- In the criminal justice system,
detectives and prosecutors face daunting challenges
when money is the motive for murder.
[dramatic sting]
[dramatic music]
- Have you seen this man?
He's Ron Rudin, a 64-year-old realtor
well-known in Las Vegas.
- The mysterious disappearance of a Las Vegas millionaire
dominates the headlines.
- This case certainly shook Las Vegas.
- Detectives find evidence of murder
deep in the Nevada desert.
- Finding that gun really changed this case.
We were able to finally file charges.
- For prosecutors,
the bizarre trial of the Black Widow
is the longest in Nevada history.
- We had the police department's
best detectives on the case.
If you need a piece of evidence,
you're gonna get it.
- The Margaret Rudin story...
- And now, 20 years on,
new evidence casts the trial in a different light.
- It really had the earmarks of a mob hit.
- These men and women dedicate their lives to law and order.
- At the end of the day, I believe
justice was served for the family.
- These are their true stories.
[dramatic sting]
[somber music]
* *
- In 1994, Ron and Margaret Rudin
were making big plans for the future.
However, as Margaret was holding
a grand opening celebration for her new antique store,
Ron never showed.
- That morning, Ron had explained to her
that he was gonna close on this business deal,
which was gonna pay him, like, $8 million.
So she thought that Ron just had something come up,
and he ended up going.
- Margaret worked late that night.
When she finally went home at 1:30 in the morning,
Ron and Ron's car was missing.
- Margaret called Metro Police, but they said,
"We can't do anything until he's gone for 48 hours.
"He's an adult.
"A lot of times, they just come back.
He can do whatever he wants to."
[tense music]
- I was a deputy sheriff in Iowa for 2 1/2 years.
And after patrolling
the cornfields of Iowa at night,
I figured, if I'm gonna stay in law enforcement,
maybe I should go somewhere where there's more going on.
It seems like Las Vegas attracts criminals
from all around the world.
[dramatic sting]
- The second morning Ron Rudin failed to show up at work
was unusual for his employees,
because Ron was always on time.
When he didn't show up for work,
actually, two of his employees went down to the police
to file a missing person report.
- Ron Rudin's persona wasn't to be in the casinos.
He was a businessman.
He was a mover and a shaker.
He could get things done.
Everyone always thought how lucky he was.
You've got a millionaire real estate mogul
with a good-looking wife.
I heard of him before I ever had
the opportunity to meet him.
My family did some deals with Ron Rudin,
and he was a character.
- Ron's wife, Margaret, was a sweet Southern belle,
but she also had nerves of steel.
And she had a tough life too.
She came from nothing.
She married badly, divorced badly,
and, with Ron, is on husband number five.
- Ron Rudin was married five times also.
So these two were encouraged to go out with each other.
And eventually, they decided to go ahead and get married.
[dramatic sting]
- Detectives at the time,
in the missing persons section,
they went to talk to Margaret right away.
She also let them walk through their house.
- The search didn't turn up any evidence of foul play,
and investigators were left without any obvious leads
as to Ron's disappearance.
[tense music]
* *
- Several days after Ron had gone missing,
his Cadillac was found behind the Crazy Horse Too
on Industrial, a topless joint
known to be kind of connected to the mob.
* *
Ron's car was covered in dirt,
and there was dirt inside the car.
That would not be the way Ron would drive it.
- They go inside, and it's been wiped clean.
There are no fingerprints from Ron Rudin,
no fingerprints from Margaret.
But there are four muddy footprints.
There immediately are whispers that, you know,
is the mob somehow involved in his disappearance?
- Considering the possibility that Ron's disappearance
could be connected to organized crime,
investigators scrutinized his business dealings.
- What they found out was, Ron was working on a land deal
called Lee Canyon, which is
probably about 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas,
up in the hills towards Mount Charleston.
And he had long envisioned having a resort-type area.
- And there was rumor that Ron went through organized crime,
trying to get the money.
- Detectives learned from Ron Rudin's employees
that there were a number of reasons
why Ron might have turned to organized crime
to finance his development.
- At the time of his deal up at Mount Charleston,
Ron had lost his real estate license.
And he had several complaints on him
from the real estate board.
But it didn't slow him down.
He was still conducting business.
- Of course, people have to wonder, you know, did--
did Ron not pay somebody back?
Did a deal go south?
Did he somehow run afoul of organized crime?
- What's interesting about that was that
Ron Rudin was a paranoid individual.
And he also had over 1,000 guns in his house.
He always had guns with him.
The local sheriff here had given him
a concealed carry permit.
And he not only carried a pistol in his boot,
but he carried a shotgun in the back of his car.
He had a high-level security system installed at his home,
and he was always looking over his shoulder.
- One month after Ron Rudin's disappearance,
a gruesome discovery was made 100 miles away.
- These fishermen are night fishing.
So it's the middle of the night.
They're out fishing the Lake Mohave.
They can barely see what they're doing.
They're in the middle of nowhere,
and they're walking back to their car
with their flashlights, and the beam hits something,
and it's a human skull.
They found the remains of a human being.
Police get a phone call from a young man,
and he has quite a story to tell.
- Ron Rudin had multiple extramarital affairs.
- Ron's third wife suffered from depression
and committed suicide.
Other people may have had motive to do harm to Ron.
- Detectives investigating the disappearance
of real estate millionaire Ron Rudin
received a tip about a body in the Nevada desert.
[tense music]
* *
- Two of the fishermen that found the skull
near Nelson's Landing were military officers.
And they knew not to disturb the scene
and told others to leave the skull there.
* *
They found the skull about 70 yards off the main road.
[dramatic sting]
* *
At the scene, there was the burnt skull,
but it was fairly well-preserved still.
The rest of the remains were found
where this fire had taken place.
- In this burn pit, they see human body parts...
[dramatic music]
Intermingled with what looks like hardware.
You know, like, hinges and a clasp
and, like, metal straps.
- It was one of the craziest crime scenes
I've ever heard about.
And they found what they alleged were drag marks.
So it looked like someone had pulled up in a vehicle
and dragged something down to this place,
where it was ultimately burned up.
The question is, who put it there?
- Well, police already kind of wondered
if these are the remains of Ron Rudin.
Then they see a very expensive bejeweled bracelet.
And in jewels are three letters--
R-O-N.
[dramatic sting]
[tense music]
- At the autopsy, dental records were compared,
so that we knew that the skull was for sure Ron.
And then they discovered four bullet holes
in the skull and evidence that seemed like
he had also been decapitated.
There were some knife marks on some of the bones.
So now we had a confirmed homicide.
- It really had the earmarks of a mob hit.
I don't know who would have gone through
that much trouble, other than the mob,
just did it the way they did it.
The people that he was doing business with,
that put up the money for him to do that deal, you know,
"You've got this amount of time to make good on this.
You'd better come across on your end."
I think people have been killed for a lot less.
- Certainly, no one deserves to be killed like that
and then have your body mutilated and burned.
Someone wanted to cover up evidence.
[dramatic sting]
* *
- Detectives notified Ron's wife, Margaret Rudin,
of her husband's murder.
Her response was unexpected.
- Detectives sit down with her,
and they watch her very closely.
Now, different people react differently
to that kind of news,
but this is something they had never seen before.
Margaret takes her fist and she starts
kind of grinding it into her eye.
And at first, the detectives are like, "What is she doing?"
And then it occurs to them,
she's trying to make herself cry.
- If you look at all the circumstances,
Margaret claimed that she contacted the police.
But it was Ron Rudin's employees
that went to the police department
to report him missing.
And that was obviously suspicious.
- Ron's remains are eventually sent back
to his hometown in Illinois.
Ron's family, they are devastated.
They can't believe that Ron came to this kind of an end.
Based on Ron's activities
and his business and his wealth,
they wonder if money has to be the motive here.
- The family waited for an answer.
And it wasn't long
before their suspicions were confirmed.
- Margaret starts battling with the trustees of Ron's estate,
trying to get a larger portion of his estate.
At first, she was given 60% of everything.
But Margaret wanted to increase the percentage
and inherit most of Ron's estate,
which I think was estimated to be
$10 million to $12 million.
- Metro really put their best detectives on this case.
And that's because of who Ron Rudin was.
He was a pillar of the community.
And when the emperor is slain, you need to find the slayer.
So whenever you're dealing with a murder trial,
the good thing for a prosecutor is,
you're usually getting the police department's
best detectives on the case.
These are the guys who go through multiple marriages
because they're married to their job.
Margaret Rudin stood to gain financially from this.
Now, as a prosecutor, that's a game changer.
Investigators prepared to turn over every stone
to try and figure out what happened to him.
When detectives looked at Ron Rudin's will,
there was a secret directive in the will that says,
if he dies under suspicious means,
that any beneficiary named in that will
needed to be investigated.
- That obviously started a lot of conversation
with the trustees of his trust.
They had business relationships with Ron
over the years in Las Vegas.
Trustees decided that Margaret was the one
that was responsible for Ron's death,
so they cut her off.
She was getting paid a salary from Ron's business,
and they cut that off.
They even cut off her newspaper subscriptions
at the house.
They hired the biggest law firm
in Nevada to represent them,
and they went after Margaret with a vengeance.
- The trustees of his estate put out a $25,000 reward
for any information about Ron Rudin's death.
A couple days after that,
police get a phone call
from a young man named Augustine Lovato.
And he has quite a story to tell.
- Augustine Lovato, he's a handyman.
And what he tells investigators is that
Margaret Rudin hired him to renovate the master bedroom.
And then when he went to the bathroom,
he saw what appeared to be blood
- Detectives investigating the murder of businessman
Ron Rudin received a tip from a contact
with ties to his family.
[dramatic sting]
[dramatic music]
- Augustine Lovato came forward
and said that he was hired by Margaret
to renovate the bedroom
before Ron's body was even found.
When he removed the bed, there was blood on the carpet.
* *
That changed the focus of the investigation
to Margaret Rudin.
She was the main suspect.
- Based on Augustine Lovato's tip,
the investigators are able to get a search warrant
to search the Rudin house.
- So when they do the forensic testing,
they found blood in the bedroom
and blood in the bathroom.
- Samples were sent to the lab for processing
to determine if the blood was that of Ron Rudin.
The results were not what detectives expected.
- Some of the blood found in the master bedroom
was determined to be Ron's blood,
but not all of it.
Both Ron and Margaret had been married four previous times.
Ron's third wife, Peggy June Lee,
suffered from depression and committed suicide
in the same room where we found the blood spatter on the wall.
- So they've got this blood evidence.
But the prosecutor Gary Guymon says,
"No, we can't charge Margaret."
Because they can't say for certain
whether it's Ron Rudin's blood or Peggy's blood.
There's just not enough here
to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Prosecutors do need to err on the side of caution,
because police came in and did a cursory search.
They didn't see any blood on the walls.
They didn't see blood in the bathroom.
And that muddies the water up.
- The prosecution was unwilling to hang the case
on inconclusive blood results and witness accounts.
Detectives continued to examine the evidence.
- When you look at the scene where Ron was found,
there were the burnt remains of Ron,
along with what was left of this wooden trunk.
The analysis of the trunk matched a very specific type
of antique humpback trunk.
Well, during the investigation,
we found a receipt at Margaret's store
that she had purchased the same type of trunk
from a gentleman in California by the name of Bruce Honabach.
* *
- Police ask Margaret about the trunk,
and she can't account for it.
It's not in the inventory.
She can't show that she's sold it anywhere.
She doesn't know where it is.
This is powerful circumstantial evidence,
that a trunk just like what she purchased
ended up burnt up out in the desert
along with her husband's remains.
- The trunk represented a possible link
between Margaret Rudin and the site
where Ron Rudin's body was found.
- Ron weighed 220 pounds.
Margaret alone couldn't have loaded Ron into the trunk.
She couldn't have loaded the trunk into a vehicle
and then pulled it out of the vehicle
and dragged it partway up the hill by herself.
If she was responsible for the murder of her husband,
she had some help.
- There had to be an accomplice.
So what the detectives do is, they start interviewing
everybody that knew him, family and friends,
to try and figure out who it is.
- Margaret's sister said that Margaret was
having an affair with this gentleman
named Yehuda Sharon.
- Now, Yehuda Sharon was a guy
who used to hang around in Las Vegas.
He was originally from Israel.
Allegedly had been in the Mossad before,
and he came to Las Vegas.
He starts hanging out with these middle-aged women
at the country club.
So one of them he met was Margaret Rudin.
And they got to know each other,
allegedly having affairs and things like that.
- So as the investigation continues,
they find out that this infidelity
wasn't a one-way street.
It was a two-way street.
Ron Rudin had multiple extramarital affairs.
[indistinct chatter]
- Margaret was obviously upset about Ron's activity,
and they were known to fight.
I think they'd actually had separated for a time
and then gotten back together.
If Ron was gonna divorce Margaret,
she would lose out on all his wealth.
So it certainly seemed
that the money kept Margaret coming back.
- The detectives thought that money
has to be the motive here.
If Ron divorces Margaret,
the ramifications for her could be dire.
She would be battling Ron in court.
Margaret has divorced four times before,
and each time, she was at the losing end of the divorce.
Now she's looking at potentially
losing out for the fifth time.
She could lose everything.
She's gonna be five times divorced
and no money,
and she's gotta start all over again.
- Investigators presented their findings
to the district attorney's office
in an attempt to bring charges against Margaret Rudin.
- As a prosecutor, you got a really tough job.
Because we want finality, you know,
not 20 years of appeal and a vacated conviction.
So you don't force the trial.
With no further evidence than what they've found,
they're not able to positively link Margaret Rudin
to Ron Rudin's death in a way that would allow
prosecutors to file charges.
That's not gonna be enough to move forward
with a murder prosecution.
- The case seemed to hit a dead end.
A full year passed with no leads
into the murder of Ron Rudin.
Then, in the summer of 1996,
a new piece of evidence came to light.
[dramatic sting]
* *
- In Lake Mead, some divers had found a firearm
with a silencer a year prior.
But it had been sitting in police storage for a year.
And one of the detectives in the case
finds out about this gun and decides to have it tested.
- And they find out this gun once belonged to Ron Rudin.
- This was the big break in the case
that led to the suspects responsible
[dramatic music]
- Ron went missing December 1994.
* *
His remains were found out by the lake
in January of '95.
The gun wasn't discovered until July of '96.
For whatever reason, that gun got
lost in evidence until 1997.
Ron was known to have a huge firearms collection,
reported to be worth $2 million to $3 million.
Shortly after Ron had married Margaret,
he had a gun with a suppressor on it go missing.
So he reported it at that time,
that the gun was missing.
- This gun is affixed with a silencer.
Now, we see silencers all the time--
TV crime shows.
But in real life, they're actually very rare.
And in fact, you have to have a special license from the ATF
to have a silencer.
Investigators found out that Ron had gotten
the license for that silencer.
It was on file.
* *
- Through forensics testing, the ballistics on the bullets
found in Ron's skull matched the gun that was found
at the lake, which is significant
because other people may have had motive
to do harm to Ron,
but they didn't have access to that weapon.
- It seems like whoever stole that firearm is the killer.
This is definitely a key piece of evidence.
It was hard for anybody else to have an opportunity
to get that particular firearm.
Margaret Rudin is really the only one.
* *
- Police now have the murder weapon.
The discovery of the gun
and the identification of the gun
is a game changer.
They can put this murder weapon in the home
where Margaret lives,
within arm's reach of Margaret.
They have a financial motive.
They have an emotional motive in the infidelity.
They feel like they have all the pieces
to charge Margaret with murder.
[dramatic sting]
* *
- Detectives presented the case
to Assistant District Attorney Gary Guymon,
and the grand jury finally indicted Margaret Rudin
for the death of her husband,
murder in the first degree with use of a deadly weapon.
At that time, we were finally able to obtain
an arrest warrant.
- A lot of times, as a prosecutor,
you have a good relationship
with the defense attorneys on the case.
Everybody knew who Margaret Rudin's attorney was.
So prosecutors contact her attorney
and say, "Look, we indicted.
"We got the arrest warrant.
Let's go ahead and bring your client to surrender."
And what the defense attorney says is,
"My client left town a month ago.
I don't know where she is."
- Detectives' inquiries as to Margaret Rudin's whereabouts
were unsuccessful.
Margaret had disappeared.
- On the lam. That's what we call it.
That's the slang for being a fugitive,
for being on the run.
She was on the lam.
She got a fake ID. She got a fake passport.
She got documents.
- Margaret ends up in Guadalajara.
She's in a house with some other Americans.
Some of them happen to be
fugitives from justice as well,
and they teach her the ins and outs
of how to stay off the grid.
- She was a pretty good fugitive,
for somebody in her mid-50s
who had never had a speeding ticket before.
She was on the lam for two years.
She moved from place to place.
I think she was in Mexico for a while,
she was in Phoenix, and maybe some other places.
She was on "America's Most Wanted," I think,
more than any other female had ever been on that show before.
- Eventually, somebody spots her
one day in Arizona.
A cop actually goes to investigate,
and she sweet-talks him.
- She convinced them that she was not Margaret Rudin.
She was living under an alias
and had changed her appearance,
and Phoenix police actually let her go.
- Margaret told me this.
She said, "The day the cops showed up
"and questioned me at the door
is the very day I just got that ID issued in Arizona."
And the minute they walked away,
she grabbed her suitcase, called a limousine service,
walked out the back door, was in the limousine and gone.
She outsmarted them.
Out of desperation comes innovation.
- So Margaret's successfully stayed off the grid
for two years at this point.
But the Massachusetts State Police
get a tip that Margaret Rudin is
mailing packages from a post office
in Revere, Massachusetts.
And so they send some officers to go down to that post office
and show her picture to see if they can
confirm that she was there.
A post office employee confirms that, "Yes,
that woman has been here at the post office."
And they show police exactly where she lived.
- Police there were able to enter
the apartment where she was found
by posing as a pizza delivery person.
- They went up there and knocked on the door,
and the door was open, and they found Margaret,
I think, in the bathroom.
And that's how they apprehended her.
[dramatic sting]
- Margaret Rudin doesn't go to trial until 2001.
It's a big media circus around the courthouse.
There's media trucks all around the courthouse.
It was a very publicized trial.
- We as a jury did not know what to expect.
For I think all of us,
this was our first murder trial.
You think, OK, whatever.
We're gonna be here for several days, if not weeks.
And we'll just see how it all plays out.
What we did not know at the time
was that this would be
the longest trial in Nevada history.
- All rise.
District Court Department 6 now in session,
the Honorable Judge Joe Bonaventure presiding.
Be seated, please.
- The media is all over this case.
They start calling Margaret Rudin--
they dub her the Black Widow.
You know, the female spider that eats her mate.
She's notorious.
- The evidence will show that, like an individual
in the center of her own soap opera,
she sat and manipulated, almost like a puppeteer
pulling strings.
- The prosecution's theory is that Margaret thought
Ron was going to divorce her, leave her no money.
And that's why she murdered him,
so that she would have a chance of inheriting his estate.
And then the defense is
a classic reasonable doubt defense.
They say there's no direct evidence
that Margaret did anything.
Money was not an issue.
This was an organized crime hit.
- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...
Margaret, Tom, Michael, gentlemen...
This is a great day.
- If you watch Michael Amador's opening statement,
you would be hard-pressed to find
a coherent defense theory.
- Perhaps I'm a little different,
sometimes, than other people might be.
I look for passion.
- And Michael Amador gets lost in the weeds.
- This opening statement, which normally takes
15 or 20 minutes, is going on forever.
We're over an hour, and he's still talking.
- There are things about our lives today
and the place where we live...
they're like no other place and no other time in history.
- Amador continues by speaking mostly about himself.
Judge Bonaventure actually admonishes Amador.
- And I let you get away with a lot, Mr. Amador,
but the purpose of an opening statement
is just indicate what the evidence is
gonna tend to show.
- And then calls for a recess.
- But after the recess, it didn't get any better.
It started on tilt, and it never got straightened up.
I've never seen an attorney conduct himself in such a way.
This is supposed to be the evidence
that you're gonna bring forth in regards to Margaret.
- I think he talked about soccer at one point
during his open, rambling on about,
"I'm a soccer dad, and when my kid plays soccer,"
and he's going off in a tangent,
and we're just along for the ride.
- Michael Amador was not well-prepared.
And something we didn't see is that Amador allegedly
negotiated media rights to the story
while he was representing Margaret.
- Michael Amador was just going for the publicity
of Margaret's case.
And it wasn't really for her defense.
- At that point, the power rests in Judge Bonaventure.
He could have declared a mistrial
after he saw that outrageous opening statement.
But he didn't do it.
He allowed the trial to go forward.
[dramatic sting]
- Early in the case, the prosecution present
a key witness.
He's an antique dealer.
His name is Bruce Honabach.
What he testifies to is that he bought a humpback trunk
from a Donald Schaupeter,
and that he provided that trunk
to Margaret Rudin for her antique store.
- The inside of it had a pattern of, um,
a light--a light blue, if you will, flower design.
- What Honabach testifies to is that matches
the interior of the humpback trunk
that he gave to Margaret Rudin.
- So here we got a guy who said,
"I sold her the trunk that Ron's body was found in."
That points right at Margaret Rudin.
And Margaret had dealt with Bruce Honabach
over many transactions.
About 10 or 12 times, according to his testimony,
she told him,
"I wish my husband was dead.
He doesn't give me any money. I wish he was dead."
And it bothered Bruce so much that he made an appointment
and went and saw Ron Rudin, and he said, "Hey,
I think your wife wants to kill you."
And he wasn't surprised at that.
He kind of already knew that.
So to me, that was huge.
[dramatic sting]
- After weeks of testimony from multiple witnesses,
the prosecution's case was strong.
But a potential stumbling block needed an explanation.
- One of the problems that we had
in the prosecution of the case was,
Margaret Rudin was not gonna be physically capable
to carry out the execution
and also dispose of the body in the way that it was done.
And so the prosecution's theory was,
there had to be an accomplice.
- The prosecution was so certain
it was Yehuda Sharon.
He is supposedly involved with Margaret Rudin,
and he was physically strong enough
to drag a trunk containing a 6-foot-whatever man
out to the desert and setting it on fire.
- They called Yehuda Sharon and asked some questions.
- Isn't it true that you received immunity in this case
as this relates to the death of Ronald Rudin?
- I know that I received immunity.
From what, I have no idea.
I mean, you ask me to tell you or to speculate
about something that I have no idea of,
and I don't know what to tell you.
- He was granted total immunity for any crimes
that were committed in exchange for his testimony.
The problem is, it was never secured
exactly what his testimony was gonna be.
- He goes, "I'm not gonna answer these questions.
I don't know what you guys are looking for."
And he wouldn't answer his questions,
which was very smart on his part.
- Well, he could have nailed her coffin closed and walked.
But this guy told them,
"I am not having an affair with her.
"I did not help her kill Ron Rudin.
"To the best of my knowledge, she didn't.
And if she did, it wasn't because I helped her."
- It was a tactical error by the prosecution.
Their once-star witness fizzled.
And by giving him immunity,
now they can't go after him for anything.
So the judge is baffled,
and it just doesn't go anywhere.
- I can't have objections
on both sides of the room, all right?
Make your mind up who wants to object.
- It hurt the case to bring this witness to trial.
- After damaging testimony from an intended star witness
in the murder trial of Margaret Rudin,
the defense quickly seized on the misstep.
[dramatic sting]
- Now the defense can try
and insert some reasonable doubt.
They really harp on them.
A key witness for the prosecution,
the handyman Augustine Lovato, when he takes the stand,
he testifies consistently
with what he told police before.
- What color was the spot?
- Dark brown.
- Did you attempt to clean that area at Margaret's request?
- Yes.
- The defense counters is, police came in
and did a cursory search.
They didn't see blood on the walls.
They didn't see blood in the bathroom.
And also, there was a reward out
for any kind of information
that's gonna help solve this crime.
- Magically, this handyman drops down out of the sky.
And he says, "Oh, I did this and this.
"And by the way, I saw blood gurgling up
from a drain," which I've never had a drain
that bubbled up anything.
Now they can tie the story together,
and this guy gets $25,000.
That's--that's a little too tidy for me.
- It was a very, very fierce and I would say
pretty effective cross-examination.
- Now, if anyone needed a reward back in 1995,
it was you and your mother, wasn't it?
- It didn't matter. I mean--
- Well, you--go ahead. It didn't matter?
- There was never--
this was never about a reward.
This was about a man that was dead,
and that people loved him, and he was missing.
- The defense was trying to make the case
that he's lying because he got
that $25,000 reward.
- To cast further doubt on Augustine Lovato's testimony,
the defense devised an elaborate plan.
- The, uh, mattress,
we've got the same size of what they did.
We went out and actually bought the same size of things there.
This is an actual representation of what it is.
- They literally bring in a set,
like a TV set, of part of Ron's bedroom.
And they have the attorneys playing different parts.
They're putting on their own little crime show
in the courtroom.
- Bang, bang.
And then would have to run around
the other side of the bed.
- And we had Tom Pitaro fake shooting John Momot.
He stood at the bed, and he's running around the bed.
And it's like, what kind of garbage is this?
[dramatic sting]
- So on April 18th,
the trial has been going on for about six weeks.
Defense attorney Michael Amador receives a call
from a guy, Donald Schaupeter.
[tense music]
- All right. [clears throat]
My name is Don Schaupeter.
- He's been watching the trial on TV.
And he says that Bruce Honabach,
the antique dealer,
did not buy a humpback trunk from Mr. Schaupeter.
- I said, Bruce must be mistaken.
- "I sold him a box with some ice skates,
not a humpback trunk."
- That's a pretty big issue, because the prosecutors made
a big deal about finding Honabach
to show, you know, the source of the trunk.
- It was clearly a setback for prosecutors.
They lost this clean, direct connection
between Margaret and the trunk.
- The state went first, gave their closing argument.
Their theory in the case was pretty simple.
- Our theory as prosecutors was that Margaret Rudin
killed Ron Rudin in his bed.
He was shot multiple times in the head,
and the body had to get transported
with the help of an accomplice,
and that her motive for doing so was financial gain.
- Then it was up to Margaret's attorneys
to do their closing arguments.
Michael Amador, the lead attorney,
was gonna be allocated 30 minutes
to make his argument.
- Ask the right questions, and I'll tell you no lies.
Is Margaret Rudin innocent of the charges presented
to you by the prosecution?
The answer is yes, she is innocent.
- There was not a rational closing argument
given by Margaret's attorney, which was a shame.
- Gonna be a travesty of justice.
- Michael Amador promises Judge Bonaventure
he's gonna do a quick closing argument.
He ends up going 90 minutes.
Sets Judge Bonaventure off.
- Amador, you sandbagged me.
You lied to me, you lied to this DA,
and you didn't live up to your bargain.
You lied to the court. You sandbagged the court.
[tense music]
* *
- The jury was left to deliberate.
Days dragged on, and a stalemate emerged.
- At first, we were nine to three.
The whole case is just one strange thing after another.
There was some conflict about the trunk.
Some believed David Schaupeter did not
sell Bruce Honabach the trunk.
I think that Bruce Honabach sold Margaret Rudin
an antique trunk.
Might not have come from David Schaupeter.
And after some deliberation, after a few hours,
it was 11 to 1.
And we stayed 11 to 1 for days.
- When they actually delivered their verdict,
what we come to find out is...
- As to count two,
for murder with the use of a deadly weapon,
we find the defendant guilty.
- [crying]
- That one holdout juror changed her vote.
- Margaret was convicted first degree murder,
and she was sentenced to 20 years to life.
- The prosecutors were unified with their story.
And there was a mountain of evidence
as to why we thought she did it
and very little as to why she didn't do it.
And I've said it before and I'll say it again--
this thing was a slam dunk with a stepladder.
She did it.
- I believe Margaret got what she deserved.
Justice was served.
Ron Rudin should be remembered as...
remembered as a criminal.
[dramatic sting]
- Margaret Rudin served 19 years in prison.
During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020,
she was released on parole.
- Margaret got released from prison in January of 2020,
and she's maintained her innocence the whole time.
Then she started corresponding with me,
and she started calling me, and then I agreed
to represent her if she got a new trial.
When I go back and read the trial transcript,
I couldn't believe what I read.
There was some more discussion that the jury didn't see,
or the TVs didn't see, behind the scenes
in Judge Bonaventure's chambers.
It was recorded by a court reporter.
Michael Amador, the lead attorney,
admitted he wasn't prepared, he was in over his head,
he hadn't been able to sleep,
and, I mean, all this other kind of stuff.
At that point, it should have been a mistrial.
Margaret did not have effective assistance and counsel.
- Based on these new findings, an appeal was filed
on Margaret Rudin's behalf to reopen the case.
[dramatic sting]
- On May 16, 2022,
Federal District Court Judge of Nevada Richard Boulware,
he grants the post-conviction habeas corpus relief.
Says that Margaret did not get
effective assistance to that trial.
He vacates her conviction.
Clark County DA's office decide
they're not gonna retry the case.
She's already done her time.
The only point would be to actually tag her
with the conviction.
- She's no longer on life parole.
Her rights have been given back to her.
So she can get a passport, she can travel.
So she does have somewhat of her life back.
But she's 79 years old now.
You know, it's just unfortunate.
There's no winners here.
Ron Rudin lost his life.
Margaret Rudin lost hers.
Was law and order served?
I don't believe so.
We still don't have a convicted killer.
So is Ron Rudin's murder a mystery still?
Looks like it.