Speaker 1: I was with the prosecutor's office for thirty years and
Speaker 1: this was my last trial in my career. Being a
Speaker 1: prosecutor has a lifelong effect on you. There has to
Speaker 1: be some way to come back to humanity put the
Speaker 1: violence aside. This was an aggravated murder case. The victim's
Speaker 1: name is Gloria Troy.
Speaker 2: She was a hard working mom, a good role model,
Speaker 2: and Gloria's parents talk about how she was kind of
Speaker 2: their angel. She spent most of her life working in
Speaker 2: the family business of running hotels.
Speaker 3: She came off very shy and quiet, but she was
Speaker 3: nothing of those. She was passionate about her family and
Speaker 3: her son, had hopes and dreams for herself.
Speaker 2: What we know is there were four calls placed to
Speaker 2: law enforcement in the final fourty eight hours before she
Speaker 2: was killed. This person continues to stalk her, has slashed
Speaker 2: her tires, pistolen thousands of dollars worth of property. She
Speaker 2: called for help, and she was deprived of help that
Speaker 2: she's entitled to under the law, time and time again.
Speaker 1: The evening that she was murdered, she was going home,
Speaker 1: actually just taking a break to eat dinner. He was
Speaker 1: right behind her when she left.
Speaker 4: He knew everywhere she went.
Speaker 5: No, well, I'm much the location NC.
Speaker 6: I don't know where I am, but I'm scaring.
Speaker 1: To get out of my car. He forced her vehicle
Speaker 1: off the road. She doesn't know at that point who
Speaker 1: this is, and she's not able to drive anymore.
Speaker 5: I wanted to get police online because okay, history signed
Speaker 5: your caller.
Speaker 1: And he approaches her vehicle and she notices he has
Speaker 1: a gun.
Speaker 7: Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 8: All of a sudden, we heard a rapid fire, about
Speaker 8: seven or eight shots, and you just unloaded. And I
Speaker 8: was just a shot and saw him disappear, And I
Speaker 8: then ran over and called.
Speaker 3: The police to pick up.
Speaker 8: There against the telephone pole with a life on motor running,
Speaker 8: I don't see anybody in it.
Speaker 6: So you heard three pops?
Speaker 1: No, we heard a lot more than that.
Speaker 9: So in all, fourteen shots just riddles her car with bullets.
Speaker 1: Right, he's close range. He's shooting right through her driver's
Speaker 1: side window.
Speaker 4: She should have been protected and she wasn't.
Speaker 5: Do you blame the police for not taking better care
Speaker 5: of your friend.
Speaker 4: I do blame the police for not taking it serious.
Speaker 2: You're a perpetrator who's escalating any law enforcement officer who's
Speaker 2: following the training wouldn't know this woman was in incredible danger.
Speaker 5: On January two, twenty twenty two, Gloria Choi placed that
Speaker 5: anguished call to nine one one.
Speaker 6: I am, I'm scared to get out of my car. Yeah,
Speaker 6: he's got collar.
Speaker 5: Seconds later, can you hear me? Multiple shots are fired.
Speaker 5: The audio is too graphic to play in full. It
Speaker 5: lasts about two minutes and dispatchers are trying to make
Speaker 5: sense of what they just heard.
Speaker 6: Hello, can anybody hear me? Hello?
Speaker 5: Officers from the Lakewood Police Department in Washington arrive within minutes.
Speaker 1: One of the officers that approached you can see him
Speaker 1: trying to get to her quickly, and the doors are locked.
Speaker 5: Former Pierce County Prosecutor Greg Greer describes what first responders
Speaker 5: did that.
Speaker 10: One I played with.
Speaker 1: They bust out a rear window smartly, wisely so they
Speaker 1: can preserve the evident, and they're able to extricate her
Speaker 1: pretty quickly.
Speaker 9: And did you see them pull out the victim at all?
Speaker 5: I did?
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Terry Estevold gave police a detailed description of what he witnessed.
Speaker 8: And I was probably thirty feet away, and they put
Speaker 8: her on the ground and worked on her hard for
Speaker 8: several minutes.
Speaker 9: Had to be hard for you to witness that.
Speaker 8: It's terrible, and it still bothers me a lot to
Speaker 8: this day just thinking about it.
Speaker 5: Gloria was pronounced dead a short time later at a
Speaker 5: nearby hospital. Brianna Everlely soon heard the news that her
Speaker 5: best friend had been killed, but she couldn't quite accept it.
Speaker 3: And I repeatedly, repeatedly called Gloria's phone over and over again.
Speaker 3: No answer, no answer, no answer. And then I called
Speaker 3: her dad and then he finally answered, and I remember
Speaker 3: asking him.
Speaker 4: Is it true? Is she gone? Is it true? He said, yes,
Speaker 4: she's gone.
Speaker 5: Greer took us to the scene and walked us through
Speaker 5: what he learned from investigators.
Speaker 1: This would have been gravel shoulder, and somewhere in here
Speaker 1: he pinches her vehicle off and she's no longer able
Speaker 1: to move forward. He's blocking her.
Speaker 6: I think my boyfriend's following and he just hit my car.
Speaker 5: Gloria says the man is her boyfriend, but does not
Speaker 5: give a name.
Speaker 1: He gets out of the vehicle, and if you've heard
Speaker 1: the nine on one call, she describes exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 8: He's collar.
Speaker 5: Greer says, the shooter was standing next to Gloria's driver's
Speaker 5: side window. The door was locked.
Speaker 9: He's not true to talk to her. He immediately he's.
Speaker 1: There to kill her. He is there to kill her.
Speaker 5: After firing nine forty caliber bullets through the door and
Speaker 5: window of Gloria's truck, Grear says, the shooter begins to
Speaker 5: drive away. As he does, Gloria's truck moves forward until
Speaker 5: it hits a utility pull as shown in this police animation.
Speaker 5: Greer believes the truck moved because Gloria's foot was no
Speaker 5: longer applying pressure to the brake.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know whether she's alive or not, is what
Speaker 1: we believe is going through his mind. Because the vehicle's
Speaker 1: no longer it was. That's sixty yards west of where
Speaker 1: it was when he first shot her.
Speaker 5: The shooter makes a U turn and comes back around
Speaker 5: to Gloria's truck. He pulls his truck alongside so that
Speaker 5: his driver's side window is now next to hers, and
Speaker 5: this time he does not bother to get out of
Speaker 5: his car, Greer.
Speaker 1: Says, and he rolls this window down. Five more shots,
Speaker 1: just to make sure nine wasn't enough. Five more. Then
Speaker 1: after he's finished that, he immediately.
Speaker 5: Takes off, after firing fourteen shots and hitting Gloria at
Speaker 5: least ten times. Prosecutors say, the shooter disappears into the night.
Speaker 5: The first big break in the case came from one
Speaker 5: of the first officers at the crime scene.
Speaker 1: One of the officers she notices this lanyard that's on Gloria,
Speaker 1: and then she sees her name and that hits her hard.
Speaker 5: Gloria's lanyard was from a nearby holiday inn where she
Speaker 5: was the manager just days earlier. That officer took a
Speaker 5: report from Gloria after she called nine to one one.
Speaker 5: Gloria said her ex boyfriend had been following and harassing
Speaker 5: her and now they had a name, Billy Rickman, and.
Speaker 1: That becomes a lead to understanding what happened.
Speaker 5: Greer says. A detective subpoenat Rickman's phone records. Even without
Speaker 5: having his phone, police were able to read his text messages.
Speaker 1: At one point, he says where he is and it's
Speaker 1: the Home motel.
Speaker 5: The detective rushed to the motel, which is a six
Speaker 5: minute drive from the murder scene. Greer says the desk
Speaker 5: clerk told the detective that days earlier, Rickman attempted to
Speaker 5: sign in with a fake name, but the clerk insisted
Speaker 5: on proof of identity.
Speaker 11: We have him on surveillance video getting back to the motel.
Speaker 5: That was after the shooting, says prosecutor Karine Schneff. He
Speaker 5: appears in a hurry.
Speaker 11: He gets out of his vehicle and he immediately starts
Speaker 11: wiping down the side of the vehicle that might have
Speaker 11: any kind of evidence of gunpowder residue. You can see
Speaker 11: him on the phone. He's contacting people, she says.
Speaker 5: Investigators began checking surveillance from several businesses in the area
Speaker 5: and got another break at a nearby car rental business.
Speaker 9: This picture is very clear.
Speaker 11: Enterprise have had great video here.
Speaker 9: There's no denying who that is looking at that.
Speaker 5: You know Rickman rented a Chevy Colorado using his real name.
Speaker 5: It is the same vehicle in the motel video and
Speaker 5: the same vehicle police believe Rickman used to run Gloria
Speaker 5: off the road. The Lake With police put out an
Speaker 5: alert for Billy Rickman, but in the days that followed
Speaker 5: he was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 4: She was a part of my family, and my whole
Speaker 4: family knew her and they loved her.
Speaker 5: With Billy Rickman on the run, police questioned Gloria's friend
Speaker 5: Brianna Everly, about Rickman's relationship with Gloria. Brianna had known
Speaker 5: Gloria since twenty eighteen, when she hired her to help
Speaker 5: out at the Oyo Hotel, which was owned by Gloria's parents.
Speaker 3: She wanted to please her parents to the best of
Speaker 3: her ability. She was their lifeline. She did it all,
Speaker 3: and she did it all with grace, absolute grace.
Speaker 5: Gloria was the single mother of a seven year old.
Speaker 4: It's all about her kid. She was very fierce when
Speaker 4: it came to her son.
Speaker 5: And in May twenty twenty one, Billy Rickman checked into
Speaker 5: the hotel from California, a mystery man with a larger
Speaker 5: than life personality. Brianna says it didn't take long for
Speaker 5: Rickman to notice Gloria.
Speaker 3: Gloria was coming into the office. He walked up and
Speaker 3: introduced himself. He's like, you're very pretty, and she goes, well,
Speaker 3: thank you. She walked away and he's like, who's that
Speaker 3: and I'm like, her name's Gloria.
Speaker 4: Stay away.
Speaker 5: But Rickman did not stay away, and before long the
Speaker 5: two were texting a lot.
Speaker 4: She liked the way he talked to her and the
Speaker 4: things that he said to her. All she wanted to
Speaker 4: do is be loved by somebody.
Speaker 5: And Rickman made it seem like he could be that guy,
Speaker 5: says Megan Driscoll, the Choy family's lawyer.
Speaker 2: He really came across as this nice guy love bomb ter,
Speaker 2: meaning he's giving her gifts and kind of showering her
Speaker 2: with kindness.
Speaker 5: Weeks after meeting her, Rickmand sent Gloria this text. You're
Speaker 5: the light to my day every day. You make me
Speaker 5: feel so sexy and special, and I thank you for that.
Speaker 9: I want you.
Speaker 5: I want to be with you, Gloria CHOI. I can't
Speaker 5: wait to see what life has in store for us.
Speaker 5: My heart is yours. How was he with her son,
Speaker 5: Gloria's friend, Jacob Blue.
Speaker 10: What she liked about Rickman is that he had a
Speaker 10: lot of masculine energy that he was showing.
Speaker 3: On Billy and her son had a very instinct connection
Speaker 3: because he was like a kid himself, you know.
Speaker 5: Within weeks, Gloria and Rickman became a couple and he
Speaker 5: began staying in her apartment at the Oyo Hotel. Brianna says,
Speaker 5: Gloria's father did not approve of the relationship.
Speaker 10: And her parents basically drew a red line and said
Speaker 10: he can't be staying here at the hotel anymore.
Speaker 5: Gloria's father wanted him to move.
Speaker 10: Out, and Rickman went and approached her parents and told
Speaker 10: them he's not going anywhere and that Gloria is now
Speaker 10: his and if they don't like it, they can leave.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: Her dad basically gave her an ultimatum. She could stay
Speaker 3: on as a manager or she could leave, and she
Speaker 3: chose to leave.
Speaker 5: Gloria her son, Ann Rickman moved to an apartment in
Speaker 5: the town of Tumwater in September twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 5: her heartbroken parents chose to sell their hotel. That's when
Speaker 5: Gloria took a new job as manager of the Holiday
Speaker 5: and Express in Lakewood, right next to Tacoma.
Speaker 10: She was still very happy with what she had, but
Speaker 10: it didn't last.
Speaker 1: Long that happiness.
Speaker 5: Gloria told Brianna that Rickman had big dreams but no
Speaker 5: way of making them come true.
Speaker 4: And Gloria's like, well, who's going to fund all of this?
Speaker 4: You're not you don't have a job. Get a job,
Speaker 4: you know, and he refused.
Speaker 5: So was he asking her for money?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he drained her. She bought everything.
Speaker 5: Within weeks, Gloria saw a different side of Rickman. She
Speaker 5: told Brianna he was often mean, angry, and insecure. Gloria
Speaker 5: also told Brianna that Rickman was drinking to excess and
Speaker 5: using cocaine and marijuana and what did you tell her?
Speaker 4: Leif run away?
Speaker 5: Gloria chose to stay with Rickman, but two months later,
Speaker 5: in November, Jacob says he got a troubling call.
Speaker 10: She did express that he would become physical with her,
Speaker 10: push around, throw her around, and that she didn't feel
Speaker 10: safe just breaking things off with them.
Speaker 5: Jacob told Gloria she needed to leave him immediately, but
Speaker 5: Gloria said she was afraid that might trigger something inside Rickman.
Speaker 3: She didn't know how she was going to leave Billy.
Speaker 3: She was scared to leave him. What scared her possessiveness.
Speaker 3: He knew everywhere she went.
Speaker 5: She felt that he was tracking her every move.
Speaker 4: She found a tag.
Speaker 5: In her car, an AirTag.
Speaker 4: She's the one that told me about it later on, and.
Speaker 5: Gloria suspected there were other hidden Apple air tags in
Speaker 5: her truck. Are you concerned for your friend at this point.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: In November twenty twenty one, just six months after they met,
Speaker 5: Brianna says, Gloria made up her mind to leave Rickman.
Speaker 3: She looked at me down in the face and said,
Speaker 3: I'm leaving. And I asked her, you know what's your plan?
Speaker 3: She goes, I'm going to go to my parents.
Speaker 5: Her parents welcomed Gloria and her son into their home,
Speaker 5: but it was not so easy to get rid of Rickman.
Speaker 5: He had borrowed Gloria's truck and refused to give it back.
Speaker 5: So on November twenty eighth, Gloria went to the Tumwater
Speaker 5: police to file a report about the truck, and while
Speaker 5: she was there, she told the officer taking the report
Speaker 5: about Rickman. When Billy is sober, he is calm, but
Speaker 5: when he drinks, he has a short fuse and is
Speaker 5: very angry. I wish him well, but choosing to not
Speaker 5: be a part of his life anymore for the safety
Speaker 5: and stability for my son and I. Attorney Megan Driscoll,
Speaker 5: who represents the Troy family, said it was clear the
Speaker 5: Tumwater officer believed Gloria was at risk. The officer reported
Speaker 5: that Rickman was potentially tracking Gloria with Apple air tags,
Speaker 5: owned numerous firearms, and appeared to be extremely manipulative.
Speaker 2: He actually becomes really concerned for her and her safety,
Speaker 2: so the officer actually tells Gloria and tells the court
Speaker 2: to issue a domestic violence no contact order.
Speaker 5: Almost immediately, Rickman was arrested for taking Gloria's truck, and
Speaker 5: he agreed to this recorded interview.
Speaker 1: It's both of our cars, like we lived together. That
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm a neighbor or something.
Speaker 7: What do you think her opinion, his own dreams don't
Speaker 7: like do you think like maybe should I feel like
Speaker 7: uncomfortable or scared?
Speaker 12: I'll tell you this much, if I had a shot
Speaker 12: with my girl again, man, I would never drink another
Speaker 12: trick of alcohol.
Speaker 3: And that's the August that got you.
Speaker 5: Rickman was jailed for three days for taking Gloria's trunk,
Speaker 5: and on December one, twenty twenty one, he was brought
Speaker 5: before a judge who slapped him with a strict no
Speaker 5: contact order, but Brianna says the order did not phase Rickman.
Speaker 5: The day he got out of jail, he told Brianna
Speaker 5: he was unconcerned with the legalities.
Speaker 4: He didn't care. He was like, so I'm still going
Speaker 4: to talk to her.
Speaker 5: In early December twenty twenty one, Gloria Choi was back
Speaker 5: living with her parents, hoping she had rid herself of
Speaker 5: Billy Rickman once and for all. But Brianna said Rickman
Speaker 5: had other ideas, as he told her the day he
Speaker 5: got out of jail for taking Gloria's truck, which had
Speaker 5: been returned.
Speaker 3: To her, Billy showed up at my place and he's like,
Speaker 3: I need your help, and he begged me to talk
Speaker 3: to her about getting back together. He said that he
Speaker 3: would change, he would stop drinking, he'd be a better
Speaker 3: person to her.
Speaker 4: And in the back of my mind, I'm.
Speaker 5: Like, no, you didn't believe him, then I didn't. And
Speaker 5: what's your understanding of a no contact order?
Speaker 3: No contact order means you can't come and contact that
Speaker 3: person text, phone, calls, physical location, anything of that sort, and.
Speaker 9: If you do what happened, you go to jail.
Speaker 5: Brianna told Rickman that he'd be arrested if he broke
Speaker 5: any of those conditions, but two weeks later, she got
Speaker 5: a call from a friend telling her Gloria was hiding
Speaker 5: from Rickman in the bathroom of this coffee shop. Brianna
Speaker 5: wasted no time getting there.
Speaker 3: As I was pulling in, I saw Billy Rickman's car
Speaker 3: was parked over there.
Speaker 12: We made eye contact.
Speaker 3: I went to the bathroom and knocked on the door
Speaker 3: and she opened it. She knew that Billy was here.
Speaker 5: It was another reminder to Gloria that Rickman seemed to
Speaker 5: be tracking her every move, and you said she was
Speaker 5: very emotional in lossues of the bathroom.
Speaker 3: She was petrified, she was crying, she was shaking. She
Speaker 3: refused to come out until she knew he was gone.
Speaker 5: It's not clear if police were ever called. Three days later,
Speaker 5: Brianna said that Gloria told her that Rickman confronted her
Speaker 5: in the Capitol Mall while she was shopping with her son.
Speaker 5: Brianna said Gloria told her that Rickman pleaded with her
Speaker 5: to drop the no contact order, but she refused.
Speaker 11: He was putting himself in her path so that he
Speaker 11: could rekindle the lost relationship that lost relationships.
Speaker 5: As prosecutor, Kareine Schneff was on Rickman's mind when he
Speaker 5: made these cell phone videos directed at Gloria.
Speaker 11: You can see the videos that he created to try
Speaker 11: and make her feel bad about leaving him.
Speaker 5: This is what Christmas alone looks like, the pardoning lot
Speaker 5: of the hotel, because you ain't got nowhere to go,
Speaker 5: because you know your.
Speaker 9: Girl puts you out in the street.
Speaker 5: Prosecutors say everything came to a head on the last
Speaker 5: two days of twenty twenty one. It started on December thirtieth,
Speaker 5: when Rickman sent Gloria an email after he spotted her
Speaker 5: with Jacob Blue at a coffee shop. And I guess
Speaker 5: Rickman did write an email to Gloria that read you
Speaker 5: left me for another guy. Wow.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 5: The email was sent in real time, Andloria began getting
Speaker 5: calls from a block number. When she answered, Rickman was
Speaker 5: on the line yelling at her.
Speaker 1: According to Jacob, he believed that this Jacob Blue was
Speaker 1: a potential boyfriend.
Speaker 5: They moved on to a sushi restaurant, but Gloria was
Speaker 5: becoming increasingly bothered by the headlights of a car which
Speaker 5: were pointed at the restaurant, and Jacob says Gloria believed
Speaker 5: Rickman was behind the wheel.
Speaker 10: She says, I know that car, and I know that
Speaker 10: it's watching us right now, and she got really uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: Jacob says they left the restaurant and discovered someone had
Speaker 5: stolen their computers from Gloria's truck. They also discovered one
Speaker 5: of her truck's tires was slashed. Gloria called the police
Speaker 5: and asked for their help. It was the first of
Speaker 5: four calls about Rickman over a forty eight hour period.
Speaker 4: And what do he damage on my front driver's side tires?
Speaker 6: And he went through all the stuff been the truck.
Speaker 5: Extole my backpack with my laptop and my friend's laptop
Speaker 5: bag as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll have an after call you.
Speaker 9: And did Gloria express that she thought it was Rickman?
Speaker 10: She was confident it was Rickman.
Speaker 5: Gloria told police that only Rickman knew the truck's keypad
Speaker 5: code to gain entry. She gave them a description of
Speaker 5: his black BMW and told the officer about the no
Speaker 5: contact order. The officer said he left Rickman a voicemail
Speaker 5: message letting him know the police wanted to speak with him.
Speaker 5: Gloria and Jacob then drove to the Holiday Inn to
Speaker 5: retrieve Jacob's jeep, and that's when Jacob discovered that two
Speaker 5: of his tires had been slashed.
Speaker 10: This is a snowy night, there's snow on the ground.
Speaker 5: Gloria took this cell phoned video following the footsteps she
Speaker 5: thought were Rickman's.
Speaker 9: Here is his footsteps.
Speaker 5: Because Gloria managed that and she was able to get
Speaker 5: the surveillance footage, these videos have never been seen by
Speaker 5: the public before.
Speaker 10: Now we see a man come in and sneaking through
Speaker 10: the shadows. He comes up to my jeep and he
Speaker 10: punctures both my tires in and walks off.
Speaker 5: They called police a second time and gave them the video.
Speaker 5: Both Jacob and Gloria identified the man as Billy Rickman
Speaker 5: by his distinctive walk, but officers said the video was
Speaker 5: not clear enough to make an arrest.
Speaker 10: And the police were like, I'm sorry without us being
Speaker 10: able to see his face, there's really not a whole
Speaker 10: lot to go off of.
Speaker 1: Not much we can do.
Speaker 5: The next day was December thirty, first New Year's Eve.
Speaker 5: Jacob returned to his jeep with two new tires. That's
Speaker 5: when he and Gloria discovered the other two tires were
Speaker 5: now slashed. That prompted a third call to nine one one, what.
Speaker 10: Are you reporting bambalism on my being called by a stalker.
Speaker 5: Once again. The surveillance footage showed the man Jacob and
Speaker 5: Gloria believed was Rickman slashing the tires, but police again
Speaker 5: said the video was not clear enough for them to
Speaker 5: make an identification. Then, on New Year's Eve, there was
Speaker 5: a fourth called to nine one one, this time by
Speaker 5: the desk clerk at the holiday inn. He spotted the
Speaker 5: tire slasher again puncturing the tires on Jacob's jeep. The
Speaker 5: desk clerk chased after him, recording this video at the
Speaker 5: same time he was calling nine one one, call.
Speaker 1: His license my talk. He strived to Chevy Colforado.
Speaker 9: And sent one.
Speaker 5: Pelisse A. Rickman was driving that same Chevy Colorado when
Speaker 5: he ran Gloria off the road, murdered her, then escaped
Speaker 5: into the night. Billy Rickman was able to elude police
Speaker 5: for four days until January sixth, twenty twenty two. That's
Speaker 5: when Prosecutor Greg Greer says law enforcement tracked his phone
Speaker 5: to Humboldt County in northern California, where Rickman turned up
Speaker 5: drunk at a relative's house.
Speaker 1: This relative did not want mister Rickman staying with him.
Speaker 1: This relative offered to take mister Rickman to a nearby
Speaker 1: casino and put him up at the Casito in a hotel.
Speaker 5: Rickman's relative, driving his black BMW was stopped by tribal
Speaker 5: police and they contacted the California Highway patrol who rushed
Speaker 5: to the scene. Policese A. Rickman, as seen in this
Speaker 5: dash cam video, shoved his relative out of the driver's
Speaker 5: seat and onto the pavement, gunned the engine and took off.
Speaker 1: He's got enough of a head start and they actually
Speaker 1: don't find him. They lose him.
Speaker 5: Rickman wandered around in the darkness for about five hours
Speaker 5: on the wet, cold night before being found and taken
Speaker 5: into custody.
Speaker 1: Mister Rickman is soaking wet, freezing cold hypothermic.
Speaker 5: Rickman was charged with aggravated first degree murder and pleaded
Speaker 5: not guilty. Some two hundred and fifty miles south, a
Speaker 5: woman who says she knew firsthand just how dangerous Rickman was,
Speaker 5: received a phone call.
Speaker 7: The officer from the Oakland Police Department called me and
Speaker 7: when I answered the phone, she told me Billy has
Speaker 7: been arrested.
Speaker 5: This is Ajahul, who had filed a police report about Rickman.
Speaker 5: She says Rickman forced her into prostitution and sexually assaulted
Speaker 5: her when she was a fourteen year old runaway living
Speaker 5: in Oakland in two thousand and five.
Speaker 7: I must survivor of human Tafiqin and Phillya was made
Speaker 7: off for her.
Speaker 5: Aja says she endured years of abuse before she nearly
Speaker 5: was killed after Rickman choked her with the strand of
Speaker 5: Christmas tree lights like I could.
Speaker 7: Not breathe, like it was very scary. I was terrified.
Speaker 5: She escaped to San Francisco.
Speaker 7: And it was one of the best moments in my life,
Speaker 7: but also one of the most terrifying because I felt free,
Speaker 7: but I also felt so much fear because I had
Speaker 7: crossed him and I knew what he was capable of.
Speaker 5: Shortly after leaving, Aja called a girlfriend who was living
Speaker 5: with Rickman.
Speaker 7: He took the phone out of her hand when I
Speaker 7: called her to check on her once and said, bitch,
Speaker 7: if I ever find you, I will kill you. And
Speaker 7: I knew that he meant it. I never ever saw
Speaker 7: that as a threat like I saw that as a promise,
Speaker 7: because he would he would kill me. He was livid.
Speaker 5: Aja says she always wanted justice, but it was only
Speaker 5: while completing her education and pursuing a master's degree in
Speaker 5: public Affairs from the University of California at Berkeley that
Speaker 5: she found the courage to file that report with the
Speaker 5: Oakland Police. It detailed multiple alleged incidents of Rickman's abuse,
Speaker 5: including hitting her with closed fists on the face and body,
Speaker 5: and causing her to sustain a black eye, bruises and
Speaker 5: cuts to the face.
Speaker 7: I wanted him held accountable for what he did.
Speaker 5: Oakland Police put out an arrest warrant for Rickman in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one in Alameda County, but by that time
Speaker 5: he had left California. Washington State prosecutors say they never
Speaker 5: saw the warrant.
Speaker 7: I was angry and upset because he could have been
Speaker 7: stopped beforehand. I blame myself in some kind of way.
Speaker 5: But Aja still wanted to help. She emailed the prosecutors
Speaker 5: working on the Gloria Troy murder and offered to give
Speaker 5: them information about Rickman. The prosecutors demurred, saying they wanted
Speaker 5: to keep their case focused on Gloryaria's murder.
Speaker 11: That wasn't really part of our case, so we didn't
Speaker 11: follow up on that particular element.
Speaker 5: Rickman's trial for the murder of Gloria Choi began in
Speaker 5: November twenty twenty three before a jury of nine men
Speaker 5: and three women. Gloria's family were too devastated to attend
Speaker 5: the trial.
Speaker 3: They moved out of town without a word, and we
Speaker 3: didn't get to say goodbye.
Speaker 4: But I understood why.
Speaker 5: Prosecutor Greer wanted the jury to understand why as well,
Speaker 5: so he played Gloria's nine to one one call in
Speaker 5: its entirety right after the opening statements, No, I'm.
Speaker 7: Much location MENCA.
Speaker 6: Time, I don't know where I am, but I think
Speaker 6: my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: You could tell the whole courtroom was, you know, different.
Speaker 1: While that was being.
Speaker 5: Played, the prosecution methodically laid out its case to the
Speaker 5: jury with all the audio and video evidence they collected.
Speaker 11: What you're about to see is a compilation of information
Speaker 11: from the defendant's cell phone as well as surveillance videos
Speaker 11: that we have at the various locations. What you're going
Speaker 11: to see first is some GPS coordinates.
Speaker 5: Schnepp says Rickman could no longer follow Gloria after he
Speaker 5: slashed Gloria's tires and put her truck with those air
Speaker 5: tags out of commission.
Speaker 11: As soon as he slashed the tires on Gloria's vehicle,
Speaker 11: he could no longer track her.
Speaker 5: Rickman was forced to more or less guess where Gloria was,
Speaker 5: and in the days that followed, Schnepp says, he spent
Speaker 5: a lot of time sitting outside her parents' house where
Speaker 5: she was living. So all of this is breaking this
Speaker 5: no contact order.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, he probably every letter of the no contact
Speaker 1: order he violated.
Speaker 11: He's just constantly going back to our house.
Speaker 9: Is she there?
Speaker 5: Is she at our house?
Speaker 9: It's crazy to see this like this.
Speaker 5: Sometime around six pm on January Tewod, the night of
Speaker 5: Gloria's murder, Schneff says Rickman turned off his cell phone
Speaker 5: and didn't turn it back on until he was at
Speaker 5: the home motel immediately after the murder.
Speaker 11: The fact that he doesn't turn his phone off except
Speaker 11: for at the time point of the murder helps us
Speaker 11: to show that it was him.
Speaker 5: To buttress their case, prosecutors put Brianna Eberley on the stand.
Speaker 3: I remember looking over at him, seeing him look at
Speaker 3: her picture. He started to cry, and I remember it
Speaker 3: made me so angry. I had never felt so furious
Speaker 3: in my life. Billy didn't just take Gloria's physical life.
Speaker 3: Billy took everything, took a daughter, a mother, a friend,
Speaker 3: a sister, a cousin. He took it all in a
Speaker 3: blank of an eye, with no.
Speaker 5: Regard the loss of Gloria. Troy weighed heavily on Greg
Speaker 5: Greer as the prosecution ended. He knew this was going
Speaker 5: to be the last case of his career. He was surveilling,
Speaker 5: he was stalking, he was hunting that night, absolutely, and
Speaker 5: Greg Greer was confident he'd proven that to the jury.
Speaker 5: When it was time to present Billy Rickman's defense, his
Speaker 5: lawyer did not call any witnesses and did not put
Speaker 5: Rickman on the stand. He argued in his closing that
Speaker 5: investigators failed to look at any other possible suspects, said
Speaker 5: prosecutor Greg Greer.
Speaker 1: The defense tried to make a case that somebody else
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 5: Rickman's defense attorney told jurors that the police investigation was
Speaker 5: incomplete because Gloria never named Rickman on her nine to
Speaker 5: one one call and instead described the person who hit
Speaker 5: her car only as her boyfriend.
Speaker 6: I think my boyfriend calling made me just hit my car.
Speaker 5: The trial lasted two weeks. It only took the jury
Speaker 5: about two hours to reach their verdict guilty of aggravated murder.
Speaker 5: Rickman was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility
Speaker 5: of brawl.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement didn't take any steps to locate or arrest
Speaker 2: Rickman in the days before Gloria's death.
Speaker 5: Gloria's parents believe Gloria should still be alive, says Megan Driscoll.
Speaker 5: She has filed a wrongful death suit on behalf of
Speaker 5: Gloria's son against the City of Lakewood and its police department.
Speaker 2: They wanted accountability for what happened to their daughter, and
Speaker 2: their sister and their loved one, and they believed that
Speaker 2: it was mismanaged and mishandled by law enforcement. This woman
Speaker 2: was deprived of justice and should not have been killed.
Speaker 5: Driscoll says, one of the ironies of the case is
Speaker 5: that the prosecution used Rickman's egregious stalking as evidence to
Speaker 5: help them secure the homicide conviction. So that very same
Speaker 5: evidence that was presented the homicide trial, you're now using
Speaker 5: your wrongful death lawsuit to show what you believe is
Speaker 5: the Lakewood police not doing their jobs right.
Speaker 2: I mean, this death was incredibly foreseeable, and we know
Speaker 2: that from the prosecution. We know that the jury convicted him.
Speaker 2: This wasn't a mystery of who did this or why
Speaker 2: it was as foreseeable as it was preventable.
Speaker 5: You're focused on lake Wid police and what they did
Speaker 5: and did not do. So outline for us what should
Speaker 5: they have done, plain and.
Speaker 2: Simple, Plain and simple, lake WIDPEDI should have found Rickman
Speaker 2: and arrested him to protect Gloria.
Speaker 12: My name is Russ Hicks. I'm a retired law enforcement officer.
Speaker 12: I was a lead instructor for domestic violence for many years.
Speaker 5: Russ Hicks was hired by Driscoll as an expert witness
Speaker 5: in part because he has a special connection to the case.
Speaker 12: So I know they received the proper training because I
Speaker 12: was their instructor at the police academy and I taught
Speaker 12: these three officers that were.
Speaker 1: Involved in this case.
Speaker 5: And Hicks says those officers failed Gloria. One example, one
Speaker 5: of the Lakewood officers says he left a voicemail for Rickman,
Speaker 5: which Hicks considers a mistake.
Speaker 12: I think it conveays a missa such that we're not
Speaker 12: taking this seriously and we're not looking for you, just
Speaker 12: saying that we'd.
Speaker 1: Like to talk to you.
Speaker 2: And the sad irony of it is when you call
Speaker 2: a domestic violence perpetrator like Rickman, that actually just escalates
Speaker 2: the danger to the victim even more.
Speaker 5: That officer says he drove around looking for Rickman's BMW,
Speaker 5: but Driscoll says there is no police record of that.
Speaker 5: Driscoll also says Gloria told the officer she believed Rickman
Speaker 5: was staying at a nearby motel, and as it turned out,
Speaker 5: the home motel is only a six minute walk from
Speaker 5: the Holiday Inn.
Speaker 2: It would have been so easy to find him because
Speaker 2: he was there to be found.
Speaker 5: Driscoll also says officers failed Gloria by not following up
Speaker 5: on the detailed description of the truck Rickman was driving
Speaker 5: given to them by the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn.
Speaker 2: In normal law enforcement practice, they should send out a
Speaker 2: bulk be on the lookout, saying this is a base
Speaker 2: Chevy Colorado, broken tail lights, look for this guy.
Speaker 7: They didn't do that. He was half a block away.
Speaker 5: Some forty eight hours before her murder. Driscoll says Gloria
Speaker 5: gave one of the officers a comprehensive seven page document.
Speaker 5: In it, Gloria details the many times she said Rickman
Speaker 5: violated the no contact order. His emails, his calls, and
Speaker 5: a still frame from one of the holiday and videos.
Speaker 4: Even with that.
Speaker 5: Report in hand, Driscoll says police took no action.
Speaker 2: They had everything they needed and more to arrest him.
Speaker 5: In addressing the Troy family's wrongful death lawsuit, a city
Speaker 5: lawyer told a judge in January twenty twenty five, the
Speaker 5: police have no obligation to go and arrest someone like
Speaker 5: Rickman if he is not at the scene. At that hearing,
Speaker 5: the judge asked the city's lawlawyer, a police officer could
Speaker 5: still sit back and do nothing in response to a
Speaker 5: complaint by a domestic violence victim because there's no duty
Speaker 5: to look for the abuser. The city's lawyer answered, that's correct.
Speaker 5: John Justice, the attorney representing the city and the Lakewood
Speaker 5: Police Department, said he could not comment on pending litigation.
Speaker 5: Tell me a little bit about how she changed your life.
Speaker 3: She always reminded me that I was a good person
Speaker 3: no matter what, and that I was a good mom
Speaker 3: because I doubted myself a lot, and she reminded me
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 9: That I was good.
Speaker 5: How much did that change you? And your self?
Speaker 4: Worth so much more than I could probably describe it.
Speaker 4: Gave me hope.
Speaker 5: Prosecutor my career retired in twenty twenty four. He's still
Speaker 5: trying to, in his words, find his way back to
Speaker 5: humanity and forget the violence that surrounded him for so
Speaker 5: many years. But he's still haunted by Gloria's last words
Speaker 5: on that nine one one call.
Speaker 1: I did learn the Korean language while I was in
Speaker 1: the Air Force, and I could hear very clearly Gloria
Speaker 1: calling for her mother.
Speaker 9: And what is the word that you hear.
Speaker 1: It's umah omah and she's just frantically desperation. Calling for
Speaker 1: her mother tells you a lot about human nature, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of the saddest things you'll ever hear.
Speaker 5: Dott