Two former girlfriends say killer was violent

By Matt Pordum

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 | 9:27 a.m.

Two former girlfriends of a man convicted of kidnapping, killing and trying to burn the body of his wife said Tuesday he tried to kidnap and kill both of them after they broke up with him.

David Ruffa's past caught up with him as the jury sat through his penalty phase to determine whether he would serve 10 to 50 years in prison, 10 years to life in prison, or life in prison without parole for killing his estranged wife, 37-year-old Shao Lei Liu.

Her charred body was found in her car in Henderson in February 2002.

The same jury that convicted Ruffa last week deliberated for close to four hours before being sent home at 8 p.m. Tuesday. The 12 jurors were scheduled to come back this morning to continue.

Before the jury heard from Ruffa's past loves on Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney Linda Lewis said the jurors would soon see that "Shao Lei Liu was not the only victim to suffer at the hands of the defendant."

Ruffa's high school girlfriend, Wanda Dietz, had the look of terror in her eyes as she recalled the relationship with Ruffa that "started out good, but became violent, very violent."

She said a couple of weeks after breaking up with Ruffa in May 1980, he showed up at her bus stop and "grabbed me by the arm and then by the neck before pulling a gun out."

Dietz said Ruffa "tried to force me into his car," but she said she screamed and a neighbor came outside and chased him away.

The incident resulted in a temporary protective order being filed against Ruffa.

Dietz said Ruffa violated the order and would show up at her place of work, drive past her home at night and call her and hang up. The harassment, however, almost proved fatal on the day of her sister's wedding.

She said on that morning Ruffa drove by her home with a few friends and "shot up our home trying to kill us."

Dietz said she was at home with her mother, the bride-to-be's sister, stepfather, two younger sisters and baby brother. She said the family's cars and home were shot and bullets were found in her brother's crib and her sister's bed.

Ruffa would ultimately plead guilty to five counts of assault with the intent to commit murder and one count of malicious attempt to destroy property. He served prison time in Maryland.

Between 1988 and 1989, while Ruffa was bartending at the Aladdin, he would meet and begin a relationship with Laurie Dehoff.

Dehoff said Ruffa ended up moving with her to California, but the relationship quickly ended after on separate occasions he choked her and grabbed and pushed her, she said.

Dehoff said a few months after breaking up with Ruffa she began seeing another man, who began spending the night with her. She said one morning after the new boyfriend left to go to work, she went back to sleep only to be awakened by Ruffa "standing over the bed."

Dehoff said she lunged for the phone on the other side of her bed, but Ruffa beat her to it and ripped the cord from the wall. She said Ruffa held her down and said "I was going to die for I what I had done to him."

"He said he was going to brow beat me so much that I would commit suicide, or he would kill me to make it look like suicide," Dehoff said. "At one point I was on the floor and he was holding me down and I realized I was going to die." Dehoff said she "refused to die" at Ruffa's hands, and after Ruffa "hog tied" her and left the apartment to go get his gun, she managed to roll off and get to her feet.

She said she "hopped" to the front door and opened it by using her face to turn the knob. After hopping out the door she spotted her apartment manager and also Ruffa holding a gun. She said the apartment manager yelled "you get out of here right now, and David freaked and ran away and I got to live."

Ruffa was convicted of false imprisonment and terror and personal threats in California and served prison time for the offenses.

Shaoru Garner said her sister would soon become Ruffa's next victim. Garner, who with her husband is raising Liu's now 5-year-old son, related the story her sister shared concerning a beating Liu took at the hands of Ruffa that landed Ruffa in jail for domestic violence.

She said her sister said Ruffa was "asking her for money and he started cursing at her and started choking her." Garner said her sister "couldn't believe he (Ruffa) would do such a thing knowing she was pregnant."

Garner said neither her sister nor her family knew about Ruffa's criminal history, but when she returned from vacation to hear her sister was missing, she knew Ruffa had killed her.

Because Liu's son was so young at the time of her death, he believes Garner and her husband are his parents. She cried as she said she hasn't discovered how to tell him his mother died and his father murdered her.

An "on again off again" former girlfriend of Ruffa called to testify by the defense, however, said Ruffa was a "good hearted, caring, loving, person who loved kids."

Jackie Dennison said she met Ruffa in 1986 at the Aladdin and was actually engaged to him and lived with him for some time.

"What I know of David is not like anything I've heard today," Dennison said. "Our relationship was very good." Dennison said Ruffa "never treated me with anything but respect and was almost nice to the point of being wimpy."

Ruffa's mother, Mary Jane Ruffa-Kravitz, said her son was the victim of a woman "that took advantage of him." As she sat at the witness stand with an oxygen tube strapped under her nose, Ruffa-Kravitz said "even if he (Ruffa) weren't my son I'd love him."

She admitted her son "was no angel," but said he was certainly "not a monster." Ruffa-Kravitz said she suffers from a heart condition, and if the jury gave Ruffa "the worst penalty, I will not see my son again out of prison."

She pleaded with the jury to give her son a chance at parole, saying, "I don't want someone to go to prison and tell him his mother is dead. If I don't see him, I would die."

Ruffa's sister, Mary Jane DeLanter, said her hopes "are that the person that did this crime will be punished." DeLanter was alluding to the jury convicting her brother despite the fact that no physical or DNA evidence or eyewitnesses pointed to Ruffa as the killer.

The only identifiable DNA evidence in the case was found under Liu's fingernails and was determined not to be Ruffa's. The source of that DNA remains unknown. She said her four children would miss the man they call "the best uncle that anyone could have."