[man] I do feel that, uh... pretty much anybody could be a stalker...
given the right circumstances.
When I look back at what occurred, that's not who I am.
I felt like I was, like. in a dream state.
Kind of like a sleepwalker.
I wanted to be part of something.
I lost it and I lost control.
It caused me to act out my anger and my fantasies.
[woman] Wherever I would go, he was just, like, constantly following me.
He says that he was gonna attack somebody I really loved.
Anyone that did this kind of harm is really a psychopath.
[man 1] I'd rather be considered a murderer than a stalker,
you know what I mean?
[woman screams]
[woman 1] I wanted the intensity of, like... of her feeling watched.
[man 2] Anybody could be a stalker.
[man 3] It's all boogeyman talk.
[man 4] I'm not still that crazy. Like... [chuckles]
[woman] I haven't come across a case quite like this before.
It was a very scary stalking case.
If you take the little incidences that make stalking,
they don't seem dangerous or even criminal.
But put together and compounded,
it creates fear in somebody,
and unfortunately, a lot of times,
it can culminate into something that's very violent.
Um... My name is Ruben Antonio Jaramillo.
Oh, okay. Uh, I guess I was accused of, uh, stalking my ex...
I guess, ex-girlfriend at the time, or girlfriend at the time.
It was, like, so chaotic at that moment in time.
I had a lot of confusion in my life, a lot of cloud.
That was my downfall, uh... to this whole scenario.
[birdsong]
My upbringing, it was very sporadic, I guess.
We moved around from... around the country, from state to state.
My dad would briefly show up once in a while
whenever he actually found my mom,
and, uh... I never planted any roots anyplace.
We were always... More like a vagabond.
Never had any friends or anybody to... you know, things like that.
Each town and city that I, uh... I moved to, I was always bullied,
so that played a big part, because that...
Being, uh... being bullied like that made me, uh... more secluded to myself.
My fantasy was to have a wife, and children, and house,
and provide for them.
That's, uh... that's always been my dream.
I've dated here and there, but most of the times, I guess, uh...
I was... I would date the girl, but the girl would, you know,
end up going off with a friend of mine,
or one of my siblings, or something like that.
So I've always had, uh... trust issues with girls because of that.
When I was working in a nursing home,
all these other girls at the nursing home were after me.
They were, like, trying to come after me, trying to date me.
And I was, like... kind of, like, too timid to, uh...
who I would like...
Uh, kinda... How do you say?
Pick which girl I wanted to be with.
She came over to me and started, I guess, pushing herself onto me.
I wasn't really interested, because most of the girls I used to date
were between 18 to 24, no older than 24.
But at that point in time, I felt alone, you know.
I just, uh... had nobody, really, to communicate with, you know?
But when Maria came into that picture, I could tell her my problems.
We were talking, and before you know it, one thing led to another,
we started, uh, making out, and...
From there, it just started, uh... We just started dating.
[woman] At the time I met Ruben, I was in a relationship.
It was 18 years that I was married,
and, um... it was a rough marriage.
When Ruben came aboard,
it was like someone to lean on,
or be comfortable to talk to.
It all started when I was employed at a nursing home,
and he got hired.
And he was comfortable to talk to.
He was very nice, and, um... soft, and sweet.
I was, like, in love, and, uh... I would say, in lust.
He was young.
I was, um... probably, like, 18 years older.
As months went by,
I decided to leave my husband, and I moved in with Ruben.
From there, it went on really nice, you know?
He loved going out and getting me gifts and stuff,
and, uh... it never crossed my mind
that he would do something like this, you know?
[insects chirping]
[Jaramillo] One day, she showed up at my door.
She was standing there, and she said, "Look."
"I got some divorce papers. I got... I divorced my husband."
And I'm like, "Uh... why'd you do that?" She goes, "'Cause I want to be with you."
And I was like, "Okay."
I mean, I liked her and everything, and I figured, well,
we could have a relationship and see how it blooms from that point.
It was something that I was kind of looking for,
'cause she had family, and I didn't have that growing up.
But when I first met her family, they were kind of hostile.
That's when it kind of turned.
Her parents were like, telling me that I was too young for her
and I need to find somebody my own age,
and that's when I knew that something was up.
[birdsong]
My first impression of Ruben was that he was quiet, uh... shy.
She thought she was in love with him.
She's young at heart herself.
I guess she thought it was a match made in heaven.
But I didn't like the relationship.
My family thought that he was creepy.
They didn't like him,
especially the age difference between him and my mom.
In my eyes, I saw their relationship
as a boyfriend-slash-son relationship.
She was always tending to him, like you do a child.
She couldn't even just, like, come visit our family, like, without him.
He had to follow along, like a little kid, I guess. [chuckles]
He always had to be, like, part of everything,
saying some crazy things.
In 2001, when I found out that I was pregnant with my first child,
he told my mom that he wanted
to raise my daughter with her.
Which is crazy.
I was thinking, "Are you kidding me?"
"I live with my boyfriend, why wouldn't we want our child?"
And this is just one of the... the ways that would show how he was delusional.
I know that Ruben had given her lots of attention,
and I think that's what she was craving...
until she finally had come to the conclusion
that he was cheating on her.
[Maria] For about four years, you know, the relationship was great.
But when I was at work, and I'd come home to the apartment,
I would see females' belongings.
And I'd say, "Well, who was here?"
He goes, "Oh, my female friends." You know?
I did suspect he was cheating on me.
That just kept on going and going.
And so, I was hurt.
And, uh... he denied,
but that's when I started, like, feeling, "This is not gonna work out."
I told Ruben that I was gonna leave, and he says, "Why?" you know?
He says, "I love you," and stuff.
That's when Ruben was begging me and begging me, you know,
"Don't go, don't go."
I think that's why I called my daughter and my sister.
I felt maybe something was gonna go wrong.
[Veronica] When my mom said she wanted to leave,
I felt so relieved and so happy to go,
"Let's go," you know, "get your things and get you out of here."
Not knowing, like, what could happen. [laughs ruefully]
Me and my aunt went to my mom and Ruben's apartment to go gather her things.
So, we walk into the bedroom,
and he's there on the bed, and he was holding a knife.
We look around the room,
and on the three walls was the word, "Die, die, die."
"Die" on one wall, "die" on the other wall and "die" on the other wall,
in his blood.
And my mom, she didn't want us to call the police.
She said, "Let's just go and just leave him alone."
[Jaramillo] I wanted to die right there and then. I felt my heart pounding.
I wanted to cry, uh... because I had put my hope on her.
I kept trying to, uh... get in contact with her and everything else,
because all that... all that emotion came flooding back.
Technically, I did cheat on her.
But I wanted to contact her and I wanted to, like, see,
"What can we do to resolve this, uh... this conflict of emotion?"
and things like that.
So, uh... I'm not real, uh... keen on... on subtle hints or things like that.
You know, I'm more a person that needs...
If you want something, you have to say it bluntly
in order for me to understand,
because I don't grasp, like, hints or things like that.
The way I used to try to contact her was writing her letters.
That occurred over a period of time.
Every time I asked a question, it would... it would go unanswered.
And so I had to... I had to try to get... to communicate with her,
to get in contact with her to try to get those answers, but I couldn't.
It's like, the more I tried to communicate with her,
the more I failed, the more I was like... I was like, "Man, I'm..."
I kept coming up with more, uh... questions, but without answers.
[birdsong]
[Maria] I had stacks and stacks of letters, you know,
that he would leave on my car.
The letters would say that he wanted to talk things over,
and that he really loved me,
and he's not going to hurt me,
and he just wants us to get back together.
At that point, all this really got me worried.
[woman] Stalking is considered to be a serious crime
involving repeated and persistent behavior that threatens,
harasses and creates fear in our victims
and can turn into violence.
My name is Dr. Hae Rim Jin,
and my research specialization is in intimate partner violence.
In my line of work,
I have studied a large number of cases focusing on stalking.
These are letters that Mr. Jaramillo wrote to Maria.
These letters are records of his stalking behavior.
In my opinion, his case is very, very dangerous.
His letters gave me a lot of insight to his mindset.
One particular is that he consistently says,
"I love you, I love you, I love you. Why don't you get that I love you?"
And she gets it, but she doesn't want it.
This individual fits the profile of rejected stalker,
because his sole motivation behind stalking Maria
is that he can no longer accept that she has left him.
Mr. Jaramillo also says quite often that he is ready to die for her,
so that reiterates that feeling of,
he really truly believes he has nothing left to lose.
It's her or nothing, even his life.
The likelihood of that case turning into a dangerous one is relatively high.
This particular letter is a red flag.
He says, "If we're not together, then that gives me the right
to go after your family for breaking us up."
"But if we're still together, then I have no right to go after them, right?"
First, he's blaming her family for breaking them up.
He's implying to her that,
"I know your parents were one of the reasons why we broke up,
and I have every means to hurt them, especially if you don't come back to me."
His letters are demonstrating that the violence truly was inevitable.
It was going to happen, because he just could not let her go.
[Maria] Ruben was stalking me at my jobs.
He would be parked, like, at the corner,
and so I would spot him and I would get off and start running.
He was not giving up.
He said in letters, "Not gonna give up."
But by that time, I was, like, really, really frightened.
Wherever I would go, uh... he was just, like, constantly following me.
He knew where my parents lived and where my daughter lived.
[Veronica] This was the beginning of a... a time to watch our backs.
He started delivering letters to my apartment,
taping them to the door.
And then one of the letters said that if I don't give my mom the letters,
he was gonna put naked pictures of her around my apartment complex.
And he did.
I actually didn't know what was gonna come next.
I moved from my apartment to a different apartment.
I wanted to hide.
I didn't want him to, like, know where I lived anymore,
because he threatened to kill me if she didn't go with him.
He was stalking multiple members of our family.
Lurking around in different places, you know?
He was at the front door of my brother and his girlfriend's apartment,
and she was terrified.
He was driving by the other family members' houses.
My cousin's house, my brother's apartment, my grandparents', me.
Now everybody had a piece of being stalked.
My mom was getting lots of anger towards her.
"You brought this crazy into our family, and now he knows where we all live."
I don't think she knew what was gonna happen next,
and I think she thinks he was just gonna, like, fade away.
I was already determined to leave her and her family and everything behind,
because I already had it.
I had enough with it and everything else.
I was walkin' towards her parents' house.
I was gonna tell them, like, to piss off or something like that.
I was gonna tell her parents that... to tell her not to contact me at all,
not to do anything with me, 'cause I didn't want no part of her or anything.
I'mma give her one last gift, you know, because in the scripture it says,
you know, uh... if people hate you, uh... bless 'em or love 'em, you know.
So I thought, "Okay," so I went into this Chinese store,
bought some, uh, toy handcuffs for her grandkids.
And, uh... Oh, I... And, uh, I... I had this, uh... toy stun gun.
And I started praying, and I was... I was, like...
I was like, um... you know, "Lord, I want you to please stop me."
You know...
Uh... "Stop me from going to the house and then confronting the parents,
because I... I feel that I'm gonna do something crazy."
[Angulo] What happened on September 26th of 2005
is the end result of Ruben's journey of stalking.
Right now, we're looking at the driveway
where Ruben accosted Maria's father.
He actually brought three sets of handcuffs.
He brought duct tape.
So they are filming right now the stun gun or the Taser that he left behind.
All signs of something very violent that occurred.
[Jaramillo] I went to the house. I rung the doorbell.
Her dad came around the corner, and I startled him, he startled me.
And he came at me like... like... you know, like, to fall.
And I thought he was trying to attack me,
so I pulled out the toy stun gun, and then I pushed him down.
I looked down and I saw him on the ground, and I saw he was grabbing his heart.
That's when I realized he was having a heart attack.
I was trying to pick him up, but he was too heavy for me.
And so the mom came out around the corner, and so she screamed,
so I dropped him and I went over to tell her, "I'm not here to hurt you."
And I tried to calm her down, and she wouldn't calm down.
So I grab the toy stun gun and I stun her.
So, uh... I picked her up.
And I remember I had the toy stun gun, so... I mean, the toy handcuffs.
So I grabbed one of the toy handcuffs and I put 'em on...
uh, put the toy handcuffs on her.
I walked her to the restroom and I sat her down.
[Angulo] He handcuffed both of them.
With the mother, he took her into the house
and he went back out to deal with Maria's father,
and Maria's mother was able to escape,
run across the street and get help from a neighbor.
And they called 911, and the police came and responded fairly quickly.
He was interrupted, and so he got in their van and he fled.
[Jaramillo] I had no intention of hurting anybody, because that's not...
I hate people hurting other people.
And when I look back, what... what... what occurred, that's not who I was.
I mean... I mean, that's not who I am.
So, Ruben says that he had no intention of hurting anyone,
because he hates people that hurt people.
Ruben's not only trying to minimize his culpability,
he's trying to change the narrative.
His delusions are...
quite intact.
The Taser definitely was not a toy.
It caused such a heart attack
that Maria's father had to have quadruple bypass surgery,
and, um, to me, this confirms it.
He is not willing to accept responsibility
for the damage that he caused to this family.
- [Maria] There was ambulance and police. - [siren wailing]
My sister was yelling at me, "Your ex-boyfriend attacked Mom and Dad!"
And that's when I, like...
God, I just felt so bad and at fault,
because he did this because I wouldn't go back to him.
I just felt so ashamed.
[Veronica] It was the scariest thing, to not know where he could be.
I gave the daycare a picture of him,
because my daughter was in daycare,
and I let them know the situation.
I was afraid that he was gonna find me and my daughter.
I didn't know if he was gonna kill me to try to get to my daughter.
I didn't know what he was gonna do.
It's the fear of the unknown.
We didn't know where he could pop up.
One of the nights that he was on the run, I went to my best friend's house,
and I had a major panic attack.
I thought I was dying. I... I did.
I thought I was... I thought I was dying.
[Angulo] I decided to try only the aggravated robbery,
because stalking is more difficult, in the sense that you have to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements.
So you have to prove many tiny moments
instead of just one big moment.
Aggravated robberies are typically a first-degree felony,
so just like murders, it carries a punishment range
from five years up to 99 years, or life in prison.
It... it was a very strong case that we took to trial
for the aggravated robbery.
This case was odd in that Ruben left us all the evidence of his intention
at the scene of the crime.
He had a bag that he left behind when the police started to come,
and inside of that bag, there was a note.
And on this note, it basically laid out what Ruben was going to do.
Ruben writes, "Pick up cash, pick up check and cash it."
"Stun gun, four sets of handcuffs."
"Locate parents. Mom and Dad only."
"Handcuff Mom and Dad."
"Lock the gates and head towards Mexico."
"Drop the parents off in a ditch."
"Head back and pick up Maria's daughter, pick up the car with her,
pick up Maria's daughter's daughter, then take her in green van."
"Look for Maria, get hold of Maria."
"Pick up the Suburban, bring it to Mexico,
move into house and live in Mexico forever."
We are talking about five people
that Ruben planned to kidnap,
um, and relocate, in his desire to win Maria's heart.
Ruben definitely suffered from delusions.
It didn't make him incompetent.
It didn't make him insane.
But it made him very dangerous.
[Angulo] They put the defendant on the stand.
He was really their only defense.
He did not seem to accept any responsibility for his conduct.
He didn't seem to think that the nature of his relationship with Maria
was anything other than a love story.
It was not a good defense.
The evidence we had was strong, against him,
and I think, at the end, that there was no question, um...
that Ruben Jaramillo was a dangerous individual.
[Angulo] The aggravated robbery that we tried was ultimately the culmination
of all the stalking that he committed on Maria.
So, even though she wasn't the ultimate victim in the case that we prosecuted,
I think that the jury appropriately considered
the dangerousness of the situation.
Maria was definitely an injured woman.
Emotionally injured.
She suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of Mr. Jaramillo.
I think it was very crucial for the jury to hear from Maria,
because the history of stalking was central to this case.
If you take Maria out of the picture,
there's not much context for what the defendant did.
She explained to the jury the abuse that she suffered from him,
the psychological, the emotional abuse that he used.
And that's gonna scar an individual. It scarred her.
[Maria] I was on the stand, and I did tell them about the stalking.
I was very scared telling the judge everything what had happened,
and, um... I was just, like, crying.
Just nonstop crying, um...
I was so... so afraid, just having him there.
[Jaramillo] I've been in prison, uh... 16 years, almost 17 years.
I had plenty of time to think of what...
what was... what was the malfunction in my thinking,
and... and so forth.
I do feel that, uh... pretty much anybody could be a stalker,
given the right set of circumstances.
And I guess I, uh... I lost touch with reality
and, uh... just started fantasizing.
I was hoping, I guess, in a way,
to be able to get back that... that feeling of, uh... being wanted.
Chasing after her, uh... would get her attention
and she would, uh... once again see me as a person,
and say, "Hey, look, there's this person, you know, who cares about me."
And I was hoping she would see that, you know,
I was willing to bend over backwards for her and do whatever she wanted.
I do possess, uh... remorse over what I did to Maria and... and her family,
because it shouldn't have occurred in the first place.
I should have been the bigger man and just walked away.
Uh, putting your, uh... your emotions 100% into a person,
it's like playing Russian roulette.
It's like, uh... Unless you're with the person like 20, 30 years,
yeah, I can understand,
but when you meet a person like I did, and I was with her for five years,
uh... you know, I shouldn't have been 100% into... into her.
Uh, because no matter how many times she cheated on me
or how many times I cheated on her, uh... I should have seen the signs.
But there's no way to correct the past.
It's just continuing to the future with... and trying to correct myself,
uh, and hoping that this situation doesn't occur
with somebody else, or anything else,
and that I'm better able to control myself mentally.
And, uh... and...
and see disappointments as a... as a stepping-stone
rather than a... than a... a tragedy.
[birdsong]
[Veronica] I definitely think about him getting out,
and I just want to, like, disappear.
I don't want him to find me.
I am still living with the effects of this.
I deal with anxiety attacks weekly.
It makes me very, very angry that I have to deal with this,
my kids have to deal with this...
my husband... has to deal with this.
[tearfully] It's frustrating. It's torturous.
[sobs]
And my grandparents deal with it, too.
This is lifelong.
[Maria] Everybody fears that he's gonna get parole.
I myself am very, very scared.
We are writing letters to the parole not to release him,
because I feel that he's gonna come and finish me off.
He said he would hurt people that I love,
and so we just have to live in fear.
I believe he will continue looking for me.