Leckie murder case: Supreme Court overturns judge’s ruling to exclude recording Ruud made about daughter’s death

As court cases progress toward trial, they often fall into a delicate dance with the prosecution and defense teams tangoing back and forth with various motions that pull one side or the other to the lead. 

Last week, the dance continued in the case against Theodosia-area resident Rebecca Ruud, who is charged with murdering her 16-year-old daughter Savannah Leckie in 2017 and disposing of her body in a burn pile on her off-the-grid farm in northwestern Ozark County. 

Ruud is currently scheduled to face a Taney County jury at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 18, in the Greene County Courthouse. Circuit Judge Calvin Holden will preside over the trial.

 

A step forward

 This time the advance was made for the prosecution team, consisting of Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney John Garrabrant and Anthony Michael Brown from the Missouri Attorney General’s office. 

The push forward came as a Missouri Supreme Court ruling was issued April 6. According to online records, the Supreme Court sustained a writ of mandamus, which translates to “we command” in Latin, meaning that the court has ordered Circuit Judge Holden to allow an audio recording that he had previously ruled inadmissible as evidence due to his belief that it was privileged conversation between Ruud and her attorney.

Now that the audio recording will presumably be allowed as evidence at trial, it helps the prosecution in two ways. 

The first is that it may help lace together the other evidence in the case, which is mostly circumstantial. 

Law enforcement and other experts have been able to identify bone fragments that were found in a burn pile a few hundred yards from Ruud’s residence as those of a female of small stature. But because the bones were so badly deteriorated in the fire, no one can say definitively that they belonged to Leckie. 

The other effect the Supreme Court’s decision may have is related to the defense’s motion to disqualify the prosecution team due to their knowledge that the recording exists. 

If the recording is admissible as evidence, there is little argument that a new prosecution team is needed. Instead, Garrabrant, who has been working on the case for nearly four years and is very well versed in the facts of the evidence, will likely be allowed to remain in the prosecutor’s seat during trial. 

 

The recording

The recording in question reportedly includes what is believed to be a conversation between Ruud and Missouri Public Defender  investigator Nina Lane. Ruud is said to have secretly taped an interview she had with the investigator sometime between when Leckie was reported missing on July 20, 2017, and Ruud’s arrest  Aug. 21, 2017.

It’s unclear what exactly the conversation reveals, but Ruud’s co-defendant and husband, Robert Peat Jr., allegedly told officials he had listened to part of the recording, and in it, he said, Ruud reportedly admits to some of the allegations against her. 

 

Peat’s inquiry of 

‘proffer of testimony’

Peat’s attorney, James Hayes, a private Springfield-based lawyer who has been contracted to work on behalf of the Missouri Public Defender’s Office, reportedly contacted the prosecution in December 2019.

During that conversation, court documents say, Hayes inquired about the possibility of Peat, who is also charged in the case, offering a “proffer of testimony,” which is generally made as a prelude to cooperation, when a defendant who is under investigation or charged with a crime wants to offer information to law enforcement authorities in exchange for some benefit, such as a dropped or reduced charge or an agreement for a lower sentence. 

In early January of this year, Hayes and Peat met with Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney John Garrabrant and an Ozark County Sheriff’s deputy at the prosecutor’s office in Gainesville where Hayes told Garrabrant that, based on the nature of what Peat intended to disclose, Hayes had an ethical issue to address. He reportedly asked to reschedule the proffer for a later date.

Hayes and Peat returned to the prosecutor’s office on Jan. 24, the documents say. Garrabrant was not present in the room when the proffer was made. Instead, the proffer was video and audio recorded. A copy of those recordings was provided to Ruud’s attorney on Jan. 31.

Former Ozark County Chief Deputy Winston Collins interviewed Peat at the office during the meeting. Peat reportedly told the officer he had recently discovered a digital audio recorder that Ruud had given him before the couple “left to go truck driving,” referring to Ruud and Peat’s plans to leave Ozark County to pursue truck-driving careers just before their arrest in 2017. 

Peat said the recorder was in a box of miscellaneous items Ruud had given Peat to “put up,” and the box was given to him after they were married on Aug. 4, which was the same day officers reportedly found the human remains in a burn pile on Ruud’s farm. Peat reportedly told the officer that the box had remained undisturbed until he found it sometime in November or December last year, two and a half years after Ruud gave it to him.

Peat said he activated the recorder and listened to at least part of a saved recording on the device, and the recording appeared to be part of a conversation between Ruud and an attorney or attorney’s staff member. He said as soon as he discovered the conversation, he immediately contacted his attorney.

 

Surrendering the recorder

Collins asked Peat to surrender the recorder to him, and in the presence of his attorney, Peat gave the device to Collins. It remains in the possession of the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department. 

The documents say it has been determined that the recording is likely a conversation between Ruud and Nina Lane, an investigator with the Missouri Public Defender’s Office in Ava. 

The recorded conversation occurred before the public defender represented Ruud, and the conversation was recorded without Lane’s knowledge or permission, the documents say.

The digital audio recorder has reportedly remained in OCSD possession since it was surrendered and has not been copied to any other medium. No investigative reports, written or oral,  have been prepared regarding its contents, other than what was related by Peat in his proffer. 

No attorney for the prosecution has listened to the record, the court documents say.

 

Background on the case

The case began when Ruud reportedly called the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department on July 20, 2017, to report that her daughter had vanished in the middle of the night. Ruud said she’d seen Savannah when she went to sleep at 11 p.m. July 19, but the girl was gone when Ruud awoke at eight o’clock the next morning.

Savannah had moved in with Ruud in August 2016, about a year before her disappearance. She had spent her first 15 years living in Minnesota with her adopted mother and legal guardian, Tamile Leckie-Montague, before moving to Ruud’s off-the-grid farm in Longrun, near Theodosia. 

Tamile and her then-husband, David Leckie, were reportedly neighbors with Ruud’s mother in Minnesota when Savannah was born. The Leckies were having fertility issues, and they adopted Savannah. Later they also adopted Ruud’s second daughter. 

Tamile has said she and Ruud “co-parented” Savannah through the years, and when Savannah began having issues at home, the family decided it was best for the girl to move to Ozark County to live with Ruud.

In response to the report that Savannah was missing, dozens of first responders, law enforcement officers and volunteers searched the area for several days. One local resident flew over the area in his private plane, trying to find any sign of her.

As the search continued, Ruud and Peat became increasingly uncooperative and questioned officers’ motives, court documents say. 

Peat reportedly told officers that Ruud’s prescription of hydrocodone was missing, and he said Savannah had a history of suicide attempts. In response to that information, officers brought a dog trained to locate cadavers to the property to search for  possible remains.

Then-Ozark County Associate Circuit Judge Cynthia MacPherson issued a search warrant for Ruud’s property for a specific search for Savannah or for human remains. Officers with the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol executed the search warrant Friday, Aug. 4, 2017, and the cadaver dogs were brought back in to aid in the search.

During that search, the dogs alerted to a burn pile in an area away from the primary residence. Officers sifted through the material, which included light-colored ash, and several items that appeared to be bone fragments and teeth were taken into evidence.

Ruud put a post on Facebook saying she was there while the officers executed the search warrant. After an officer told her she was not detained, she reportedly left the property.

It’s unclear when she left, but around 8 p.m. she commented on the post, saying she had left to seek legal assistance and was not home yet. 

A marriage license for Ruud and Peat Jr. filed in Howell County indicates they were married that same day. Although in some instances, “spousal privilege” can protect spouses from being compelled to testify against each other, Missouri Revised Statute 546.260 says that in cases involving “an alleged victim under the age of eighteen, a spouse shall be a competent witness against a defendant spouse….”

Officers showed the collected material to forensic scientists, and all agreed that the items found were consistent with human remains. One expert said the bones had been burned at a very high temperature, and the deterioration of the items was advanced.

The bone fragments were determined to be human, from a female of small stature, around the age Savannah was at the time of her death.

On Sept. 20, 2017, an Ozark County grand jury indicted Ruud and Peat on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence in a felony.

Ozark County Times

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