Deborah Rubenfeld:1972, Dayton, Ohio

   

  Deborah Gail Rubenfeld was born on July 20th, 1954 to Renee Ungar Rubenfeld and Paul Rubenfeld. She grew up in Brooklyn. Deborah’s grandmother, Mrs. Sidney Ungar, lived in Forest Hills, New York. 

  Deborah graduated from Tilden High School in  Brooklyn, New York. I could only find one photo of her in her Tilden High yearbook online. It’s a group photo and the names aren’t listed in a way that you can tell who is who. 

   Tilden High School had a very cool yearbook that year. The theme is old Hollywood movies from the 1920’s and 30’s. The students were very free to express their artistic side and their opinions. Many photos toward the back of the yearbook show students and others protesting the Vietnam War. “What if they threw a war and nobody came?” Is the slogan on one large banner. People were really questioning why the United States gets into one war after another and every generation has to sacrifice themselves. I’m sure many of the boys were worried about being drafted. Their families and friends were probably also very worried for them. 

   Deborah Gail Rubenfeld then moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio and began attending Antioch College in the Summer term of 1971. She had no idea she was moving to another type of war zone. The Midwest in the 1970’s was a dangerous place. 

  Deborah had a boyfriend there named Ronald “Poochie” Hughes. He was an African American and her father did not approve of their dating. It was reported in at least one news article that her father forced her to withdraw from Antioch College and return to Brooklyn. Deborah was young and in love and wanted to be with 19 year old Ronald Hughes. 

  Other articles paint her as a drop out. Many young people did drop out of college then. She might not have seen the point of college with the Vietnam War raging and the threat of Nuclear War seemingly always looming. It was a tough time psychologically for many people. 

   Deborah and her boyfriend, Ronald Hughes, had been staying with friends here and there. They were living a sort of hippie lifestyle like a lot of young people in the 1970’s. Had his draft number been called? Were they trying to avoid his having to go to Vietnam? I don’t know. 

   Maybe they were just tired of the grind of school that led to work and then to old age and death. Life can seem very bleak at times. Maybe they were trying to find some joy and some love in living a more free life. 

   Quite a lot of people today are leaning into van life or tiny homes as a way to avoid having to carry a big mortgage and working themselves into an early grave. That lifestyle of being more free still has its appeal.

  The couple did not have a permanent address in 1972. The newspapers reported that they were part of a drug scene but that may not be true. They also might have just been smoking a little bit of pot. 

   Another article quotes an acquaintance of Deborah’s from Antioch College who feared that Heroin had been a huge problem on campus and worried that Deborah might have gotten mixed up in that scene. We don’t know if that is true. We do know that no one deserves to be murdered. Victim blaming doesn’t solve cases. 

   In the 1990’s I liked dressing in long flowy patterned skirts and tee shirts. I wore Birkenstock sandals and patchouli oil. People sometimes assumed that I did drugs then. That always astounded me. I wasn’t into drugs but people assumed I was because of how I dressed. 

  Ronald Hughes was arrested for allegedly failing to pay a hotel bill in Yellow Springs. Deborah was last seen in a phone booth at a gas station on Xenia Avenue calling around to friends trying to raise $50 for bail. The last person to see her there was Ronald’s Uncle, Cecil Logan. He said he had to go pick up another friend who needed a ride. He said he asked Deborah if it was okay if he left her there. She said yes.

  Other witnesses said they saw her late Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning at the Yellow Gulch Saloon north of the phone booth on Xenia Avenue.

  And then she disappeared. 

  Deborah’s body was found on Friday July 14th, 1972 in a wooded area near the Central State Sewage Treatment Plant off Clifton-Wilberforce Road. The site is part of the Central State University campus in Dayton, Ohio. The area was described as a “lover’s lane”. Deborah had been shot twice in the face with a .32 caliber weapon.

   Who drove her there? Who shot her and why? Was she sexually assaulted? Was she killed by a racist because she was dating a black man? Was her killer a student at Central State University? These are all unanswered questions. 

   Deborah’s boyfriend, Ronald Hughes, had been in jail still when she disappeared and was found murdered. He had been arrested over the hotel bill incident right before her disappearance. Police asked him to identify her body. How terrible that must have been for him. He was just a young man too. 

   Deborah would have turned 18 if she had lived just six more days. Who shot this child with a .32 caliber weapon in the summer of 1972? 

   One potential suspect mentioned in news reports was Hector Cooper. He was a student at Antioch College. He had been arrested for shooting a Wilberforce University student in February of 1972. He was found not guilty of that shooting in April of 1972.  Hector Cooper was someone who was either wrapped up in a life of crime or simply targeted by police in Yellow Springs because he was black, from New York and had a healthy self esteem. He was also very intelligent and an avid chess player. 

   Hector Cooper had been interviewed by Esquire Magazine before his arrest in the shooting incident at Wilberforce College. He had expressed dismay at the unhygienic conditions of the Antioch College dorms due to student drug use. It seems that Hector Cooper may have been harassed by the police. His interview in Esquire Magazine probably added fuel to the fire. Small town police may have been threatened by someone as intelligent and outspoken as Hector Cooper. 

   I can’t really see Cooper as having a motive to murder Deborah Rubenfeld. He was acquainted with Ronald Hughes. Newspaper articles paint Cooper as a protector of Hughes. But, where is the motive here? 

   Another suspect mentioned in 1972 was David “Peach Fuzz” Sebree. He was 24 and another friend of Ronald Hughes. He was ruled out as a suspect by investigators in 1972, as was Hector Cooper. 

   White male killers overwhelmingly outnumber black male killers in the 1970’s. In my research the statistic is something around 20 to 1. The chances that Deborah was killed by a black man are much lower than her being killed by a white man. 

   Was she asking for help with the $50 bail in the Yellow Gulch Saloon that evening? Did someone promise to help her? Did someone promise her a place to stay at Central State University? Did they drive her out to an isolated spot and try to assault her? Deborah was from Brooklyn. She seems like a fighter to me. She was already making her way in the world despite many difficulties. Maybe this spirit angered the man with the gun.

   What evidence was preserved in Deborah’s case? Could the perpetrator’s DNA be found under her fingernails or on her clothes? 

   Deborah had so much living to do. She was so young and going through a very tough time. She should have had her whole life to figure things out. But, she didn’t get that chance. 

   If you have information about the murder of Deborah Gail Rubenfeld please call the Dayton Police Department at (937)333-2677.