The Slaying of Ruth Helene Case

Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Vincent Strange

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In early 1986, Austin, Texas was grappling with rising crime, particularly around the condemned Booker T. Washington housing project on the east side, which had become a haven for drugs and violence due to bureaucratic neglect. Amid this, Ruth Case—a beloved nurse, student, wife, and mother of two—vanished after attending a class at Austin Community College’s Ridgeview campus nearby. Her disappearance shocked the community, especially after her car was found untouched and no immediate leads emerged. Weeks later, her purse surfaced in a nearby wooded area, and soon after, her raped and murdered body was discovered in a vacant, unlocked unit within the housing project—one supposedly searched by police earlier. The failure of that search drew criticism and led to procedural reforms, while Ruth’s tragic death underscored the urgent need to address the dangerous conditions in the area. Although several suspects were considered, no one was ever charged, and the case eventually went cold. Today, Ruth’s family continues to mourn.

If you have any information about the murder of Ruth Helene Case, please contact the Austin police Department Homicide Tip line at 512-477-3588.

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The Austin American-Statesman was used as a source for this episode.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.
0:08.6	On Tuesday, March 25, 1986, an op-ed ran in Austin, Texas's newspaper encouraging the capital city to demolish the Booker T. Washington Housing Project on the east side.
0:22.7	It had been two years since federal authorities had declared the Booker T. Washington Project
0:27.7	condemned and ordered that residents vacate the premises, but nothing had been done with the structures.
0:35.5	Bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
0:40.9	were said to have promised funding to improve the remaining units deemed livable, though they'd never
0:47.0	come through, either as a result of red tape or the projects themselves simply forgotten about.
0:54.9	About 30% of the housing project was still fit for habitation,
0:59.7	but 51 vacant buildings and 294 apartment units were dilapidated
1:05.2	and potentially dangerous structurally.
1:09.0	On many of the condemned buildings, boards once covering windows and
1:13.4	doorways had been removed, and the condition of them were dangerous for the neighborhood kids
1:18.8	exploring. But it was the crime surrounding the housing that was the primary concern of the
1:24.8	Austin American statesman piece. Overall, crime in Austin had increased
1:30.5	substantially in 1985 over the couple years before, up by about 13 percent, and major crimes were
1:39.0	up around 20 percent. The number of reported rapes had risen a staggering 41%, partially due to the fact that the
1:48.9	crime had undergone a change in how it was legally defined in the state, a long overdue change
1:55.6	that reclassified all sexual assaults as rape. As the result of several social and economic factors, Austin's East Side was also
2:06.4	plagued by drugs, and the abandoned Booker T. Washington housing projects provided big and
2:12.4	small-time dealers alike with ample cover while conducting business.
2:17.9	All of these problems, however, had been long pushed aside, if not forgotten about by
2:23.7	local leaders, until a shocking and abhorrent crime took place in the area, which began
	...

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