopter to search the area but had come up empty handed. Again,
through the media, they asked that anyone who was in
the area around the time Ruth was last seen come forward.
The cops thought it was likely someone saw something, no
matter how insignificant they might think it was, since there
(14:44):
were so many folks around there at that time. Meanwhile,
Alan Case fought off despondency. It was a nightmare walking
the tightrope between hope and hopelessness, and he'd begun to
realize how much everyday life had cast to take Ruth
for granted, all the things he couldn't take back, like
(15:05):
the time he worked too much instead of coming home
to spend the time with his family, were getting to
him every little thing, no matter what thoughts came to mind.
Alan knew his wife hadn't left on her own, and
only scenarios that he was loath to imagine remained. Still,
(15:25):
he had the children to think about, making it easier
for him, He told reporters to keep it together. The
alternative would do them or the situation little good, he knew.
Alan took a leave of absence from his job to
properly care for his kids and look for Ruth at
the same time. The next day, Thursday, January the twenty third,
(15:49):
a woman who lived across the street from the Austin
Community College Ridgeview campus reported that she heard two women
in an argument near her house around the time Ruth vanished.
The woman, who was in her backyard, said the disagreement
happened on the other side of her privacy fence, so
she couldn't see any faces. Ruth's car had been parked
(16:11):
not too far from the woman's home. If the lack
of media coverage for a nearly two month period following
was any indication the disappearance of Ruth case had gone
cold almost as quickly as it had occurred, but big
news finally came in mid March. On Friday, March fourteenth,
(16:34):
nineteen eighty six, Ruth's purse was discovered in a field
off Webberville Road and Go Valley Avenue. The heavily wooded
field was just across the street from Austin Community College's
Ridgeview campus and about a block east of where Ruth's
car was found. Though the entire contents of the purse
have never been publicly expounded upon, it is known that
(16:57):
she was carrying only a dollar fifty in cash when
she left the house the day she vanished. It was
such a small amount that police doubted Ruth was missing
as the result of a robbery murder. An item later
found would back up that notion. They did find identification
inside the purse. Also missing were Ruth's checkbook and credit card,
(17:22):
neither of which had been used since her disappearance. This discovery,
Sergeant Ed Balagia told a reporter for the Austin American Statesman,
virtually ruled out the possibility that Ruth left of her
own free will, something her loved ones already knew. The
purse was the first item belonging to the missing woman
(17:43):
that was ever found, and the last discovery of its kind.
Less than a week later, however, came the case's most
important and tragic finding. On the afternoon of Thursday, March twentieth,
(18:09):
nineteen eighty six, Austin Housing Authority worker Delbert Whitfield entered
a vacant unit at the Booker T. Washington Housing Project
looking for plumbing parts. The front door of the unit
was locked, but the bottom panel had been kicked out,
so Whitfield crawled through. Immediately upon entering, the man noticed
(18:31):
a strong odor. He climbed up to the second story
of the unit, and there, underneath a screen door and
a closet door, were mostly skeletonized human remains. Whitfield quickly
notified the Austin police. The body was later identified as
belonging to thirty year old missing woman Ruth Case. She
(18:54):
still wore her wedding ring, the only thing of value
she carried on the day she went missing. At autopsy,
it was determined she had been stabbed in the back
a total of eight times and died shortly after her disappearance.
Ruth had also been raped. Immediately, the department's Special Missions
(19:16):
team came under scrutiny for failing to find Ruth's body
when they searched the Booker T. Washington Housing project the
day following her disappearance. At first, Assistant Police Chief Ray
Sanders entertained the idea that the body wasn't there when
Special Missions searched, and said he intended to find out
(19:37):
if it was that or if they'd simply missed it.
Commander of Homicide, Lieutenant James Baker commented that the team
did not enter any units that were boarded up or locked,
but Sergeant Ed Balagia pointed out that the back door
was unlocked. Anybody could have walked in. He said. Whatever
(19:59):
the case, records of the search were not kept, so
finding the answer, Special Missions Team supervisor Captain Bobby Shirley
said would be difficult. The officers involved should have written
supplemental reports, Shirley remarked, adding that an internal investigation was underway. Eventually,
(20:19):
they determined that Ruth's body had been in the building
since the day she disappeared. The Special Missions team received
a verbal reprimand and new procedures to adhere to, including
mandatory record keeping during the course of such searches, from
op eds to letters to the editor. The discovery of
(20:41):
Ruth Case's body in the Booker T. Washington project began
a heated discussion on what should be done with the
buildings structures that were supposed to have been demolished but
were instead rotting in bureaucratic hell. Federal engineers soon conducted
building by building inspections to determine if any could be salvaged.
(21:03):
Foundation issues had led to plumbing, sewage and rodent problems
in the housing project, which was also having foundation and
other structural issues, began considering moving out of the Ridgeview
campus as well. Ruth Case's disappearance and murder appears to
have expedited this decision. Students were now scared to come
(21:26):
to class, particularly at night. Campus security was beefed up
and guards began accompanying loan students to their vehicles. The police,
it appears, remained baffled the trail ended at the housing project.
Leeds were getting fewer and farther apart. They had a
(21:48):
total of four suspects, they told the press, One of them,
presumably the victim's husband, Alan Case, had been cleared as
he was at work when Ruth disappeared. Delbert Whitney, the
Austin Housing Authority worker who found. Ruth's body was likely
also interrogated and perhaps cleared. It's unknown who the other
(22:12):
two suspects are. Perhaps one was a man who Ruth
met when she took some time for herself out of
town not long before she was raped and murdered. Feeling overwhelmed,
her daughter Emily told us Ruth spent some time at
the Prude Ranch in Fort Davis, Texas, where folks sometimes
go to get away from it all for a reset
(22:34):
of sorts. There, she had told her best friend Linnell,
a man she described as a creepy guy, wouldn't leave
her alone. He told Ruth he was angry her husband
and kids hadn't accompanied her to the ranch. What was
she doing there alone, the man wondered. Ruth described this
(22:55):
man's behavior as stalking to her friend and told her
she was just to be away from him. Little else
is known about this man. At some point, a psychological
profile of the killer was created. Though the police released
few details of the report, they said it indicated that
(23:16):
the perpetrator was most likely familiar with the area and
possibly lived nearby. Though it seems obvious that the crime
was motivated by rape, Sergeant Bilagia insisted they had no motive,
let alone a viable suspect. The future of the case,
he believed, was contingent upon someone coming forward. There were
(23:39):
too many people around that day. The campus was too
active for no one to have seen a thing, he said. Elsewhere,
Allan and his children were devastated. Until she was found.
I held out a slight hope that she was still alive,
Alan commented, Now I have to face the irreversibility of debt.
(24:00):
The kids are having a hard time accepting it. They
want to go up to heaven to see their mommy.
Sometimes they ask when is she coming back. The Austin
American Statesman ran anniversary articles about the disappearance, rape, and
murder of Ruth case, but those stopped after a couple years.
Newspaper stories end at nineteen eighty eight, and internet searches
(24:24):
show little information about the case. But Alan and the
children have never forgotten and they long for justice. If
you have any information about the murder of Ruth Helene case,
please contact the Austin Police Department Homicide tip line at
five one, two, four, seven, seven, three, five eight eight.
(24:50):
Special thanks to Alan and Emily for speaking with us.
If you'd like to join con Cold's mission to shine
a light on unsought homicides and missing persons cases. Get
the show at free and have access to bonus content.
You can at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
(25:11):
You can also support the show by leaving a five
star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.
Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. On Tuesday, March twenty fifth, nineteen
eighty six, and op ed ran in Austin, Texas's newspaper,
encouraging the capital city to demolish the Booker T. Washington
housing project on the East Side. It had been two
(00:23):
years since federal authorities had declared the Booker T. Washington
project condemned and ordered that residents vacate the premises, but
nothing had been done with the structures. Bureaucrats in Washington,
d C. The Department of Housing and Urban Development were
said to have promised funding to improve the remaining units
(00:45):
deemed livable, though they'd never come through, either as a
result of red tape or the projects themselves simply forgotten.
About about thirty percent of the housing project was still
fit for habitation, but fifty one vacant buildings and two
hundred ninety four apartment units were dilapidated and potentially dangerous structurally.
(01:09):
On many of the condemned buildings, boards once covering windows
and doorways had been removed, and the condition of them
were dangerous for the neighborhood kids exploring, but it was
the crime surrounding the housing that was the primary concern
of the Austin American Statesman. Peace Overall, crime in Austin
(01:29):
had increased substantially in nineteen eighty five over the couple
years before, up by about thirteen per cent, and major
crimes were up around twenty percent. The number of reported
rapes had risen a staggering forty one percent, partially due
to the fact that the crime had undergone a change
(01:50):
in how it was legally defined in the state, a
long overdue change that reclassified all sexual assaults as rape.
As the result of several social and economic factors, Austin's
East Side was also plagued by drugs, and the abandoned
Booker t Washington housing projects provided big and small time
(02:13):
dealers alike with ample cover while conducting business. All of
these problems, however, had been long pushed aside, if not
forgotten about, by local leaders until a shocking and abhorrent
crime took place in the area, which began with the
disappearance of a woman named Ruth Case on December sixteenth,
(02:59):
nineteen fifty five. Ruth Helene Olsen was born to parents
Myrtle and Robert in Middletown, Connecticut. After high school, Ruth
attended Baptist Hospital School in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she studied
to be a registered nurse. During the nineteen seventy four
nineteen seventy five school year, she attended a meeting of
(03:21):
Baptist students in Nashville, where she was representing her school's
Baptist student union. There, Ruth met a man named William
Case who went by his middle name Allan. Allan was
there representing his school's Baptist student union as well. He
lived in Knoxville and went to the University of Tennessee there,
(03:44):
but he and Ruth had never crossed paths. When they
did in Nashville, Allan asked her on a date all
but immediately, but Ruth couldn't. She was already in a
serious relationship, but she was interested in hooking him up
with her. Alan wasn't really interested in that. He wanted
a date with Ruth and is holding out. Paid off
(04:08):
A couple weeks after they met, Ruth's relationship ended and
she agreed to go grab a bite to eat with Alan.
As a college boy, he didn't have a lot of money,
but was intent on showing her a good time. Thinking
she'd probably never see Alan again, Ruth decided to order
the most expensive thing on the menu, something with lobster.
(04:32):
Alan didn't flinch. He was determined to make a good impression.
He did. Apparently a hopeless romantic type, the introverted Allan
wooed the outgoing Ruth with poetry, flowers, and gifts. After
dating for some time, they were married on April sixteenth,
(04:52):
nineteen seventy seven. The following year, they moved to Austin, Texas,
when Alan accepted a job with the state at the
Texas Rehabilitation Commission. Ruth went to work for Holy Cross,
a historic Austin hospital that was the first to allow
black physicians to practice alongside their white colleagues with equal privileges.
(05:16):
Ruth and Alan easily settled into life in the Texas
capital city, a place that at the time was about
the right size and attitude for those seeking a life
in the city without losing the friendliness of folks who
remembered what it was like in Austin's slower days. In
the next few years, Ruth and Alan made plenty of friends.
(05:39):
She was especially good in a crowd. Her friendly demeanor aside,
Ruth was a master at telling amusing anecdotes and jokes.
She liked comedy and had even considered going up on
stage during amateur night at a local comedy club, but
apparently talked herself out of it in the long run.
(06:00):
During the early years in Austin, Ruth and Allan welcomed
two daughters into the world, Emily and Julie. Her dream
of becoming a radio city roquet gave way to the
responsibility of having children and an important career in nursing.
The family was involved with their church, the Congregational Church
(06:22):
of Austin, where Ruth sang soprano in the choir, taught
Sunday school alongside her husband, and was active in church
fundraising activities. Although she had moved up the latter quickly
at Holy Cross Hospital and was now a three to
eleven PM shift supervisor, Ruth grew disillusioned with nursing, but
(06:43):
not because of the work itself that she found rewarding. Instead,
she simply wanted to be home more often, and particularly
on holidays, when her chosen profession was at its busiest.
Her and Allan's oldest was born on Christmas Eve, so
it was especially important to Ruth that she'd be able
(07:03):
to spend that time with her daughter. In nineteen eighty five,
Ruth enrolled full time at Austin Community College and set
her sights on becoming a veterinarian, another dream she had.
As the year turned, she continued to do well. Ruth's husband,
Alan told us she'd taken two or three classes and
(07:25):
had a four point zero average. She was brilliant, he continued.
She would take math and science courses and she'd ace
them all, so she would have made a good vet.
She was a good nurse. The lives Allan, Ruth, and
their two girls shared together was later described by police
as stable, though it was much more than that. Although
(07:49):
managing her career and family life had overwhelmed her at times,
she was finally on the right track to a new
career that would allow her to both live out a
dream of hers and have more time with her husband
and children. In nineteen eighty six, Ruth and Alan Case
lived in Hyde Park, a neighborhood that at the time
(08:11):
was a pretty even mix between longtime locals and college
students living off but close to campus. Though the area
had been the stomping grounds of the Hyde Park rapist
and home to several opportunistic murderers in the prior several years.
Hyde Park was considered a relatively safe place by its residents,
(08:34):
where Ruth was attending school. In contrast, was an area
well known for crime. Austin Community College's Ridgeview Campus was
located on the city's east side, and Ruth even knew
of the dangers that surrounded the area, having commented to
Allen that it was on the rough side of town,
(08:54):
but she was happy with her classes and instructors, she
had decided it was worth the risk. Wednesday, January fifteenth,
nineteen eighty six started out just like any other day
(09:17):
for the Case family. Ruth fussed Alan as he started
to step out the door. He'd forgotten to give her
a kiss. Alan walked to Ruth, planted a kiss, and
told her he loved her before heading out the door
with four year old Emily, who he was taking to daycare.
Before heading into work, Ruth finished getting six year old
(09:40):
Julie ready for school and then headed out herself. She
dropped her daughter off at school and headed to class
at Austin Community College's Ridgeview Campus in East Austin. Later
that day, at about five point fifty pm, Alan received
a call from Julie's school. Ruth hadn't picked her up
(10:01):
at the end of the day. Something was obviously wrong.
Ruth was about as punctual and reliable as they come.
You could set your watch buyer, and if by chance
she was going to be late, she generally made a
phone call to let someone know. Still, Alan's mind refused
(10:21):
to drift into imagining worst possible scenarios. Perhaps he thought
Ruth was having car trouble and stranded somewhere. In a
time before cell phones, alerting someone wasn't an instantaneous thing
and sometimes took a while. Alan rushed to pick up
the kids, hoping to get back home to answer his
(10:42):
wife's call for help. When they arrived back at the house,
he phoned his and Ruth's pastor at Congregational Church of Austin,
John Towery, who promptly made his way over. Pastor Towery
and Alan raced to the community college campus about three
and ns and half miles to the south, where they
discovered Ruth's brown nineteen seventy eight Ford Fairmont parked on
(11:06):
a street nearby. The car was locked and there were
no signs of a disturbance or struggle anywhere around it.
Everything appeared fine normal. They quickly located a security guard
who told them he hadn't seen Ruth, and if he had,
she'd have been mixed in with the hundreds of other
(11:26):
students he'd seen go to and from their vehicles that day.
Ruth's car, he told them, had been parked in that
spot all day. Alan and Pastor Towery headed back to
the Case home, holding back his panic for the good
of the children. Alan packed them up in the car
and took them for a quick meal. When they arrived
(11:48):
back home, it was eight o'clock. Alan began calling anyone
and everyone who knew Ruth, her friends, fellow churchgoers, fellow students,
and even the neighbor, but no one had seen her.
His last call was to the Austin Police Department. Allan
reported his wife, thirty year old Ruth Helene Case missing.
(12:13):
Police learned the location of Ruth's car immediately. Of course,
it was parked on the twenty nine hundred block of
Glen Oak Drive, not one hundred yards from the class
she attended, and not far from the Booker T Washington
low income housing project, a majority of which had been
condemned and set for demolition. Police learned that after attending
(12:37):
her chemistry lab class, Ruth planned to drive to a
bakery near her and Alan's house for lunch and then
return home for an afternoon nap before going to pick
up the kids. She never carried out those plans. The
last confirmed sighting of Ruth case was as she left
her chemistry class at about eleven thirty three a m.
(12:59):
The day after she was reported missing. On Thursday, January sixteenth,
nineteen eighty six, the Austin Police Special Missions Team searched
the housing project. They reportedly found nothing, no Ruth case,
and no clues as to her whereabouts. Sergeant Ed Belagia
(13:20):
was worried. The vacant properties were a known gathering place
for what they referred to as unsavory characters, and the
area crime rate was through the roof. It doesn't look
good at all, the homicide detective told a reporter for
the Austin American Statesman, adding that they didn't have a
lot to go on. At some point, a student came
(13:42):
forward and said they might have seen Ruth get into
a car, but they couldn't be sure it was her.
A week later, on Wednesday, January twenty second, friends of
the Case family passed out flyers at Austin Community College's
Ridgeview campus and the surrounding neighborhood. The flyers featured Ruth's
(14:03):
photograph and description. She stood five feet six inches tall
and weighed about one hundred and thirty five pounds, it read,
adding that she had short, curly brown hair. A description
of the clothing Ruth was last seen wearing apparently was
not available. By this point, the police had used a
(14:24):
helicopter to search the area but had come up empty handed. Again,
through the media, they asked that anyone who was in
the area around the time Ruth was last seen come forward.
The cops thought it was likely someone saw something, no
matter how insignificant they might think it was, since there
(14:44):
were so many folks around there at that time. Meanwhile,
Alan Case fought off despondency. It was a nightmare walking
the tightrope between hope and hopelessness, and he'd begun to
realize how much everyday life had cast to take Ruth
for granted, all the things he couldn't take back, like
(15:05):
the time he worked too much instead of coming home
to spend the time with his family, were getting to
him every little thing, no matter what thoughts came to mind.
Alan knew his wife hadn't left on her own, and
only scenarios that he was loath to imagine remained. Still,
(15:25):
he had the children to think about, making it easier
for him, He told reporters to keep it together. The
alternative would do them or the situation little good, he knew.
Alan took a leave of absence from his job to
properly care for his kids and look for Ruth at
the same time. The next day, Thursday, January the twenty third,
(15:49):
a woman who lived across the street from the Austin
Community College Ridgeview campus reported that she heard two women
in an argument near her house around the time Ruth vanished.
The woman, who was in her backyard, said the disagreement
happened on the other side of her privacy fence, so
she couldn't see any faces. Ruth's car had been parked
(16:11):
not too far from the woman's home. If the lack
of media coverage for a nearly two month period following
was any indication the disappearance of Ruth case had gone
cold almost as quickly as it had occurred, but big
news finally came in mid March. On Friday, March fourteenth,
(16:34):
nineteen eighty six, Ruth's purse was discovered in a field
off Webberville Road and Go Valley Avenue. The heavily wooded
field was just across the street from Austin Community College's
Ridgeview campus and about a block east of where Ruth's
car was found. Though the entire contents of the purse
have never been publicly expounded upon, it is known that
(16:57):
she was carrying only a dollar fifty in cash when
she left the house the day she vanished. It was
such a small amount that police doubted Ruth was missing
as the result of a robbery murder. An item later
found would back up that notion. They did find identification
inside the purse. Also missing were Ruth's checkbook and credit card,
(17:22):
neither of which had been used since her disappearance. This discovery,
Sergeant Ed Balagia told a reporter for the Austin American Statesman,
virtually ruled out the possibility that Ruth left of her
own free will, something her loved ones already knew. The
purse was the first item belonging to the missing woman
(17:43):
that was ever found, and the last discovery of its kind.
Less than a week later, however, came the case's most
important and tragic finding. On the afternoon of Thursday, March twentieth,
(18:09):
nineteen eighty six, Austin Housing Authority worker Delbert Whitfield entered
a vacant unit at the Booker T. Washington Housing Project
looking for plumbing parts. The front door of the unit
was locked, but the bottom panel had been kicked out,
so Whitfield crawled through. Immediately upon entering, the man noticed
(18:31):
a strong odor. He climbed up to the second story
of the unit, and there, underneath a screen door and
a closet door, were mostly skeletonized human remains. Whitfield quickly
notified the Austin police. The body was later identified as
belonging to thirty year old missing woman Ruth Case. She
(18:54):
still wore her wedding ring, the only thing of value
she carried on the day she went missing. At autopsy,
it was determined she had been stabbed in the back
a total of eight times and died shortly after her disappearance.
Ruth had also been raped. Immediately, the department's Special Missions
(19:16):
team came under scrutiny for failing to find Ruth's body
when they searched the Booker T. Washington Housing project the
day following her disappearance. At first, Assistant Police Chief Ray
Sanders entertained the idea that the body wasn't there when
Special Missions searched, and said he intended to find out
(19:37):
if it was that or if they'd simply missed it.
Commander of Homicide, Lieutenant James Baker commented that the team
did not enter any units that were boarded up or locked,
but Sergeant Ed Balagia pointed out that the back door
was unlocked. Anybody could have walked in. He said. Whatever
(19:59):
the case, records of the search were not kept, so
finding the answer, Special Missions Team supervisor Captain Bobby Shirley
said would be difficult. The officers involved should have written
supplemental reports, Shirley remarked, adding that an internal investigation was underway. Eventually,
(20:19):
they determined that Ruth's body had been in the building
since the day she disappeared. The Special Missions team received
a verbal reprimand and new procedures to adhere to, including
mandatory record keeping during the course of such searches, from
op eds to letters to the editor. The discovery of
(20:41):
Ruth Case's body in the Booker T. Washington project began
a heated discussion on what should be done with the
buildings structures that were supposed to have been demolished but
were instead rotting in bureaucratic hell. Federal engineers soon conducted
building by building inspections to determine if any could be salvaged.
(21:03):
Foundation issues had led to plumbing, sewage and rodent problems
in the housing project, which was also having foundation and
other structural issues, began considering moving out of the Ridgeview
campus as well. Ruth Case's disappearance and murder appears to
have expedited this decision. Students were now scared to come
(21:26):
to class, particularly at night. Campus security was beefed up
and guards began accompanying loan students to their vehicles. The police,
it appears, remained baffled the trail ended at the housing project.
Leeds were getting fewer and farther apart. They had a
(21:48):
total of four suspects, they told the press, One of them,
presumably the victim's husband, Alan Case, had been cleared as
he was at work when Ruth disappeared. Delbert Whitney, the
Austin Housing Authority worker who found. Ruth's body was likely
also interrogated and perhaps cleared. It's unknown who the other
(22:12):
two suspects are. Perhaps one was a man who Ruth
met when she took some time for herself out of
town not long before she was raped and murdered. Feeling overwhelmed,
her daughter Emily told us Ruth spent some time at
the Prude Ranch in Fort Davis, Texas, where folks sometimes
go to get away from it all for a reset
(22:34):
of sorts. There, she had told her best friend Linnell,
a man she described as a creepy guy, wouldn't leave
her alone. He told Ruth he was angry her husband
and kids hadn't accompanied her to the ranch. What was
she doing there alone, the man wondered. Ruth described this
(22:55):
man's behavior as stalking to her friend and told her
she was just to be away from him. Little else
is known about this man. At some point, a psychological
profile of the killer was created. Though the police released
few details of the report, they said it indicated that
(23:16):
the perpetrator was most likely familiar with the area and
possibly lived nearby. Though it seems obvious that the crime
was motivated by rape, Sergeant Bilagia insisted they had no motive,
let alone a viable suspect. The future of the case,
he believed, was contingent upon someone coming forward. There were
(23:39):
too many people around that day. The campus was too
active for no one to have seen a thing, he said. Elsewhere,
Allan and his children were devastated. Until she was found.
I held out a slight hope that she was still alive,
Alan commented, Now I have to face the irreversibility of debt.
(24:00):
The kids are having a hard time accepting it. They
want to go up to heaven to see their mommy.
Sometimes they ask when is she coming back. The Austin
American Statesman ran anniversary articles about the disappearance, rape, and
murder of Ruth case, but those stopped after a couple years.
Newspaper stories end at nineteen eighty eight, and internet searches
(24:24):
show little information about the case. But Alan and the
children have never forgotten and they long for justice. If
you have any information about the murder of Ruth Helene case,
please contact the Austin Police Department Homicide tip line at
five one, two, four, seven, seven, three, five eight eight.
(24:50):
Special thanks to Alan and Emily for speaking with us.
If you'd like to join con Cold's mission to shine
a light on unsought homicides and missing persons cases. Get
the show at free and have access to bonus content.
You can at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
(25:11):
You can also support the show by leaving a five
star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.
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