The Poet | 4. Ruth Under Siege

A letter comes in that brings a promising new lead. Investigators set up shop in the Finley home, but The Poet keeps sneaking through their traps. Want the full story? Binge every episode of The Poet ad-free now by subscribing to The Binge+. You’ll unlock over 60 true crime series instantly, get early access to drops on the first of every month, and hear exclusive bonus episodes. Search for the channel on Apple Podcasts or head to GetTheBinge.com. For behind-the-scenes details, join our free newsletter at Patreon.com/TheBinge. The Poet is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and New Metric Media. Follow @sonypodcasts and discover more at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices at podcastchoices.com/adchoices. The Binge — feed your true crime obsession. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:09Speaker 02

  I have a surprise for you in the lobby, Ruth.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Ruth is at work at the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company when a call comes in from The Poet. He's in the lobby. She immediately calls the police. The cops had been on tenterhooks all Christmas, looking out for a gift The Poet might send Ruth for the holiday. Was this it? Officers burst in, but he's already gone. They search the lobby for The Poet's surprise, fearing it could be a bomb. But then they spot something strange tucked in the lobby's phone booth: a butcher knife 12 inches long, wrapped in a red bandana. Two witnesses tell police they saw a man who looked like the sketch of The Poet they

• 2:00Speaker 01

  saw on the news. But the man was gone before the police got there.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  A few days later, back at home, Ruth receives a letter.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  There was a female named Ruth who thought nothing of calling a sleuth. I have no doubt my call was checked out. I didn't tell you your present was in a booth.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  It's only January, but already 1980 isn't looking promising for Ruth or her investigators. And the frenzy has only just begun. Soon, The Poet takes their correspondence from private to public.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Businesses around Wichita get hit with letters from The Poet requesting Ruth's gas be turned off, her driveway ripped up, her driver's license taken away, her bank account emptied, and her locks changed, all in an attempt to humiliate and terrorize her. He sends a particularly awful one to the health department.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  This is an anonymous tip. There is a female spreading VD.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Venereal disease, what we'd now call a sexually transmitted infection. Not only has The Poet stalked, kidnapped, and stabbed Ruth, now he's trying to ruin her reputation.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  This is no longer about blackmail for an old secret. He is trying to destroy her completely, like a cat playing with its prey, wearing her down before the final strike. One more letter comes in. The Poet writes to the local mortuary, asking about its services for dead bodies, which, he writes, Ruth would need soon.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  From Sony Music Entertainment and Newmetric Media, this is The Poet. I'm Rachel Brown.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Episode 4: Ruth Under Siege.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  At the start of the new year, Wichita Police Lieutenant Bernie Jawwatsky receives a big promotion. He's been leading the poet investigation since the beginning, befriending the Finleys along the way. But his new role means he'll be much less involved in the poet case. So Captain Mike Hill takes over in his place.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Hill is a hard-nosed, no-nonsense cop who'd been involved in the BTK serial killer investigation. Even before his briefing, Mike Hill reads the case files from cover to cover. He's going to reconsider every possible suspect, starting at the top of the pile, BTK.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Is BTK and the poet the same person? We got to prove it or disprove it.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  He even looks at Ruth and Ed themselves. He can rule out Ruth because the medical records show that her stabbing injuries could not have been self-inflicted. And it's Jawwatsky who assures Hill that Ed would never hurt his wife. But Hill, known for his skepticism, is going to do things differently from Jawwatsky.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  I don't get close to people. You can't get close because that affects your thinking. You can get professionally close, but not socially close.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  So did you have to tell Ed and Ruth specifically that there were no longer going to be kept in the loop about the investigation like they had been before? Did you tell them that directly?

• 5:53Speaker 03

  No, I didn't have to tell them. They knew that they weren't in the loop because they weren't being told anything. That's why she didn't like me.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Ruth and Ed were not happy about this change. Jawwatsky had become someone they came to rely on, not only for information and updates, but reassurance and friendship during their darkest times. Ed complains about Mike Hill's tight-lipped approach to Jawwatsky, who tells Ed he can't do anything about it. Hill isn't even keeping him up to speed on the case either. Within days of taking over, Captain Mike Hill gets a letter, almost as if the poet was, in his twisted way, welcoming him into the fold.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Captain, oh, Captain, is Iron Man. Lieutenant helps pitches we can win.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  In his hand-printed Valentine, the poet threatens to hang Finley.

• 6:49Speaker 05

  All the earmarks of an authentic poet's letter and a piece of a red bandana.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  The poet mailed an ice pick to Finley here at her office at the phone company in downtown Wichita.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  The embarrassment for the police department piles on as the media, including Cake TV and TV 10 News, follow the poet's every move.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  The suspect, the suspect is still, still alive.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  Tom Marshall, TV 10 News.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Public pressure is mounting. The police are already getting an overwhelming number of tips from concerned citizens, largely through a tip line they'd set up. Wichita is scared, and their faith in their police force is at risk. It's time to think outside the box.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  So the cops decide to go fishing, and their bait is Ruth herself. Officers suit her up in a bulletproof vest and send her to walk around downtown Wichita, trailed by a handful of plainclothes officers and unmarked cars. By this point in the investigation, officers had been accompanying Ruth on every errand downtown, even walking with her on her lunch break. The poet knew so much about her, they figured he must be watching her. The police hoped that dangling her out in the open like this could draw him out. But he stayed in the shadows that day.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  So, they get some new bait on their hook: local journalist Fred Mann. By now, Fred and the poet were basically pen pals, swapping poems back and forth in the newspaper classifieds. Fred says he had an arrangement with the Wichita Police where he'd communicate with the poet through these poems, and in turn, the police would give him scoops about the investigation.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  But then, the poet proposes something extreme to Fred.

• 8:53Speaker 06

  We had had enough of a relationship, apparently, to where he thought I would throw in with him. He wrote to me in a letter, another poem, but at the bottom, he said, "I want you to come with me and kill Ruth Finley." "We're gonna meet during the St. Patrick's Day parade through downtown Wichita." And he asked me to pick a location where we can meet, near the phone company. So I wrote an ad to him, somehow telling him in rhyming verse that we would meet at the Chrome Horse. And I was referring to this chrome sculpture of a horse out in front of this bank building.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  The cops put Fred in a bulletproof vest.

• 9:34Speaker 06

  They didn't think about a gun at all. The guy didn't do that. He didn't use a gun. The only weapon he ever talked about was a knife. They didn't think he was to walk up to me and stab me or anything, but they felt better that I was in a vest just in case.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  It's an unseasonably warm March day as the streets begin to fill up with paradegoers, all in a sea of green. Fred arrives at the sculpture.

• 10:03Speaker 06

  And I waited for this guy to show up so we could go kill Ruth.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Only Fred knows there are about a dozen cops stationed nearby, keeping their eyes out for the poet and for Fred's signal.

• 10:15Speaker 06

  I had a white handkerchief in my sport coat.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  He would pull the handkerchief out of his pocket if he made contact with the poet.

• 10:22Speaker 06

  The signal to the cops was, "Okay, it's on. This is the guy."

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Dressed in the bulletproof vest, a sweater, and a sport coat, Fred is boiling hot and starting to sweat. As he waits, one of his colleagues from the newspaper comes up to him and asks him what he's doing just standing there.

• 10:42Speaker 06

  I sort of said, "Ah, nothing. Just, you know, I'm just killing time."

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Sweat is dripping down his face by now. He is uncomfortably hot, but all he has is the white handkerchief. He's itching to pull it out and wipe his brow, but the cops would think his friend is the poet.

• 11:02Speaker 06

  They would have just scented on my friend and arrested him right there. And if I had done that, I had to go, "Oh, wait a minute. No, no, no, no. Don't do that. You just have to sweat it out." And then he eventually left.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  So Fred keeps on waiting.

• 11:14Speaker 06

  I was pretty sure he wasn't going to show up. That was his history.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And waiting.

• 11:19Speaker 06

  And I'd look around. I'd look up in the sky, I'd start a glance up at the sky once in a while. Once in a while, I'd turn and look in the alley behind me. I never saw a cop.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  By the end of the parade,

• 11:33Speaker 01

  the poet hadn't showed.

• 11:35Speaker 06

  And finally, one of the cops just drifted by and said, "You can go back to work." Kept on walking. And it was over. And I said, "Okay." And I walked back to work.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Defeated, the police called it a day and went back to the drawing board.

• 11:52Speaker 07

  I think that every detective goes into every case with the hope and the thought that they're going to be the one that's going to solve it.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  As a detective who worked in forgery, fraud, robbery, and homicides, Richard Vinro was no stranger to hard cases. And he was desperate to break this one open. Detective Vinro was known around the department as someone who took his cases seriously, always willing to go the extra mile. Some might say, "Too far."

• 12:23Speaker 07

  I was told by one of my superior officers I needed to lighten up. And I would bring numerous cases home, set them up at a card table, and work on them for hours, beyond the time that I was actually at work. So it probably took it a little too seriously at times.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Poet mania had taken over Wichita with new tips coming in regularly. At one point, the Wichita Police are getting more tips about the poet than BTK. Vinro is all over town, chasing down leads from people who were certain they'd spotted the poet in public. He'd follow up on people reporting their suspicious neighbors. Locals reported people acting or dressing strangely.

• 13:07Speaker 07

  I was also following up on reports that this individual had been seen at the Wichita Library, where he had approached a woman in an elevator, and she felt sure that this was the poet.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  This woman even saw the suspicious man seal an envelope. Was it a poet letter?

• 13:29Speaker 07

  Initial thoughts about who the poet was was that he was probably an individual that was more of a street person, maybe a Skid Row bum type. The car that he was using had windows that had been broken out. Car was battered. We were getting reports of him being seen down in the area where winos were in that area of town.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Vinro himself even went undercover.

• 14:01Speaker 07

  I was downtown. I was growing a beard. I was wearing, you know, raggedy clothes. I was going to the city library. I was going to Skid Row bars. Or we were getting reports that this individual had been seen, this particular car being seen at different locations around town.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  One by one, these sightings were followed up on and ruled out. Either Ruth didn't recognize them, or their handwriting didn't match the poet's.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Then, in the early summer, Ruth receives a letter that sparks a new line of inquiry. For the first time, the poet sends a letter from a location outside of Wichita. This one has an Oklahoma City postmark. Within a couple days, three more letters from Oklahoma City are received across town. One to the Wichita city manager, and two more to local news stations.

• 15:02Speaker 07

  There had been profilers that indicated that this individual could be a Vietnam vet. There was a postmark that also showed a Vietnam veterans' postmark on it. And being from Oklahoma City, it was felt that there was a chance that there could be some connection between the major VA hospital down there and this individual.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  The profiles had suggested they look for a Vietnam vet. And now they have a poet letter with a stamp honoring veterans.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Then Captain Mike Hill hears about an anonymous tip that points to a guy living near Oklahoma City on the Washeeta National Wildlife Refuge. He checks off all the boxes. They're told the man is named Bill and is 49 years old. He's staying in a trailer near a reservoir. He looks like the sketch and fits a similar background and profile. With a name and an exact location, it's go time.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Armed with an arrest warrant, Mike Hill, Richard Monroe, and the Wichita Assistant District Attorney drive two hours south to track this new suspect down.

• 16:47Speaker 07

  So we went to that location. We showed that composite to a lady that was at a small bait shop just next to the lake. And she says, yeah, that's him.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  They head to Bill's trailer, a white and lime green mobile home. First, they stop by his neighbors and show them the sketch of the poet, too.

• 17:07Speaker 07

  And the neighbor said, yeah, that's our neighbor.

• 17:13Speaker 07

  After talking to him, he agreed to waive extradition.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  So Bill goes willingly back to Wichita for questioning.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  By this point, Ruth had seen her attacker a few times. When he accosted her on the street, when she was kidnapped, and when she was stabbed. It was time to see if Ruth could pick her stalker, kidnapper, and attacker out of the lineup.

• 17:47Speaker 07

  One of them was an assistant district attorney that she would not have known. One was a police officer that agreed to be in the lineup. And a couple other people that had no connection with it whatsoever. But the only one that she looked at was the gentleman that we brought back from Oklahoma.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Ruth stares at the man from Oklahoma for a full minute. Monroe could almost see the wheels turning in her mind.

• 18:13Speaker 07

  When she came to him, she hesitated. She kind of quivered a little bit.

• 18:25Speaker 07

  Started tearing up. And then turned and said, no, that's not him.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And she picked none of the other guys?

• 18:34Speaker 07

  No. I thought she was going to say yes, and then she said, no, it wasn't him.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  The latest developments hit the local and national news cycle. From the Wichita station Cake TV to headlines and tabloids like the National Enquirer. Assistant DA Paul Clark hosts a press conference. We have now had Mrs. Penley look at that suspect and line up with a number of other individuals who appear to be the same way. And that is not our man. We wish it were, but it is not. And that's all we have at this time. In response to the news coverage, the poet sends a taunting letter to the DA.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Do you think you make things better for man by wrongfully punishing an innocent roaming man?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  The poet seemed empowered by his ability to outsmart the police. It was very frustrating. Everything we were doing, we weren't getting anywhere.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And things were about to get even worse for the Finley's. The battleground was about to hit home turf.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  The Finley's phone lines are cut for a second time. In the backyard, police find a pair of pliers wrapped in another red bandana. Cutting phone lines is a classic BTK move, but the bandana is pure poet. Whether the poet is imitating BTK or is BTK himself, Captain Hill isn't interested in taking any chances. He orders a video camera be installed in a fountain on the property, hidden away. And they place dummy phone lines in the backyard to trick the poet.

• 20:33Speaker 06

  Their life had changed dramatically.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Here's reporter Fred Mann.

• 20:37Speaker 06

  They had to live with the two of them would sit there and watch it, watch the monitor. And anytime there were the rustle of leaves or something, Ed would jump up. Sometimes he left the house to go look for somebody. He thought he saw a shadow. That's how tense things were for them now.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Officers are now placed inside the house to go over the tapes and monitor the cameras. Mark Hefner was one of the rookie cops who took those shifts waiting for the poet.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  So there was a constant escalation of surveillance and involvement with the police department resources. And it escalated to the point where we were watching her 24 hours a day. It was just more, I guess, a mental thing for me or for us to be ready when something happened that we'd be ready to take action. And, you know, we didn't want to have him show up and us not catch him, you know, spending all that and invest that time. So that was the main focus.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  But Ruth makes the best of it, providing a constant stream of pies, cookies, and brownies to the officers during their shifts that often went late into the night.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  She loved to bake. She would oftentimes have something for us to eat while we were there.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Ruth sat up with them during their late shifts and took an interest in their lives.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  What people don't know about this case is how special a person that Ruth is.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Very nice lady.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Like many officers assigned to the case, Hefner was in his 20s and new to the force.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Ruth was kind of like just your typical mom. She was similar to the age probably of my mom or maybe a little bit younger.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Here's Detective Arlen Smith.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Ruth was a very nice woman. Of course, she was old enough to be my mother and my partner's mother.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Ruth was an empty nester by this point. Her sons had moved out, and she seemed to enjoy having a house full of people again. The cops cared about her and did whatever they could to keep her safe.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  We took that extremely seriously, not just for them, because they were good people. It was obvious that they were nice, kind people. But it would have just been extremely disheartening as a police department to have had some forewarning of this and not be able to protect her. That would have been a failure of gigantic proportions. I can't even imagine what that would feel like. So there was a lot of diligence and a lot of effort put into protecting them.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  At this time, the police are dealing with two cases that have major public scrutiny, the poet and BTK. They haven't cracked either. They're determined to solve one of them. Maybe that's why so many resources were poured into the Finley case.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  With traps laid around the home, the cops were certain it was only a matter of time before they caught the poet in the act. But the poet seems to taunt them, pulling almost childish pranks in plain sight. One summer morning, Ruth goes to the front porch to grab the mail. As she opens the door, a glass bottle topples over and spills on her feet. She picks up the bottle and takes a sniff. There is no doubt in her mind. This bottle is filled with urine. Another morning, Ed goes outside to check the mail. In one mushy envelope is the unmistakable evidence: feces. Another night, Ruth and Ed see that a bunch of eggs

• 24:19Speaker 01

  have been thrown at their glass sliding doors. Some of them were wrapped in red bandana fabric. Here's Detective Richard Vinro.

• 24:28Speaker 07

  There had been numerous reports by Ruth that things had been moved or a bandana had been left in their backyard so that they knew, because a bandana tended to be a symbol of the poet.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Police even place a camouflaged camera in a birdhouse in the backyard and focus its lens on the dummy phone lines. The camera shutter was rigged to go off if anyone tried to tamper with the wires. But after installing the camera, the activity in the backyard suddenly stops.

• 25:05Speaker 07

  When you sat in her house, nothing happened. When we put the camera in the birdhouse, we didn't even see a bird move. And yet, when we pulled it out, within a week, we were getting reports from Ruth that the poet was back in her backyard. Nothing was ever seen. All of the times that we set up surveillance, nothing happened. One of the big questions was, how is this person able to predict when we're going to be watching? How do they know that we no longer are in that house? Could they possibly live close by to where they can see us coming and going?

• 25:49Speaker 07

  They could have seen us set up this birdhouse. But at the same time, the people that lived close by had all been checked. They had all been interviewed by detectives and pretty much eliminated as possible suspects.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  If it wasn't the neighbors, who could have been close enough to the investigation to know all the cops' moves? Detective Mike McKenna was the officer who went to Fort Scott early on in the investigation and left unconvinced by Ruth's story. And after watching the Finley's house under siege, he couldn't understand how all of these incidents were happening.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  It felt like we were chasing ghosts.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  So he says he took his concerns to someone he thought might lend a sympathetic ear: Bernie Jawwatsky.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  I go back and I tell Bernie, I said, Bernie, I said, "Something just doesn't seem right." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Nobody ever sees anything at the house, yet these things appear on the front porch. Nobody saw anything anywhere." I said, "Listen, between you and me, I think that somebody in here is either telling this damn poet what we're going to do next, or he's got a bug in here and he can hear us talking about it. That's how he's finding out what next plan of attack is." God, I loved that guy. He looks at me, he says, "Get the hell out of my office." I said, "What?" He says, "Get out.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Just get, get out of my office." He says, "I don't want to hear any more of it."

• 27:30Speaker 01

  But maybe Jawwatsky needed to open his mind, and the Wichita Police Department needed to look closer to home.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  The wilderness can hide a lot, but it can't hide the truth forever. I'm Delia DiAmber, host of Park Predators. And every week I investigate true crime cases hidden in national parks, forests and beaches. I follow every lead, every clue and every overlooked detail. Because even when a trail seems to disappear, the truth has a way of resurfacing. Listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  One evening, Ruth and Ed come home from the symphony and find a beer bottle full of gasoline with an unlit wick in their backyard. It's the poet's attempt at a Molotov cocktail. It's as if he's saying, I could have burned your house to the ground if I'd wanted.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  At 2:00 a.m. on another night, Ruth is awoken by a bang coming from the front yard, what sounds like a small explosion. Then later that day, she finds a bandana and remnants of firecrackers in her mailbox. Another warning.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Soon, the poet makes good on his threats.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  On December 21st, a few days before Christmas, Ed and Ruth are in the basement watching some late night TV. They hear a loud crash from outside. Ed runs upstairs and sees their Christmas wreath in flames. The noise was the picture window cracking from the heat.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Ed yanks the wreath down and stomps on it to put the flames out. He then grabs a pair of garden shears and sprints out onto the street in the freezing night air, cursing the poet. This was all becoming too much for Ruth to handle, and it was taking its toll. Her headaches were getting worse, to the point where interacting with people became difficult.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  You could see the stress on her. Sometimes she'd get bad headaches, and she'd go in and go to bed early, and you could see the stress on her.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  By the end of 1981, the Wichita Police Department was under overwhelming pressure from the city. Officers had collected 248 poet letters, but no fingerprints and no usable blood typing. They've had zero success with handwriting comparisons. They have investigated and ruled out 406 suspects and checked a total of 3,534 potential suspect records within the state of Kansas and beyond. The case has been exhausting and expensive. Captain Mike Hill brings in Dr. Schrag, the police psychologist, to look at the newest developments.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Schrag doesn't have any new theories. He just confirms that he thinks Ruth is credible. But he does rule out an old theory. Here's Mike Hill.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  BTK was dormant at this time when the poet was going on. And it was the philosophy of the psychiatrist that BTK had been arrested for some other crime and was serving time in a prison somewhere.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Dr. Schrag told Captain Hill that his police force must already have BTK in custody. There was no other reason he had been inactive for this long, and the MO no longer felt consistent. BTK didn't pull pranks.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  BTK did not come back into our attention till after the Finley case was over with.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Now they really had no suspects. But then, a letter arrives the morning of Friday, September 4th, that turns the case on its head.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Jarotzky knows right away. He has to take it up the chain to his boss, the chief of police, Richard Lemunyan.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Lemunyan was well-respected within the department, known for being a dedicated and dogged officer. He made history when he became the youngest chief to ever lead the department at age 36. As chief, Lemunyan had been pretty hands-off during this investigation, letting investigators do their work while he ran the whole department. Ruth's case was just one of many.

• 32:57Speaker 06

  Lemunyan was amazing. You know, I'm a weird little gay New Yorker, and he was this country sheriff from the right-wing, far-right-wing Promise Keeper. We got along great.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  This is journalist Gene Stone. He spent a lot of time with Lemunyan while writing his book on Ruth's case.

• 33:18Speaker 06

  This was not looking good for the police department. First, they had the BTK killer, who they never solved. Now they have the poet, and they haven't solved it. So that put a lot of extra pressure on Lemunyan to make sure that the police department looked like it was efficient and knew what they were doing.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Jarotzky knocks on Lemunyan's office door and tells him they've received another letter from the poet. You don't want to make Richard Lemunyan mad. The poet offended him deeply. The poet says that after he's taken care of Ruth, he's going to go after Sharon. Sharon is Richard Lemunyan's wife.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Careful woman, but you don't want to do something like that. From this letter, it's clear that the poet knows many personal details about Sharon Lemunyan, the make of her car, and the exact route to the city she drives from their home. This was personal now. And Richard said, I'm taking over the case.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  He gathers up all the poet files, 14 large binders, and takes them home for the long weekend. Lemunyan paws over every page from the case, jotting down notes, making charts, reworking all the events and incidents over and over in his mind. He develops a hypothesis. Now he needs to prove or disprove it.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Lemunyan returns to the office and calls a top secret meeting with select officers. He announces that he knows, once and for all, who the poet is.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Next time on The Poet.

• 35:09Speaker 06

  That's kind of the moment when he said, you know, enough's enough. We're going to try to get to the bottom of this.

• 35:14Speaker 07

  He couldn't believe it, but it was true. And that's when the case broke. And that's the point in which the public judgment of Ruth changed.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich means opening yourself to new possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are, helping you move forward with confidence. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  The Poet is a production of Sony Music Entertainment, Newmetric Media, and Muse Entertainment. The show is hosted by me, Rachel Brown. The series is written and produced by Pippa Johnstone and Rachel Brown. From Newmetric Media, our executive producer is Chris Kelly. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. For Muse Entertainment, our executive producer is Courtney Dobbins. Sound design and original music by Mark Angley. Nathan Howe is our story editor and associate producer. Consultant, Jean Stone.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Fact checking by Maya El Hawari and Alexis Green. Our lawyers are Daniel Henry, Garland Anthony, and Austin Wong. Voice acting from Cassandra Sisson, Morgan Murray, and Anthony McMahon. Special thanks to Andres Lara, Patrick McConnell, Sammy Allison, Allison Haney, Emily Rassik, and the rest of the team at Sony Music Entertainment.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich means opening yourself to new possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are, helping you move forward with confidence. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.