It was Easter Sunday in the city of Hamilton, Ohio, in 1975. According to American tradition, children were jumping everywhere in search of hidden eggs while parents stayed home to prepare the roast of Easter. That’s how the day was supposed to be, spending time with his family. But for the Ruppert family, it would turn into its opposite.
That evening, the police received a call. The caller, Jimmy Ruppert, muttered the line: “There was a shooting.”
The police rushed to Jimmy’s home, but they had no idea what awaited them. Ruppert greeted them, dressed in second-hand suits and a yellow Easter shirt, clothes that would have been neat but for the blood spatter. When the police entered the house, they realized that it was not a shooting but a bloodbath.
Jimmy, or James Urban Ruppert, was born in March 1934 and was just over forty on that Bloody Easter Day. He had not had the seven days of happiness. His mother, Charity, was quick to remind him that he was a “mistake” as she had dreamed of having a daughter. His father, Leonard, was violent and hot-tempered, and had little patience for Jimmy and his older brother, Leonard Jr.
When Leonard Sr. died, it caused no particular grief to the family. He did not miss. But Jimmy’s ordeal didn’t end there, as Leonard Jr. enjoyed bullying his younger brother, as Jimmy was unfortunately beaten. Jimmy was shorter than his brother, had few friends, and did poorly in school.
He dropped out of college after just two years, while Leonard completed his studies in electrical engineering and excelled in sports. Jimmy hated his older brother, and the situation did not improve when Leonard married one of the few women who had looked after his younger brother and had eight children with her.
Always in the shadow of a brother
Leonardo had it all. The wife, the big family, a great job and lots of friends. However, Leonard was, in 1975, unemployed and still living with his mother. Leaning on his mother and older brother for support, he spent his evenings at the neighborhood bar drowning his sorrows.
On the eve of Easter, his mother had had enough. She ordered Jimmy to pull himself together and leave the house. This upset Jimmy, who had always struggled with paranoia. He began to believe that his mother and brother were telling the federal police that he was a homosexual communist, and he also feared, for example, that his brother had planted booby traps in his Volkswagen car.
He hated that he had always been in his older brother’s shadow.
The next day he went to the bar. There, the bartender asked if Jimmy understood the issues he was having with his mother. “Not at the moment,” was the reply.
He returned home around three in the morning and woke up groggy on Easter Sunday around four when his brother arrived with his family to celebrate Easter. Jimmy’s mother had prepared an Easter egg hunt for the grandchildren who spent the next hour in the garden looking.
“How’s the Volkswagen?” »
Around five o’clock, Jimmy staggered up to greet the family. Her mother was standing by the stove. Leonard then asked Jimmy a simple question: “How’s the Volkswagen?”
Jimmy glared at his brother before rushing to his room.
By six o’clock, Leonard’s eight children were back inside. The adults and a few children gathered in the kitchen while the others tended to themselves in the living room.
Then Jimmy came back, armed with four guns.
He first went into the kitchen and immediately started shooting. Leonard fell first, then his wife and finally his mother. Then come the three children, Ann-12 years old, David-11 years old and Theresa who was 9 years old.
Then Jimmy went into the living room. There he first shot his older cousin Leonard, 17, then sat on the couch while he shot the rest of the children. Michael-16, Tommy-14, Carol-13 and John-4.
Jimmy would use the first shot method to take them down, then he would walk up to each one and shoot in the head or heart. He then relaxed for three hours before calling the police.
The Man Who Ruined Easter
Police and rescuers were shocked upon arrival. Eleven dead, including eight children.
Jimmy was arrested and charged with the crime. He argued that he was incompetent due to mental illness, which prosecutors fought hard against because if a judge ruled Jimmy was incompetent, he would inherit his family.
Jimmy was eventually convicted of 11 murders and sentenced to life in prison. He appealed the verdict and in 1982 he was found guilty of murdering his mother and brother, but acquitted of the other murders due to his innocence. However, this did not change the sentence, which remained life imprisonment. Jimmy was denied parole in 2015 and is still, now in his 90s, in prison.
Those who saw the crime scene found it hard to forget. One of them was prosecutor John Holcomb who reported how blood had flowed between the panels and down into the basement. He told a reporter that the killer was “an absolute saint” and that if justice was served the man who ruined Easter would die in a prison cell.
haunting stories
A year after the massacre, the house was opened to the public and the contents auctioned off. Mats were placed on the bloodied floor after efforts to erase the marks failed. The house was then rented to a family who had just moved to the area. They weren’t told what happened.
They soon moved again. They later said they heard inexplicable sounds and voices. Lights flickered, doors slammed, then footsteps were heard from the stairs with no one there.
They weren’t the first to run away from home. A number of other families came and went, none of them lasting long. All reported mysterious sounds and voices that could not be explained.
The house stood empty for several years. The next family that moved in didn’t notice anything unusual, and those who believe in the supernatural believe that the Ruppert family is finally resting in peace.
