This article appeared in the Bloomington, IL Pantagraph on June 8, 1976. Shown on the left is Ruth L. Martin, whose remains have never been found.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY, June 2, 1976, 51-year-old Lincoln realtor RUTH LOUISE MARTIN failed to show up for work. Somewhere between nine and ten o’clock that morning, Ron Craig, a neighbor of the Martin’s, walked outside and heard the sound of car tires squealing. He observed a Pontiac that looked just like Dick’s and Ruth’s (Martin) accelerate rapidly and turn north onto Route 66. In his mind, he thought the car was not being driven like either Dick or Ruth would have driven it.
Somewhere around the same time frame that Ron Craig had spotted the Martin vehicle, another person reported seeing a brown Pontiac Catalina, like the Martin’s, driving down Nicholson Road directly across from the Martin’s subdivision on the other side of Route 66.
Because Ruth hadn’t shown up for work at Albert Bros. realty in Lincoln, a friend and co-worker of Ruth’s drove to the Martin residence to investigate at around 10:15 AM. When the co-worker peered into the glass panels of the overhead garage door, she noticed the rear door to the garage was open, and she could see a portion of the Martin’s backyard through it. A few hours later, she returned with another co-worker around noon; at that time, the rear garage door was found closed. The front door of the Martin residence was unlocked, so the co-workers went inside to look around. From what they discovered, it appeared Ruth had been smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee and doing the morning crossword puzzle. Because a substantial length of Ruth’s cigarette remained in the ashtray, and it had just burned out, it appeared that something had interrupted Ruth while she was seated at the kitchen table.
Later in the day, blood and additional evidence was found in the Martin garage, and Ruth and her Pontiac Catalina were still missing. The blood found in the garage had been spread out over a larger area, approximately 36-inches long X 18-inches wide, and had obviously been done by someone who’d attempted to wipe up the blood. A bicycle had been placed over the bloodstain to conceal it from view.
Two days later, on June 4th, the Martin’s Pontiac Catalina was discovered 30 miles north in the parking lot of the Bloomington, IL Holiday Inn. Blood was detected on its rear bumper, but when the trunk lid was opened, Ruth was not to be found. Based on the substantial amount of blood on the trunk mat and also on the Martin’s garage floor, which was all the same blood type as Ruth’s, it was clear she’d been abducted, probably mortally wounded and was presumed dead. At some point, her car had been driven off the beaten path because a layer of dirt was found on its exterior perimeter panels midway up, a twig was found jammed into the driver’s side door around the inside hinge area, and a cocklebur was found on the driver’s side floorboard.
On June the 8th, a Lincoln family fishing in Kickapoo Creek Park, located a short distance from the Martin home right off old Route 66, found a white, partially burned T-shirt lying on a sandbar in the creek. The family was startled because the shirt appeared to have a lot of blood on it. Having read the news articles in the previous days pertaining to Ruth’s mysterious disappearance, they phoned the Lincoln Police Department and reported having found the bloody T-shirt.
LPD Sgt. Ron Robbins went to Kickapoo Creek Park and collected the T-shirt in addition to other evidence found lying around the area with the shirt. Sgt. “Robbins stated that at the time the T-shirt was shown to him, it appeared the fire had been burned specifically for the purpose of burning the T-shirt.” Robbins collected all evidence and put it into paper sacks and transported it to the Lincoln City Hall, where the LPD was also housed in 1976. “Later these items were turned over to [LPD] Det. [William] Krueger.”
LPD Detective Tom Maurer wrote the report on the T-shirt, item of evidence #23, and both the report and the shirt were submitted to the Illinois State Crime Lab on June 10, ’76. An “Evidence Receipt” reveals the T-shirt (along with other evidence in the Martin case) was “Returned” on “7/1/76” and “W. A. Krueger” signed off for those items of evidence. Now, years later, former Detective Krueger has repeatedly made false claims relating to the T-shirt, and he also maintains the T-shirt was never returned by the State Crime lab.
Interestingly, THIS CRITICAL ITEM #23 IS THE ONLY MARTIN CASE EVIDENCE THAT’S MISSING from the LPD/Logan County Safety Complex, and Krueger and the LPD have not accounted for its disappearance.
At the time Ruth vanished, she was scheduled to testify against defendant Russell Smrekar, a 21-year-old expelled Lincoln College student, who was also a known thief and resident of Joliet, IL. The trial in which Ruth was to be a witness involved the shoplifting of two rib-eye steaks from Lincoln’s Kroger grocery store by Smrekar. Ruth disappeared six (6) days before she was to testify. To this day, she’s never been found.
On October 9, ’76, Jay Fry, the produce manager at Kroger who’d witnessed Smrekar steal the steaks, and his pregnant wife, Robin, both 24, were shotgunned to death in their home. No one could understand why Jay and Robin had been murdered, but then State’s Attorney Roger Thompson phoned the Lincoln Police Department the morning of October 10th to inform that both Ruth Martin and Jay Fry had been witnesses to the Kroger shoplifting involving Russell Albin Smrekar. Interestingly, Michael Mansfield, a Lincoln College honor student and acquaintance of Smrekar, had also been scheduled to testify against Smrekar in a Lincoln College dorm room burglary case, but he, too, had disappeared six (6) days before he was to testify. At the time of the Fry murders, Mansfield had not been found, and he remains missing to this date, 2016, 40 YEARS LATER.
Russell Smrekar was arrested for the Fry double homicide on October 18, ’76 at the Logan County Courthouse. He was later convicted of the Fry murders in February of 1977.
In October of 2011, Smrekar reportedly died at Menard Penitentiary, but before expiring he’d made an alleged “deathbed confession” to killing Mansfield and Martin.
I, Bonnie Thompson, author of “Buried Truth Trilogy,” corresponded with Russell Smrekar in 2007 while he was still incarcerated at Menard. Smrekar wrote the following: “Everybody likes a good ‘Whodonnit’ [sic], and reality is that they are and will remain unto eternity – ‘unsolved.’ . . . There is no constitutional right to be free from police suspicion. My strategy in hindsight is, inaction difuses [sic] any reaction (&) . . . why tamper with success.”
The Lincoln Police Department claimed Smrekar allegedly admitted to burying Ruth Martin’s body under I-55 which was under construction at the time of her disappearance. Smrekar was a pathological liar who enjoyed leading people, including the police, on wild goose chases. What Smrekar vowed, in his 2007 letter, revealed he was never, “unto eternity,” going to admit to murdering Mansfield and Martin. If Smrekar did admit to these murders, I-55 can never be excavated to look for Martin’s remains, and Smrekar apparently did not reveal what he did with Mansfield. There’s no doubt Smrekar was involved in these murders, but monumental information and evidence supports that others, more than likely, assisted him. These possible accomplices remain at large today.
Ruth Martin was dearly loved by her family and friends of Logan County and elsewhere. She deserves the same recognition and justice as any past or present citizen of Logan County. Russell Smrekar’s death and the passage of 40 years should not excuse conducting official reinvestigation into Martin’s murder. The possible accomplices should be investigated and interrogated, DNA testing of applicable existing evidence should be performed, and the Lincoln Police Department and William Krueger should be investigated by outside agencies with respect to the MISSING T-SHIRT EVIDENCE. Ongoing silence speaks volumes and should not be accepted.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION on this web site calling for official reinvestigation of the Mansfield and Martin cold cases and the Schneider triple homicide. DO THE RIGHT THING.
Thank you,
Bonnie J. Thompson (Copyright 2013, 2016)
