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How One Man's "Unbelievable Journey" to Find His Mother Helped ID the Lady of the Dunes
In an exclusive interview, Richard Hanchett said he suffered from nightmares in the weeks before learning of his mother's 1974 murder.
Richard Hanchett, 66, waited his whole life to find his biological mother, never knowing his quest for answers would solve one of the greatest murder mysteries of the East Coast.
Hanchett, a retired man living in the Detroit suburbs of Waterford, Michigan, said he had “such a happy life” with the couple that adopted him as a baby. But, like many adopted children, Hanchett hoped to learn more about the mother who placed him for adoption so many years ago.
“It was always in the back of my mind,” he said in an interview with Oxygen.com. “I got older, and my adoptive parents passed away… it just became really important.”
What Hanchett didn’t know at the time was that his mother was an unidentified victim whose 1974 murder baffled several administrations of law enforcement in and around the beach town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, a case at the center of Lady of the Dunes: Hunting the Cape Cod Killer, airing now on Oxygen.
Who was the Lady of the Dunes?
On July 26, 1974, a 12-year-old discovered a mutilated body along Cape Cod’s Race Point Dunes during the summer holidays’ peak season. The victim was found atop a beach towel with her skull crushed in and hands gone, presumably an attempt by her killer to keep investigators from identifying the victim.
But authorities were stumped over the woman’s identity, despite several promising leads over the years. Some of those included theories that the Jane Doe was escaped convict Rory Gene Kesinger or the victim of one of several possible suspects, such as serial killer Tony Costa, convicted killer Hadden Clark, or notorious gangster Whitey Bulger.
Renewed interest in the case came in 2015 when writer Joe Hill, son of famed horror author Stephen King, once again brought up his theory online that the “Lady of the Dunes” was an extra from the 1975 film, Jaws.
Official agencies like The Provincetown Police Department and the FBI scrambled for answers to learn the identity of Jane Doe, as well as the person or persons responsible for her brutal death.
Those answers would come to light in 2022 after one Michigan man sought to find his biological mother.
“I had no idea in the world where it was going to go or anything,” Richard Hanchett told Oxygen.com.
Richard Hanchett’s Search for his Biological Mother, Ruth Marie Terry
Richard Hanchett said in the series that he knew his biological mother — known at the time as “Ruth Smith” — placed him in the care of his adoptive parents. The mothers knew one another from working at an automotive plant in Livonia, Michigan, and Smith gave birth to her son out of wedlock during the 1950s.
Flash forward to Christmas 2017, when Hanchett said his fiancée got him a DNA kit from Ancestry.com. He took the test and got the results in 2018, discovering he had “an enormous family” in Tennessee though his biological mother’s side.
“They had a reunion. I went down and met everybody, but my mom had been missing since 1974; that was the last time they had seen her,” Hanchett told Oxygen.com. “That was the end of the journey.”
Through D.N.A., Hanchett learned his mother was Ruth Marie Terry, who was 37 around the time she disappeared in the summer of 1974. Tennessee relatives reported last seeing the mother and her new husband, Guy Rockwell Muldavin — whom Terry married in Reno, Nevada, one or two years earlier — though no one had heard from her since. Some cousins even told Hanchett they suspected Terry entered the witness protection program.
The next thing Hanchett knew, the F.B.I. called to say his mother was the long-unidentified Lady of the Dunes — a case Hanchett hadn’t heard of all the way in Michigan.
“Within half an hour, they were on the trail after Guy Muldavin,” said Hanchett.
In October 2022, the Lady of the Dunes was positively identified as Ruth Marie Terry, as previously reported by Oxygen.com. Muldalvin, a former antiques dealer later suspected of several murders, would be the prime suspect in Terry’s homicide, but he died in 2002.
Hanchett said he was “upset” by the news, especially since his older sister was also a victim of homicide, as detailed in Lady of the Dunes: Hunting the Cape Cod Killer.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Hanchett. “It’s one of those things you really don’t ever want to have to accept or believe, and I’ve seen a lot of [violence] in my life. It doesn’t make it any easier each time.”
Hanchett tells of his nightmares before learning about Ruth Marie Terry's murder
Richard Hanchett told Oxygen.com that he dreamt of his mother’s murder in the weeks leading up to the identity of the Lady of the Dunes, which is detailed in his upcoming book, Through His Eyes: The Lady of the Dunes, Ruth Marie Terry’s Story, due to be published later this year. He said the book “fills in a lot of the story.”
“I was having nightmares for about three weeks… and I didn’t know what it meant; I couldn’t figure it out,” Hanchett claimed.
After hearing from the FBI, he said the meaning behind his dreams became “very apparent.” He even described to agents that he kept “seeing this guy hit a woman in the back of the head and crush her skull,” details that piqued the agency’s curiosity.
“It was like, ‘Oh, my God, I get it,’” said Hanchett. “And from that point on, it’s just been an unbelievable journey.”
Authorities stated in 2022 that their prime suspect, Muldavin, was suspected in the 1960 murders of his second wife and 18-year-old stepdaughter, whose remains were discovered in a septic tank on their once-shared Seattle, Washington, property. In his interview with Oxygen.com, Hanchett called his mother’s killer “a sick individual.”
“He butchered my mom,” he said.
According to Hanchett, Muldavin “didn’t live a golden life” in his final years, reportedly recently divorced, evicted from his trailer home, and living with prostate cancer until his 2002 death.
“But, in the end, he got what he deserved for all the horror and the bad things,” said Hanchett. “In a way, God did it for me. I would have gotten in trouble.”
Learn more about the case by watching the special two-hour premiere of Lady of the Dunes: Hunting the Cape Cod Killer, airing now on Oxygen.
