Pike County tragedy stirs memories of Ruppert family murders

As soon as news started spreading about a massive murder in Pike County, Ohio, Chuck Mignery's mind flashed back more than 41 years ago.

On March 30, 1975, Easter Sunday, Mignery, then a sophomore at Badin High School, was celebrating the holiday at his grandmother’s house on Minor Avenue. After the party, they drove past the Ruppert home down the street and back to their Fairfield residence.

At the time, he had no idea what was about to happen at 635 Minor Ave.

The day after Easter, Hamilton awoke to the traumatic news that James Ruppert, then 41, had fatally shot 11 members of his family, including his mother, Charity; his brother, Leonard Jr.; his sister-in-law, Alma; and their eight children — Leonard III, 17; Michael, 16; Thomas, 15; Carol, 13; Ann, 12; David, 11; Teresa, 9; and John, 4.

The murders took place in his mother’s home on Minor Avenue in the city’s Lindenwald neighborhood. Ruppert was convicted of two counts of murder and received a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity for the other nine killings. He was sentenced to 11 life sentences, and is in the Allen Correctional Institute in Lima awaiting his next parole hearing.

All those memories were stirred up recently when eight dead bodies were discovered in Piketon, Ohio, about 110 miles from Hamilton.

“It was like, ‘Oh my gosh another Ruppert killing, another Ruppert massacre,’” said Mignery, 57, a world history teacher at Badin High School for more than 30 years.

Jim Irwin, who served as special assistant prosecutor for Butler County Prosecutor John Holcomb on the case, said the Ruppert killings “shook us to the core,” and he never thought he’d be discussing another massacre.

Since the Ruppert massacre occurred in 1975, Mignery said an entire generation has grown up without the burden of those events that rocked the Hamilton community and grabbed national headlines. The morning after the killings, Mignery said he remembers walking downstairs from his bedroom and being greeted by his mother.

“You better sit down,” she told her son. “Watch this.”

There on NBC, the entire Ruppert family photo was flashed across the TV screen.

“The Rupperts?” he asked his mother.

“Listen,” she said.

Then the numbing news. All were killed. By a relative.

“Oh my gosh,” he said.

Now, 41 years later, nothing still makes sense to Mignery.

“Speechless,” he said. “You reflect back and it doesn’t seem right. Whenever we gather and the conversation goes to the Rupperts, we still shake our heads.”

When the Badin students returned from Spring Break in 1975, there was an empty seat in Mignery’s homeroom. The seat belonged to Michael Ruppert.

“That was rough,” Mignery said. “That tore us apart. It ripped our hearts out. They didn’t get to live life.”

Mignery said about 20 years ago, a group of Badin students produced a documentary about the Ruppert killings. When they were finished, they asked Mignery to watch and critique their project. So one night, he watched the video in the basement of his home after his family went to bed.

Midway through the video, pictures of the Ruppert family, their bodies lying in pools of blood, flashed on the screen. Mignery has no idea where the students obtained the gruesome photos.

“I was frozen in my chair,” he said. “Then I started crying, right there alone in my basement.”

Others have asked to watch the video, and when they do, Mignery covers the photos with a piece of cardboard. He doesn’t want others to remember the family that way.

“I can’t get it out of my mind,” he said. “I tell them, ‘Keep your memories from them at Badin.’ ”

Irwin said he remembered attending services at Sacred Heart Church. In the church, Irwin said, 11 caskets were wheeled down the center aisle.

“Made no sense then and no sense now,” said Irwin, 82. “They were a wonderful family with beautiful children.”

Time, he said, hasn’t healed the wounds felt throughout the community. The city changed forever that day, he said.

Irwin has attended all of James Ruppert's parole hearings. He never wants him to get out of prison, he said.

“I’ll be there until I take my last breath,” he said.

In March 1975, retired Butler County Domestic Relations Judge Eva Kessler and her husband Tom Eberwein were new to Hamilton having just moved into a home in the Lindenwald neighborhood at the corner of Pleasant and Minor avenues. She worked as an attorney at GE and he took a job at Champion Paper as a corporate attorney.

She remembers a chaotic scene that Monday morning that was a stark contrast to the cold quiet of the day before.

“I remember looking out from the upstairs of the house and seeing hundreds of people and police cars,” Kessler said. “Of course, it was very shocking to the whole neighborhood … to have something like that happen so close to your home.”

She said over the years memories have faded about the incident, but one stands out. The Ruppert house, blood and all, was boarded up for several months pending investigation and one day Kessler got off the bus at the corner to walk home.

“They had opened up the house and were cleaning … I will never forget the smell,” she said.

About the Author