Johnathan Ramsey
2002 - August 2012
Find A Grave Memorial

Police had been searching for about two weeks for the body of Johnathan Ramsey, when the man they suspect was partially responsible for his death, lead them to a heavily wooded area where he and his wife had taken the child after he died. Having been called in March, by Johnathan's grandfather who was concerned after having not seen or spoken his grandson for over a year, police started an investigation. Edward Ramsey had been listening to excuses he was given about why his grandson could not come to the phone. The truth of what was happening, was far worse than anything he could have thought of:



"In our eyes, he wasn't missing because there were excuses. It was hard but you don't want
to put too much pressure"
Edward Ramsey

Police were digging in a muddy creek in Ellis County for about seven hours before they found what they thought were the remains of Johnathan Ramsey:

"All I can say is we have found some remains and by remains I mean something like bones. But I
can't say definitely it's Johnathan Ramsey"
Sgt. Brenda Nichols



Johnathan Ramsey was ten years old when his father Aaron Ramsey, who was 34 at the time and his stepmother Elizabeth Ramsey, who was 31 at the time, locked him in a bedroom and fed him what they called "military rations" of bread and water for months until one day in August they found him on the floor and were not able to get a response out of him. Johnathan was being punished for what they called a violent outburst where he has punched his stepmother in the stomach so hard that she had a miscarriage, what they called his "bad behavior", cost him his life. Johnathan went from 90 pounds to 60 pounds and was unable to walk right before he died.

Aaron and Elizabeth were charged with first degree felony injury to a child and were held on bail of $500,000. each.

"The child was horribly murdered. If this is in face Johnathan's body, he was discarded,
brutally discarded"
Sgt. Brenda Nichols



A search had been done before, however, the rough terrain was not able to be searched:
"Because this child has not been at rest, we have not been at rest. This has been extremely
emotional for everyone involved - the family and all the officers involved in this investigation"
Sgt. Brenda Nichols

Johnathan's grandmother, Julie Ramsey, was having a hard time with what happened and thought there had to be something they didn't know about the death of Johnathan:



"He was a good daddy, a wonderful daddy. He'd go to the ends of the earth for anybody, especially
Johnathan. We don't know what happened. We don't know exactly what happened"
Julie Ramsey

Through DNA testing, Johnathan's remains were identified and arrangements were being made for cremation and to transport him to New Mexico where his biological mother, Judy Williams, lives:

"Knowing that he's been identified there's closure there"
Starla Swanson - Johnathan's Maternal Step-Grandmother

 

Judy and Aaron were divorced in 2006 after he came home from Iraq. Judy was fighting for custody of their two sons, however, for some reason, a judge gave Eric to her and Johnathan to his father. Judy said that when he remarried, Aaron changed and became angrier as time went on. The last time she saw her son, Aaron cut her off from visitation and when she tried to contact him, was given excuses. E-mails with Aaron or Elizabeth would just say that he was fine. In February, Judy filed papers seeking custody of Johnathan, though she had no known address or current phone number for him.

Though at the time there were no complaints filed with Child Protective Services, Marissa Gonzales, a spokes- person with the CPS said an investigation was now being conducted. Starla Swanson, Judy's stepmother said that Johnathan's death had left the family heartbroken:

"There is never going to be complete closure because our grandson was murdered. There's
always going to be a piece of our heart missing. The people who are supposed to protect you in
this world are your parents, you family. There is no greater betrayal"

Starla had tried to keep in touch with Johnathan, however, Aaron would not return her calls or e-mails:

"Grandparents don't have any rights. You cry and wait and you hope. We hoped that J. L.. would
reach an age when he would contact us. And now that is gone"

Judy remembers her last phone call with Johnathan:

"He said he couldn't tell me what was wrong, he would get into trouble"

Judy had last seen Johnathan when he was around eight years old:

"He was happy to be with me and his siblings and wanted to stay, but his father, Aaron Ramsey
wouldn't let him. I was afraid of him so I didn't say anything, maybe if I did he would still be alive"

Judy and Elizabeth were in contact through e-mail at least once a week and Elizabeth always said that things were fine. Judy describes Johnathan as a very loving child with a laid back personality. Johnathan had love school, talking to his little brother Eric and playing video games:

"Johnathan can be remembered as a very sweet boy who did not deserve this. He was well
behaved
and happy. Hardly anything upset him"

UPDATE:

Today is June 14, 2014 and I am searching for updates on Jonathan's story and here is the information I found:

In April of 2013, Aaron Ramsey, who was 35 years old at the time, having been found guilty of injuring a child, was sentenced to life in prison after the jury took only 20 minutes to deliberate. I like to think they took one minute and then sat around drinking a soda for the other 19 minutes.

Again I will say, I do not understand being able to be convicted for injury to a child, when the child is dead, that is NOT an injury that is a permanent condition, until they reach Heaven and are once again alive.

I am unable to find information on Elizabeth's trial or sentencing at this time.

UPDATE:

Today is July 23, 2014 and I have just received an update on Johnathan's story.

On July 22, 2014, Elizabeth Ramsey, who was 33 years old at the time, was found guilty of starving Johnathan to death and dumping his body into the creek.
The jury took only 30 minutes to deliberate and convict Elizabeth. Elizabeth was facing up to 99 years in prison and today is the day the sentencing phase of this trial starts. Of course the Defense lawyers were asking for a lesser charge for Elizabeth and said that she was forced by Aaron to help in the abuse Johnathan went through:

"He didn't just dominate his wife. He wanted to dominate his children"
Paul Johnson

Paul said that Aaron had admitted that he refused to allow Elizabeth to get help by calling 911, in order to save Johnathan's life.

Prosecutors in the case laid equal blame on each parent:

"Aaron Ramsey is a monster, but the one thing that defense counsel continues to leave out
is that his wife, Elizabeth Ramsey, is also a monster"
Jason Fine - Prosecutor

The Medical Examiner testified in court that after a very long time without food, a child's heart will slow to the point that they are incapable of moving very much:

"There's no fight in them anymore because they're so weak from chronic starvation"
Dr. Matthew Cox

It was said in court that Aaron ramsey was not the only one to hide the abuse the Johnathan was going through since Elizabeth was home and had full knowledge what was going on every time she passed the door that held Johnathan in a prison that was locked from the outside:

"It took both of these people interacting with each other to cause the explosion that is
Johnathan's death"
Eren Price - Prosecutor

Site creators note: I don't often talk about my own life while telling the stories of these little Angels. In this instance I am going to share an experience I had in 2010. I have Crohn's Disease and in 2010, I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer. I had an Oncologist who had a big ego and thought she knew it all, though I didn't know it at the time, she was not all that wonderful. I ended up having my Thyroid completely removed by a surgeon. After they remove your Thyroid, you have to go through a lot. You go on a sodium free diet for as long as it takes for your sodium levels to drop to an acceptable level so that they can give you a Radioactive pill to take. After that pill, you go home and stay locked away from everyone for several days. Then you close that room for seven days and every inch of the room has to be scrubbed and cleaned. During the diet part of this process, before I was given the Radioactive therapy, I got very sick with my Crohn's disease and was not able to eat much. I could eat one half of a popsicle or one bite of chicken, just as an example. My body was rejecting everything and I ended up losing 65 pounds in three weeks, yes, I said 65 pounds in three weeks.

During that time, I was so weak and tired all the time. I could
walk LITERALLY five feet and then lay down and take a nap for a couple of hours, I slept more in that time than I ever had. My Oncologist just kept telling me that she couldn't help the diet I had to be on and if I wasn't happy with her, I was welcome to go to another Doctor and her words were "If you want to go to another Doctor, I'll be fine, I have plenty of patients".

Finally, my husband talked me in to going to my family doctor who IMMEDIATELY admitted me to the hospital and informed me that if I had not gone in to see him, I probably would have died within two days. I had ZERO potassium in my body, I was dehydrated and malnourished to the point that my organs were shutting down. I stayed only about 18 hours in the hospital, however, during that time I was given EIGHT bags of fluid as well as liquid supplements, vitamins and things along that line. The short stay was due to my telling him that our insurance would only cover about 50% of the hospital stay because they were not in our network. He allowed me to go home, but with strict instructions that I followed to the letter.

When I read stories about children who are starved to death, I know what agony they go through before they actually die and my heart aches for them in a way that I can't explain. It's so horrible to hear that someone who is trusted with a precious gift from God, will treat them so badly, not caring about their suffering. I will never be able to understand it.


Thank you goes out to Terri for sending me this update.


UPDATE: January 27, 2015

In April of 2013, Aaron Ramsey was sentenced to life in prison after a jury deliberated for less than and hour and found him guilty and then took less than 20 minutes to sentence him.

In July of 2014 Elizabeth Ramsey was found guilty in the death of Johnathan and though Defense Lawyers had asked for a lesser charge, a jury took an hour sentence her life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

Death occurred in the state of Texas

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