Oklahoma: Witnesses say woman had varying accounts of boy’s whereabouts

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August 24, 2007

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Fri Aug 24, 2007, 11:35 PM CDT

The Associated Press

ALVA, Okla. — A Woodward County woman accused of killing her 6-year-old son gave at least six different stories regarding the boy’s whereabouts, witnesses testified at her trial on Friday.

Katherine Rutan, also known as Katherine Pollard, faces a first-degree murder count in the death of Logan Lynn Tucker, who disappeared June 23, 2002, and has never been found. Prosecutors believe she killed him and buried his body somewhere in Woodward County.

Rutan’s adoptive father, Ron Cathcart, testified that he and his late wife repeatedly called the Department of Human Services for information about their grandson. They were concerned that about an alleged meeting with DHS that fell on July 4.

“Kathy told us at that time DHS had taken him,” Cathcart said, recalling a June 25, 2002, telephone conversation with Rutan. “She said she had a scheduled meeting with DHS on a Thursday to terminate her parental rights.”

Regina Ives, then a DHS child welfare services worker, recounted a June 19, 2002, telephone conversation with Rutan in which the defendant claimed Logan “tried to burn the house down.”

Ives interviewed Rutan and her boys later that day at their Woodward home, only to discover Rutan “wanted to relinquish her parental rights to her two children, Logan Tucker and Justin Daggett.”

A few days later Rutan told Ives the issue had been resolved, Ives said. Ives said Rutan claimed Logan was camping with her brother, Brian Marquardt, in Vermont, and that the boy was already enrolled at the Brown School (now Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health Systems) in Tulsa.

Ives called the school to verify Rutan’s claim, noting, “I learned they had not heard of Ms. Rutan or Logan.”

Other witnesses recounted stories allegedly told to them by Rutan in the days following her son’s disappearance.

Shirley Adams, a Woodward day care owner, testified that on June 26, 2002 — three days after Logan’s disappearance — Rutan tried to enroll her youngest son, Justin, into her day care. Rutan said her “oldest son had been taken to a mental hospital and would not be returning,” Adams testified.

Jaime Adams, a former co-worker at a Woodward fast-food restaurant, testified that Rutan told her in early July 2002 she only had “one son a 4-year-old.”

Jaime Adams told jurors Rutan said she’d recently finished second in a topless contest at a biker rally.

Defense attorneys Larry Jordan and Gerald Weis didn’t question witnesses on cross-examination very much.

Other witnesses, including Diana Koehn of Fairview, alleged that Rutan asked them to lie to her parents and law enforcement officers about Logan’s whereabouts.

“She (Rutan) wanted me to call her parents and tell them Logan was OK,” Koehn said. “I told her I couldn’t do that.”

A week earlier, Koehn testified Rutan told her Logan had been picked up by DHS.

“She said she was going to think about it the same way she did when her daughter — Logan’s twin sister — died at birth,” Koehn said. “She was going look at Logan as if he were dead.”

———

Information from: The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com

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Oklahoma: Witnesses say woman had varying accounts of boy’s whereabouts

Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr wants the city to distribute weather radios to all Joplin homes that don’t have one. That’s 11,000 radios. Do you think that’s a good use of $300,440?

Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr wants the city to distribute weather radios to all Joplin homes that don’t have one. That’s 11,000 radios. Do you think that’s a good use of $300,440?

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