Politics

Woman Details Years Of Harassment By Capital Gazette Shooter

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Mike Brest Reporter
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The former classmate and stalking victim of the man accused of murdering five people at The Capital Gazette newspaper revealed details of the suspect’s terrorizing behavior in an interview with the Today Show on Monday morning.

“As soon as they said it happened at The Capital newspaper and they couldn’t identify their suspect, I picked up the phone and said, ‘I know who your suspect is,'” said the woman, who requested to be identified as Lori, during the interview. “I knew if he was to do anything on a mass shooting level, it was going to target The Capital.”

The shooter reached out to Lori back in 2009 after they graduated from high school together. Soon, their email correspondences turned aggressive. (RELATED: ANNAPOLIS SHOOTER IDENTIFIED, CALLED GAZETTE HIS ‘SWORN BLOOD ENEMIES’)

“He told me at one point that he was reaching out to me because I was the only person who had been nice to him in high school,” Lori added.

He became obsessed with her, forcing her to move and take legal action against him. Ramos initially pleaded guilty in July 2011 to criminal harassment in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

The Capitol Gazette wrote a column about the case, prompting him to sue the paper for defamation. That began his vitriolic behavior and threats towards the paper.

“I know he can’t come and get me today, but I have been tormented and traumatized and terrorized for so long that it has, I think, changed the fiber of my being,” she said.