HORRIFYING

Mom Drugged, Beat, and Burned Her Teen Daughter to Death, Prosecutors Allege

Prosecutors claim Rebecca Ruud killed her 16-year-old daughter because she wasn’t getting child support payments.

Rebecca Ruud allegedly drugged her daughter with the intent to burn her body, and then beat her to death when the girl woke up screaming in July 2017, prosecutors said in opening statements Monday at the mom’s bench trial in Ozark County, Missouri. Ruud, the biological mother of 16-year-old Savannah Leckie, gave her daughter crushed hydrocodone, dragged her body to a burn pile on her rural farm and beat her to death with some sort of farm equipment, like a rake, prosecutors alleged. Their allegations are based partially off of accounts from three women imprisoned with Rudd, who claim the mom told them, unprompted, of how she killed her “bratty kid” in detail, prosecutors said. Rudd only had custody of Savannah for a few months before allegedly murdering the child because she wasn’t getting child support payments, which she worried would lead to her losing her farm, prosecutors alleged. Rudd’s lawyer insisted that the only part of the story that was true is Rudd burning Savannah’s body, Law & Crime reports.