Medicine Cabinet Killers: The Murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy

Ruthie Mae McCoy

Ruthie Mae McCoy, 52, could often be heard talking to herself and was known to exhibit signs of paranoia. In 1986, a psychiatrist had classified her as a “residual type schizophrenic,” meaning there was ongoing evidence of some schizophrenia symptoms, but Ruthie Mae exhibited no significant behavioral problems.

At approximately 8:45 p.m. on April 22, 1987, she made a frantic, somewhat incoherent 911 call from her apartment in Chicago’s Grace Abbot Homes. She explained that somebody had “throwed the cabinet down” and was attempting to enter her home. The confused dispatcher sent a unit out, but did not flag the call as a home invasion. This may be part of the reason why officers had not yet arrived at 9:02, when a neighbor called 911 to report gunshots from Ruthie Jean’s apartment. At 9:04, yet another 911 call reported gunshots and yelling. Officers arrived at 9:10, but received no answer when they knocked on the door. One requested then that the 911 dispatcher call Ruthie Jean’s phone, which they heard ringing inside. When the key from the leasing office didn’t work in the lock, the officers left at 9:48.

Grace Abbott Homes

The next night, the police returned, but were discouraged from breaking into the apartment by security personnel, who cited liability reasons. The following day, a neighbor contacted the front office to voice her concerns. That afternoon, a Chicago Housing Authority official returned with a carpenter, who drilled through the lock on the door. In the bedroom, they found Ruthie Mae’s body lying face down in a pool of blood. She had been shot four times.

The murder of a mentally-ill Black woman in a crime-ridden housing project naturally attracted little news coverage, initially only being mentioned in Black publication The Defender. The police’s negligence was never investigated, and officials referred to the number of hoax calls they received from the projects as justification for not entering the apartment.

In June, after a second suspect was indicted, the Chicago Tribune confirmed that Ruthie Mae’s murderers had come in through the medicine cabinet. This was not news to the residents of Abbott Homes, who had known about bathroom break-ins for at least a year. Some had even begun placing couches and other objects in front of their bathroom doors before going to bed. Gang members who used vacant apartments also saw it as a method of quick escape from security and police. The intended purpose of these passages was to allow plumbers to easily access pipes.

If this sounds familiar, there’s a reason.

Elements of the crime appear in Bernard Rose’s modern horror classic, 1992’s Candyman. The film is an adaption of “The Forbidden,” a short story from Clive Barker’s Books of Blood (1987) and makes several changes to the source material. The story’s location was changed from a Liverpool estate house to Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, which was located not far from Abbott Homes. The movie’s protagonist learns that Candyman’s first known victim was a woman named Ruthie Jean, who was murdered by an intruder who came through the medicine cabinet. Ruthie Jean had also not been taken seriously after a frantic 911 call. In addition, her neighbor is a woman named Anne Marie McCoy.

The titular character, brought to life via an iconic performance by Tony Todd, was almost completely reworked. Barker’s Candyman was white, while the film version was a Black artist who was commissioned to paint a white man’s daughter sometime after the Civil War. He is unnamed in Candyman, but is retroactively given the name Daniel Robitaille in the sequel, Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh. The artist and his subject ended up falling in love, and the woman’s father sent a lynch mob after him. They attacked Robitaille and cut off his right hand with a rusted blade, before covering him in honey and leaving him to be stung to death by bees from a nearby apiary.

According to legend, his vengeful spirit is summoned when a person says his name in a mirror five times. After the fifth time, he will come through and murder them with the hook that he shoved into the stump of his severed hand.

How these similarities made their way into the movie is unclear. Journalist Steve Bogira, who wrote three articles on Ruthie Mae’s murder, recalls a meeting with actor John Malkovich in 1990. Malkovich saw a movie in Bogira’s first story “They Came In Through the Medicine Cabinet,” however, Bogira voiced discomfort with Malkovich’s idea that the lead be a white woman. He says that he heard nothing further from the actor until he saw the movie years later. In the film, the lead is indeed a white woman, played by Virginia Madsen.

Bogira suggests that Malkovich’s idea eventually made it to Hollywood ears, who might have thought the medicine cabinet aspect would lend their movie some authenticity. Rose contends that he had pitched the idea in 1990, before traveling to Chicago to do research. While there, he says he ran across Bogira’s follow-up to his 1987 article and decided that the medicine cabinet killer aspect needed to be incorporated into his film.

As far as the real story goes, Edward Turner, 19, and John Hondras, 25, were eventually arrested for killing Ruthie Mae. One possible motive may have been her recent approval for Social Security. She received a retroactive payment of $1,979 and made some modest purchases that may not have gone unnoticed.

After multiple delays, the men went on trial in 1990 for murder, home invasion, armed robbery, armed violence, and residential burglary. Due to the passage of time and lack of police follow-through, evidence was lacking. The prosecution's case hinged on the testimony of witness Tim Brown, who may himself have been involved in the crime. Brown changed his story on the stand, claiming that he had only implicated the defendants under pressure from police. Hondras and Turner maintained their innocence and were acquitted on all charges. Vernita, Ruthie Mae’s daughter, sued the CHA in 1988, but I was unable to find the outcome. Together, both narratives illustrate systemic failures and social inequality, and both highlight the often grim realities of life in the projects, where the real boogeymen often live right next door.

As of 2023, Ruthie Mae McCoy’s murder remains unsolved.

Further info:

chicagoreader.com/news-politics/they-came-in-through-the-bathroom-mirror/

chicagoreader.com/news-politics/cause-of-death/

chicagoreader.com/blogs/how-a-story-about-the-horrors-of-housing-projects-became-part-of-a-horror-movie/

Mr. Ballen Podcast: The Terrifying True Story That Inspired Candyman: youtube.com/watch?v=W5ivmpG_J4c