Time Machine: ‘Love is a fleeting thing at best ...’

(Second of two stories)

CEDAR RAPIDS - Jury selection for the murder trial of Dr. Robert C. Rutledge of St. Louis began May 2, 1949, in a third floor courtroom of the Linn County Courthouse. In a trial that attracted national attention, presiding Judge J.E. Heiserman announced that the jury would be sequestered. The last jury to be isolated in Linn County had been in 1928.

Rutledge, accused of killing Byron Hattman, also of St. Louis, during an altercation in room 729 of the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids, had avoided extradition to Iowa from St. Louis for several months.

The trial opened the morning of May 9, 1949. A jury of nine men and three women heard the opening statements of County Attorney William Crissman and defense attorney W.J. Barngrover, before the story unfolded through the testimony of a string of witnesses.

Sydney Rutledge and Hattman worked in the same office at Emerson Electric Co. in St. Louis. Sydney Rutledge joined Hattman and other co-workers at an office sailboat party. About a week later, Hattman invited her to go sailing again, and afterward they went for drinks. Sydney Rutledge said she was unaware that Hattman was ordering double bourbons for her.

Later that night they ended up at her apartment, where Sydney Rutledge claimed Hattman forced himself on her.

Robert Rutledge testified for 10 1/2 hours. He told of how he heard of the affair in a country club locker room. He and his wife, for a while, thought she might be pregnant from the encounter, and he contacted Hattman to pay for an abortion.

Sydney Rutledge wasn't pregnant, but a war of words ensued between Robert Rutledge and Hattman. Robert Rutledge claimed that Hattman was harassing the couple and he asked Hattman to leave them alone. He said that Hattman asked for money.

Robert Rutledge came to Cedar Rapids twice to meet with Hattman and missed him. The third time he came to Hattman's room at the Roosevelt Hotel and found a maid cleaning the room. He waited for her to finish and then made himself comfortable until Hattman returned.

According to Robert Rutledge, he offered Hattman money to leave him and Sydney alone. Hattman laughed at him and said he didn't need his money. Rutledge was enraged and a fight ensued in which Hattman pulled a knife on him. He wrested the knife away and lunged at Hattman with it to defend himself from attack. He said he hit Hattman on the head with the knife handle, knocking him out, washed up in the bathroom and left, not knowing that Hattman was dead.

The state argued that Rutledge lay in wait for Hattman, struck him from behind and then attempted to stop him when he tried to escape. Pulling Hattman back into the room, Rutledge stabbed him with what prosecutors theorized was a surgical knife. Testimony during the trial said that Hattman's hands, which were behind his back, had to have been held there while he was dying or placed behind him after death. Crissman called the crossed legs of the body 'the clincher.”

In the most dramatic moment of the trial, Prosecutors Crissman and David Elderkin reenacted the death scene to show the jury that the legs automatically cross when a body is rolled over.

On May 28, the case went to the jury. After less than four hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Rutledge of second-degree murder. Defense lawyers left the courthouse with a promise to file an appeal.

Claiming one juror was biased against Rutledge during the trial, lawyers filed a motion for a new trial. The hearing on that motion began Aug. 1, 1949. Rutledge had not seen his wife since he was taken to jail after the trial, but she joined him at the courthouse for the appeal hearing. The arguments took four days; it took Judge Heiserman 40 minutes to deny the appeal's 21 counts and schedule Rutledge to be sentenced Aug. 8.

Rutledge stood, head down, as Judge J.E. Heiserman sentenced him to 70 years of hard labor at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. Heiserman had rejected the state's request for a life sentence. The judge explained to Rutledge that Iowa law automatically reduces that sentence to about 30 years and with honor time, it would be reduced further.

Rutledge had served 279 days of his sentence at Fort Madison when he was released on $40,000 bond pending an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. A Gazette report said that his wife met him at the prison gates and the pair left for Rutledge's hometown of Houston. There, the doctor opened a children's clinic.

On April 4, 1951, the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction and ruled that Rutledge must serve out his term for slaying his wife's admirer. When reporters tried to get a comment from Rutledge, they found his clinic closed and were told by his stepmother that the Rutledges were out of town.

On April 6, Dr. Robert C. Rutledge, 30 years old, was found dead in his car on the outskirts of Houston. He had run a hose from the car's exhaust into the car and weighted the gas pedal with medical books.

He had written a suicide note immediately after the verdict, mailed it to his wife and then called her to say that he had some things to take care of and planned to stay in a motel to avoid reporters. Several hours later she received the note, which said in part, 'Sorry to run out on you like this but I think it's best for you this way. There is a good future for you if you can just forget about all this. Love is a fleeting thing at best and time will cure a lot of grief. ... I love you, Bob”