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Friday, Jan. 18, 2013
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SHERIFF: HAD VICTIM NOT JUMPED OUT OF CAR, ‘SHE WOULD NOT BE ALIVE RIGHT NOW’ SUSPECT SHOT, KILLED FOLLOWING AbDUCTION, RAPE OF CMU STUDENT By Justin Hicks Senior Reporter and Aaron McMann and Editor-in-Chief
viCtoria ZeGler/Photo editor
Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski speaks during a news conference on Thursday regarding a CMU student who was abducted at gunpoint from the Student Activity Center and sexually assaulted Wednesday night. The suspect, Eric Lee Ramsey, a 30-year-old Mount Pleasant man, fled from the police with a stolen sanitation truck and was shot and killed by a Crawford County deputy after ramming the deputy’s vehicle early Thursday morning.
Boy recalls abducted student at his house By Aaron McMann Editor-in-Chief
James Persyn III was minding his own business, watching MTV’s “Disaster Date,” Wednesday night when a pound came at the front door. The 14-year-old Shepherd boy lives with his younger sister, Acelin, 11, 2-year-old brother Angus and father, Jim Persyn, at their home on S. Mission Road in Lincoln Township. On the other side, a girl screaming, the Central Michigan University senior from Grand Rapids who had been abducted at gunpoint in the parking lot of the Student Activity Center. She had jumped out the window of her 2003 Ford Escape, driven by a man, 30-year-old Eric Lee Ramsey, who said he wanted to kill her. “She screamed ‘help, please help,’” James remembers. “So I let her in and shut the door behind her. She asked me if my parents were home, and I said no, so she said we have to go hide.” So, James grabbed his younger brother and sister, the family dog and a hunting knife and led the victim to the family’s bathroom, where his father, Jim, had always directed him to go if anything bad happened. He gave her his phone to call 911. He followed with a call to his dad, who had just left to pick up his fiancé.
“She screamed ‘help, please help.’ So I let her in and shut the door behind her. She asked me if my parents were home, and I said no, so she said we have to go hide.” James Persyn III, Shepherd boy “I could tell by the tone of his voice that I needed to get home,” Jim said. “I got home in a very short period of time.” But before Jim could get home, Ramsey tried his best to get into the home. He banged on the door, saying he wanted the victim back and to “let me in.” “I never really got to see him or anything, but he wanted her back, and we weren’t going to let it happen,” James remembers. James said the victim told him her arm was broken from jumping out of the vehicle. She was covered in tape, likely from the earlier sexual assault, and he tried peeling it off. He said the victim told him she was at the SAC when she was kidnapped. “I was petrified and very angry,” James said.
Ramsey then proceeded to spray the home with gas, stored in a pair of containers he plucked from a barn at the S. Crawford Road home in which he allegedly raped her. Upon arriving home, little to James’ knowledge, Jim found the bottom and front of his house on fire. When he finally got inside, he found the victim sitting in the bathtub and learned what had happened. “They said she had been screaming and panicking, but by the time I had got in the house, she was amazingly calm,” Jim said. “You could tell she had been crying, but I think she was shocked and maybe relieved she was safe.” James, shy and brief with many of his answers, said he’s just happy the victim is OK. Jim went one step further, expressing his gratitude that his children and the woman are still alive. “You’ve got to move on with life, but this is major,” Jim said. “We’ll be able to fix (the house), but there is siding that is destroyed. Had (James) not called me, and had I not rushed home, I don’t know how much longer it would have took for it all to go up. I could see the glow once I saw my house.”
A senior from the Grand Rapids area is safe after being abducted at gunpoint outside the Student Activity Center, sexually assaulted and her life threatened Wednesday night. The suspect, Mount Pleasant resident Eric Lee Ramsey, 30, is dead after leading police on a chase through northern Michigan that ended in Gaylord. He was shot and killed by a Crawford County deputy after ramming the deputy’s vehicle with a stolen sanitation truck. “Last night we had an incident that originated on Central Michigan University’s campus which involved a kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct, arson, attempted murder, a stolen vehicle and also a weapons offense,” said Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski. The student, whose name has not been disclosed, was walking to her vehicle in the SAC parking lot at approximately 9:30 p.m. when a man approached her at gunpoint. Ramsey forced himself into her 2003 Ford Escape and made her drive to a home on South Crawford Road. There, police say, the suspect bound her with tape and sexually assaulted her. He then put her back into the car and proceeded to collect two gas cans from a barn behind the home. Police say the victim leaped from the moving vehicle and ran to a nearby residence after Ramsey told her he planned to kill her. “There’s no doubt in my mind that had the victim not jumped out of that car, she would not be alive right now,” said CMU police chief Bill Yeagley. “I think that’s why he got the gasoline. I feel comfortable saying she made the right decision jumping out of that car.” The victim ran to a nearby home on South Mission Road and banged on the door until she was let in.
Eric Lee Ramsey
“Fortunately, the individuals at the residence let her in and locked the door and she got on the phone with 9-1-1,” Mioduszewski said. ”Central Dispatch received a 9-1-1 call from a CMU student who said she had been kidnapped and ended up jumping out of a car and thinks she may have had a broken arm.” Ramsey then parked the car and began dousing the house with gasoline and lit it on fire before fleeing the scene. The home owner arrived soon after and was able to put out the flames before severe damage had been down to the property. A ABDUCTION | 2A
INSIDE: w ISAbELLA COUNTY
SHERIFF: ‘Our community is changing,’ 3A
w PHOTO: Suspect steals
flatbed truck, rams into three police vehicles, 3A
w MAP: Route taken by suspect during string of crimes, 3A
university@cm-life.com
During chase, suspect posts on Facebook By Aaron McMann Editor-in-Chief and Adam Niemi Staff Reporter
“Well folks, I’m about to get shot. Peace.”
Just before 3 a.m. Thursday, Eric Lee Ramsey rammed a Michigan State Police patrol car in Gaylord. Like most of the night, the 30-year-old Mount Pleasant resident showed his reckless disregard—for the Central Michigan University student he tried killing, for the police and for himself. And after the senior from Grand Rapids jumped from a moving vehicle – her 2003 Ford Escape – he fled with it. North on U.S. 127, he eventually wound up in Gaylord, ramming an MSP patrol car three times, leaving it inoperable and the trooper inside injured, according to a Thursday release from the MSPGaylord Post.
Eric Lee Ramsey, Mount Pleasant man Ramsey put time between him and the law as responding troopers followed the vehicle’s snow-laden tracks into an elk ranch southeast of town. The tracks led them to the vehicle, stuck in the snow and abandoned. Foot tracks then led them to Arrow Sanitation off M-32 in Gaylord, where it is believed he stole a sanitation truck. Around this time, at approximately 3:15 a.m., a post showed up on the Facebook account belonging to Ramsey. “Well folks, I’m about to get shot. Peace,” it read. About an hour later, the post came true.
At approximately 4:15 a.m., according to the release, troopers were parked on southbound Old 27 north of Frederic looking for the stolen truck. Then it showed, without headlights, ramming an MSP vehicle from behind. A Crawford County deputy had been following the stolen truck and witnessed the collision. He continued the pursuit, and that’s when Ramsey turned around and began traveling northbound – toward the deputy. According to the release, the deputy – having watched Ramsey ram an MSP patrol car – tried turning off the roadway but was rammed, pinning him in his vehicle. He then got out, then shot and killed Ramsey. Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski described the deputy as “pretty banged up” during a Thursday news conference. A FACEBOOK | 2A
viCtoria ZeGler/PHOTO EDITOR
Police allege Eric Lee Ramsey, a 30-year-old Mount Pleasant man, abducted and sexually assaulted a CMU student at this residence in the 8000 block of South Crawford Road Wednesday night.
Jeffrey smith/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The victim ran to this house in the 10000 block of South Mission Road, where residents contacted police. The suspect, Eric Lee Ramsey, a 30-year-old Mount Pleasant man attempted to set the house on fire before fleeing. Burn marks can be seen above the front porch.