Charles Ramsey: I Was Raised To Help Women In Distress

Charles Ramsey I Was Raised To Help Women In DistressWithin hours of becoming a national hero, a viral video star and the top topic on Twitter, Charles Ramsey talked about having trouble getting sleep. Ramsey told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, it was about knowing he had lived for a year near the captive women on the city’s West Side.

‘Broke down the door’

Ramsey recounted Monday night’s drama, when he heard a girl scream “like a car had hit a kid.” He ran from his living room, clutching a half-eaten McDonald’s Big Mac, to the house and helped free a woman identified as Amanda Berry.

“Amanda said, ‘I’ve been trapped in here. He won’t let me out. It’s me and my baby.”

Ramsey and a man named Angel Cordero broke down the door, CNN affiliate WEWS reported in an earlier interview heard around the world. After police arrived, Berry explained there were other women inside.


‘Dead giveaway’

Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland in 2003 on the eve of her 17th birthday. The other two women are Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, who disappeared at age 14 in 2004, and Michelle Knight, who vanished in August 2002, at age 21, according to police.

Castro “got some big testicles to pull this off, bro,” Ramsey told WEWS. “Because we see this dude every day. I mean every day.” He added, “I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway.”

In one of the top tweets about Ramsey, comedian Patton Oswalt wrote, “Dear Charles Ramsey: I am not a little pretty white girl, but I totally want to run into your black arms. #hero.”

Ramsey said he was raised to help women in distress, said Walsh.

What could have happened if Charles Ramsey had turned a deaf ear to Amanda Berry? Would you have done the same, too?

Source: Josh Levs, Phil Gast and Steve Almasy, CNN

Image: The It List

Jodi Arias May Get Death Penalty For First-Degree Murder

Jodi Arias May Get Death Penalty For First-Degree MurderAfter months of twists and turns in a dramatic trial rife with sex, lies and digital images, an Arizona jury Wednesday found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder in the slaying of ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. Jurors will return to court Thursday for the aggravation phase of the trial — an important step in the next key decision they face: determining whether Arias lives or dies.

‘I’d rather get death’

In a television interview minutes after the verdict was announced, Arias said she’d prefer a death sentence.

“I said years ago that I’d rather get death than life, and that still is true today,” she told Phoenix television station KSAZ. “I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I’d rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it.”

The comments prompted authorities to place Arias on suicide watch in an Arizona jail, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Arias was stoic in court Wednesday. Her eyes briefly welled up with tears as a clerk announced that the jury found her guilty of first-degree murder for killing Alexander in June 2008.


‘Grisly slaying’

If the jury decides on a death sentence, the judge is bound by that decision. But if the jury decides against the death penalty, the judge would have two options: sentencing Arias to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or sentencing her to life in prison with the possibility of parole after at least 25 years.

Alexander was stabbed repeatedly, shot and nearly decapitated five years ago. Arias says she killed him in self-defense after he attacked her, but the grisly slaying caused even some anti-domestic violence advocates to doubt her case.

Do you think Jodi Arias killed her boyfriend in self-defense? Which sentence will most probably be given by the jury — life in prison or death sentence?

Source: Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

Image: NY Daily News