Help me understand the motivation for Maricopa to investigate Adolph Ruth.

[Steve Jenkins]

One of the things that has drawn me into the Adolph Ruth Mystery is trying to understand the motivation for the level of involvement regarding Maricopa’s in both the search for him and the investigation that followed.

If one stays with the accepted and uncontroversal facts, at least as I understand them, Ruth was last seen alive in Pinal County. His first and perhaps last base camp is also in Pinal County. His head was eventually discovered in Pinal County. The remainder of his remains were discovered in Pinal County.

The search by Adams and Barkley for Ruth was done on behalf of Maricopa and it was a serious effort that went on for weeks, much longer than an elderly man out in that area in June and on his own was likely to be still alive. They used two individuals who were highly qualified that were likely to have had better things to do than search for the bones of a missing elderly out of towner.

I realize pressure was being applied by the Ruth family but this could have easily been sidestepped with the reasonable claim that we have no jurisdiction. “Call Pinal, here is the number.”

Keep in mind that this was well into the Great Depression and resources were even more limited than usual and they are always limited. Time, energy, and money spent on someone else’s problem reduces those same resources for situations that are indisputably within your domain.

The same argument could be said for the investigation after the search was over. It seems like an awful lot of time and energy were spent questioning persons of interest and requestioning them over a period of time. This does not fit with something they considered to be a simple case of a death by natural causes conclusion and that goes double if they had no reasonable grounds for jurisdiction.

For the record I believe this department was very professional and as thorough as they could be, given the circumstances involved.

There were several easy way outs for them and the Maricopa Sheriff’s office did not take any of them. For example no jurisdiction, call Pinal or natural causes case closed. Another out they did not take which often happens in high profile cases is to pin the tail on the donkey. Find a suspect that looks reasonable and nobody will complain about. There was huge potential for such things in this case and the fact that that did not happen speaks volumes for the professionalism of those in charge.

Comments and questions?

Steve

 

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[wrmickel1]

Steve

Ruth's known camp was at the edge of the county line I would say Jurisdiction did play a big part in the search.

Babymick1

 

[Steve Jenkins]

Thank you for your input.

I have heard things that hint at the possibility that the two counties were working together to some degree.

Maricopa seemed to be well in the lead in terms of effort involved but they seemed to be both involved.

Maricopa put together an all star duo in my opinion in terms of the search. I don’t know how they could have found two men that had more combined knowledge of the area and the skills needed to search it than Barkley and Adams. I remember seeing something somewhere that the Pinal County Sheriff expressed that he felt they were the men for the job.

It did not hurt to know that good men were involved in the search and the responsibility for the success or failure would lie on someone else’s shoulders.

Money was tight and I am sure this type of responsibility had more potential for negatives than positives.

Having said all this it still seems like on the surface at least it should have been Pinal Counties ball.

A member just replied in my other thread with an article about a jurisdictional dispute between the two counties in regards to an attempt to claim the skull for physical review.

I wonder how much was really in dispute as by this time it would seem Maricopa had attempted to gain custody of the skull from Washington DC apparently without success.

Perhaps this was another attempt and there was less dispute than the article implied.

So far a I have not found evidence that Pinal Counties attempt to gain physical custody of Ruth’s skull was either successful or a failure.

That is another detail that would be helpful.

I suspect not because Maricopa had a forensic pathologist review the skull damage decades later and he was working from photos.

 

[markmar]

As Matthew wrote in his Ruth thread , because the skull was sent for examination to a doctor who was not a Maricopa coroner , after that , the skull couldn't been considered an evidence in the Ruth's death search .

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Thank you for your input.

I have heard things that hint at the possibility that the two counties were working together to some degree.

Maricopa seemed to be well in the lead in terms of effort involved but they seemed to be both involved.

Maricopa put together an all star duo in my opinion in terms of the search. I don’t know how they could have found two men that had more combined knowledge of the area and the skills needed to search it than Barkley and Adams. I remember seeing something somewhere that the Pinal County Sheriff expressed that he felt they were the men for the job.

It did not hurt to know that good men were involved in the search and the responsibility for the success or failure would lie on someone else’s shoulders.

Money was tight and I am sure this type of responsibility had more potential for negatives than positives.

Having said all this it still seems like on the surface at least it should have been Pinal Counties ball.

A member just replied in my other thread with an article about a jurisdictional dispute between the two counties in regards to an attempt to claim the skull for physical review.

I wonder how much was really in dispute as by this time it would seem Maricopa had attempted to gain custody of the skull from Washington DC apparently without success.

Perhaps this was another attempt and there was less dispute than the article implied.

So far a I have not found evidence that Pinal Counties attempt to gain physical custody of Ruth’s skull was either successful or a failure.

That is another detail that would be helpful.

I suspect not because Maricopa had a forensic pathologist review the skull damage decades later and he was working from photos.

Steve, there was political influence on this investigation as well...I think that could be one reason why Pinal APPEARS to have made moves to continue the investigation after Maricopa wrapped it up...I would encourage you to look at chapter 10 (including the footnotes in the back of the book) of Dr. Glover's "Treasure Tales of the Superstitions"...as far as the article I posted about "jurisdictional disputes" between Maricopa and Pinal, the date is interesting...it's many days AFTER Maricopa had sent Ruth's effects home, the county attorney had declined to investigate further, and the death cert in Maricopa had been filed...

The article is interesting, but if anything ever came of it, I haven't seen it...

 

[Steve Jenkins]

Thanks Jim. I ordered that book along with two others of his this afternoon, that one and his other book which is apparently in two parts.