In the final part of our three-part series on Ruth Sumlin, The Coroner’s Report follows the case from the discovery of J.Y. “Shorty” Cooper’s mutilated body along a logging road, through Ruth’s shocking confessions, and into the courtroom battles that sealed her fate.

We trace how investigators, including retired Arkansas State Police investigator David Hendershott, pieced together evidence linking Ruth to the jailbreak, the shooting, and the gruesome aftermath. Courtroom testimony reveals contradictions, shifting stories, and Ruth’s willingness to sacrifice herself for Warren Sumlin — the man she claimed both controlled her and convinced her to “take the rap.”

The jury sentenced Ruth to life without parole, while Warren initially received the death penalty, later commuted to life. Both would spend the rest of their days behind bars. Yet even in prison, Ruth clung to Warren and her faith, singing gospel with the “Prodigal Daughters” prison quintet, writing a memoir that never saw publication, and repeatedly seeking clemency — all denied.

Today, at 70 years old, Ruth remains confined at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Arkansas. She has served nearly five decades, still insisting she will not die in prison. But the question lingers: was she a cold-blooded killer, or a young woman manipulated into a life sentence by a man she couldn’t let go? What do you think?

In Part Two of Ruth Sumlin-For the Love of a Good Woman, The Coroner’s Report presents a story that turns darker and more violent. What began as whispered plans between husband and wife explodes on Thanksgiving night, 1977. Before Ruth can even step inside the Columbia County jail, she lures Shorty Cooper into the woods—where liquor, sex, and violence end in his brutal murder and mutilation.

With Shorty’s car, 22 year old Ruth then storms the jail armed with a pistol and knife, forcing jailer Tim Rainwater to release five inmates, including her husband, Warren Sumlin. The chaos that follows is almost cinematic: desperate escapes, botched getaways, gunfire in the Arkansas woods, and terrified civilians caught in the crossfire.

Told through original police testimony, investigator David Hendershott’s vivid recollections, and Ruth’s own shocking letters, Part Two captures the frantic hours of a jailbreak that left the state reeling.

In this first installment of Ruth Sumlin-For the Love of a Good Woman, The Coroner’s Report uncovers the beginnings of one of Arkansas’s strangest true crimes. Before the gunfire and the castration, there was Ruth Brewer—a bright college student from small southern town with a promising future. That future began to unravel the night she met Warren Sumlin, a 44-year-old career criminal with a violent past and a plan to never see the inside of a prison again.

Part One traces Ruth’s journey from “good girl” to accomplice, as Warren pulls her deeper into his world of manipulation, drugs, and violence. Listeners will hear from retired State Police investigator David Hendershott, original inmate witnesses, and even Ruth herself as the seeds of a Thanksgiving night jailbreak are planted.

It’s a story of love, control, and betrayal in small-town Arkansas—setting the stage for the chaos and bloodshed that would follow.