Ben 00:01-00:03

Taylor, welcome back to Crime Capsule.

Taylor 00:04-00:05

Thank you for having me again, Ben.

Ben 00:07-00:51

Where we left off last week, we had Ruth Quinn, who was a widow living, we could say by herself, on the island of Coronado, although that wasn't exactly the truth. She had a lot of comers and goers in that particular house of hers. There's a morning in 1975, when her brother, Hank, who we discussed, goes over to visit and he finds something that he did not expect at all. Can you just describe for us, put us in Hank's shoes, and just kind of walk us through the house as to what he found that day?

Taylor 00:53-05:28

So on Sunday, March 16th, 1975, springtime was coming to Carnado. A lot of Easterners don't believe that the seasons change on the West coast, but the flowers start blooming in March and the birds start twerping and it, it, it gets a lot greener. It gets a lot, uh, the blooms come out. The fragrance in Carnado is wonderful in March and April. We're in the middle of Lenten season. And so for Ruth Quinn, this was a time when she went to church, not once, but twice a day. She was a very, very devout Catholic. And so on this particular Sunday, as she was wont to do, she went to mass in the morning, had lunch with some friends at church, and then she probably went home. We're not exactly sure. And then she went back to church for a second mass. Then she went to the library and then she went home. And that was the last anyone ever saw Ruth Quinn. At about 10 o'clock p.m. or so, her brother, Hank, comes to the house. And he notices that the front porch light is on, which is unusual. That porch light was installed after the cameo theft, where Alan Graham had come in and stolen jewelry from her. He walked into the house, let himself in. He had a key. I don't know if it was unlocked or locked, but he let himself in. And he also noticed that the TV was on and all the lights were on, which is also unusual. Now, Ruth lived in a little cottage which was behind another house. Historians of Colby have told me that she lived on a lot, which is called a flag lot. Because it was accessible by a long driveway, if you think about a flag pole, and then the lot is the actual flag. So her house was a little cottage behind another house. You had to drive down a driveway to get, or walk down a driveway to get to her little cottage. So he notices, like I said, that the porch light was on and that the TV was on and the lights were on. And that was strange. And he started calling out, Ruth, Ruth. No answer. He walks back to her bedroom and he sees her lying on her bed. He yells out to her again, Ruth. No answer. He goes over to her and he shakes her. And he told the police later, I thought she'd had a heart attack. Well, he realizes that she's not waking up. So what does he do? He picks up the phone and he calls Dr. Charles Eaton. He doesn't dial 911. He calls the local island doctor. Dr. Charles Eaton was a beloved doctor. He actually lived down the street from my grandparents. A wonderful man, much beloved by island locals. Dr. Eaton and his wife say that they're gonna come right over. Then he calls his girlfriend, Laura Christian. She comes over. Then he calls Monsignor Purcell, the priest.

Ben 05:29-05:29

The priest.

Taylor 05:29-05:34

From the Catholic Church. By the time they come over.

Ben 05:35-05:37

Not the police, he hasn't called the police.

Taylor 05:37-05:38

Not the police, no.

Ben 05:38-05:38

Yeah.

Taylor 05:39-06:34

Dr. Eaton arrives and he checks He checks Ruth, and of course she's lying on her bed with a gunshot to her temple and a gunshot to her neck. There is blood congealing under her. There's a pillow next to her with gunshot residue on it. And she's clearly dead. So he calls 911. By the time the police arrive, You have Dr. Eaton, his wife, Monsignor Purcells, Laura Christian, Hank's girlfriend, and Hank wandering around the crime scene, There were half a dozen people who were walking around the crime scene and messing with the crime scene, walking in and out, picking up the phone, making phone calls.

Ben 07:22-07:54

It was, in my opinion, a tampering crime scene before. It is at maximum, we should say. Utterly, utterly wild. Can I ask you one quick question just about the immediate forensic environment that that this circus troupe found when they decided to march all throughout the house. Did it appear that Ruth had been murdered in her bed or that she might have been murdered elsewhere in the house and then placed there? Was there any indication either way?

Taylor 08:04-08:58

It's pretty obvious that she was lying down and taking maybe a siesta or just resting. She clearly had been making dinner because a pot of rice was found kind of all shriveled up in the oven. There was some sort of soup mixture on the stove and half-cut vegetables on the stove. So what we surmise is that she was in the process of making dinner and she went and lay down for a little while. She actually had a blanket partially over her legs. She had her shoes on. She had her shoes on. So she wasn't lying down for long, but she was fully clothed in her church clothes, her pantyhose, her shoes, her jewelry, her hair was done up. She had just, in my opinion, had lain down for a few minutes.

Ben 08:58-09:07

And somebody walked in, took a pillow, stuffed it over her head, and shot her twice. It also did not seem, again, tempered crime scene, hard to say for sure, but it did not seem that there were signs of a struggle, is that right?

Taylor 09:16-10:10

No signs of a struggle, no signs of a break-in. So she either knew the person or the criminal walked in because the door was unlocked.

Ben

There was a neighbor that heard gunshots,

Taylor

Yes, a neighbor heard gunshots. Sunset was about 6.57 p.m. on March 16th, 1975. And sometime between maybe 7.30 and 9.30, one friend of hers from church tried to call her four times. And each time she got a busy signal.

Ben 10:13-10:17

The cops estimated that she was killed sometime between about 5 and 10 p.m.

Taylor 10:17-10:21

They're not sure.

Ben 10:22-11:32

So what's funny about this particular murder, funny is not maybe the right word, strange or perplexing perhaps is a little better, is that there were any number of people on the island, including for different reasons, as we'll get into, her son and her brother, who had plenty of motive in wanting to see Ruth disappear. There was money at stake, right? There was an inheritance that was tied up some way or another. But what is fascinating about this particular case, Taylor, and you described this at great length, is that the means, right, in murder, we talk about means and motive, right? Plenty of motive, but the means don't exactly hold up, or it's not as immediately apparent what the means were. Now, there's, yes, a pistol, and there's a caliber of bullet and so forth, but whose pistol, how could they have gotten access, what were the routines that people had on the island, what were Ruth's routines, piecing all that together to kind of narrow down the list of suspects, that has proven elusive for 50 years.

Taylor 11:40-12:36

It definitely has. It definitely has. No weapon was ever recovered. If there were fingerprints collected, the fingerprints of her brother, the fingerprints of her son, and perhaps even the fingerprints of Alan Graham. Those could have been explained away as to why those fingerprints were in the house. And of course, they didn't have DNA technology in 1975. And quite honestly, her house was about a block from the bridge. and a block from the bay. Anyone who left that house, fled the scene of the crime, could have easily disposed of that gun by walking across the golf course and throwing it into the bay or jumping in a car and driving over the bridge and dropping it over the side of the bridge.

Ben 12:36-13:37

There are just so many missing pieces to this particular story. murder. It is just the most frustrating thing, especially when you have so many individuals who, in their own way, could have and possibly did do this. So we need to talk about some of the dead ends that you found as you researched this particular case, and of course the police. They jump on it once they get their hands on it. Once they get caught, they do take a very aggressive sort of action in trying to understand what happened. But they come up with dead ends. I'd love to hear about those. And we also need to investigate the alibis, if you want to call them that, of each of these three main players. So at least give us a sense of what did the police do when they first came on scene, got the circus troupe out of the house, and took over the investigation?

Taylor 13:46-15:28

They zeroed in on Hank and Chuck pretty quickly. They suspected that if anyone would be responsible for this, the hatred and the venom between Hank and Ruth and Chuck and Ruth was well known. I mean, neighbors said they could hear their fights for blocks that were just, that houses were very close together. that their fights and outbursts were legendary, and that Ruth was well-known for bad-mouthing her brother and bad-mouthing her son all over town, to anyone who would listen. Chuck, on the day of the murder, was in Carson City, Nevada, visiting some family friends, staying with some family friends, However, he was not at home with these family friends all day. He was out skiing or hiking all day long and he did not arrive back until late that night or early the next morning because those family friends sat him down at around, I think, 11 o'clock in the morning on Monday and told them, the police called us And I have to tell you, sadly, that the police told us that your mother was murdered. Now, the police estimated that, well, it's about a nine-hour drive from Carson City down to Carnado. He could have driven to Carnado, committed the murder, and driven back. But who knows?

Ben 15:28-15:41

I was just going to say, there's this one funny moment where, you know, here you are speaking from a naval aviation family where you say he would have needed a phantom jet to get there and back really in order to make this happen.

Taylor 15:47-15:55

Right. Right. Right. Hank also was a prime suspect.

Ben 15:56-15:56

Yeah.

Taylor 15:57-16:57

The cops also narrowed in on Ruth's brother, Hank. because of the animosity between the two of them. And he was in town that day. Hank claims that he had, after church, that he had lunch with his girlfriend at her house, and she verified that. And then he claimed that he was going to go to the house where he rented a room. And then he was going to go have dinner with Ruth, which is what he did.

Ben 16:57-16:59

And they would bicker like cats and dogs, but he would still do it.

Taylor 16:59-18:04

Every Sunday, every night he would go and have dinner with Ruth. And they would bicker with cats, but he would still do it and he would still stay the night. But on this Sunday, he actually showed up at his girlfriend's house for dinner. So he broke with his routine. He did not. He said he did not go to have dinner with Ruth. However, There were two boys across the street from Ruth's house skateboarding on Sunday afternoon. And they were 12 and 13 years old. They noticed Hank walking to his sister's house around 4.30 or 5 o'clock, which they thought was strange because Hank usually drove his car to Ruth's house. He never walked. So they thought that was unusual. They saw him walk down the driveway and enter his sister's house. But they never saw him leave.

Ben 18:04-19:14

It goes back to what we were talking about last week. It is hard to get away with things on an island. I mean, there's just people around, and people where you don't expect, and they talk, and they remember things, and they know each other's routines, and they know each other's patterns, and here comes, you know, old man Smith walking the dog at five o'clock p.m. like he does every single day, and it's just islands create that kind of consciousness, and so the minute one thing is out of place, Everybody knows or or someone picks up on it or it just you can't hide the break in routine And I got to tell you when I was reading your book And I'm reading about these strange movements that Hank makes. On this day of all day, my spider sense just started tingling like it had not tingled the entire volume long. And it just, you know, we don't know, we don't know, but boy, was that weird. Hmm.

Taylor 19:15-20:22

Right. But you know, one thing that, we have now that we didn't have then is a lot of cameras. So there was no way to verify the boys' eyewitness testimony. There were no ring cameras. There were probably fewer streetlights. And the police discounted these two boys' testimony because they were minors. Alan Graham, Alan Graham is the only one who had a really solid alibi. He was actually at a dinner party that evening with a group of friends who all could verify the fact that he was there. Now others, other people have said, well, he had a…

Ben

He ran with a pretty low life crew, let's be honest.

Taylor

He could have hired someone to do it. Someone could have done it for him. He ran with a real low-life crew. He befriended every low-life in town.

Ben 20:22-21:22

Weird mix. Toxic combination. And every rich old lady in town. So we don't know. We don't know. We've got Chuck, who was in Nevada, but could have made it, and there was enough tension and animosity between them that it, you know, you can't rule him out conclusively. You got Hank, who just gets real squirrely that day, but they were They were cats and dogs, but also inseparable. Would murder really be in his bones? Especially something as cold as that. It doesn't seem to fit. Alan is just a hot mess all around, but the alibi sticks. Maybe, does it stick for the whole of that five hour window in which she could have been killed? Hard to say at this point. I mean, Taylor, you've got a real stickler here Okay, and what does your gut tell you? Where do your suspicions fall?

Taylor 21:24-22:58

You do. Well, I have my suspicions, I have my theories, but I actually would really like to leave it up to the reader to decide. I do make a strong case for each one of the suspects, but I would really like to know what readers feel, who they believe did this. And I must tell you, since you read the book, you know this, that each one of these suspects, Chuck, Hank, and Alan, were also suspects in subsequent suspicious deaths. Hank discovered the body of his girlfriend dead in a bathtub in 1980. Chuck was briefly a suspect in the Mount Tam serial murder case in San Francisco. Some guy was stalking women on the hiking trails in San Francisco and killing them with, get this, the same weapon used to kill Ruth. Alan Graham was briefly a suspect in Jim Morrison's girlfriend's death. because if Jim Morrison's girlfriend's death, if Jim Morrison's girlfriend died, all of the money that she inherited from Jim Morrison would go to Jim Morrison's family. and guess who was married to John?

Ben 22:58-23:18

The plot thickens! The plot thickens! Oh, it's too much! It's too much! It's just too much. You know, I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul, since Ruth was a good Catholic, that the Apostle Paul wrote that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And oh boy, oh boy, was he not,

Taylor 23:23-24:21

There you go. There you go. But you know, the irony is, is that there wasn't that much money. I mean, you know, her murder made national news for a hot second. I mean, I found headlines all over the country. You know, Candy Harris murdered, you know, Jujubee Harris slain. I mean, all over the country I found these headlines. But in looking, and I had her will, in looking at her will, she only had about $200,000 worth of securities to leave, and they all went to her son. Now, $200,000 in 1975 certainly could buy you a very nice house. You could live off it for a couple of years. But it wasn't millions of dollars. It wasn't millions. And, you know, A couple of weeks after her murder, the headlines went away. And the page went cold.

Ben 24:22-24:23

Let me ask you one or two questions about Aftermaths.

Taylor 24:23-24:26

And it's really, it's been cold ever since.

Ben 24:26-25:14

We are very rapidly approaching the 50th anniversary of her murder. I mean, within a couple of weeks, as you and I sit down, you know, to talk about this, and your book comes out. Yes. 50 years. Weeks. almost, you know, to the month from the moment that she was killed. It's kind of remarkable how that works out. I guess I'm curious. How has your research on this case, your work on this case, You are a native of Coronado. How has your work on this been received back home among the island community and the people who still know things or whisper things or talk? I mean, how has the reception been?

Taylor 25:23-26:33

Most people are really intrigued and are looking forward to reading the book. I will tell you that there was at least one woman I met 15 years ago who refused to cooperate with me because she said, I think Ruth would be mortified to know that her story was going to be in a book. Her grandfather had a mantra for the family. Her grandfather said, we Heides are in the newspaper three times. Once upon our birth, once upon our marriage, and once upon our death. And she tried to live by that. So this friend of hers told me, you know, I'm not going to contribute to this book and conduct an interview with you because I think she would be horrified. I feel strongly that Ruth deserved justice. She was trying to live out, you know, her sunset years on her little patio full of the beautiful flowers. She loved flowers and she loved birds and she had this little tiny postage stamp sized patio in a tiny little slice of the heaven that we all know as Coronado. And was just hoping to live out her final years in peace.

Ben 26:33-27:49

It is remarkable that it is not only one of the only murders that has ever taken place in Coronado, but it's also, of those, one of the only unsolved. A very, very low number there, which of course affords it a certain notoriety and a certain cachet, but also you know, it leaves that question mark just kind of hanging in the air for later generations to pick up and carry forward. And you never know what might happen in days to come. You never know whether somebody might feel free to speak for the first time in a long time in order to, maybe they remember something or know something, and this moment can can bring us one step closer to the justice that she does deserve and that you write about in the book so well. It is such a remarkable story. These cold cases, they just captivate our imaginations in so many different ways. And I'm not lying when I say I was really gripped by your account here. So I guess the last question I have for you Taylor, is how can folks, if they want to find out more and read this account and learn about Ruth and everything that happened, what's the best way for them to do so?

Taylor 27:49-28:22

If you want to buy the book, of course you can go to Amazon and the name of the book is The Murder of the Jujubee Candiaris, A Coronado Cold Case. You can also look up on Amazon my name, Taylor Baldwin Keeland. You can also find out more about this book on my website, which is taylorkeeland.com. That's T-A-Y-L-O-R-K-A-Y-L-A-N-D.com.

Ben 28:23-28:39

You don't know. Something might move in that direction. So we maintain hope eternal, don't we? Can't wait. Thank you so much, Taylor. This has been such a joy.

Taylor 28:39-28:41

We have really, really loved having you on the show.