26-Jun-18 – 19-year-old Noreen Rudd was killed by her husband for her insurance policies 45 years ago and was “a means to an end,” claims the prosecuting attorney in the trial this week of Dr. Donnie Rudd, the former Chicago condo attorney charged with murder.

All anyone can agree on is that on September 14, 1973, Noreen, married for just 28 days, died late at night on a dark, remote stretch of two-lane highway near Barrington Hills, about 40 miles northwest of the Loop.

Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Maria McCarthy (left) says the policies, with a combined benefit amount worth more than half a million dollars today when adjusted for inflation, was the motive for Rudd to kill his wife by striking her in the head multiple times with a large object.

Rudd says he did not know about the insurance policies until after Noreen died. McCarthy suggested it is possible that Noreen did not know about the policies, as they did not have to be bought in person. Someone could have just “dropped off the paperwork.”

Rudd says he was forced off the road by an oncoming car. Noreen, he said, was ejected, hit her head on a rock, and broke her neck. She was dead on arrival at Sherman Hospital in Elgin, Illinois. A coroner’s jury determined it was an accident. Parts of the account are now disputed.

McCarthy brought back the Barrington police officer who was one of the first responders to the accident. Christopher Bish (right), now Inspector at Georgia Department of Corrections, was 21 years old at the time, had been a patrolman for four months, and this was his first fatal traffic incident.

He says he found Noreen stretched out inside the car, a 1972 Ford Pinto Wagon, with her feet on the driver’s seat and her head on Rudd’s lap. He helped take her out of the car and onto the ground. As he performed CPR, he noticed there was something wrong with Noreen’s skull.

He downplayed the significance of 165 feet of skid marks. He said at the time he had doubts about whether it was an accident but felt unable to tell anyone.

McCarthy put on the witness stand Dr. Jae Han, a retired obstetrics and gynecology specialist who in 1973 was the doctor who examined Noreen at Sherman Hospital; Karen Mezera, Noreen’s younger sister, who recalled Rudd from the time she suddenly learned that Noreen was getting married to him to the time she suddenly learned that Rudd had remarried many years earlier after Noreen died; and Laurel Hart, now Division Director of Housing Finance at Georgia Department of Community Affairs and the daughter of the woman Rudd married after Noreen.

The second day of the trial was delayed because a juror did not show up. Eight new prospective jurors were interviewed before one new alternate was selected.