Ruth Carter (King of Diamonds, Ohio)

The woman whose friends called Mama Ruth, or Miss Ruthie, was only 50 when she was found

gunned down in her home on the northwest side of Dayton.

Despite several people pointing to a single man as the likely culprit, her case didn't

see resolution, not in 1999, not in the decades that followed.

But maybe that changes today, with you.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.

December in Dayton, Ohio, is always cold, and December 13, 1999, was no exception.

But even at 10 p.m., 32-year-old Jack Bousman was braving the chilly weather to make his

way to the home of his good friend, Ruth Carter.

Jack had just gotten off of work, and although 10 p.m. might be a little late for some, Jack,

Ruth, and a lot of their friends were night owls, so he wasn't worried about showing up

that late.

Plus, Ruth had something she wanted him to take care of.

was a mouse in her room, he wanted him to come over and get it.

He told her he had to go to work at 2, couldn't make it, but he would come back when he got

off work at 10 p.m.

today.

He told our reporter that Jack arrived shortly after 10 and let himself in the locked front

door with a key that Ruth had given him.

When he entered, he was met with relative silence.

Normally, the TV would be blaring and Ruth would call out to him when he walked in, but

Tonight, all that could be heard was the soft chatter of the TV upstairs.

As he made his way inside, Jack spotted something else out of the ordinary.

Ruth's purse was sitting on the floor by the stairs leading up to the second floor,

and this really stuck out to him because she normally kept her purse in her bedroom, never

downstairs, just out in the open.

Now I'm not sure what he felt in that moment, maybe confusion or worry.

Maybe he tried to brush the growing list of oddities away as he made his way up the stairs

to figure out what was going on, but it didn't take long to find Ruth.

The 50-year-old woman was lying on the floor of her bedroom in a pool of blood, wearing

a dark blue, almost black t-shirt dress with her hands clasped above her.

In that moment, Jack couldn't tell exactly what had happened, just that she was cold

and still.

he didn't try to move her.

He called her mother, then ran out.

And the pair raced back to her home.

Once they arrived, Victor checked her pulse, but he didn't feel anything.

And this time, they tried to do CPR, and Jack called 911.

But once police and paramedics arrived, they quickly realized there was nothing they could

do.

Although Jack and Victor hadn't realized how Ruth had died, officials at the scene

put two and two together when they noticed a shell casing on the floor near Ruth's body.

This was a homicide.

So they needed to work to figure out what exactly happened here.

In Ruth's bedroom, they found a small spatter of blood on the wall where her feet were pointing,

in addition to the large pool under her head.

There was also a .380 caliber shell casing, along with 15 grams of cocaine, all found

in her bedroom.

In another room, they found $2 in cash with what appeared to be cocaine residue on them.

It turns out Ruth was known to deal drugs, and she allowed her acquaintances to sell

out of her apartment, too.

This meant there was a pretty regular revolving door of people coming in and out of her home.

So other things that they collected, like cigarettes from an ashtray, might not have

meant anything in terms of evidence, but they still collected them anyway.

Now of all the things that were collected, it was what they didn't find that was most

telling, like a gun or her wallet, which they knew she had.

So signs were pointing toward a robbery, either for money or the drugs that she was selling,

maybe both.

To find the who of all of it, they turned to Jack, the guy who found Ruth and the person

they would come to learn probably knew her best.

Jack relayed how he'd found Ruth's body and elaborated on how he and Ms. Ruthie had

been good friends for years.

He was over at her place a lot, either hanging out or doing odd jobs for her.

He'd actually been over there earlier that morning at like 4 a.m., doing just that, hanging

a cabinet and wrapping Christmas presents.

Victor backed up Jack's story and added that when he had been over earlier that morning,

he noticed that one of Ms. Ruthie's purses had actually been laying on a table, but that

wasn't there anymore.

Now, I'm not clear on if that was the purse that was found on the floor or by the stairs,

but knowing how Ruth always kept her purses upstairs, it felt like a detail worth mentioning.

He also told detectives that although Ruth lived alone, she'd been married to a man

that they hadn't seen in a while.

But it doesn't seem like Victor necessarily suspected the ex, and spoiler alert, police

look into the ex and he isn't listed as a suspect.

But when he and Jack were asked who they thought could have killed Ruth, they both had the

same answer.

Without missing a beat, both men gave the name Damon Flippin.

She thought that Flippin had stolen some things from her, and she didn't want him back in

the house.

to get a gun to protect herself.

But neither of them knew if she'd actually done that yet.

Know who did know, though?

Ruth's sister.

Detectives spoke with her later that same day, and she told them that she'd recently

seen a gun at Ruth's place, one that Ruth told her was a 9mm.

But if that was true, it meant that her killer took off with it.

Or it meant that her sister was just mistaken.

No one else investigators spoke to could confirm that she'd purchased a gun.

Not even her son, Lamar, who helped fill in some of the important details about who had

access to Ruth's home.

he knew would have a key to her residence, because you've got to remember, the door's

not broken down or anything, so, I mean, she let them in.

That was kind of where the investigation was leading.

Did somebody with a key get in, or how many people have keys, or did she, as is the case,

let her killer in?

He was at work at the time, and wanted to know if it would be OK for him to come over

and do some laundry later on.

And he did.

He went over at about 3 p.m. that day, knocked on the door, but no one answered.

He's just estimating the time, because, again, there was nothing to really say, I'm going

to mark this time down, so I came over and knocked on the door, but he said everything

seemed OK.

his mom a few times to check in, but she never answered or called back.

Detectives believe that she was likely already deceased at that point, a fact that the coroner

later confirmed.

Based on the state of her body, it's believed that her time of death was in the early afternoon.

They also determined that the single gunshot to the back of her head that killed her came

from pretty close range.

Not point-blank range, but likely within a few feet.

Although she'd only been found wearing a t-shirt dress, there doesn't appear to be signs of

any kind of sexual assault.

At least, it's not mentioned in any of the reports that I've read.

And even though they took fingernail clippings and swabs of everything they could, they didn't

test them right away.

Since this was back in 1999, DNA testing wasn't as readily available as it is today.

What was prioritized was getting the spent shell casings off for ballistics testing,

and then entering those results into NIBIN.

And wouldn't you know it?

When they did that, they got a hit.

And all roads led back to Damon Flippin.

It turned out that the gun that had been used to kill Ruth had also been used in a shootout

on March 25, 1999, almost nine months before her murder.

One person who was injured in that incident was none other than Damon Flippin.

Here's retired Detective Dud Roderick, who's working alongside Burke on this case.

guns recovered, but two .380 shell casings were recovered.

He gave a very vague description of a young Black man named Leonard.

But that was about it.

And so the case just fizzled.

And really, it wasn't even clear if he'd been shot with the .380, or if he had been the

one using it.

But Detective Roderick says that he has a strong feeling he knows who had it.

I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense the other way, unless he's lying about Leonard.

With such a vague description of Leonard, it's totally possible that Leonard didn't

exist, and Damon was making up a name to keep police off his trail.

How he got shot with his own gun is beyond me, but like Roderick said, not a whole lot

else makes sense.

Either way, once that Niben hit came back, he wasn't just linked to Ruth through word

of mouth.

He was forensically linked to her as well.

So detectives tracked him down and finally brought him in for an interview.

But he did not want to talk.

Not about Ruth.

Not about his shooting.

Nothing.

And with no way to prove that he shot Ruth, or even a way to prove he owned a .380, they

had to let him go.

Even despite the fact that they had a report come in saying that a man matching Damon's

description was seen walking around Dayton on the day of Ruth's murder with a .380

handgun.

Slowly over the coming months, her case began to grow cold.

Damon was still suspect number one, but he remained uncooperative.

It was one of those frustrating cases where investigators just needed one more piece of

the puzzle to tie it all together.

Fingerprints, proof, maybe Damon owned a .380, an eyewitness putting him at the scene of

the crime when it happened, anything, but there was none of that.

And that could have been where Ruth's story ended, had another homicide, with eerie similarities

not occurred almost a year later.

On November 18th, 2000, a man named Jerron Ball, who went by Buck, was murdered in his

home in Dayton, less than a mile from Ruth's home.

Shell casings were recovered at the scene, and when ballistics came back, it turned out

that he had been killed with the same gun that had killed Ruth.

But unlike Ruth's homicide, I'm not sure if there was anyone who could point to a potential

suspect.

It would stand to reason that Damon Flippen was likely considered, and I'm sure the

similarities of them both being shot in the back of the head wasn't lost on investigators

either.

But the information that we have about the investigation into his homicide is murky,

which is so frustrating.

I mean, they had two homicides, plus a non-fatal shooting, that all involved the same gun,

and that gun was likely in the possession of the man numerous witnesses said may have

wanted to hurt Ruth.

I mean, it feels like there's a there there, right?

But it just wasn't that simple.

So years began to pass.

2000 turned into 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, but then finally something popped in 2005.

That's when a young man that we've been asked to call Dave came forward and told police

that he knew who killed Ruth Carter.

And it wasn't Damon Flippen.

Now at first, it seems like the officer he originally spoke to didn't take him very

seriously.

can cause some concern, but that's not uncommon either for someone.

You're given a lot of information about a lot of people that are murderers of just going

somewhere where you're a little safer.

murder, they realized there might have been more to his story than they first thought.

So homicide investigators brought him in for an interview.

He claimed that two people he knew were responsible for Ruth's death.

Two young men that we're going to call Mike and Tony.

And he says that a third man, Justin Turner, supplied the gun, which he described as being

a .32, not a .380.

But that piece wasn't too concerning to investigators because a .32 is actually the

same size as a .380.

So it's easy to mistake one for the other.

They were in and out of prisons.

He believes Tony was in for drugs.

He's not sure what Mike was in for, but they all have been released.

He says that Tony actually shot Ruth Carter and that Mike was there and that Justin Turner

had provided the gun.

Buck with that same gun.

But he says the gun wasn't around anymore.

After Buck's murder, it was thrown into a river that runs through Island Metro Park

on the north side of downtown Dayton.

When asked why they'd killed Ruth, Dave said it was all for drugs.

They all bought from her and Mike and Tony thought that she had a large stash, large

enough that they were willing to kill for it.

He told detectives that Ruth didn't end up having the drugs that Mike and Tony wanted.

In fact, all they could find was 500 bucks, which they split evenly between them.

Dave also mentioned that Ruth's homicide really impacted Tony specifically, so much

so that he'd even walked in once on Tony trying to take his own life.

But he hadn't and he was still alive, as was Mike.

The thing is, back then, no one ran with this, likely because Dave had admitted himself to

that psychiatric facility.

Now, it's not a big deal to the current detectives today, but back then, it was a

big deal.

And so no one ever spoke to Tony or Mike about Ruth or Buck's murders.

They don't seem to have even searched the river for the gun.

They also weren't interviewed when Justin Turner, the man Dave said supplied Mike and

Tony with the weapon that killed Ruth, was murdered himself nearly a year later in 2006

with a 9mm, which if you remember, is the same type of gun that may or may not have

been taken from Ruth's home.

But again, even then, nothing happened.

Justin's case went cold and Ruth and Buck's just got colder.

By 2008, in an effort to drum up something, those fingernail clippings and swabs from

Ruth's autopsy were finally tested, along with cigarettes found in the ashtray.

And they did yield some interesting results.

He says that because this wasn't an up-close-and-personal crime, it's possible Ruth died without ever

making contact with her killer.

But the cigarettes came back with three profiles, too.

And they think that might mean something.

Now the profiles from the cigarettes don't match the unknown male DNA from her fingernails.

They don't know what that means just yet, if anything.

But they do think it's important to find the people who have the same DNA profiles

as the ones found on the cigarettes.

Because that at least puts those people in her home.

They submitted all the DNA to CODIS, but that was another dead end.

Maybe if they ever got Mike or Tony's DNA for comparison, it could at least prove that

they were in her apartment around the time she was killed.

But if what Dave said back in 2005 was true, I mean, they all bought drugs from Ruth anyway,

so them being in her home wasn't exactly proof of her murder.

And speaking of Dave, in 2008, he wanted to talk again.

Dayton investigators were contacted by police in Zinnia, Ohio, roughly 20 minutes away.

Zinnia said they had Dave there on a domestic violence charge, and he wanted to give them

information on a few murders, hopefully to help him out of the DV case.

Ruth's case was one of them.

And this time, he gave them a lot more to work with.

look down.

They said, there's the mouse.

So when she looked down, Tony shot her in the back of the head.

She took a breath and then fell down.

Dave, he said it was on the news that they found her.

He adds then that the money they got, again, he'd already said $500, he's been consistent,

was in a black pouch that they took from her.

reason Jack said he'd gone over to Ruth to begin with, to get the mouse.

Only someone who knew her or had talked to her close to the time of her death would have

known that.

It also struck investigators how similar his 2008 statement was compared to the one he

gave in 2005.

I mean, sure, some details were a little different, but the core of his story never changed.

He just elaborated on the details.

He also spoke in more detail on the motive.

house.

And so they were hoping that the big dope boys had given her a lot of dope to sell.

So they were hoping for more than what they got.

But there were a number of reasons to go there that night.

He added in 2008 that Miss Ruthie got her drugs from the same guys that they went to

all the time.

So, I mean, they're all intertwined in the drug world.

Well, he says that the day Ruth was killed, he and his cousin, who he wouldn't name,

were sitting on the stairs at their house smoking when suddenly Mike and Tony burst

through the door.

They didn't seem to realize that Dave and his cousin were there and they were talking

about Ruth's murder and how they had taken the $500 and a small amount of weed from her.

In that moment, Dave said he didn't really know what to think.

But later, they saw that Ruth's homicide had made the local news and then he realized

that they had been serious.

So you'd think that this would push investigators to actually bring Mike and Tony in for an

interview, right?

Wrong.

Apparently, Dave's previous admittance to that psychiatric facility was still giving

people pause in 2008, same as it did in 2005.

And the same thing happened when he came forward in 2010 again, with pretty much the same story.

Although this time, he did name that cousin he was on the stairs with.

We're going to call that cousin Sam.

And this time around, Dave didn't just have information on Ruth's murder.

He told them how Buck's murder happened, too.

that he wanted for it, Sam thought was outrageous to have to pay.

So they tricked him into a deal and Tony went into the bathroom and came out.

It was at that point, Sam said, look out the window, I think the police are coming.

And Sam said, when he looked out the window, he shot him and they ran out with the dough

and a little bit of money and two bags of weed.

So it's the same gun and it's the same M.O. of getting their attention diverted to something

else so their back is exposed and they can shoot him in the back and kill him and take

what they want and leave.

Now, Justin had been in prison and had gotten out shortly before his death.

And according to Dave, it was Tony and Mike who'd killed him, possibly so he wouldn't

tell anyone that they had been responsible for Ruth's death.

Now, like I said earlier, Justin had been killed with a nine millimeter, and even though

that's a common caliber, Detective Burke thinks that he knows where they got it.

I know it's a it's a far stretch, but he's incremental and involved in all three of these

others in one way or another on the outside or the inside and a nine millimeters taken

from Carter's homicide.

According to Dave, you've got these three guys, Mike, Tony and then his cousin, Sam.

Dave claimed that Mike was involved in the murders of Ruth Carter in 1999 and Justin

Turner in 2006.

Tony was involved in Ruth Carter's murder, Justin Turner's murder and Buck Ball's murder

in 2000. And then there's Sam, who Dave said was involved in only Buck's homicide.

They all sell drugs, including Miss Ruthie.

It's what she was known as, Ruth Carter, who's 60.

The 380 casings match Carter, Ball and Flippen.

The only one that wasn't killed by the 380 is Justin Turner.

He's killed with a nine millimeter.

And there was a nine millimeter taken in the Ruth Carter homicide.

Don't know if it's the same because we never had it before and we don't have it now.

Mike, Tony and Sam weren't brought in for interviews.

Neither the 380 nor the nine millimeter were found.

And there wasn't even a search for them.

They all went on to serve sentences for other charges.

Tony's actually still incarcerated on an aggravated robbery charge from 2015, which

brought up kind of an interesting point for me.

Since aggravated robbery is a felony, his DNA should be in CODIS, I would hope, which

means that they should be able to compare his DNA to the sample from under Ruth's

fingernails and the ones on the cigarettes.

But retired detectives Burke and Roderick told our reporter that it's not always that

cut and dry. Yes, they should have his DNA.

But holdups in the system or just a lack of due diligence might mean that it's still

not in the system.

It's something that they want to double check just to be sure.

But until they do, Ruth's murder and Buck's and Justin's all remain unsolved.

And how Damon Flippen's shooting fits into all of this is still a bit of a mystery on

its own as well.

They don't think Damon killed Ruth, but maybe if they knew more about his shooting,

it would help.

Burke and Roderick have plans to re-interview Dane and to finally bring Tony and Mike

in for interviews.

They also want to compare those DNA samples to the guys in question, just in case any

of them match. Additionally, they're hopeful that the attention the deck can bring to

Ruth's case might help them put together the final few pieces of this puzzle.

together or linked together by anything.

I guarantee you that's never been made public knowledge until now.

But I think it's beneficial in trying to solve it.

mentioned, Jerron Buckball or Justin Turner, please call the Dayton Police Department

cold case unit at 937-333-7109.

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