No Regrets

is the antithesis of his suspense-filled books, which are undisputedly chilling and not to be read at night when the reader is alone. New stanzas to the Neslund mysterycontinue to emerge from Saul’s facile pen every few months:
    One night at the Alec Bay Innie
    A drunk shot Rolf Neslund, the ninnie
    While dear Brother Bub
    Chopped him up in the tub
    Ruth served a drink to friend, Winnie!
    There once was a lady named Ruth
    Whose problem was telling the truth.
    She shot up her hubby,
    Cut him up in the tubby
    And now needs a pardon from Booth! *
    There was a Lopezian named Ruth
    Who tippled a little vermouth
    She shot her man dead
    And cut off his head
    The judge said that Ruth was uncouth!
    Some said the old lady was kinder,
    Than one who would use a meat grinder.
    Some said she stole money
    But Ruth said, “That’s funny,”
    Yet guilty was still how they’d find her!
    Looking at the benign face of the elderly defendant, it was hard to visualize her participating in such a grisly crime. And the defense would certainly play on that.
    After those who filled the courtroom for Ruth’s arraignmentgot over the shock of the specific allegations— much less amusing now that they were said to be fact and not mere speculation—they realized they had something else to worry about. The second-floor courtroom had been so jammed with people that the floor beneath creaked and groaned ominously. It was a lovely building, very old—antique, really. But the memory of the scores of people who died in the sky-bridge collapse of Kansas City’s Hyatt Regency Hotel was fresh in America’s minds.
    Suddenly, everyone wondered if the San Juan County Courthouse would survive Ruth Neslund’s trial, or, more urgently, if the gallery watching might not be in danger. It seemed that half the population in the surrounding islands hoped to attend at least some sessions of this long-awaited trial. Were they all going to plunge to their deaths when the floor gave way?
    They would either have to have a change of venue to another county’s courthouse, reinforce the San Juan Courthouse, or build a new structure. Surely, there wasn’t enough time before Ruth’s trial to do the last.
    Somehow, the county found the money to begin construction on a new courthouse, and the march to judgment moved ahead ponderously as different motions slowed the proceedings to a snail-like pace.
    Judge Richard Pitt would not be eligible to preside at Ruth’s trial because he had been the inquiry judge who oversaw the second search warrant on the Alec Bay house a year earlier. San Juan County had very few judges to pick from; it had never been a problem before because they didn’t have that much crime. On April 15, the county’s only other judge, Judge Howard Patrick, was disqualified when Fred Weedon filed an affidavit of prejudice. TheWashington State Supreme Court appointed Snohomish County Superior Court Judge John Wilson to hear the case.
    Ruth’s trial date was finally set: May 31, 1983. But then Deputy Attorney General Greg Canova—who would be representing the state—filed an affidavit of prejudice against Wilson.
    Ultimately, the Washington State Supreme Court appointed Judge Robert C. Bibb, also of Snohomish County. Bibb had presided over trials of notorious defendants before—including the trial of Fred (now Kevin) Coe, convicted of being Spokane’s “South Hill Rapist,” as detailed in the late Jack Olsen’s book:
Son.
    Anyone following the trail of Superior Court judges could be easily confused. “Bibb” who was now the trial judge replaced “Pitt,” the inquiry judge.
    Finally, neither side had any affidavits of prejudice left.
    On May 18, 1983, Ruth appeared at a pretrial omnibus hearing where Judge Bibb would rule on which pieces of evidence he would allow into her trial. Not surprisingly, Greg Canova wanted to present virtually everything seized during the 1982 search of the Neslund home, much of it devastatingly incriminating for Ruth. Fred Weedon continued to be a strong advocate for the defendant, treating her with such deference that Ruth seemed as delicate and fragile as the crystal pendants on her prized chandelier. He asked Judge Bibb to suppress the search evidence, insisting that the team of detectives from the Sheriff’s Office “grossly violated” Ruth’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
    Weedon was not convincing enough in his rhetoric. At the end of the hearing, Bibb allowed all five