Trials and Tribulations
Katherine Rutan is tried for first-degree murder in the death of her son
Editor's Note: This is Part Four of a six-part series.
The prosecutor steeled himself for the case of his career. A little boy presumed dead. A mother charged with first-degree murder. A homicide without a body as evidence.
Chris Ross, fresh off recognition as the outstanding assistant district attorney in the state, taught prosecutors how to successfully try murder cases in which the victim’s body was never found.
In late August 2007, because of his expertise,
the state called on Ross to prosecute Katherine Rutan in the death of her 6-year-old son, Logan Tucker.
Ross used years of investigative information given to him by Monty Clem, the sheriff's office lead investigator on the case. He also made use of leads tracked down by Butch Hutchens,
an investigator with the Woodward County District Attorney’s Office who took over the investigation when Clem died before the trial started.
Authorities in Woodward County waited more than three years to arrest Katherine because they were afraid that, without producing Logan's body as evidence, a jury might acquit her.
“They were in a position where they wanted to keep looking for the body until they were absolutely sure they couldn’t find it as opposed to trying her and not convicting her,” Ross said. “It was the fear, and the unfamiliarity of prosecuting a murder with no body.”
Under the law, he had to prove there was a death of a child under 18, that the death was caused by willful or malicious injury or use of unreasonable force and that the defendant caused the death.
For the jury of seven men and five women, Ross cobbled together a macabre tale of a mother murdering her son one early summer morning, driving his corpse around northwest Oklahoma with his living brother seated next to him, and looking for a place to bury the cold, pale body.
‘There’s no body’
Katherine’s courtappointed defense attorneys successfully moved the trial to Alva, 65 miles northeast of Woodward, where they argued that media coverage made it impossible for their client to receive a fair hearing.
On Aug. 22, 2007, more than five years after Logan vanished from his Texas Avenue home in Woodward, Judge Ray Linder called the court to order.
Katherine, now a 32-year-old woman who had drifted from town to town, and in and out of relationships, quietly sat before the jury in a white business suit and blue floral blouse, with a string of white pearls laced around her neck.
Ross, with his brown hair cropped close, a neatly trimmed goatee and a southeastern Oklahoma twang, methodically delivered an hourlong opening statement that chronicled Katherine’s turbulent life, and Logan’s haunting disappearance.
“In the early morning hours of June 23rd, 2002, he was breathing his last breaths of life,” Ross told the rapt jury.
“And the reason he was doing so, quite simply, is because he was in the way of the defendant's desire to live a different lifestyle. And this desire was not something fleeting or momentary. The evidence will show that as far back as 1999, she had made comments to people regarding her dislike of, her not wanting to have children, and to have them interfere with the lifestyle she wanted to live.”
Ross talked about the tape, candle wax, hair and a spot of blood found in the basement on Texas Avenue in Woodward. The blood and hair were Logan’s, Ross said.
He talked about interviews with Justin, who said he saw Logan with tape on his eyes. And, his mother took his brother and a shovel to a field and came back with only a shovel.
All of it added up to murder, Ross said.
Ross, along with A.J. Laubhan, assistant district attorney for Woodward County, squared off against Larry Jordan and co-counsel Gerald Weis, Katherine’s attorneys from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System.
During his half-hour opening statement, Jordan said Ross had nothing on Katherine. The evidence showed Logan was only missing. Katherine was innocent.
"There's no body,” Jordan said. "There's no grave.”
‘It sounded like Logan’
On day two of the trial, Ross shocked members of the jury by showing them photographs of Katherine smiling and dancing topless at the motorcycle rally, just days after Logan disappeared.
That day, Ross called 15 witnesses to the stand. Each piece of testimony colored Katherine’s life with strife, obsession and lies.
There was Paul Mullins. He testified of a night in 1999, when he was living with Katherine and her sons in Kansas City, Missouri, and he returned home from work.
"Logan had large, purple and blue bruises — deep contusions — all up and down his buttocks and upper thighs,” Paul recalled. "He had been beaten and beaten severely . ... She had accused me of beating Logan. That's when I knew our relationship was over.”
Richard Cody testified of that horrifying night in bed, saying Katherine told him, "I wish I could kill my children and get away with it.”
Lacie Lennington, the daughter of Melody Lennington, Katherine's roommate, recalled the strange conversation she had with Logan’s brother Justin during a visit to the Texas Avenue house in Woodward on June 23, 2002.
"Logan won't be coming home anymore,” she recalled Logan’s brother Justin telling her.
Ross asked Lacie if Katherine showed any sadness. “No,” Lacie said. "Any tears?” Ross asked.
"Nope.”
Melody told of the scream she said she heard around 3 a.m. on June 23, 2002.
"It sounded like Logan,” she said.
‘Whiter than all of us’
As the trial wore on, the jury listened to an investigator with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation testify that Logan’s blood DNA was on the wad of tape found in the basement on Texas Avenue. Between 100 and 200 small hairs were found on the tape. The investigator said Logan’s DNA was on the hairs.
The jury also heard a parade of witnesses recall conflicting stories Katherine told about Logan’s whereabouts.
In early July 2002, just weeks after Logan disappeared, Katherine told Jaime Adams, a former co-worker at a Woodward fast-food restaurant, that she had "one son — a 4-year-old.”
Several witnesses recounted that Katherine told them Logan was with DHS. Others recalled that she asked them to lie to her adoptive parents, and to authorities, about Logan’s whereabouts.
To authorities, Katherine claimed her brother, Brian Marquardt, drove from his Pennsylvania home to Oklahoma, picked up Logan and took him on a camping trip.
However, investigators discovered that on June 23, 2002, the day Logan went missing, Marquardt checked out of a Maryland hotel on a business trip.
At the end of his testimony, Marquardt said of Katherine: “I just want to see her get hanged.”
Logan’s little brother, Justin, also testified. He was 9 years old at the time of the trial. Justin told jurors when he was 4 years old, he saw his mother carry Logan into a house. Logan wasn’t moving, Justin testified. Katherine returned alone, and they drove away, Justin said.
Ross showed the jury videotaped interviews from 2002, when Justin was 4. He colored pictures and shaped Play-Doh while investigators asked him questions about his family, and where Logan was.
As she watched her youngest son on video, Katherine sometimes smiled, or else wiped tears away with a tissue.
Ross called dozens of witnesses, including DHS workers who said in 2002 Justin directed them to rural locations around Woodward where he said his mother took him and Logan around the time of Logan's disappearance.
"I asked, 'Why this place?' And Justin answered that this was the place where they stopped to dig flowers,” Linda Semmel said. "He said, ‘This is where my mom went through the fence to the grassy area.'”
Semmel testified that they also drove by Michael Pettey's house in Fort Supply, where Justin said his mother retrieved a shovel and plastic, as well as another location where DHS worker Christie Castor testified that as they stopped the car, Justin became scared.
FBI Special Agent Ron Parrish testified that during one interview, he asked Justin why his mother needed plastic and a shovel, to which the boy replied, "to bury Logan.”
Parrish also testified that on the day Justin said his mother took Logan away, Justin said his brother’s skin was "white — whiter than all of us.”
The verdict
Katherine didn't mount much of a defense.
Her court-appointed defense attorney, Larry Jordan, submitted letters from a Woodward couple who claimed to see Logan around the time of his disappearance. He called three witnesses to testify that, they too, had seen Logan.
Otherwise, Jordan offered no alternative explanation for what happened to Logan.
On Aug. 31, 2007, Katherine sat silently in court as Jordan delivered his closing argument on her behalf.
He tried to poke holes in the state’s case, saying investigators badgered Logan’s little brother, Justin, into saying Katherine buried him somewhere.
What about Katherine dancing topless at a biker rally less than a week after Logan disappeared?
“Does it prove she killed him?” Jordan asked the jury. “It proves she got in a contest and exhibited her body. That's what it proves. She smiled. She smiled. For a moment in time, she was happy. Does that prove anything? I don't think so, but I don't know. It's certainly not against the law to be happy.”
Sure, Katherine lied, Jordan told the jury. But that didn’t prove she murdered her son. Ross had nothing but a patchwork of anecdotes, Jordan said.
“The state has presented a whole lot of information, fancy gimmicks, and I don't have any of those,” he told the jury. “The reality of what we're dealing with is stories. And that's the long and short of it . ... I don't care how high you pile manure, it's still manure . ... Bad interviews. Bad investigative techniques. Bad case. Bad case.”
In his closing argument, Ross told the jury Katherine chose the affection of men over the love of her son. He said it wasn’t the state’s burden to prove a burial and find a grave.
That topless dancing at a biker rally, days after her son vanished?
“It wouldn't be any different if she had been, you know, at the old folks home dance,” Ross said. “I don't care. If she's laughing and having a good time five days after her son's disappeared forever and she's involved in it, that speaks volumes, and not about bad judgment.”
Had he convinced the jury that Katherine was the last person to see her son alive? That 6-yearold Logan died sometime between 3 a.m. and noon on June 23, 2002? That the candle wax on Katherine's shirt was the same as that found in the basement where she put Logan that morning? That the tape supposedly on his eyes was the same tape also found in the basement?
Did Katherine drive her dead son’s body around the northwest Oklahoma countryside, with his 4-year-old brother, Justin, sitting next to him, searching for a place to bury the boy? Might Logan be buried at the bottom of a landfill?
At 3:31 p.m. on Aug. 31, 2007, jurors retired to deliberate.
It took them just over two hours to return a verdict: guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her son, Logan Tucker.
Authorities shackled Katherine, had her change into an inmate jumpsuit and moved her to the Woodward County jail.
On Oct. 9, 2007, the judge sentenced Katherine to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
‘She’s one of ‘em’
Katherine’s conviction was a signature victory for Ross, but one he doesn’t celebrate. Logan’s body was never found. Ross lost his friend, Monty Clem. He’s left wondering what happened to Justin.
All because of a woman who wanted to be unbound by motherhood.
“I was a prosecutor for 34 years . ... I would say less than 20 people I have met that I thought were actually evil. And she’s one of ’em.”
On several occasions, Ross started to write a book about the case. It was to be a tribute to his friend.
“Monty is the hero of the case,” Ross said. “He did such a good investigation. Put it together.”
It would be more than a decade before the public heard from Katherine again. The Oklahoman contacted her at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud.
Would Katherine maintain her innocence? Or after all these years, would she admit to what a jury of her peers convicted her of?
At 1 p.m. on June 6, 2018, The Oklahoman received a phone call from prison. Inmate No. 564646’s voice was pleasant. Cheerful, even.
“Well, hello,” Katherine said. Sunday: Call me Katie