♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, the woman dubbed black widow. >> i don't care if i'm 110 and i'm still waiting, i'm not going to admit to something i didn't do. >> her fifth marriage ending in murder. >> when they found the skull, it had four bullet holes in it. >> the prosecution portrays margaret to the jury as a ruthless, greedy woman who will do anything to get her husband's millions. >> a jury finding her guilty of the crime. but she says she's the victim of a miscarriage of justice. >> i want the truth to come out. i have waited a long time. >> she's out of prison. now telling her story. ♪ ♪

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receive a chargepoint home flex charger or a $500 public charging credit. see your volvo retailer for details. ♪ i think it's a story of greed personified. >> ron and is shot and killed, we know that. then the question is, who's behind it? >> black widow. that's the persona from the media coverage and the fact that she was charged and convicted of murder.

>> reporter: she served 20 years in prison, convicted of murdering her fifth husband. >> i did not kill ron. they zeroed in on me. >> even though it's circumstantial, all the evidence pointed to margaret rudin. i'm 100% convinced that margaret was responsible for ron's death. >> reporter: now released, margaret rudin is sitting down with abc news to tell her story. >> margaret rudin, dubbed the black widow of las vegas. >> black widow. >> black widow. >> they stuck the name on me, the black widow, black widow, black widow, like i had killed somebody before, or like that i was in the habit. >> margaret rudin is a chameleon. she's been a blond, brunette, a redhead -- >> even when i sit in front of your cameras i may look different, but you're going to know it's me. they never checked on anyone but me. i want the truth to come out. i have waited a long time.

>> reporter: ronald rudin was a wealthy real estate developer. a larger-than-life figure in las vegas. >> he had a twinkle. he was very handsome. not just your average handsome, he really stood out. >> when it came to his marriages, ron went through wives like a casino dealer goes through packs of cards. >> reporter: ron had been married four times already when he met margaret in church a few months after splitting with his first wife. >> i think i've fallen in love too easily. i don't regret them. ♪ gee i really love you and we're gonna get married ♪ >> margaret would never have a problem finding a husband. it's like liz taylor. >> reporter: margaret grew up in a conservative christian household. she married out of high school and had two children. but the marriage didn't last. >> my husband had an affair. i went to real estate school, got my license, and found i

could make it on my own. so i did. >> reporter: she got married and divorced three more times. >> i think i'm easy to be married to because i'm a people pleaser. that's why none of the men in my life ever asked me for a divorce. not one. i always had to bring it up first. >> reporter: to get a fresh start, margaret moved to vegas where she fell hard for ron. >> the thing that i liked the most about ron was he had a very dry wit. and he was fun to be around. did you want to hear he was the best lover i ever had? >> from a distance they look like the perfect couple. but behind the scenes it was very volatile. firearms. disputes about money. affairs. >> reporter: margaret discovered that ron was having an affair with an irs agent. but she was suspected of having one too, with a man named yehud ariel sharon, who claimed to be a former mossad agent.

margaret denied it. >> we weren't having an affair, because i was married. if i hadn't have been married -- he wasn't my type. >> reporter: one night mutual suspicion and jealousy led to an argument, and margaret claims he slapped her and she pulled out a gun. >> he wrestled it out of my hand. and i knew that was the closest to death i was ever going to get. by the look on his face. and i said, okay, that's it, i'm out of here. and he said, no, no, no, you don't have to go, i promise you, nothing like that will ever happen again. >> reporter: while things settled down, ron's friends said he still had suspicions. >> he said, margaret's diagramming out how she's going to split up all my money. he said, i'm really getting nervous. i told him, you better watch your back. >> reporter: ron was developing a massive real estate deal for an rv resort, lee canyon. >> ron at one point apparently

approached people affiliated with organized crime, seeking money to help develop this place. >> reporter: the couple patched up their relationship. margaret even opened up an antique shop with ron's help. >> ron came because he kind of played host, you know, like this is my shop, this is my wife. i was excited about it because ron was happy. and being supportive. i thought it was all going to work out and be perfect. >> reporter: on sunday night of their opening weekend, she says she closed the store very late, getting home at 2:00 a.m. >> ron's car wasn't there. the burglar alarm wasn't on. and i thought, well, that's strange. i thought, i'm so tired, i'm just going to go to bed. >> next morning, ron's employees get to the real estate office and there's no sign of ron rudin. >> reporter: margaret immediately became the prime suspect. >> ron wrote in his will that if any of his beneficiaries were involved in his death, either directly or indirectly, that

they should receive nothing. >> the police think this was about money. and that margaret was greedy and she wanted his fortune. >> reporter: ron had been missing for four days when authorities found his car. there were four sets of muddy footprints and clothing in the back. but no ron. >> despite all of these clues, weeks would then go by. and no more leads. >> reporter: ron had been missing for 36 days when some fishermen found a skull 60 miles southeast of las vegas. >> when they found the skull, it had four bullet holes in it. three in the back, then one from the front. >> reporter: authorities used dental records to confirm it was ron. >> when the cops came to tell me about ron, your mind can't take so much at one time. they had said that ron's skull had been found, that he was

dead, he'd been shot. i was in shock. >> reporter: in a burn pit found at the location, investigators also found metal belts from a trunk. >> what we believe is the body in the trunk had been placed there on the hill and it had been burned. >> reporter: they suspected the trunk came from margaret's antique shop. >> the trunk did become crucial, because the hardware was said to be from a humpback trunk. we believed there was a receipt that came back to the humpback trunk in her inventory, but there was no humpback trunk at the store. >> reporter: margaret was a small woman, ron a big guy. how could she have moved his body if she had killed him? investigators are starting to believe margaret had to have had help. >> they come up with her supposed boyfriend, yehud ariel sharon. what they do is put both of them under surveillance. >> the theory was margaret shot him while he slept and called yehuda and asked him to help.

>> reporter: he had an alibi. his girlfriend at the time claimed she was with him, and the story checked out. >> there's no proof of yehuda's involvement in this. he portrayed this as a witch hunt that they were out to get margaret and he got sucked into this. >> there's no forensics that ever puts margaret involved with ron's death. >> it's one year after ron's death, and margaret is fighting two big battles. one, the trustees of her husband's estate, his $12 million estate, are keeping her from getting any money. secondly, she's under suspicion for murder. >> ron trusted me. he wanted me to have a part of the inheritance. because each time that he redid his trust, he increased my percentage by 20%. >> reporter: margaret settled

the fight over ron's estate, getting less than $200,000. >> far cry from the millions that she was set to inherit if, indeed, he had died of natural causes or she wasn't under any suspicion. >> the police struggled for a long time to discern exactly how ron was murdered. >> reporter: then, in july of 1996, scuba divers in lake meade find a .22-caliber gun with a silencer. it sat in storage almost a year before police announce it was ron's gun and they believe it's the murder weapon. >> the problem is they can't connect the murder weapon to margaret, they can't put the gun in margaret's hand. >> ron had thousands of guns and had reported one missing earlier. investigators believe this was the missing piece. >> and then three years after the disappearance of mr. rudin, margaret is indicted. >> here comes the interesting

part now. they called margaret's attorney. they said, hey, guess what? we got a murder warrant for margaret, we need her to turn herself in. the attorney promptly said, i don't know where she is. she's disappeared. >> reporter: when we come back, an international hunt for the woman now called the black widow. >> if i told you what happened next, you wouldn't believe it. find your rhythm. your happy place. find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ under indictment for the murder of her fifth husband, ron

rudin, margaret rudin went on the lam. >> everything that had gone wrong, the way it was handled by the police and the prosecutors, and i got really scared. >> reporter: she first fled to mexico, then back to the states, living under assumed names in phoenix and massachusetts. authorities were chasing her for two years, her face on "america's most wanted." >> did you spot margaret rudin, call our hotline. 1-800-crime-tv. >> reporter: she was finally captured in massachusetts. >> i said, this is about margaret, this is about las vegas. at that point she was placed in handcuffs with no issues whatsoever. this would be a good example of how she looked upon her arrest. and then she had all her things scattered all over the room. to include wigs. came across several i.d.s. she took deliberate, proactive measures to conceal her

identity. >> reporter: this is what margaret rudin looked like when correction officerses booked her. >> people in revere were stunned beyond belief when it came out she was wanted for murder in las vegas. >> this doesn't jive with the person that i knew, the pleasantness of her. that's just not something that you can hide. i don't know, i tend to have my doubts. >> reporter: margaret was brought back to las vegas and put on trial for murder. >> good morning and welcome to "open court" here on court tv. >> state of nevada versus margaret rudin. >> the world is watching as this woman, who has been on the run, accused of murder, is now sitting in the defendant's chair. >> i did not know the magnitude until trial started. >> there's a lot riding on the case. and i remember really feeling the weight of that case. >> in opening statements the prosecution portrays margaret to the jury as a ruthless, greedy woman who will do anything to get her husband's millions.

>> the evidence will show at the time of ronald rudin's death, margaret rudin was a 60% beneficiary of the properties and assets that were in that trust. >> one of the major pieces that the state honed in on was a trunk. they claimed margaret had stuffed the body and that somehow took it out there, burned it. and now what they're trying to do is tie the trunk into margaret rudin. >> reporter: the prosecution called an antiques dealer who testified he sold the trunk to her. >> investigators always believed margaret had help transporting that trunk. they pointed the finger at her suspected paramour, yehud ariel sharon. in what atmosphere looks to be a major nail in the coffin of the case, yehud ariel sharon is called to the stand as a prosecution witness. >> reporter: he testified he had

nothing to do with the death. >> did you help kill ron rudin? >> no, i did not. >> reporter: no charges were brought against him. margaret's defense team didn't appear to be up to the defense. and their courtroom antics fell flat. >> i made a ruling and it sticks! >> i sort of blew up. i said, this is the most ridiculous thing i ever heard. it was, it was a circus. ♪ da da da da da da da ♪ >> reporter: after a nine-week trial and six days of jury deliberation -- >> have you arrived at a verdict? >> yes, sir, we have. we find the defendant guilty. >> reporter: guilty on all counts. >> she came up guilty. you know, we were all relieved. you know, that she was going to go to prison. >> reporter: margaret had been offered five plea deals. >> i'm not going to admit it. i don't care if i'm 110 and i'm still waiting. i'm not going to admit to something i didn't do. >> reporter: she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

>> as the years went by, there were lingering questions of whether or not she actually got a fair trial. >> it was just terrible. could she have received a fair trial? yeah, she could have received a fairer trial and better defense counsel. but what do you do? >> reporter: still proclaiming innocence, she asks for a new trial, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel. >> i would really like to be able to exonerate my name. i have the energy to sit through another trial. innocent. i would be proven innocent. >> infamous convicted killer margaret rudin, dubbed the black widow of las vegas, has just been let out of prison. >> i think because of the details of the murder, how heinous it was, because it was motivated by money, by greed, that personally, i think she should have stayed behind bars.

>> reporter: her defenders are convinced she didn't kill ron rudin. >> because there's the physical evidence, just doesn't add up. they didn't have a strong enough lead defense attorney to challenge all the evidence that was admitted at trial. >> reporter: that evidence included doubts about the trunk supposedly used to transport ron's body. there was a twist. >> it turns out that the guy who originally sold the witness that trunk came forward after watching him testify on court tv. >> reporter: he said the trunk was much smaller, closer in size to something for roller skates, and a dead body couldn't fit inside. but the jury didn't hear that until after closing arguments. other questions remain about the evidence found in ron's car. >> four sets of muddy footprints in the car. they never established whose footprints they are. they found clothes in the trunk. those clothes were never tested for dna. >> reporter: and that real estate venture ron was involved in. >> yeah, i always believed there was fodder in the lee canyon business dealings, but it never

got developed. >> reporter: after her release, margaret moved to the chicago area. she's now 77 years old. >> i did not kill ron. and i have no fear of meeting god and saying, i did not. i'm not going to have my children or my grandchildren live with that. look at her, her mother did it. i don't care what you think, i don't care what you think, i don't care what you think. god and i know. >> we'll be right back with "the final note." (city noise) ♪ quiet serenity ♪

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♪ thanks for staying up with us. you can watch the full episode on abcnews.com or stream this episode on hulu. that's "nightline" for tonight. see you back here same time next week. good night, stay safe this weekend.