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52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy had struggled with her mental health since her twenties & it wasn’t unusual for her to mutter to herself or curse at passing strangers on the street. However, after she began receiving treatment at a local psychiatric center, she seemed to be progressing at an amazing pace.
Ruthie often voiced concern about the place she’d called home for the past four years, a high-rise building on Chicago’s Near West Side. She lived in one of seven 15-story, brown, Y-shaped towers within the Grace Abbott Homes. The buildings were terribly dark & dangerous & featured malfunctioning elevators, pitch-black stairwells that were teeming with addicts & criminals. Ruthie’s home at the end of a corridor on the 11th floor, was the kind of place where happy gatherings didn’t happen & you would be foolish if you weren’t always looking over your shoulder.
When Ruthie dialed 911 on the night of Wednesday, April 22, 1987 at 8:45 pm, she told the dispatcher, I’m a resident at 1440 W. 13th Street, apartment 1109 & some people next door are totally tearing this down, you know. In a frantic voice, she went on to explain that someone was trying to come through her bathroom.
Ruthie’s story became the inspiration for the 1992 horror film, Candyman, about a graduate student from the University of Illinois Chicago who was researching urban legends & began to look into Candyman, a spirit who kills anyone who speaks his name five times while standing in front of the mirror. Sadly, in Ruthie’s case, her fate was not fiction & instead, it was a horrifying reality.
Since 1983, Ruthie had been living in Chicago’s ABLA Homes, ABLA being an acronym for the names of four different housing developments that totaled 3,596 units (Adams, Brooks, Loomis & Abbott). These were part of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) spanning from Cabrini Street on the north end to 15th Street on the south end & from Blue Island Avenue on the east end to Ashland Avenue on the west.
The Grace Abbott Homes, where Ruthie lived, were the fourth installation of the ABLA housing project with construction starting in 1952 & ending in 1955 as an all African American project named after Grace Abbott, a social worker who was an advocate in advancing child welfare & defending the rights of eastern European immigrants.
Initially, residents within the community were fairly safe since they were screened before they were allowed to move in. Gang activity was present, but not yet running rampant. However, by the mid-1960s, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), stopped taking precautions when screening new tenants & the projects soon fell victim to crime & heavy gang activity. Budget cuts meant that the buildings began to fall into disrepair & the high-rises, especially, became heavily polluted with trash & graffiti.
At the time of this case in 1987, Abbott Homes was a place that Ruthie & about 3,600 other people called home. A lucky 580 residents lived in 33 two-story row houses while everyone else was spread between 7 high rises, Ruthie included. The majority of the residents were African American & under 18-years-old while the average income per family was $4,527 ($12,744 in 2025).
Abbott Homes was a significantly more violent area than the infamous Cabrini-Green CHA development that was situated not far from the affluent Gold Coast area, the lakefront & downtown. Abbott Homes was laid out in a way that made it perfect to facilitate crime & house gangs. There were superblocks of high rises that sat a distance from the streets & promoted anonymous living where addiction ran rampant.
Residents of these homes & apartments were more than twice as likely to be beaten, raped & murdered as they would be citywide & the Abbott high rises where Ruthie lived were especially violent. The coordoors were completely enclosed, the light bulbs either burned out, broken or stolen that made the area pitch black during the day & night. Where there should have been three janitors per high rise, there was only one & as quickly as a new light bulb would be screwed in, a tenant would steal it.
Vacant units within Abbott Homes were supposed to be boarded up when expected to be empty for more than a few days, but because of the lack of janitors & supplies, this didn’t always happen. Even when they were boarded up, drug dealers would find a way in, kicking in the whole frame of a door. Unboarded units would be stripped of anything of value; sinks, cabinets, door knobs & light bulbs were quickly whisked away.
42 of the 148 units were vacant in the building where Ruthie lived because supplies & time were lacking to make them habitable again.
As the dispatcher ended the call with Ruthie on the night of Wednesday, April 22, 1987, a patrol car was sent on its way, however rather than labeled a break-in attempt, the patrol was incorrectly told they were answering a disturbance with a neighbor. Ruthie told the dispatcher, They throwed the cabinet down. She elaborated that she was living in the projects in Chicago & elaborated, You can reach my bathroom, they want to come through my bathroom.
Because the call had been mislabeled as a disturbance, it took police longer than it should have to respond. Before officers could arrive, a second 911 call came through at 9:04 pm, nineteen minutes after Ruthie called. This time, the caller reported hearing gunshots & yelling coming from unit 1109, Ruthie’s apartment. & with this, two additional police cars headed to the scene.
At approximately 9:10 pm four officers arrived at Ruthie’s apartment & began pounding on the door, announcing their presence. Because they were met with silence, they contacted the dispatcher & asked her to call Ruthie’s phone believing somebody may be in there holding somebody. The officers who stood outside her front door could hear the endless ringing of the woman’s phone from the other side of the door.
Meanwhile, two officers downstairs headed to the project office one block away in order to get the key for unit 1109, however, the key they were given didn’t fit in the lock. Officers stood out in the hall debating their next move, finding no help from Ruthie’s neighbors who either didn’t answer their doors or indicated that they hadn’t seen or heard anything. One neighbor told officers that an elderly woman lived in unit 1109 but she always answered her door.
When the officers contacted the project office a second time, the janitor indicated that there was no other key for unit 1109. With this, the officers left the building at 9:48 pm without ever entering Ruthie’s apartment.
The following evening, Thursday, April 23, police received a call from Ruthie’s neighbor, Debra Lasley, who told them that Ruthie normally popped by her apartment on her way out of the building in the morning & on her return in the afternoon. She was concerned since Ruthie hadn’t stopped by that day & she’d noticed the officers at her neighbor’s door the night before.
About six officers & four to five CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) security guards responded to Ruthie’s apartment & just as the night before, their knocks went unanswered. While most of the officers wanted to break the door down, the security guards discouraged them since the tenant would likely sue if they did. If they did break the door down, the officers would have to get someone up to fix it so once again, they left without entering the apartment.
The following day, now two days after Ruthie called 911, on Friday, April 24, Debra Lasley called the project office with her concerns about her neighbor. A project official arrived at unit 1109 at about 1 pm with a carpenter who drilled through the lock. As they entered the unit, they found Ruthie lying on her side in her bedroom in a pool of blood with her hand draped over her chest, one shoe on & one shoe off. There were papers, magazines & coins littered about the floor.
Ruthie had been shot four times, likely with a medium caliber gun. One bullet passed through her left shoulder, another through her left thigh. A third bullet entered her abdomen, pierced her liver & exited the side of her abdomen. The final & fourth bullet passed through her right upper arm, entered her chest, severing her pulmonary vein.
Medical examiner Dr. Eupil Choi determined that her cause of death was from internal bleeding. She wouldn’t have died immediately, but because her pulmonary vein had been severed, Ruthie wouldn’t have survived very long. Dr. Choi believed that even if had she been quickly taken to the hospital, she likely would not have survived. Ruthie was pronounced dead at Cook County Hospital at 4:35 pm on Friday, April 24, nearly 48 hours after she frantically dialed 911.
Sadly, murders & violence within the projects were commonplace with as many as 2-3 violent murders per week during warmer, summer months. Because of this, a murder in a CHA project wouldn’t make the Sun-Times or Tribune. Ruthie had been one of three ABLA residents murdered that April; two days after her body was discovered, a 40-year-old man had been beaten to death by unknown assailants who used a stick, their hands & feet to beat him to death & three days later, a 25-year-old female had been stabbed to death by a 20-year-old resident of Ruthie’s building just outside the building.
Ruthie’s murder was covered in the Defender, a Chicago-based African-American newspaper & in the article, police indicated that she had likely known her attackers since there was no sign of forced entry.
It wasn’t until June 10 when the Tribune ran a brief story after a second suspect had been arrested & indicted. This was after detectives determined that her killers entered Ruthie’s apartment through her medicine cabinet after they’d removed the cabinet from the adjacent apartment, broke through her cabinet & climbed through the wall of the apartment.
The article made mention that Ruthie heard the intruders trying to break in & called 911, that someone else called a second time & reported hearing gunshots from the apartment, but when police arrived, knocked on the door & received no answer, they simply left. The story indicated that because of this, her body hadn’t been discovered for another two days.
Despite the fact that the details of this story were exceptionally chilling; the idea of killers entering this terrified woman’s home through her medicine cabinet, it didn’t captivate news editors. There were also concerns that despite receiving two 911 calls, police failed to enter Ruthie’s apartment that Wednesday night. Regardless, this was the last time Ruthie’s story was covered in any Chicago daily paper, likely because the area had such a high rate of violence that people were immune to the stories.
A janitor within the high rises, who wished to remain anonymous, indicated that because of the ongoing horrors of what happened in the area, people become desensitized & only worried about those stronger than themselves rather than those who were weaker.
Residents indicated that over the past year & a half, people had been coming through units, entering through the medicine cabinet. Of the ten apartments on each floor, four were especially vulnerable, these were the pair of units that sat at the end of each corridor & had back-to-back medicine cabinets. It was a horrifying reality that locking your front door wasn’t enough to protect a resident. Some of the vacant units lacked a doorknob, thus weren’t even locked, which made them open to unsavory squatters.
An area known as the pipe chase, a space 2.5 feet across, ran between the medicine cabinets of two units to provide easy access to plumbing should a leak be an issue. The cabinets themselves were only secured by six nails & could easily be pulled from the wall & in some areas of the building, a person could even climb vertically to the apartment above or below.
According to the janitor, gang members often occupied multiple adjacent units & linked them by removing the medicine cabinets which provided an escape route should a person or police enter one of the apartments. A detective who investigated Ruthie’s case indicated that the medicine cabinet opening is small at only 1.5 feet wide with pipes obscuring the area which would not allow many policemen to fit through.
Some residents who learned about this issue began tying a rope to their bathroom door at bedtime, pulling the door shut & securing it to a nearby object. With the bathroom now inaccessible, they would place a pail of water out to be used as a nighttime toilet. Other residents positioned large pieces of furniture in front of the closed bathroom door at night to protect themselves while they slept in their bedrooms.
Many people speculated that had the 911 calls come from a location other than the housing projects, the officers would have likely forcibly gained entry into the unit that Wednesday night. However, Captain Raymond Risley, an assistant to the superintendent, indicated that many of the 911 calls that originate from this location are hoaxes.
Some indicated that because the elevators are often out of service & lights are broken, finding a body in a day & a half is considered efficient. The highrises were built with a lack of through streets, originally to give residents more recreation space, thus preventing anyone from driving through the development which isolated the residents. As gang activity, drug use & violence escalated, many residents remained housebound for fear of being killed if they left their homes. Because of this, many residents remained within the housing units for generations with kids & grandkids living just down the hall.
Ruthie Mae McCoy was known to her neighbors as Miss Mae; she was a mentally ill woman trying to survive within her CHA project. She was known to dress strangely, curse at strangers & wave a stick at teens who walked in her path. However, in the months before her murder, according to her neighbors, she’d turned over a new leaf & began dressing decently, was less ornery & even pleasant. Most weekdays, she left early, saying she was going to school.
Those within the projects who struggled with their mental health dealt with a double edge sword battling the demons within as well as those around them. Sadly, Ruthie was getting close to escaping the darkness & violence of her home as two months before her death, with the assistance of social security & staff members at the Mount Sinai psychiatric center, she had gotten approval to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Rather than receiving $154 per month from general assistance, she would be receiving $340. She’d applied in September & her first check was dated for February 10 for $1,979. With this money, Ruthie planned to escape public housing. She’d also purchased a new winter coat, some new clothing & inexpensive household items.
Ruthie’s neighbors had been very observant & noticed the new items she’d been purchasing. Detectives believe that the killers invaded her apartment with the assumption that she had some money stashed away. Tragically, the money she was planning to use to make her escape ended up leading to her murder.
Inside Ruthie’s apartment, investigators found school worksheets since Ruthie was working toward getting her GED.
Standing in the bathroom of Ruthie’s apartment, one could see where the medicine cabinet had previously stood which was by then, just an opening with pipes snaking down the wall. Her killers would have wriggled through the small space from neighboring unit 1108. The cabinet in unit 1108 had been taken as evidence while Ruthie’s medicine cabinet had never been found & it’s unclear if it was in place before the killers broke through the wall.
According to Vernita, one year earlier, burglars had also broken into her mother’s apartment through the medicine cabinet & despite the fact that her mom reported the incident, no one from CHA ever reinforced the cabinet to the wall.
Margaret Burrage was Ruthie’s former next-door-neighbor from unit 1108 who moved out in early April, & recalled seeing Ruthie’s cabinet leaning against the tub in the bathroom earlier that year. However, a CHA spokesperson maintains that there was no record in Ruthie’s housing file of her having reported a break-in or an issue with her medicine cabinet.
On April 30, 1987, a small service was held in Ruthie’s honor on the south side & she was buried in Homewood later that afternoon.
Ruthie had been born in Hughes, Arkansas as one of eight children & when she was a young girl, her family relocated to the south side of Chicago in hopes of finding a better life. However, the large family financially struggled & barely managed to scrape by.
After a little more than one year at Phillips High School, Ruthie began to show signs of mental illness when she was in her twenties. According to those close to her, it’s unclear what she suffered from, but she often talked to herself & had sudden, angry outbursts.
Ruthie’s mother was a devout Baptist & her siblings attributed spiritual explanations as to what was going on with Ruthie & believe her issues started when she got out of God. Ruthie never married & had her only child, Vernita, when she was 27. Vernita’s father wasn’t involved which left Ruthie bitter toward men in general. Because her mom was institutionalized on a number of occasions, Vernita often stayed with relatives during her childhood.
According to Vernita, when her mom was diligent about taking her medications, she managed okay, but when she came off, she would often curse at strangers for no apparent reason. Vernita feared her mom would say something to the wrong person while many felt that because Ruthie stood at 5’11” & weighed 251#, she was able to discourage others from retaliating.
Although she worked in various jobs for short periods of time, Ruthie’s mental health issues prevented her from consistent work & she spent much of her adult life receiving financial aid & she & Vernita lived in various housing projects. After Ruthie’s basement apartment in Humboldt Park flooded, she applied for emergency CHA housing & was offered an 11th floor unit in the Abbott Homes, the place where she would ultimately die. She moved into unit 1109 in May 1983.
During the first two years at Abbott Homes, Ruthie shared her two-bedroom apartment with Vernita & her two young children as well as Vernita’s boyfriend, Lewis Butler. Because of mounting pressure between Ruthie & Lewis, the family moved out with the kids in 1985. According to her neighbors, not seeing her daughter & grandchildren sent Ruthie into a depressive state which caused her to become more aggressive & ornery toward her neighbors. She was often threatened & ridiculed & police had to get involved on several occasions. However, for the most part she tried to stay to herself & lived in constant fear of being mugged or burglarized.
According to housing records, Ruthie had her lock changed twice by CHA & she often walked along the 11th floor hallway, turning door knobs & lecturing residents who left their doors unlocked. Living alone only escalated her fears which caused her mental health to further deteriorate. During a winter visit from Vernita, she found her mom lying in the snow making snow angels while on scorching summer days, she might be seen wearing a winter coat paired with several pairs of pants.
In 1986 Ruthie was taken to the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute after a healthcare worker suspected she was responsible for pushing her 4-year-old grandson down the stairs although Vernita indicated that she saw no signs of abuse at the hands of her mother. Ruthie was diagnosed with residual-type schizophrenia which is characterized by social isolation, bizarre behavior, vague speech or odd beliefs. She was discharged & instructed to seek follow-up care at a nearby psychiatric center.
Ruthie came to the center five days later & doctors found indications of schizophrenia, but saw that she integrated quickly while her hygiene & communication skills were good. During her visits to the center three days a week, she participated in GED classes, arts & crafts & group therapy sessions. She scored at a 7th grade level for the GED placement test, but proved to be a very bright student who rarely missed any of her sessions & by April, she was up to a 9th grade level. Within six months, it’s likely Ruthie would have earned her GED.
Adjustments in her medication paired with her interactions with the people at the center helped Ruthie to progress tremendously in the weeks leading up to her murder. She began to trust others & form connections, something that her neighbors began to notice. She was dressing nicely, acting more appropriately & for the first time, she seemed enthusiastic about her future & her life. She spoke of her excitement in getting her GED & getting her life back on track.
Ruthie remained very open about just how dreadful life within the Abbott Homes was & how she suspected people had been coming into her home, taking her money. She wished someone would come & live with her since she hated living by herself. While she remained at the Abbott Home, she wanted to be moved to a lower floor & asked CHA officials for a transfer several times, something that was never granted.
Because her CHA apartment cost only $46 per month ($129.50 in 2025) & with a general assistance grant of $154/month, she couldn’t yet afford to move out.
Ruthie’s family suspect that the killers knew she was home when they entered her unit, likely because they wanted her to be there to tell them where her money was stashed although it’s unclear if any money was taken, but only change was located in her apartment.. She likely didn’t flee from the apartment when she heard them coming through her cabinet because she believed someone was waiting on the other side of her front door.
Rather than fleeing, Ruthie frantically dialed 911 from the phone that ended up being one of at least three items stolen from her unit. Her TV & rocking chair were eventually found in a home of one of the two defendant’s friend’s homes, but the phone has never been located.
The phone was an puzzling detail of the case because when the officers first responded to Ruthie’s home & no one answered, they asked the dispatcher to ring her line & they could hear the phone ringing on the other side of the locked door. This suggested that the killers may have still been hiding in the unit at that moment or returned at a later time to take it.
There have also been questions as to why the police didn’t enter Ruthie’s apartment on Wednesday night as well as why the CHA didn’t have the proper key. According to a CHA spokesperson, Ruthie had her lock changed on her own, something that was against the rules & didn’t give the project office an updated key.
However, Vernita doesn’t believe that her mother changed the lock & believes that the CHA simply misplaced or mislabeled her mother’s key since there are only three carpenters in ABLA for nearly 4,000 apartments. She went on to sue the CHA in 1988.
Reports indicate that when responding officers spoke with Ruthie’s neighbors on the 11th floor, they claimed they hadn’t heard gunshots that night, likely fearful of being perceived as a snitch & facing retaliation. Officers argued that there are also a large number of hoax calls that come in from the housing projects.
Police went on to arrest two men in connection to Ruthie’s murder, 19-year-old Edward Turner, who was arrested in his row house apartment a few days later & on June 9, 25-year-old John Hondras was found hiding under a bed after police received a tip that he was in a 9th floor apartment of an Abbott highrise a block from where Ruthie lived.
Despite the fact that unit 1108, where the killers came through, had been leased & paid through May, the unit was vacant & addicts frequented the apartment. No drug paraphernalia was found inside, but the killers would have had two days to clear the unit out. Investigators found the medicine cabinet in unit 1108 secure to the wall & witnesses allege that after the men killed Ruthie, they nailed the cabinet back in place before she was found on Friday.
Because of the sheer volume of criminals using the passageways within the walls of the highrise, it was impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Edward Turner & John Hondras were her killers & both men were acquitted. To this day, no one has ever been convicted for Ruthie McCoy’s murder.
An employee of Ruthie’s program was left chilled by the last words Ruthie spoke to her earlier on the same day she was killed as she got ready to climb into the van that would bring her back to her high-rise home, I need help now getting an apartment somewhere else – I gotta get outta there.
By 2001, the Grace Abbott Homes were condemned & began being demolished; by 2007, they were completely torn down.
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