Nurse Killed His Wife, then Killed by Police Options

[flipcombatmedic]

Pinoy nurse killed after killing his wife





McAllen, TEXAS --- Friends and neighbors could not believe the man who died early Sunday morning in a police shootout would kill people in a senseless rage.

Thirty-four-year-old Arthur Ramirez killed his wife, Alma Ramirez, 32, and Rene Rodriguez, 21, at a housewarming party near Trenton Road, according to police and partygoers. He barricaded himself in the house for some 20 minutes before emerging to fire at officers, police say.

The night’s incidents came as a shock to those who knew the married couple, a nurse and nurse-in-training, who came to the Rio Grande Valley from the New York City area about three years ago. Arthur Ramirez had always projected a cheerful, outgoing demeanor, according to staffers and neighbors at the apartment complex where he and his wife have lived for about a year.

“Whenever he comes around, the group electrified,” Padini Santiago, a close friend and neighbor of the Ramirez’s, told the Texas-based The Monitor. “He’s known to all the circle of friends here.”

The couple was part of tight-knit Filipino community who moved to the area within the past five or six years to fill a nursing shortage. Many, including Santiago, his wife and son — who moved from the Philippines about four years ago — attended the party at 420 Quail Ave. this weekend.

In fact, on the night of three killings, Ramirez had driven Santiago to the hospital for shoulder pain. The doctor told Santiago to stay at home because of the painkillers, but he decided to attend the party anyway because his DJ equipment was already there.

He spent most of the time sleeping upstairs, deejayed a few songs and then had a friend take him and his family home, Santiago said.

When they left, all seemed normal.

But the Santiagos’ phones started ringing with the awful news just minutes after they arrived home. By 4:00 a.m., even the apartment complex manager, Dora Garcia, knew, because Padini Santiago’s wife, Kay, called, asking for the keys to the Ramirez’s apartment.

“She said, ‘Art killed Alma.’ I said, ‘Oh my gosh,” Garcia recalled. “Everyone around here knew them... He didn’t look like the type that would do anything like that.”

The Santiagos couldn’t believe it, either. In the year they had lived together in Lindberg Square apartment complex just north of Business 83 in McAllen, they had become close with the Ramirezes.

They had a shared Filipino background, both Kay Santiago and Alma Ramirez worked as nurses and their children were friends, the Santiagos said.

“She’s so hardworking,” Kay Santiago said. “She works a lot because she’s also sending money to her parents in the Philippines. She’s a good daughter.”

The two husbands had also carpooled each other’s children to Horizon Montessori School in McAllen.

But, apparently, something was wrong between the Ramirezes they never told their friends.

“He never manifested to us what was going on at home,” Padini Santiago said. “The typical jolly guy, and then suddenly he threw out his rage that night.”

Garcia, the apartment complex manager, said she had never heard the couple arguing and that the police had never been summoned to settle any domestic dispute.

The Ramirezes’ friends may still be coping with their shock and grief — Padini Santiago maintains a Web site for the Valley’s Filipino community, but has steeled himself enough to post just once about the couple — but the question remains what will happen to their 10-year-old son, Joshua.

The boy is reportedly with a foster family.

Arthur Ramirez’s brother, Armando Ramirez, said Sunday night he was worried about his nephew and was trying to arrange to collect him.

Friends said on Tuesday, May 2, they had heard the boy’s grandfather was to arrive in the Valley that day from the East Coast.

Meanwhile, his classmates in the third grade miss him, 7-year-old Miguel Santiago said.

“When I went to the classroom, his friends were crying,” the second-grader said.


http://www.filipinoexpress.com/20/19_news.html#3

[Ek-ek]

Love story

[flipcombatmedic]

^no offense ek but i wouldn't be calling killing your wife "love".