File image
A Silver Spring man who pleaded guilty to killing his wife in 2018 was ordered on Friday to serve 40 years in prison.
Ruel Francis Dempster II, 34, was charged with killing his wife, 34-year-old Alice Mino Dennis. Montgomery County police say they found her body on the kitchen floor of their apartment in April 2018.
According to charging documents, a man who identified himself as Dennis’s boyfriend told detectives that he and Dennis were together April 15 and 16, 2018. Dennis allegedly told him that Dempster thought she was having an affair.
Surveillance video from April 17 showed Dempster leaving his apartment around 8:45 a.m. and walking to Bel Pre Road, according to documents. He was not seen returning.
That night, Dempster’s mother, trying to contact her son and Dennis, knocked on the door of the apartment. She later took Dennis and Dempster’s two children to her house, police said.
On April 18, Dempster’s father drove his granddaughter to school and told the principal that they hadn’t been able to reach Dennis or Dempster. They called police. When officers went to the apartment to check on them, they found Dennis’s body, according to documents.
One witness told police that they contacted Dempster when they heard about his wife’s death, and Dempster replied in a text message “Delete everything of me and you and u never heard from me take care of yourself and stay out of trouble,” documents state.
In May 2018, Mexican authorities arrested Dempster in Nuevo Laredo, a city on the U.S.-Mexico border across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. He was extradited to Montgomery County and charged with first-degree murder.
Dempster pleaded guilty to the murder charge in November 2021.
On Friday, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Jeannie Eun-Kyung Cho issued a life sentence to Dempster, with all but 40 years suspended, the State’s Attorney’s Office said.
Dempster was also ordered to be on supervised probation for five years after his release.
An attorney from the public defender’s office, which represented Dempster, could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in a statement that he is pleased with Cho’s ruling.
“This defendant fled the country after committing murder in our community, but will now be held accountable for his actions and prevented from endangering the life of anyone else,” he said in the statement.
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com