Jonathan Ramsey via a 2012 CW33 newscast
The stepmother of Jonathan Ramsey, Elizabeth Ramsey — who lived with Jonathan’s father, Aaron Ramsey, in the Lake Highlands-area home where Jonathan starved to death while locked in a closet — is in court this week facing a charge of injury to a child and a possible life sentence.
Aaron was sentenced last year to life in prison, found guilty of locking his 11-year-old son in a closet, starving him to death and burying his body in an Ellis County field.
Elizabeth, who also faces up to life in prison, reportedly says she was helpless to do anything because she was afraid of her husband. Her lawyer claims she too was a victim of Aaron. The prosecution maintains that she was as much to blame as her husband; she lived for a year in a home where a child was starving in a closet and told no one. “There are two people responsible for the death of Johnathan Ramsey,” the prosecutor reportedly told the court.
We reported back in 2012 that though the couple shut-out Jonathan’s biological family, Elizabeth Ramsey’s parents lived across the street from the Aaron, Elizabeth and young Jonathan.
Based on testimony in Aaron’s trial, Jonathan’s biological grandfather made serious attempts to find the boy. Jonathan’s biological mother, who moved to New Mexico after divorcing Aaron, testified that emails from Elizabeth and Aaron indicated that Jonathan was “thriving.” But that they eventually moved and refused to give her their address, and Elizabeth asked her by email to stop contacting Jonathan and the family. In 2011, Jonathan’s mother filed for an update to her visitation rights, but the case reportedly never made it to a judge.
By the time police conducted a welfare check at the Ramsey home on Clearwater — where they reportedly found filth, dozens of cats and four dogs “living in their own waste” yet “healthy and well-fed” — Jonathan had been dead some seven months.
The family lived in the Stults Elementary attendance zone, but records did not indicate that Jonathan was enrolled at the school.
The trial resumes next Thursday.
