On October 20, 1931, baggage agents in Los Angeles received a tip that two trunks on the incoming Southern Pacific Railroad could contain contraband material. When the agents located the suspicious trunks, they opened them and were horrified to find within them the dismembered remains of Anne LeRoi and Hedvig Samuelson, two young women who had gone missing in Arizona days earlier. Both women had been shot to death.
Railroad agents quickly traced the trunks back to twenty-six-year-old Winnie Ruth Judd, but Judd disappeared into the crowd before authorities could apprehend and question her. Two days later, Judd surrendered to the LAPD, setting off one of the decade’s most sensational murder cases and making Winnie Ruth Judd, the “Trunk Murderess,” an object of public curiosity for decades to follow. Some called her a butcher and a psychopath, yet many others found it impossible to believe that she’d acted alone or that she was anything more than an unwilling accomplice.
Winnie Ruth Judd was ultimately found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but her life was spared, and her sentence was overturned when psychiatrists determined her to be mentally incompetent and she was sent to a psychiatric institution. Judd spent thirty years in an Arizona mental institution, from which she escaped and was recaptured six times, before finally winning parole in 1971.
Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me The Axe Podcast for research and writing support!
References
Arizona Daily Star. 1932. "Testimony in Judd trial is before jurors." Arizona Daily Star, February 7: 1.
—. 1932. "Winnie Judd breaks under trial's strain." Arizona Daily Star, January 22: 1.
Associated Press. 1932. "Winnie Judd guilty, must hang for murder." Arizona Daily Star, February 9: 1.
—. 1932. "Mrs. Judd guilty of first degree murder." New York Times, February 9: 1.
—. 1939. "Mrs. Judd, slayer, escapes asylum." New York Times, October 26: 27.
Bommersbach, Jana. 1992. The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Los Angeles Evening Express. 1931. "Youth reveals sister's story." Los Angeles Evening Express, October 20: 1.
Los Angeles Times. 1931. "Doctor wants to hunt wife." Los Angeles Times, October 21: 9.
—. 1931. "Trunk murder suspect dodges great dragnet." Los Angeles Times, October 21: 1.
—. 1931. "Trunk seeker ex-employee." Los Angeles Times, October 20: 2.
New York Times. 1932. "Alienist asserts Mrs. Judd is sane." New York Times, February 4: 9.
—. 1931. "Confession letter laid to Mrs. Judd." New York Times, October 25: 3.
—. 1931. "Mrs. Judd gives up in trunk murders." New York Times, October 24: 3.
—. 1932. "Mrs. Judd to die on scaffold May 11." New York Times, February 25: 44.
—. 1971. "Winnie Ruth Judd free on parole." New York Times, November 30: 53.
Stanley, Thiers. 1931. "Fears grip Mrs. Judd." Los Angeles Times, October 31: 1.
Tucson Citizen. 1931. "Accomplice sought." Tucson Citizen, October 20: 1.
—. 1932. "Eludes guard while mother is on stand." Tucson Citizen, January 26: 1.
—. 1931. "Student tells of trip to claim bodies of victims." Tucson Citizen, October 20: 1.
United Press International. 1982. "Trunk murderer wins big court settlement ." UPI Archive, December 31.
Winnie Ruth Judd v. State of Arizona. 1932. 41 Ariz. 176 (Ariz. 1932) (Supreme Court of Arizona, 12 December 12).
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