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Victim and perpetrator of ‘the Poet’ crime
hoax in Wichita four decades ago has died
A woman who was the victim and perpetrator of a crime hoax solved by Wichita police nearly four decades ago has died.
Ruth Finley unknowingly tormented herself as “The Poet” in the late 1970s and early 1980s crime mystery that included letters written in rhyme and a stabbing at the parking lot of Towne East Square.
Forty years ago, Finley was the victim in a real-life crime mystery that would later become the subject of a book and made-for-television movie, according to The Eagle’s archives. The purported harassment by the Poet started in 1978, taking place during the same time Dennis Rader terrorized Wichita as the BTK serial killer.
Finley reported to police that in addition to the hundreds of poetic letters threatening physical harm and extorting money, she was the victim of cut phone lines on Christmas Eve, a Christmas wreath set on fire, a kidnapping, a 12-inch butcher knife at her workplace, and receiving Molotov cocktails, chunks of concrete, a bottle of urine and a jar of feces.
She was hospitalized after she was stabbed three times with an ice pick in the parking lot of Towne East Square in August 1979.
But when the Poet began writing threatening letters to the wife of Police Chief Richard LaMunyon, he then took over the case. He suspected that either Finley or her husband was behind the Poet and devised a plan to find out.
(cont.)
hoax in Wichita four decades ago has died
A woman who was the victim and perpetrator of a crime hoax solved by Wichita police nearly four decades ago has died.
Ruth Finley unknowingly tormented herself as “The Poet” in the late 1970s and early 1980s crime mystery that included letters written in rhyme and a stabbing at the parking lot of Towne East Square.
Forty years ago, Finley was the victim in a real-life crime mystery that would later become the subject of a book and made-for-television movie, according to The Eagle’s archives. The purported harassment by the Poet started in 1978, taking place during the same time Dennis Rader terrorized Wichita as the BTK serial killer.
Finley reported to police that in addition to the hundreds of poetic letters threatening physical harm and extorting money, she was the victim of cut phone lines on Christmas Eve, a Christmas wreath set on fire, a kidnapping, a 12-inch butcher knife at her workplace, and receiving Molotov cocktails, chunks of concrete, a bottle of urine and a jar of feces.
She was hospitalized after she was stabbed three times with an ice pick in the parking lot of Towne East Square in August 1979.
But when the Poet began writing threatening letters to the wife of Police Chief Richard LaMunyon, he then took over the case. He suspected that either Finley or her husband was behind the Poet and devised a plan to find out.
(cont.)
