Judge Orders Two-Part Trial In Capital Gazette Murder Case

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Judge Laura Ripken has ordered the trial of Jarrod Ramos, the man accused of killing five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper office in 2018, be split into two parts. Ramos' defense attorneys had previously requested a two-part trial, according to Fox 5.

Patch reported that Ramos' attorneys wanted the two-part trial with the first determining his guilt or innocence. If found guilty, a second trial would determine whether or not Ramos' mental state rendered him not criminally responsible. Ramos has pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible. The state is seeking life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Ripken also granted an extension to the order for a mental evaluation to be conducted before Aug. 10 on Ramos, 39, of Laurel, who will be confined to the state hospital while he is evaluated. He must be returned to the Anne Arundel County Detention Center — to be held without bail — after psychiatrists have completed their work.

Ramos was charged with murder in the June 28, 2018, shooting deaths of Capital Gazette employees Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, Rebecca Smith, Wendi Winters and John McNamara. A November trial has been scheduled. Patch previously reported that along with the murder charges, Ramos faces 18 other charges in connection with the deaths of the four journalists and the advertising employee at the Annapolis newspaper.

Those charges include the attempted first-degree murder of photographer Paul Gillespie, six counts of first-degree assault and 11 counts of use of a firearm in commission of a crime of violence, Patch reported.

Authorities claim Ramos harbored a grudge against the paper for years after it published a story on how he had stalked a woman, which ultimately led to the mass shooting. Police say Ramos was found hiding under a desk after the deadly shooting when they took him into custody. Officials say he used a shotgun in the rampage. Prosecutors in the case said previously that they intend to seek a sentence of life without parole.

According to eyewitness accounts from survivors of the shooting, Winters armed herself with the closest weapons at hand – her trash and recycling bins – and charged the shooter, shouting for him to stop. It is believed that Wendi's actions distracted the shooter so several of her coworkers had time to escape.

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The spark that may have ignited the shootings came on July 31, 2011, when the paper published a story by Eric Thomas Hartley, a former staff writer and columnist, that detailed how Ramos had used social media and email in barrage of threats against a former classmate that made her
fear for her life. Attorney Brennan McCarthy of Annapolis, who represented the woman Ramos stalked, said the victim moved out of Maryland because she was afraid for her life. The harassment and stalking began in 2009 after the woman friended her former classmate on Facebook. In 2011 pleaded guilty to harassment and was given 18 months probation.

The Capital then reported on the conflict, with the headline "Jarrod Wants To Be Your Friend."
"Mr. Ramos was obsessively angry about this particular story," McCarthy told CBS News. In
2012 Ramos sued The Capital for defamation, but the case was dismissed on appeal in 2015 when a judge ruled nothing in the newspaper story was false. After the story was published, the paper's editor, Thomas Marquardt, began fearing for his own life and for the safety of his staff.

Ramos reportedly targeted the paper's reporter and editors in incendiary letters and online posts.