An Iowa grand jury this week indicted a now-53-year-old woman in the murder of a realtor who was shot to death in a model townhouse she was showing on April 8, 2011.
An employee of Rottlund Homes, the developer of the townhouse, heard a commotion inside and went to investigate, the Des Moines Register reports. The employee found 27-year-old Ashley Okland on the floor and called 911.
Okland was shot twice and died from her wounds at Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines.
West Des Moines Police said at a news conference on Wednesday that an “unrelenting pursuit of justice” let to the indictment against Kristin Ramsey, who at the time was an administrative assistant and sales manager for Rottlund Homes. She has been charged with first-degree murder.
“Ashley’s story has kept many of us awake at night, revisiting the details over and over in our minds, searching for that missing piece that would tie everything together and lead us down the right path to identifying a person who was responsible for this act,” West Des Moines Assistant Police Chief Jody Hayes said.
At the news conference, police declined to reveal additional details of the case. Court documents d not include a probable cause statement, and Ramsey’s attorney declined comment, although KCRG reports that her attorneys have asked to lower her $2 million bond to $100,000, arguing that she is not a flight risk. They agree that she would wear a GPS monitor, adhere to a curfew, and surrender her passport.
With police not commenting on details of the case, media was stymied to find clues about why Ramsey may have killed Okland. The extent of her criminal record was a speeding ticket in 2001, the Register said. She was married in 1995 and had worked at Rottlund for about 14 years at the time of Okland’s murder.
Rottlund shut down and sold off its assets that same year, and another developer bought its Iowa operations. Ramsey became a title officer at a company that holds Iowa Realty, where Okland was an agent at the time of her death. Midland Title & Escrow removed her name from its website on Wednesday.
“Kristin became associated with the company several months after the events of 2011,” the company said in a statement. “Along with everyone in our community, we are understandably stunned.”
Ramsey is scheduled to be arraigned in April, KCRG said.
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[Featured image: Kristin Ramsey/West Des Moines Police Department and Ashley Okland/Iowa Attorney General’s Office]
