Ruth Price: The Infamous 911 Recording of a Murder

One of the scariest situations imaginable is the possibility of a home invasion. Whether it happens in broad daylight or the middle of the night, the thought of an armed stranger breaking into your house at random, intending to do you harm, is something you may imagine will never happen to you. But you've still probably thought about what you would do if it did. Would you be able to defend yourself? Do you have a safe hiding place or a quick escape plan?

What if you're elderly, unarmed, and probably unlikely to be able to move fast enough? The first thing likely to come to mind is finding a way to call the police, but even then there is no guarantee they will arrive fast enough. Imagine then that you're the dispatcher, unable to do anything but listen to the other end and hope that help does get there in time... but it doesn't. Situations like this are what makes being an emergency dispatcher one of the most stressful jobs, and when recordings of events like this are leaked, the audience gets a taste of just how awful that job can be.

Which brings us to the story of one of the more infamous 911 calls to be leaked on the internet: the murder of Ruth Price. However there is more a little more to this story and we'll delve into that a bit.

For those who haven't heard it and are morbidly curious, this is the call in question (WARNING: the audio is very disturbing):



In case you're someone with no interest in hearing the audio, this is a brief rundown of what took place. The call begins with Ruth Price telling the dispatcher there's a strange man lurking around her property. She tells the dispatcher he came to her door, saying he was "looking for a guy" and then asked about her apartment. She sounds very uncomfortable and informs the dispatcher that she's an elderly woman and lives alone. The dispatcher asks her if she can still see the man, but shortly after she says she can't there comes the sounds of something hitting the receiver, followed by the sounds of Ruth shrieking as she's attacked and killed. As she dies, she pleads for her life, says she can't breathe and after more struggling the line goes silent.

This is one of the scariest audio recordings to be leaked and is easy to find on the internet, particularly on YouTube. But what makes this recording even more interesting is the lack of information behind it. There is little to no information that can be found on the actual murder or of Ruth Price herself. This has led many to believe that it's a fake made for shock value.

However, an unnamed Florida safety officer jumped into the conversation to offer a little more information. According to the officer, the call is used for training purposes to reinforce the importance for dispatchers to begin every call with, "911, what's your location?" Despite the fact that the calls can be traced, opening with your location can potentially help to speed up the process. But given how quickly Ruth is attacked during the call, it's unlikely that this would have saved her. The officer then went on to claim the call is 100% real and not a fake.

Unfortunately, this is still up for debate as almost no other information has led to any definitive answers. Whether Ruth Price was a real woman and the murder was genuine has yet to be solved but the possibility of this not being a hoax still adds a layer of horror to the recording.

If you would like to explore this mystery even further, the people of Reddit have researched this a little further, speculating on the authenticity and giving a little more insight on the case:

https://www.reddit.com/r/creepy/comments/3b4ks0/911_call_made_by_elderly_woman_before_she_is/

Whether or not it's real, the call still serves as a haunting reminder that no matter who you are, the unthinkable can strike at any time no matter how prepared you may think you are to handle it.