Case 308: Ruth Finley
Added 2025-02-22 07:42:12 +0000 UTCIn the late 1970s, Wichita secretary Ruth Finley began to receive cryptic letters and chilling threats from a mysterious figure known only as ‘The Poet.’ For years, The Poet tormented Ruth and her husband Ed, leaving them in a constant state of confusion and fear. Despite relentless efforts from the police, The Poet continued to evade detection. But as the investigation unfolded, the truth that emerged left everyone questioning what was real.
Team:
Anonymous Host - narration
Milly Raso - research, writing, creative direction
Mike Migas - production, music
Andrew D.B. Joslyn - music
Comments
Omg sorry!!!! 😭😭🫡 it was such a good episode too. I will not put anymore spoilers in the comments!!!
Katie Melaugh
2025-03-05 19:17:30 +0000 UTCYou know it’s my own fault for opening the comments before I finished the episode 😂
J. Chips
2025-03-05 19:13:21 +0000 UTCGreat episode!! Not once did I suspect she was the one doing it
Katie Melaugh
2025-03-04 15:34:11 +0000 UTCWow, some people really got to live in a much kinder, gentler, more humane and understanding world. That story is wild just from the standpoint of modern comparison... And of course the loose ends. The broken window incident, etc.
Cat Warren
2025-03-04 11:00:25 +0000 UTCI never thought we would have a somewhat happy ending in a casefile episode. Great episode guys
Georgie
2025-03-01 20:13:15 +0000 UTCOr, we as community, could choose to be considerate of others and simply title our comments with "SPOILER". It's really not that hard.
Annie G
2025-03-01 00:51:45 +0000 UTCTruly a fascinating case, very surprised I'd never heard of it before. Great episode!
ally
2025-02-27 20:56:30 +0000 UTCThank *you*!!! You guys continue to be the best 💙
AR
2025-02-26 10:00:48 +0000 UTCWe added a paragraph to make clearer the above points raised. Thank you for your feedback.
Casefile True Crime
2025-02-26 02:51:01 +0000 UTCThis is honestly one of the most uplifting Casefile episodes I've ever heard! Nobody got killed, nobody went to prison. Ruth finally got the mental health care she sorely needed and went on to enjoy the rest of her life happily with her husband. Crazy how all it needed was one unbiased person to review her case without having met her to figure out what was going on. I don't blame the other officers for not noticing it themselves, they were probably too invested and too emotionally connected to Ruth to look at it objectively. Not often I finish a Casefile episode feeling more cheerful than before!
Emma G
2025-02-25 20:44:03 +0000 UTCI think this would be a great discussion for BTF. I definitely heard a disclaimer that repressed memory therapy was discredited but it still plays a part on the story so I get why they discuss it still but maybe it could have been done with more nuance to keep reminding us it's been discredited?
Demi
2025-02-25 18:36:26 +0000 UTCPro: the police took a case of stalking seriously and took actions to protect the individual Con: there was no stalker...
Demi
2025-02-25 18:33:45 +0000 UTCOh that's probably what happened with the wreath/glass shattering, I hadn't considered that but I'm sure you're right. It reminds me so much of Liz Golyar scheduling texts to send to her phone and Dave's at the same time, so they'd both be in the same room together when they got them. Absolutely next level duplicity.
AR
2025-02-25 16:44:29 +0000 UTCI wondered about Ed with the window thing too… The glass broke when the fire from the burning wreath got too hot against it, so maybe it’s theoretically possible that Ruth went up and started the fire, and then the glass broke once she was back downstairs…? If Ed was really clueless, he sure had to endure a lot of unnecessary stress with his heart condition.
Miri Dean
2025-02-25 07:20:55 +0000 UTCCrazy case, really well crafted episode! Are we assuming now that the initial branding episode was similarly self-inflicted? I just heard an episode on another podcast where police called BS on someone’s story after they claimed to have been rendered unconscious overnight with chloroform. I was confused when I heard the same claim being made here, but had no other reason to doubt the branding story until much later in the episode. It’s just mind boggling to consider that Ruth caused herself so much physical pain, between the branding and the stabbing.
Miri Dean
2025-02-25 07:16:53 +0000 UTCSeek help
Patrick
2025-02-24 23:19:26 +0000 UTCTherapy just makes manipulative assholes like Ruth better at lying.
Megan
2025-02-24 19:46:33 +0000 UTCReally enjoyed this one, great work guys. So good to have you back!
Ali
2025-02-24 18:33:17 +0000 UTCThought the 'twist' was pretty obvious but a very well told story nonetheless.
Iain Strachan
2025-02-24 18:29:10 +0000 UTCThat was a beautiful story.
May Yang
2025-02-24 08:58:17 +0000 UTCI accidentally read the top comment shown to me which revealed the outcome of the case within a few keywords. It was hard to avoid.
Courtney Mackey
2025-02-24 08:57:20 +0000 UTCSo it was Ms Ruth who left piss and shit at her own front door 🙃
Parrots Liz
2025-02-24 08:46:55 +0000 UTCAlso - the real victim here is Ed. He was terrorised by the poet for years… he slept with a gun, had to drive his wife to the hospital because she had been stabbed, had the phone lines cut in Xmas Eve like… poor Ed
Parrots Liz
2025-02-24 08:45:19 +0000 UTCI think it was probably embarrassing for the people who did the profiles of the poet.
Parrots Liz
2025-02-24 08:40:53 +0000 UTCWhy?
Parrots Liz
2025-02-24 08:36:18 +0000 UTCDid Ruth place the call ‘from the hospital’ saying a man came in looking for her? Police went to the hospital after a nurse said she thought the man may have been ‘Ruth’s assailant’, but he was gone when they arrived.
Parrots Liz
2025-02-24 08:35:00 +0000 UTCDon’t read the comments until after you listen to it if that’s an issue
Magz
2025-02-24 04:27:01 +0000 UTCHoly. Sh*t. OMG. What an episode!!!!!!! You all are amazing.
Katy Turley
2025-02-24 04:20:31 +0000 UTCInteresting how people here believe their personal opinion about someone they've never met and who they've only heard about for an hour somehow overrides the opinion of professionals who have spent so much time with her.
Bob Trenwith
2025-02-24 00:33:41 +0000 UTCI also don't know how anyone believed anything she said ever again. A man tied her up? Maybe she's a compulsive liar. The end.
Ally Jakubicka
2025-02-23 20:59:09 +0000 UTCI said the same thing to my partner. Many people go through severely traumatic events but they don’t resort to creating a fictitious criminal that harasses them and their family for years on end. This was definitely an attention seeking stunt. She was clever enough to deceive professionals the entire time during the ordeal, so she was surely clever enough to continue deceiving them with bizarre and unscientific reasons as to why she did what she did. I don’t have anything against Casefile for telling these kinds of stories, they often leave similar stories up to the listeners interpretation as the “accepted” version of events. I think they know most of their listeners will be skeptical to these kinds of things. Cindy James is another similar story they’ve covered.
Courtney Mackey
2025-02-23 10:20:59 +0000 UTCCan I just ask fellow listeners to please title their comments with SPOILER warnings to avoid giving away the contents of the episode? Thanks 🩷
Courtney Mackey
2025-02-23 09:42:59 +0000 UTCBut maybe also a lesson to him that he needed to be more involved in the cases.
Renae Bartlett
2025-02-23 04:48:49 +0000 UTCI mean, this is a version of Munchausens or factitious disorder except using the threats & police as the outlet for validation rather than illness & trips to the hospital. Having worked with my fair share of mothers who suffered factitious disorder imposed on another (or Munchausens by Proxy), I’m not sure they are overly conscious of what they actually do in order to keep the narrative that perpetuates the validation. And I would say the findings about Ruth ware contemporary for the period in time when this took place: as you said, “repressed memories” were all the rage in to 1980-90s so a lot of the writing from people who actually observed Ruth (rather than the armchair experts who saw the materials at a later point) would be reflective of the best thinking/understanding available during that period of time. Fascinating upside regardless…
Sian kennedy
2025-02-23 04:23:22 +0000 UTCIncredible episode!
Susan Dixon
2025-02-22 23:48:37 +0000 UTCyeah Bob, you-- wait, what were we talking about? I asked my other personality to listen in but they weren't paying attention either
Suicide Sauce
2025-02-22 22:40:10 +0000 UTCI think it only crosses their mind when I start thirstposting about Anonymous Host. How you goin sweetheart
Suicide Sauce
2025-02-22 22:37:40 +0000 UTCI am a person who suffered a great deal of abuse as both a child and a dependent adult, and I know more than a few people whose trauma has manifested into "headmates," i.e. different voices or personalities that come forward or fade back at times. My username is Suicidesauce, for chrissake, I know what all of this is like, I know what trauma is like, I know what feeling like there are different people inside of you is like. But if I had multiple personalities and one of them was someone who wrote frankly awful poetry I would definitely not go on the news about it. I was listening with my head in my hands like "oh god, PLEASE learn to paint"
Suicide Sauce
2025-02-22 22:36:40 +0000 UTCI picked it in the first 20 mins. Was driving home with my wife and we were listening and I said, “it’s always when she’s alone, I bet I know where it’s going”.
Zac
2025-02-22 22:08:11 +0000 UTCThere is no reverence for the science. They don't stop the story to point out that lie detectors are bunk, either. You're just upset that the straight-laced, objective presentation of events didn't lecture the audience to say things you agree with. You want them to plant the notion that everything Ruth says after the reveal was a lie instead of trusting the audience to come to their own conclusions about a woman who was already lying for most of the story.
Jean Pierre Linares
2025-02-22 21:51:27 +0000 UTCHi team, ever think about switching off the comments ???
Caroline O'Dea
2025-02-22 21:47:35 +0000 UTCNo it is not fiction. ALL sources refer to gaps in memory when personalities switch. Your 'understanding' is wrong.
Bob Trenwith
2025-02-22 21:23:47 +0000 UTCCakefiles pending, this was a standout telling of the story. At one point im like, why we reading this sickos poems so much? Then the twist. It felt like all the stylistic choices in narration fell into place at that point. Great work to the writer, and our eternal Narrator.
Patrick Gadoury
2025-02-22 19:42:03 +0000 UTCWhat a brave woman! Thanks for relating this story.
MG
2025-02-22 18:38:50 +0000 UTCI think the main thing from the psychoanalysis here is the master signifier of ‘cry baby’ and her embodiment of an unwanted child. She wanted recognition for her cries! Likely the rest of the childhood abuse is factitious.
Rosie Overell
2025-02-22 18:35:20 +0000 UTCMan I was really not expecting this to take the turn that it did. I was certain for a while that this woman was the victim of an ongoing harassment by actual people. When the twist came though… I was shocked.
Ndm3
2025-02-22 15:47:50 +0000 UTCIf you reread my comment you'll see i addressed dissociative identity separately from repressed memory pseudoscience and explicitly said that DID is real. But a "split personality" causing someone to lose their memory or blackout--my understanding is that that's a product of fiction and that in reality DID doesn't cause that. People with systems know what the system is doing.
AR
2025-02-22 14:37:49 +0000 UTCYou guys ever think about changing the name to Cakefile and discuss all things cakes instead.
Green Thumb
2025-02-22 13:56:17 +0000 UTCThe fact that the chief detective basically solved the years-long investigation after spending a weekend studying the file though. Oof this must have been a tough day at work for the detectives.
TheodoraTheExplorer
2025-02-22 13:54:16 +0000 UTCDissociative disorders are not pseudo-science. Yes, they made the mistake of referring to 'repressed memories', but that is not what they were actually describing.
Bob Trenwith
2025-02-22 13:25:18 +0000 UTCMilly is the writer on this and usually does a decent job threading the needle between sympathy for a subject who's undergone trauma and any related morally grey issues. Hopefully they have time to do a bit more research and editing for this one?
AR
2025-02-22 13:11:16 +0000 UTCPseudoscience is pseudoscience, Bob. Made-up scientific techniques don't automatically undermine the patients' experiences, but they necessarily call them into question. See also "Michelle Remembers" and a whole litany of repressed memory hysteria that fed into Satanic Panic throughout the 80s. Comparing skepticism about this to being a flat-earther is wildly inverse to reality.
AR
2025-02-22 13:04:53 +0000 UTCIt's so easy for people who've never experienced these issues to deny their existence. Kind of like people who believe in a flat earth because they've only ever experienced their immediate surroundings.
Bob Trenwith
2025-02-22 12:38:24 +0000 UTCWhichever is or isn't I'm truly grateful that casefile still continues there mouthwatering stories.. Keep it up guys
Amanda Perkin
2025-02-22 12:23:45 +0000 UTCThank you so much for saying all this. It epically infuriates me when podcasts share not just incorrect psychological information, but diagnoses that have been debunked for years already, ruled as junk science. It's such a disservice to...listeners, patrons, victims...everyone! In particular, I cringe when thinking about how many lay people hear this bs, and they have no reason to question it, I mean, why would they? They have full trust in, and believe these podcasters have done their due diligence and researched it all...so why would they think twice about it? I mean, a quick Google search by the writers and/or "researchers" would have given them all the answers they need to make an informed decision to NOT present that crap as fact. And yes, while DID is real, it is very rare, and scarcely diagnosed without many hours of evidentiary behaviour. I’m practically speechless that the writers/researchers for Casefile couldn't be bothered to do even a minimal amount of research about repressed memories and DID. I've always trusted the integrity of Casefile's team, and I'm as disturbed as you seem to be as well. For me, this kind of fractures my confidence in Casefile – should I be concerned, going forward, about their integrity? Their loyalty to their principles? Am I being hyperbolic? I don't think I am....but I'm open to discussion on it.
Jaye Leppky
2025-02-22 12:19:44 +0000 UTCCasefile - do you have an error at the 57 minute mark? You said "a few weeks earlier in mid-September 1980", but you had just been talking about 1981.
Bob Trenwith
2025-02-22 12:00:49 +0000 UTCWhat an oddly sad story.
David Byers
2025-02-22 11:48:08 +0000 UTCAhh you guys know I am among your biggest fans, but it's WILD and honestly unlike Casefile to treat the junk psychology in this episode with such reverence? It's not even a debate at this point that repressed memories aren't real, and the fad of psychologists "uncovering" them in the 80s did far more harm than good. The possibility that Ruth just swapped one self-indulgent, grandiose form of attention-seeking for another via the drama of making up trauma for a shrink eager to profit from her notoriety really should be part of the framing of this case, imo. By the same token, "split personalities" in the sense they seem to be portrayed here are well established as not being real either; dissociative identity certainly is real, but it doesn't lead to the kind of memory blackouts and lack of awareness that Ruth and her doctors claimed. I'm not sure how the new documentary handled all this, but I'm really surprised you guys just presented all this debunked outdated 80s pseudoscience without any contextualization or critique. And of course none of that precludes her trauma being real and her healing through therapy being real! I'm just saying it's really irresponsible to present this therapeutic method as legitimate when it's profoundly illegitimate. Maybe you are trusting us to fill in these gaps and be skeptical of Ruth and her claims of abuse, but i didn't get that sense from the last third of this at all. All that said, this was scary and dark and mildly depressing, and if all the incidents are true, then there's no way Ed didn't know about this because they were *both* downstairs when their window got smashed that one time. So either he just nodded along while she made up the details of this one false incident, or he must have been creating the incidents with her. I kept waiting for you guys to come back to this moment! A mystery. Hmmm. Hmmmmm.
AR
2025-02-22 11:22:08 +0000 UTCWOW, what a ride, thanks for this one. 💚
Niki Walkey
2025-02-22 11:18:28 +0000 UTC
