Serial Killer Father Murdered His Son – Part 2 – The Case of Joaquin Rams

Love and Murder is a weekly true crime podcast about heartbreak turned homicide

Now part of the Dark Cast Network. Welcome to Indie Podcasts with a Dark side. Welcome, lambs. Welcome to a new episode of, uh, Love and Murder, your weekly true crime podcast telling you cases of heartbreak that turn to homicide. I am your host, Ky, and this is the first episode of season four. Yeah, that’s corny. Okay, I’ll see myself out. In today’s episode, we are discussing a case that we actually discussed towards the end of season three. So if you go back in season three, there’s an interview I did with Ms. Hara MacLeod where her boyfriend murdered their son. So today, what I wanted to do for the beginning of season four was to do his case and find out what the media had to say about this. We heard it straight from the mother of the victim’s mouth, but let’s see what the media said about this case to see how media portrayals of cases differ from what actually happened. So today I’m bringing you the case of Joaquin Rams before we begin, and as always, I will do it in every single episode. Now, I want to remind you that this episode is sponsored by my lambs in Patreon. Patreon.com/loveandmurder. I want to thank you for three years going on four. I guess this is the fourth year. If you stay with me all through the fourth year of your unwavering donations, I want to thank you so much. Some have come, some have gone there, some who has been with me from the beginning. Either way, whether you’ve come or gone or stayed with me, thank you so much. Be sure to subscribe to Love and Murder right now while you’re listening so you don’t miss a case. And if you didn’t know, you can also subscribe on my Patreon, so you don’t have to hear intros like this because we get right to the heart of the case. Or commercials. You’ll get daily kyrents, bonuses, and you’ll be a sponsor of Love and Murder. In the meantime, though, as I always say, and for the first time in this season, let’s get into it. Grab your butts, grab your apple juice, and let’s get into some love and murder.

John Anthony Ramirez was arrested in connection with Katrina Mason’s 2003 death

So, like I said earlier, today’s episode is about Joaquin Rams, who we did an episode, an interview with Hera McLeod at, uh, the beginning, I think the first week in December. So like, literally the last month of season three. I’m actually going to put the link to that episode in the show notes below so you can go back to it. If you missed that interview. And I suggest you just listen to both of these hand in hand. If you listen to the interview before, it’ll be good to go back and listen to it again so you could hear the differences. And that was actually episode 125 of season three. So link is in the show notes below. You can listen to that after you listen to this case. Also, Ms. Hara McLeod’s book has come out where she’s talking about, you know, everything that’s happened and how she’s advocating for change when it comes to parental rights and keeping your children safe. I’m going to post that link to the book in the show notes below as well. And also I’ll post a link to her podcast that she does with one of her daughters. John Anthony Ramirez was born in 1972 in New York. Little is known about his life, but as you can see, his name is John Anthony Ramirez. But you heard me say Joaquim Ram, so we’ll get into that. He was born in New York like I said, but he, he ended up living in Manassas, Virginia. He was a third child of Alma Collins, but nothing was said about his father. According to one of his brothers, Joseph Velez, he started showing violent tendencies when he was just 3 years old. Quote, he hit me in the head with a hammer while faking a request for a kiss. What? That’s psychopathic at three years old. Well, I mean if nobody stopped that behavior, he could have thought that was funny because you know how you hurt yourself and sometimes children just start laughing like oh my toe. And they’ll think that’s hilarious. So I guess. But didn’t anybody try and put a stop to this and tell him no, that’s bad or anything like that? I’m not sure. During his younger years he had a lot of run ins with the law. At some point in time, John got with a woman named Shawn Katrina Mason. She was a 22 year old woman who gave him his first son. On March of 2003. She was found with a single gunshot wound to her head in her Manassas apartment. When police questioned John, he said he had broken into the family’s apartment because he couldn’t get in contact with her. And that’s when he found her body. Right after he found her body he called the police and when they arrived, this is what you saw. Police arrested him for breaking in and also burglary and a gun related charge. But they didn’t charge him with Katrina’s death. So see, they didn’t really go into this. So you’re saying he broke in. And he said he broke in because she wasn’t answering her phone. He couldn’t contact her, so he broke in to find out what was going on. And you arrested him for this? But why would that be, uh, an arrest? He broke in to find out why she’s not answering her phone, and he says this is what he found. So why did you arrest him for breaking in? That’s weird. And then apparently he had weapons, uh, with him, and burglary. So he stole something. This is not making sense. So you arrest him for all of that, which kind of is giving me vibes of he’s the one who did this, but you didn’t arrest him for her death. Okay. Anyways, although he wasn’t charged for her death, he remained the prime suspect. Later on, he tried to collect an insurance policy of $143,000 from her employer because he thought he was the beneficiary. However, Katrina wasn’t stupid and didn’t leave her insurance to him. She probably left it to her son, which is what I would have done. Why would you think you should? You have a child. Why would you think she would leave the money for you? I’m, um, leaving the money for the kid. In 2008, John’s mother, Alma, was found dead in her home in Bristow. Police saw that she had asphyxiated with a bag over her head and ruled the death as a suicide. However, her son and one of her daughters, Joseph Velez and Elva Carabello, disputed this and said their mother would have never killed herself. This is not a suicide. You need to mark it as a murder and investigate the case. Police said, nope, there’s nothing we can do. Open and shut case Johnson. And moved along. Uh, later on, guess who tried to collect the insurance money? That’s right. John tried to collect $162,000 in an insurance policy. And this time he was successful. Due to this, he was a suspect in her death. So what does this mean? So apparently, he’s a suspect in two deaths so far, and he’s just continuing to walk around just being a suspect. What does being a suspect mean? It’s two people. You’re a suspect in a murder case now. Or my bad, because they ruled this one a suicide. So if it’s a suicide, how is he a suspect? Interesting.

Joaquin Rams is accused of murdering his newborn son Prince in October 2012

In 2010, John, now going by Joaquin Rams, met with a 29 year old woman by the name of Hera McLeod. Hera McLeod was actually a woman from Gaithersburg, Maryland, and You may have seen her before because not only was she in an interview with me just a month ago, but also her and her father Gus were on the amazing race number six, the, the sixth season and they were actually the fifth team to be eliminated. So this aired in 2004 and I have it in my list to watch because I want to watch, because I didn’t know that until I started doing research on this case. I did not know she was actually on the Amazing Race. So it’s in my list to watch. So Amazing Race Season 6, which aired in 2004 and she was the fifth team to be eliminated, Harry McLeod and her father Gus. So like I said, they started, uh, dating in 2010 and they were together until July 2011, which is shortly after their newborn son Prince was born. Born. After they broke up, she left the house and applied, uh, for sole custody of her son Prince, which she was granted sole custody in March of 2012. But the court allowed supervised visitations for Joaquin. Now, the supervised visitations were supposed to be done with a retired police officer, but Hera objected to this. She did not think it was a good idea and she gave her reasons on why she did not think this was a good idea. However, the court said, it’s done. This is what’s going to happen. Supervised visitation awarded to Joaquin a short while later, not long at all, maybe a couple months. Justice Michael J. Allego Allegio. Yeah, let’s say Allegio lifted the supervisor requirement and so now Joaquin was able to take his son without supervision on the weekend. Hera, as she told us in our interview, fought that tooth and nail, but they would not listen to her. Then on October 20, 2012, remember, Prince was born in March 2012. October 20, 2012, a ah, 911 call came in saying that a seven month old baby had fallen unconscious and wouldn’t wake up. When paramedics arrived, they found Prince on the floor naked and wet. So they’re asking Joaquim, like, why is the baby naked? Why is he wet? What’s going on? If he’s not conscious, why are you not trying to keep him warm and everything like that? So Joaquin had said that he had given him a bath to try and prevent a fever induced seizure and he just wouldn’t wake up. He said he tried to resuscitate him, but he just wouldn’t wake up. So immediately responders began to try to resuscitate him themselves. And they tried for 40 minutes before he was taken to Innova Fairfax Hospital. And the next day he died. After this death, Joaquin John was now arrested because it just became too much of a coincidence that another person that was very close to you died. And as with the first two, this is under suspicious circumstances. Nobody else was around. There’s no evidence of, you know, the mother. Okay, it looked like a suicide. However, the brother and the sister are fighting this claim. The mother of his first child, uh, I don’t know, you couldn’t really say that was a suicide because of all the evidence with that, it clearly looked like somebody broke in and shot her in the head. Now your son is dead, and responsors came in and found him just naked and wet on the floor with your only your word that you were trying to resuscitate him. In addition to this, during the autopsy, they did find injuries on the boy’s body, and they found dried out blood in his nose and a bruise on his forehead. After they arrested Joaquin and charged him with murder, they continued on investigating, uh, to have, you know, evidence for the trial and everything like that. And they found out that he had tried to collect several life insurance policies on his son. The total amount of the policies were $560,000. However, according to Joaquin, I did not harm my son. It breaks my heart to think that anyone would believe that I did. I’m still shocked to learn how sick Prince was. He basically told authorities that Prince suffered from seizures. And he had had, uh, six seizures in six weeks. And it just appeared that this last seizure was, you know, what did it. So my thing is, if you know your son is having seizures and it’s that bad that you have seizures every single week, why wouldn’t you have run to the hospital with him or called 911 immediately as you started seeing him seizing? So the case went to trial with Joaquin’s lawyers. Opening statement stating that Joaquin was a really good father, a really attentive father. As you can see, he really wanted, um, to see his son to the point where he asked for visitation. He contended with the supervised visitation as long as he sees his son. And if, if you look closely, the judge thought it was a good idea for him to be alone with his son. So that just shows you that he’s a good father. It was just a, uh, coincidence and a happenstance that the first time he’s alert alone with his son, the son dies. In my opening statement, your honor, really, however, the defense came out and said that, well, we spoke with the medical expert, and according to their report, they didn’t see that Prince had a seizure that day at all in the autopsy. Your honor, if I can show you these files, it shows that Prince had drowned. There was water in his lungs, and he had drowned. However, Joaquin’s lawyers came out and said, nope, nope, nope, nope. If you look here, this was actually overruled by the state’s chief medical examiner, and he put the cause of death down as undetermined. So we don’t know actually what happened. And Mr. Joaquim is saying that his son had a seizure. So we cannot go by the first medical examiner who said he had drowned. We’re going to go by the state’s chief medical examiner. So this went back and forth, back and forth with a bunch of medical experts just arguing over, did he drown? Did he not drown? Did he drown? Did he not drown? And finally, the judge said that the son drowned at the hands of his father. The defense came out and said that the motive was clear. Finances, as you can see, in which had to be stricken from the record. And you know, I’m just making this part up here because I don’t know if it was stricken for the record or if they even said this, but as you can see here, in three instances of suspicious death in connection with Mr. John Joaquim, each time he tried to get an insurance policy, and he was granted at least one of them. Now, if you look in the past three years before Prince was murdered, you can see that the money that Joaquim John had was running out. Quote, the trajectory of Rams’s finances were in a dire. Were in a downward spiral, and he was spending money almost as fast as he got it. Joaquin had also decided to move out of his home so that he could rent it out and afford to make his mortgage payments. However, if you look here, your honor, just the day after Prince had suffered one of his seizures on September 22, 2012, Joaquin had text his realtor and said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not putting this up for rent anymore. I’m going to move back in. And matter of fact, I’m going to move back in and I’m just going to do a whole overhaul of the place. I’m going to repaint the house, I’m going to buy new appliances, and I’m just going to do. I just want a new place, so I’m just going to do a whole overhaul. Quote, the timing of these text messages suggests a connection between these seizures and the defendant’s financial optimism. What does that mean? It seems like allegedly Joaquim knew something was going to Happen. Which makes me wonder, where did the seizures come from in the first place? Was he a healthy baby boy in the beginning and then suddenly he started having seizures? Or was he prone to seizures from the start? The lawyer also pointed out that, remember that I said Joaquin had taken out three separate insurance policies on Prince’s life. Quote, by going to three different companies, he prevented any of them knowing about the size of the policies on Prince’s life. And also on the applications for the policies, he had noted that Prince’s mom was dead, and nobody checked that, which is weird to me. Shouldn’t you do background information or shouldn’t you do a background investigation when someone, uh, is filling out these forms? If you’re claiming that a mother is dead, don’t you have to give the death certificate or somehow prove that the mother is dead? This is kind of like giving a child up for adoption, and you’re just like, uh, oh, the father’s dead.

Joaquin Arias allegedly took out a life insurance policy ahead of Prince’s death

He doesn’t mind. Don’t you have to have proof of that? It seems like a case of a bunch of people not doing their jobs. Now, Joaquin’s lawyers said, look, no, no, no, no, no, no. He wasn’t doing this because he was going to murder his son. Or, it’s nothing that suspicious. He was just a, quote, naive and unsophisticated consumer. How are you a naive and unsophisticated consumer? By taking out a life insurance policy. How is that naive or unsophisticated or even a consumer? Life insurance policies are there for if anything happened to the individual. So being a consumer, that means that you bought this knowing something was going to happen to the individual, and now you’re a consumer of that income. Now it’s income. Being naive, as he claimed, would mean that you, you just took this out just in case. You went to three different companies. You just didn’t know what you were doing. You’re just naive. I just went to three different companies. I just figured I can get the most for my buck if something were ever to happen to my son. And, you know, none of that sounds naive. That actually sounds premeditated to me. You knew that each company wouldn’t look at the other company and nobody would be able to trace back and find out exactly how much you’re trying to take out on this child. And then, all in all, most parents are hoping that nothing happens to their child. So, you know, you’re not really thinking, let me take out a life insurance policy on this child just in case he dies at seven months. You’re hoping to be there for grandchildren, marriage, uh, graduation from college and stuff like this. So naive, unsophisticated and consumer. All three of these words are incorrect adjectives for this gentleman. In my opinion, I could be wrong. And I know y’all let me know if I were wrong. So, so the defense lawyer said, uh, no, clearly these actions. See this is exactly what I was saying. These actions were, quote, premeditated and they were contingent upon Prince’s untimely death because who buys a life insurance policy from three different. You know, I said this already. I’m not going through that again. This is just, that is just so clearly I couldn’t even tell you how much of a clear path he just made for it. Uh, he could have just written a letter saying, I did it, this is what I plan to do. And I plan to collect life insurance money. I’m running out of money and clearly everybody close to me is only a cash cow. So I mean, he should have just. Because that’s what this is. And I can’t believe a lawyer is trying to defend him. Like literally. I would rather just start working at Walmart as a lawyer than defend somebody like this just to say I need to pay my mortgage. Absolutely not. Allegedly he killed his mother. Allegedly he killed his first child’s mom. And not that that was enough, but he killed his seven month old son. Let, let me defend him in court. Really? I’m still waiting for that interview. If a lawyer who would like to explain to me how they sleep at night defending somebody who does something as heinous as this. Still waiting. I would love to have an interview. If you’re out there or if you know somebody who’s out there, send them my way. Of course, being a lawyer, I’m going to have to have my lawyer draw up a contract that you’re not going to sue me for any questions that I ask, any hard hitting questions that I ask and put in this, putting that episode out.

Joaquin claims he didn’t know Prince was having seizures

So, yeah, so the question that the defense placed towards the court was, quote, why would he never tell the mother of his child about the sacrifices he was making paying the premiums on these policies? What could have possibly led the defendant to conclude he needed all these policies on Prince’s life. Exactly. So his attorney said, well, because, you know, he was just trying to save for college. It was just a way to save for Prince’s college education. Which, how does, Wait, what is, uh, there a clause in a life insurance policy that says if you survive until college, you can take this money out? It’s Literally, a life insurance policy, meaning you get it in the untimely death, and the death has to be ruled, uh, xyz, xyz, xyz. There’s so many factors that go into it. How was that a defense? He was saving for college? I don’t know somebody who knows more about life insurance. These life insurance policies. Just. Is there a clause in there that says if you survive until college, you can take out some of the money and put it towards your college education? Like, I highly doubt it, but I don’t know much about life insurance policies. So Joaquin came, uh, to his own defense and said that he didn’t know that Prince was having seizures because Prince lived with Hera, his mother. And so he claims he didn’t know that Prince had had six seizures in Maryland, in addition to the one that he had in Manassas in September 2012. He reminded the court that his son was shaken and hot, and this is why he put him in some water, and that’s why the paramedics found him cold, wet, and naked. He had put him in water to bring down his temperature, and he had taken off his clothes to help him cool off more. And he was on the floor because was doing, you know, trying to resuscitate him at the time. Now, the thing that we were not told, which came out in court, was that he was in the house with two adults and his other son, who was 13 years old at the time. When they were asked, they said that he was never alone with Prince, and they said he couldn’t have drowned him. There was no way that he could have drowned him. However, investigators said that, no, he was pretty much alone with him long enough to kill the baby. It takes only, like, five minutes to put his head underwater. And because, remember, the baby wasn’t dead when paramedics arrived, but all you had to do was, if you sent somebody off for a towel or something, it’s not like they’re going to change shifts. Okay, well, you go for a towel. I’ll stay in here and watch him. So you could have just sent somebody off for something. It takes five seconds to put that baby’s head under the water. And investigators also pointed out that when they did question the three of them separately, their statements did corroborate that he was left alone, at least for a short amount of time, which is enough time to kill the baby.

Joaquin Harris was convicted of capital murder in Prince’s death

So one thing I also didn’t tell you, because I waited till now, was that Joaquin had waived his right to a jury trial because he had a plea Deal of not seeking the death penalty if he waived the jury trial. And after he waived his right to a jury trial, Judge Randy Bellows wrote a 62 page opinion detailing why the defense argument that Prince had had died of natural causes made absolutely no sense. Then Joaquin filed a request, trying to avoid attending the sentencing hearing. But judge Randy said, you better bring your if m you don’t come here, and ordered him to attend, in which Hera McLeod also attended and her parents attended, and they were to give victim impact statements. So he literally didn’t even want to hear what they had to say. This guy screams narcissist. Well, when Hera read her victim statement, she said, quote, I know it’s painful. I know he was scared. I have to live with the fact that I was unable to protect him from this monster. She told him that he’s a pathetic excuse for a human and that she doesn’t forgive him. Now, Joaquin was given the opportunity to speak, but he denied it and just decided to remain silent. So Joaquin was convicted of capital murder, and his lawyer asked the judge to be lenient on him and give him a lesser sentence than life imprisonment without parole. They said he should be allowed to, you know, get up, get out of jail at some point in time. But the judge said, um, no, you’re lucky we’re not doing the death penalty. And he called the murder a, quote, cold, calculated and callous in its nature and shattering in its impact. And also, quote, this guy thought he was smarter than he was. Like most criminals do, he lived his entire adult life off proceeds from others deaths. So ultimately, the judge, like I said, uh, in the beginning, continued on with his thought, based on the evidence, based on testimony, and said, uh, that Prince had been drowned at the hands of Joaquin and gave him life in prison without the possibility of parole. Of course, him and his lawyers appealed that. As Joaquin still maintains his innocence, he says he did not do it. Why would I murder my son? But there’s some other things that I want to go through with y’all. But before I do that, Harris sued the psychologist who testified that it was safe to leave Prince with his father, and she was awarded $550,000. So after that happened, some mental health experts came out in opposition of this, saying that this wrongful death award was troubling because trying to predict a person’s behavior is an inexact science, so it shouldn’t have been the fault of the psychologist. However, others disagreed and said that psychologists need to be better trained and that standard clinical evaluations are not Sufficient when it comes m to the well being of a child. And my thing is, if you have a guy who is under suspicion of two murders, that should have been enough information for you to not let him be alone with a child. That’s my thing. And I’m not even a psychologist. I’m just like, wait a second. You have two murders that you’re under suspicion for? Yeah, no, I, uh. No, I understand, sir. I. I don’t know you from jack or jail. But those two murder convictions or those two murder suspicions, until they’re actually cleared up and you’re found not to be a suspect in this murder case, you’re not seeing this child alone. That would have been me. Period, point blank, no questions asked. I don’t even need to do a psych eval on you. Wendy Patrick, a lawyer and a mental health expert in San Diego, said that, quote, some of these guys are able to manipulate and they have charisma, and they able to pull the wool over the eyes of even the most practiced psychologists. Like I said, all you had to do was see that he had two murderous suspicions on him. That was it. Literally didn’t have to look for more. Joseph Velez, which is his brother, remember, um, well, his half brother said that he was glad to see, see a conviction in Prince’s death. And he also just took this as, uh, justice for his mother’s death as well. Because he’s like, nothing’s going to come from it. They’re not going to, you know, pursue anything dealing with his mother’s death. Actually, the mother’s death and his first child’s mother’s death were left out of the trial. So he just claimed. He just, you know, thought this was great. He claimed it as justice for his mother’s death, even though he does want a trial for his mother’s death. But still, this guy’s in prison with no chance of getting out, so. And he apparently still wasn’t allowed to even claim his mother’s ashes, which Joaquim had for whatever reason. He had his mother’s ashes and wouldn’t give it to either of the other children. Quote, my heart’s dancing that we finally got some justice, but my mother did not kill herself. Now, one thing that I wanted to point out in my research, remember or you probably didn’t remember, go back and listen to that interview where Hera said that. That Joaquin had raped her sister. Now, in my research, in an article from the Washington Post, it said, quote, Rams and McLeod seemed an unlikely pair. Rams, the adult website producer McLeod, the intelligence analyst for Booz Allen McLeod has written that she saw Rams as a dirty dog that she could tame. By early 2011, she was pregnant. Prince Elias McLeod Rams was born on July 1, 2011. On July 17, Joaquin Rams slept with McLeod 19 year old sister in the basement of his home after the two attended a Lil Wayne concert. Court records show Hera McLeod promptly move out, taking Prince with her. Do you see how they framed that? They, they acted like this was the reason Hera moved out and they said he slept with her after a Lil Wayne concert. However, Hera said he raped his sister. She told Hera, Hera was like oh no you’re not. No, absolutely not. And then moved out. Now I found Buzzfeed article also that’s titled the police told her to report her rape, then arrested her for lying. And it starts, Lara McLeod never wanted to report her rape. In those first few hours, the 19 year old was barely able to put what had happened to her into words. Joaquin Rams, Laura’s oldest sister fiance had forced Laura to had sex with him, she said just two weeks after Laura’s sister Hera had given birth to Joaquin’s baby. Joaquin warned Laura not to tell anyone, she said because it would ruin her family’s life. Laura feared that this was true, but she broke down and told her parents the next day. They rushed out the door in a panic to pick up hair and the baby. All Laura wanted to do after that was go back to sleep. Now you could read this article. I’m going to post it in uh, the comments below and I’ll also post the Washington Post article in the comments below. But did you see how now the Washington Post covered this case extensively. Extensively. That was like part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So I’m gonna put the article in the show notes below and you can read it for yourself. But I just found it interested how they worded it as she slept with him. And I guess it’s supposed to be implied that Hera got pissed off after she found out and that’s why she moved out out when in reality it was he raped her. She told her family, they told Hera, Hera believed her sister and then she said bump this and moved out. So I don’t, I don’t like that. I don’t like that little. And there were a, there were some other discrepancies that I saw when I was doing my research. Like one author was basically painting Joaquim as this guy who was innocent, but people were jumping on him that he was Guilty. And they put in their reasoning as to why they believed he was innocent. However, if you actually look at the case, if you really research the case, there’s nowhere in there that you can even remotely think this guy was innocent. There’s nowhere. Why would he take an insurance policy out on his son? Even though they tried to grasp at straws and say why? So in one, um, article it said, what I told you before was he was taking it out for the college. And in another article it said that, quote, the policies were bought in 2011 and he did that before he even knew he was going to see his son. Those policies were taken out, uh, with the advisement of the insurance agent he had at the time.

Kai Lambs: Life insurance on son establishes a very powerful motive

I told the grand jury it’s excessive, but she pointed out that he had bought a one million dollar policy on himself, on his other son, and he was just leveling the playing field by add, by adding a policy for his youngest son. And this is supposed to be, this is your proof? This is supposed to be believable. So what this just tells me is after he killed, well, I’m gonna say allegedly, this is just my opinion. What this just tells me, if this was the case that he took out a one million dollar insurance policy on everybody, was that after he killed Old Prince, he was about to kill his other son and a $1 million on himself was just for show personally. That’s what I’m getting from that. So Hera’s lawyer came out and said why would he take out a five hundred thousand dollar life insurance unless he was confident something untoward was going to happen to his son? The life insurance on the son establishes a very powerful motive and the autopsy establishes the means of the child’s demise. Expert also noted that it’s really rare to have such a large pro policy on such a young child. Because like I said, you have a baby, the first thing you’re not thinking is life insurance policy, you’re thinking of, oh my God, I hope I live long enough to see them graduate high school, get married, have children, you know, I hope, blah, blah, blah, this is what you’re thinking, not oh my God, something could happen to them tomorrow. Let me take out a five hundred thousand dollar life insurance on this baby. You know what? What? $500,000 isn’t enough? Let me go to another insurance agency and take out another $250,000 like you see what I’m saying? And then some other things that um, I omitted but I saw in my research was about his mother supposedly committing suicide. Now they Said, like I told you, she committed suicide. However, the police said she left a suicide note, but then they did. They didn’t want to say what was in the note, but it turns out that his mother had Alzheimer’s disease. And supposedly in the two page note she, quote, clearly indicated why she chose to end her life as not to be a burden to her son. So are you saying she had a moment of clarity and was like, you know what? This is what I’m going to do. And in this moment of clarity, let me write a two page letter saying why I’m going to take my life because I don’t want to be a burden to my son, even though I have more than one children. And then after the death of his son’s mother, let me rephrase that. And then after the murder of his son’s mother, he clearly went out and filed Social Security disability benefits because his son received the monthly benefits of his mother being dead. And I’m pretty sure that didn’t go to the son. I’m completely sure that didn’t go to the son. I’m pretty sure this dude used it for himself. So his son, his first son was just there because he was a cash cow. So literally all he did was see people as money banks. Like he just saw money signs walking around. And he was clearly a serial killer. Which that’s something that Harris said in one of the articles. Quote, either he’s the most unlucky person around or he’s a serial killer. Hey, LaMs. I didn’t think Kai would call on me so early in the season. This is only episode one, but Kai forgot to add one thing while recording, but, uh, remembered during editing. Kai forgot to include that in her research. She found that Prince never had seizures before, but it’s thought that Joaquin had failed in drowning him once before leaving him with the aftereffects of these seizures. This was just one of the many reasons Hera fought so hard to prevent him from having visitations with her son.

This is the first episode of season four of Love and Murder podcast

Now back to the episode already in progress. And I just wanted to go through that case because I heard it from Harris side and when I went to research Joaquim Rams because I just wanted to find out about the case. I just found it so fascinating of how some articles said one thing, other articles said another thing. When it came to the sister, some articles said, oh yeah, she cheated on, she helped him cheat on Hera. And other articles was like, well, no, she was raped. And Harris said she was raped. And it’s just like that’s why it takes me so long to research, because I go by the consensus. If most places say XYZ and then I dig even deeper. I don’t just go with the C with the surface searches or whatever comes up in Google. It takes me a long time to find out the juice of the case. I have to find out exactly what happened and what everybody said. So the consensus in this case was that in the baby’s airways you can clearly tell there was water. So he was drowned. That’s the consensus. Some people are trying to say he wasn’t, but the consensus is he was drowned, which is what the judge saw, which is why he convicted Joaquin. Like that’s it. But there are some articles that are trying to pose him as, you know, a thoughtful, loving, caring father who didn’t know that his son had seizures and Hera just threw this on him and the son’s having seizures without any communication from Hera and you know it’s not his fault. Which that was not the consensus. The consensus was he murdered him. I just thought it was very interesting. And maybe you wanted to hear about the actual case of Joaquin Rams, AKA John Ramirez. So don’t forget to buy Hera’s book. You’ll find out more about everything she’s doing, everything she’s been through. Link is in the show notes below. Don’t forget to watch her on the Amazing Race Season six. Oh well, if you want to. I mean, obviously you don’t have to. And don’t forget to check out her podcast. All are in the show notes below. Now, if you’ve listened to this episode and an interview, I want to know just from my personal knowledge. So what you could do is if you listen to both episodes, you can leave a, uh, thumbs up in the comments below. If you’ve only listened to this episode so far, you could leave a dog emoji in the comments below because she called him a dirty dog. And that’s all I have for you in the flagship episode of Season four. And before you go, don’t forget that an easy and free way to help me out is by simply sharing this episode. Share with your mom Share with your brother Share with your half brother Share with your child Share with your insurance agent Share Share Share Share Share Join us over@patreon patreon.com forward/loveandmurder or you could find three other ways of joining the Patreon Supporters Club in the show notes below. And as always, I end each episode and the first time of season four by reminding you that it’s all, uh, love and no murder, y’all. Bye.