Woman sexually assaulted and neck cut open with a butcher knife

Pasadena, Texas, 1975. The nude body of 22-year-old Deborah Elizabeth Hester was found strangled in her apartment. She was discovered on the bed in her ground-floor apartment. She had been raped and anally sodomized. The victim showed bruising to the vaginal area as well as rectal tears. The vaginal and rectal smears were positive for sperm.

Fig.1 The nude body of a 22-year-old victim was discovered on the bed in her ground-floor apartment.

There was a pair of female pantyhose wrapped tightly around the victim’s neck. Her neck had been cut open with a large butcher knife, which was then placed across her throat. The victim apparently led a double life and was reportedly sexually promiscuous with a number of both male and female partners. She was a schoolteacher who also sang in the church choir, but at the same time frequented local bars and was into the drug scene.

Fig.2 The victim showed bruising to the vaginal area as well as rectal tears.

Autopsy showed that she had also received 10 stab wounds into the throat. The pantyhose were imbedded in the wound structure suggesting that they had been in place prior to the stabbing and that the offender had used the stockings as a ligature to control the victim.

Fig.3 Her neck had been cut open with a large butcher knife, which was then placed across her throat.

The case was unsolved until 47-year-old James Richard Ludlam was arrested in Little Rock, Arkansas, in December 2003 for failing to appear in court on a charge of driving with a suspended license. The Houston Chronicle reports Ludlam told investigators he was responsible for the rape and slaying of Hester. Ludlam openly confessed to the old case, stating that his “conscience was bothering him.” Living in central Arkansas with a wife of 12 years, Ludlam was known affectionately as “Ricky,” and to his in-laws, he was far from the “monster” that had successfully eluded police for more than two decades. Torn between his conscience and a recent rebirth in life, Ludlam opted to confess to the 1975 Hester murder to Pasadena police and admitted that he randomly chose his victim’s address from a telephone book.

Fig.4 Autopsy showed that she had also received 10 stab wounds into the throat.

Ludlam’s capital murder charge was reduced to murder, even though prosecutors did not plan to seek the death penalty. As part of the plea bargain, Ludlam will not file for an appeal and must serve one-third of his sentence – 13 years – before he is eligible for parole. “That offer was one we were willing to accept and one the family was willing to accept,” said Marc Brown, Harris County assistant district attorney. “(Ludlam’s defense attorney) knew what the stakes were, what the evidence was and what the best way to go was.” Other than a taped confession detailing his part in the murder of Deborah Elizabeth Hester, DNA evidence was also matched to Ludlam from Hester’s rape.

Fig.5 The victim Deborah Elizabeth Hester, 22.

Hester’s theater teacher at Sam Houston State University said she vividly remembers her pupil in the musical “The Affect of Gamma Rays on Men-In-The-Moon Marigolds.” “She was so tiny, small, pretty and delicate — a sensitive and vulnerable creature,” said Maureen McIntire, who began teaching at the university in 1970. “The thought of anyone treating (Hester) so tragically caused such a profound sorrow and outrage in me.” Dianna Schoenbein remembers Hester as a student teacher at Queens Elementary School. After college, Hester aspired to teach and continue with her musical abilities in choir. “All the music kids loved her. We used to call her ‘Bunny’ because she was so cute and had a fuzzy perm,” she said.