The Poet | 5. Breaking Point

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Poet" | Episode 5: Breaking Point

Podcast: The Binge Crimes: The Poet
Host: Rachel Brown (Sony Music Entertainment)
Episode: 5. Breaking Point
Air Date: July 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this pivotal episode, the investigation into "The Poet" takes a shocking turn. After three long years—during which Ruth Finley endured terrifying harassment, bizarre poetry, threats, and even suspected physical assaults—the Wichita Police Department, led by Chief Richard Lamunion, arrives at a startling conclusion: the evidence increasingly points toward Ruth or her husband Ed being responsible. The episode explores the exhaustive police work, the emotional fallout for detectives, and the psychological unraveling of Ruth herself. It ends with Ruth’s confession and transfer to a mental health facility, raising profound questions about trauma, mental illness, and the blurred boundaries of victimhood and culpability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Shift in the Investigation

• Ockham’s Razor Applied (00:24)

  • Police Chief Lamunion systematically eliminates all suspects, finally concluding that the simplest answer is correct: "The Poet" is likely Ruth, Ed, or both.
  • Quote: “He had arrived at the simplest solution, and he was pretty sure he was right.” (01:55)

• Critical Clues Revealed (02:17–03:55)

  • Clue 1: Only one set of footprints found where Ruth claims to have escaped her abductor.
  • Clue 2: Despite heavy police surveillance, “nobody ever saw anybody going near their house.” (03:09)
  • Clue 3: Classified ads targeted at baiting The Poet only received responses when the Finleys were home.

• Jaw-Dropping Conclusion (03:56)

  • Lamunion: “We know who the poet is. The poet is a Finley. It’s Ed or Ruth or it’s both of them.” (03:56)

Fallout Among Detectives

• Feelings of Betrayal and Anger (05:01–06:43)

  • Detectives express outrage, feeling manipulated and that years of work were wasted. (Fred Mann, 05:01)
  • Quote: "I felt like I was just manipulated. I thought that, you know, it was a game that was being played." — Fred Mann (05:28)
  • Concern surfaces that real crimes may have gone unsolved while police resources were consumed by the Finley case. (06:08)

• Emotional Impact on Friends of the Finleys (06:43–07:22)

  • Lt. Bernie Drawatsky, a family friend, is initially in disbelief and deeply hurt, but sees hope in Lamunion's determination to get to the truth.

Unprecedented Surveillance

• 24/7 Police Monitoring (07:46–09:05)

  • Lamunion secretly orders around-the-clock surveillance.
  • “There’s a ground crew… an aerial surveillance team. A police helicopter’s on standby ready to tail them from overhead.” (07:58)
  • “Every time Ruth leaves the house, she’s being monitored by at least one police car and one police helicopter.” (08:43)

• False Alarms and Breakthrough (09:05–16:53)

  • Police tail the Finleys on a routine trip, convinced for a moment they have escaped surveillance, only to realize it’s a false alarm.
  • A new development: a postal inspector finds two letters addressed in The Poet's handwriting deposited by Ruth at a local mailbox (10:00–16:53).
  • Quote: “Lo and behold, there’s a poet letter right on top.” — Fred Mann (16:20)

Ruth’s Deteriorating Mental State

• Signs of Crisis (12:43–13:53)

  • Ruth, suffering physically and emotionally, secretly plans suicide due to her distress and sense of isolation.
  • Quote: “Her plan is to take a bus to Oklahoma City. There she would find a bridge and end her life.” (13:14)

• Definitive Evidence (13:59–16:53)

  • Ruth’s boss discovers carbon paper with a poet letter draft, poetry books, and incriminating items in Ruth’s work trash.

• Police Catch Ruth in the Act (15:18)

  • Surveillance team photographs Ruth depositing letters in the mailbox—hard proof for the police.

The Confrontation and Confession

• Ed’s Interrogation (18:29–21:45)

  • Ed is genuinely shocked, learning for the first time about Ruth’s role when police show him surveillance photos.
  • Quote: “All they could say was, I just couldn’t believe it. I tried to think about it. I don’t understand it.” — Attributed to Ed, via Rachel Brown (20:38)
  • Ed is cleared by a polygraph test.

• Ruth's Interrogation (26:28–33:34)

  • Mike Hill, a detective who kept emotional distance, leads the interrogation.
  • Ruth is confronted with the evidence and, after initial denials, breaks down.
  • Quote: “And she just put her head down on the table in her arms and just started sobbing. But it was a quiet sobbing... The tears kind of run out over her wrists.” — Fred Mann (30:17)
  • Ruth admits she mailed the letters and perpetrated the acts, but expresses confusion and distress over her own actions: "I’m a bad person. I’m a crazy person. I’m a bad person." (33:34)

The Aftermath

• Mental Health Intervention (35:08–35:49)

  • Ruth is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital; the investigation shifts to understanding why Ruth did what she did.

• Final Closure for Detectives and Family (36:10–36:38)

  • Ed is devastated but remains supportive: “We’ll get through this. I love you.” (36:27)

• Episode Finale and Lead-in to Next Episode (36:55-end)

  • Focus turns to the motivations, trauma, and repercussions: “Why would this woman in this perfectly normal life have such extraordinary terror within that it would cause such a thing to develop?” — Rachel Brown quoting psychologist Andrew Pickens (37:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Description | |-----------|-------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:55 | Host/Narrator | “He had arrived at the simplest solution, and he was pretty sure he was right.” | | 03:56 | Lamunion | "We know who the poet is. The poet is a Finley. It's Ed or Ruth or it's both of them." | | 05:28 | Fred Mann | “I felt like I was just manipulated. I thought that, you know, it was a game that was being played.” | | 13:14 | Host/Narrator | “Her plan is to take a bus to Oklahoma City. There she would find a bridge and end her life.” | | 16:20 | Fred Mann | “Lo and behold, there’s a poet letter right on top.” | | 20:38 | Rachel Brown (for Ed) | “All they could say was, I just couldn't believe it. I tried to think about it. I don't understand it.” | | 30:17 | Fred Mann | “And she just put her head down on the table in her arms and just started sobbing...." | | 33:34 | Rachel Brown (for Ruth) | “I’m a bad person. I’m a crazy person. I’m a bad person.” | | 36:27 | Narrator/Host | “She rushes into Ed’s arms and he says, we’ll get through this. I love you.” | | 37:11 | Rachel Brown | “Why would this woman in this perfectly normal life have such extraordinary terror within that it would cause such a thing to develop?” |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ockham’s Razor and Lamunion’s Revelation – 00:24–03:56
• Emotion Among Detectives – 05:01–06:43
• Surveillance Mobilized – 07:46–09:05
• Letter-Mailing Caught on Camera – 15:18–16:53
• Ed’s Interrogation & Polygraph – 18:29–21:45
• Ruth’s Confrontation & Confession – 26:28–33:34
• Mental Health Commitment & Closing Reflections – 35:08–37:11

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Analysis & Reflection

Breaking Point is a haunting exploration of how trauma and psychological distress can manifest in destructive, baffling ways. The episode spotlights the limits of traditional policing when the perpetrator is also the victim, and how easy it is for truth to be obscured by empathy, social ties, and clever deception. It also sets the stage for deeper analysis of Ruth’s psyche in the upcoming finale, hinting that her story carries broader implications about the prevalence and impact of trauma in seemingly ordinary lives.

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Next Episode Tease:
The finale promises to delve into the “why” behind Ruth’s behavior, with input from psychologist Andrew Pickens, and reflections that will take the case from Wichita to national attention on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

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Transcript

[Rachel Brown]

If you want a deeper look behind Cut Color Kill, now is the time. Join our free [e-mail] the Binge and you will get exclusive story details you can't get anywhere else. Again, join [e-mail] thebinge Listen to every

[Narrator/Host]

episode of the Poet Ad Free right now. When you subscribe to the Binge, you'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to the Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap subscribe or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. The Binge Feed your true crime obsession the Bench. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know this episode deals with mentions of self harm and suicide. Occam's Razor it's the problem solving principle that if you cut away all the complicated explanations for something, you'll be left with one simple answer. And that's usually the truth. Wichita's police chief, Richard Lamunion, had taken all 14 case binders home for the long weekend, pored through the evidence, read the reports. He looked over every suspect, and one by one he ruled them out until there was only one possibility left. Maybe it was the anger he felt from the poet threatening his wife, or maybe it was because he had intentionally held himself at an arm's length from the case that he could see more clearly. But there it was, the answer that had been evading his police force for three long years. He had arrived at the simplest solution, and he was pretty sure he was right.

[Rachel Brown]

Well, he comes back Monday morning and he schedules a meeting for 16 officers.

[Narrator/Host]

That's Jean Stone, the journalist and author who later wrote a book on Ruth's case. The 16 officers all gather in the basement of the courthouse. Lemonyon walks his staff through his evidence. Clue number one the abduction After Ruth's kidnapping, police went to investigate the area by the river where she escaped her captors. She said they'd taken her sweater and shoes and followed her when she ran. The police found her sweater and her shoes there, but only one set of footprints. Clue number two the house. It seemed impossible that the police had spent that much time surveilling the house and got nothing.

[Rachel Brown]

Ruth lived on a dead end, and yet nobody ever saw anybody going near their house.

[Narrator/Host]

Gene Stone again.

[Rachel Brown]

And then eventually they put a recording camera in the backyard. And when they did, the poet never appeared in the backyard again.

[Narrator/Host]

Only the Findlays and the police knew about the camera's existence. Clue number three the classifieds Ed had

[Rachel Brown]

been putting classified ads in the paper to try to lure the poet out, and there are always responses to it. But when the Findlays went on vacation, there were no responses.

[Narrator/Host]

For Lamunion, the footprints, the camera, the classifieds, it all adds up to one conclusion.

[Rachel Brown]

And he sits down, he just says,

[Narrator/Host]

right out there, we know who the poet is. The poet is a Finley. It's Ed or Ruth or it's both of them. From sony music entertainment and new metric media, I'm rachel brown, and this is the poet. Episode 5 breaking point. Lamunion's theory drops on his officers like a bomb. There are so many unanswered questions. Could this couple have been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes for three years? Even with officers stationed inside their house, their fury is palpable.

[Fred Mann]

I was really, really angry. All the time that I had spent, all the time that the other detectives had spent, and it just had been for nothing.

[Narrator/Host]

Richard Vin Roe had spent years of his life on this case, working overtime, dissecting poems, even going undercover to try to find this monster.

[Fred Mann]

I felt like I was just manipulated. I thought that, you know, it was a game that was being played.

[Narrator/Host]

Mike McKenna, too, was furious.

[Fred Mann]

So much manpower, so much time, so much energy of everybody. You work on these cases, you put your heart and soul into them, trying to help these people just to be hoodwinked.

[Narrator/Host]

He'd been raising his concerns, but no one had listened to him. This was vindication, but it wasn't sweet. They'd wasted so much time.

[Rachel Brown]

People don't always think about while all this police manpower is expended, were there cases that did not get solved because those detectives were busy?

[Narrator/Host]

All this while the Wichita PD had been trying to solve real homicides, real crimes, not to mention catch btk. But for the man who was first in charge of this case, the idea that Ruth or Ed were just playing with the cops and inflicted a different kind of pain.

[Rachel Brown]

Juawatsky is crushed and thinking that lamanyan is crazy.

[Narrator/Host]

Lt. Bernie Drawatski and his wife were friends with the Finlays. They had dinners together, went to the same church. To him, there's just no way. This kind normal couple had spent the last three years setting up a cat and mouse game with the cops. For what? Just to mess with him? But Gene Stone says Drawacky sees a silver lining here. Lamunion is committing even more resources to this case, which means they're going to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

[Rachel Brown]

Zhuansky now believed that this was a Good thing, because they felt that this meant that the extra work meant that they would actually catch the poet and prove that that Ruth wasn't the poet and they would actually catch the real person.

[Narrator/Host]

Lamunion later tells KAKE TV that he ordered Ruth and Ed be put under round the clock surveillance, this time without their knowledge.

[Fred Mann]

And so at the conclusion of the

[Rachel Brown]

meeting, I announced that I would take over personal control of the case and that effective immediately, there would be a

[Fred Mann]

24 hour surveillance on Ruth and Ed.

[Narrator/Host]

They've embarrassed his department, made them look like fools. He is done playing nice. Before they roll out, Lamunion swears them to secrecy, threatening if one word of this leaks to the media, they're all fired. Surveillance begins. Officers are pulled in from Vice and Narcotics to cover shifts. There's a ground crew stationed in cars in the Finley's cul de sac. There's an aerial surveillance team. A police helicopters on standby ready to tail them from overhead. The Wichita police threw everything at the case. Desperate to prove the Findlays were behind

[Rachel Brown]

the Poet, they set up a command center, which was a van parked at Eastgate shopping center, which is not very far from where Ruth lives. And from then on, every time Ruth leaves the house, she's being monitored by at least one police car and one police helicopter.

[Narrator/Host]

One morning, the Finlays get into their Oldsmobile and pull out of their driveway. The ground surveillance team has eyes on them and follows them at a distance out of their sleepy neighborhood. Aerial surveillance joins in from overhead. They track them as they head towards the East Gate shopping mall. But somehow, in just a few blocks, ground surveillance loses the Oldsmobile. Maybe Ruth went to work. The cops call her office. She's taken the day off. Suddenly they're concerned. Did this middle aged couple just shake off their police tail and make a break for it?

[Rachel Brown]

One of the detectives says they're getting away. They're getting away. And this frantic chase. And then they realized, oh no, they just went away for a day or so. They were not trying to escape, they were just having a day for themselves.

[Narrator/Host]

The Findlays were just traveling to Topeka on a regular work trip for Ed. Ruth had tagged along to keep him company. To the ground crew, it seems like the day has been a total letdown. But a few hours later, someone on aerial surveillance in the helicopter happens to mention he'd never lost sight of the Finlays that morning. Not only that, but he saw their Oldsmobile pull up to a mailbox by the Eastgate mall and drop off some letters. This is a revelation. When Mike Hill hears this, he immediately bolts. He calls the postal inspector who meets him at the mail drop. This could be it. They open the mailbox. Inside they find five letters bunched together at the top, a personal letter and two bills from the Finlays. And two other envelopes, one addressed to Cake TV and one to Ruth Smock Finley, both in the poet's familiar handwriting. This is the smoking gun they've been waiting for. But because they didn't have eyes on the mailbox for a few hours, they couldn't rule out the possibility that someone else had posted the two letters from the poet. They needed ironclad evidence. They had to keep going. Weeks in, the officers tailing the Finlays pick up on a new energy. The couple seems on edge, maybe even suspicious. One officer notes the Finlays are often driving around town really slowly, as though they were on the lookout for someone following them. A few others say they see the Finlays clearly checking their surroundings for surveillance. They even note a car visiting the Finlays late one night. And when they check the ownership, it belongs to an attorney. Are the Finlays onto them? Ruth seemed to have picked up on some kind of shift because in the middle of the surveillance, she reaches out to Fred Mann.

[Fred Mann]

Ruth called me out of the blue and said, what's going on? Do you know what's going on with the case? And I was honest about it. I said, no, I don't know. She said, are they still interested? Because Mike, Mike Hill, he's been really distant to me. He was cold and he doesn't seem too interested anymore. So I could honestly tell her, no, I think they're still interested. That was not a lie. And me telling her no, I didn't know what was going on. That was not a lie either. Technically,

[Narrator/Host]

During this time, Ruth's mental health was deteriorating. Her headaches and stomach aches were non stop. And now she was cut out of her own investigation even further and not getting any answers from the police, Ruth is feeling distraught.

[Rachel Brown]

So between the attention she doesn't want, the stabbing, the fact that there might be somebody out there getting her, she's extremely unhappy and she has no recourse at all. And so she's terrified.

[Narrator/Host]

She starts making a plan to put an end to her suffering once and for all. First, she collects small bills in her purse. Ed is with her all the time, so there isn't a moment in the day where she can run to the bank to make a larger withdrawal. Dollar by dollar, she is saving Up. Her plan is to take a bus to Oklahoma City. There she would find a bridge and end her life. Then, two weeks into the surveillance, Mike Hill gets a call. An officer tells him that Ruth's boss at the phone company has found some evidence they need to see. Hill heads down to the office.

[Fred Mann]

Joe Horvath, her boss, saw the trash cellar and he looked through it. Lo and behold, there's a carbon paper that had a poet layer on it.

[Narrator/Host]

Along with the carbon paper with the poet's handwriting, they also found a book of prose and poetry and a snatch of red bandana tied in a knot. Hill collects the evidence and adds it to the growing pile. That same afternoon, Hill has a meeting to update some of the surveillance team. As they're wrapping up their chat, officers who had been keeping watch run in and tell them the Finlays are on the move and they're right around the corner. Hill rushes out to his car and pulls out of the lot and immediately sees the Finley's Oldsmobile stopped across the street. For a moment. He panics. They're going to see him and know something's up. But they're not looking at him. They're at a mailbox.

[Rachel Brown]

Ed is driving. He stops at the shopping center. Ruth leans in and mails some letters. Couldn't be a more normal day, except for the fact that the moment they drive off, the police swoop in.

[Narrator/Host]

This is exactly the moment Mike Hill has been waiting for for weeks. Years, really. He and his officers whip out their cameras and take photos as Ruth deposits a bunch of letters into the mail slot. As soon as the Finlays drive off, Mike Hill and his men pull up to the mailbox and park.

[Fred Mann]

We can't touch the mailbox. The only people to do that are the the postal inspectors.

[Narrator/Host]

As they wait for the postal inspector, they park their ghost car in front of the mailbox and lift the hood, pretending they're having engine trouble. They have to make sure no other letters come in and spoil their evidence. They need Ruth's letters to be at the top. While they wait, the Finley's car passes again. Returning from the mall, the cops were watch the Finleys slow down and take a long hard look at their car parked beside the post box. Finally, the postal inspector arrives.

[Fred Mann]

When they got there, they opened up the mailbox. Lo and behold, there's a toilet layer right on top.

[Rachel Brown]

And that's really that moment, just that one moment cracked the case for good. Now they had the proof. And so at this point, they knew.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Fred Mann]

this episode is supported by FX's the Shards, a seductive drama from executive producer Ryan Murphy. Set in 1980s Los Angeles, the series follows a group of glamorous, deeply entangled high school seniors drawn into a life of wealth, beauty, parties. And at its center is Brett, whose reality begins to unravel when the arrival of a new student coincides with a series of mysterious murders. FX's the Shards premieres August 5th on FX and Hulu.

[Narrator/Host]

The cops had a photo of Ruth mailing the letters, and they'd flown around the country tracking down the bills Ruth had mailed to Kansas and Iowa. They had their proof, but now they had to see what Ed and Ruth would say when confronted with the evidence. Cops gave journalist Fred Mann unprecedented access to the end of the years long saga.

[Fred Mann]

So they said, okay, here's the deal. We're going to bring Ed in, we're going to bring Ruth in, and we'll let you come in and we'll pipe the sound into an office and you can sit there and you can record the interviews. So, wow, this was it.

[Narrator/Host]

Ed was called down to the station to deliver the newest letter. Ed arrives expecting to simply drop off the letter and maybe check in on Leeds. But instead he's escorted into a room where Captain Hill is already stationed. And Hill starts asking him questions going back long before the Poet case started up.

[Fred Mann]

Tell me about life as a child. I mean, that's how far back they went. What were you like as a kid? Where did you live? You know, where did you meet Ruth? And Ed was excited. Ed was happy. He said, we're getting into it now. In his mind, he's thinking, all right, we're going someplace with this.

[Narrator/Host]

Finally, Hill was engaging with him. Ed had been kept out of the loop for months. But then Hill's tone changes. He starts walking Ed through the events of the Poet case and asking different questions from the ones he'd ever asked before.

[Fred Mann]

Where were you when she was abducted? And the same with the stabbing. Then they would get into these little acts of vandalism around the house. Who found the jar of pee on the front porch? Who found The Molozov cocktail. Where were you?

[Narrator/Host]

Ed is bewildered, but stays stoic.

[Fred Mann]

It started to turn a little bit, and they got to a point where Ed was not tracking what they were trying to get to.

[Narrator/Host]

Then Mike Hill gets to the point. He tells Ed, the poet could have put those things on their porch. Or Ed could have, or Ruth could have. Ed shuts that down. He didn't have anything to do with this. And he's adamant neither did Ruth. Hill pulls out the surveillance photos and watches Ed intently as he slides them across the table toward him.

[Rachel Brown]

They show him photos of Ruth mailing the letters, and he is absolutely shocked.

[Narrator/Host]

Ed is genuinely baffled, distraught.

[Rachel Brown]

All they could say was, I just couldn't believe it. I tried to think about it. I don't understand it. But here's the proof. And if they say Ruth is a poet, I have to believe them.

[Narrator/Host]

For Hill, it seems like Ed is truly blindsided by this news. But he has a way of making sure that Ed is being honest and it's time to use it. The polygraph.

[Rachel Brown]

So then they ask him if he'd take a lie detector test to prove his innocence. He's thinking, I'm really nervous. I don't know what's going on. And I've heard that lie detector tests aren't always right. What if it says I do know about Ruth? Their hand, he thinks, but if I say I won't take one, then they'll think I'm guilty. So he agrees to take the test.

[Narrator/Host]

They head to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, where Ed is hooked up to the polygraph.

[Rachel Brown]

And he passes it with flying colors. So many flying colors that they're absolutely convinced that Ed had nothing to do

[Narrator/Host]

with really was just Ruth. As they get ready to go, Ed says, these should have been the best days of our lives. The police take Ed home, along with a search warrant for the Findlays home in trash.

[Fred Mann]

We got a search warrant for the house and the fruits of the crime were found. Part of a red bandana, a chief's notebook, some stamps from the same book of stamps that had been used on prior letters. But it was overwhelming that she indeed was doing this to herself.

[Narrator/Host]

After searching the house, the police drive Ed back to the station. On the way, they ask Ed if he wants a hamburger. Something in this sets him off. No one has offered care or concern all day as his life unraveled. But now they're asking if he wants a burger. As if he could eat while his wife is in this situation. Instead, Ed chain smokes a pack of cigarettes, one after another, and waits. At this point, word had made its way around the department. The poet never existed. Ruth had been behind it this whole time, and they'd all fallen for her lies for years. Ruth had totally duped them. Lt. Bernie Drawski was devastated.

[Rachel Brown]

Drawski, he now realized, yes, it was true. And he had no idea what to do, what to think. How could this. How could this have happened? What is going on? Has the world turned upside down? This is not the way things are supposed to be.

[Narrator/Host]

Drawski wants to be the one to bring Ruth to the station. Maybe he wants to look her in the eyes and see what he missed. He goes to Southwestern Bell and waits for her in the lobby. When she comes down, she's surprised to see him instead of Ed. Jawotski asks her to accompany him to the station, saying they're going to take a look at a fresh batch of mugshots together, like they'd done a million times before. What Ruth doesn't know is that he's leading her right to her interrogation. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time, and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep, sleep faster and stay asleep longer to experience a whole new world of comfort. Visit a sleep number store or go to sleep number.com sleep number to a good life. Sleep. There are a lot of true crime podcasts out there, and I have 30 seconds to convince you why. You should check out Crimelines. Crimelines is one of those shows that just lays it all out there. The backstory, the legal context and details of cases you haven't heard before. If you hear about a true crime case and want to know what happened and why, you're my kind of listener. You can check out Crimelines wherever you get your podcasts. That's Crimelines. One word and get ready to dive deep. Drawotsky has Ruth in his car. They're going down to the station one final time after three tough years, after cultivating close relationships with their victim, after finding out they'd been duped, finally the Wichita PD had the poet. She was on her way, and they were going to get their answers.

[Rachel Brown]

What Lemonyen told me the key to the case was that he refused to meet Ruth. He compared her to some Greek mythological creature, that if you looked at her, you believed her. He said that if he had met her he might not have been able to solve the case and that the detectives like Jawonski, who he admired, he wasn't saying that they were bad detectives by any means, but that Ruth, again, you have to remember this is a woman who was baking cookies for these detectives, who was sitting with them discussing their issues and their problems and their families and having tea and making them cake. They developed what was in any other situation would have been close friendships.

[Narrator/Host]

Mike Hill was the one officer who had followed in Lamunion's footsteps.

[Rachel Brown]

Mike Hill has decided that he's going to be running this interrogation because he's the one who feels he has the most distance from Ruth. He never fell under her spell, as Lamunion felt the others had.

[Narrator/Host]

Police officers we interviewed told us they hadn't fallen under Ruth's spell and had harbored suspicions of Ruth or Ed. Some had even raised these questions with leaders only to be shut down. But there were those who had gotten close to the Finleys, not Mike Hill.

[Fred Mann]

Ruth didn't like me to begin with because I'm being standoffish. She'd bake cookies and cake and stuff because we had detectives staked out inside their house protecting her from the poet. And I had nothing.

[Narrator/Host]

He had to be the one to interview Ruth. Now, armed with the case file filled with inconsistencies and his photographic proof, Hill is ready to take Ruth down. Fred Mann is listening in from another room at the police station.

[Fred Mann]

Now, the mystery was when she was finally confronted with evidence, would she deny it? Would she collapse? Would she give up right away? Would she fight it?

[Narrator/Host]

Just like he had with Ed's interrogation. Mike Hill starts at the beginning.

[Fred Mann]

They started from ground zero. Birth, early childhood, the attack in Fort Scott, the kidnapping, the stabbing. As they question her about these poet events, Hill sort of gradually turned the questioning torqued the questioning a little bit more to you could have done this right sort of a thing, but you could have done that right.

[Narrator/Host]

Hill drills down on some of the moments that have been running through his mind since Lamunion's meeting. The Christmas Eve of 1979. Hill says only he and the Finlays knew an officer was supposed to arrive at 11 that night. The Finlays phone line gets cut at 10pm Once the hidden camera was installed facing the phone lines, they were never tampered with again. Only the Finlays and the cops knew about that. There were details of the investigation they'd mentioned to the Finleys, details that would later end up in poet letters.

[Fred Mann]

Then there was more aggressive who found the Urine on the porch. Did you put that out there? You got kind of a little edge. No, Mike. She was appalled. Human feces. Did you put that out there? No. And finally, said Ruth, she said, did you write any of those poet letters? She said, no. Did you mail any of those letters? No.

[Narrator/Host]

Then Hill goes in for the kill.

[Rachel Brown]

He actually says to her, what if I called you a liar? And she's really taken aback. But then after she's been saying, I didn't do this. I don't know about this. This doesn't make any sense.

[Narrator/Host]

He pushes his evidence across the table.

[Rachel Brown]

He shows her the. The photos of her mailing all of these poems. He shows her the evidence that they've collected. She has no idea what to do. She is trying to figure out, am I the poet? But I don't know what's going on. I don't understand.

[Fred Mann]

There once was a female who got destitute. Her mind and brain wished she could be rebuked and ruthless. Ruth later said when she looked at that photo, it was like blocks tumbling out of her head. The word in the news. Everything tumbles out of her head. Of my flagrant ways to bruise.

[Narrator/Host]

One more meeting and this will conclude.

[Fred Mann]

And she just put her head down on the table in her arms and just started sobbing. But it was a quiet sobbing. It was not loud. I could see, you know, the tears kind of run out over her wrists.

[Narrator/Host]

Hill watches her. Are those crocodile tears? Hill asks her, do you want to tell me about it? Do you deny it? Ruth says simply, no. Then Hill gets into the specifics. He asks if Ed was involved. She tells him, absolutely not. He asks if she really got the first phone call from a man trying to blackmail her. She says no. He asks her where she got the Fort Scott newspaper clipping that was mailed to her at work. She already had it. Now, when you were walking down the street and this guy bumps into you, that never happened. Yes, it did. It did. She insisted. Hill asks who the man in the sketch was, the one she described to the police psychologist, Dr. Schrag. She tells him it looks like the guy who stopped her on the street. The kidnapping. He asks, how did you get up there? She tells him she took the bus. He asks if she cut the phone lines. She nods. How did she do it with her whole family in the house? She doesn't remember. How could she not remember? How did the knife wrapped in the red bandana get into her lobby's phone booth? Did she just go down and wrap it up and put it there? She nods for some of the events. She seems foggy on the details. Her answers are unsatisfyingly short. The urine on the front porch, how did that happen? It was poured in a bottle. That is your own urine, Is that right? Yes. The back porch. The Molotov cocktail, how did you do that? I took it out of the car with a hose. You siphoned it out of the car. Okay. You put the eggs on the back door. When did you do that? Where was Ed at? In the shower. Human shit on the front porch. Is that yours? That's mine. How did the one letter get an Oklahoma City postmark on it? She says she mailed it down there. Just sent it to the post office and asked them to mail it. Then Hill asks the big question. How could you stab yourself? She's silent. Hill and Ruth sit there for a long moment.

[Rachel Brown]

I mean, she's admitted she's done it, but she doesn't really remember. She's no recollection of the stabbing incident whatsoever.

[Narrator/Host]

He asks, where did you get that knife? At home. Did you mean to hurt yourself as bad as you did? I don't know. This is not the reaction he expected from a scammer. Ruth looks lost, confused.

[Rachel Brown]

And she's just sitting there going, I'm a bad person. I'm a crazy person. I'm a bad person.

[Narrator/Host]

Ruth is crumbling in front of his eyes. Hill softens his approach. He has his confession now. He needs to figure out why. What is going on here?

[Fred Mann]

Mike Hill finally could put his hands out to her and say, grab her by the elbow and say, ruth, it's okay. We're not mad. We just want to know. Why did you do this?

[Narrator/Host]

She doesn't respond. He asks, are you glad it's over? Yes. How do you feel, Ruth? I wish I was dead. Something much bigger is going on here than Hill expected. He expected denial, anger, pushback. But Ruth is despondent. Suddenly, this doesn't feel like a criminal caught in the act. Ruth looks like a woman on the brink.

[Rachel Brown]

And Hill starts being much nicer and says, you're not crazy. You're ill. There's something wrong here. You're not a bad person.

[Narrator/Host]

Hill asks, were you wanting to get caught? She nods. What was going on? Could Ruth not stop the poet? Was this some sort of compulsion?

[Fred Mann]

The room in there where we listening was sort of fraught with this. What's going to happen? One, Ruth was going to go to jail, or two, they were going to take her and get her locked up at a mental ward of a hospital. There was no other alternative. She was not going home.

[Narrator/Host]

He signs her involuntarily into a nearby mental health hospital. Whatever was going on with Ruth was a mystery for someone else to solve. Hill and his team just needed to take this evidence back and decide what they were going to do with Ruth and if this was a criminal matter.

[Rachel Brown]

So they have Ed in the waiting room next door, and Lamonion is watching him for any signs, anything that might show guilt or. Or anything. And Lemonyan tells me later that Ed is absolutely expressionless. The only thing that Lemonya thinks he can see on Ed's face is depression.

[Narrator/Host]

Ruth falters. Before exiting the interview room, she says to Hill, I can never face Ed again. Yeah, you can. You got to. He is the nicest person I have ever known.

[Rachel Brown]

So then they let Ruth out of the interview and she rushes into Ed's arms and he says, we'll get through this. I love you.

[Narrator/Host]

Ruth and Ed go to the hospital together, where Ruth is put on suicide watch. There, a new kind of detective takes on Ruth's case. Next time on the finale of the Poet.

[Fred Mann]

It is detective work in this sense, finding out something that the patient doesn't even know and help them know it.

[Narrator/Host]

Psychologist Andrew Pickens question isn't who done it, it's why.

[Rachel Brown]

Why would this woman in this perfectly normal life have such extraordinary terror within that it would cause such a thing to develop? He sees the terror, but all he can be thinking about is what is causing this.

[Narrator/Host]

Ruth's mystery was far from over. What could cause a person's mind to fracture and torture itself? And this story was about to reach far beyond Wichita, making it all the way to the Oprah Winfrey Show. And by the end of this hour, perhaps all of us will better understand why she literally stalked herself and hear why the root of her problem is more common than you may think. Unlock all episodes of the Poet ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. And it doesn't stop at the Poet. Subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series on the first of every month. That's all episodes all at once, all ad free. And between drops, you've got ad free access to crime scene, the Binge's weekly series, plus instant access to over 60 true crime podcasts, shows like Wild Boys, Blink, and My Fugitive dad, so you'll never be short on stories. Search for the binge on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe not on Apple head to getthebinge.com to subscribe directly. The Poet is a production of Sony Music Entertainment, New Metric Media and Muse Entertainment. The show is hosted by me, Rachel Brown. The series is written and produced by Pippa Johnstone and Rachel Brown from New Metric Media. Our executive producer is Chris Kelly from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch from Muse Entertainment. Our executive producer is Courtney Dobbins. Sound design and original music by Mark Angley. Nathan Howe is our story editor and Associate producer consultant Gene Stone. Fact checking by Maya El Hawari and Alexis Green. Our lawyers are Daniel Henry, Garland Anthony and Austin Wong. Voice acting from Cassandra Sison, Morgan Murray and Antony McMahon. Special thanks to Andres Lara, Patrick McConnell, Sammy Allison, Allison Haney, Emily Racik and the rest of the team at Sony Music Entertainment.