Monday, Nov. 8, 1999 | 11:54 a.m.
Margaret Rudin, who has been on the run for more than 2 1/2 years from charges of killing her millionaire Las Vegas husband, remains determined not to return to Nevada.
She told Massachusetts State Police today that she is fighting extradition -- a move that will require governors of both states to shuffle paperwork before she is brought back to Las Vegas.
"It's a waste of her time -- in 15 years, I've never seen one of these delays work," Massachusetts State Police Lt. Kevin Horton said. "It will buy her some time."
Rudin, captured Friday on a fugitive warrant in connection with the 1996 killing of her husband Ron Rudin, a 64-year-old real estate agent, developer and gun dealer, was arraigned in Framingham, Mass., District court today and was ordered held without bail, District Court Magistrate Tony Colonna said.
Rudin, 56, appeared before Judge Robert Greco. She was wearing street clothes. Her often-dyed hair was a reddish strawberry blond and her blue eyes were concealed behind hazel contact lenses, witnesses said.
She has been a platinum blond and a dark brunette during her years as a fugitive. When State Police found her Friday in Revere, Mass., she was wearing a long black wig, Horton said.
Rudin is next scheduled to go before the court in Massachusetts on Nov. 24 for a pretrial hearing.
During that period, a governor's warrant from Nevada can be prepared and delivered to the Massachusetts governor's office, which would order the state police to send her back.
Ron Rudin's skull was found in January 21, 1995, partially buried near Nelson's Landing at Lake Mojave. He had disappeared on Dec. 18, 1994.
Margaret Rudin also disappeared shortly after the Clark County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging her with her husband's death on April 18, 1997.
"This was one of the biggest outstanding fugitive cases we've had in Las Vegas," Criminal Apprehension Team Supervisor Sgt. Al Cervantes said of Margaret Rudin. "The only one that I can think of that was bigger was Tony Amati."
Amati was arrested in Atlanta in February 1998 in connection with three fatal thrill killing shootings in Las Vegas.
"The FBI agent and detective on this case put in a lot of man hours in the last year and a half looking for her (Rudin)," Cervantes said.
Rudin was arrested on Friday at about 6:30 p.m. Las Vegas time in a Revere home where she was renting a room, Metro Police said.
Las Vegas authorities passed on a tip that Rudin might be in Revere to the Massachusetts state police late last week.
Police thought they had Rudin in Phoenix in September 1998, but she slipped through the hands of Arizona police.
Rudin had been living in a cell-sized Phoenix YMCA room for two months in 1998. Police picked her up believing she could be Margaret Rudin, but she denied her true identity and produced identification and a Social Security card with an alias.
She was released after two hours, and was picked up by a limousine and disappeared again.
Later authorities searched her room at the YMCA and found identification with the name Margaret Rudin and a set of keys with a tag reading property of Ron Rudin.
Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon said he was, "sick about it," and that "justice for Ron Rudin is going to have to wait," after learning she had once again managed to escape police.
Even when authorities knew where Margaret Rudin was they had a hard time making anything stick against her.
During a 1996 civil trial, Mark Solomon, an attorney for Rudin's trust, charged that the couple's marriage was on the verge of collapse, and after Ron Rudin had gone to sleep on the night of Dec. 18, 1994, Margaret Rudin fired four or five bullets into his head.
The civil trial, and the evidence anticipated to result from it, was supposed to have solved the crime, but it ended prematurely in a settlement.
The deal is purported to have left her with less than the 60 percent she sought of his $11 million estate. Her cut in the settlement has been estimated at no more than $500,000.
A possible murder weapon was found by chance in 15 feet of water at Lake Mead on July 21, 1996. A diver noticed a strange package as he swam about 10 feet out from shore.
He took the package and after peeling away layer after layer of plastic wrap came upon a corroded handgun. The gun's serial number showed it belonged to Margaret Rudin, and ballistics tests showed it to be the murder weapon, police said.
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