One Delirium From Murder

This story is about Ron Ruse. Born in the 60’s and growing in Southern California, Ron is close with his family. With 5 kids and a big house, the Ruse family seems to live the idyllic California life. Ron grows up to be athletic, kind, funny with a love for surfing. At 18, Ron lands a job as a mechanic at a car dealership, starting his life on his own with a bright future. While working at the dealership, Ron meets Linda, a pretty, bubbly young woman who is the office assistant for the dealership. The two go out on a couple of dates after work and things are looking rosy for Ron’s life. Late one night, a few weeks later, Linda shows up at Ron’s apartment with a car full of her things. She’s crying, telling Ron that her mom has thrown her out of her house and she’s got nowhere else to go. Ron, being generous and caring, tells her she’s welcome to stay with him for a while. Once Linda moves in, the pair quickly become a couple, enjoying their time together at work and at home. Ron even brings Linda to meet his family and they too like Linda. However, Linda starts becoming a staple in EVERYTHING Ron does. If Ron’s playing softball, Linda’s in the stands. If Ron’s surfing, Linda’s on the beach. If Ron’s at guy’s night… so is Linda. She begins getting more and more controlling and possessive of Ron. Linda is no longer working as far as I could tell from my research, but she’s going to school with the ambition of becoming a photo-journalist. But, even against his highest hopes things gets worse for Ron. If Ron goes somewhere and Linda doesn’t know where he is or she feels like it takes him too long, she starts frantically calling all of Ron’s family and friends. In the beginning, Ron just tries to keep the peace and reassure Linda everything is fine, not knowing how to deal with her overwhelming behavior. But, after a couple of YEARS together, Linda is still as suffocating as in the beginning and Ron can’t take it anymore. He gathers up his courage and tells Linda that he needs space and wants to break up. If you think Linda’s going to be ok with it and move on, you’re thinking of the wrong Linda. This Linda loses her damn mind. She screams, she cries, she freaks out and claims she’s going to kill herself if Ron leaves her. She also told his friends and family that she was pregnant even though she wasn’t. After enduring hours of this behavior, with no signs of stopping, Ron gives in and tells Linda he won’t leave her. He thinks he’s managed her bad behavior this long and maybe he can persuade her to give him more space in the relationship without them breaking up. After THREE MORE YEARS, when things aren’t getting any better, Ron decides he is now finally at the end of his rope. This guy must have a ridiculously long rope. He quietly gets another apartment, tells Linda he’s leaving, but that she can stay in their shared apartment, and he’ll continue to pay her rent and utilities. Continuing to take care of Linda, even just monetarily, may have sent Linda the message that maybe there’s still a chance for them. In fact, they continued to see one another off and on and when Linda’s birthday came around, Ron asked Linda what she wanted for her birthday while still telling her in some way that, hey, we’re just friends. Linda told him she wanted a ring. Ron bought her a cubic zirconium ring and told a friend that it was intended to be a friendship ring but now Linda was saying they’re engaged. Having some time away from the years of the clingy Linda, Ron begins to finally feel free and relaxed. A year goes by and he thinks Linda must have finally moved on and he can get her out of his life completely. He goes to a friend’s wedding and meets a beautiful woman named Vicky, and the two hit it off. However, just days after meeting Vicky, it’s like Linda gets some message from the spiritual realm, because suddenly, here she is. She’s back and she’s not going to let Ron escape from her life. Ron tells her that he’s met someone, and he’s moved on and she should too. Linda is outraged and demands he take her back. Linda is not going to let Ron go so easily. She begins to stalk him like prey. She calls constantly, as in tens to hundreds of times per day. When Ron begins to ignore the calls, she shows up at his apartment all hours of the day and night. She bangs on the door and windows, screaming and yelling, waking everyone up in the complex. Everywhere Ron goes, Linda shows up. Surfing at the beach? Oh, there’s Linda. Fixing a car at the dealership? Oh, yep. There’s Linda. At softball practice laughing with the guys? Who’s that in the stands – yep. It’s Linda. Night out with the guys? Guess who? She knew his patterns and seems to know his every move. At one point, she had even canceled Ron’s reservations for his high school reunion claiming to be his wife. When Ron and Vicky begin dating, Linda takes notice of course. She waits outside of Ron’s apartment one evening and sees Vicky park. Once Vicky goes inside, Linda writes down Vicky’s license plate. She scratched up Vicky’s car and then, she goes to a telephone booth and calls the DMV. She says, “hey, I hit a parked car and I want to make it right. Can you give me the info for the owner of the car with this license number?” Shockingly, they give her Vicky’s name and address. Of course, crazy Linda uses this info to start harassing Vicky. She sends her endless threatening letters and tells her there’s no way she’ll lose Ron to silly little Vicky. After weeks of tormenting Ron and now Vicky, Linda shows up at Ron’s sister’s house. She’s wailing and telling the sister how she’s going to blow Ron’s ass away. She was absolutely out of control. She’s 28 years old and stalking her ex-boyfriend who has made it clear they have no future. Ron’s sister lets Linda vent for what must seem like hours and when she can get a word in, she encourages Linda to move on, telling her the best revenge is to live well and have a good life. Linda calms down and agrees she should move on. Ron’s sister thinks she broke through to her and that she’ll really move on now. BREAK After her breakdown in front of Ron’s sister and her promise she’s ready to move on, Linda doesn’t. She continues to show up everywhere, writes incessant letters, and harasses Ron and Vicky constantly. Ron becomes depressed, feeling trapped with every aspect of his life controlled in some way by Linda’s craziness. He’s afraid to go out, afraid to answer the phone, afraid to get the mail, and probably afraid to take Vicky on dates. He feels powerless against a woman who was only 5’2” even though he’s almost 6 feet tall and not a slouch. He’s hesitant to get the law involved and he’s humiliated to admit he can’t handle this little woman who keeps threatening him and wreaking havoc on his life. Finally, though, Ron realizes he needs help from the law as Linda’s causing so many problems at his work that he’s close to losing his job. After a year of constant harassment, Ron applies for a restraining order and a court date is set. At court, the judge makes some remarks that are frankly shitty. He says something to the effect of, “well, I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had attractive young women chasing after me.” He doesn’t take Ron’s predicament seriously at all and belittles him, telling him he should be flattered. This was the 1980’s and even today, many men won’t take legal actions against female harrassers for fear of seeming weak or unable to handle their own problems. That judges reaction was not only insulting but dangerous. Ultimately, the judge signs a no-contact order for both Ron and Linda. Ron hopes this step will finally scare Linda away. But… just a few nights later, Ron comes home to find a note on his door. It says, “come inside and check the note on the rocking chair. Ron slowly enters, gets to the rocking chair, and sure enough, there’s a note on the rocking chair. The note says something like “a piece of paper is not going to stop me from getting to you.” Ron goes to the police and reports the note, but since she wasn’t caught in the act of leaving the note, they couldn’t do anything about it even though they knew it was her that left the note. Linda steps up the harassing letters she sends to Vicky. One says, “I’m going to tear the two of you to the bone. It was never about you and Ron. It was always about me and Ron. I win, you lose. Hatefully yours, Linda.” Another letter she received said, 'Seems you wound up in a place I warned you to back away from. There is no way in hell I was going to give you the opportunity to spend time with Ron. Hope your three months was worth this, Bitch. No one is about to replace my seven years. Unfortunately, this was the only solution. Ron made his bed, and I had to make sure he was going to lie in it. . . . I told you I would get him in the end.' Vicky gets to the point that she can’t handle the Linda stress anymore and breaks things off with Ron. Ron decides to try to go underground as best he knows. He sleeps in different motels each night and rents a car to drive around instead of the one Linda knew he typically drives. Family offered him to stay with them, but he was afraid to bring Linda’s wrath their way, so he refused. In November of 1987, Linda seems to give up trying to track Ron down and Ron rents an apartment, hoping the nightmare is in the past. However, once he signs a lease, Linda once again tracks him down. She discovers that the apartment next door to Ron’s is vacant and she snatches up the lease for herself. Their apartments share a wall and Linda listens through the wall and tracks his comings and goings to a point that is mental. 5 days after she takes over the adjoining apartment, on December 14, 1987, Ron goes grocery shopping in the evening. When he returns, arms full of groceries, he takes out his keys and puts one in the door when Linda steps into the corridor with a gun in her hand. She shoots and hits him in the side of the torso. Ron turns towards the stairs and begins to run down them while Linda continues shooting. She hits him one more time in the back of the shoulder. Ron makes it to a neighbor’s apartment and bangs on the door, begging to be let in. The neighbor, Janet, opens the door and let’s Ron in who collapses on the floor. He had 4 holes in his lungs and was drowning in his own blood. The only words he got out before he died was to thank her for helping him. Linda, meanwhile, had an escape route all planned out and began running. However, she had second thoughts, stopped at a payphone and called police to turn herself in. Though you’d think Linda was perhaps feeling ashamed at having shot Ron, she wasn’t. She immediately blamed Ron for forcing her to the point where she had to shoot him. She’s charged with 1st degree murder but she claims self defense at trial. Now she says that her intention was to kill herself in front of Ron but that he wrestled her for the gun and it went off. Even with that striking tale of her self defense, Linda is sentenced to 27 years to life. She’s come up a few times for parole, but continues to lie about her guilt in killing Ron and she continues to be denied. At parole hearings, Linda gave multiple conflicting versions of the events leading to the murder. In 2004, she cast herself as a victim of Ron, who she claimed was abusive and had hired a man to murder her. She told the Board she had purchased the gun to protect herself and, immediately before shooting Ron, she saw him outside her apartment with a knife in his hand. Linda claimed Ron threw a bag of groceries at her when she confronted him, which caused her to react by shooting him. She’s 53 now and still incarcerated. As for Ron’s family, they advocate to this day for tougher anti-stalking laws and want to spead the sentiment that men too are victims of stalking and it should be considered just as serious for them as it is for women. Deadly women, tainted love s14, e1, thecinemaholic.com, LA times, san diego union tribune, business guide Africa.com, casetext.com, Stalked, someone’s watching: s4, e20: date with the devil