It happened in Live Oak,a small farming town in north Florida.After the shooting Ruby put her nickel-plated Smith & Wesson away,locked up his office,and walked to her 1951 two-toned Chrysler.Checking on her two small children in the back seat,she drove home.In less than an hour,every law enforcement vehicle in Suwannee County was was parked in front of the McCollum home.Accompanied by a squad of Florida Highway Patrol cars,and under direct orders from Governor Fuller Warren in Tallahassee,Ruby was rushed over 50 miles away to the Florida State Prison Farm in Raiford,the home of the Florida's electric chair.She had driven there with her two younger children in the car.She later admitted that she shot him four times revolver,after he would not agree to leave her alone.Ruby said that over a period of years,he had repeatedly forced her to submit to sex and bear his child and that her two-year-old daughter,Loretta,was his.
In notes and letters,Ruby said that he abused her,and that she was pregnant with another child by him when she killed him.Ruby also said that Leroy took part in her husband Sam's "illegal gambling operation."Employees at the doctor's office later described seeing the doctor accept "large deliveries of cash examination rooms." The day after Ruby's arrest,her husband Sam died of heart attack in Zuber,Florida,where he had taken his children for safekeeping with Ruby's mama.The case was first covered for a newspaper outside of Florida.This was by anthropologist and writer Zora Neale Hurtson,assigned from the Pittsburgh Courier.She had to sit upstairs in the segregated gallery,in view of Ku Klux Klan members who were present.Her coverage helped Ruby gain a national and even international during her two trails.
In the first trial,Frank Cannon,a district Attroney from Jacksonville,Florida,defended Ruby.The case was prosecuted by by state's attorney Keith Black,and presided over by Florida's Third Circuit Court judge,Judge Hal W.Adams (not related to the doctor,but an honorary pallbearer at his funeral).The jury was made up of all white men,some who had been Dr.Adam's patients.Ruby testified that Dr.Adams had forced sex upon her,that they had sex at her home and in his office (located immediately across the street from the courthouse),and that he insisted that she bear his child,but her defense attorney was prevented from presenting their relationship more completely.All of Frank's efforts to introduce the doctor's pattern of repeated physical abuse of her at the office were objected to by the prosecutor and upheld by the judge,except for her testimony about events on the day of the murder.She said he had struck her repeatedly that day and they struggled.Essentially Ruby was silenced in court regarding additional testimony that would have established mitigating circumstances.
According Zora, who reported on the trial for the Pittsburgh Courier: Ruby was allowed to describe how,about 1948,during an extended absence of her husband,she had,in her home,submitted to the doctor.She was allowed to state that her youngest child was his.Yet thirty-eight times Frank Cannon attempted to proceed from this point;thirty-eight times Judge Adams sustained these objections." The judge also imposed a gag order on Ruby,preventing the press from interviewing her,and preventing her attroneys the opportunity to determine whether speaking with the press or not would be to her advantage.
Zora wrote that defense attorney Frank Cannon frustrated by the persistence of the state prosecuting attorney in objecting to have all of the evidence introduced about her relationship with Dr.Adams without objection,turned to the judge and said,"May God forgive you,Judge Adams,for robbing a human being of life in such a fashion." While this is written by Zora,and quoted by Huie,there is no record of the statement in the trial transcript,as there is no record of Zora's reporting of Thelma Curry,a witness,being thrown of the witness stand and being told to go back where she belongs.The prosecuting attorney said that Ruby had shot Leroy in anger over a disputed bill,which was supported by three witnesses during the trial.Ruby herself testified that she had discussed a bill with Leroy that day,but maintained that she fired at the doctor in self-defense when he attacked her.Residents of Live Oak knew that Ruby was a wealthy woman,and she and her husband were known to pay their bills promptly.The jury with the first-degree murder charge convicted Ruby on December 20,1952.Ruby was sentenced to death in the electric chair.
Her case was appealed.During that period before the appeal was decided,Ruby was held in the Suwannee County Jail.The Florida Supreme Court overturned her conviction and death sentenced on a technicality on July 20,1954.The court cited Judge Hal W.Adams,the presiding judge,for falling to be present at the jury's inspection of the scene of the crime.Concerned for mental health,defense attorney Frank Cannon arranged for Ruby to be examined in the county jail,where had been held for two years.
At the second trial,he entered a plea of insanity.Upon receiving the results of an examination of Ruby by court-appointed physicians,including Dr.Adams' associate Dr.Dillard Workman,the state attorney Randall Slaughter agreed to the plea.Ruby was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.She was committed to the Florida State Hospital for mental patients at Chattahocchee,Florida.Had Ruby been an ordinary colored woman,she would have been promptly transported a mile away to the Suwannee County Jail,a two-story red brick building on the grounds of the county courthouse in downtown Live Oak.Ms.Ruby was ordinary colored woman she was married to "Bolita Sam,the gambling kingpin of Suwannee County.Sam's business operated under their full police protection for "cash money," paid in return.Also many prominent members of the white community were aware that their names were recorded in Ruby's ledger,along with a record of no-interest "loans" from Sam.
After the funeral,the town's weekly newspaper,the Suwannee Democrat,ran the story of the murder with the headline,Dr.Adams murdered by Negress." Adams' campaign photograph appeared beneath the headline with the caption,"Murdered."Needless to say,this caption had a tremendous impact on readers who had grown to associate Adams' image with campaign promises of no new taxes,free medical care for the elderly,exemption of barren land from taxes for 10 years,better schools,a medical school in the state,and a greater share of South Florida's race track taxes.The newspaper referred to the "beloved Dr.Adams" as "noble," and characterized the murder as a senseless slaying by an angry "Negress" over her doctor bill.Newspapers around the country picked up the story,echoing the assertion that the murder, perpetrated by Ruby the "Negress" in question happened during a heated dispute over the her doctor bill.While the newspapers perpetuated the officially sanctioned versions of the story,the citizens of Live Oak.
In 1974,attroney Frank Cannon visited Ruby in the mental hospital.Without asking for any legal fees,he filed legal papers to have her released under the Baker Act,which allowed mental patients who were considered not a danger to be released to their families.Her initial commitment was due to her being found mentally incompetent to stand trial.After her released to their families.Her initial commitment was due to her being found mentally incompetent to stand trial.After her release,Ruby lived in a rest home in Silver Springs,Florida,funded by a trust set up by author William Bradford Huie.He had paid her $40,0000 for the right to feature her in a movie he hoped to have adopted from his book about the case,Ruby McCollum:Woman in the Suwannee Jail ( 1964,4th edition).Rudy did get to see her children again.But, Sam Jr.Followed his daddy into gambling,and in 1975 was convicted in federal court on 10 counts of gambling.He had been living in the Ruby homestead,from which the FBI deducted appropriate taxes and penalties.Ruby's daughter Sonja & Kay both married and lived in Ocala,Florida.Kay hope died in a car accident in 1978 and Sonja Wood died of a heart attack in 1979.
In November 1980,Al Lee of the Ocala Star Banner interviewed Ruby at the rest home in Silver Springs.Al wrote that Ruby had no memory of her ordeal and that psychiatrists said she may have suffered from Ganser syndrome,or the suppression of painful memories.In those years,the State Mental Hospital at Chattahoochee was investigated more than once over issues of patient treatment, overuse of medications including Thorazine,and administration of electroshock therapy.Which can affect memory.On May 23,1992,at 4:45 a.m.Ruby died of a stroke at the New Horizon Rehabilitation Center,at the age of eighty-two.Her brother Matt Jackson,had died less than a year before.The family arranged for to be buried beside him and his wife in the cemetery behind Hopewell Baptist Church,Live Oak.
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