Who was Guy Rockwell Muldavin? Husband identified as ‘Lady of the Dunes’ Ruth Marie Terry's killer after nearly 50 years
PROVINCETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS: Guy Rockwell Muldavin was the man who in 1974, killed Ruth Marie Terry. After nearly 50 years, the so-called "Lady of the Dunes" murder has been finally solved, with Massachusetts prosecutors naming her now-deceased husband as the murderer.
In July 1974, a woman's bludgeoned and nearly decapitated body was discovered in Provincetown's sand dunes. Ruth Marie Terry, then 37, was not officially identified as the victim until last fall.
In a statement provided to The Post on Tuesday, Cape and Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois said that the discovery finally allowed investigators to suspect Terry Muldavin's husband, Guy Rockwell Muldavin, of being the murderer.
Who is responsible for the murder of Ruth Marie Terry?
Galibois said, "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. Mr Muldavin passed away in 2002."
Did Rockwell Muldavin kill other people?
He added that the investigation has now been completed. Muldavin, who was the last person to see Terry alive, had also been suspected of killing another wife and her daughter in 1960, according to NBC10. He was never charged with their murders, though.
According to the Cape Cod Times, when Terry's remains were discovered, they were already in an advanced stage of decomposition.
The victim had been killed by blunt force trauma, was close to being decapitated, and had her hands severed, according to the outlet. Despite this, police were still able to make this determination.
Was there any kind of struggle when Ruth Marie Terry was murdered?
Because there was no evidence of a struggle on or near the body, it is likely that the victim knew her assailant, as reported by NewYorkPost.
But Terry remained a mystery for more than 40 years, only being referred to as the "Lady of the Dunes."
The Othram forensics lab tested her jaw using genetic genealogy in October 2022, and the Cape Cod Times previously reported that she was finally identified.
When Ruth Marie Terry and Rockwell Muldavin married?
According to NBC10, Terry's identity led detectives to Reno, Nevada, where records show she married Muldavin in February 1974, as well as to Whitwell, Tennessee, where she was born.
Who were Manzanita Mearns Rockwell and her daughter, Dolores?
Muldavin, also known as Raoul Guy Rockwell and Guy Muldavin Rockwell, was suspected of killing his second wife, Manzanita Mearns Rockwell, and her daughter, Dolores in April 1960 after their bodies were discovered in a septic tank.
When did Rockwell Muldavin remarry?
According to reports, he remarried only a few months after the murders.
Although he was never charged with their deaths, he did spend 15 months in prison after being accused of fleeing the country without permission because he refused to testify about the dismemberment of human remains.
Although it is unknown how Terry and Muldavin first connected, she brought him to Whitwell in April 1973 to meet her family, per NBC10.
Which book did Rockwell Muldavin publish?
According to NBC10, Muldavin also released a horrific cookbook, 'Cooking with Rump Oil,' two years after Terry's murder that had a nasty recipe that had unsettling parallels to the tragedy.
What was written in the book 'Cooking with Rump Oil'?
An illustration of a creature with long hair appears alongside the recipe, "Cape Cod, Shid," which also includes the following advice: “After the Shid is caught anything over five minutes ends it! The sweet turpentine taste will turn to that of a burnt glove and the tender look will become one of despair.”
Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler, described the strange passage as "really horrifying."
Cowley told NBC10, “What I do wonder — especially the last line, ‘the tender look will become one of despair’ — you have to think that perhaps was the moment he watched the life go out of her eyes and when she realized, ‘He’s going to kill me."
When did Rockwell Muldavin die?
According to the outlet, Muldavin died in California in 2002 at the age of 78.
Richard Hanchett, Terry's biological son, previously claimed that he only discovered the name of his birth mother in 2018, after a DNA test connected him to Whitwell relatives who were her immediate family.
Terry's family thought she had vanished at the time.
He previously told NBC10, "A horrible thing happened to my mom in a beautiful place. She was a beautiful person and I wish I could have gotten to know her."
The family intended to bury Terry alongside her mother, Eva, who died when Terry was a young child, as of December 2022, the outlet added, as per reports.