Wichita, Kansas, was a terrifying place to live in the late 1970s. People were locking their doors twice. They were checking under their cars. Dennis Rader, the man we now know as the BTK killer, was actively hunting, and the city was drowning in a special kind of paranoid soup.
Then came Ruth Finley.
She was a 47-year-old secretary at Southwestern Bell. By all accounts, she was a quiet, unassuming woman. But in 1977, her life turned into a horror movie that seemed to mirror the very real nightmare happening on the streets of Wichita. For years, she claimed to be the target of a sadistic stalker known as "The Poet." Because of the timing and the sheer cruelty of the threats, everyone—including the police—believed Ruth Finley and BTK were linked.
Honestly, the story is weirder than any fiction. It involves cryptic poems, "branding," and a secret that stayed buried for decades.
The Stalking of Ruth Finley
The terror started on a night in June 1977. Ruth’s husband, Ed, had just suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital. Ruth was home alone. The phone rang.
A voice on the other end didn't just threaten her; it brought up a trauma from her past. Decades earlier, in 1946, Ruth had been attacked by a man who allegedly burned her with a flat-iron. The caller on the phone asked her if she still wore the "brand."
That’s chilling.
From there, it escalated. Ruth started receiving letters. Not just any letters—they were signed by "The Poet." These weren't love notes. They were filled with bizarre, rhyming threats and crude drawings. One letter even contained a poem that bore a striking resemblance to the "Shirley Locks" poem sent by the real BTK killer.
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You can imagine the panic. The Wichita Police Department, already stretched thin trying to catch a serial killer, suddenly had a high-profile stalking case on their hands. They put Ruth under 24-hour surveillance. They installed tap devices on her phone. They even moved her and Ed into a "safe house" at one point.
Was She a BTK Victim?
For a long time, the working theory was that the Poet and BTK were the same person. Or, at the very least, the Poet was a copycat using the city's fear to his advantage.
The Poet's tactics were incredibly violent. Ruth reported being snatched off the street. She showed up with scratches, bruises, and even a stab wound. One time, she was found "abducted" and then reappeared, dazed and confused.
The police were obsessed. They were convinced they were looking for a scrawny man in a plaid shirt—a description Ruth provided after a supposed encounter downtown. They spent thousands of man-hours and taxpayer dollars. They even questioned Ed, her husband, thinking maybe the call was coming from inside the house.
But things didn't add up.
Whenever the police were watching, the Poet stayed away. But the moment the surveillance eased, a letter would arrive. Or a phone call would happen. It was like the stalker knew their every move.
The Plot Twist Nobody Saw Coming
The breakthrough happened because of a simple logistical error by the "stalker."
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In 1981, a letter from the Poet arrived at the police station. It was a threat against the wife of the Police Chief, Richard LaMunyon. But there was a problem. The postage meter stamp on the envelope was traced back to the mailroom at Southwestern Bell.
Specifically, the mailroom where Ruth Finley worked.
The police set up a hidden camera in the office. They caught Ruth. She wasn't being stalked by a monster. She was the one writing the letters. She was the one making the phone calls. She was even the one stabbing herself.
Basically, Ruth Finley was The Poet.
Understanding the "Why"
It's easy to look at this and call it a "hoax," but that word feels too simple. When the truth came out, Ruth didn't act like a criminal who got caught. She seemed genuinely fragmented.
Psychiatrists who evaluated her suggested she was suffering from a dissociative disorder. The theory is that the extreme stress of her husband’s heart attack, combined with the suffocating atmosphere of the BTK killings, triggered a breakdown. The "Poet" was a secondary personality she created to express the trauma she had suppressed since her actual assault in 1946.
She wasn't trying to "get famous." She was crying for help in the most destructive way possible.
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The city was furious. People had spent years looking over their shoulders, thinking a second serial killer was on the loose. The police were embarrassed. They had devoted massive resources to a phantom.
The Aftermath and Legacy
Ruth Finley was never sent to prison. Instead, she was ordered to undergo intensive psychiatric treatment. The legal system recognized that this wasn't a malicious prank, but a mental health crisis.
She lived out the rest of her life quietly in Wichita, eventually passing away in 2018. Her husband, Ed, stayed by her side through the whole ordeal, which is probably the most surprising part of the story.
Today, the case of Ruth Finley and BTK serves as a case study in how mass hysteria can affect individual psychology. It also highlights the limitations of forensic profiling in the 1980s.
If you're looking for more details on this, the book The Pursued by Corey Mead goes deep into the archival records. There’s also a Lifetime movie titled The Killer Inside: The Ruth Finley Story that dramatizes the events, though it takes some creative liberties with the narrative.
What to do if you’re researching this case:
- Check the source material: Look for the original 1981 articles from The Wichita Eagle. They provide the most accurate "as it happened" reporting without the modern true-crime "gloss."
- Differentiate the crimes: It is vital to remember that while Ruth’s case was a hoax, Dennis Rader (BTK) was very real and murdered ten people. Don't let the "fake" stalker overshadow the real victims of that era.
- Look into Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Understanding the psychiatric side of this case helps move the conversation from "why did she lie?" to "how does trauma manifest?"
This wasn't just a lady who wanted attention. It was a woman whose mind broke under the weight of a city's collective fear.