Murder suspect wore ankle monitor
Arrest in wife’s killing shows disturbing trend of parolees on loose
A Houston man accused of beating his wife to death with a baseball bat over the weekend had been wanted on a parole warrant for more than a month at the time of the slaying, records show.
Paul Ramirez was arrested Sunday following the killing of Charlene Cadwell, marking at least the third time in recent months that a Houston-area parolee on ankle monitoring has been accused of murder. One of those cases turned into a high-profile manhunt after a suspected spree killer terrorized the northern part of Harris County for nearly two weeks, allegedly leaving behind a trail of three bodies and prompting questions about the efficacy of ankle monitoring.
“The whole system needs to be looked at,” said Andy Kahan, director of victim services at Crime Stoppers. “If they’re not going to abide by the conditions of their ankle monitor what makes you think they’re going to abide by the laws of society?”
The night of the latest slaying, the couple started fighting around 2:30 a.m., when Ramirez returned home from a bar and his wife refused to let him into their home in the 300 block of Sidney, he later told police.
The 63-year-old Navy veteran got angry and shattered a bedroom window to crawl into the house, prosecutors said in court. The sleeping woman got up and fled through the living room and out the front door, but Ramirez pursued her, picking up a wooden baseball bat on the way out.
When he caught up with her in the street, Ramirez allegedly beat her to death. Police showed up afterward and spotted the dying woman, then saw Ramirez with his hands over his head, readily admitting guilt, according to prosecutors.
Because of his past record, the se-
verity of the alleged crime and the fact that he was on parole, Ramirez was jailed without bail.
“It is very sad that Ms. Cadwell lost her life,” said his appointed defense attorney, Nathan Hennigan. “It is still extremely early in this case and I have just begun a preliminary investigation. I aim to ensure that Mr. Ramirez is treated fairly by the criminal justice system.”
The suspected killer already had two Harris County robbery convictions under his belt at the time, according to court records.
His first, in 1993, netted him a seven-year prison sentence. The latest charge — the one for which he was still on parole — was a 2001 case, when Ramirez robbed a woman, pulling out a knife and telling her he had a gun as well.
The second-degree felony got him 40 years in prison, and he was freed in 2016, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles ordered that he be placed on electronic monitoring, though it’s not clear why and a parole spokesman did not offer comment.
Court records show a history of parole holds since the accused killer’s release, and on Sept. 2 around 8 p.m., an alert from the ankle monitor prompted officials to issue a pre-revocation warrant.
Desel declined to specify what type of alert sparked the warrant, but electronic monitoring alerts can stem from things like dead batteries, proximity to prohibited areas, dislodged straps, tampering and curfew violations.
Since the Department of Criminal Justice is not a law enforcement agency, they did not pursue arresting Ramirez and instead sent the warrant along to law enforcement, Desel said.
In July, the issue of parole monitoring was front and center after Jose Rodriguez was accused in three slayings all allegedly committed after he cut off his ankle monitor. It took the state three days to issue a warrant.
That same month, 56-year-old Garry Jenkins slipped out of his house after curfew — a violation that should have been detected by his ankle monitor — and later allegedly stabbed his mother to death. Five days later, after he was picked up for the parole violation, he was charged with murder.
At the time, police said the pair of slayings highlighted the need to alert law enforcement more quickly about ankle monitor tampering and potential parole violations.
“We need to come up with a process that’s almost instantaneous,” Chief Art Acevedo said then. In this case, according to Desel, the warrant was issued within minutes.
Yet, it’s not clear whether police searched for the wanted parolee and spokesman Victor Senties said they might not have unless it was part of a parole violator round-up initiative. He couldn’t specify whether Ramirez was included in any such initiatives.
“Because he wasn’t actively being sought in an HPD case,” Senties said, “it would not be an HPD warrant execution team. He would be in the system flagged as having a warrant so if we happened to come across him in any encounter we would arrest him.”
There are roughly 84,000 parolees living in Texas, including about 18,000 in the Houston area.