Witness refutes previous testimony about trunk

Kim Smith

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 10:57 a.m.

A Boulder City antique dealer told jurors in the Margaret Rudin case this morning that the only "trunk" he sold to an acquaintance in 1994 was 12 inches deep.

Donald Schaupeter told jurors that when he learned the trunk in which Ronald Rudin's body was cremated supposedly came from him he felt obligated to set the record straight.

Schaupeter said he called defense attorney Michael Amador Friday night to tell him that he never sold Bruce Honabach a trunk. Instead, he recalls selling him an antique box that once held ice skates. The box was only 12 inches wide and 18 inches long, he said.

Honabach is the antiques dealer who told jurors weeks ago that he sold Rudin a trunk, and that the lining in it matches pieces of cloth found along with Ronald Rudin's charred remains in January 1995.

Honabach, who said he bought the trunk from Schaupeter, also told jurors Rudin often wished her husband dead.

Schaupeter was allowed to testify this morning after defense attorneys complained the state withheld Schaupeter's testimony from them. They had asked District Judge Joseph Bonaventure to dismiss the case against Rudin, but the judge declined to do so, noting that Schaupeter was found before any real damage had been done.

Rudin's defense team claims that the state knew what Schaupeter would say if he were to take the stand, but he didn't tell them. Such a failure on behalf of the state is enough to get the charges against Rudin dismissed under a U.S. Supreme Court decision, they said.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon said he didn't tell the defense about Schaupeter because Schaupeter told an investigator he had sold $3,500 worth of antiques to Honabach that eventually went to Rudin. He wasn't put on the stand because he couldn't remember if a trunk was among the items, but he said it could have been.

The sale of the antiques to Honabach is incriminating evidence and doesn't have to be given to the defense, Guymon said.

Bonaventure disagreed, saying that it wasn't up to Guymon to decide what is inculpatory or exculpatory evidence. He said it would have been better to err on the side of caution.

Guymon was expected to ask Schaupeter about his inconsistent statements on cross-examination.

Schaupeter said that after talking with investigators he spoke with Honabach by telephone.

"I said, 'Bruce, that little case is too small to put a cadaver in,' " Schaupeter said.

Prosecutors believe Rudin shot her husband to death as he was sleeping on Dec. 18, 1994. Ronald Rudin's decapitated and charred remains were found about a month later by fishermen near Lake Mohave, 45 miles south of Las Vegas.

The prosecution's last rebuttal witness, criminalist Toby Wolson, testified Monday that bloodstains in Ronald Rudin's bedroom appear to have come from "something hitting a blood source in a forceful manner," such as one more gunshots.

Defense attorney Michael Amador attempted to cast doubt on Wolson's testimony. He argued that for one of the bloodstains to have landed as it did, it would have had to fly higher than the ceiling would have allowed.

The defense team believes that if it can convince jurors the murder did not occur in the bedroom, it will have raised enough reasonable doubt to get Rudin acquitted.