Lady of the Dunes

On July 26th 1974, a family decided to spend the day at Race Point Dunes in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Amongst the party was a 12 year old girl who, after spotting a barking dog, left the group to go and play with it. As she followed the animal into the more shrubby part of the dunes, which were situated closer to the road, she spotted what looked like the body of a deer. Unfortunately for the little girl she soon realised it was actually the body a woman, laying face down and half on/half off a beach blanket.

When the authorities arrived soon afterwards they immediately spotted that there was no sign of a struggle, surmising that she had either known her killer or had been asleep or unconscious at the time of the attack. They also noted that the victim had suffered severe head injuries, with one side of her skull being crushed, these were later determined to be the cause of death. She had also been partially decapitated (possibly from strangulation), and several teeth, both hands and one forearm had been removed. Investigators believed that this was an effort to hide both the victim’s identity and the killer’s, which again hinted that the two had known each other and the body’s identification could well point to the perpetrator.

Following the forensic examination, attempts were made to identify the woman. However, despite trawling through thousands of missing persons cases and reaching out to the general public through the media, the investigation never got any further than the initial forensics. ‘Jane Doe’ or ‘The Lady of the Dunes’, was buried in the October of 1974 but she would not be forgotten by the people of Provincetown nor their police department.

There would be two facial reconstructions created of the unknown woman, one from clay in 1979 and one generated from a CT scan in 2010. Her remains would also be exhumed twice, once in 1980 for examination (no new evidence was found) and once in 2000 when DNA was taken for testing. The ‘Lady of the Dunes’ case would be reexamined many times, by authorities and amateur detectives alike, but her identity would remain a mystery for 48 years. Then, on October 31st 2022, the FBI officially announced that she had been identified as Ruth Marie Terry, a 37 year old woman who went missing in the summer of 1974.

They also revealed that they would be launching an investigation into, the now deceased, Guy Muldavin, Ruth’s husband. At the time of her disappearance she was newly married (February 1974) to Guy, who was an antique dealer, and the couple were apparently travelling the country visiting their respective families and also looking for antiques. Four months prior to her death they called on Ruth’s family and surviving members recalled that she (Ruth) did not seem herself during their visit and that Guy seemed to be displaying possessive behaviour. Guy’s family, his half-brother Kenneth and his wife, Carole, informed investigators that they remembered the couple mentioning going to Massachusetts as they were leaving.

When Guy returned to Ruth’s family that summer, it was to inform them that Ruth had gone missing from their home in California. He only stayed a short while and repeatedly said that he did not know where she was. Her brother James actually travelled to California and hired a Private Investigator, apparently this investigator told the family that all of her belongings had been sold and she had left the state of her own free will to join a cult. It is unclear whether this ‘investigator’ was successfully fed lies or if he was paid off.

sidenote; I could not find any information on whether Guy or Ruth’s family also contacted the authorities at the time of her disappearance.

Throughout the investigation into ‘The Lady of the Dunes’, Muldavin’s name was actually already known to the FBI, however due to not being able to identify Ruth the connection through marriage was never made. Guy was already a prime suspect in three murders and one kidnapping, plus he had spent time in prison for swindling his third wife’s family out of $10,000.

It is believed that sometime in April of 1960 Guy killed his second wife, Manzanita Ryan, and her daughter Dolores Mearns, however their bodies were never found and all the FBI could do was arrest him for ‘unlawful flight’ after he tried to leave the state against their instructions. Just three months after their disappearance he married his third wife, Evelyn Emerson, whom he stole the $10,000 from.

He is also the prime suspect in the kidnap-murder of Henry Baird and Barbara Kelley which occurred in June 1950. On the morning of June 18th 1950, Henry was found face down on the beach, wearing only his socks and shoes, with a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Barbara’s clothes, save for her shoes and stockings, were found neatly folded underneath Henry’s, however Barbara herself would never been seen or heard from again.

On August 28th 2023, Guy Muldavin was officially named as Ruth’s killer, 21 years after his death and 49 years after her murder.