[10] Ruth was born on September 8, 1936, in a mountainside shack in Whitwell, Tennessee, to Johnny and Eva Terry, the latter of whom died at the age of 23.

In 1957, following a short-lived marriage, Terry left Whitwell to work at the Fisher Body automotive plant in Livonia, Michigan.

[11][12] Terry reached out to her son in 1972, but he was not ready to meet her due to a drug overdose which left him in a coma for 18 days.

The investigator told Terry's family that all of her belongings had been sold and that she had left the state of her own will after becoming involved with a religious cult.

[16][17][18] On July 26, 1974, a 12-year-old girl followed a barking dog to the decomposing body of an unidentified woman in the Race Point Dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts.

[23][8][26] Some investigators believe that the missing teeth, hands and forearm indicate the killer wanted to hide either the victim's identity or their own.

[19][31] Police pored over thousands of missing-person cases and a list of approved vehicles driven through the area; no matches were found.

At the scene, the sand and beach blanket were not disturbed, suggesting that the body was possibly moved to the specific spot where it was found.

[23] No other evidence was found (besides the jeans, bandana, blanket, and ponytail holder) despite extensive searches of the surrounding dunes.

[33][34] In May 2010, a CT of her skull was carried out that generated images that were then used by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for another reconstruction.

[26] Investigators also followed a lead involving missing criminal Rory Gene Kesinger, who would have been 25 years old at the time of the murder (she had broken out of jail in 1973).

[20] In August 2015, speculation arose that Lady of the Dunes may have been an extra in the 1975 film Jaws, which had been shot on Martha's Vineyard (specifically the village of Menemsha), about 100 miles (160 km) south of Provincetown, between May and October 1974.

[37] Joe Hill, the son of horror author Stephen King, brought this to police attention after reading The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases just weeks before.

While watching the film's Fourth of July beach scene, Hill spotted a woman in the crowd wearing a blue bandana and jeans, similar to those found with the body.

[40] On November 2, 2022, the MSP announced that they were seeking information on Terry's deceased husband, Guy Rockwell Muldavin (October 27, 1923 – March 14, 2002).

[42] He fled Seattle but was arrested by the FBI and charged with unlawful flight to avoid giving testimony into their deaths.

Investigators found dismembered human body parts in Muldavin's septic tank but were unable to prove they were from either of the missing women.

[42][44] Muldavin is also the prime suspect in the murder of Henry Lawrence "Red" Baird, a 28-year-old bread truck driver, and the disappearance of Barbara Joe Kelley, a 17-year-old waitress, in June 1950.

Barbara's personal clothing was found carefully folded and tucked underneath the rest of his, with the exception of her shoes and stockings.

According to a feature article written about him in 1985, he had retired from his job as an executive vice president of a silver store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

In the profile he was working at the radio station KAZU in Pacific Grove as a volunteer host of a 3-hour weekly call-in show on "aging, growing and making transitions".