Authorities say the “Lady of the Dunes,” the victim of a 49-year-old Cape Cod cold case discovered last year, was murdered by her late husband.
Ruth Marie Terry, a 37-year-old Tennessee native and newlywed, was discovered virtually beheaded in the sand dunes of Provincetown, a summer vacation hot spot at the tip of Massachusetts, in 1974.
Guy Rockwell Muldavin, her husband at the time, has officially been identified as her murderer, Cape and Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois stated Monday.
Muldavin died in 2002, according to Galibois, and one of the state’s most notable cold cases is now closed.
Muldavin was found to be the murderer after an investigation into Terry’s death. They didn’t say anything else about what was discovered throughout the probe.
Muldavin and Terry had just recently married when she vanished
They traveled to Tennessee after their wedding to see her family, and “Ms. Terry was never seen by her family again,” Galibois said in a statement.
“When Mr. Muldavin returned from that trip, he was driving what was believed to be Ms. Terry’s vehicle and indicated to witnesses that Ms. Terry had passed away,” Galibois said.
Muldavin was also the leading suspect in the deaths of another of his wives and a stepdaughter in a cold case in Seattle in the 1960s, according to investigators.
How Ruth Marie Terry was discovered
On July 26, 1974, a 12-year-old girl came upon the horrible scene by chance.
Terry’s naked body was mangled and in a state of advanced decay. Her hands had been amputated “so she could not be identified through fingerprints.” Her head was practically severed, and the left side of her skull was crushed and resting on folded jeans, the FBI said.
According to the FBI, the cause of death was a strike to the head, and she died several weeks before she was discovered.
She was only known as “Lady of the Dunes” for decades until her jaw was analyzed by genetic gynecology at Othram, a forensics lab in Texas that specializes in missing persons and cold cases.