The husband of Ruth Marie Terry — who was identified last year as the famed “Lady of the Dunes” from Massachusetts’ oldest unidentified murder in Massachusetts — has been officially named as Terry’s killer, according to Cape and Island District Attorney Robert J. Galibois.
The “Lady of the Dunes” case is now officially closed, the office said.
Guy Muldavin has been identified as the man who killed Terry in 1974, the district attorney said in a press release Monday. Muldavin died in 2002, and the office added that he was also the “prime suspect” in the disappearance of another wife and a stepdaughter in Seattle, Washington about 10 years prior.
Terry’s body was found among the dunes by Race Point Road in Provincetown on July 26, 1974. The town’s police department had initially taken over the case at the time, which was turned over in 1982 to Massachusetts State Police Detectives Unit for the Cape and Islands District.
Identification of Terry’s body was difficult because her hands were severed and her head was nearly decapitated, Special Agent Joseph R. Bonavolonta said at the time. She had been killed by blunt force trauma to the head, the district attorney said.
The woman’s skull had never been sent to the cemetery to be buried with the rest of her body and had stayed in police custody, the district attorney said.
Parts of her skull were tested over the years for potential DNA matches, the office stated, and with newly-developed DNA testing in 2021, a portion of her jaw led officials to finally identify the “Lady of the Dunes” in October 2022.
A death certificate for Ruth Marie Terry was issued on April 5, 2023, by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office, the district attorney said.
Because of her identification, the district attorney said State Police discovered Terry had been married to Muldavin just before her death in either 1973 or 1974. The couple had been traveling after their wedding, the office stated, and stopped in Tennessee to see Terry’s family.
The offices stated Terry and Muldavin honeymooned after their wedding for the summer of 1974, and that Muldavin came home alone from the trip driving what was believed to be Terry’s car, the district attorney said. Witnesses at the time said Muldavin indicated to them that Terry had died, the office said.
Terry’s brother had tried to find her after her death, the office said, but Muldavin told him he had fought with his wife during their honeymoon, and that he hadn’t her from her again.
Muldavin was married several times between the 1940s and 1960s prior to his marriage to Terry, months before her body was discovered.
Muldavin’s name first appeared in the news in 1960 when living in Seattle with his then-wife and stepdaughter, Manzanita Mearns and Dolores Ann.
Running an antique shop, both women suddenly disappeared. Muldavin fled and police searched his home, finding pieces of human flesh in a septic tank. Without any DNA testing, it was assumed but never confirmed that those were the remains of the missing women.
Seattle prosecutors dropped the unlawful flight charge with no evidence, and Muldavin married Terry after he moved to Reno. After her death, he fled to California.
The Californian wrote a profile on Muldavin when he gained a cult following as a result of his popular radio program “Take to Me” on KAZU in Pacific Grove. He died in Salinas on March 14, 2002.
The district attorney’s office thanked State Police for their efforts in the identification of Terry and her killer, along with closure in the case, and thanked the other law enforcement and forensic scientists. District Attorney Galibois expressed his deepest condolences to Terry’s family, who recently visited where her body was found.
Terry’s son, Richard Hanchett, 64, was among the family members who visited the site, NBC 10 Boston reported. Hanchett connected with Terry’s family after he completed a DNA test in 2018, and gathered with her family at the site earlier this year.
Hanchett approached her grave and said he loved her. Then “everything set in, it broke my heart,” he told the outlet.
Some of Terry’s remains stayed in Provincetown, while some were buried with her mother in Tennessee, NBC 10 said. Hanchett brought some of her ashes back home with him but also scattered some of her ashes on the same beach where her body was found almost 50 years ago.
