Monday, May 19, 2003 | 9:24 a.m.
Jurors on Friday heard taped interviews with police detectives in which William Rundle claimed his wife's jealousy and violent temper led to the downward spiral of their 16-year marriage that culminated with her fatal beating.
Prosecutors played a tape of Metro homicide detectives' interrogation of Rundle at the Seminole County (Fla.) Jail. The interview was conducted on Oct. 12, 2002, a day after Rundle surrendered to police in an Orlando, Fla., hotel room.
Jurors were expected to continue listening to tapes during testimony today. In those tapes, prosecutors said, Rundle details for detectives his version of Shirley Rundle's slaying.
During the interview, Rundle described his wife as a jealous woman with a quick temper. He said Shirley would often hit him with bottles, especially after she'd been drinking.
"She was jealous and possessive," he said. "I cared so much for her. I never laid a hand on her."
Rundle said Shirley would often come to the Plaza hotel downtown, where he worked as a security guard, and spy on him to make sure he wasn't cheating on her. He said he was never unfaithful.
Rundle described one incident, in which he said Shirley "created a scene" in the parking lot of the casino.
"She thought I was having an affair with everyone I saw or worked with," he said. "She had a terrible, terrible temper."
Rundle said his wife's compulsive spending also put a strain on their marriage. She was constantly buying things to send to her family members in the Philippines, he said.
"She had every credit card you could possibly have," he said. "Dillard's, J.C. Penney's, Macy's, Sears ... I told her, 'Shirley, we've got to stop spending.' "
Jurors heard the tapes during the testimony of Metro Homicide Detective Sheila Huggins, who flew to Florida after Rundle was arrested.
The FBI had tracked Rundle there after he spent six weeks on the run, making stops in Seattle and Phoenix. When Huggins arrived, Rundle had been placed in a single cell on suicide watch, she said.
Prosecutors claim Rundle bludgeoned his wife to death with a baseball bat in the couple's home on Poppywood Drive, then dumped her body off the side of a remote highway near Susanville, Calif.
He faces first-degree murder and two robbery charges. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Defense attorneys deny that the slaying was premeditated. They claim the attack came in a moment of passion, after Shirley had hit him in the arm with a champagne bottle.
Huggins told jurors she had two goals in mind during her conversation with Rundle.
"First and foremost I wanted to find out where Shirley was," she said. "That was my main concern. I also wanted to know where his mother was and what happened to her."
Rundle didn't hesitate to tell Huggins the latter. He prefaced his comments with, "This next part you're going to find hard to believe, but it's the God's honest truth."
Rundle said Shirley killed his mother, who was ill, by upping her morphine tablets, he said. Rundle found his mother's dead body in bed in March 1997, he said.
"Shirley admitted this to me that she was taking the capsules and putting a lot more in each capsule and putting them back," he said. "I confronted her and she was as calloused as you could possibly be."
Willa Rundle, 82, moved in with the Rundles after moving from Escondido, Calif., in 1996. She went missing in 1997 and her body was never found. Though prosecutors had charged Rundle with her death, a judge dismissed the charge, citing lack of evidence.
Rundle said Shirley had two Filipino men dispose of his mother's body.
"She told me she could take care of everything," he said. "I got back from work and the body was gone. I have no idea what happened to my mother's body."
Rundle said his mother and his wife never got along, and that his mother's death was preceded by a heated argument between the two women.
"(My mother) and Shirley got into a terrible fight," he said. "Screaming and pushing and fighting. It just tore me apart."
Rundle said financial problems also added stress to the marriage.
Shirley often ran up $300 phone bills talking to her relatives in the Philippines and he and Shirley were constantly loaning money to Shirley's grown daughter, Magda Belen, he said.
"I'm a very good-hearted person," he said. "I wanted to help everyone in that family."
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