‘It should not take more than 50 hours to become firmly convinced of murder’ . . . Judge gives reasoning for decision to find Ruud not guilty of murdering daughter

There was a collective gasp in Ozark County last Friday when it was announced that Circuit Judge Calvin Holden had found Theodosia resident Rebecca Ruud not guilty of murdering her 16-year-old biological daughter Savannah Leckie in 2017. 

In fact, the judge found that Ruud was not guilty of all charges besides abandonment of a corpse, based on Ruud’s own admission of putting the girl’s body into a large burn pile at her 80-acre off-grid farm in the Theodosia area and relighting the fire several times through the night reducing the body to little more than the ash, teeth and jawbone that were found by officers. 

Ruud is scheduled to return to Greene County court at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 15 for sentencing. 

Many are surprised to find that abandonment of a corpse, the charge Ruud was convicted of for burning her daughter’s body, is a class E felony and carries a maximum sentence of 4 years in prison. Ruud has already been in pre-trial custody for 5 years. It’s unclear if she will be given credit for time served and be released from custody at the Sept. 15 hearing or will be forced to serve additional time in prison. 

Holden ordered a sentencing assessment report (SAR), a document developed in cooperation with the Missouri Division of Probation and Parole that provides judges with useful information about the offender, the offender’s risk of re-offending, treatment programs and supervision options available in the community and in prison. The document usually gives suggestions to the range of punishment. 

The trial was held June 27-30 as a bench trial, meaning a judge determined her innocence or guilt instead of a jury. 

 The state argued that Ruud killed the girl by burning or drugging her, and the defense maintained that Ruud had found the girl dead from an apparent suicide and burned the body after a death. 

Ruud’s co-defendant and husband, Robert Peat Jr., who testified for the state and said during his time on the stand that he wants a divorce, is scheduled to appear in Greene County court at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 29. He was not promised anything in exchange for his testimony and cooperation in the Ruud trial, the prosecution says. 

In a 5-page verdict document, Holden attempts to explain why he’s ruled the way he has in the Ruud case. 

Uncontroverted facts

The introduction of the verdict lists the things that Holden calls the “uncontroverted facts,” meaning indisputable facts, which include: 

1. Leckie came to live with Ruud in Ozark County in 2016. 

2. Leckie was hospitalized in a mental facility in 2015 and 2016, had cut herself and had a diagnosis of mental illness with suicidal tendencies identified by mental health providers. 

3. A brush fire broke out at the Ruud property on July 18, 2017.

4. Ruud suffered burns on her left arm from that fire, was treated by a first responder on scene and later received hydrocodone and a salve by a doctor. 

5. Another bonfire was lit on the Ruud property the next day, July 19, 2017. Peat testified that the girl was alive that day.

6. Leckie was reported missing July 20, 2017, two days after the first fire on the property. There was a large-scale search for the girl from July 20 - Aug. 4, 2017. 

7. Ruud knew the girl had not run away when she reported her missing because she had burned the girl’s body in a bonfire the night before. 

8. After reporting the girl missing, Ruud asked a doctor if the drugs Ruud was prescribed would be enough to kill the victim; the doctor told her there were not enough tablets to kill the victim. Ruud went to the doctor the next week with the same question, and Ruud said the doctor told her no again, and that it was only enough to make the girl constipated. 

9. Leckie’s bones were found in the bonfire Aug. 4, 2017.

10. Ruud and Peat (co-defendant) were married on Aug. 4, 2017.

11. Ruud met with investigators at Missouri Public Defenders office on Aug. 13, 2017, and recorded the meeting in which Ruud said she’d burned the girl’s body.

12. Ruud and Peat attempted to leave on a Greyhound bus the day they were arrested. 

13. One year later Peat agreed to testify for the state and turned tape over to law enforcement. 

14. Ruud never told Peat she’d done anything with Leckie’s body.

Controverted facts

Holden then lists “controverted facts,” meaning facts that could be disputed, which included:

1. The first jailhouse informant (J.W.) said Ruud told her while they were in custody together that Ruud was not receiving child support and asked if she knew if hydrocodone could be traced with testing. The informant said Ruud told her she’d crushed up hydrocodone and given it to Leckie. Holden notes that J.W. did not tell officers in 2017 or 2018 about Ruud saying she’d crushed up the pills and that it had only came up a week or two before the trial. 

2. The second jailhouse informant (S.J.) said she was in jail with Ruud when Ruud told her that the girl had run away, that Leckie was “big on pills,” that the bones found at the property were not a 100 percent match to Leckie so they weren’t her daughter’s and that S.J. requested special treatment in exchange for giving the information. Holden also notes that S.J. and J.W., the first jailhouse informant, were in jail together for several months. 

3. The third jailhouse informant (K.H.) came into the Taney County Jail on May 19, 2018, and the next day the jail found drugs she’d tried to conceal on herself, which led to a segregation from other inmates. Holden notes that K.H. may have been out of segregation when she informed law enforcement about what Ruud reportedly told her. The document says that segregation for drugs usually lasts 20 days in jail, and K.H. says after only a few days of her and Ruud in jail together, the defendant confessed to how she murdered her daughter. Holden notes that K.H. has two convictions for not supporting her own children; however, she said she came forward because she “thinks people who mistreat children should be held accountable by the system.”

Burden of proof

Holden makes a short reference to the United States Constitution, which states that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

“In most law schools, this concept is presented in a way to say it is better to let guilty people go free to avoid one innocent person being convicted and going to prison for the rest of her life,” Holden wrote. 

Holden explains that reasonable doubt is defined as, “doubt based upon reason and common sense after careful and impartial consideration of all the evidence... [It] leaves you firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt. The law does not require proof that overcomes every possible doubt...”

He noted that law does not require the state to prove motive, even though judges and juries wish to know why a crime was committed.

Analysis and questions

 Holden explains that he was convinced that Leckie died, and Ruud hid that fact from authorities. He notes that the jailhouse informants did testify, but he found the last informant, K.H. “totally not credible.” That informant had provided the more detailed testimony saying Ruud told her that she’d drugged the girl and put her body in the fire because she thought the girl was dead. But the girl woke up in the flames screaming, and she hit her with a rake until she stopped.

Holden says he spent more than 50 hours after the trial reviewing the evidence and testimony and had written more than one verdict during that time. 

“The defendant was never comfortable being a day-to-day mother. [She] had placed all four children up for adoption...said she did not want to be a full-time mother... There was no doubt the victim was a troubled young woman. The victim could be a handful, not only for the adoptive mother but for her real mother...” Holden wrote, explaining that there was likely escalating tension after Leckie moved to Ruud’s property. 

Holden said the evidence was “hard to put together” and that there is “only one person who knows what really happened.” He noted that it was troubling Ruud went to the doctor more than once to ask if the prescription could have caused the girl’s death. “Why would she do that on two different occasions? Maybe to see if the victim’s death could be attributed to the defendant either deliberate murder or by negligence aiding in the suicide of the victim.”
 he wrote. 

Holden said he was troubled by two pieces of evidence that he wished could have been made more clear. One thing he’d liked to have seen is the state call a toxicologist to the stand to explain that a person could not have died from the prescription drug in the manner in which the defense argued it to the court. Another piece of evidence he said he’d wished was presented were the bus tickets Ruud and Peat purchased for the Greyhound bus they were attempting to board when they were arrested so the court could tell where they’d planned to go. 

“The court did use evidence of... the bus station when it became obvious to her that the efforts of law enforcement was no longer a search for a missing person but had turned to a crime investigation,” Holden said. “[Ruud] and [Peat] then took flight to leave the jurisdiction to avoid arrest as part of the evidence in this case...”

Holden then admitted that even if those two pieces of evidence had been introduced during trial, he still would not have been firmly convinced of Ruud’s guilty of first or second-degree murder, tampering with evidence or abuse of a child. 

“I have worked on this case/verdict for over 50 hours trying to find evidence that the court could be firmly convinced, beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of murder. Finally the court has determined there is not enough evidence to meet this burned of proof; it should not take more than 50 hours to become firmly convinced of murder.”