PRESSED TO KILL-Tom Marquardt

For all Tom Marquardt knew, Capital Gazette just had an unhappy reader. What he didn’t know was that the unhappy reader was about to become a mass murderer.
Marquardt, the former editor of Capital Gazette newspapers in Annapolis, MD, was a target of a 38-year-old loner who sought to avenge a 2011 article that reported the reader’s conviction of sexually harassing a former high school classmate. For years the man sued the editor, the reporter and the newspaper for defamation, then took to Twitter (now X) to lash out against the editor and reporter. Representing himself in court, his lawsuit rambled and failed to persuade a judge who easily dismissed it. He spent the next three years silently plotting his attack.
On June 28, 2018, he blasted his way through the locked doors of Capital Gazette offices and killed five employees. He called 911 to confess, then hid under a desk while waiting to surrender to approaching police.
Marquardt spent two years reviewing police and court files, eyewitness accounts, the killer’s interview with a state psychiatrist and video footage to chronicle in stunning detail what lead up to the crime and how the killer escaped detection.
“Pressed to Kill: Inside Newspapers’ Worst Mass Murder” is a chilling account of the worst mass murder at an American newspaper, but more so it is about the lives of those who died, their heroism on that day, and the remarkable response from a community who rushed to its side. PRESSED TO KILL: Inside Newspapers' Worst Mass Murder—Tom Marquardt Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
killers in true crime history and the authors that have
written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every week,
another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,

(00:30):
journalist and author Dan Zufanski.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Good evening.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
For all.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Tom Markquart knew Capital Gazette just had an unhappy reader.
What he didn't know was that the unhappy reader was
about to become a mass murderer. Markquart, the former editor
of Capitol Gazette newspapers in Annapolis, Maryland, was a target
of a thirty eight year old loaner who sought to

(01:03):
avenge a twenty eleven article that reported the reader's conviction
of sexually harassing a former high school classmate. For years,
the man sued the editor, the reporter, and the newspaper
for defamation, then took to Twitter now x to lash
out against the editor and the reporter. Representing himself in court,

(01:27):
His lawsuit rambled and failed to persuade a judge who
easily dismissed it. He spent the next three years silently
plotting his attack on June twenty eighth, twenty and eighteen,
he blasted his way through the locked doors of Capital
Gazette offices and killed five employees. He called nine to

(01:49):
one one to confess, then hid under a desk while
waiting to surrender to approaching police. Marcourt spent two years
reviewing police and court files, eyewitness accounts, the killer's interview
with a state psychiatrist, and video footage to chronicle in
stunning detail what led up to the crime and how

(02:12):
the killer escaped detection. Press to Kill is a chilling
account of the worst mass murder at an American newspaper,
but more so, it is about the lives of those
who died their heroism that day and the remarkable response
from a community who rushed to its side. The book

(02:34):
we're featuring this evening is Pressed to Kill, Inside Newspaper's
worst mass murder, with my special guest, journalist and author
Tom Marquard. Welcome to the program, and thank you very
much for this interview. Tom markquart Thanks, thanks Dad, good

(02:54):
to be here. Thank you very much, and congratulations on
this book, Press to Kill.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Thank you right away.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
You take us to the origins of this story, and
this is centered in Annapolis, Maryland, and you wright, it
is the perfect place for budding reporters to launch their
journalism careers, a bustling hub of political influence and an
iconic city called Camelot on the Bay. Tell us a

(03:25):
little bit about the Capital Newspaper and before we talk
about July twenty six, twenty eleven and Arundel County District Court.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
I lived in Annapolis for over thirty five years, but
it was a fascinating city. As you say, it was
called Camelot on the Bay by National Geographic that did
a very big spread on the many years ago. It's
a colonial city. It still has the original building that
housed the Treasury Department. It is the oldest surviving state
house still in use. George Washington resigned his commission there.

(03:58):
Kunti Kentei landed at a city dock. The history is
just endless. Home of the Naval Academy goes on and on.
But part of that history is the Maryland Gazette, which
is a forerunner to the newspaper we know today as
the Capitol Gazette. The Maryland Gazette was in existence in
the late seventeen hundreds was one of the first newspapers

(04:22):
in the United States. It protested the Stamp Act. It
was run by a fearless publisher who often ran a
foul of the local residents. Is certainly the British, so
it goes way back as far as history goes from
a newspaper standpoint.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Tell us just a little bit about Capitol reporter Eric
Hartley before we talk about and take our listeners to
Judge Jonas Legum's courtroom where a man was on trial
for stalking a former schoolmate.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
So Eric Hartley was your classic reporter who came to
the Capitol. Really was just a little bit of experienced
paper one or two years at a smaller newspaper, looking
to get his next job at a place that was
the capital of Maryland. Also a place that was very
active in news. I mean, there was just a lot
happening in Annapolis. So it was a great stepping stone

(05:18):
for any young reporter. Eric in particular was a very
aggressive reporter, good understanding the news, a good writer. He
knew how to ferret out a story, and we assigned
him to the court beat originally, and then he impressed
us with his writing and we felt we need a
little bit more dimension to the paper, so we gave
him a column that allowed him to roam freely around

(05:40):
the city and address almost any kind of subject. That
was really the start for Eric Cartley.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Tell us about Lourie saunder Van and the case that
is in Judge Jonas Legum's courtroom.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
So Laurie Saunderman was working at a local bank and
one day got a Facebook message Throm a former high
school classmate. They were out of school for probably a
good fifteen years, so she didn't immediately recall him. So
they started a conversation and he sent a photo of

(06:15):
him just to remind her. She actually called a couple
of other classmates to make sure he was a fellow classmate,
and he was. He was just a very quiet one,
you know, just being nice. She started up a conversation
that was really more by email and a little bit
of Facebook, but never a phone call or never a
face to face meeting, but just being friendly talking sharing stories.

(06:37):
They both had some mental struggles and so they shared
that information with each other. But at some point he
was getting a little too aggressive because she wasn't responding
to his conversations quickly enough. She started backing off of
that relationship. Feeling a little bit worried that he was
getting a little too aggressive. He in the meantime, was
hoping to strike up a conversation which they would meet.

(06:59):
He became very up set when she wasn't responding fast
enough and at some point just lit up and called
her all sorts of names. Ceased communication and he became
more aggressive. So what he did even called is per
bank and said that she had some mentalism mental issues.
She ended up getting fired or laid off on the bank.

(07:20):
She suspected this was the reason called. Her parents kept
pressuring her to keep the communication going and it didn't,
so finally her only step was find a lawyer and
press charges against him for stalking. He went before the judge.
This was in twenty eleven. Judge heard the case and

(07:41):
reduced the sentence to sexual harassment, which is very important
because that reduction allowed him to buy a weapon. He
wouldn't be able to buy a weapon if he was
convicted of stalking because it would have been a felony.
You know what, that was the case that went before judge.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
You say that that Sondivan reached out to her friend,
which was an attorney named Brennan McCarthy McCarthy, and he
had helped her to obtain tried to obtain a peace order,
and he had said that he had found Ramon so
frightening that he urged the judge to order psychological evaluation.

(08:23):
But the judge denied that request, didn't he Yes.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
That's correct. I mean when Brenna McCarthy, who was a
very strong lawyer and certainly not somebody who walks away
from a fight easily said he may de sign of
the cross when he met Jared Ramis because he was
just a frightening person. Give them what he had done
to his client. There were reasons to be concerned. So yes,
he was very worried. He asked for a mental evaluation,

(08:49):
which was denied to him.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Now, tell us about the story that is written in
the newspaper. In your newspaper, what is contained in that
story before we talk about when Ramos realizes this and
reads it and has a reaction.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
So Eric carry went into the courthouse and just was
going through different cases. It's what he normally did to
try and find something that would be of interest. And
the courthouses are loaded with stories, you know, are neighborhood disputes,
their domestic quarrels. There are people suing people for different reasons,
but it's a great source for newsteps, and he came

(09:31):
across this case, so he thought, you know, it's really
your worst, your worst scenario of running across an old
friend from the former school and sudden being chased by
this guy and becoming scared. So he thought, well, this
is something that people could resonate with. So he wrote
the story, and it was really a story based on

(09:54):
what had happened in the courthouse. Everything I just explained
was laid out in detail with testimony from Laurie Sondervan.
So the story just filed along the same courses with
little elaboration. Really, we had tried to reach out or
had he tried to reach out to Jared Ramis through
the attorney because that was the only phone number he had,
but his attorney said, I'm not going to talk to

(10:16):
about my client about this. So Tory ran in twenty
eleven with the headline that Sared said, Jared Ramis wants
to be your friend.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
What happens when Ramos reads this in the newspaper? What
is his reaction immediately?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
So he didn't come across the story for several days,
and he was just putting his name in the search
field and came across the story because he did not
subscribe to the paper. When he reads it, becomes extremely upset.
He immediately starts a blog on Twitter that issues his protests,
starts making charges against the newspaper and the reporter and me.

(10:54):
You know, he's very upset, in particular that his name
was used and her name was not, so we don't
use the names of victims in that case. He was
also upset that he wasn't called. But as I said,
we tried reaching him. We just were unsuccessful. He launches
a protest that appears on Twitter largely, and he starts
calling us names, the reporter. Eric. He looked at those

(11:17):
tweets and he showed them to me, But we were
confident that there really wasn't any audience for them. They
were just really to himself and to Eric. He knew
Eric was looking at them, but I didn't stop. He
just it was his podium to get back at us
for writing the story.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Now, at that time, you were an editor at the paper,
and you had read the stories obviously and found nothing
wrong with that story whatsoever. Tell us a little bit
about your background at that time and the state of
the newspaper business at that same time.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
So I had about forty years of experience, thirty five
of which were at kaplic is at newspapers, so you know,
I've been around a long time. I read the story,
looked at and there was nothing, nothing at all that
was alarming. There's certainly nothing that would constitute liable or
defamation of character because all the information was out of
a courtroom. When you use that information as law as

(12:15):
is fact, you have nothing to worry about. So there
really wasn't anything that was alarming in that story, you know.
So I mean from a libel standpoint. I've been sued
for libel before, so I understood libel, and I don't
think there was anything that was alarming at all about
the story.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Now, what was the state of the security at the
newspaper at that time? What things had you put in place,
what had the previous management put in place regarding security
at the newspaper.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
The office that Eric and I worked in was not
the office where the incident happened. So in that office
where we worked, we were always concerned about the safety
of our employees, you know, for one thing when the
when the office was built, which was in nineteen eighty six,
we were growing in circulation. We had our own press
on the premise. We really wanted to be transparent to

(13:05):
the community. So when you walked in the door, there
were no walls. You could just see five or six
departments just by walking into the lobby, so it was
a very open office building. Eventually, we had a security
system at the back door their employee entrance as well
as the front door, because we did have an incident
in which a convicted felon came back and talked to

(13:26):
one of our people in the community news department, so
we started we had guards at actually one time walking
down the hallways, which we had to eliminate with budget cuts,
but it was pretty secure. So that office building I
thought was pretty secure. People just didn't walk around without
being escorted or have an appointment. Fortunately they moved to

(13:48):
a different office during the budget cuts. And this was
at a time, you know, when our circulation was starting
to decline. When I moved up to the publisher's position,
we saw circulation plummeting. Advertising was dropping as a result.
So he had the competition from Craigslist. He had a
competition from the internet. It was not a good time

(14:09):
for newspapers in general, and we were no exception. So
at that point I was laying people off and trying
to drop expenses. We closed our press mood to another facility,
outsourced it, and there's some pretty dramatic cuts department by department,
including the newsroom.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
But Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
let's get back to Eric Hartley showing you these Twitter tweets.
At that time, you said you didn't news Twitter, so
he showed you the content of the tweets that Remos
had already levied against the newspaper and Sounder Van. So

(14:49):
tell us what your discussion was with Hartley regarding the
content of those tweets.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Well, initially we didn't understand them. They rambled, They made
reference is to things we just didn't know about. You know,
there were he called me evil, Tom, call me hit man.
He had these strange icons pasted on our foreheads. He
was he was rambling and he said, we're going to
take you down. He's talking about poker games. We just

(15:17):
didn't know what he was talking about. So it really
didn't alarm us because we just thought he was deranged,
really did it Just it was like, this guy's crazy.
There wasn't anything initially that was alarming to a point
where we felt threatened in any way. It was just
a guy who was unhinged and just we didn't understand

(15:37):
what his message was. So Eric and I would talk
about it. Actually we probably laughed about it and said
let's keep an eye on it because we didn't know
where he was going. I mean, like you said, Twitter
was new at that time. The reports were just starting
to use it, and I was not on Twitter, not
using it, so I was unaware. So I just said
to Eric, I said, let's just keep an eye on

(15:59):
this guy and let me know if there's anything more alarming,
if it gets progressively worse, and it did.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
What was happening regarding Lorie Sondervan after she had confronted
Well Raymonds in court, what was her experience after that
court case.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Well, it didn't get better, you know, And certainly that's
what she had hoped, is that he would get the
message and just go somewhere else and stop bothering her.
But he was very careful. He would wait until the
restraining order expired. He would start again, that he would
send her messages by email. She had BlackBerry, so she
was getting messages on her BlackBerry making veil the threats,

(16:39):
and at some point she says, this has got to stop.
So she talked to the police. She had some friends
and the police, and she said, I'm going to get
a weapon, and they cautioned her that there are a
lot of laws that would restrict her from using it.
You know, she would have to make sure there was
no other place that she could escape to before she shot.

(17:00):
He said, you know this is crazy. I'm gonna move
to a state that has a loser protection lass. She
decided to move. She had lost her job. She had
family in Maryland, but she decided it was safer if
she left the state. So she packed up. She got
in her car and as she pulled out the driveway,

(17:21):
she got a message from Jared Rayma say you can run,
but you can't hide. She still has no idea how
he knew that she was leading at that point, let
alone where she was going. So she fled the state,
changed her name. It's still changed her name. She moved
twice actually, just to make sure that he could not

(17:41):
follow her, but lo and behold, one day she appeared
in a newspaper photo attending an event and was identified
and he found it. I mean, he must have been
searching the internet every day trying to find out where
she went. All he knew is that she was in
this area of South Carolina. You know, that was the

(18:03):
end of that, but he continued to harass her as
much as he could where she was.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
You found out his background, his professional background, his education,
and what he was doing as employment at that time,
which might explain his knowledge of everything about Lorie Sondervan.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Right, And we knew at the time that he was
a contracted employee with US Bureau Labor and Statistics, so
he had clearance. His father had also security clearance, so
it was easy for him to get an interim job.
And he ended up getting this job that he would
work at Knights, which I didn't realize he was working
at Knights, but he had security clearance and it allowed

(18:47):
him access through his office computer when nobody was around
to do all his research. And that's what he was
doing mostly on the job, was looking up his enemies.
He was looking up Lorie Sondervan, He's looking up me,
He's looking up Eric Hartley. He's looking up anybody who
crossed his path, Brendan McCarthy, the judges, any reporter who

(19:07):
worked at the newspapers. So all he did was just
relentlessly dig up background about all of us.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
What was his legal profession, what things did he do
in the legal arena, as his sense of revenge intensified.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
He's a pretty bright guy. He graduated thirteenth in his
high school class. He scored well on his SATs. He
went to a smaller college. But what he did on
the side is that he says, you know, I know
more about law than most lawyers, and so he began
to research the law. He actually talked to a lawyer
because he felt, you know, if he had a case

(19:45):
against the capital, a lawyer would help would help him.
But the lawyer took a look at the case and said,
you know, you have really no case here. This is
all a story that was taken out of a court trial.
There's nothing here to sue for defamation or for libel.
The lawyer said to him, if you're so persistent about it,
why don't you just go ahead and represent yourself, And

(20:07):
he said, you know, I think I could do that.
So he studied law in his free time and researched
as much as he could. He went down to the courthouse,
took all the proper paperwork, filed it correctly, and then
one day just sued us for defamation and libel.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Tell us about what you found in terms of his
psychological background and any therapy, psychologists or therapy that he
was ordered by the courts for.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yes, he was ordered to seek counseling after his conviction
for sexual harassment. He had already been seeing a therapist
really for I guess what you call minor issues. He
always felt he was pretty much a loner. He always
felt he was abandoned as a child, and he held
a lot of grievances against his parents. So he had

(20:58):
some mental issues that he would see can counselate for.
But now the court ordered counseling session began, and you know,
he went to that trying to manage his anger more
than anything else. He basically abandoned that after he could
because he felt he no longer needed it. But you know,
he showed the signs of narcissism. You know, he had
other signs of just anger management. But you know, he

(21:22):
was still living a life and going to his job
and not showing any outward signs. He had no other
legal issues than sexual harassment.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
You talk about all the reasons later on, and we'll
talk about a possible motive obviously, the motivation for all
of this, but you talk about the relationship with his
sister and with his father. Tell us basically what you
found from his relationships with his family.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Yeah, that was very interesting because he had a memory
that dated back to when he was five years old.
I mean, I don't know about you, but I tell
you what happened to me when I was five years old.
But he remembers, and it was traumatic for him, he thought.
But there would be things like he would recall that
he was on his sled and he went down the
hill when he wasn't supposed to and hit somebody, and

(22:15):
so his dad got very mad and took him home.
He remembers watching a movie with his mom and crying,
and his mother chastised him for crying in the middle
of a theater. He remembers hitting a kid with a
croquet mallet and having to apologize to the kid. So
there were some instances, including that one, that were a
little bit more dramatic his mother and father split, so

(22:38):
the divorce was probably pretty traumatic for him. He lived
with his mother for a short period of time and
then she decided to move and cut off all the
utilities when she was ready to leave the house, and
he saw that as a personal slight that she did
that so he wouldn't be able to use his computer,
So he basically separated himself from his mother. He was
close to his grandparents, who took him to them all

(23:00):
to play or bottom a bicycle. He's real close to them,
but eventually they died and he didn't have really anybody
but his sister to talk to, and so he kept
him pretty good contact with his sister. His sister actually
is reaching out to him more than the other way around,
but eventually he felt that she didn't understand him and

(23:21):
he separated from her. It's probably four years before the murders.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
With this escalating pension and these alarming tweets that you
are kept abreast of, what do you decide as as
an editor, what do you decide with your team as
your options, and what do you elect to do to
try to diffuse this and not accelerate anything and incite

(23:50):
this person?

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well, that was a real concern because we felt that
we responded, it would only escalate the number of responses
we were getting from him, and so he thought the
best thing to do is to be cautious and monitor
his tweets but not engage him. And he wanted us
to print a letter to the editor, and he dared
me to do that, and I decided not to after

(24:13):
talking to our attorney because it was just bizarre. Here
you have a case who has litigation against us, who
wants to argue it in the newspaper, and we didn't
know how it affected the case, and so I didn't
really want to jeopardize that, so I refused to run
the letter to the editor, which angered him a lot.
But yeah, at that point, you know, I think Derek
and I were only too another editor who were concerned,

(24:36):
and we're just saying we got to monitor this, but
not doing anything more than that because we really did
not want to make it inflamed.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
these messages. So how does the newspaper proceed with this?
And before we talk about your decision to retire from
the newspaper, us about this litigation and what seems to
be the final straw in terms of things for Ramos

(25:09):
and no turning back.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
So he was making threats in his tweets that he
was going to own us and that the litigation is coming.
So we saw that as building up to a lawsuit,
and just as limitations were about to expire, he sued
us for libel. He filled out all the paperwork himself,

(25:32):
which I'll get to in a second. He amended that
to include defamation of character, which he had admitted it
too late, but the judge allowed it anyways. And so
at that point he was ratcheting up his threats on
his Twitter account, basically saying he was going to own us,
and I'm going to be fired and I'm going to
journalism hell is what he was saying. Call me evil, Tom,

(25:55):
I'm going to journalism hell. More worse things as to progressed.
So he files a lawsuit against us. At this point,
I'm about to retire. This is in twenty twelve, and
so he students for fourteen million dollars. He asked for apologies.
His lawsuit rambled so badly. You know, we didn't understand

(26:18):
half of it. And even though it's cited all the
right cases, and our attorney looked at it and said,
it's properly filed, so we have to treat it as
a real lawsuit. We didn't have any concern that we
were going to lose that case because is pretty obviously,
you know, a lawsuit that wasn't going to go anywhere,

(26:39):
a frivolous lawsuit. So we were confident that we were
going to win the case. So we didn't really even
take that seriously. But we had to go through the emotions,
which meant we had to put up a defense, had
to make appearances in court, and we have to spend
a considerable money. In the end, it cost us one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars just to defend this nuisance suit.
So yeah, that was our approach. We just had to

(27:02):
let the slow wheels of the judicial system take its course.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
You right that Ramo saw his sister for the last
time April twenty and fifteen. You say that he was
unemployed and he was broke, and he obtained a layout
eight eight eight Bestgate Road, and there were no more
tweets or lawsuits filed, and he was had racked up

(27:29):
ninety thousand dollars in legal debt tell us what he
does in February two thousand and seven regarding a reconnaissance
mission at that address.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Right, So, after he had lost all his legal pills,
we won every step of the way. So he sued judges,
He sued attorneys. Anything he could do in courk without
costing on anything besides the filing piece, he took action.
So he loses his job. After Brenda McCarthy reports his
behavior to his supervisor, breaks off contact with his sister

(28:06):
for all intensive purposes. He has nothing going on in
his life, no contacts with people, no money, so he
says and stews about it, and he has no legal recourse.
So he thinks about his next step, and at some
point he says, you know that, says to himself, the
only thing I can do now is to get reaction
at the end of a weapon. So he cases out

(28:29):
the office. He goes there one cold day in February
in which he can dress up with hoods and face
masks so he won't be spotted, and he looks through
the windows at night just to get the layout. He
also at one point walks into the building through an
unlocked employee entrance, takes film the only time he used

(28:52):
a cell phone was to take film of the layout
as he walked through this building. So he gathers all
the evidence he's the security system and then goes back
to his apartment where he downloads all his video onto
his computer and.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Plots you take us to this fateful day June twenty eight,
two thousand and eight. Tell us who's in the newsroom
you are in Florida. Tell us his entrance, the killer's
entrance into the office, what does he do and who

(29:31):
does he encounter? Take us back if you could please.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
It was around two thirty when he pulls up his
rented car to the building and he sees one reporter,
John McNamara, having a cigarette outside the employee entrance, So
he waits until John finishes a cigarette and retreats back
to his office. He gets out of the car. He

(29:57):
has a nice shirt with a top and his intention
was to look normal as anybody would be walking into
that building. He goes to the trunk of his car.
He pulls out his Duffel bag. In the Duffel bag's a
twelve gage pump action Mossberg shotgun amimal pouches in a tube.

(30:20):
He has placed two Barracuda blocking devices, and he grabs
the duffel bag with what's also smoker inades, and he
walks into the employee entrance that is unlocked, and I
should point out that was a complaint of the reporters
was that that door didn't work. The lock didn't work right.

(30:42):
So he proceeds into the office. There is a stairwell
that is rarely used because most people use the elevator
of this four story building. So he proceeds to take
off his tie and his shirt. He puts on his
ear protection, his eye protection, and he has a light
that he puts on the scope, so he is now armed.

(31:07):
Walks down the hallway. Now he sets off a smoke grenade,
thinking that this is going to be a diversion for
the police when they get there, that they won't be
able to see through the smoke. But the smoke grenade
doesn't have the effect that he wants, and so he
decides not to set off any more smoke grenades. So
he walks down the hallway, which is really only about

(31:30):
maybe twenty feet and he gets to the front door,
expecting it to be open, but it's locked. So he
stands back and he pumps two rounds into the door,
with shatters on the floor. He walks in and he
turns right and he sees Rebecca Smith, who is the

(31:52):
first one in the office, sort of the receptionist, and
he misses her with those two shots. He proceeds to
go to an empty boardroom, which he expected to find
a group of people who usually meet on that day
for a editorial board meeting which includes people from the public,

(32:15):
and this being after the election day, he surmised that
there would be people who won the election also in
that room, and that's why he picked this day. But
the editor had canceled that meeting because it was shortly
after the election and so many people were going to
be gone, so there is nobody there. So he proceeds
down the hallway down the aisle, which is really in

(32:36):
the middle of this office. It's an open office with
some offices on the left, and now he sees Rebecca
Smith who's trying to climb over the partition to get
out the broken front door. He shoots her twice. He
proceeds down the hallway the aisle and he encounters Wendy Winters,

(32:58):
who had three days prior to that at taking a
course invasive tactics. When confronted with the mass murder, well
her last. He's supposed to hide. If you can't hide,
you're supposed to defend yourself. Can't defend yourself, then you attack,
and she knew that was her only step, so she

(33:19):
grabs a waste paper basket and charges Jared Bramis, throwing
the basket at him, but he fires twice to her
and drops her kills her. At this point, walks farther
down into the aisle, but Janet Cooley in the advertising

(33:40):
department is hiding underneath the desk and sees him walk by,
and besides, she's got to get out of there, so
she escapes. She runs past him and jumps over Winnie
Winter's body, gets to the front door, and Rebecca Smith,
who's barely conch, is at the front door, and she

(34:02):
slips but eventually gets out. She cuts her hand, but
she eventually escapes. Jared Ramis walks farther down the aisle
and come across Rob Hyson, whose desk was open to
the newsroom and he had no place to hide, so
he is underneath his desk. Jared Ramis shoots him twice.

(34:29):
He goes further down and right next to Jared, right
next to Rob Hyason was Gerald Fishman. He had a
troll writer who watched and listened to all that, but
was undetected by Jared Ramis. So Jared Ramis walks farther
down the aisle. At this point, several of the reporters

(34:51):
had a duck for cover to decide they got to
get out of there, and they rushed to the employee
entrance in the back of the office. Unfortunately, Jared Ramis
had barricaded that door with his Barracuda device, which has
slipped underneath. You can't get out right, So they bounce
off that door and then go hide underneath the desk.

(35:14):
So they go farther down. They're in the back of
the office now, So Jared Ramis is walking down the
hallway and sees John McNamara, who also had tried to
get out that door and couldn't, but he was the
last one to try and so he was more visible
to him, So he shoots John McNamara. One other reporter

(35:36):
at that point had also tried the door and was hiding,
so they were at that point three reporters hiding him
back when the photographer who was also hiding underneath the desk,
heard him go by. He too, decided that his only
opportunity was to run. He runs out the front door.

(35:57):
He gets to the front door and Jared had hurt him,
turned around and fired around a round of a volley throm.
This weapon has six thirty three caliber bullets. Those bullets
liz by Paul Gilespie's head. He hears them go by

(36:18):
right his head, but he gets out to the front
door and escapes. Ramus had set his clock his wristwots
to five minutes, and that's the time he figured as
he researched, this is all he had before the police
start arriving. So he thinks he's really gotten everybody who's
in that newsroom. Unbeknownst to him, Sell reporters were still hiding,

(36:41):
so he drops his weapon and he goes to a
photographer's desk to send out a last couple of tweaks,
but unfortunately he didn't like the keyboard on that particular computer,
so he goes over to another computer which is right

(37:03):
next to Rob Hyacinth, and he sees Gerald Fisherman hiding,
so he takes great comfort that he has found Gerald Fisherman.
He recognizes Gerald Fisherman because he studied the photos of
all the editors. He knew who's who. So Ramus goes
through his weapon, captures it, goes back and shoots Gerald

(37:27):
Fisherman point playing. So he decides that he's done everything
he can. Now he takes great joy of shooting Gerald Fishman.
There was a clock on the back that said Fisherman time,
and he thought, oh, that's really bogus. This guy gets
his own time, and so you know, it was an
inside joke, but he ended up killing Gerald Fisherman for that.

(37:48):
So he calls nine to one one from the phone
and said, I'm your killer. I surrender, I give up.
I did it. What he didn't know is that the
phone system was connected to a Baltimore network because the
newspaper's owned by the Baltimore Sun, so they shared the
same phone system. So the nine one one call goes

(38:10):
to the Baltimore office. The Baltimore office can't figure out
what he's talking about, and he gives the address, but
the address doesn't coincide with anything in their system, and
Ramis is now trying to explain this to the nine
one one operators, saying I'm in Annapolis, and she doesn't
understand why he's calling Baltimore nine one one Minnapolis. So

(38:33):
frustrated and now hearing the police sirens coming up, he
decides to hang up. So he hangs up and goes hide,
hides underneath the desk.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
You're right that in less than four minutes, the killer
had murdered four journalists, and Rebecca Smith died in hospital
later that day. Let's talk about that his capture. Of course,
you said that he put his gun down and waited

(39:08):
to surrender. He had called and tweeted it, called nine
one one. Let's talk about what happens post arrest in
this case, the media, the family's reaction, the newspaper's reaction,
tell us just the aftermath.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Immediately, it was that you have to remember that Annapolis
is a town of maybe fifteen thousand, so it's a
small city, even though it is a state capital. So
people love their newspaper and they love their community. So
for something like this to happen in such a small
community was jarring, and they immediately wanted to support their newspaper.

(39:49):
So you know, the mayor, for instance, had a parade
plan for July fourth, which is only a few days away,
so he turned the parade into a parade for the
First Amendment and had and asked the journalists to march
in them. They were not willing to do that. They
really didn't want to do that, but they realized that
the community need to see that they were okay and

(40:09):
that they were going to exist. So they did march
in that parade and everybody stood alongside the sidewalk and
just applauded and cried. I mean, there were flowers or memorials,
there were speeches. You know. The coverage was intense, not
just in Annapolis, but intense everywhere. They didn't expect the
newspaper to come out the next day because they would

(40:32):
understand that in the office the staff was decimated. They
had lost by people and one was in the hospital
with injuries, and most the other reporters were grieving. But
they managed to get out of paper the next day,
which was a miracle. But the newspaper wanted to do
that to assure the public that they will move on
from something like this. But it became intense. They moved

(40:56):
to another office because they couldn't go back to that office,
so they had temporary quarters and people volunteered office space
that they could move to. They had guards inside that office,
and every day people would bring by trays of food,
trays of food, cards, so many cards that they put
them up on the wall, and the tributes were just
from across the nation were coming in at an incredible rate.

(41:18):
This was the worst mass shooting in the newspaper and
so it it reverberated throughout the journalism community, but also
throughout the community as a whole.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
You chronicle, you're in Florida, you get a phone call,
so your reaction, incredibly, you had no idea this it
would escalate to anything like.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
This at all.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
So your reaction, other fellow reporters reaction Hudsle, Rick Hudsel,
the editor was on vacation, So tell us about the
people that just happened to not be at the office
that day, and your reaction when you hear the terrible
news to.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
My terrible news that just that five people had died.
You know, first trying to figure out who wasn't that
who died? I know these people, and you know what
was the reason, who did it? You know it was
right after a couple of days after the elections, so
I had assumed it stemmed from a dysgruntled candidate who
lost an election. You know, they often get angry, but
not certainly at this point. And then my mind started

(42:23):
wandering back to Jared Ramis, which was now three years,
three to four years after we had left last heard
from him. So you know, I kept thinking, well, I
can't be can't be that old. I mean, he would react,
took him that long to react. So I was sort
of in disbelief until I got a phone call throm
a reporter from me the Ely Times, who gave me

(42:44):
his name, and that was the first time I had
heard the name and just reacted. I just really broke
down because I just couldn't imagine that this guy had
done it, and this this was a guy that was
after me. And I wasn't in that newsroom, and neither
was Eric Cartley, but that's who he was. Truly after
there were other people who knew exactly who it was.
Eric Hartley by six o'clock that night had called the

(43:09):
County Police Department and said, I know who it is.
Brenda McCarthy, the lawyer for Laurie Sondervan had call police
and said I know who it is. Lauris Sondervan had
called and said I know who it is. So those
people instantly came to his name when they heard of
the incident. But the information was leaking out so slowly
that it was taken forever for me to find out

(43:32):
that the names of those who had died, and people
were calling me with inside information. So I finally learned
of it, but it was traumatic to say the least.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Now you write about all the people being notified, and
not all were notified as well as maybe the police
would have wanted a neighbor notified. One Another person again
saw something on television, so the dawning on everybody what
had actually happened came. That terrible news didn't come in

(44:04):
such reassuring ways, did it.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
No, it didn't. I mean, that was the unfortunate part.
It leaked out, and so you know, there were people
who were trying to reach the spouses and some of
them just weren't available right away. So there were spouses
and one in particular, John McNamara's wife being contacted by
national media for comment on her husband's death, and she

(44:27):
wasn't even told yet that her husband had died, so
she was asking reporters what they knew, but they were
uncomfortable saying anything, so she was just getting suspicious. But
she says, well, maybe he's in the hospital. So like
she gathered a bunch of clothes and some magazines and
was prepared to go to a hospital to find out
where he was because he wasn't answering his phone and
she was yet not ready to admit that he had died.

(44:49):
So I mean, yeah, the information is leaking out slowly.
In case of winning Winters, her youngest daughter was the
first to find out, and that was six hours after
the murder, and she had to call all her siblings
to let them know what had happened. So yeah, unfortunately,
that's how it works.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Back to the newspaper, you say that so many people
pitched in to make sure Other journalists volunteered to make
sure that the Capital had an addition out that very
next morning about something that concerned the newspaper itself. Tell
us about that edition and the reaction by the community.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
That was just remarkable that they're able to put together
a newspaper the next day. But they were getting calls
from other media organizations who were willing to loan reporters,
and they did, and a lot of reporters came out
of retirement and came to Annapolis just just to help
put out the newspaper for the next week. Because again
you talk about a greeting staff, they were really incapable

(45:49):
of getting back into a routine and putting on a
newspaper every day. Now, fortunately the Baltimore Sun, its parent company,
was able to bring in some people who were to
design the paper as well as reported. But a couple
of reporters that we're going to report this. This is
our store. We're not letting some other newspaper do that.
So without an office, without any kind of research material

(46:13):
down the office phones, they huddled around the back of
a pickup truck by one of the reporters and they
worked the phones, and they had a photographer there who
was starting to pull out photos from the file of
the victims, shooting photos at the scene, you know, not
knowing who died, and the buyers were still there. So
these three reporters in particular were traumatized, but they were

(46:35):
working off the back of a pickup truck to get
the stories out, interviewing the reporters who had survived, interviewing
the spouses, and the next day was the most comprehensive
coverage of the event that any newspaper had.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
What was the public's reaction in terms of, you right,
that a response to what happened, the massacre of the
mass murder. What were some of the content of the protests,
what they have to protest specifically about.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
I think the primary thing was the course of proliferation
of weapons, and you know, the fact that somebody could
get a weapon they had mental issues and get it
legally to walk into the newsroom. I mean, that was
the primary attention of focus, was to do something about that.
John McNamara's wife in particular, was very strong about amounting

(47:30):
a defense. And so they took to the streets. They
marched up and down the streets, They had public forums
at the city dock. They contacted their state legislators asking
for stronger legislation, red flag laws among them, and so
they worked at for a couple of years, but they
were on national media talking to something has to be done.

(47:52):
There's been way too many mass murders, and begged legislators
and people not just to move on to the next
mass That's what happened in a few days, That's what
everybody did. They moved on to the next mass murder,
one hundred and ninety of them, by the way, after
this mass murder.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Now, in this legal in this legal fight, it ended
up that the defense was chosen not criminally responsible as
their responsible as their defense. And with that there was
a psych evaluation. And this is where in this book
there is the most comprehensive and disturbing information derived from Ramos,

(48:35):
specifically from doctor Patel. Tell us about doctor Patel and
that evaluation and that twenty hours of introspection from Ramos.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
I don't think there is any case in existence with
mass murders. It has such an open mind to a
depraved killer. I mean twenty hours. You really need to
read the book to see all the passages that I
can't I don't have the time to go into. But
for twenty hours, this guy finally decided to open up,
refuse to talk to police, to judges, to anybody. That

(49:10):
he decides now is his chance to present his case.
And he's hoping that if it goes to trial, that
he'll see me on a stand, which I didn't have
to go to. But in this twenty hours, he starts
from his childhood and walks us through what happened to
him and presents his case on why he was justified

(49:31):
to do what he did. He makes these arguments that
anybody in their right mind would look at and feel
this is just idiotic, it's unreasonable, but in his mind,
what he did was reasonable, and he walks you through
every step of the way. You know, when he decided
to kill, he knew what you know, what steps he took,
he knew his motive, he knew when he enjoyed what

(49:54):
he did, he knew you know, his regrets, principally that
he didn't kill me. So there there has never been
a mind exposed like this for everybody to see. And
I think that's what's incredible here is that along the
way you see the markings of the next mass killer.
So anybody who takes a look at this will say, yeah,

(50:16):
he has he he has all the right traits for
somebody who's getting ready to kill. So it's it's words wisdom,
unfortunately for people to recognize and prevent this from happening
somewhere else. But it's also an open mind to someone
who's very evil.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
You say that he fit the profile perfectly, and he
was very forthright with doctor Purtel where he really didn't
want to speak to anybody else. So fortunately Bttell was
being able to derive this incredible confession about his motivation
and his history and what may have shaped this person's

(50:55):
murderous mind. And you say that he was inspired by
columb So you write extensively in this book or somewhat
about all of the mass murderers are in many cases
copycat killers.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
That's correctly, and I mean that's the scary part is
that they research are one of the traitses. They research
shootings and they learn from other shooters what to do
and what not to do. And he had research Stoneman,
Douglas Columbine and other murders to determine how long it
would take for police to respond on it and what
their actions are when they get there. You know, what

(51:34):
weapon do you use? What's the best weapon? Yeah, the
copycat killers are definitely out there today, and they're reading
the material. And the advice that we get from journalism
schools and from criminal investigators and mental health professionals is
not to use the name. So in my book, his

(51:55):
name doesn't appear for that reason, because it just glorifies
the killer rather than those who had died. But the
traits other psychiatrists had looked at and said, all the
traits were there for us to identify.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Let's talk about the trial. The jury only deliberates for
a couple hours. They're trying to have a not criminally
responsible defense and other words, in insanity defense. But you
say that doctor Patel's testimony is especially compelling at this
trial and not to the benefit of Ramos whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Right, So you know, I think Ramis was hoping for
a comfortable hospital that in a mental institution in which
he could use his computer and eek out his life
and comfort. Patel, as well as other state psychiatrists, were
able to show that he was responsible for his decisions.
And that's the key thing. He was sane enough that

(52:55):
he could make decisions such as filing his taxes, you know,
such as plotting the way he did, the way he
carried out his mission to record, a lot of forethought
and planning. It's not the sign of an insane person.
So while Ramis thought he was presenting a case for insanity,
he was actually presenting a case for sanity because he
was able to show that he was very competent and

(53:17):
able to make the decisions that he did that led
to the death of five people. So he lost his
case very easily.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
You write that part of Ramos's plan to enact revenge
on the newspaper and everybody involved, judges, Saunder, Van, all
kinds of people, and especially including yourself as well. But
in that a lawsuit, inevitable lawsuit he felt by the
families to sue the newspaper was part of this plan

(53:50):
for revenge, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
That's correct. I mean, you know, he failed in his lawsuit,
but he wanted his case presented it the only way
he could find justice was to kill people, and that
would get everybody's attention that he was right all along.
Obviously he wasn't, but I mean that was that was
his reason.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah, you wanted to use this as a pulpit to
be able to to demonstrate at this court case that
he was right and everyone else was wrong and he
had been wrong by the courts. But that's not the
way it worked out with this lawsuit. He wanted the families,
as he said in his tweets, he wanted your newspaper

(54:31):
and you, by proxy, to suffer and be crippled and
be destroyed.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
His motive was to make sure I had survivor's guilt,
which I did, no question about that. Eric Carley, I'm
sure he did as well. So in doing this, he
wanted to read Kavic. He wanted the survivors to sue
the newspaper in a civil case. You know, he filed
They filed a civil suit against us, And it's just what,

(55:00):
just exactly what he wanted. He wanted to bring financial
room to the newspaper in a newspaper didn't make guilt,
but they had an out of court settlement for the family,
so he was winning. Along the way. He had me
feeling guilty about what had happened and that I was
not the one who was killed. So in many ways
he got his justice. What he didn't get was an

(55:21):
easy way out. He's serving five life terms without parole.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
But he had you have to defend the newspaper and
exacerbate your own grief, didn't.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
He well, and Dan, that's why he decided to write
the book. I mean, yeah, for years I lived with
this thought, and I'm sure others did too, Like could
we have done more, Did we miss the signs? Did
we not protect our employees? I was determined to get
to the bottom of it, and the only way I
could do that was to dive into this book and
spend years researching the case with the court files and

(55:58):
viewing the film, which was not easy, the cameras that
were on the cops and the cameras that were in
the office that day. But yeah, I mean he took
me down that path. You know. I thought at the
end of the day that this was history for the city,
This was history for journalism, and people need to know
exactly how these crimes are perpetrated and maybe we can

(56:18):
learn from that to prevent the next one.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
So in the end, you talk about how could this happen?
Was was there anything you could have done, the newspaper
could have done? Were you wrong in reporting on this?
Tell us what you wrangled out of this in terms
of what could have been done? And did the newspaper
or yourself have anything to.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Do with this? So, and this was unfolding, and the
tweets were getting progressively worse. When he said I want
to smash Eric Cartley's face into the ground until he's dead,
I mean that to me was a threat when he
said I want I want Tom Moricour to stop breathing
and go to journalism hell and suffered the same fate
of other people who have died. That was the threat
that triggered us to talk to the police. So we

(57:06):
went to the police before all this happened and said,
can you do anything about this guy? Is he a threat?
And the police walked away saying he is All these
are rants. We don't see him as a threat, and
so you know, that was incredulous when that happened. I
said that to the police, I said that to my
fellow employees. But the BOTMB line is that the police,

(57:26):
who we thought were the professionals who could examine this,
said there was no threat. What we learned later was
that there are professional threat assessors who can examine all
this and determine whll or not he's following the path
with somebody who's ready to kill. We didn't know that
kind of person existed, but we found out after that
a threat assessor who was a friend of Brenda McCarthy

(57:49):
had examined the case and informally said brandan get away
from this guy. When that assessment was made well, prior
to the murders, they didn't tell us. So you know,
there were a lot of people who could have done
something to prevent us. There is the state's attorney who
looked at the case, who said, I don't see anything

(58:09):
we can do to stop this guy. He's just ranting,
he's not making any threats. There are the police who
decided there wasn't anything to do here. There are mental
health professionals who he was seeing who didn't report him
as dangered anybody. So did we make a mistake? You know,
we thought at the time we had done everything we could.
We got a photo of the guy, we took around

(58:30):
to all the employees and we said, beware a case
this guy comes in the office. So we had done
what we thought was good preventative measures to safeguard our employees.
But and when he went silent for three years, we
thought he went away. So I can't blame ourselves. Again,
I was away from the newspaper at that point, but

(58:51):
I can't blame anybody who was still there in charge
for not doing more. Had we known there was a
professional threat assessor, yeah, you know, we would have easily
have contact to someone like that and maybe had presented it,
but we didn't know anything like that existed.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
You're right that there has to be some blame. It
seems on the courts not recognizing the threat that he
could become and the threat that he was at the
time that he appeared in court in front of several
judges in different in different cases, and so there was
no recognition. And also you say that the police, even

(59:29):
though they were urged to, seemed to not monitor those tweets.
And even though it's not that long ago, it seems
that in that ensuing five years, six years, I think
police would be wise to take a look at the
angry tweets that someone or social media posts that people

(59:50):
would endeavor to do like Ramos did.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Well. As we know today, Dan, I mean, a great
majority of these mass verds are forecast on social media.
I mean, as they're going out the door, you know,
as this guy did, he posted on social media. So
the tea leaves are out there for us to identify,
and the police in particular are probably paying more attention
than they did back then. I mean we were talking
twenty eighteen, you know, and they did promise to monitors

(01:00:16):
tweets and they did not. I mean, I followed up
on that, and they did not, so the guy just
went dormant for that period time. But if people really
watch individuals around them, if they're a loner, you know,
if they have a grudge, if they're collecting grievances and
they're on social media complaining. I mean, those are the
te leaves that we all need to identify, not just

(01:00:38):
a place but everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yeah, that profile you say is saving grievance injustice collector
taking things that seem to be very very petty slights
and remembering them from the time you were four or
five years old. So I think there's quite a bit
to be learned from you say that, twenty hours of

(01:01:02):
psychological evaluation and this mass murderer being very forthright and
cooperating and weirdly enough, thinking that he was that this
would be a proper defense for him in a court
trial rather than a very good tool for the prosecution.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
That's correct. I mean, they have what they call legacy
tokens and injustice collectors, and those injustice collectors they're out
there going through life and it's not just one person,
but it's a number of people who have done some
injustice to them or perceived injustice and the legacy tokens.
He had used the word legacy a number of times,
so inadvertently, I think he had fed right into the

(01:01:43):
personality trait of a legacy. And so they want to
leave a legacy, which is the case of all masters,
and so they want to be remembered for life. You know,
those are things out there that that's the motive. What's
driving these people is the legacy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
You speak of a real legacy, and that is the
memorial to the slain journalists and other victims. Can you
tell us about this memorial?

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Yes, So the community got together and through some state
grants and private contributions, were able to build a memorial
for the Slang journalists at the City Dock area of Annapolis,
and each year on the anniversary of the murder they
have a ceremony for those people. But broadly speaking, after

(01:02:29):
this happened, there was an effort to build a memorial
in Washington, d c. For all slain journalists. So it's
really for those who die. So that effort is underway.
They've identified land for it. They're still trying to raise
money through private donations to build it. But it's that
foundation that all profits from my book will go to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
That's incredible. I want to thank you so much Tom
Markquart for coming on and talking about your incredible book,
Us to Kill Inside Newspapers, Worst Mass Murder. For those
people that might want to take another look or further look,
can you tell us about a website or any social
media that you do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
I have a Facebook page as well as a website.
The website is pressed to Kill dot com. There is
a button there we can order the book, but it's
available through all book outlets amazonbook dot Com, Barnes and
Noble and other outlets, but in both paperback and hardcover.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Well, thank you so much for this interview. Press to
Kill Inside Newspapers, Worst Mass Murder. Thank you so much
for this interview, Tom Marquart. You have a great evening,
and thank you for this interview. And good night you too, Dan, goodnight.
Thank you