Nation & World News
Nation & World News

Teen reunites with birth mother — who police say then kills her and burns her body

This undated photo provided by Tamile Leckie-Montague shows her adopted daughter Savannah Leckie. Leckie's biological mother, Rebecca Ruud, of Missouri, has been charged Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, with first-degree murder, abuse of a child resulting in death and second-degree felony murder in the killing of Leckie, whose remains were found in a burn pit on her remote property months after the girl moved back from Minnesota, where she was raised.
Aug 24, 2017

Savannah Leckie was placed for adoption at birth. A couple in Minnesota became her parents and raised her until she was 16.

After they divorced, Savannah and her mom’s new boyfriend did not get along, so the teen went to live with her birth mother. Rebecca Ruud had had casual contact with the girl over the years, and Savannah joined her birth mother on her isolated farm in Missouri.

What looked like a great family reunion on social media was actually a life of misery for Savannah. Police say she was “forced to crawl through hog pens and have salt rubbed in her wounds, and then finally killed last month and burned in a fire pit,” according to a Washington Post article.

ExploreRead the full story on what led police to suspect Ruud was involved in the girl’s demise at myajc.com.

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