A motherless man’s search for answers ends with the terrifying discovery of a beach town

Richard Hanchet spent years searching for his birth mother when he suddenly got a call from the FBI.

“The first thing they said to me was, ‘Have you ever heard of Lady from Dune?'” he recalled to Fox News Digital. “I’ve never heard anything about it… It’s been an incredible journey ever since.”

In 1974, a 37-year-old woman was killed, authorities determined, by blunt force trauma to the skull. Her mutilated body was discovered on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a popular vacation spot. The unknown woman became known as the “Dune Lady”.

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Richard Hanchett, son of the “Dune Lady,” talks about the case in a new true-crime documentary. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

The case, which has been cold for almost 50 years, is a subject a new true crime documentary series on Oxygen, “The Lady of the Dunes: Hunting the Cape Cod Killer.” Hanchett also wrote a memoir, Through His Eyes, which comes out in December.

In October 2022, police made a breakthrough in a decades-long investigation – the woman found in the dunes of Provincetown was Ruth Marie Terry from Tennessee. She was Hanchett’s biological mother.

Lady of the Dunes: The Hunt for the Cape Cod Killer tells the story of a decades-long case that rocked Massachusetts. (Oxygen)

Hanchett said that for about three weeks before he got the call from the FBI, he kept having nightmares about his mother.

Richard Hanchett grew up in Michigan. (Richard Hanchett and Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

“I kept dreaming of a man who hit a woman in the back of the head and crushed her skull,” he said. “When the police told me the news, I put two and two together… I just felt in my heart that she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see… The nightmare was just repeating itself.”

“I didn’t want to look at the pictures because I knew it would be my nightmare,” he added.

Retired Provincetown police detective Meredith Lobur spoke about her frustrations while investigating a closed case. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

Terry was struggling financially when, shortly after his birth in 1958, she gave up her son to the Hanchett family in Michigan. For years he sought to be reunited with her. In 2018, he underwent a DNA test that linked him to the Terry family. Through them, he found out that she was missing and is still considered missing.

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Family photo of Ruth Marie Terry, who was brutally murdered in July 1974. She was called “Lady dune”. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

Terri married Guy Muldavin in 1974 – a few months before her remains were discovered.

“When Mr. Muldavin returned from that trip, he was driving what was believed to be Ms. Terry’s vehicle and told witnesses that Ms. Terry was deceased,” Cape and Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois previously said. “Ms. Terry was never seen by her family again.”

Hanchett said Terry’s family had suspicions about Muldavin.

Ruth Marie Terry married Guy Muldavin a few months before her murder. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

“When I first met my family, my cousin told me about this guy – I later found out he was a sick man,” Hanchett said.

According to documentary evidence, Muldavin wrote a book called “Cooking with Castor Oil” that contained disturbing illustrations. One of the so-called recipes, “Cape Cod Shid,” appears to have hinted at the crime. It also included a character with brown hair similar to Terry.

The book was published two years after Terry’s murder.

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Massachusetts Police Chief James Meads with the skull of an unidentified murder victim and a drawing by Texas forensic artist Mary Meese. Meads devoted most of his career to finding out who killed Lady Dune. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

When the police identified Terry, attention turned to Muldavin, an antiques dealer. He was also the prime suspect in the deaths of another of his wives and a stepdaughter in Seattle in the 1960s. According to newspaper reports of the time, human remains were found in the septic tank of his home. he was caught in New York and accused of “illegal flight”.

“Everywhere he lived, someone died,” Hanchett said.

Muldavin died in 2002. He was 78 years old.

When Terri’s body was discovered decades ago, she was lying naked on a beach blanket with her arms severed. She was almost beheaded. Authorities believed she had been killed weeks before her body was found.

Color composite of Lady from Dunes. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

Authorities have previously tried to identify her by exhuming her remains, performing a facial reconstruction on a clay model and releasing age-old drawings of her face. She was identified through exploratory genealogy, the use of DNA analysis combined with traditional genealogical research and historical records. Investigators also learned that Terry had ties to Michigan and California, where Muldavin lived.

In 2023, authorities in Massachusetts concluded that Terri was killed by her husband. The case was closed.

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Research genealogy was used to identify Ruth Marie Terry. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

“The only question I haven’t gotten an answer to is why,” Hanchett explained. “Many times I thought she saw things she shouldn’t have seen… She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And everything I learned about Guy told me he was a bad person. He was a criminal. .He killed my mother. This was not new for him.”

Hanchett said he is speaking out today because he wants to dispel some of the misconceptions about his late mother that he says continue to persist.

“It was said that she was a prostitute – she was not a prostitute,” emphasized Hanchett. “She was a mother, sister and aunt. She was a beautiful person. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was poor and worked hard all her life to try to make it. It took me a long time to understand that she made the right decision for me. She was stronger than I ever would have been at that age to do the right thing.”

Authorities in Massachusetts have concluded that Ruth Marie Terry was killed by her husband, Guy Muldavin. Her son Richard Hanchett (pictured) wished Muldavin was still alive to “feel justice”. (Oxygen)

“I’d like to meet her,” he said quietly. “I wanted to restore her respect and dignity.”

When asked if justice had been served, Hanchett said, “It will be.”

“What I mean by that is that it could have been solved a long time ago – it should have been solved a long time ago,” he said. “That’s what worries me. My life would be completely different. It wouldn’t have changed what happened to her, but for years I didn’t know if she was still alive. My dad, uncles, aunts, grandfather – they all wondered what happened to her.”

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Retired Provincetown Police Chief Warren Tobias, who also tried to solve the crime. (Left/Right Productions/Oxygen)

“I’m grateful that the case was finally closed, but deep down I’m sad because … this case could have been opened a long time ago. Do I feel that justice has been done? I have never heard of anyone being convicted after they died. I wish he was still alive to feel justice.”

About two weeks ago, Hanchett went to Provincetown put a stone on the mother’s grave.

Grave of Ruth Marie Terry in Massachusetts. (John Tlumaki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

“For about 50 years, I wondered who my mother was,” he said. “It was surreal standing there, right next to her grave. I couldn’t believe I was finally there with her.”