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The Murder of Ruth Pyne
71 Plays5 months ago
A perfect family image is hard to convey when one of the family members suffers from severe mental illness. What can a son do to help his little sister in such a situation -- is murder in the realm of possibility? And if so, what price is the killer willing to pay?
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Transcript
Podcast Overview
00:00:01
bclawson
Hello, listeners. You're listening to Hearth, Home, and Homicide, a family production about family murders. I'm Bridget.
00:00:09
Caroline
And I'm Caroline.
00:00:11
bclawson
Caroline and I narrate each story. Andy is our producer. As Caroline and I talk about each family murder, we're keen on watching justice unfold for the killer, whatever that may look like.
00:00:25
bclawson
But we're also thinking about the family and the victims of the murder. that family murders just never end. It's a ripple effect that lasts a lifetime.
00:00:38
bclawson
And we want to be sensitive to that. Our podcast do include violence and trauma. Listener or discretion is advised. So, hey, Caroline.
00:00:52
Caroline
Hey there.
00:00:53
bclawson
Another so-called perfect family ah is not so perfect.
Introduction to Ruth Pine's Case
00:00:59
Caroline
Well.
00:00:59
bclawson
Today, we're talking about the killing of Ruth Pine.
00:01:02
Caroline
I was just going to say, you know, it struck me when you said the ripple effect of the family murder and yeah that we don't normally you know touch on the mental health issues, but there's a ripple effect there, too.
00:01:02
bclawson
It's a very...
00:01:15
Caroline
So it's interesting this.
00:01:17
bclawson
Oh yes, and we're gonna focus in on that. And it's certainly something that I take very seriously. And yet I don't have a frame of reference in my life for the kind of hardships, challenges and heartaches that family's face when there's a serious mental illness involved. Now, today we're covering the murder of a woman with severe psychosis, she but she but she would not take her medications and she tormented her family and in the end became a murder victim when her 21-year-old son bludgeoned her to death.
00:01:57
bclawson
Oh my goodness. So generally we stay away from family killers with drug issues and or severe mental illnesses. But this one is different. This family had issues of child abuse also. We usually don't include those. But again, it's a story that's different. It's also very controversial, the the verdict for this killer. There are many elements in this story that I think people will be able to identify with because I sure could.
00:02:26
bclawson
I sympathize with our cook killer as where well as the victims and the family. Our killer is a 21 year old at the time of the murder. His name is Jeffrey Pine, and he was convicted of killing his mother in a premeditated fit of rage. So we'll start out this morning talking about Bernard and Ruth, the parents of this family today.
Pine Family Background
00:02:51
bclawson
Bernard and Ruth Pine met shortly after finishing high school while they both were working at South Lynn Hardware Store, and this is in Michigan, not too far from Detroit. Bernard went on to become an automotive mechanic, and then he became an automotive engineer, and Ruth became a dental hygienist. They were married in 1979. Their first born child was a boy they named Jeffrey, born in 1980.
00:03:22
bclawson
It wasn't until 11 years later that their little girl was born. Her name is Julia. And there are pictures of this family Caroline that exude the image. I think most families want to project not only to themselves when they look at these pictures, but also to the outside world. Ruth was a very pretty woman of a petite blonde. The kids were beautiful and Bernie, the dad, the protector, provider and wise father of tolerance.
00:03:52
bclawson
All of these kinds of images are coming from the family photos that I encountered as I researched this case. And I believe that that was probably mostly true. And really, you know, that's really what most families yearn for. And that's why I can relate with this. We want peace, love, and safety.
00:04:14
Caroline
Yeah, this does all sound very much like familiar to me. I mean, you know, born in the 80s, both parents are working like, you know, yeah, you're right.
00:04:18
bclawson
Yeah.
00:04:25
Caroline
It's very. um Norman Rockwell, but for the 80s.
00:04:30
bclawson
Yeah, it's just a normal family, really, and proper and very well-respected family um as time went by in their community.
00:04:37
Caroline
Yeah.
00:04:42
bclawson
And then, you know of course, we need to talk about how did the wheels come off of this beautiful family?
Jeffrey's Childhood Trauma
00:04:49
bclawson
The court records show that Jeffrey was only nine years old.
00:04:54
bclawson
Now, Jeffrey is the son, the firstborn son. He was only nine years old when his mother started to threaten to kill him. Now just let that sink in, Caroline.
00:05:05
Caroline
Yeah.
00:05:05
bclawson
Nine years old.
00:05:08
Caroline
<unk> After I read that, I thought a lot about that because I remember being nine. I have kids who both have passed through the year of nine and like I just biologically, I don't think when you're nine, you at that point, hopefully have a sense of who your people are, you know, and they're probably your parents and your siblings.
00:05:29
bclawson
Right.
00:05:29
Caroline
But those are the people that you trust the most. They're not the people who give you everything that you want. You fight with these people. You're like, hey, you only make me go to bed early. but But you trust them in this intrinsic kind of spiritual whole body way that you don't even have to question. It's a security piece. So when you're that age and all of a sudden the one person who that is, that for you, becomes an unknown, uncalculable threat, you don't know where that came from. or they I just can't imagine at nine how he's having to process that kind of experience and it makes me really, really sad.
00:06:03
bclawson
It is a sad thing. And you know, the other thing about a nine year old is if your mother has got her hands around your throat and is trying to kill you, most nine year olds are thinking, I must have done something wrong.
00:06:18
Caroline
Right. Oh, God, that piece too. That somehow this is my doing, my fault, my.
00:06:23
bclawson
Yes, yes.
00:06:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:06:25
bclawson
Children do at some level believe that they have this or that coming.
00:06:27
Caroline
Absolutely.
00:06:31
bclawson
uh that they're not good enough and they internalize it and it must be because of me and and on and on and on and so this poor nine-year-old boy has got a lot going on in his mind and of course um he's not gonna even understand the things that he's feeling emotionally and it's just so unfathomable that a mother would do that but here we have it and it's a fact
00:06:50
Caroline
Right.
00:06:59
bclawson
At nine years old, a child is just beginning to mature, wanting to hang out with their friends, investigate and research whatever they're interested in. They still need structure, though, from their parents to stay on track academically, and and they're beginning to realize whether or not they are athletic.
00:07:19
bclawson
I mean, you know, things like that, you their your own identity. So they're usually experiencing a broad
00:07:23
Caroline
Totally.
00:07:27
bclawson
breath of emotions and especially empathy. So here we have this kid that's just starting to come into his own, very empathetic child as we're going to come to find. And um and he's just getting a message that is undecipherable.
00:07:48
Caroline
Well, and I just, uh, I mean, it breaks my heart because he, he, it's 1989. Let's be real about this. No one is asking him how he feels.
00:08:00
Caroline
Everyone is expecting him to get up and go be normal. 89 is not a touchy feely time. Like that's not a time where we're like, Oh, be on the lookout. You know, you're barely going to get a teacher who sees a bruise on you to make a report.
00:08:13
Caroline
You know what I mean? It's 1989. Like this is alone at nine.
00:08:16
bclawson
Yeah.
00:08:19
bclawson
So just when Jeffrey Pine was experiencing many emotions, he his mother starts threatening his life, but miraculously, Jeffrey kept a straight A scholastic record, and he was extraordinarily reliable, curious, courteous, and very athletic. Two years later, he would have a baby sister, which he began to love and protect just like a father would. So he's learning from his father the role that he wants to take with his sister. Now,
00:08:59
bclawson
I remember when I was having children, I was reading every doctor so and so says this about don't do that when you have children or do this when you have children.
00:09:09
Caroline
Right.
00:09:11
bclawson
I was doing a lot of research about what I was supposed to be doing. And I remember ah finding that um the child is ah going to love having a sibling up to the age of seven.
00:09:30
bclawson
So if you have a seven year or more gap between babies, that older child may be completely indifferent about that younger child and they may not have a bond or a connection at all.
00:09:41
Caroline
i Yeah. Huh.
00:09:47
bclawson
But that's not what happened when Jeffrey had a sister Now remember, he's got two years of his mother trying to kill him and threatening his life.
00:09:54
Caroline
Yeah.
00:09:57
bclawson
And then he has a sister and immediately he decides I'm going to become her protector.
00:10:02
Caroline
I wonder if he was very good at throwing himself at whatever was distractionary and positive and would work, meaning, holy moly, my home life. like He's got his dad. Obviously, he has his trust is there, likely, I'm guessing. um That's where I would put it, knowing what I know about this situation. um Maybe he's just trying to avoid his mother.
00:10:28
Caroline
and throw himself at things that he know will will be positive, meaning school, good grades, sports, and then along comes another human and he gets to love.
00:10:39
Caroline
This is where he can do nurtured love that maybe he's not getting from his mother the way that he would need.
00:10:44
bclawson
as possible, yes. Is he setting himself up as a decoy so that the baby will be left alone?
00:10:54
Caroline
Right.
00:10:55
bclawson
um You know, we don't know. We just know that at 11 years old, he had this baby and he devoted himself to the care and loving of this child.
00:11:02
Caroline
Yeah.
00:11:04
bclawson
The family lived in a kind of fairy tale home, you know. ah It was a big and sprawling home, a tri-level, with a swimming pool, and it was on an acre in Highland Township, Michigan, which is an upscale village outside of Detroit. After Julia came along, Ruth became a stay-at-home mom. I remember she was a dental hygienist, but then she started staying at home. The family was doing well financially. Now, this family was deeply religious also, and the children went to a private Christian school.
00:11:43
bclawson
And at this private Christian school, Jeffrey Pine was a star. I mean, he was a star. he Academically, he really shone. Athletically, he was a standout. Everybody loved him. His teacher saw him as a leader that both teachers and students alike looked up to. So this is an adult in an 11-year-old's body is what I'm reading.
00:12:12
Caroline
he's He's doing his thing. He's reaching his heights. I mean, i on a level, I really like that for him. But then there's another level that wonders how much of a distractionary outcome this was. You know what I mean? He's just looking for respite from this other thing that we know is happening.
00:12:30
bclawson
Well, and you know, I worry that he's not having a childhood. And in childhood, you've got this steps that you go through.
00:12:34
Caroline
He bring.
00:12:42
bclawson
And, you know, it's kind of like when someone dies and you have a little child and you want to explain to them what has happened, psychologists will tell the parent to bring it down to their level.
00:12:42
Caroline
Yeah.
00:12:54
bclawson
Don't don't try to make ah the child understand in the way that an adult will understand about how precarious a human being and any creature is in this world.
00:13:12
bclawson
And you you want to bring it to their level. Well, seems like when he got, you know, his mother attacking him at age nine, he had to skip a bunch of steps.
00:13:20
Caroline
yeah He had to up to the level where she was, which was entirely that's the level some other adult like I couldn't handle that as an adult.
00:13:31
bclawson
No, I mean, i couldn't have it didn't happen to me as a child.
00:13:32
Caroline
um
00:13:35
bclawson
Other things happened to me, but not that. and And I worry at this point if our killer today, who is still in our story, just a teenager, if he just did not have a chance to work through all of his emotions.
00:13:38
Caroline
Yeah.
00:13:53
Caroline
Yeah.
00:13:54
bclawson
So anyway, right now, he's just everybody's, you know, everything. They they just think he's a fantastic human being all the way around. Then in 1998, Ruth Pines started acting extremely erratically in every facet of
Ruth's Mental Health Decline
00:14:12
bclawson
her life.
00:14:12
bclawson
Now it's hard for me to imagine what is more erratic than trying to murder your child. But she got even worse.
00:14:18
Caroline
I know.
00:14:20
bclawson
And now everyone would know that the Pines were not perfect. I mean, you couldn't hide it anymore.
00:14:29
Caroline
Okay.
00:14:31
bclawson
She threatened to kill herself and her son. And she was committed to a mental facility for observation and diagnosis.
00:14:43
bclawson
Now, Bernard did that, the father. He had her committed.
00:14:46
Caroline
okay
00:14:48
bclawson
And so now I feel like, yeah, he still, well, he doesn't have a choice, does he?
00:14:48
Caroline
I think it's the right choice. I mean... And there you go. I mean, it's the right next step because and I i know we before we started this recording I had kind of mentioned I wasn't gonna mention this but like Mental health and drug addiction are two things that I struggle to find my compassion for because of my lack of understanding I really suffer from a lack of understanding which I know is on me and I try really hard, but this stuff's scary I can't imagine these
00:15:09
bclawson
Right.
00:15:18
Caroline
young people, these engineer husbands, like, you don't go looking for this. You're not signing up for this. This appears in your life later. So.
00:15:29
bclawson
Well, I think that's probably, you're right, where a lot of people are where, you know, we're in a world where we think something goes wrong, we identify and then we fix it.
00:15:37
Caroline
But yes, that's a good formula.
00:15:39
bclawson
and and And the idea that someone who maybe is has has an addiction that they cannot kick, and this goes on their whole lifetime, they have so much to offer, but why don't they kick this addiction?
00:15:53
bclawson
Why don't they do something about her psychosis? why don't like i We're used to being able to fix things and there are some things that cannot be fixed because we don't understand them completely anymore.
00:15:53
Caroline
Right.
00:15:58
Caroline
Which is so cold.
00:16:05
Caroline
and Totally.
00:16:07
bclawson
So I don't think you're working there.
00:16:08
Caroline
They're so nuanced.
00:16:10
bclawson
So she started acting really bad. she got you know She was extremely dangerous then, and she was committed to a mental facility for observation diagnosis. Psychiatrists there diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia, which I believe, from what I've read, is the worst mental illness you can have.
00:16:32
Caroline
Mmhmm. Yes.
00:16:35
bclawson
She also had bipolar. disorder with manic and depressive interludes of three weeks each. So you're a maniac and can't sleep and you do erratic things for three weeks, including attempted murder. And then you go into a state of depression and ah you're, you know, you're not killing anybody during that three weeks. And, um,
00:17:06
bclawson
She would be regularly filled with incredible anger and rage against her everybody. And she would not agree to take these diagnostic findings to heart.
00:17:21
bclawson
She just did not believe she and she refused to be medicated.
00:17:26
Caroline
Oh no.
00:17:28
bclawson
So the courts required her to be hospitalized for 60 days in order to begin medication against her will.
00:17:37
Caroline
This is where it gets very scary for me because I i recognize that's real. Those diagnoses are real. All of this is real. And I also understand that if I was being told these things and they were real for me, I would struggle to want to accept that as my life and to accept that now I have to take a, I mean, this is where it gets real hard for me as the story got, because I don't have an answer here. I don't have a path for myself. should Should I find myself in this situation? But it's like I could see what's right. I mean, obviously she needs to take her medication. Obviously she needs to have
00:18:14
Caroline
these relationships with these doctors for the rest of her life. But jeez, would I want to sign up for that? Absolutely not. Like this is hard. This is hard stuff.
00:18:22
bclawson
It's very hard. Luckily, these people have money.
00:18:26
Caroline
Yeah.
00:18:27
bclawson
Luckily, these people live near a big city where they're going to be proper ah medical treatment.
00:18:30
Caroline
Yep.
00:18:34
bclawson
And I think about the people who are on the fringes.
00:18:34
Caroline
Yeah.
00:18:37
bclawson
They live in rural areas. They don't have a lot of money. And they don't live in an area where you've got good medical care. And one of the things that made me want to do this story is that
00:18:45
Caroline
and
00:18:50
bclawson
you know, this is what can happen when you have money and you're in a place where you can get all the medical care and sometimes use is still not going to be enough.
00:18:50
Caroline
Yeah, right.
00:19:00
Caroline
Right.
00:19:01
bclawson
So after this 60 day of being ah medicated against her will, she appeared to stabilize. She started taking her meds.
00:19:14
bclawson
She was treated additionally with holistic treatments. And I had to look that one up when I read that in a, Detroit Free Press news article about this story. These holistic treatments included meditating, relaxation, ah tapping into the brain's elasticity, ah to you know which is kind of at the heart of um behavioral modification therapy, although that's not gonna work for her if she's not taking her drugs. But if she's taking her drugs,
00:19:50
bclawson
she can begin to develop new patterns.
00:19:52
Caroline
Yeah.
00:19:54
bclawson
According to court records, she was threatening to murder her family still, um but then they got her back on better meds. But in March 2009, her condition really deteriorated. According to court records, she was threatening to murder her family on an ongoing basis. She was hitting both children Anne Bernard for and she was begging the courts to leave her alone and her husband was begging the courts to involuntarily house her to get her medications under control. So once again, she was put into care until she stabilized for a few weeks and then she was released. So it's a bit of a revolving door.
00:20:43
bclawson
Then in July, 2010, Ruth tried to strangle her son, Jeffrey, again. Jeffrey was hit with her closed fists over and over and over.
00:20:58
bclawson
He never hit her back, not one time, throughout all of this.
00:21:00
Caroline
ah that That's so hard. This is all sounds so taxing. Just so much of your energy depleted.
00:21:07
bclawson
Yes, yes, I don't think that people like me understand the toll, the price, the daily life, the reality of a family with a member of the family having these kinds of mental illness issues.
00:21:29
Caroline
Yeah.
00:21:31
bclawson
I don't think that I can fathom that.
00:21:33
Caroline
No.
00:21:35
bclawson
Her husband Bernard had been begging her and begging her as usual to take her medications because she was paranoid. She thought that there were cameras throughout her bloodstream.
00:21:48
bclawson
She thought that her pills were demons.
00:21:51
Caroline
Yeah.
00:21:52
bclawson
So she didn't want to swallow that demon. She felt threatened when Jeffrey begged her to please take your meds, please, so that you can be a good mom to Julia.
00:22:05
bclawson
Police arrested Ruth for choking and trying to kill her son. and she was jailed for two weeks for a domestic violence. Then she was placed in a psychiatric hospital for 12 days, and then she was returned to court. So now the judge in her case told her that he would return her to jail the minute she did not take her meds. And in fact, he said that she had to take her pills in front of her husband, Bernard,
00:22:41
bclawson
every night so that he could verify that she was in compliance.
00:22:47
Caroline
That's a lot. like i I'm curious of a couple things. When she was in jail, were there any instances there because of the lack of medication? Or does the jail also, even though they're not a hospital, have rights to sort of push certain medications to their inmates based on you know that outcome?
00:23:03
bclawson
Good question. I don't know the answer to that.
00:23:06
Caroline
Yeah, and then I do feel badly for Bernard because as much as that makes sense to say, okay, we'll do it in front of your husband, taking medication is a medical procedure.
00:23:06
bclawson
I don't know.
00:23:19
Caroline
I know people think that's stupid for me to say, but it's true. You have to be prescribed this medication by a medical professional and they indicate to you how to take it. It's a real gamble that you just assume someone's going to take it properly. And we know that sometimes people don't and that that's discovered later or whatever. But so to me, in my mind, I do feel bad here that the husband is sort of being in injected in a space where perhaps he set up to fail. He's not a medical professional. He's a husband, you know.
00:23:49
bclawson
Well, and he's a, he's an engineer. He's got to work to, I mean, he's got to go to work and who knows how much money they spent on maybe people coming into the home to care for her.
00:23:53
Caroline
Right.
00:23:57
Caroline
Yeah, he's got to make a living.
00:24:04
Caroline
Yeah.
00:24:04
bclawson
Um, I didn't find any information on that, but you know, I guess one way to look at this is this isn't a bit of an indictment against, um, what's happening in our world where ah someone with severe mental illness, there are no psychiatric ah facilities that where that person can reside and the family come and visit.
00:24:27
Caroline
Right.
00:24:27
bclawson
um
00:24:28
Caroline
Or the ones we have are sorely understaffed and they're they're really under-regulated.
00:24:33
bclawson
Yeah, I remember growing up in Columbus, Georgia, there was a place called the Bradley Center, and I knew people who were in the Bradley Center, and it was a beautiful facility and I knew several people over time who had wound up there and it wasn't the draconian atmosphere that um can exist in a situation like that.
00:24:59
bclawson
It was a hospital that people could afford to go to who had these kinds of troubles.
00:25:05
bclawson
But we don't have that much anymore.
00:25:05
Caroline
Yeah.
00:25:09
Caroline
Right.
00:25:09
bclawson
There is too expensive.
00:25:11
Caroline
It's very.
00:25:11
bclawson
And I just think that's part of the problem here. So Ruth did start taking her meds, knowing that the judge is going to throw her back in the clink if she doesn't.
00:25:15
Caroline
Yeah.
00:25:23
bclawson
But her moods were still unreliable. Bernard started having an affair. And ah this time, their marriage, he had had enough of that, and he really wanted to divorce Ruth and get himself and his children away from her.
00:25:39
bclawson
He loved her, but he was very worried about the future with her, and especially Julia. His affair was helping him because he finally had a partner he could talk with that he wasn't the warg of, so to speak.
00:25:56
bclawson
He wasn't the prison warden for this woman that he was having an affair with. I can't help but sympathize with him.
00:26:04
Caroline
Yeah.
00:26:05
bclawson
You know, I'm not saying he's right.
00:26:06
Caroline
yeah
00:26:06
bclawson
I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying he did this. He had the affair. Ruth was angry and resentful and paranoid with her own life and he just couldn't take it anymore and he wanted to get his family away from her. Then one day in 2011, Bernard was out for lunch with his lover and his wife walked into the cafe where they were having their lunch. Saw them together and there was a scene there and Bernard told Ruth, get right in front of everybody, um you know, right in front of eating, a you know, I don't know, Caesar salad or whatever.
00:26:46
bclawson
Look, I'm going to divorce you. And she begged him right there in the restaurant. Please don't do that. And he said, the only way that I would not divorce you and stay with you is if you stayed on your meds perfectly.
00:27:01
bclawson
And right there in the restaurant, she agreed.
00:27:03
Caroline
Oh gosh. This is all so sad.
00:27:05
bclawson
So no,
00:27:06
Caroline
I've seen this movie. It just doesn't end well. Oof.
00:27:10
bclawson
no. Caroline, you know, have you ever Have you ever seen a scene like this in a restaurant or been a party to a scene like this in a restaurant?
00:27:21
Caroline
That is on my bucket list. I need to be, so, you know, I see a lot of like TikTok videos where things go awry in public with other members of the public. And I just, I want to, I want to see one in person someday.
00:27:33
Caroline
Cause they, the airports I've noticed.
00:27:33
bclawson
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I read about this, I was wondering, really, did that really happen?
00:27:44
bclawson
We sure they didn't go into a back room or something, you know, but if it did happen, I'm also thinking, compared to the reality that Bernard, Jeffrey, and Julia have been living with, this probably seems kind of okay.
00:27:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:28:02
Caroline
probably yeah probably i just i this is so hard this is such a hard story for me on so many levels it's important that i be confronted with it so that i can work to find my compassion a lot of like the way that you have because i am still upset with bernard for going and finding But here's the thing, I'm not upset with him because he has a right as a human to go find his bliss. We all do, like no matter the circumstances. But there's, this is just really does exacerbate what's going on with Ruth. I mean, I just wish things could have gone differently for them both. I guess is where I sit now.
00:28:43
bclawson
Well, for sure. Yeah, I don't think you're off the mark, Caroline. I think most people are just going, okay, it's too much. It's just too much.
00:28:51
Caroline
This is too hard, but people have to live with this kind of stuff all the time.
00:28:52
bclawson
Too much.
00:28:54
Caroline
I recognize that.
00:28:55
bclawson
Yes, I know.
00:28:56
Caroline
Sometimes there are challenges to which there are no answers.
00:28:57
bclawson
I know.
00:29:00
bclawson
Yeah. I mean, ah all I know is I look at something like this and I'm trying to understand it. And I now see there are some features of this that I cannot understand because I want to say to Ruth, I get that this is not your fault.
00:29:19
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:19
bclawson
Um, on the other hand, you do not belong in the free world. If this is your thought patterns and you're trying to kill your family,
00:29:25
Caroline
Right.
00:29:29
Caroline
Right.
00:29:30
bclawson
So this thing happened according to the newspaper. And lot long after that, on May 27th, Ruth was found bludgeoned to death in the garage of their home.
Ruth's Murder and Investigation
00:29:47
bclawson
Now, after the bludgeoning, which would be police believed from the wounds and the medical examiner agreed that it looked like a she'd been beat with a two by four.
00:30:02
Caroline
What happened?
00:30:02
bclawson
and you know her so her brain is your you know her skull's gonna be cracked and it's gonna be a lot of blood and but that wasn't enough she was finished off with multiple stab wounds on her neck and her face and um Yeah. So in other words, somebody took a two by four. And by the way, there was a two by four in that garage, but it was missing after the murder was discovered.
00:30:35
Caroline
Oh.
00:30:35
bclawson
And so, you know, again, it's pretty clear she was bludgeoned with a two by four. And then she was turned over on her stomach and stabbed multiple times in her neck and face.
00:30:50
bclawson
Now Bernard and Julia were coming home from being picked up from school. So Julia was at school and Jeffrey was 21 at this time, going on 22. So that would mean that Julia was around 10, 11 in there somewhere. So Bernard had to go pick her up at school. So Jeffrey was in college.
00:31:18
bclawson
He was studying biology and working two jobs, but he still lived in the home like at night. He would come home and sleep in their home. One of his jobs with was with a local orchard where he did things like mix the cider, um apple cider. You know, I want to go get some apple cider. He would do that. He would clean up. He would do the bathrooms. He would help the guests that came to the orchard and so forth and so on.
00:31:48
bclawson
And his other job was with his former English teacher. She lived not far away and he did her gardening for her. She lived on some acreage and he took care of a lot of odds and ends at her place.
00:32:00
Caroline
Those are great, great gigs to have.
00:32:02
bclawson
They are great gigs. And again, he's in college and he was not at home when Bernard and Julia came home and it was Bernard and Julia that found Ruth murdered.
00:32:14
Caroline
o
00:32:15
bclawson
So, That alone is just chilling. I don't know how I would want her to be discovered, but I wouldn't want Julie involved.
00:32:26
Caroline
I was just thinking that that it's not, you know, Julia being there is probably a hardship and I'm sure Bernard, but you know, this man obviously loves this woman to go through all this with her, even though I know he had an affair.
00:32:38
Caroline
But like you said, that seems pretty clear cut any number of human beings would have done the same thing. But I think he just I think he really loved his wife. So
00:32:46
bclawson
I think you're right. he He described his wife as a wonderful, caring, loving woman when she was taking her mens.
00:32:58
Caroline
Yeah. Yep.
00:33:02
bclawson
um It's just, you know, the whole thing is just so sad that Julia and Bernard have found this body But, you know, the family is always a suspect. So let's talk about the suspects in this case. The murder had occurred between 130 and two, according to the time the body was found and the last time someone was home with Ruth. Jeffrey had left home about 130 in order to go to his teacher's home to plant some lilac shrubs.
00:33:40
bclawson
The only two suspects the police ever considered were Bernard and Jeffrey. They didn't try to find anybody else. And the reason for that was that there was no sign of entry or forced entry by a stranger. Nothing was stolen. And the authorities determined that this murder was so up close and so personal And it was so a case of overkill.
00:34:13
Caroline
yeah
00:34:14
bclawson
And according to the police manuals, that means somebody who knew her. This was a rage killing.
00:34:23
Caroline
Yeah.
00:34:25
bclawson
Jeffrey became the only but suspect when Bernard could prove that he was at a retirement luncheon and then he went to school to get Julia and then he came home.
00:34:39
bclawson
And the other thing that Jeffrey had a problem explaining is that when the police interrogated him, he said that he left the house at one 30 and he went over to his former teacher's house and planted some lilacs along her property line. But her, his former teacher told the police, no, those lilacs were planted five days ago.
00:35:07
bclawson
In fact, she had gone out the next day and mulched them and could show them that, no, these these were in the ground for five days before the killing.
00:35:12
Caroline
Oh.
00:35:16
Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:22
bclawson
Now, apparently, Jeffrey had called her the day of the murder, called her the teacher, or who he worked for sporadically, and he would call her sometimes because They had a white board or something where he would write down what he had done, that he had come over and done this and that and this and that so that she could know how to pay him.
00:35:49
Caroline
Hmm.
00:35:50
bclawson
But he never called her to do that. There was a board for that.
00:35:53
bclawson
But the day of the murder, he called her and he said, I was at your place and I planted the lilacs and I did this and I did that and she's got that call and just thought, well, that's weird.
00:35:53
Caroline
Oh, OK.
00:36:08
Caroline
Yeah.
00:36:08
bclawson
No, you did not.
00:36:09
Caroline
Right. And what the heck? Yeah.
00:36:12
bclawson
So that's pretty incriminating.
00:36:14
Caroline
Yeah.
00:36:16
bclawson
Initially the district attorney declined to press charges against Jeffrey because there was absolutely no physical evidence evidence. He did not have any blood on him. There was nothing on him.
00:36:28
bclawson
There was no time really for him to clean up and they couldn't understand how that could be true.
00:36:29
Caroline
how Yeah.
00:36:34
bclawson
um They just didn't have any DNA evidence. They didn't have any eyewitness evidence. They just didn't have any evidence. But did they say to the police, go back and check out some of these other things that people were saying that maybe there was somebody traveling around the neighborhood that didn't belong there and this and that and this and that.
00:36:52
Caroline
Ready.
00:36:54
bclawson
But the police were like, no, there's no evidence that anybody was there other than family members.
00:37:00
Caroline
Right. Like they couldn't conjure up a a secondary story.
00:37:01
bclawson
So
00:37:04
bclawson
Yeah. so So, you know, the district attorney was getting a lot of pressure for not bringing charges against Jeffrey.
00:37:04
Caroline
Door-to-door salesmen happen to knock.
00:37:07
Caroline
Nothing like that. Yeah.
00:37:12
Caroline
Right.
00:37:14
bclawson
And so what he did was he went before a quote unquote citizen grand jury. Now, a citizen grand jury is a unique setup that Michigan uses as a means of obtaining an indictment.
00:37:30
bclawson
And it worked. There aren't the rules and the standards in a citizen grand jury, I guess, that there might be for the district attorney trying to accept or reject the idea of going to trial.
00:37:36
Caroline
It's so interesting. deep
00:37:47
Caroline
but so
00:37:47
bclawson
Jeffrey was seen as they are unemotional by this grand jury. He seemed too controlled. He never asked investigators for any details about the murder when they brought him in.
00:37:59
bclawson
And they explained that his mother was dead, that she'd been murdered. He never asked, help how what what happened to my mother? Is she okay? What hospital is she at?
00:38:10
bclawson
I got to go.
00:38:11
Caroline
Right.
00:38:12
bclawson
None of that. He was very non-emotional. Friends also told the jury, the, you know, citizen grand jury that that Jeffrey was becoming increasingly more and more emotional and upset about fears he had that Julia would be hurt by his mom. It was eating at him and he just was distraught. He had started to drink a lot in the weeks leading up to the murder and that was very uncharacteristic of him because now remember Caroline
00:38:46
bclawson
He graduated from a private Christian school.
00:38:50
Caroline
Yeah.
00:38:50
bclawson
He's always been Mr. stand up, good athlete, wonderful leader, straight A's across the board in college, got into college easily, wanted to go on and become a doctor.
00:38:53
Caroline
Right.
00:39:02
bclawson
And he certainly had the mind for it. So drinking a lot and having these emotional outbursts with friends and his girlfriend, which I'll talk to about in a minute, it was very uncharacteristic of him.
00:39:03
Caroline
Yeah.
00:39:16
bclawson
His girlfriend described him to the citizen grand jury that he was the love of her life. And then she found out that he was having an affair. Now, I don't know if you can have an affair when you're just going with somebody, but I mean, that was her word. And that when she realized that he had been lying to her and her family,
00:39:40
bclawson
She told the ah citizen the grand jury that lying came very easy to Jeffrey.
00:39:49
Caroline
Yeah, that's that kind of is a scary piece. It lends itself to the question of like, did he do that thing that people sometimes do? Like, I think maybe it's sociopathic behavior where you split yourself. It's a little bit like you know what people want from you. So you give it to them. But deep down, you know, you're like not a good person and you don't have good thoughts like and you do bad behaviors and manipulate people and stuff.
00:40:17
Caroline
That's, it does sound like he's spiraling, though, too. You know, you start adding an alcohol if you're not normally a drinker. These are cries for help in small doses, right?
00:40:28
bclawson
Just like his father, he was reaching out to another woman, even though he was telling his girlfriend and her family that they were going to get married someday.
00:40:37
Caroline
Yeah, I'll never really understand that one, because that doesn't make any sense to me. But you know, it's all part of a pattern of just self destructive behavior.
00:40:45
bclawson
Yeah, I mean, my word for Jeffrey at this start at this point is he's just he's he's just tormented and fragmented and so many different pieces after, I mean, remember, he's 21, starting at age nine, he thought he was going to be murdered in his own home by his mother.
00:40:59
Caroline
Yeah.
00:41:06
Caroline
Yeah. It's a lot.
00:41:08
bclawson
And then he started worrying about his sister. So I mean, you know, good Lord.
00:41:11
Caroline
He's been carrying a lot for a long time, and while also simultaneously projecting the perfect human life, you know.
00:41:21
bclawson
One of the worst parts of Jeremy's appearance of guilt was his bandaged hands late in the day when he of the day of the murder he appeared at the office of the sheriff's office to be interviewed and he looked like he had like mummy dressings ah that would be in a Halloween get-up you know the kind of where your hands are just loosely bound by you know you did it yourself it's a DIY you know trying to look He showed up.
00:41:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:41:52
Caroline
yeah
00:41:54
bclawson
you could There's some video of him out there in his interrogation. And I'm thinking, man, you look so guilty with these hands. just you know in And he he looked like a fake mummy on Halloween.
00:42:09
bclawson
He was asked by the investigators to unwrap his wounds. And when they saw him, it was clear that they were blisters between his fingers that had been dug out and were bleeding and ragged after using a two by four to bludgeon his mother.
00:42:23
Caroline
i was just
00:42:23
bclawson
Now, but when they asked him what what happened, he said, oh, I was throwing a pallet and the board and pallet caused these wounds in between my fingers in the web, you know, between your fingers.
00:42:38
bclawson
And the and ah cops are thinking, no, no.
00:42:42
Caroline
No, you'd have to throw 20 pallets to get the repetitive injury, right?
00:42:46
bclawson
yeah you'd have You'd have to be a but you'd have to be ah professional pallet slinger to have that kind.
00:42:46
Caroline
like
00:42:53
Caroline
and pallets all day.
00:42:53
bclawson
And even then, if it's a pallet, it's going to give you blisters. It's not going to rip your skin off.
00:42:57
Caroline
yeah Right.
00:43:00
bclawson
um You know, they never, I told you earlier that they had a ah two by four in their mirage. um They, you know, being the Pine family.
00:43:11
bclawson
And that the two by four was missing after the murder. um Well, they never found that missing two by four. So police did not believe that a stranger was somehow coming to the house.
00:43:24
bclawson
There was no evidence that anybody came into the house, but that they would come into the house and they would, there would be a two by four in the garage and that the stranger would decide to, oh, I think I'm gonna bludgeon this woman upside the head with this two by four.
00:43:39
Caroline
Right.
00:43:39
bclawson
It just wasn't believable.
00:43:41
Caroline
It's not enough.
00:43:42
bclawson
And it looked bad to this citizen jury. that after the killer bludgeoned Ruth, he then rolled Ruth Pine over and stabbed her in a concentrated area of her neck 16 times.
00:43:57
bclawson
Everybody who was a citizen on the citizen jury believed that that's just pure rage and it's overkill, just like the cops were thinking.
00:44:08
Caroline
for Yeah, I think that too.
00:44:11
bclawson
Now that rumbling that you're hearing in the background is my dog Pippin. And I'm not sure what he's trying to convey. And I'm really fearful that right here when we're talking about the most important parts of our story, he's going to start barking.
00:44:25
Caroline
He's your own, he's your own citizen jury.
00:44:26
bclawson
But back to the story, everybody, Jeffrey did stand trial and everybody was shocked.
Jeffrey's Conviction and Appeal
00:44:34
bclawson
Everybody, meaning his family, his friends, where they were shocked when he was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 20 to 60 years in prison. Now I can explain why everybody was shocked. He had a good attorney. He had a good attorney, but that attorney's tactic was to say, there's no way you're going to be convicted of murder. There's no evidence. There's absolutely no evidence. There's character assassination.
00:45:02
bclawson
There are some elements that are weird, but there's no physical evidence that you are the killer of your mother.
00:45:04
Caroline
Circumstantial. Yeah, circumstantial stuff.
00:45:12
bclawson
And after every single witness that the prosecutor prosecutor side as well as the defendant side came to the witness stand after every cross-examination, the lawyer what for Jeffrey would say,
00:45:31
bclawson
oh Was there any evidence that Jeffrey killed his mother? Was there any evidence that Jeffrey killed his mother and everyone said no? There wasn't. Evidence being some sort of physical evidence.
00:45:44
Caroline
Right.
00:45:44
bclawson
Blood, footsteps, matching shoes, whatever.
00:45:45
Caroline
Fingerprint. Yeah. Yep.
00:45:50
bclawson
So that's what happened and nobody thought that he would be convicted, but guess what he was. It was a purely um circumstantial evidence trial. Jeffrey appealed of course and I read the appellate court findings and what the appellate court findings said is you can say you had ineffective use of counsel but we see nothing that your counsel did wrong because it was apparent that his tactic was to say
00:46:16
Caroline
right
00:46:23
bclawson
It's impossible that he could have done it and you have no evidence.
00:46:25
Caroline
helid He relied solely on physical evidence being required, which it must not be.
00:46:28
bclawson
Yes. Yes. And so anyway, Jeffrey, there he sits facing at least 20 years. So I guess the main thing that I want to do is say, what do you think happened here, Caroline?
00:46:45
bclawson
and and And why did it happen? What could lead him to murder like that?
00:46:51
Caroline
i think I think it was his paranoia and love for his sister. Knowing what he, I mean, she would have been 11-ish.
00:47:03
Caroline
He was nine when his torture seemingly first began, really.
00:47:04
bclawson
Yeah.
00:47:09
bclawson
Oh, good point.
00:47:09
Caroline
And so in, I mean, I think for him, he's, he's trying to empathize with his sister, wondering what her experience is going to be like. And he's getting fearful. And now his dad, maybe he knew about his dad's affair. And so now he's thinking, well, he's not going to be as cognizant or available as he should be for my sister. Who knows? Plus mixed with the fact that he's young, he's 21. He's,
00:47:35
Caroline
had clearly not had the right kind of structure since he was young but he did well anyway takes a lot to do that. There's so much here and I feel awful for literally every single person involved and I also feel like everyone involved did exactly what they could do to try to affect their situation positively so it's sad.
00:47:59
bclawson
I think so too. I agree with everything that you've said. I also agree with the citizen jury, grand jury, that this was rage and this was um maybe even such, maybe he became disassociated with what he was doing when he was doing it because he still maintains his innocence.
00:48:16
Caroline
Yeah
00:48:22
bclawson
Caroline, he has married an Australian woman. who came to live in the town where he is um incarcerated and she fights every day for his acquittal, you know, to be retried and or just spring him, let him go free. There is a free Jeffrey Pine page on Facebook. He married this Australian woman, as I said, her name is Lena.
00:48:53
bclawson
She's fiercely dedicated to spearheading a new trial for him. He did lose that first appeal that I talked about. Many people believe that he was convicted unjustly, and I'm one of them.
00:49:06
bclawson
And I'll i'll tell you why, because I think that he did it.
00:49:06
Caroline
Yeah.
00:49:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:49:11
bclawson
When I look at the evidence, I think that he did it.
00:49:14
Caroline
Absolutely.
00:49:15
bclawson
But do I think that he was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?
00:49:19
Caroline
Nope.
00:49:20
bclawson
No, I do not.
00:49:22
Caroline
Yeah. I think that's a great way to frame it because You're right. I am. Yeah. That citizen jury thing. Very curious. Is that when you don't have a beyond a reasonable, you like, you know, you're not going to hit that marker. So you want to punt it over into the preponderance of the evidence category, but she can't make it a civil trial. I mean, I'm just so curious how that works.
00:49:42
bclawson
Well, you know, and in ah in a so in a ah criminal trial, preponderance of the evidence is not enough.
00:49:48
Caroline
It's not.
00:49:48
bclawson
It is in a civil trial.
00:49:49
Caroline
No. Yeah. Yep.
00:49:51
bclawson
but in So I think you're right. I think that he preponderance of evidence, if we were in a civil trial, you betcha.
00:49:57
Caroline
Totally. Yes.
00:49:58
bclawson
But now we're not a court-oriented podcast, and so therefore that's all I'm gonna say about that.
00:50:00
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:05
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:06
bclawson
But what I think happened is, and I'm fear for Jeffrey, that if he doesn't admit that he did it, he may not be paroled.
00:50:16
Caroline
Right. Yeah. I mean, find a way, you know? He's obviously a star well-rounded human.
00:50:21
bclawson
And i don't know I don't know how they're going to get a new trial, because unless somebody walks in off the street and says, I've decided that I want to go to jail, so I'm going to say that I did it.
00:50:32
bclawson
And in fact, I did it, and here's the proof. I mean, you know I don't know what else could
00:50:34
Caroline
Yeah, it's true.
00:50:37
bclawson
He needs to, if he did this, and I think he did, um he needs to work through that and admit, and ah you know that'll increase his chances of being paroled.
00:50:41
Caroline
you know
Societal Reflections on Mental Illness
00:50:52
bclawson
That's what I think.
00:50:52
Caroline
Honestly, I hope he writes a book. I hope he's a writer and maybe journals for a while and write your story because I do think it's actually very important. to tell this kind of story that makes very little sense to me. It makes me uncomfortable because I don't know how to how to find my footing. I think it's important to tell those stories if we want to find ways to live with these things, you know.
00:51:18
bclawson
I do too, and you know, in my opinion, ah this whole story is an indictment of how poorly our society addresses these kinds of serious mental illnesses, paranoid schizophrenia with bipolar and psychotic features.
00:51:35
Caroline
Yes.
00:51:42
Caroline
That's a big deal.
00:51:44
bclawson
How do we keep that person functioning in a family setting with young children when there's evidence that this person has attempted to murder her own child.
00:51:55
bclawson
child And I don't think that there are gonna be that many people who aren't gonna be sympathetic with Jeffrey that he took it upon himself to solve this problem.
00:52:11
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:11
bclawson
And again, I think it's, I'm hoping that he will confess
00:52:16
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:16
bclawson
and I'm hoping that he will see that he's not the only person in the universe that might try something like this.
00:52:25
Caroline
That's it. And who had to live this way, too, because I recognize, you you know, you said it better earlier. the Everyone involved here like no one did anything wrong. This is all just the hand that was dealt and they all had to experience things that we would hope in the world no one has to experience but you did and you did your best and you still attempted to find the love And that that piece is the piece we should be working.
00:52:54
Caroline
How do we make that easier for people? How do we make that more structured, safer, all the things? Because everyone here, I feel like, tried as hard as they could and no one no one got, you know what I mean?
00:53:06
Caroline
Like, it all, it's hard.
00:53:07
bclawson
I do, I do. And I might get taken off the air when I say that so many of our family murders that we feature in our podcast, I don't know why this person thought they could take matters into their own hands and murder this member of their family.
00:53:26
bclawson
And they're in prison, and that's just exactly where they need to be.
00:53:30
Caroline
Right.
00:53:30
bclawson
But I don't feel that way about Jeffrey.
00:53:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:53:33
bclawson
I feel that Jeffrey ah could have been perhaps convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
00:53:43
Caroline
Right.
00:53:44
bclawson
In other words, you know, in in a moment of blind rage, I murdered my mother and perhaps he could have gotten a lesser ah sentence and perhaps he would have um admitted.
00:54:01
Caroline
Right.
00:54:01
bclawson
And my dogs are wanting us to draw a line under our podcast today, Caroline. So I'll just mention that our podcast today was researched and written and narrated by Bridget and Caroline, produced by Andy. Our research is solely based on public domain documents, including legal documents, articles, and books about our subject. Episodes are aired every other week.
00:54:28
bclawson
If you like us, please subscribe and give us a five star review, especially on Apple. It really helps us tell your friends about an in-person and by social media and all of that helps other listeners find us. Listeners, we really appreciate you. And one other thing, don't forget to live and let live. So bye-bye, Caroline.
00:54:53
Caroline
but Bye-bye.