INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The couple had been married for 27 days when the incident occured and led to Noreen's death.The driver was in the front seat cradling his
bride's motionless head when the police arrived
The clock was moving toward midnight on Sept
A 1972 Pinto wagon had plowed into a field running parallel to the empty stretch of road in Barrington Hills, Illinois, about 40 miles
The rookie officer on the scene - Christopher Bish - had never handled a fatality before.The 21-year-old officer pulled the young woman onto
the ground to resuscitate her
As Bish would recount to a jury nearly 45 years later according to the Chicago Tribune, Noreen Kumeta Rudd's head of blond curls felt
"mushy" to his touch.The 19-year-old was dead
Her husband, a young attorney named Donnie Rudd, told police the couple had been forced off the rural road by a passing car
Noreen was thrown from the Pinto, bashing her head on a rock, he said
They had only been married for 27 days
Noreen was buried in her wedding dress.According to a 2016 profile in the Houston Chronicle, the Texas native was a Chicago lawyer
specializing in condominium law, his practice so successful he hosted a local television program and adorned his car with "MR CONDO" vanity
He was a member of the local school board
He worked for a biotechnology firm that contracted with NASA
He was married five times
He left behind bankruptcies and jilted clients and legal complaints.And he was also the suspect in two murder investigations.This week,
Rudd's latest role is as a criminal defendant, charged with allegedly using the 1973 car accident to cover up a coldblooded
homicide.Prosecutors allege Rudd's marriage to Noreen was built not on affection, but on a plot to collect insurance money
He spent the night before his wedding at another girlfriend's house, the state says
He was back with the woman the day Noreen was buried."The defendant didn't marry Noreen because he loved her," Assistant State's Attorney
Maria McCarthy told the jury in her opening statement, the Tribune reported
"He married her because he wanted to kill her."Suspicions about Rudd's involvement in a separate unsolved 1991 murder led investigators to
reexamine the 1973 accident.Rudd, now 76 and confined to a wheelchair, denies the charges
"We look forward to finally getting this case to trial," Rudd's lawyer, Timothy Grace, told the Daily Herald
"We believe the state has a very weak case and do not believe they'll come close to meeting their burden."But the trial could be the last
act in a bizarre life full of family drama, spouse-swaps, successes earned and faked, and allegedly murder."We've always wondered how you
can get away with so many things," said Rudd's first wife, Louann Hart, told the Chronicle
"The things he has done to other people
it is beyond my capability of understanding."Rudd grew up in Texas, meeting his first wife while he studied chemical engineering at Texas AM
University, the Chronicle reported
The couple moved to Chicago when Rudd enrolled at Kent College of Law
He later worked as a patent attorney for Quaker Oats and was elected to the local school board
He and his first wife had four children.The first marriage ended with an abrupt dramatic crash
According to the Chronicle, the Rudds had befriended the family of another member of the school board, Dianne Marks
In 1972, both couples split up
Marks's husband linked up romantically with Rudd's wife (they eventually married and remain together, the Daily Herald reported).But a year
later in August 1973, Rudd dropped a new bombshell on Marks - he was leaving her, he said, and marrying a 19-year-old Noreen Kumeta, a
The wedding was the next day, he told his jilted girlfriend.Twenty-seven days after the ceremony, police rushed to Rudd and his wife in the
crashed Pinto.At the trial this week, the emergency room physician who treated Noreen after the crash testified the patient was dead when
she arrived at the hospital, the Tribune reported
The doctor noted wounds on her scalp at the time, but listed the probable cause of death as "fractured cervical spine." No X-rays were taken
No autopsy was performed.On the day of the funeral, Rudd returned to the home of his purportedly jilted girlfriend-Marks
They married eight months later, according to the Daily Herald
The widower would eventually receive $120,000 in insurance money after Noreen was killed.In the 1980s, Rudd switched his practice's focus to
Business was so good - the Chronicle reports at one point he had more than 2,000 clients - that he began hosting his own show dispensing
The "MR CONDO" vanity plates went on his car.But the success was a facade, according to the Chronicle
In the 1980s and 1990s, Rudd fell into a pattern
He would tell clients he had secured big money awards in lawsuits
But the money would never appear
Complaints were made to the state
In 1988, Rudd filed for bankruptcy.In 1990, Rudd began representing an interior designer named Lauretta Tabak-Bodtke in a business dispute
Again, the attorney allegedly told his client he had won her a six-figure judgment
According to the Daily Herald, when the money didn't end up in the interior designer's account, she threatened to lodge an official
complaint against Rudd.On April 4, 1991, Tabak-Bodtke, the same interior designer, was found shot to death in her townhouse outside of
There were no signs of a break-in
Neighbors reportedly told police they saw a car with "MR CONDO" vanity plates at the victim's house on the day of her murder
No charges were ever filed, however.A year later, Rudd and his then-wife Marks moved to Texas
In 1996, Marks died of breast cancer
By the time she was on her deathbed, Rudd was in a relationship with another woman
The Chronicle reported he married again five months after her death."My mother used to say there is a thin line between genius and madness
and Donnie had a foot on each side," Marks's daughter Lori told the paper.Rudd eventually changed careers again, going into the Texas
But he couldn't keep free of the suspicion lingering over Tabak-Bodtke's shooting
The victim's daughter, Stephanie Tabak, emailed or called Rudd every year on the anniversary of the murder with a message."You killed her,
but part of her is still here, and that's me," she told Rudd, according to the Chronicle
"I'm not going to give up."That pressure paid off
In 2013 Illinois police reopened the 1991 shooting
That inquiry, however, led to questions about the 1973 car crash
Noreen's body was exhumed as part of the investigation.As a forensic pathologist told the jury this week, Noreen's body did not actually
show signs consistent with falling from a moving car, the Tribune reported
Rather, the doctor told the jury the woman had been killed by multiple blows to the head with a blunt object.In 2015, Rudd was officially
charged with Noreen's murder
He remains a suspect in Tabak-Bodtke's death.The trial, which continues this week, has featured testimony from witnesses who admit they were
suspicious back in 1973, including Christopher Bish, the rookie cop who attempted to revive Noreen."Did you think about investigating the
