Published: February 25, 2006 12:15 am         

Mother of missing Woodward boy charged with murder

WOODWARD — The mother of a boy who has been missing for nearly four years made an initial court appearance Friday, a day after she was charged with first-degree murder in the child’s death.

Katherine Rutan, who was arrested by sheriff’s deputies in Dewey on Thursday, used “unreasonable force” on Logan L. Tucker, inflicting “certain mortal wounds” on the then 6-year-old boy, Woodward County prosecutors alleged in the charge.

Assistant District Attorney Don Work declined to discuss specifics in the case on Friday, but said the child’s body hasn’t been found.

Rutan was being held in Woodward County Jail Friday night on $250,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is set for May 23.

“A crime like this does take a lot of time to process, but as for new evidence I cannot comment on the investigation itself,” said Woodward County Sheriff Les Morton, who spearheaded the investigation.

“We initially thought the body might turn up, but that hasn’t happened and we decided it was time to go ahead and proceed and file some charges.”

According to an affidavit by Sheriff’s Deputy Monty Clem, Rutan provided conflicting accounts to several people about Logan, whom authorities believe died on or about June 23, 2002. Her younger son also said his mother drove him and his brother out to a field “in the country,” got out with Logan but returned alone.

Rutan told Department of Human Services workers, her adoptive parents and others Logan had been playing with matches and had set fire to the bed in her Tulsa apartment while his younger brother was in the bedroom, the affidavit stated.

On June 19, 2002, Rutan asked DHS for help with Logan and told a worker at another agency she feared her oldest son would hurt J.D., then 4.

The next day, Rutan told child welfare workers she wanted to relinquish her parental rights to both boys, the affidavit stated. She told a counselor her former husband left after Logan burned down their home in Tulsa, and said she feared her relationship with her present boyfriend would end because he was upset about Logan playing with matches.

The affidavit said a counselor arranged for Logan to be placed in a facility but not until four days later, which apparently angered Rutan.

By then, Rutan had moved to Fort Supply and was living with Melody Lennington, who told investigators she recalled waking up early June 23 and hearing Logan screaming and crying. When she asked Rutan about Logan, Rutan told her she put him in a back room.

“All Logan needed was some tender love and care, just someone to pay a little attention to him,” Lennington told the Woodward News on Friday. “He was a pain in her side. It made her mad because having a child didn’t let her do the things she wanted to do so she got rid of the problem.”

When asked by several people where Logan was that day, Rutan said DHS had picked him up. She also showed one of her boyfriend’s sisters a bruise on her arm, which she claimed was from fighting to keep DHS from taking her son, the affidavit states.

Later that day, Rutan asked her boyfriend if she could borrow a shovel and plastic to dig up wildflowers she had noticed, the affidavit states.

In interviews with law enforcement officers and DHS employees, Logan’s brother, J.D., recalled his mother taking the two boys to a rural area with a shovel and some plastic.

The boy said his brother was sitting in the back seat of the car and “looked sick but wasn’t crying or talking,” according to the affidavit. His mother told him to stay in the car and she carried Logan out to the field but returned alone.

When the agent and worker asked him why his mother needed the plastic, the child said “to bury Logan,” the affidavit states.

The child wasn’t able to show officers the specific area.