It has been determined that Ruth Marie Terry, also known as “The Lady of the Dunes,” was murdered.
Guy Rockwell Muldavin was publicly identified as the woman’s killer on Monday by Cape and Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois after the Massachusetts State Police had previously named him as a person of interest in November.
Galibois asserted that Muldavin, whom he had just married, was the final person to see his wife alive before she was killed in 1974.
“The Massachusetts State Police discovered Ms. Terry and Mr. Muldavin were on the road during the summer of 1974.” The DA said in a press release that “Mr. Muldavin had returned from that trip while operating what was thought to be Ms. Terry’s vehicle and had told witnesses that Ms. Terry had passed away.”
“Ms. Terry’s family had no further sightings of her. According to the press release, Mr. Muldavin only mentioned that he and his wife had a fight during their honeymoon and that he had not heard from her since. Ms. Terry’s brother attempted to locate his sister using this information.
The DA concluded, declaring the case closed, “Based on the investigation into the death of Ms. Terry, it has been determined that Mr. Muldavin was responsible for Ms. Terry’s death in 1974.”
Muldavin passed away in 2002; reports and the DA’s statement claim that he was also the “prime suspect” in the 1960 murders of another wife and stepdaughter in the Seattle, Washington region.
Despite being murdered in 1974, Terry wasn’t found until last year.
Who was Ruth Marie Terry?
In October of the previous year, the FBI’s Boston Division announced that Ruth Marie Terry, who had been “the oldest, unidentified victim in Massachusetts” for 48 years, had been found. She would have been 37 years old when she passed away.
Following the discovery of Terry’s body on July 26, 1974, she took on the monicker “Lady of the Dunes” and lived with it for almost 50 years. She was struck in the head, almost losing her head to her body, making her murder particularly brutal. Authorities speculated that her hands were removed in order to avoid fingerprint identification.
She was found dead, unarmed, lying facedown on a beach blanket with her head resting on a pair of folded pants.
Terry’s identity was discovered using investigative genealogy; Terry’s remains had been discovered at least three times before. According to the FBI, this tactic “combines the use of DNA analysis with traditional genealogy research and historical records to generate investigative leads for unsolved violent crimes.”
A number of conspiracies have been developed over the years in relation to the relatively well-known “Lady of the Dunes” mystery. Another theory put forth by Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, claimed that the murder had been carried out by mobster Whitey Bulger.
Due to the “Inside Jaws” podcast, his 2015 blog post that the woman who appears to have a “startling resemblance” to police sketches might have been an extra in “Jaws” has garnered new interest.
Read more: Mystery Solved: Husband identify as killer in ‘Lady of the Dunes’ case