US: 16-year-old girl who reunited with birth mother tortured, burnt to death

The woman’s ex-boyfriend told investigators he had seen her discipline Savannah Leckie by forcing her to crawl through a hog pen and making her to bathe in a pond, investigators say.

Investigators in the US have revealed how a 16-year-old girl, who reunited with her birth mother at a Missouri farm last year, was tortured, murdered and burned in a fire pit last month, according to a Washington Post report.

A sheriff’s deputy wrote Savannah Leckie was in touch for years with her adoptive mother who in 2016 “agreed to take Savannah back and she was delivered to Ruud in Ozark County.” (Rebecca Ruud/Facebook)

“Rebecca Ruud, 39, was arrested Monday by Ozark County sheriff’s deputies and charged, among other crimes, with the first-degree murder of Savannah Leckie, whom she had given up for adoption at birth, 16 years before,” the report said.

Leckie was adopted by a couple in Minnesota and lived with them till 2016. The couple, however, got divorced and the girl began having problems with her adoptive mother’s new boyfriend.

A sheriff’s deputy wrote Leckie was in touch for years with her adoptive mother who in 2016 “agreed to take Savannah back and she was delivered to Ruud in Ozark County.”

While the two it appeared from Ruud’s Facebook feed that the two were spending a good time together, a sheriff’s investigator wrote the girl’s new life was bleak.

“Savannah’s inability to adapt to life on the farm” irritated Ruud, the affidavit said.

“On July 18, Ruud reported a fire burning at the top of a hill on her property. Less than an acre of brush had burned, and firefighters put it out. But when they returned to the family’s makeshift living quarters and asked for water, Ruud refused, according to the affidavit. She said Savannah got a small burn in the fire, and was laying down and couldn’t be disturbed,” the Washington Post reported.

Ruud later said the girl had run away. The police launched a search.

The girl’s remains were later found in a burn pit on the remote property.

Several searches of the property turned up human teeth, a meat grinder, a knife and 26 bottles of lye, which can be used to accelerate the breakdown of bodily tissue, according to court documents. Human bone fragments were found in a field about 400 yards (365 meters) from the home on August 4. During that search, Ruud and her husband left the farm and got married.

A forensic analysis identified the remains as Savannah’s, the sheriff said.

Ruud’s ex-boyfriend, Buddy Smart, told investigators he had seen her discipline Savannah by forcing her to crawl through a hog pen and making her to bathe in a pond, the affidavit states. Ruud acknowledged that was true and told investigators that when Savannah cut her arm “in a suicidal gesture,” she forced the girl to scrub the wound daily with alcohol and salt as punishment.

With inputs from agencies