Mental Evaluation Ordered For Accused Capital Gazette Gunman

ANNAPOLIS, MD — A judge has ordered that the mental status of Jarrod Ramos, accused of killing five employees at the Capital Gazette newspaper office in June 2018, be evaluated at a state psychiatric hospital after he submitted an insanity plea. Judge Laura Ripken has directed doctors at the maximum security Clifton T. Perkins Hospital to evaluate Ramos for competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility.

His trial has been set for Nov. 4. Ramos, 39, of Laurel, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Wendi Winters, Robert Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara and Rebecca Ann Smith.

Attorneys for the accused shooter on April 29 entered a plea by Ramos of not criminally responsible by reason of insanity, which is Maryland's version of an insanity plea, the Capital reports. Legally a suspect must understand the charges against them, be able to help their attorneys in their defense, and grasp who is involved in court proceedings and how to behave in a courtroom in order to be competent for trial.

Ramos will be confined to the state hospital while he is evaluated, and must be returned to the Anne Arundel County Detention Center — to be held without bail — after psychiatrists have completed their work, the newspaper reports. The doctors will deliver a report to Ripken, who will share it with the state's attorney's office and Ramos' lawyers.

After that, Ramos could change his plea, either side can hire experts who would give their own opinions on the accused shooter's mental status, and trial options can be set.

Ramos faces five counts of first-degree murder and 18 other charges in connection with the June 28, 2018, deaths of the four journalists and an 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.

Gillespie said as he was trying to escape the Capital Gazette building, he heard a gunshot. "I did feel a breeze blow past my right side," he said, according to the Baltimore Sun.

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.