Rudin’s writings reveal strained marriage

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2001 | 11:13 a.m.

Eleven days before police believe she killed her husband, Margaret Rudin mailed an anonymous letter to the children of her husband's suspected lover warning them a "big scandle" was about to erupt.

Using sometimes crude language, Rudin tells the children that the Internal Revenue Service and a local TV station have been sent pornographic pictures of their mother and Ronald Rudin because their trysts occurred on "government taxpayer expense time."

Rudin urges the children to warn their father of the upcoming scandal.

Copies of the letters were released Monday along with excerpts from Rudin's diaries and handwritten notes.

The documents were filed Friday by prosecutors as part of an attempt to convince District Judge Joseph Bonaventure that jurors should know about an attempt by Rudin in February 1988 to shoot Ronald Rudin.

Rudin, 56, is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 26 for the December 1994 death of Ronald Rudin, a real estate developer who left an estate valued at between $6 million and $10 million.

Prosecutors believe Rudin and an unknown accomplice shot Ronald Rudin, 64, to death on Dec. 18, 1994, decapitated him and burned his remains in a trunk in the Lake Mead National Recreational Area.

The diaries and handwritten notes were turned over to authorities last month by a former friend of Rudin's. The notes were written, prosecutors say, as Rudin listened to her husband's conversations after bugging his office.

The notes portray Ronald Rudin as a faithless husband and a moody, duplicitous and manipulative businessman.

They also give insight into the complex relationship he had with his closest business partners.

It is the relationship between the Rudins, however, that prosecutors are focusing on.

In one diary entry, Rudin writes about her attempt to shoot Ronald Rudin after overhearing him trying to arrange a tryst.

"He was asking her how good she was in bed and implying he did not make love enough at home (wonder how she would have reacted if I'd told her the truth -- once or sometimes twice a day is not enough for him ..."

The diary continues, "My heart was pounding so hard I'm surprised it didn't break as he played his macho role to the hilt and then had nerve enough to walk over to me and tell me how I was his purpose for living and how he loved me more than anyone. I said 'Is that right?' Tell me how much you love me again while that woman you were just talking to tells you she is a #9 in bed, and you are degrading me and my love by lying about me."

Nine months later, Rudin details another phone conversation between her husband and the woman.

"He cut her real short and no affection at all in his voice. No flirty tone means she is on her way out, and I'm not surprised, she's not anyone he'd ever be seen with at social places."

Just one month later, however, on Dec. 15, 1994, Rudin overhears her husband and the woman arranging a meeting.

On Dec. 18, 1994, Ronald Rudin disappears.

The next hearing in the Rudin case is scheduled for Jan. 17.