Capital Gazette mass shooter Jarrod Ramos who killed five employees pleads guilty to all 23 charges
Maryland shooter Jarrod Ramos,39, who butchered five employees at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis has pled guilty to 23 criminal charges, including five counts of murder. According to CBS Baltimore, the court is in the process of selecting a jury and his trial is set to begin on November 4. He is also charged with first-degree assault as well. His defense hearing is slotted for Wednesday and the court is yet to see if he can justify his actions with an insanity plea. Last week, a judge ruled that Ramos was legally sane.
The incident that took place on June 28, 2018 four journalists Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, Robert Hiaasen and John McNamara and advertising assistant Rebecca Smith were killed. Two others were injured while trying to escape Ramos.
State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess, during the hearing, described how he had rented a car and driven to the office and blocked the side and back doors before barging into the office through the front and starting shooting. He used lasers and a flashlight had worn earplugs and glasses and was shooting everyone and anyone he laid eyes on. Journalist Wendi Winters is said to have tried to stop him with a trash can while other employees scrambled to hide under desks.
His tiff with the newspaper begun after it had published a story about Ramos's guilty plea in 2011 regarding a case brought against him by a former high school classmate. According to Capital News Service,the woman and Ramos had graduated from Arundel High School in 1997 and he had started contacting her through email in 2009. He had told her to kill herself and had contacted her employers in order to get her fired after things took an ugly turn.
Ramos sued the paper for defamation but the suit was dismissed. He also sued the woman in 2014 and that was dismissed as well. He had also created a Twitter account solely dedicated to slamming the journalists. On the afternoon of the mass shooting, the account also tweeted from inside the newsroom. Before the shooting, he also sent threatening letters, saying that he had he aimed to "kill every person present." According to AP, he had been found hiding under a desk in the newsroom.