Rundle accused wife of killing his mother

Jen Lawson

Thursday, Jan. 9, 2003 | 9:27 a.m.

Accused killer William Rundle told police that before he beat his wife to death, she had killed his mother by upping her doses of morphine, then arranged for the disposal of the 87-year-old woman's body, according to court documents.

During an interview at a Florida jail with Metro Police homicide detectives in October, the 57-year-old Rundle also described in detail how he struck his wife, Shirley, 63, over the head with a baseball bat after she hit him with a champagne bottle during a fight at their Las Vegas home in August.

In his two-month, cross-country trek to avoid arrest, Rundle told police he pawned his wife's jewelry, attended Seattle Mariners games and visited Mount Rushmore and Disney World, while using the Internet to track the progress of the case against him.

"I was really, really scared. I was. I knew I had made the wrong decision. With everything involved in the situation, uh, I just knew that, you know, I was in a lot of trouble," Rundle said in the taped police interview.

Rundle is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying.

In the interview with police after his arrest, Rundle for the first time gave an explanation as to the whereabouts of his elderly, disabled mother, Willa, who hadn't been seen since 1997.

He said Willa Rundle didn't like Shirley Rundle because of their ethnic differences -- Shirley was Filipino and Willa was of German descent -- and because Shirley might have been jealous of Willa, Rundle said.

Shirley and Willa Rundle, who used a walker, got into "screaming and pushing and shoving" fights, he said.

Rundle said he found his mother dead in her bed on May 4, 1997. Shirley Rundle had been tampering with her mother-in-law's morphine capsules to make them stronger, Rundle told police.

"I had no idea this was working -- I mean happening," Rundle said in the statement. "I confronted her about it, and she was just as callous and cold as could possibly be. And I just, you know, said (whispers) 'We've got to call the police.' "

According to Rundle, his wife begged him not to call police and said she "could take care of everything." He said she got two Filipino men to dispose of Willa Rundle's body, but has no idea where her body ended up.

To explain his mother's absence, Rundle told people his mother was traveling through Europe. Since her death, he had been depositing his mother's Social Security checks into his bank account.

Rundle and his wife had significant money problems, he told police. Neither had a job, and at the time of Shirley's death, they had $18,000 in the bank. Shirley Rundle regularly made costly phone calls to family in the Philippines and she also sent them large sums of money, he said.

Rundle said they planned to move to the Philippines, abandoning their house and possessions -- and their bills.

But he said his wife was angry at her husband for taking her away from her granddaughter, who resides in Las Vegas. He told police she was a very jealous woman, and assumed he was having affairs.

He said she hit him with bottles often and threatened to kill him in his sleep.

The night of her death, Rundle said, she drank a bottle and a half of champagne. During their fight, he said she hit him in the arm with a champagne bottle, breaking his arm.

Rundle kept a "shrine" to his son Richie, who was killed by a drunken driver in 1987. Rundle said he grabbed his son's baseball bat from the glass display case and clubbed her over the head with it.