Tari Ramirez was convicted of second degree murder yesterday, for stabbing his former girlfriend, Claire Tempongkoto, to death in front of her two children in 2000.
Ramirez had been arrested several times for domestic violence, and had stalked Tempongkoto and left her threatening phone calls prior to killing her. Tempongkoto had filed two complaints against Ramirez with the police, who said they would file an emergency order barring Ramirez from contacting his ex-girlfriend, but the order apparently got lost in a bureaucratic morass and was never issued. Ramirez evaded police for years and was eventually arrested in Mexico and extradited back to the states in 2006. In the meantime, Tempongkoto's mother and two children sued the city of San Francisco for failing to protect her.
After finding Ramierz guilty of murdering Tempongkoto, the jury then had to decide whether he was guilty of murder or manslaughter. The argument for the manslaughter conviction?
The defense said Ramirez had acted out of blind rage after Tempongko told him she had aborted his child.
Nice. Nothing like countering a possible murder rap with the She's-the-Real-Murderer-She-Killed-a-Helpless-Fetus-Argument. Every woman should know that when they decide to get an abortion, it might just send their partner into a blind murdering rage. They should just put that right there on the forms to fill out. --Andy Wright
