Reason First: Trunk Murderess Pleaded for Forgiveness

“Doing the nasty” is a misnomer. The act of sex is a physical and spiritual celebration of values and of life itself. The nasty should be reserved for murderers like Winnie Ruth Judd. This “Tiger Woman” brutally murdered two women out of jealousy.

In Phoenix, Arizona Judd married Dr. William Judd. She worked with the doctor at the medical center there. Agnes Le Roi and Hedvig Samuelson became friends with Judd.

During the fall of 1931, Judd showed up tardy to work. She had made arrangements to have two trunks removed and shipped. As she boarded a train bound for Los Angeles, the porters transporting the trunks noticed that some liquid like blood oozed from one of the trunks.

Upon opening the trunks, the gruesome discovery of Samuelson and Le Roi became apparent. Also, a letter detailing a litany of sexual orgies and multiple sexual acts rose to the surface. These acts occurred at the home of Le Roi and Samuelson. With the nudging of her husband, Judd relinquished herself to law enforcement on October 23.

Then, Judd would first be sentenced to death for the murder of Le Roi only. but prominent members of the community appealed to the courts that her life should be spared. So, life in prison became Judd’s fate based on her mental infirmity. Like the tiger that she was, Judd broke free from her cage seven times. In one escape, she stayed on the lam for seven years.

The carceral system then took her back to the prison where she stayed until 1971. Judd perished at the age 93 as a free woman.

The sexuality of this case was high. Three young women at the time of the murders and a male Dr. addicted to morphine, all sought pleasure and relief, respectively. The wanton sexual acts undermined the beauty and morality of sex. The murders demonstrated how nasty Judd was in her savagery. She claims her innocence but has called to the unknown and unknowable begging for forgiveness for what she did. So if she asked for forgiveness, how could she claim her innocence in such a case? What was she apologizing for in this scenario?

Judd may have been a sexual deviant who sought to undermine the act. Her murder case is just the climax of her intention to make sex look ugly. This crime which resulted in the deaths of the two women should be examined from the viewpoint of a criminal who possessed a penchant for demonizing sex.

Her psychiatrists found her to be criminally insane. This may have stemmed from her sexual perversity. As disgusting as her behavior had been, she still maintained that she had not shot the two women in the head in the bed. Judd held her not guilty status for the remainder of her life.

It just seems weird that Judd would have so many escapes, tell so many stories, and have possession of the two pieces of luggage that would damn her. The “Trunk Murderess” could be considered as something of a sex killer. Not only did she murder at least one woman, but Judd tried to distort and destroy the idea of sex. Her lurid letters led her to be locked behind the psychiatric prison walls.

Like a fire of lies that had been extinguished by the cold winds of justice, Judd would soon be on her way to infamy. Throughout the decades some would cry for her innocence. But the evidence is too damning. Where the hell did the trunks come from if she had committed self-defense? Who chops up one body and stuffs the other into another trunk and calls that self-defense?

The sexual tension in this case only served as the basis for the way that sex is viewed. From her letters, it would appear as if the act was barbaric and an exchange of bodily fluids. Winnie Ruth Judd stood as a sex hater who was vicious enough to commit murder.