Ruby Klokow

One thing that often bothers me when discussing crimes with the general public is it is often inevitable that someone will look at a crime that happened several decades prior and cannot comprehend how the crime was able to take place without someone stepping in and stopping it beforehand. I have often been chastised in open forum as I try to explain to people that we cannot judge innocent bystanders from decades ago because their way of life was much more different than ours.

One particular case that this issue comes up is the Sylvia Likens case. Sylvia was a sixteen year old girl who was beaten and tortured to death not just by the woman who was being paid to care for her but from the woman's children and even neighborhood children in Indianapolis Indiana in 1965. The woman in the case (I have blogged about this one) was a divorced mother with several children of her own and had taken in Sylvia and her sister. Neighbors heard things such as cries from children and others and saw all of the many children in and out of the house all day long. It was an era where people kept to themselves. They did not get involved with their neighbors and what they did behind closed doors. Husband beat their wives; parents spanked and severely punished children. There was not really any sort of CPS at the time and the closest anyone with any kind of influence that came to the house was a minister and a school nurse. Both were told that Sylvia had ran away and no one thought differently. The home was a mess and had few furnishings, especially for the children who lived there but the idea of the time was that this was a poor woman who had all these children to care for and she was doing the best she could. Today it is likely that the children would have been removed but in 1965 that was not going to happen. Children did not go to school and report that they had been “beaten” or things were wrong at home. And, even if they did their claims were not taken too seriously. It would just be assumed that either the child was making things up or that they had done something to deserve the “beating.” If there happened to be some injuries it would always be assumed that it had occurred as an accident, even if it was in the course of “discipline.”

I tell you this now because I believe that it was this way of thinking, one that continued on through at least the 1970's for the most part, that contributed to the fact that it took until 2008 for a man named James Klokow Jr. to go to authorities and report abuse from his mother in his childhood and his suspicions that she had murdered his baby sister, Jeaneen, in 1957 .

James would tell the police that when Jeaneen died he was only two years old but that he had been told his entire life by his mother that it was his fault that his sister had died. James' mother, Ruby, had always told him that he was crying while she was caring for his sister and that she had to put her on the couch to check on him and that she had rolled off, injuring her head, and killing her. While this, in and of itself, would be considered emotional abuse of a child since at two he had no control over anything, this was hardly the entire story James Jr. told authorities. James would tell authorities that not only had he had another infant sibling die in 1964 but that he and his mentally challenged brother were regularly abused by their mother. The abusive behavior allegedly resulted in a broken arm and nose (seemingly on different occasions) to James and for his brother, having a hammer taken to each of his toes as he stood with a bag over his head.

As far as the abuse alleged by James Jr. there was really nothing that could be done as there are Statues of Limitation on bringing those charges, not to mention the decades that had passed between the alleged abuse and the reporting of such. In fairness, although apparently Ruby would later confess to beating her children, her attorney's would allege that the abuse never occurred “OR, if it did” that it was perpetrated not by Ruby, but by her husband that passed away in 2009. While there may have been a way through medical records, if there were any, to collaborate the injuries alleged by James Jr. there would be little in proving exactly how they had occurred. Whether such measures were taken is unclear, and in my opinion unlikely, since charges could not be brought against anyone for the alleged abuse. However, in my opinion the fact that Ruby would apparently admit to beating her children does give Jame Jr's allegations credence. But again, investigators could do nothing in reference to the abuse but they could look into Jeaneen's death.

They began an investigation and in the process they exhumed not just Jeaneen's body but also the body of her brother, Scott that died in 1964 at the age of two months. When it came to Scott's death nothing could be found. My research indicates that Scott's death was attributed to SIDS, although to be fair I cannot say that it was called SIDS in 1964. I believe his cause of death was listed as “natural” but in a two month old baby, there is little that is “natural” pertaining to their death. However, when it came to Jeaneen the results not just from the exhumation, but the review of medical records, were a different conclusion.

Jeaneen had told authorities in 1957 that Jeaneen had fallen off the edge of the couch which had causes her injuries and her death. Authorities at that time apparently took Jeaneen at her word and the death was considered to be an accident. It seems unclear if when Ruby was first approached with James Jr's allegations what her response was. I can only assume that since James Jr. contacted authorities in 2008 and Jeaneen's body was not exhumed until 2010 that they had already talked to Ruby. After the exhumation, and experts had looked not just at the “new” examination, but also at medical documents, as well as police reports, it was determined that there seemed to be no way that Jeaneen had suffered the injuries found from falling from a couch that was apparently only sixteen inches from the floor.

According to the autopsy conducted (although I am unsure if this was from 1957 or 2010), Jeaneen suffered from two brain hemorrhages, a partially collapsed lung and at least three bruises on her scalp. Experts claim that these injures could not have occurred from her simply rolling off the couch as Ruby had claimed but from a more violent act.

Investigators would arrest Ruby in February of 2011 and charge her with the death of her daughter. An obstacle facing investigators was the fact that they had to look at what the law was in Sheboygan Wisconsin in 1957 and charge accordingly. Whether it was based on how they could charge or based on exactly what they could prove after nearly fifty years is unclear but they charged Ruby with second degree murder. While her charge had to be based on 1957 guidelines, so would her sentence if a conviction was obtained.

It is unclear but at some point, either prior to her arrest, or after, Ruby not only admitted to the abuse of her living children but also changed her story revolving around Jeaneen's death. It was then that she admitted that she had been “rough” with Jeaneen as she was frustrated caring for her children, two of which who she claimed were “fussy” or crying at the same time. She would admit that she all but threw Jeaneen to the couch and that she had bounced off hitting the floor much harder than she had described years earlier with her simply rolling off.

While she was arrested it appears that she was released on bail (again it had to be set by 1957 standards so it was likely easy) and awaiting a trial her lawyers obtained a deal with prosecutors. Now, keep in mind that this is done day after day and have for years. Prosecutors often make deals with defendants for a variety of reasons. The most common is to save tax payer money and to ensure that a party is punished for their crime in some way. Prosecutors knew they had an uphill battle despite any admission that Ruby had made. By the time she was facing trial she was in her seventies and there was a huge risk that a jury would only see her as the meek looking grandmother and not be able to picture her as once a young woman who abused her children. Her attorney's first attempted to argue that her supposed confession was not true and tried to say she was unfit for trial and blamed her memory on her age and possibly dementia. The other thing that we have to remember is that a prosecutor can make a deal with a defendant, but they are required to inform them that the end result will be up to a judge. A judge is allowed to accept the terms of the deal and simply end the case, or they can reject the agreement and as long as they stay within the guidelines of sentencing they can do as they please.

On May 1, 2013 seventy-six year old Ruby walked into a court room expecting to get a sentence of forty-five days in jail and ten years of probation. Word of this deal had already made it to the media and James Jr. himself had expressed his dismay at the deal. Despite expecting such a lenient sentence that is not what Ruby got at the end of the day. It then that she was sentenced to ten years in prison. This was the maximum allowed in 1957 on the charges of second degree murder. It was said there was an audible gasp within the courtroom when the judge announced the sentence saying that to accept the plea agreement would have been “an affront to justice.”

After leaving the courtroom of course the defense attorney's vowed to appeal the sentence. They argued that since Ruby could not be charged in the abuse of her other children that it should not have been a factor in her sentencing and while I do not believe the judge said as much, the attorney's argued it was in the report.

For the prosecution, according to them they did not expect the judge to accept the plea agreement when they walked into the courtroom. They did not say if they believed the judge would give Ruby the maximum but they did express that they expected she would be released when she became eligible for parole. Now, at the time of this statement the prosecution believed her first parole hearing would be in 2015, after she had served two and a half years of her sentence. However, apparently according to 1957 guidelines she was eligible for parole a mere six month later in October of 2013. She was not released. Her next parole eligibility was in October of 2015. Once again she was denied parole. As of right now according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Ruby is still an inmate. It appears that she has a “mandatory release” date of September 3, 2018 but there is also a date of April 21, 2023 listed as “mandatory discharge.”

It has been said that despite having four children throughout the years Ruby never wanted to be a mother. From society standards of the day a woman should have no higher goal than to be a wife and mother. It was not that every woman wanted children but to openly voice not wanting them often brought a stigma along with it. For example, if a woman never married or had children and was not for instance a nun, they were often called “Old Maids” or worse. The word lesbian was around but it was as if it was a curse word. Any woman who would have proclaimed to not want children would have likely been accused of being a homosexual and in the 1950's even if one was homosexual (not that I am saying in any way Ruby was) they married anyway for appearances. But, to marry and have children was the “right thing to do.” Add to this the birth control pill was not introduced until 1960 and no “self respecting” woman would have taken it anyway, especially not a married women, at least not with anyone knowing. So, it is likely that despite not wanting children at all this is why Ruby continued to conceive and have children. This of course likely contributed to her violent behavior towards her children. Despite claims from her defense attorney's, I do believe that she was the abusive parent. Had James Sr. been the abuser it is likely that when James Jr. reported all of this in 2008, while he was still living he would have accused his father of the same. I have to wonder in what kind of health James Sr. was in at the time his son went to authorities and wonder if something in his care had prompted James Jr. to go to the police. Only James Jr. can ever answer that. In the meantime James Jr. has stated he believes his mother deserves to die in prison not just for murdering his sister but for abusing him and his brother and allowing him to believe all of his life he was responsible for his sisters death.