Mother charged in filicide of Aspie

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A woman was charged Tuesday with killing her daughter, weeks after the troubled teenager’s remains were unearthed in a partly burned brush pile on a remote farm in southern Missouri.

Ozark County prosecutor John Garrabrant charged Rebecca Ruud, 39, with first- and second-degree murder, abuse of a child resulting in death, tampering with physical evidence, and abandonment of a corpse, in the killing of Savannah Leckie, 16.

Until last year, the girl lived with her adoptive parents in Minnesota.

Ruud was arrested Monday and is being held without bail in Ozark County jail.

Adopted soon after her birth, Leckie grew up in Minnesota. In 2016 she went to live with Ruud, authorities said.

Ruud reported Leckie missing in July, telling authorities the teen ran away because she “blamed herself” for a brushfire at the farm that injured Ruud, according to a probable cause statement filed Tuesday.

Ozark County Sheriff Darrin Reed said Monday that dental records from Minnesota helped confirm that burned teeth and bones found on Ruud’s farm belong to Leckie, who had been missing from the 81-acre farm where she had been living for 11 months with Ruud. The remains turned up during a search of the property on Aug. 4.

Precisely how Leckie died remains unclear, but Ozark County Sheriff’s Department investigator Curtis Dobbs said in the statement: “I believe Ms. Ruud deliberately and methodically caused the death of Savannah Leckie and then attempted to conceal it by destroying evidence and her remains by fire.”

The court document tells of Ruud’s cruel treatment of Leckie, who was diagnosed at age 9 with Asperger’s syndrome, attention-deficit disorder and depression.

Ruud told investigators that in November Montague asked Ruud to take the teen because Leckie couldn’t get along with Montague’s boyfriend.

Ruud “continually complained about Savannah’s inability to adapt to life on the farm,” Montague told investigators.

She also told Montague that the girl was costing her so much money she “was afraid of losing her farm.”

Ruud told authorities that she had smashed the girl’s phone and limited her contact on Facebook “as a form of control and punishment,” according to the probable cause statement. Ruud had Savannah roll around in a hog pen on at least one occasion and made her wade into a muddy pond and dunk under as forms of punishment, the statement said.

Ruud said Leckie “deliberately cut her own arm” and that as punishment for that Ruud “poured alcohol and salt on the cut twice a day and rubbed it until the scabs came off.”