Police told to prove '63 killing case is active or open file to victim's kin

Ruby Lowery Stapleton, shown in an undated photo, was abducted and strangled in Searcy in October 1963. The crime remains unsolved after nearly 51 years.
Ruby Lowery Stapleton, shown in an undated photo, was abducted and strangled in Searcy in October 1963. The crime remains unsolved after nearly 51 years.

Nearly 51 years ago, 59-year-old Ruby Stapleton of Searcy put her son's family's dirty clothes in the car to run down to the nearby washeteria because the washing machine had broken down -- again.

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Her son and daughter never saw the Harding College professor alive again. Her daughter reported Stapleton missing three hours later, at midnight.

White County sheriff's deputies, Searcy police and the Arkansas State Police conducted a house-to-house search around the washeteria on U.S. 67. More than 500 students at the now Harding University hunted for her. Classes were dismissed for the day.

Nearly two weeks later, a squirrel hunter found her nude body in some woods near Beebe, 20 miles south of Searcy. It was so ravaged by decomposition that Stapleton had to be identified through dental records.

She had been strangled, an autopsy showed. There were deep scratches on her chest, and a fist-size wad of cotton had been forced down her throat. A search of the area turned up only one bit of clothing, a piece of belt.

No one has ever been charged.

On Wednesday, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce told investigators that they must either prove to him that the investigation into Stapleton's murder is "open and ongoing" or provide her family with a copy of officers' investigative file.

The judge was responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the state police who say they cannot divulge what is in the file because the case is still active, and with no statute of limitations on murder, an arrest and criminal charges are still possible in the case.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Merritt, on behalf of the police, argued that the open-records law exempts "open and ongoing" investigations from disclosure.

As proof, she offered a sworn statement from Gregory Downs, police general counsel, who said he had read the file and that it has been assigned to the special investigations unit, which "actively pursues leads recently generated in the case."

"Disclosure of the contents of the Stapleton case file would hamper [police officers'] ability to investigate this crime, which would be contrary to the public interest," according to the Downs statement.

But at a hearing Wednesday, Pierce rejected Merritt's motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the case is under investigation.

He said the open-records law and court precedent require that he hear testimony and see the file at a yet-to-be-scheduled hearing before he can decide whether results of the investigation can be disclosed to the family.

Case law appears to give the court broad authority to decide if the case is still being pursued, Pierce said.

Attorneys Seth Hyder and Kevin Keech, representing Stapleton's granddaughter, said the family isn't asking for the investigation to be shared with the rest of the world.

"We're not asking the case file to be published in the newspaper," Hyder told the judge. "We're simply asking this information to be made available to the family."

They argued that the police had already ensured that the findings would be available under the open-records law because the file had been shown to the family in 1993.

The file was thick and heavy, Stapleton's granddaughter Heather Bates recalled in a telephone interview from her Nashville, Tenn., home. Bates hired the lawyers after her Freedom of Information request for the file was rebuffed by police.

"I remember it being fairly large," said Bates, who was a 19-year-old Harding student 21 years ago.

A state police officer took the file to the White County sheriff's office for the family to see, Bates said.

Bates said she, her older sister and mother divided up the findings and took notes. She said she mostly studied the interview of her grandfather and remembers a True Detective-style magazine in the file.

Now a mother of three, with a daughter named for Stapleton, Bates is hoping the file contents could give her mother, Mary Claire Heffington, some closure.

The 70-year-old widow of former Jefferson County librarian Carl Heffington was "ecstatic" at the news that the judge demanded proof that the investigation is ongoing, Bates said. Her mother's murder still haunts Heffington, who was 20 when the woman was killed, Bates said.

"She remembers the last time she saw her mother, like it was this morning," Bates said.

A sudden impulse last fall, brought on by watching a cold-case reality show while awaiting the birth of her latest child prompted Bates to inquire into her grandmother's slaying, with the idea of having the crime featured.

"I want to understand better what happened to my grandmother," Bates said.

Local police agencies were eager to cooperate and said they'd release the file to help get the killing some publicity, but the findings were in the custody of state police, who said no.

"That ticked me off," said Bates, who questions whether police still have the file. "It's been 50 years since my grandmother was kidnapped and murdered. It's not an open and ongoing investigation."

Acknowledging that there's no guarantee she will prevail before the judge, Bates said she will accept from him what she will not accept from the state police.

"I'm not a person to be told no," she said. "I find it insulting to me, my mother and the memory of my grandmother."

Born 11 years after Stapleton was killed, Bates said she hopes to see the file and gain some understanding of a woman who was liked and respected in her community, and was a 31-year teacher at Harding.

"Everyone who I ever met who knew her or had her as a teacher thinks that she was a wonderful lady," Bates said. "I just would like to know what happened to my grandmother."

On Oct. 9, 1963, Stapleton made the 1½-mile trip from her son's home where she had planned to pick up the washing for her son, who was raising an infant and toddler with his wife.

Her station wagon was found in the Launderama parking lot. The clothes were in the dryer, with money still in the slot but the activating handle not turned.

She had left at 9 p.m. and was seen at the laundry at 10:10 p.m. by a worker. A neighborhood boy, sent to pick up some left-behind clothing, told deputies that Stapleton wasn't there when he arrived at 10:55 p.m. Officers found no sign of a struggle.

About a week after Stapleton vanished, the family got a call from two Lubbock, Texas, men who claimed to know something about the killing and demanded money in exchange for the information. Police tracked them down and arrested them while they were still on the phone with the woman's husband, Emmett Ray "E.R." Stapleton, who had been teaching in Wisconsin when his wife was killed. The men were later cleared of involvement in the murder.

A section on 08/28/2014

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