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From day one, it was clear.Ruthie Mae McCoy's murder wasn't going to be an open and shut case.
Reporter Steve Bagheera, who wrote for the Chicago Reader, recognized early on that making sense of what happened that night in April 1987 was going to be difficult for detectives.
It's a tough case for police in large part because the relationship between police and the residents of these projects.
Most residents already had a fraught relationship with the police.But even for the ones who were willing to talk, how could they be sure detectives would protect them from retaliation?Finding witnesses would be a challenge.
But that wasn't the only reason.The motive itself was a mystery. Of the thousands of residents at Abbott Homes, why was this grandmother killed?Was this random?Or was she targeted?
To find clues, detectives started digging into where Ruthie Mae spent her time. Steve Bogira says she suffered from severe paranoia, so... She got connected with a psychiatric center in Mount Sinai.
Ruthie Mae got enrolled in an outpatient treatment facility through the hospital to take care of her mental health.And after a lifetime of struggle, Ruthie Mae was finally beginning to make headway.
She started taking high school equivalency classes to get her GED.And the psychiatric center even helped her take a big step toward moving out of the projects.
The people at that center realized that she qualified because of her mental illness. for supplemental security income.
According to Steve, that increased our Social Security checks from about $150 a month to about $350.
This would allow her, eventually, to get out of the project, which was what she wanted.She wanted to be able to get back out there in private housing.And she couldn't afford anything extravagant, but she could afford to live outside the project.
This new income ended up being a windfall.
The first check she got included some retroactive pay, retroactive to the time she had applied.So she got a check for $1,979, I believe it was, which I believe she cashed and kept the money in her apartment.
She bought herself a couple of nice things.A plain winter coat and a couple of other things.Which unfortunately also made her a target.Detectives came to feel that people in the project probably noticed.
and thought she had some money in the apartment, and that may be the reason that they broke in on her.
Listen, when you're hungry, any one of the come-ups starts to look like food, and the community at Abbott Homes was starving.In a phone interview, Ruthie Mae's neighbor, Deborah Lassley, remembered when her friend got that check.
She went to the mailbox, I know.She said she was going down there, and she was happy.
She said that Ruthie Mae wasn't too loud when she told her about the check, but that it is possible that someone heard.So detectives began thinking that Ruthie Mae's big payday might've been a motive for murder.
So it could be that the thing that the psychiatric center did to help Ruthie Mae possibly move on in the project got her killed instead.
But what detectives felt and what they could prove were two different things.The story's changed several times.
My partner and I very seldom took notes the first time around because they were always usually lies.
I'm Dometi Pongo from 48 Hours.This is Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder.Episode 3, The Suspects Next Door.
I was upset that she had to lay in her own apartment for two days before somebody found her.Nobody deserves that.
Former detective Anthony Menina investigated the murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy.It was our case, myself, Ray Loiser and Bill Wright.Back in 1987, Menina would have been in his early 40s.I was a detective in homicide from
1985 to 1995 when I retired.He's from Chicago.He grew up on the West Side.
As a matter of fact, the projects that we're talking about were very close to where I live.He and Detective Ray Loiser were partners for nearly eight years.
We used to have our own way of doing things.The ability to think alike. and to know what each other is thinking just with a look.
The detectives were assigned the case soon after Ruthie Mae's body was found.Menina had worked many cases out of Abbott Homes and was very familiar with it.There were a lot of good people that lived in them projects.
But even as they approached the brick high-rise, they stayed on high alert.
When you were going in, you had to be very careful looking up at the windows because people would be dropping stuff on you all day long.Garbage at you or throwing different things out the windows at you.They also avoided the elevators.
At the time, good policemen never used the elevators in their projects.For lack of a better term, they were moving urinals and hardly ever worked right.
So it was a dangerous situation.Menina wasn't one of the responding officers, but he put the blame on the Chicago Housing Authority and the CHA security for being difficult about opening Ruthie Mae's door.
The project manager for Ruthie Mae's building later said she didn't know why the first key given to police didn't work.
That really upset me. I was ranting and raving against the CHA police at that time because of that fact.
He says that there were a lot of hoax calls that came into the police department, but says he still didn't believe that that was a good excuse for the slow response.
He tried to get in with a key and couldn't do it.Hey, go back somewhere and get a locksmith and get in there.
He didn't want the police to let Ruthie Mae down again.
As I hear this poor woman got killed in her own apartment, not bothering anybody.So we worked our butts off to try to clear that one, and we did within two days.The city of Chicago, that particular time, had over 900 homicides for the year.
So I mean, it's like we were working a different homicide every day.So therefore, you couldn't hand the case off the other detectives because they were busy going on another one.
24-hour shifts happened regularly.We were considered Area 4.That was the entire West Side.The detectives started asking everyone they could find what they knew about the night Ruthie Mae was killed.
Then we found witnesses doing a canvas that heard the shots.They heard three or four shots, and they started talking about who was in their apartment.
The witnesses repeated the same two names, Edward Turner, who was nicknamed Monofi, and then John Hondrus, who went by White Boy.
They were both named.The stories changed several times, which was, you see, my partner and I very seldom took notes the first time around.
because they were always usually lies.The detective's strategy was to go around, talk to everyone, and then repeat all the questioning again.And once you caught him in several lies, then you started getting to the basic facts and the truth.
The detective's key witness turned out to be 20-year-old Tim Brown. Brown was described as a scrawny guy back then.He told police that he saw Turner and Hondras come in and out of Ruthie Mae's apartment with a TV and a rocking chair.
Menina and his partner had Brown come meet with an assistant state's attorney to create a written record of his version of events.Steve Bagheera has a copy of Brown's written statement.
Tim Brown said that he was with some friends that night, that afternoon, and that evening, leading up to the time when Ruthie Mae was killed.
Brown told the detectives that he regularly hung out in the apartment next to Ruthie Mae's, 1108.And this day was no different.
There were young men, primarily men, but sometimes women were in the apartment as well. getting high, and they were selling drugs from this apartment.
Tim Brown told the police that he'd been there with a friend earlier in the day.In that afternoon, they moved some weights from another apartment up to 1108 to work out. Brown's girlfriend was there too.
She left at six to go to her grandmother's house, while Brown and his friend stayed, sitting around and listening to the stereo.
Tim Brown said that Miss May, as he called her, had asked him earlier in the year if they could keep the noise down from the apartment.
A number of guys went 1108 pretty late into the evening.Brown told the police who had come through that night. John Hondris, Edward Turner, and a friend nicknamed Bo.
At one point, as the night wore on, he said Bo wanted to show Hondris what he learned about the medicine cabinets in Abbott Homes.
Bo told Hondris that the bathroom mirror opened to the next apartment, to apartment 1109, and that that was how people broke into apartments.
It would be that easy to get into the neighboring apartment, where Ruthie May, the woman with the nice things, lived.
So a little later that evening, Hondris and Turner were back in the bathroom, according to Brown, and Hondris pulled the mirror in 1108 out with his hands.
Edward Turner was a teenager who lived in Abbott Homes.His family knew Ruthie Mae.Turner had grown up, I believe, in the projects.Hondris had spent some time there as well.
John Hondris, the man who allegedly poured the mirror out in 1108, was 21 and an ex-con.
He was a tough character.The other guy was more of a thief than anything else.
Honduras had done time in an Indiana prison for robbery and auto theft.That night, after the medicine cabinet was removed, Honduras and Turner could allegedly look straight into Ruthie Mae's apartment.
And it looked to them like maybe the apartment next door was vacant.In a statement to police, Brown claims that he warned Honduras that Ms.Mae lived there. But the apartment, at least at first, looked empty.
Hondra said back to Brown, according to Brown, that he didn't think anyone was home.And then he climbed on the sink and went through the hole.Brown said that he then heard a lady say, who's there?
After hearing the voice, Brown then claimed that he heard the front door to Ruthie Mae's apartment, 1109, open.
And then a knock on 1108. And so he answers the door and Honduras tells him to throw him a jacket, his jacket.So Brown gives him his jacket.It was a black nylon jacket.
Honduras threw it over his head and went back into 1109 through the front door this time.
So by now, one suspect was in Ruthie Mae's apartment.That's what Brown told the cops. He also said he saw the second suspect, Edward Turner, go through the hole in the wall.And that's when things supposedly went off the rails.
And he heard Turner say, get down.And then Brown said he heard four shots.Four shots.
Then silence. Five or 10 minutes later, he said both Turner and Honduras left Ruthie Mae's apartment.But Brown said they didn't leave empty-handed.
He saw Turner come out with a TV and Honduras come out with a rocking chair.
Brown claimed that both of them took the stolen property and made a run for it. One of the young women in the apartment that night, Lynette Fitch, was Tim Brown's girlfriend.
She told the police that Hondras wanted them to stash the stolen items at her place.
He had come into her apartment and tried to leave the rocking chair and the TV in her apartment, and she wouldn't allow it.
And she suggested that they try another woman who lived on the first floor of another Abbott High Rooms.And they ultimately took the TV and rocking chair to this woman's apartment.
She acknowledged to the police that she had agreed to take the TV and the rocking chair to hold it for Hondress Turner.
After they found a place to hide the stolen goods, Brown said that they came back to the 11th floor.
According to Brown's statement, two or three hours later, Hondress and Turner knocked on 1108.And when Tim Brown answered, Hondress said they needed to go back to Miss May's apartment to get the shells from the gun.
Brown didn't want them to crawl back through the bathroom mirror, so he told the police he said no.
They went into her apartment through the front door and came out.About five minutes later, Andres told Brown they had found three of the shells.They locked the door behind them and then ran down the hall.
Cops found one shell casing behind the bedroom door. but other parts of Brown's statement didn't entirely match what police officers experienced.
See, Brown claimed this happened after 11.30 at night, but police had already shown up to Ruthie Mae's apartment after she called 911 at 8.45.And when they showed up, the front door was locked, not unlocked the way Brown described.
The police never recovered the gun or any fingerprints.
Police didn't have this physical evidence, and they also had given a head start to the offenders to get their stories solid.
But Brown's statement and the statements of the other witnesses made detectives confident that Hondris and Turner were their prime suspects.
There was testimony saying they went in there and come out with three bullet casings. And the TV and the set and the rocking chair were found at the one guy's mother's house.
Come on.Detectives stopped at Turner's house and spoke with his mom, Aletha Turner.
We left business cards and I kind of talked her into calling us when he returned home.A while later, she called us that they were waiting for us.So we went back to the 1407 troop and that's when he was placed into custody.
He was arrested on April 25th, his 19th birthday.
Meanwhile, Hondras, the ex-convict, managed to avoid arrest for more than a month.Police finally caught up with him on June 8th, 1987.Both Hondras and Turner denied being involved in the murder of Ruthie Mae.
Menina remembers Turner giving a couple different stories as to how he found the TV.
The first story said that he had found the TV out by the incinerator.Then the next story was he found it outside the door until we finally got him to admit
that he got it out of the apartment.The prosecution planned to rely on their key witness, Tim Brown, who was adamant that Hondress and Turner were the culprits.It was within two days that we solved it.
Hondress and Turner each faced charges of burglary and murder and would have to wait years for their day in court.They both pleaded not guilty. In the meantime, Ruthie Mae's family pursued another kind of justice.
They believed she might still be alive if the Chicago Housing Authority had designed the medicine cabinets differently.So Vernita McCoy, Ruthie Mae's daughter, wanted the CHA to pay for what happened.So she got herself a lawyer.
Well, her mother died, and her mother died by way of a bizarre set of facts.And Mr. Peters, can you help me? And I said, I don't know, but I'll try.
The day after Ruthie Mae called 911, her daughter Vernita tried getting in touch with her.She called Ruthie Mae, not realizing that her mom was already gone. Vernita said her aunt was the one who eventually broke the news.
She didn't understand, nor did I, how the hell something like this happened and was permitted to happen.
That's attorney Randy Peters.He'd eventually end up representing Vernita when she sued the Chicago Housing Authority.Randy also grew up in Chicago.
While I was still figuring out what I wanted to do, I saw a movie called All the President's Men.
All the President's Men tells the story of two Washington Post reporters who uncovered the details of the Watergate scandal.Their reporting helped lead to President Richard Nixon's resignation.And that movie
for whatever the reasons may have been, just got me interested in law.My father is a factory worker, was a factory worker, mother was a housewife, no lawyers in our family.But that movie really touched me, so I decided that maybe I'd give it a shot.
He was in his mid-30s back in 1987 and still pretty new to law.At that point in his career, Randy said he took on several cases against the Chicago Housing Authority.And one of his clients was Vernita McCoy.
She's since died, but Vernita was just 25 when she lost her mother.
I just assured her that I would do everything I can.
Randy said he agreed to take the case because he was horrified by the circumstances Ruthie Mae was living in.
The bizarre facts of what happened, I mean, how many people do you know that live in an apartment building or a condominium have the worries and concerns about the adjoining unit being able to crawl through your medicine cabinet to get into your unit?
Randy knew that in order to win this case, he needed to prove that there was a problem long before Ruthie Mae was murdered.
You have to show notice of whatever the event was that caused, in this particular case, a death, and to be able to develop evidence to show that it was preventable.
It was foreseeable and preventable.And as Randy started looking at the way the housing projects were designed, he realized the medicine cabinets were not the only problem.
Where she was living was a CHA project that was not conducive to safety.
Too often, elevators didn't work.Incinerators didn't work.And without incinerators burning up trash, the hallway smelled, and residents worried about an ever-growing fire hazard. There was also this problem of access for emergency vehicles.
See, the high-rises had these huge courtyards that didn't allow for through traffic, which meant police and ambulances couldn't quickly drive up to the buildings.
So in other words, if someone wants to commit a crime in that area, the crime is committed and they're gone before the police can get to the location.
It was a mess, but Randy needed to prove that the Chicago Housing Authority purposely neglected these buildings, and that specifically, they did nothing to make Ruthie Mae's apartment safer.For his investigation, he did a couple of things.
Randy filed a court order to get access to the police report and the names of the officers who reported to the scene.But then he went a step further.
he brought in an architect to explain how the design of the buildings themselves posed a risk to residents.
I for the life of me couldn't figure out how somebody in unit A could crawl through a medicine cabinet into unit B. He said that the architect looked at the structure of Abbott Homes and the way they built the pipe chase to give janitors that easy access to the pipes.
My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created, literally shocked.
And not only shocked at that, but also shocked by the fact that the record showed that the CHA was on notice that this type of activity was happening and nothing was done structurally to remedy that hazard.
At the time, the CHA told Steve Bagheera that they received quote, only isolated reports of such break-ins.They estimated fewer than 10.Randy thought the evidence made this case a slam dunk.
The police report and the architect gave him what he needed.
And with those facts, then it gave me the opportunity to show that there was negligence on the part of the CHA by permitting this ease of access to continue.
Rennie believed the CHA had multiple ways to safeguard the projects, and certainly the medicine cabinets.
And it was easily preventable by a way of either altering the design of the medicine cabinets by hinges and nails and locks or whatever to prevent them from removing it from the wall.
and or number two, because of the history of this type of activity occurring, to have adequate security that was present as a deterrent, neither of which they had.
Randy said the CHA denied having any liability.At the end of the day, Randy thought that all of this came down to one thing.Money.
But once Randy thought he had a strong case... The question became, what's it worth?We have to take a look at how we can maximize the amount of recovery for any individual, whether they be black, white, rich, poor.
In April 1988, he sued the Chicago Housing Authority, demanding $1.5 million for the death of Ruthie Mae McCoy.
She was somebody's mother, and she was loved, and she was respected for who she was.
He didn't actually expect to win $1.5 million.In these kinds of lawsuits, the amount you get depends on a number of factors.A person's assets, their social status, if they have dependents.And Ruthie Mae didn't. By then Vernita was an adult.
Unfortunately, Ruthie Mae was unemployed, issues with mental handicaps, not married, poor.And it comes down to, unfortunately, lawyers in these types of cases have to put a value on a life.
But Randy said that this case wasn't about money. This was about accountability.
It didn't become a question in my mind of, I'm going to make a lot of money on this case, because I knew I wasn't.
His goal was to get the CHA to admit it had failed.
By way of getting the estate compensated to some degree, to show them that there was some remorse and some sorrow, so to speak, of what they were experiencing.
and some restitution for the people that Ruthie Mae cared for.
While she wasn't technically a dependent at 26 years of age, Renita did have hardships, and Randy tried to argue that Ruthie Mae would pitch in however she could with the limited resources she did have.
She was there to help her daughter with her grandchild, and to me, that was more important than anything else.
But even outside of trying to get the family compensated, Randy just wanted the CHA to actually fix the remaining medicine cabinets.
I just kept looking at the facts of this case.This just isn't right.I mean, if I don't do something about this, and at least try to get them back on track to get their act together, this is just going to keep on happening.
And other people are going to be murdered.
According to Steve Boguera's conversations with officers, the mode of entry was well known.
In the McCoy matter, the vulnerability came by way of the police learning, and me learning, that there was a pattern of this type of activity happening.And, you know, it was only a matter of time until Ruthie Mae became a victim.
By the way, a spokesperson for the CHA had told Steve Bagheera that they had no record of Ruthie Mae complaining about her medicine cabinet.Still, Randy was going to make his case.
And the question for him was, would the CHA pay for what he and Ruthie Mae's family saw as their fatal neglect?
The family's lawsuit against the CHA was happening at the same time prosecutors were building their case against Ruthie Mae's alleged killers.
For Randy, the criminal investigation was key to proving his case, because the police report showed a pattern.
I didn't hire the police department to do their investigation.I didn't even speak to them.I didn't even know about what their findings were until I got their papers, but they were quite helpful.
Remember, the CHA admitted they knew of some break-ins.The detectives on Ruthie May's case said it was common knowledge among residents.Here's Detective Anthony Menina.
I had talked to several people at the time, and they said, well, there's a designing flaw in there, and that's what the burglars are using to climb into different apartments.
That was in conversation with several either informants or other people that just wanted to stick their two cents in, so to speak.
The fact that Randy's case was built on information that investigators gathered themselves made it that much stronger in court.Randy filed in April, 1988, but the case didn't resolve until 1992.However, it never came before a judge or a jury.
Instead, the Chicago Housing Authority decided to settle.
You have to understand in a criminal case, it's beyond a reasonable doubt.That's not the premise in a civil case such as my case.In my case, the burden of proof that needs to be established is what is more probably true than not.
Randy said he no longer has his files from this case since it's been more than three decades since they settled. We filed a freedom of information request with the CHA for the settlement amount, but that hasn't turned anything up yet.
The CHA explained that most records from that time have been destroyed.However, Randy was confident that they did not get the 1.5 million he demanded when he first filed.
No, no, no, no, absolutely not.That I can tell you with certainty, but I can't tell you how much we did get.
He also said the CHA never admitted liability. I spoke with Vanita McCoy's daughter, Keely, but she didn't share how much money the family got in the settlement either.
Back in the 80s, Steve Wojtyla wondered if the lawsuit contributed to the CHA finally fixing the remaining medicine cabinets.He'd still been asking about them, even after his first article was published.
I was still checking, but they all said that there hadn't been any attempt to fix the medicine cabinets.
I think they'd probably made attempts after Vernita, Ruthie Mae's daughter, filed her lawsuit, but it sure took time for them to do something about it.
The CHA's public affairs director told Steve that the CHA desperately wanted to provide better security, but it was hampered by years of deferred maintenance costs.She said they were trying to solve it step by step.
While Steve wrote about the lawsuit for his story, his focus was on the impending trials of John Hondras and Edward Turner.Detectives had believed that the Social Security check Ruthie Mae received contributed to the robbery.
However, that money wasn't mentioned in the statement given by the prosecution's key witness, Tim Brown.And Steve, who followed the case for years, didn't think the criminal case was as much of a slam dunk as the lawsuit.
There was not proof beyond a reasonable doubt in my mind.In the early 90s, Ruthie Mae's family continued to mourn their loss as they waited for the suspect's trials.
Meanwhile, in England, a director was trying to get his new horror movie off the ground.It was one of those weird pieces of kind of kismet. Bernard Rose decided to set his next film, Candyman, in the Chicago projects.
But how did the details of a real murder, barely covered in the press, make their way into his script?I'll tell you this much, it's not because he called and reached out to the family.So what actually happened?
Next time on Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder. From 48 Hours, this is Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder.I'm your host and co-executive producer, Dometi Pongo.
Judy Teigard is the executive producer of 48 Hours. Jamie Benson is the Senior Producer for Paramount Audio, and Maura Walls is the Senior Story Editor.Development by 48 Hours Field Producer, Morgan Kennedy.
Recording Assistants from Marlon Policarp and Alan Pang.Special thanks to Paramount Podcast Vice President, Megan Marcus. Candyman, the true story behind the Bathroom Mirror murder, is produced by Sony Music Entertainment.
It was reported, written, and produced by Alex Schumann.Our executive producers are Catherine St.Louis and Jonathan Hirsch.Our associate producer is Summer Tamad.Theme and original music composed by Cedric Wilson.
He sound designed and mixed the episodes.We also used music from APM. Fendel Fulton is our fact checker.And our production manager is Tameka Balance-Kalasney.
Join us next Thursday for a new episode of Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder.If you liked this episode, be sure to follow us and leave a review on your preferred podcast app.Thanks for listening.
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