Seymour Many spoke of a very different Ruth Cruger than the one her father had revealed to the press. Seymour said that Ruth had a fight with her papa a couple of days before she vanished. There was a boy, Seymour said. Someone her father wouldn’t let call on her. A Columbia man.
Apparently, Ruth had met this person one Sunday while skating at Van Cortlandt Park. Or was it a party at NYU? Seymour couldn’t remember. Anyway, they exchanged numbers and calls and smiles. They made plans to meet again. On Sunday, February 11, Seymour said that Ruth called her new Columbia friend. She broke the news that he couldn’t call on her at her home because her father had forbidden it. Ruth was furious, Seymour said. Her father said that the reason was because he didn’t know anything about the young man. Seymour said that Ruth’s father required that a common acquaintance introduce this boy to him. Ruth was very upset. All that studying and time at home caring for her sister had taken its toll on her. Ruth wrote Seymour and asked him to tell the Columbia man to ignore her father and to come anyway.
Seymour admitted that he had read the letter, but he claimed that he tore it up before relating its contents to its intended reader. Dooling asked why. Seymour said that he destroyed it, realizing that Ruth had been excited when she wrote it. Dooling asked Seymour to reconstruct the letter from memory, which he did.
“What day was it written?” asked Dooling.
“The Sunday before she disappeared,” Seymour said.
The district attorney asked the name of this Columbia man.
“Richard Butler,” said Seymour.
*
The next day, Richard Butler sat down across from the district attorney and a small group of detectives. Dooling eyed Butler, noting that he was athletic and handsome. Butler slid a paper across the table toward him.
The paper was titled “Alibi Schedule.”
The neatly handwritten note revealed Butler’s activities in precise detail—in fifteen-minute increments—on the day Ruth Cruger vanished. Dooling quickly looked the paper over and immediately saw two places where Butler’s schedule placed him close to Ruth’s route. According to the schedule, Butler was at a store near 127th and Manhattan Avenue, where a man took a girl matching Ruth’s description into a cab. Butler admitted being two blocks away.
As Dooling stared him down, Butler recited the relevant details of his short life. He lived at West 116th Street and was a sophomore at Columbia in the School of Mines. When asked if he knew Miss Cruger, Butler said that he indeed called on her the day she disappeared. Butler said that he set up the appointment with her by phone a few days before Ruth disappeared, on February 7. A few days later, Butler got a letter from Seymour Many telling him that Ruth’s father had forbidden her to see him but that he should go anyway. This contradicted what Many had said earlier. Dooling made a note of it.
Butler then slipped his hand into his coat and produced two neatly folded letters exchanged between him and Seymour Many. One was an original; the other was a reconstruction from memory. Dooling stared across at the young man in all of his perfect brightness. Dooling, who would not reveal the contents of these letters to the press, sent them over to be tested by ink and pen experts.
Butler otherwise corroborated Many’s version of events, saying that Ruth’s father had strongly objected to Butler’s visiting their home. Butler explained that Mr. Cruger was very cautious and that he was averse to having strangers around his daughter unless he received a formal introduction from a mutual acquaintance. Ruth was apparently mortified at her father’s impossible request.
Butler told Dooling that he actually only met Miss Cruger twice in his life. The first time was in November, at the Columbia versus NYU football game. Ruth was there with Many. The second time was weeks later on a subway platform at 116th Street and Broadway. Ruth was bundled tight against the cold and talking with her friends when Butler caught her eye and she smiled. This also differed from Many’s version; when pressed, he didn’t seem too sure of some of the details himself.
Butler also said that Many had told him that, according to Ruth, he had passed her once or twice on the street near her home without recognizing her.
She didn’t like that, said Butler.
The detectives then asked Butler about the cab and if he had a gray-belted overcoat. Butler said that he did have an overcoat like that, but he couldn’t remember if he was wearing it on that particular day. That coat is “getting rather shabby,” he said, laughing.
“Why did you call her up?” asked Detective Cuniffe, one of Dooling’s aides.
“She looked good to me,” admitted Butler. “Now don’t misunderstand me; I mean she was good to look at—a pretty girl.”
Butler said that they had a skating appointment on the day Ruth disappeared, but it had also been broken by letter days before. After Butler left, the district attorney told the newspapers that the handsome young man had “made a very favorable impression,” though he knew there were some discrepancies. The papers also verified with the Crugers that Ruth’s meeting with Butler had been canceled because of her father’s objections, but it was said that Ruth had not shown any bitterness at the time.
The next day, the district attorney summoned several other Columbia and NYU students to interviews. They stood in the hallways in their sweaters and hats, shuffling their feet and slightly afraid. Dooling also called in Ruth’s sister, Christina, even though he had heard she was more or less an invalid. He came away from their short interview with the impression that Ruth Cruger’s home life was rather restricted and that it would have been irksome for an adolescent girl to spend so much time and attention caring for an ill sister, even though he found no evidence that Ruth had complained of it. She didn’t attend dances or musical plays as much as someone her age usually did. The only activity she partook of seemed to be ice-skating. Ruth also liked riding in automobiles. She told her friends that she wished she had a car so she could take them all away. Helen Cruger, Ruth’s other sister, was also questioned briefly and without friction.
Finally, Dooling summoned Rubien, the cab driver, to ask if Butler was the mysterious man in the trench coat who got in the cab with Ruth.
The driver said no, the man was not Butler.