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from day one it was clear Ruthie May McCoy's murder wasn't going to be an open and shut
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case reporter Steve bagira who wrote for the Chicago Reader recognized early on that making sense of what happened that
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night in April 1987 was going to be difficult for detectives it's a tough case for police
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in large part because the relationship between police and the residents at these Pro
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most residents already had a fra relationship with the police but even for the ones who were willing to talk
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how could they be sure detectives would protect them from retaliation finding Witnesses would be a
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challenge but that wasn't the only reason the motive itself was a mystery of the thousands of residents at
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Abbott homes why was this grandmother killed was this random or was she targeted to find Clues detectiv started
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digging into where Ruthie may spend her time Steve bogira says she suffered from
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severe paranoia so she got connected with his Psychiatric Center at Mount Si Ruthie May got enrolled in an outpatient
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treatment facility through the hospital to take care of her mental health and after a lifetime of struggle Ruthie May
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was finally beginning to make Headway she started taking high school equivalency classes to get her GED and
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the Psychiatric Center even helped her take a big step toward moving out of the projects the people at that Center
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realized that she qualified because of her mental illness for supplemental security income according to Steve that
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increased our Social Security checks from about $150 a month to about 350 this would allow her eventually to
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get out of the project which was what she wanted she wanted to be able to get back out there in private housing and
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she couldn't afford anything extravagant but she could afford to live outside the
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project this new income ended up being a [Music] windfall the first check she got
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included some retroactive pay retroactive to the time she had applied so she got a check for
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$1,979 I believe it was which I believe she cashed and kept the money in her apartment she bought herself a couple
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nice things a plain winter coat and couple of other things which unfortunately also made her a Target
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detectives came to feel that people in the project probably noticed and thought she had some money in the apartment and
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that may be the reason that they broke in on her listen when you're hungry anyone of the comeup starts to look like
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food and the community at abbit homes was starving in a phone interview Ruthie May neighbor Deborah lassley remembered
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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
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said that Ruthie May wasn't too loud when she told her about the check but that it is possible that someone
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heard so detectives began thinking that ruy May's big payday might have been a motive for murder so it could be that
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the thing that the Psychiatric Center did to help Ruthie may possibly move out of the project got her killed
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instead but what detectives felt and what they could prove were two different things the
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story's changed several times my partner and I very seldom took notes the first time around because they were always
00:03:49
usually lies I'm Dom Pungo from 48 hours this is Candyman the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder
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episode three the suspects next [Music] door I was upset that she had to lay in her own apartment for 2 days before
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somebody found her nobody deserves that former detective Anthony Manina investigated the murder of Ruthie May
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McCoy it was our case uh myself Ry loer and Bill Wright back in in 1987 Manina would have been in his early 40s I was a
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detective in homicide from uh 1985 to 1995 when I retired he's from Chicago he grew up on the west side as a matter of
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fact the projects that you were talking about were very close to where I lived he and detective Ray loer were partners
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for nearly eight years we used to have our own way of doing things the ability to think alike and to know what each
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other is thinking just with a look the detectives were assigned the case soon after Ruthie May's body was found Manina
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had worked many cases out of Abbott homes and was very familiar with it there were a lot of good people that
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lived in them projects but even as they approached the brick highrise they stayed on high
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[Music] alert when you were going in you had to be very careful looking up at the
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windows because people be D dropping stuff on you all all day long garbage at you or throwing different things out the
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windows at you they also avoided the elevators at the time good policemen never used the elevators in them
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projects for lack of a better term they were moving urinals and hardly ever worked right so it was a dangerous
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situation Manina wasn't one of the responding officers but he put the blame on the Chicago Housing Authority and the
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cha security for being difficult about opening Ruthie May's door the project manager for Ruthie May's building later
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said she didn't know why the first key given to police didn't work I that really upset
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me I was ranting and raving against the CH police at that time because of that fact he says that there were a lot of
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hoax calls that came into the police department but says he still didn't believe that that was a good excuse for
00:06:34
the slow response but he was trying to get him with the key and couldn't do it hey go back somewhere and get a
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locksmith and get in there he didn't want the police to let Ruthie May down again as I hear this poor woman got
00:06:49
killed in her own apartment not bothering anybody so we worked our butts off to try to clear that one and we did within
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two days the city of Chicago that particular time had over 900 homicides for the year so I mean
00:07:08
it's it's like we were working a different homicide every day so therefore you couldn't hand the case off
00:07:14
to other detectives because they were busy going on another one 24-hour shifts happened regularly we were considered
00:07:22
area 4 that was the entire West Side the detectives started asking everyone they
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could find what they knew about the night Ruthie May was killed then we found Witnesses doing a canvas that
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heard the shots they heard three or four shots and they started talking about who
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was in their apartment the witnesses repeated the same two names Edward Turner who was nicknamed
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Monae and then John hondras who went by white boy they were both named the stories changed several times which was
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you see my partner and I very seldom took notes the first time around because they were always usually Li the
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detective strategy was to go around talk to everyone and then repeat all the questioning again and once you caught
00:08:16
him in several lies then you started getting to the basic facts and the truth the detective's key witness turned out
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to be 20-year-old Tim brown brown was described as a scny guy back then he told police that he saw Turner and
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hondras come in and out of Ruthie May's apartment with a TV and a rocking chair Manina and his partner had Brown come
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meet with an assistant States Attorney to create a written record of his version of events Steve buera has a copy
00:08:47
of Brown's written statement Tim Brown said that he was with some friends that night that afternoon and
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that evening leading up to the time when Ruthie May was killed Brown told the detectives that he regularly hung out in
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the apartment next to Ruthie Mays 11:08 and this day was no different there were
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young men primarily men but sometimes women were in the apartment as well getting high and they were selling drugs
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from this apartment Tim Brown told the police that he'd been there with a friend earlier in the day in that
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afternoon they moved some weights from another apartment up to 11:08 to work out Brown's girlfriend was there too
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she left at 600 to go to her grandmother's house while Brown and his friend stayed sitting around and
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listening to the stereo Tim Brown said that Miss May as he called her had asked him earlier in the year if they could
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keep the noise down from the apartment a number of guys won 11:08 pretty late into the
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evening Brown told the police who had come through that night John hondras Edward Turner
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and a friend nicknamed Bo at one point as the night wore on he said Bo wanted to show HRA what he learned about the
00:10:09
medicine cabinets in Abbott holes Bo told hondras that the bathroom mirror open to the next apartment to apartment
00:10:19
1109 and that that was how people broke into Apartments it would be that easy to
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get into the neighboring apartment where Ruthie May the woman with the night nice
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things lived so uh little later that evening hondes and Turner were back in the bathroom according to Brown and
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hondras pulled the mirror in 1108 out with his hands Edward Turner was a teenager who lived in abbid hommes his
00:10:47
family knew Ruthie May Turner had grown up I believe in the projects Hondas had spent some time there as well John
00:10:54
hondras the man who allegedly pulled the mirror out in 1108 was 21 and an excon he was a tough character the other guy
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was more of a thief than anything [Music] else HR had done time in an Indiana prison for robbery and auto theft that
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night after the medicine cabinet was removed hondras and Turner could allegedly look straight into Ruthie
00:11:25
May's apartment and it looked to them like maybe the apartment next door was baked
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in a statement of police Brown claims that he warned hondras that Miss may live there but the apartment at least at
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first looked empty HRA said back to Brown according to Brown that he didn't think anyone was home and then he
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climbed on the sink and went through the hole Brown said that he then heard a lady say who's there after hearing the
00:11:53
voice Brown then claimed that he heard the front door to Ruthie May's apartment 11:09
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open and then a knock on 11:08 and so he answers the door and hondras tells him to throw him a
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jacket his jacket so Brown gives him his jacket it was a black nylon jacket hondras threw it over his head and went
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back into 1109 through the front door this time so by now one suspect was in Ruthie May's
00:12:28
apartment that's what brown told the cops he also said he saw the second suspect Edward Turner go through the
00:12:35
hole in the wall and that's when things supposedly went off the rails and he heard Turner say get down
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and then Brown said he heard four shots four shots then silence 5 or 10 minutes later he said
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both Turner and H left Ruthie May's apartment but Brown said they didn't leave empty-handed he
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saw a Turner come out with a TV and hondras come out with a rocking chair Brown claimed that both of them took the
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stolen property and made a run for it detectives talked to a couple of women who lived on the sixth floor of the same
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building who said that hress and Turner came to them with the TV and the rocking
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chair one of the young women in the apartment that night Lynette Fitch was Tim Brown's girlfriend she told the
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police that HR wanted them to stash the stolen items at her place he had come into her apartment and tried to leave
00:13:42
the rocking chair in the TV in her apartment and she wouldn't allow it and she suggested that they try another
00:13:51
woman who lived on the first floor of another Avid HR and they ultimately took the TV and rocking chair to This Woman's
00:13:58
apartment dep she acknowledged the T to the police that she had agreed to take the TV in the rocking chair to hold it
00:14:06
for hress Turner after they found a place to hide the stolen goods Brown said that they
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came back to the 11th floor according to Brown's statement two or three hours later hress Turner knocked on
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1108 and when Tim Brown answered HR said they needed to go back to miss May's apartment to get the shells from the gun
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Brown didn't want them to crawl back through the bathroom mirror so he told the police he said no they went into her
00:14:37
apartment through the front door and came out about five minutes later Andress told Brown they had found three
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of the shells they locked the door behind them and then ran down the hall cops found one shell casing behind the
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bedroom door but other parts of Brown's statement didn't entirely match what police officers experienced
00:14:59
see brown claimed this happened after 11:30 at night but police had already shown up to Ruthie May's apartment after
00:15:06
she called 911 at 8:45 and when they showed up the front door was locked not unlocked the way
00:15:16
Brown described the police never recovered the gun or any fingerprints police didn't have this
00:15:24
physical evidence and they also had given a head start to the offenders to get their stories solid but Brown's
00:15:33
statement and the statements of the other Witnesses make detectives confident that hondras and Turner were
00:15:40
their Prime suspects there was testimony saying they went in there and come out with with three bullet
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casings and the TV and the set and the rocking chair were found at the one guy's mother's house come on detective
00:15:56
stopped at Turner's house and spoke with his mom elth the Turner we left business
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cards and and I kind of talked her into calling us when he returned home a while
00:16:09
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
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into custody he was arrested on April 25th his 19th birthday meanwhile hondras the ex-convict managed to avoid arrest
00:16:26
for more than a month police finally caught up with him on June 8th 1987 both hondras and Turner denied
00:16:37
being involved in the murder of Ruthie May Manina remembers Turner giving a couple different stories as to how he
00:16:44
found the TV the first story said that he had found the TV up by the incinerator then the next story was he
00:16:52
found it outside the door until we finally got him to admit that he you got it out of the apartment
00:17:01
the prosecution planned to rely on their key witness Tim Brown who was adamant that hress and Turner were the culprits
00:17:09
it was within two days that we soled that hress and Turner each fac charges of burglary and murder and would have to
00:17:17
wait years for their day in court they both pleaded not guilty in the meantime Ruthie May's
00:17:25
family pursued another kind of Justice they believe she might still be alive if the Chicago Housing Authority had
00:17:32
designed the medicine cabinets differently so verita McCoy ruie May's daughter wanted the cha to pay for what
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happened so she got herself a lawyer well her mother died and her mother died by way of uh bizar set of facts and Mr
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Peters can you help me and I said I don't know but I'll try the day after Ruthie May called 911 her
00:18:10
daughter Vita tried getting in touch with her she called Ruthie may not realizing that her mom was already
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gone Bita said her aunt was the one who eventually broke the news she just didn't understand nor did I how the hell
00:18:27
something like this happened and was permitted to happen that's attorney Randy Peters he'd
00:18:34
eventually end up representing verita when she sued the Chicago Housing Authority Randy also grew up in Chicago
00:18:40
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
00:18:48
Men tells the story of two Washington Post reporters who uncover the details of the Watergate scandal their reporting
00:18:56
helped lead to president Richard Nixon's resignation and that movie for whatever the reasons
00:19:01
it may have been just got me interested in law my father is a uh factory worker was a factory worker mother was a
00:19:11
housewife and no no lawyers in our family but that movie really touched me so I decided that maybe uh give it a
00:19:22
shot he was in his mid-30s back in 1987 and still pretty new the law at that that point in his career Randy said he
00:19:31
took on several cases against the Chicago Housing Authority and one of his clients was Vita McCoy she since died
00:19:38
but Vita was just 25 when she lost her mother I just assured her that I would do everything I can Randy said he agreed
00:19:48
to take the case because he was horrified by the circumstances Ruthie May was living in the bizarre facts of
00:19:54
what happened I mean how how many people do you know that live in a an apartment
00:19:58
building or a condominium have the worries and concerns about the adjoining unit being able to crawl through your
00:20:05
medicine cabinet to get into your unit absolutely bizarre Randy knew that in order to win this case he needed to
00:20:13
prove that there was a problem long before Ruthie May was murdered you have to show notice of whatever the event was
00:20:21
that caused in this particular case a death and to be able to develop evidence to show that it was preventable it was
00:20:29
foreseeable and preventable and as Randy started looking at the way the housing projects were designed he realized the
00:20:35
medicine cabinets were not the only problem where she was living was a cha project that was not conducive to safety
00:20:48
too often elevators didn't work incinerators didn't work and without incinerators burning up trash the
00:20:54
hallway smelled and residents worried about an Ever growing fire Hazard there was also this problem with
00:21:03
access for emergency vehicles see the high-rises had these huge Courtyards that didn't allow for through traffic
00:21:09
which meant police and ambulances couldn't quickly drive up to the buildings so in other words if someone
00:21:15
wants to commit a crime in that area the crime is committed and they're gone before the police can get to the
00:21:23
location it was a mess but Randy needed to prove that the Chicago Housing Authority purposely neglected these
00:21:31
buildings and that specifically they did nothing to make Ruthie May's apartment safer for his investigation he did a
00:21:38
couple of things Randy filed a court order to get access to the police report and the names of the officers who
00:21:44
reported to the scene but then he went a step further he brought in an architect
00:21:50
to explain how the design of the buildings themselves posed a risk to Residents I for the life of me couldn't
00:21:58
figure out how somebody in Unit A could call crawl through a medicine cabinet into Unit B he said that the architect
00:22:06
looked at the structure of Abbott Holmes and the way they built the pipe Chase to
00:22:10
give janitors that easy access to the pipes my architect was shocked when uh he saw how this was created literally
00:22:19
shocked and not only shocked at that but also shocked by the fact that the record
00:22:25
showed that the cha was on no notice that this type of activity was happening and nothing was done
00:22:34
structurally to remedy uh that [Music] Hazard at the time the cha told Steve begera that they received quote only
00:22:49
isolated reports of such break-ins they estimated fewer than 10 Randy thought the evidence made this case a slam dunk
00:22:57
the police report and the architect gave him what he needed and with those facts
00:23:03
then it gave me the opportunity to show that there was negligence on the part of the cha by
00:23:13
permitting this ease of access to continue reny believed the cha had multiple ways to safeguard the projects
00:23:22
and certainly the medicine cabinets and it was easily preventable by way of either altering the design of the
00:23:30
medicine cabinets by hinges and nails and locks or whatever to prevent them from removing it from the wall Andor
00:23:39
number two because of the history of this type of activity occurring to have adequate security that was present as a
00:23:48
deterrent neither of which they had Randy said the cha denied having any liability at the end of the day Randy
00:23:57
thought that all of this came down to one thing money once Randy thought he had a strong case the question became
00:24:06
what's it worth uh we have to take a look at uh how we could maximize the amount of recovery for any individual
00:24:15
whether they be black white rich [Music] poor in April 1988 he sued the Chicago Housing Authority demanding one .5
00:24:29
million for the death of Ruthie May McCoy she was somebody's mother and she was loved and she was respected for who
00:24:38
she was he didn't actually expect to win $1.5 million in these kinds of lawsuits
00:24:43
the amount you get depends on a number of factors a person's assets their social status if they have dependence
00:24:49
and Ruthie May didn't by then ver was an adult and unfortunately Ruthie May was unemployed issues with mental
00:24:58
handicaps not married poor and it comes down to uh unfortunately lawyers had in these types of case have to put a value
00:25:07
on a life but Randy said that this case wasn't about money this was about accountability it didn't become a a
00:25:16
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
00:25:24
cha to admit it had failed by way of getting the estate compensated to some degree to show them that there was some
00:25:34
remorse and some sorrow so to speak of what they were experiencing and some restitution for
00:25:41
the people that Ruthie May cared for while she wasn't technically a dependent at 26 years of age reita did have
00:25:47
hardships and Randy tried to argue that Ruthie May would pitch in however she could with the limited resources she did
00:25:54
have she was there to help her daughter with her grandchild and to me that was more important than
00:26:00
anything else but even outside of trying to get the family compensated Randy just wanted
00:26:06
the cha to actually fix the remaining medicine cabinets I just kept looking at the facts of this case it's this just
00:26:13
isn't right I mean if if I don't do something about this uh and at least try to get them back on track to get their
00:26:20
act together this is just going to keep on happening and other people are going to be murdered according to Steve bu's
00:26:27
conversations with off officers the mode of Entry was well known in the McCoy matter the vulnerability came by way of
00:26:35
the police learning that and me learning that there was a pattern of this type of
00:26:42
activity happening and you know it was only a matter of time until Ruthie May became a victim by the way a
00:26:50
spokesperson for the cha had told Steve begira that they had no record of Ruthie
00:26:55
May complaining about her medicine cabinet still Randy was going to make his case and the question for him was
00:27:02
would the cha pay for what he and Ruthie May's family saw as their fatal neglect the family's lawsuit against the
00:27:15
cha was happening at the same time prosecutors were building their case against ruie May's alleged Killers for
00:27:22
Randy the criminal investigation was key to proving his case because the police report showed a
00:27:30
pattern I didn't hire the police department to do their investigation I didn't even speak to them I didn't even
00:27:35
know about uh what their findings were until I got their papers but they were quite helpful remember the cha admitted
00:27:43
they knew of some break-ins the detectives on Ruthie May's case said it was common knowledge among residents
00:27:50
here's detective Anthony Manina I had talked to several people at the time and they said well there's a designing flaw
00:27:56
in there and that's what the burglar are to climb in the different apartments that was in conversation with several
00:28:04
either informants or or uh other people that that just wanted to stick their two
00:28:10
senson so to speak the fact that ry's case was built on information that investigators gathered themselves made
00:28:17
it that much stronger in court Randy filed in April 1988 but the case didn't resolve until
00:28:26
1992 however it never never came before a judge or a jury instead the Chicago Housing
00:28:34
Authority decided to settle you have to understand in a criminal case it's beyond a reasonable doubt that's not the
00:28:43
premise in a civil case such as my case in my case the burden of proof that needs to be
00:28:52
establishes what is more probably true than not Randy said he no longer has his files from this case since it's been
00:29:02
more than three decades since they settle we filed a freedom of information request with the cha for the settlement
00:29:09
amount but that hasn't turned anything up yet the cha explained that most records from that time have been
00:29:15
destroyed however Randy was confident that they did not get the 1.5 million he demanded when he first filed no no no no
00:29:24
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
00:29:31
admitted liability I spoke with Venita McCoy's daughter key but she didn't share how
00:29:38
much money the family got in the settlement either back in the 80s Steve Aira wondered if the lawsuit contributed to
00:29:48
the cha finally fixing the remaining medicine cabinets he'd still been asking about them even after his first article
00:29:57
was published I was still checking but they all said that there hadn't been any attempt to fix the medicine cabinets I
00:30:04
think they probably made attempts after verita Ruthie May's daughter filed her lawsuit but it sure took time for them
00:30:13
to do something about it the Cha's public affairs director told Steve that the cha desperately wanted to provide
00:30:19
better security but it was hampered by years of deferred maintenance costs she said they were trying to solve it step
00:30:27
by step while Steve wrote about the lawsuit for a story his Focus was on the impending
00:30:33
Trials of John hondras and Edward Turner detectives had believed that the social
00:30:38
security check Ruthie May received contributed to the robbery however that money wasn't mentioned in the statement
00:30:45
given by the prosecution's key witness Tim Brown and Steve who followed the case for years didn't think the criminal
00:30:52
case was as much of a slam dunk as the lawsuit there was not proof Beyond a reasonable doubt in my
00:31:00
[Music] mind in the early 90s Ruthie May's family continued to mourn their loss as
00:31:08
they waited for the suspect's trials meanwhile in England a director was trying to get his new horror movie
00:31:16
off the ground it was one of those weird pieces of kind of kismi Bernard Rose decided to set his
00:31:25
next film Candyman in the Chicago projects but how did the details of a real murder barely covered in the Press
00:31:34
make their way into his script I'll tell you this much it's not because he called
00:31:38
and reached out to the family so what actually happened next time on Candyman the true
00:31:47
story behind the bathroom mirror [Music] murder from 48 hours this is Candyman the true story behind the bathroom
00:31:59
mirror murder I'm your host and co-executive producer domat Pongo Judy igard is the executive
00:32:07
producer of 48 Hours Jamie Benson is the senior producer for Paramount audio and
00:32:13
Mora walls is the senior story editor development by 48 Hours field producer Morgan KY recording assistance from
00:32:22
Maron polycarp and Alan pay special thanks to Paramount podcast vice president Megan
00:32:28
Marcus Candyman the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder is produced by Sony Music Entertainment it was
00:32:35
reported written and produced by Alex Schuman our executive producers are Katherine St Louis and Jonathan hirs our
00:32:42
associate producer is summer tamod theme and original music composed by Cedric Wilson he sound designed and mixed the
00:32:50
episodes we also use music from APM fendle Fon is our fact Checker and our production manager is Tama balance
00:33:00
Kass join us next Thursday for a new episode of Candyman the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder if you
00:33:07
like this episode be sure to follow us and leave a review on your preferred podcast app thanks for listening