Lawyer Arrested 42 Years After Mysterious Fatal Collision with New Bride | Donnie Rudd Case Analysis

oh this is Dr Grande today's question is can I analyze the case of Donnie rutt just a reminder I'm not diagnosing about this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon I'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video first I'll look at the background of this case move to the timeline of the crime then offer my analysis Donnie Rudd was born in Winnie Texas in 1942 this is a small town about an hour east of Houston he studied chemical engineering at Texas A M University Donnie married a woman named Luanne and they moved to the Chicago area they would go on to have four children Donnie earned a law degree and worked as a patent attorney at Quaker Oats he also became a member of a local school board this is where he met a woman named Diane Hart she was the president of the school board and married to a man named John Diane really liked Donnie he made her feel special in 1971 she told her husband John that she wanted a divorce Diane wanted to be with Donnie instead Donnie told his wife Luanne the same thing he was no longer interested in remaining married in a strange twist John and Luanne became romantically involved so the two couples switched partners both divorces finalized in August 1972. John and Luanne married each other but Donnie and Diane did not 31 year old Donnie had met a 19 year old woman named Noreen kameta at Quaker Oats she worked there as a librarian Donnie told Diane that he was going to marry Noreen Diane was devastated she had blown up her marriage for nothing Donnie and Noreen married on August 18 1973 they lived in Hoffman Estates which is a suburb of Chicago despite Dani being married to someone else Diane did not give up hope she continued talking to Donnie believing that his new marriage would run off the road and somehow their pass would once again collide now moving to the timeline of the crime on September 14 1973 Donnie and Noreen were driving back to their home after visiting her mother when their 1972 Pinto station wagon ended up in a field in Barrington Hills this is just a few miles from Hoffman Estates at about 11 30 PM an officer with the Barrington Hills Police Department responded to a report of a single vehicle collision on Route 63 which is now route 68. this was a seldom traveled two-lane road with no street lights the officer found Donny's Pinto resting against bushes a barbed wire fence and small trees in a grassy area off the shoulder the vehicle was 65 feet off the road and had no damage to it other than minor scratches Donnie was in the passenger seat of the vehicle his wife Noreen was lying across the front seats with her head on his lap there was blood on the passenger door and on the side of the passenger seat but no blood on the ground outside the vehicle the officer who was first on the scene and other officers who arrived afterward removed Noreen from the vehicle and started performing CPR they noticed that her head was bleeding profusely and she had no dirt or grass on her clothing Donnie was not injured at all here is the story that Donnie provided to the police he said that as he and Maureen were making their way home another vehicle crossed into his Lane he honked his horn and turned on his high beams but the vehicle did not divert from a collision course Donnie drove off the road to avoid the other vehicle as his car was going down an embankment the passenger door opened and Noreen was ejected she hit her head on a rock which had blood and hair on it as a consequence the police were never able to find this mysterious rock with blood and hair on it he eventually exited the pinto and moved Noreen back into his vehicle which explains why she was there when the police arrived Noreen was transported to a hospital about 10 miles away where she was pronounced dead an emergency room physician said that Noreen's neck was broken but he did not have x-rays taken Noreen's death was ruled an accident a few days later Noreen was buried in her wedding dress at a cemetery in Dundee Township on the night of Noreen's funeral Donnie stayed with Diane Hart they had now reunited they were once again a couple it sounds like Donnie was ready to move on from the tragedy Dani eventually collected 120 thousand dollars in life insurance in May 1974 Donnie married Diane this was Donny's third marriage he continued working as a lawyer and became interested in condominium law he hosted his own cable TV show on the topic Donnie called himself Mr condo and even had a vanity plate on his vehicle bearing the same name Donnie represented several homeowner associations many of his clients started to complain about him Donnie had a habit of satisfying our complaints by making up a story about winning a big settlement on their behalf his clients would get even more upset when Dani never turned over any money there was no money because there was no big settlement in 1988 Nani filed for bankruptcy but he continued practicing as a lawyer one of Donnie's clients was a 59 year old woman named Loretta batke she threatened to file a complaint about Donnie but she never had the chance on April 4 1991 Loretta was shot four times in the head in her townhouse in Arlington Heights she did not survive her husband found her on the kitchen floor and notified the police here's what they found during their investigation Tony had dropped off a 9 300 check to Loretta the night before but that check was missing the police found pieces of what looked like a torn up check in the townhouse at 3 20 PM neighbors heard loud noises that could have been gunshots at 3 30 PM a neighbor had spotted a vehicle driving away from the area the license plate read Mr condo the police questioned Donnie about the murder he told the police that Loretta was his client and they had met earlier that day but he didn't kill her a grand jury failed to indict Donnie for Loretta's murder he was the only suspect and the case was never solved it looks like Mr condo got away with executing a permanent eviction by 1994 Donnie had accumulated an impressive number of complaints about his law practice he agreed to accept disparment and moved to Texas in May 1995 his wife Diane was diagnosed with cancer as Diane was dying Dani found a new lover Diane moved back to Illinois in 1996 she longed for Donnie to return to her until she died in June of that year not long after this Donnie married for a fourth time his wife was a mental health clinician in training named Mary Brett the marriage was annulled after Mary discovered that Donnie lied frequently including about how much money he had sometime around 2000 Donnie married for the fifth time his wife was named Emma Leasing they had met on match.com in 2002 a year after filing bankruptcy for a second time Donnie joined a company that conducted biotech research the company was sold in 2009 and Dani retired he divorced the next year Donnie never married again in September 2012 the police in Arlington Heights Illinois reopened the investigation into the murder of Loretta Bakke this is the woman who was shot four times in the head in her kitchen before she could file a complaint against Donnie Rudd looking into this case led the police to become curious about how Donny's second wife Noreen Rudd died they did not believe that it was an accident they obtained a court order to exhume Noreen's body a pathologist found that Noreen had skull injuries that appeared to be caused by a blunt object not from a motor vehicle collision Noreen's death was reclassified as a homicide in December of 2013 the police traveled to Sugarland Texas a suburb of Houston to confront Donnie Rudd they caught up with him outside of a grocery store Donnie voluntarily went to the police station to be interviewed but he wasn't very forthcoming he answered many questions by saying that he didn't know or didn't remember about two years later on December 17 2015 73 year old Donnie Rudd was arrested and charged with Noreen's murder he was released to unbail about 10 months later Donnie's trial started on June 26 2018. on July 2 he was convicted a first degree murder on September 13 Donnie was sentenced to 75 to 150 years in prison four years and one day later on September 14 2022 Donnie Rudd died in prison at the age of 80. this was 49 years to the day after he murdered his second wife Noreen Rudd now moving to my analysis up until the day he died Donnie Rudd maintained his innocence some people believe the case against him was weak they believe he was prosecuted because he was a con artist and because he was a suspect in the death of Loretta batke this brings me to the question was Donnie actually guilty let's take a look at the evidence both for and against the idea that Donnie Rudd was guilty of murder starting with the inculpatory factors Noreen died mysteriously after being married for less than a month the story that Donnie gave to the police was full of inconsistencies why would Dani have moved Noreen's body after the alleged Collision where was this mysterious rock that Noreen supposedly struck after being ejected from the vehicle why wasn't there any blood on the ground or dirt on Noreen's body how did she fly out of a vehicle that had gently rolled down an embankment why wasn't Donnie injured an autopsy would later show that Noreen's neck was not broken rather she died from head injuries on both sides of her head it was clear that she had been struck with a blunt object Dania was the only person with her when she was killed Donnie collected 120 000 in life insurance after Noreen's death this was in 1973 the 2023 equivalent is 822 thousand dollars in his job as a patent attorney Donnie earned 18 700 a year which means he obtained 6.4 years worth of salary by collecting the life insurance policies it seems quite odd that Noreen had such a large amount of Life Insurance the company she worked for Quaker Oats provided a basic life insurance policy that was equal to one year's salary but Noreen also purchased additional policies she paid three dollars and ninety cents a month for these policies which comes out to forty six dollars and eighty cents a year her salary was only forty eight hundred dollars a year this means she was paying almost one percent of her salary for insurance that she did not need Irene had no dependents and a husband who made almost four times as much money she acquired these additional policies after getting married very few employees selected the additional coverage Donnie falsely told the police that just about every employee had the coverage Donnie spent the night of Noreen's funeral with Diane this hardly seems like the behavior of a distraught husband when Donnie was interviewed by the police in 2013 he told them that he couldn't remember if he had struck his wife in the head before she died Donnie had a long history of being deceptive and manipulative moving to the exculpatory factors the police initially thought that Noreen's death was an accident the investigation into her death was poorly handled Noreen's father died without life insurance and left the family in a challenging position this may explain why she purchased a massive amount of Life Insurance when considering all the evidence in this case do I think that Donnie was guilty yes I believe he was guilty Beyond a reasonable doubt he should have been arrested in 1973. in addition I think it's likely that he murdered Loretta batke moving to the next section here are my thoughts on a few items that stood out to me in this case item number one some people wonder if Diane knew what Donnie was up to it seems strange that she would forgive him for leaving her and marrying Noreen and then marry him right after Noreen died mysteriously I think Diane was gullible had a lack of insight and was extremely desperate in a journal that Diane kept she wrote that if she could have Dani she would be willing to spend eternity burning in hell it sounds like she wanted to make sure that no matter what happened she was always with the devil as she was dying with cancer Donnie left Diane for another woman yet Diane desperately wanted Donnie to come back at the very end of her life she worried about the burning in Hell Forever part but she still couldn't stop thinking about Donnie Diane was completely obsessed with him she just wanted Donnie to show that he cared he had been able to gain total control over Diane with his manipulation tactics item number two Donnie appeared to be both narcissistic and Psychopathic he was grandiose arrogant impulsive manipulative condescending envious possessed superficial charm and had a sense of entitlement he lacked empathy guilt or remorse Donnie lied constantly he was always trying to make himself look more important than he was a few examples of his deceptive statements he was a Vietnam veteran who jumped out of helicopters and won the Medal of Honor he worked for the CIA the character Rambo played by Sylvester Stallone was based on his life he owned a big oil company and the Mysterious and non-existent vehicle that ran him off the road was driven by an assassin Donnie even used the murder of his second wife that he committed to make himself look better when Dani lived with Diane and her children in Illinois he bought a second house right next to his house for her children he didn't want them near his unusual collections for example he had an interest in Taxidermy one of his animals was a mouse with wings on it Donnie frequently tried to escape responsibility by feigning illness including cancer he even showed up at Diane's funeral on crutches and wearing his arm in a sling this type of behavior is very common with con artists now moving to my final item number three Donnie Rudd had a pronounced lack of insight but he was able to leverage what he did understand in order to manipulate others for example he gained many of his law practice clients by making derogatory comments about people who serve on condo boards he said they were second-tier individuals who let power go to their heads essentially he was saying that condo board members were arrogant and grandiose two traits that Donnie personally possessed as far as manipulating women Donnie was charismatic and represented himself as a wealthy Action Hero women described him as spontaneous and exciting they never knew what to expect ironically considering how pronounced Donny's narcissistic traits were his lovers should have known exactly what to expect one could argue that Donny's lovers should have run a background check to avoid ending up being a tenant in his fantasy building Donnie wanted all the amenities of occupancy without leaving a security deposit as far as pro-social traits Dani always had a vacancy because to him all people were just property to be managed those are my thoughts in the case of Donnie Rudd please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 122,785

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Id: AuS-kZiR9IM

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 27 2023