Slaying suspect returning to Las Vegas

Margaret Rudin fought for months in a Massachusetts court not to return to Las Vegas to face charges she killed her husband, but this morning she boarded a prisoner transport van and started her journey back.

She left Massachusetts Women's Correctional Institute in Framingham near Boston about 8 a.m. EST time, prison officials said.

Rudin, 56, will spend several weeks on a 2,750-mile trip aboard the private prison transport operated by TransCor America. She will wind through the country, picking up and dropping off prisoners along the way, until she reaches the Clark County Detention Center. For security reasons, Rudin's expected arrival date and the transport's route will not be disclosed.

"We're not going to fly two detectives there to bring her back. We don't gain anything by doing that," said Lt. Wayne Petersen of Metro's homicide unit. "We know that she's got a lawyer and isn't going to make a statement to us. It makes no sense to spend the time and money of sending two detectives there just to fly her back so she can be comfortable."

For more than two years, Rudin eluded police until a tip from a viewer of the syndicated television show "America's Most Wanted" led them to Rudin in Revere, Mass., in November, where she was living under a different name.

On March 6 a Massachusetts Appeals Court judge denied Rudin's appeal of extradition, clearing the way to send her back. It was the last attempt in Rudin's long battle in the Massachusetts courts to stop her return to Las Vegas, said Ann Donlan, Massachusetts attorney general spokeswoman.

Rudin's attorney claimed the paperwork wasn't in order and she shouldn't be sent back. Rudin also has denied killing her husband.

Margaret Rudin disappeared shortly before a Clark County grand jury returned an indictment April 18, 1997, charging her with her husband's death. Ron Rudin's bullet-riddled, burned and decomposing body was found in January 1995 near Nelson's Landing at Lake Mojave. He had disappeared on Dec. 18, 1994.

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