Letters Glenn Ramey mailed from the Richland County Jail to his sons are shown here; the first letter caused grief for the older boy, and depending on who actually penned them, might cause grief for Ramey too.
RICHLAND/MASSAC COs. – Letters delivered from Glenn Ramey to his sons in Massac County have created disruption in the family…and may have given something for the prosecution in Richland County in the case to sink its teeth into.
Ramey, 54, is the man originally from Johnson County in deep southern Illinois who is accused of the November 2016 rape and murder of Sabrina Stauffenberg, 8, in Olney. A trial set to adjudge his “mental fitness” (ability to stand trial and aid in his own defense) will be held in September in Effingham County, moved there on a venue change resulting from an incredible amount of pretrial publicity in the several weeks that followed the brutal crime.
The fitness trial – wherein a seated jury will hear evidence from both the state and the defense as to whether Ramey is sane enough to go through a murder trial – became necessary when just a few weeks after he was jailed, Ramey’s attorney, Jim Lane, raised the question as to whether Ramey was with it enough to even get through a murder trial.
The two sides have been wrangling over the matter for months, and have intended to use as evidence recorded phone calls that may show Ramey either being “out of touch” with things (as he claims)…or whether he’s perfectly sane (and consequently, conniving and just plain evil).
Therefore, letters his sons in Metropolis, Illinois, in Massac County, received might actually shed some light on that very subject…whether Ramey intended for them to do so or not.
Garrett retrieved the mail
It’s very rare that a news organization would be able to obtain such correspondence. However, Deena Kay Witt, the maternal grandmother of Ramey’s boys (ages 24 and 15), who is their guardian after their mother died a few years back, actually was the one who contacted Disclosure’s correspondent in Marion, Illinois, to notify her that the boys had received the letters.
Witt’s message specifically was more about what receiving the letters actually did to the boys…which was that it very much upset them.
Garrett Ramey, the elder of the two, is developmentally disabled, and communicates through gestures, hoots, and other sounds. Witt, who has been around Garrett all his life, is able to understand him well and they communicate easily; Garrett has little tasks that help the family around their Metropolis home.
One of those tasks is to take turns with other family members going to the mailbox to retrieve the mail.
And back in March of this year, on a day when it was Garrett’s turn to check the mail, he went to the box and found a letter from his father.
The boys have been estranged from Glenn Ramey for about 14 years now. Both of them claim to have been sexually abused by Ramey, Garrett in particular. His abuse was damaging to him physically; however, because he was only 4 years old when it was going on and was non-verbal, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) couldn’t make a case out of it, and the prosecutor in Massac at the time wouldn’t follow through because DCFS couldn’t substantiate the claims made against Ramey.
Garrett Ramey is still traumatized by what happened to him.
Because Garrett has reading skills and does pretty well with reading and writing, he was able to ascertain that the letter he was holding came from his father…and that sent him into a frantic spiral of emotions.
The first letter
Here is the text of the first letter, postmarked March 17, 2017, with spelling inaccuracies and other errors intact:
Dear Garretta and Stetson
I am just write to see how yourns are doing okay this is daddy I am up in Olney Ill I am in jail like everyone said that is my home now Well I am let you know to be a good boys for them I know I have not been much of a father to yourn at all now. I move away from down their because no one want me around their no more at all.
I got tried bein told to get out all of the time so that what I did then people got mad at me now.
I do not have much to do with no one in my family no more.
I just want to let yourns that daddy’s mom die on Dec. 30. 2016 she is not no long around no more so I am up here okay now.
I been thinking about yourns all of the time. So I am sorry about Deena Grils So how is Brittany doing and the family down their is doing.
I can’t call out from here with out money here at all it take money up to call out here if I can’t get money I can’t call out at all so I am here for a long time now. I do love yourns Boys but I do not want to come between yourns and all with your family down their at all. I’m just sitting here think about my boys their 3 boys and 4 gril now So I know that I should not have said anything at all about them But yours have the right to know about them okay.
Well it is time for me to go to bed now. Take cared and be good boys & daddy Love yourns
Please write me Back when you get this letter I can’t have no picture up here at all. But you send it to my home to my new girlfriend It bee misty Coseboon 950.s. Morgan steet Olney Ill 62450
This is where I live when I’m not in jail okay
Love your
Daddy Glen Ramey
Love your sons - (illegible Tare) okay
Has breakdown
Upon realizing that his father was writing to him, Garrett Ramey basically had a breakdown.
This translated to him acting out physically, and unfortunately the law was called.
Witt said that Garrett was lodged in the Massac County jail, and was held there for three weeks without charges until the Witts called an attorney and the attorney contacted the county. At that point, Garrett was taken to Choate in Anna, where he stayed until May.
Disclosure attempted to contact both the Massac County Sheriff as well as the Massac County State’s Attorney’s office in order to find out why Garrett was held in jail for so long without being charged (which is unconstitutional), but no one had returned calls as of press time to explain this.
Giving those authorities the benefit of the doubt, sometimes authorities are forced to hold people with mental health issues until a bed becomes available at a facility designed to handle such a thing.
Witt didn’t indicate that she had been advised of this procedure…if indeed it was used at all.
She did state that neither she nor her husband were allowed to see or talk to Garrett the entire three weeks he was locked up; the only person he was allowed contact with was his preacher, the preacher’s wife, and a couple of others ostensibly from the church, where Garrett is very active.
The second letter
The second letter, postmarked June 5, came in after Garrett had been released; this time, he wasn’t the one who retrieved it in the mail. It was effectively the same material as in the March letter:
Dear Garrett and Stetson
I hope that you are fine
How you being doing in shop and how is your aunt Brittany doing.
So what I am try to said is How is Every one are doing down their I hope Every one are doing fine.
Stetson How are you doing in school boys
I am just asking. I do not hear from no one at all from down their I live up here in olney Ill and I got a new Grilfriend her name is Misty Coseboon she is real good Lady and I being see her now for going on two years now.
So Garrett what have you being up to now are you being a Good Boy like you Post to are you keep your Baby Brother out of trouble too Garrett
Daddy Love Both of your’ns Boys all of my heart my sons.
Stetson are you keep your self out of trouble too Stetson
Will daddy are not doing to good at all I am just sitting here just thinking about my boys and my Grils I got 7 Kids of my owen now I got 3 boys and 4 grils now So you got a brother and four sister and there are doing Good and they are just stay at home with their mom
She and me are not together no more I at Misty Coseboon she and I being together now for two years and (illegible) is in school too and one of your sister is in school to they are in per state school they are not real Go to the big boys or gril school at all But they will be going to the Big Boys and Grils school of 2019 they will be in the Big Boys and Grils school then Garrett and Stetson okay.
Well I am getting (illegible) to go to bed
Daddy Love your’n Boy Garrett and Stetson very much boys stay out of trouble be a big boys okay.
Please write me back when you get this letter to let me no how yourn are doing I do love yourn
Love you Daddy
Glen Ramey
Who wrote them…?
It’s unclear whether Ramey actually penned the letters, or if Coseboon, or someone at her behest did. (Coseboon has been described by her own relatives as being somewhat developmentally disabled, too, as this is the only kind of person Ramey generally takes up with anymore).
Deena Witt, knowing Ramey’s intellectual capabilities or lack thereof, said she believed someone else wrote the letters and Coseboon, or someone in that circle, would be likely candidates.
What the letters do or do not reveal about Ramey’s fitness to stand trial is the crux of the issue.
Spelling and grammatical errors aside (and those, it might be pointed out, might rest solely on someone else if Ramey didn’t write them), the letters show clear thought process and linear thinking (asking how the younger of the two boys is doing in school, and relating how other of his children are doing in school as an example, with the concern being that this is the way they can be “big boys” and “stay out of trouble.”)
If someone else did pen the letters at Ramey’s behest, and if those above comments are taken as linear thinking by a jury, whomever wrote the letters didn’t do Ramey any favors in his upcoming fitness jury trial.
And if Ramey himself wrote them (as would be indicated by the stamp on the outside of the envelopes that read “this correspondence from an inmate in the Richland County Jail,” he may not have done himself any favors.
This is not to say that inmates shouldn’t attempt to communicate with family members by written letters, but given Ramey’s unique issues and upcoming court dates, it’s certainly something to consider. And it’s a pretty sure bet that both the state and defense will be keenly interested in this situation and these and any other letters originating from Ramey at the jail.
What impact there is on the boys
Despite the turmoil the letters caused for the Ramey boys in Metropolis, they are trying to get on as if they didn’t even see them.
Garrett told Disclosure’s correspondent that he is wanting to get his driver’s license and has his Rules of the Road book. Witt explained that Garrett must wait five more months and “not throw any more fits” in order to become licensed, should he be able to pass the tests.
While Disclosure’s correspondent was at their home in Metropolis, anytime Glenn Ramey was mentioned, “Garrett would place his arm up around his throat, looking and reaching up as if there was a rope, to convey the message of wanting his dad to hang,” which is the same message he was relating when the correspondent was traveling to Metropolis frequently in the days following Sabrina’s murder.
Stetson creates his own YouTube videos and wants to be famous for that, he told Disclosure’s correspondent. “He wanted me to do a story on him so he can get more subscribers,” she said, “so if you could mention him and post the picture of his page would be much appreciated.”
Disclosure will be doing a piece on Stetson Ramey’s YouTube presence at the website, www.disclosurenewsonline.com, in the days following the release of this issue, July 2017.
Ramey is set for another status hearing in his case July 21; if there is any outcome to that, it will be featured both online and in the next issue, on stands July 26.
Ramey boys Stetson, left, and Garrett, seated, smile for Disclosure’s correspondent.