Kriti Mehrotra
With CBS’ ’48 Hours’ podcast ‘Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder’ truly living up to its title in every way imaginable, we get a true-crime tale absolutely unlike any other. That’s because it delves deep into the 1987 homicide of a loving yet troubled mother and grandmother inside her own Grace Abbott Homes (housing project) apartment in Chicago, Illinois. However, arguably, the worst aspect of this entire ordeal is not how Ruth Mae McCoy was brutally killed but the fact her perpetrator/s identities sadly remain unknown even nearly four decades on.
Ruth Mae McCoy Was Physically and Mentally Disabled
Although born on January 13, 1935, in Hughes, Arkansas, to Sarah Jones and Hayes McCoy as one of their eight children, Ruth was primarily raised in Chicago, Illinois, alongside all loved ones. After all, her parents dreamed of giving all their kids a prosperous life, and they hoped having a stable home in the big city would open the doors for it, but just making ends meet gradually became hard. However, it wasn’t until after the mid-1950s that things really began changing for their now-adult daughter; she suddenly became erratic, paranoid, and hazy at the littlest of things.
According to records, while signs of Ruth having some sort of mental illness only began appearing in her 20s, her relatives didn’t know the exact nature or diagnosis of it. Nevertheless, a few years down the line, at the age of 27, she had a boyfriend and welcomed a beautiful baby girl into their life, just so the father would not stick around for long. This incident allegedly turned Ruth against men to such an extent she never married, only to then try and convince all her peers to be wary of men too. But then came her institutionalizations for losing her cool at the littlest things, talking to herself, and giving personal lectures on the meaning of life.
As per records, Ruth was in and out of mental health facilities throughout her 20s and 30s, yet she still managed to hold a few odds jobs like a laundromat attendant and housekeeper. Yet, it wasn’t until much later that she was diagnosed with paranoia and residual-type schizophrenia, resulting in her monthly income in general assistance being increased from $154 to $340 a mere two months before she passed away in February 1987. The truth is her daughter, her partner, and their two children had also been residing with her until that point, but her aversion to men had resulted in the brood moving out, which affected her more.
Ruth Mae McCoy Was Found Dead in Her Apartment Two Days After Being Killed
Ruth’s neighbors from her building at 1440 West 13th Street actually claim that she became a little worse once her family moved out, going as far as to make several claims regarding her safety. She was truly paranoid something would happen to her, and it actually did. On April 22, 1987, the 52-year-old dialed 911 at roughly 8:45 pm, frantically claiming some people from next door were trying to break in through the cabinets. The dispatcher reportedly didn’t perfectly understand her and reported it as a “disturbance with a neighbor” to deputies, unaware it was actually much, much more.
The deputies responding to this call understandably didn’t view this as an emergency, but the two other 911 calls made within the ensuing 20 minutes made it clear that it was. One call from around 9 pm had a woman claiming she heard gunshots from apartment 1109 while walking through the hallway, which happened to be Ruth’s apartment, and merely 2 minutes later, another neighbor called to report gunshots and hollering from 1109. That’s when officials rushed to the scene, arriving at 9:10 pm and insistently knocking at her door, asking the dispatcher to call back the number of the original 911 call, hearing the phone ring before asking security to open the doors.
However, when security couldn’t fight the right keys, they simply left. They did return the next day and thought of breaking down Ruth’s door but were convinced by security to leave it be again, only for a project official and a carpenter to open the door on April 24, two days after the original incident. That’s when the 54-year-old was found lying on her side in a pool of blood in her bedroom with four gunshot wounds across her body. The medium caliber bullets had struck her left shoulder, passed through her left thigh, went through her abdomen, and finally, fatally, entered her right upper arm before going into her chest and severing the pulmonary vein. According to her autopsy report, her official cause of death was internal bleeding. Yet, because her pulmonary vein was compromised, she probably didn’t suffer for long.
Ruth Mae McCoy’s Case Sadly Remains Unsolved
The minute investigators arrived at the scene on April 24, they noticed that not only had Ruth been killed, but some of her personal belongings were also missing. This included the phone they had heard ringing two days prior, indicating that her killers were still in her apartment when they stood outside or had returned to retrieve it. One other thing was money, making them believe the killer/s motive was theft after possibly having seen a change in her spending habits over the past two months since her rise in disability pay.
However, the fact that baffled investigators the most was that her bathroom was a significant part of the crime scene, as all you could see were pipes and beyond into apartment 1108 when there should have been a medical cabinet. In other words, her killers did indeed burst into her apartment from the cabinet in her bathroom, a fact no one could initially believe. But alas, it turned out intruders had been breaking into apartments through medicine cabinets for at least a year before Ruth was murdered, making the whole case all the more complex. The fact that the building was crime-prone didn’t help matters either since there were no concrete leads.
A witness was able to tell investigators he saw two men carrying away Ruth’s possessions in the early hours after the murders, but even the ensuing arrests didn’t pan out. Then 19-year-old unemployed Edward Turner was arrested merely days later from his nearby apartment, followed by 25-year-old John Hondras on June 9, especially considering the latter’s prior convictions for robbery and possession of a stolen vehicle. However, the charges against them were eventually dismissed owing to a lack of evidence, leading to the case then going cold. We should mention that Ruth’s daughter did sue the Chicago Housing Authority for causing her mother’s death in 1988, but that led nowhere as they truly believed they were doing the right thing by waiting and not breaking down her front door.
Read More: Alissa Turney: What Happened to Her? Is She Dead?
