Kin paint a picture of troubled mother
Woman feared harming children

From Staff Reports

Published: August 28, 2007

ALVA — A woman facing a first-degree murder charge in her son's death asked relatives to care for her children and told them she feared she may harm them.

Prosecutors continued to call witnesses on Monday as they presented their case against Katherine Rutan. Rutan is accused of killing her 6-year-old son, Logan, and dumping his body in Woodward County in 2002.

Rutan's biological mother, Connie Henson, testified that she had received a call from Rutan when her youngest son was less than a year old, asking her to pick up Logan and his younger brother, Justin, because she was afraid she was going to harm them.

Henson said she and her husband drove from Tulsa to the Kansas City, Mo., area to pick up the boys. The Hensons kept Logan and Justin for two or three months before Rutan picked them up.

On another occasion later that year, Rutan and her children came and stayed with the family for about six months.

"Kathie would take off for days at a time,” Henson said. "She finally showed back up with Brady — the guy she finally married — and took them.”

Don Henson testified that Rutan, "asked her mom to come get the boys because she was about to kill them.”

Shortly after Logan disappeared, Rutan told officials her son was with her brother camping in Vermont. Her brother, Brian Marquardt, testified that he'd only met Logan twice and was working the day his sister said her son was with him.

Marquardt testified that on June 23, 2002, the last day Logan was known to be alive, he was driving from Salisbury, Md., to Virginia Beach, Va., with his sales crew selling cleaning products. He said the FBI sent agents to the hotel where he was staying, searching all the crew's rooms and cars.

While on the witness stand, Marquardt periodically glanced at his sister, but Rutan seemed to avoid making eye contact with him.

Marquardt recalled meeting "the kid” one or two times.

"I was helping her boyfriend, husband or whatever, move the waterbed, and it dropped on my foot,” Marquardt said. "The second time I met the kid was when I met my mother for the first time.”

Also on Monday, two former employees of Marquardt's company testified they were in West Virginia on the date Logan disappeared. They further stated that Marquardt had not been absent from their presence during the entire month, nor did he ever have any children traveling with them.

As Marquardt left the witness stand, he asked the judge, "You mean I can stay and watch? I just want to see her get hanged.”

Court recessed at 3:30 p.m. because a witness for the prosecution wasn't available. Testimony is expected to resume at 9 a.m. today.

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