Laurie Notaro unveils tale of infamous trunk murderess story

Author Laurie Notaro leads us down a dark, winding and sensational rabbit hole with a historical fiction account of a famous criminal case that rocked the headlines.

It’s October 1931 when Winnie Ruth Judd arrives at the LA train station from Phoenix. Her shipping trunks catch the attention of a suspicious porter.

By the time they’re pried open, revealing the dismembered bodies of two women inside, Judd has disappeared into the crowd.

The search for, and eventual apprehension of, the “trunk murderess” quickly becomes a headline-making spectacle. Even the Phoenix home where the murder took place is a sideshow attraction.

“When I went to the archives first in 2014, I went under the assumption that it really was self defense. I really did want to believe that.” Notaro said. “But, I still wanted to figure out why, and how things spun so madly out of control.”

The one question on everyone’s lips: How could a 26-year-old reverend’s daughter and doctor’s wife―petite, pretty, well-educated and poised―commit such a heinous act on two people she’d called “my dearest friends in the world?”

“She was, I believe, a victim of mental health in a time, in the 30s, where we didn’t really have a word for depression.” Notaro said. “So she was pretty much on her own dealing with these things and stress certainly acerbated those episodes in her life.”

Notaro’s goal in the novel was to dive into the mind of Judd to understand what made her become a murderess.

“I wrote a majority of that book in 40 days,” Notaro said.

Visit Notaro’s website to learn more and purchase the book.