MARIETTA – A woman who had a history with Mitchell Ruble gave lengthy testimony in Washington County Common Pleas Court on Friday, claiming that Ruble once told her that the Washington County Sheriff’s Office would be better off if Lt. Ray “Joe” Clark was dead.

Former Washington County Sheriff’s sergeant Ruble, 64, of 4000 State Route 530, is accused of murdering Washington County Lt. Ray “Joe” Clark at his Dodd Run Road home by shooting Clark through his kitchen window on Feb. 7, 1981.

“He told me he hated him (Clark), that he wasn’t trustworthy,” said witness Penny Howard, who used to serve in the same U.S. Army Reserve unit with Ruble. “He told me the department would be better off if he was six feet under. He said if he blew his head off, it’d only make him a martyr.”

Ruble’s defense attorney James Burdon spent his cross examination poking holes in Howard’s credibility, claiming that the handful of statements she has given to law enforcement over the past three decades have not been consistent.

Howard, in addition to four others, took the stand Friday in Common Pleas Judge Randall Burnworth’s courtroom as witnesses for the prosecution.

“He said he’d like to prove he (Clark) was crooked so he could leave the office the same way Mitch did, in shame,” Howard said.

A Marietta resident since her high school years, Howard served in the Army overseas before returning home, eventually settling in Marietta and joining a unit of the U.S. Army Reserves based in Grantsville, W.Va. Howard noted that she had been in previous relationships with Ruble for two different periods of time prior to Ruble’s termination from the sheriff’s office in 1979.

Alongside her were Ruble and Robert Smithberger. The three of them, in addition to other reserve members in the area, frequently traveled to Grantsville for training.

Smithberger is the witness who allegedly told law enforcement that he and Ruble, both former Washington County Sheriff’s officers, were involved in the murder after denying it for decades. He is expected to testify during the trial.

Howard testified that the day of the murder, Ruble had agreed to drive her home in her own car to Marietta from Grantsville early that Saturday because she was ill.

“We left at 4:30 (p.m.), and we arrived back a few minutes before 6,” Howard said. “We had a discussion of the events of that day and the timeline. I kept telling him we got home at 6. He (Ruble) kept trying to get me to change the time we got back in Marietta.”

Howard further testified that Ruble had consumed “at least one third to a half of a bottle” of wine while driving her home that night.

The defense reviewed a series of statements that Howard gave, including the first one just weeks after the murder, again about a year later and other statements in the ’90s and in the 2000s.

“In the first statement you wrote, did you at any time write that you saw Ruble in possession of a bag that day?” Burdon asked.

“Not in that statement,” Howard said.

“You also said you didn’t see him with any type of weapon,” Burdon said. “You said something as big as a shotgun couldn’t be in there because you definitely would have noticed.”

Burdon pointed out that in another statement Howard made 13 years later, she claimed that Ruble put a duffel bag in her car that day. Howard agreed that she did.

“In 2006 did you tell (Detective Jeff) Seevers you saw Ruble put a cloth gun case that looked to be empty into your car? Had you ever said those words before?” Burdon asked.

Howard said those were not her exact words.

“Did you also say that Mitch had a bottle of wine on the way home, but that he didn’t drink much?” Burdon asked.

Howard said that she had said that in the earlier statement, but that it wasn’t entirely accurate.

“It was 13 years later,” Howard said. “I suffered a trauma that caused memory issues.”

Ohio Attorney General prosecutor Daniel Breyer asked Howard to explain why her memory is not as sharp as it was in 1981. Howard explained that she had been diagnosed with extreme post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of being kidnapped, assaulted and raped in 1986.

Ruble was terminated from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in December 1979 after an investigation by then-Washington County Sheriff Richard Ellis and Clark, who was serving as first-in-command while Ellis was out of town.

Gary Beagle, who was 18 years old at the time and the subject of the event that led to the investigation, testified Friday afternoon.

“That day, Ruble and another deputy came to New Matamoras to pick me up as a suspect in a breaking and entering, and Ruble kept asking me a question about another guy involved, and I kept telling him I didn’t know,” Beagle said.

Beagle went on to say that Ruble instructed Deputy John Dake, who was driving, to pull over near Leith Run Park.

“Ruble got out and got in the rear passenger seat. I was still handcuffed. He grabbed my hair, pulled it back, put his fist in my face and told me ‘I’ll get you,'” Beagle said. “He hit me twice.”

Beagle said Ruble made him get out of the car and walk toward the river.

“The water was right to my feet, and he told me ‘I could shoot you’ and he stuck a gun between my eyes,” Beagle said.

Shortly afterward, Ruble was suspended and then eventually terminated as a result of the incident. Clark handed down the decision while Ellis was out of town.

Former Washington County Sheriff’s deputy Bob Sears served the office from 1974 until 2001 before retiring briefly and then retiring again in 2005. Sears testified that he was asked to summon Ruble to Clark’s office in 1979 after the incident with Beagle.

“A little time later he came in, went to the deputy’s room, and they were in there for quite some time,” Sears said. “After a while I could hear the door open and slam quite loudly. Mr. Ruble came walking past and said ‘Let me out of here. That son of a bitch fired me.'”

Defense attorney Lawrence Whitney pointed out to Sears that as he was not in Clark’s office during the exchange, he does not know how the conversation went until Ruble left.

“Wasn’t there a conversation you weren’t privy to?” Whitney asked.

Sears said that was correct, that he had not heard the words exchanged between Clark and Ruble.

“So when Ruble comes out and slams the door … that could be the sheriff that he was talking about, right?” Whitney said.

Sears said though the sheriff would normally be the authority that would fire someone, that he felt the statement was directed toward Clark.

In addition to Sears, two other former Washington County Sheriff’s deputies testified Friday, including Larry Stephens and Jack Taylor, who both, at different times, interviewed Ruble about his possible involvement in the murder.

Burdon asked all of the former deputies if they had ever taken photographs of either Ruble, Smithberger or Ruble’s car or had ever shown photographs of any of those subjects to witnesses, to which they all answered “no.”

During Taylor’s testimony, the prosecution also played the 27-minute recorded tape of his interview with Ruble at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office on March 31, 1981, in which Ruble gave his account of where he was that night.

“I drank on the way back from Grantsville,” Ruble said in the recording. “I was at (Bob Smithberger’s) the rest of the evening. We drank about three more beers together. The next day we got up about 4 to 4:30 (a.m.) on Sunday.”

The trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday after the Columbus Day holiday at about 9 a.m. Nothing has been confirmed about what witnesses will take the stand at that time.