murderous matrimony
- Shellie Taylor
- Mar 20
- 4 min read
I decided to celebrate Women's History Month a little different this year. Instead of highlighting important women who have contributed to the growth of their communities, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the notorious women of history. The following case is going to sound remarkably like the script to a 90s action movie starring Bruce Willis or Harrison Ford, but I assure you that the whole saga can be found within the pages of the Statesville Record & Landmark. On the morning of November 22, 1967, an explosion rocked fire station No. 2 in West Statesville, North Carolina. The result was a destroyed 1946 Ford pickup truck, damage to the fire station, and the death of fire Captain Lee Roy Horton who unknowingly ignited the explosion when he turned the ignition.
An investigation began immediately as a homicide case. Horton was a World War II veteran and a member of Front Street Baptist Church. He had three children, but his marriage was suffering. The newspaper reported that at the time of the explosion, he and his wife Ruth Myers were separated. When I went back a little further, I found the initial uncontested divorce suit listed in an issue from June 1967. For several months, there are no known motives or suspects, but Statesville PD consistently worked on the case. On May 14, 1968, Horton’s wife, Margaret Ruth Horton, was arrested and indicted for conspiracy to commit murder.
The story goes that Ruth (as she was called) contacted a man she had met named Robert Lee James, who became the state’s star witness against Ruth at her trial. They took long drives together and talked. One night they ended up at a farmhouse owned by the Hortons. Ruth told the man she was having problems with her husband. She claimed he was cutting her fence and letting her cows get out, bringing his girlfriend to the farmhouse late at night, and putting sugar in her gas tank. She asked James if he knew anyone who might be able to “do something” with her husband. James assumed she meant to rough him up or somehow physically send the guy a message. Ruth corrected him and said she wanted “more than that.” This was all part of the testimony that James gave at trial.
James told her he knew a guy in New York that could help but he didn’t know what he would charge for such a service. It’s unclear why James went through so much effort to make it look like his contact was coming from New York, when in fact his accomplice was a buddy from neighboring Alexander County named Carl Ruben Deal. James and Deal created an elaborate scheme together, but both men testified that they never had any intention of killing anyone. They just wanted to take Ruth’s money because “anyone who wanted something like that done ought not to have no money.”
After a sum was agreed upon, Ruth paid them $2500 in two installments for their service. After a few days of some maneuvering and delays, Ruth began to suspect that she had been conned. She met with James at the farmhouse again and the two had a very tense conversation. At one point, Ruth attempted to get a gun from her handbag, but James was quicker and reached for his first. Ruth said, “you fellows took me, didn’t you?” She demanded her money back, but James just laughed and threatened to tell her husband about her plans if she ever told anyone about the money issue.
According to the sworn testimonies of both James and Deal, they never had any intention of committing murder. But, by planning a murder, it then became conspiracy, which is a chargeable offense. Even if the plans do not come to fruition, the conspiracy is the crime, and Ruth was charged for it. From what I can find, James and Deal were never charged, which is odd because they conspired to kill him just as much as Ruth did.
In October 1968, Ruth is found guilty of the conspiracy charges and sentenced to 7-10 years (10 years is the maximum sentence for conspiracy). The next two years are tied up in appeals and other courts in an attempt to delay Ruth going to prison. She is out on bond that whole time. I found a peculiar line in the newspaper on June 30, 1969, where they reported the “killer or killers have not been apprehended.” It seems as if the story told by James and Deal had been believed, and they were never charged with murder. If that was the case, and they did not commit murder, then who did? Someone wired that 1946 truck with explosives and a man died as a result. I wondered why Ruth would have wanted him dead when their divorce suit was still in the courts, but then I discovered that Horton was contesting the divorce and filing for custody of their three sons. That was most likely her motive.
Ruth eventually began her prison sentence in March 1970. She and her legal team spent much of her prison time filing more appeals, at one point amassing 22 complaints about her trial and trying to get a new one. In September 1974 she was officially discharged. Although I could not find an obituary for her, I found her on Find A Grave. She died February 2, 2007, and was laid to rest at Iredell Memorial Gardens. Lee Roy Horton is buried in the veterans section of Oakwood Cemetery in Statesville.
My program at the library, "Til Death Do Us Part", focuses on other local women who have murdered their husbands since 1883. Those stories can be found at the links below.