Apr
28
Dora Ramirez
Posted: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 4:32 pm
Enewscourier.com
A woman convicted in February of killing her boyfriend in Limestone County in 2005 has received a 20-year split sentence that will require her to serve least three years in prison followed by three years of supervised probation.
Limestone Circuit Judge Jimmy Woodroof Jr. sentenced Dora Alicia Ramirez, 29, of Decatur Tuesday in Athens. She could have received life in prison. The murder victim’s wife testified in Ramirez’s favor during the sentencing, defense attorney Dan Totten said.
Limestone County jury convicted Ramirez Feb. 27 for her part in death of Andres Flores Galicia, 31, of Decatur, who used the last name Flores. He was found lying face down in a ditch on Mooresville Road, just north of Belle Mina in southeastern Limestone County, about 1 a.m. Jan. 29, 2005. The Decatur mechanic had been shot three times — once in the nose and twice in the back of the head with a .45-caliber handgun.
Totten, of Athens, said he is pleased with the sentence.
“It was the same sentence that was offered to Ramirez prior to trial, which was not accepted at the time,” Totten said. “I was real glad that he (Woodroof) gave her the minimum. He really looked at it real hard and did a good job. After the evidence and verdict, I think it was extremely fair.”
Totten said he believes several factors influenced the judge to giver her a minimum sentence:
• Ramirez waited 10 years to be tried. The case against her was dismissed due to lack of speedy trial but the Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated the charge;
• Ramirez came back to the area to face the charges.
• Ramirez now has four children;
• Ramirez had become a naturalized citizen.
“One of the most compelling things is that the wife of the deceased testified in her favor,” Totten said.
The murder
Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely said in 2005 that Flores, his wife, Deanna Buhl, and his brother had dined at Red Lobster on Jan 28 and then Flores received a cellphone call about 9:20 p.m. from a woman (Ramirez). Flores’ wife and brother thought he was going to help someone whose car had broken down, Blakely said. Investigators determined the call came from a pay telephone at a convenience store on U.S. 72 at Mooresville Road. They also believed Flores and Ramirez, who was then 19, were having an affair.
Ramirez’s husband — Ulises Reyes Mercado, 21, of Decatur — was very jealous and had become angry upon learning of the alleged affair, so he plotted to kill Flores, the sheriff said.
When Chief Investigator Capt. Stanley McNatt and then–Lt. Randy King, now chief deputy, questioned Ramirez in 2005, she admitted calling Flores to Mooresville Road that night because her husband told her to do so in order to prove her love. She said Flores and another man shot Flores while another man served as lookout. A deputy who saw Flores’ truck still running with the lights and windshield wipers on (because it was raining), stopped to check and found Flores’ body in the ditch.
Mercado fled to Mexico immediately after the shooting and has never been found. The other two men were never identified. At the time, both Ramirez and Mercado were in the country illegally.
The delay
The Ramirez case was delayed by changes in both prosecuting and defense attorneys and over other issues.
Former Limestone County District Attorney Kristi Valls had initially delayed trying Ramirez in hopes the sheriff’s office and FBI agents would find Ramirez. When District Attorney Brian Jones took office in 2011, he recused himself from trying the case because, as a defense attorney, he had once filed a brief on Ramirez’s behalf.
When the case still was not tried after being set for trial 16 times by December 2013, Ramirez’s other attorney, Lucas Beaty of Athens, asked the court to dismiss the case against his client because she was denied her Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The Circuit Court granted his request and dismissed the case against Ramirez. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the judge’s ruling because of a lack of explanation as to why delays were granted, because Ramirez had been free on bail since 2006, and because the court did not believe her defense was hurt by the delay.
The state, through the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, had Ramirez reindicted on the charge in 2013. Stephanie Billingslea, an assistant state attorney general, tried the case.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2015 4:32 pm.
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