Ardenwald: Details That Cannot Be Ignored

Dorothy Rintoul

It had been a week's worth of festivities and celebration with visitors flooding in from all over the Pacific Northwest. The 5th Annual Portland Rose Festival was in full swing and the major event of June 9, 1911 was the Decorated Horse and Buggy parade to be followed by the Military parade that evening. On that peaceful morning, as the parade route was prepared along Grand Avenue, it was Sarah Matthews, the neighbor of the Hills', who noticed the stillness of the Hill cabin. She often visited Ruth Hill in the mornings and William Hill was usually up and around by 5:30 a.m. With rambunctious kids in a small cabin a quiet morning was notably rare. Entrance into the cabin was through the back door, which dropped her into the north room of the house. The house itself was a two room affair. The north room being the kitchen and dining/living area and the south room being where Ruth and William slept. In this room were built small partitions to give some privacy to the family. The largest section of the room was where William and Ruth slept. Also inside of this section was a smaller partitioned area where Phillip was sleeping. In the living area, on the sofa, is where Dorothy slept. Near her was a table and on this table was a new clock, purchased a few weeks prior to the murders. The house was dark; the windows were covered by clothing and pieces of cloth. Even in the dark, Mrs. Mathews could see a form under the blankets on the sofa. Dorothy's feet were the only part of the girl's body not covered. Sarah Mathews went in to check if Dorothy was okay then she saw the axe resting against the sofa. She then looked into the parent's room and saw only a form on the bed. Sarah went back to her house, where she and her husband lived, next door to her son and his wife. She informed her family that that Dorothy was dead.

Phillip Rintoul

Initially it was thought there were only three bodies in the house; William Hill seemed to be missing. Sarah Matthews phoned the Portland Gas Company hoping to find William; then called the sheriff. William Hill was discovered, upon closer inspection, lying in the same bed as Ruth but the killer had covered him completely with bedclothes and Ruth's body was lying slightly on top of his. The condition of Ruth Hill is where crime scenes separated by hundreds, even thousands of miles, blend together. Ruth's body had been pulled down from the head of the bed so that she was situated about a third of the way down off of her pillow. Her pillow was soaked with blood showing the spot her head laid when she was killed. This movement was done after her death and was not the result of her waking and making a defensive move away from the killer. Long time readers of this blog know this was similar to how some victims were found in Monmouth, Rainier and Villisca. As would be repeated at other crime scenes across the country, only the victims' heads and faces were attacked. There were no wounds below their heads.  All victims' heads had been covered by either sheets or clothing and the killer had washed up at the scene. All the windows in the cabin had been covered by clothing or cloth. Both female victims had been sexually assaulted after their murders. Dorothy had bloody fingerprints on her body which indicates to me she was likely assaulted first, before the killer had cleaned up. Bloody prints were also found on Phillip's right arm. After the killer had cleaned up he went back into the adult's bedroom, pulled Ruth's body down towards the foot of the bed and assaulted her. This behavior would be repeated in Rainier a month later. The horrifying nature of the crime sent a shock-wave through the Portland area. Nearby Scott Woods was immediately invaded by vigilantes, detectives and posses. Many of the hobos and itinerant residents of both Scott Woods and Johnson Creek Canyon to the north fled the area for fear of arrest or lynching. Clackamas County sheriff Ernest Mass quickly asked for assistance from Portland detective Leroy Levings. Then things spun out of control...