All About The Lady of the Dunes' Suspected Killer, Her Husband: "There Were Stories..."

Muldavin died in 2002 at the age of 78, two decades before Terry’s remains were identified, robbing her family of any measure of justice. 

“I wish he was still alive so he could face what he did,” Terry’s biological son Richard Hanchett said in Oxygen’s new docuseries Lady of the Dunes: Hunting the Cape Cod Killer.

Before his death, Muldavin was an eclectic character who married at least five times, regularly adopted aliases and held a variety of jobs ranging from antiques dealer to radio talk show host. 

He was considered the person of interest in the violent murders of three people, including Terry — although he was never charged — and once penned the disturbing cookbook Cooking with Rump Oil that seemed to subtly hint at his alleged crimes against women. 

Muldavin’s life began in New York City. 

“Guy Muldavin was adopted,” Kathy Curran, former NBC10 Boston reporter, said in the three-part docuseries. “His father had issues with alcohol and mental illness.”

He later moved with his mother to New Mexico, before settling in Seattle, Washington with his first wife Jo Ellen Loop. "At that point, Guy had created a business for himself of selling antiques,” Rolf Norton, a detective with the Seattle Police explained. 

According to Curran, Muldavin had a reputation for being a “womanizer.”

“There were stories that, you know, he liked to entertain women in the antique shop after hours,” she said. 

The marriage to Loop ended after about a decade and Muldavin quickly moved on to mother-of-three Manzanita Mearns. Manzanita and her oldest daughter, Dolores Mearns, moved in with the antiques dealer, while her two younger children stayed with their father in Canada. 

According to the docuseries, Muldavin, then going by the name Guy Rockwell, later approached an attorney to help him get a divorce, claiming that his wife Manzanita had abandoned him. 

When she failed to show up at the hearing, the divorce was granted and just days later he married third wife, Evelyn Emerson.

But that marriage wouldn’t last long either. After convincing Emerson’s parents to write him a check for $8,000 as part of a supposed plan to buy antiques in Canada and then resell them for more in the United States, Muldavin disappeared without ever buying the merchandise, according to Norton.

An arrest warrant was soon issued for larceny and when detectives went to his home in August of 1960, they made a grim discovery. Although there was no sign of Muldavin, police did find “pieces of human remains” inside a septic tank, Norton explained.

They went into the attic area of the home and found teeth, human blood, and other signs that a horrific crime had been committed. Police believed the remains — and possibly some limbs found floating in the Columbia River — belonged to Manzanita and her missing daughter Dolores.

Muldavin was discovered living in New York City in December 1960 after a huge manhunt. Although authorities questioned him for two weeks about what happened to Manzanita and Dolores, Muldavin never admitted to anything and seemingly without enough evidence to link him to the crime, investigators weren't able to bring charges against him.

Muldavin was convicted, however, of grand larceny for stealing money from his third wife’s family and spent time behind bars, before he was released in 1962, according to the docuseries.

Terry — Muldavin’s fourth wife — was living in California when she met the charismatic antiques dealer. 

After tying the knot, the pair visited Terry’s family in the spring of 1974. It would be the last time they ever saw her.

“This guy was big, burly, curly hair,” her nephew Jim Terry recalled. “He seemed more like a beach bum to me.” 

Terry told her family the couple was traveling across the United States looking for antiques. She promised to call when they reached their next destination, but none of her relatives ever heard from her again.

On July 26, 1974, a girl stumbled on the body of a woman, laying face down on a beach towel. She had been nearly decapitated and was missing some teeth, according to a report from SFGATE. 

For decades, she was known only as the “Lady of the Dunes” until the FBI was able to positively identify her as Terry using genetic genealogy in 2022. 

Although Muldavin had already died years earlier, it seemed he may have been referencing his wife’s death in his disturbing cookbook called Cooking with Rump Oil.

One recipe in the book, called “Cape Cod Shid” featured a strange drawing of a creature with long wavy hair, much like Terry’s had been at the time.

“Out of the water and into the pan,” Muldavin wrote, according to NBC10 Boston. “The sweet turpentine taste will turn to that of a burnt glove and the tender look will become one of despair.”

After Terry’s death, Muldavin would go on to marry a fifth wife, Phyllis Smirle, but that relationship wouldn’t last either. 

He spent his last days before his death working as a radio talk show host. Muldavin died in 2002 after “a lengthy illness,” according to his obituary.