Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle (82 page)

During the evening of July 28, Sarah drove by Rachel’s apartment on Belcher Road in Largo and shouted out, “Come fight me.” For all of the fuss, Sarah and Rachel had still only met face-to-face once, and that was back when Rachel was still with Nick.

A few hours later, on July 29 at three thirty-six in the morning, Rachel called Sarah’s phone and left a voice mail: “Why don’t you act your age, Sarah? Seriously, answer your fucking phone and don’t be a fucking pussy. You want to come through my fucking neighborhood and be a psycho bitch just like fucking Erin. Fuck with Josh’s car, and you are fucking with me when you fuck with his shit. Seriously, I’m letting you know now you are either going to get fucked up or something of yours is, so watch the fuck out or answer your fucking phone and stop being a bitch.”

The words were rapid-fire and almost sounded as if they were being read. The message lasted a mere twenty-two seconds.

Less than a day later, at 2:30
A.M
., July 30, Rachel was driving through Pinellas Park with then-roommate Courtney Richards. During that drive, she called police, explaining they were in a white Chevy being chased and harassed by the occupants of a white Nissan. At that moment, they were in the vicinity of Seventy-eighth Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street. By the time police arrived, the two vehicles had moved four blocks up and two over. The Chevy stopped voluntarily. The Nissan was subjected to a traffic stop.

Responding to the call were Officers John Coleman and Scott Galley, along with Sergeant Anthony Motley. Coleman spoke first to Rachel, the person who had called. She said she was a passenger and her friend Courtney was driving. They were going home together after work at Applebee’s. They stopped at Taco Bell, and a car pulled in aggressively and followed them out of the parking lot. Rachel didn’t recognize the car, which followed them almost all of the way home. She did, however, recognize the driver, her archenemy Sarah Ludemann, with whom there was an ongoing dispute over a boy.

“I’m dating her ex-boyfriend,” Rachel said.

The chase grew scarier. Sarah pulled alongside Courtney, and then in front of her, cutting her off so that Courtney had to swerve. It finally got to the point where Courtney had to pull off the road. It was too dangerous. And what did Sarah do? Rachel said Sarah rear-ended her. Six angry people piled out of Sarah’s car. Rachel’s car was attacked with Silly String. Rachel and Courtney tried to lock all doors and windows. Courtney didn’t get the window closed fast enough. Two of the girls in the other car—Tiffany Mitchell and Danielle Larson—struck Courtney and kicked her car. They smashed an exterior passenger-side mirror, Rachel said.

Courtney repeated the story, but she left out the part about being rear-ended. In fact, in Courtney’s version, the cars pulled over to the side of the road together, and the Nissan was in front. She said she didn’t know the girls who attacked; and no, she did not want to prosecute.

The police made a list of the six girls in the Nissan. In addition to Ludemann, Mitchell, and Larson, Ashley Lovelady, Magen [
sic
] Fitzgerald, and Autumn Seville were also along for the ride.

Interestingly, Sarah said that it was Courtney who had rear-ended her vehicle, not the other way around, and the contact had been made in the Taco Bell parking lot. That was why they were chasing: they’d been rammed.

The police closely inspected the front and rear of both vehicles, and neither showed any evidence of a crash.

Determining that there was a probable cause to search the cars, both vehicles were searched. One of the cars yielded two seeds and part of a stem that might have come from a marijuana plant. But since nothing else was found, the stem and seeds were disposed of without analysis.

Parents were called. The Nissan belonged to Fitzgerald’s mom, and she admitted that she was using it without permission. In fact, Fitzgerald confessed, her parents thought she was home. She’d snuck out. Fitzgerald’s father did not want to press charges for theft, and Ashley Lovelady’s mother agreed to drive the Nissan back to the Fitzgerald house.

The next day, Sarah and Rachel formally accused each other of road rage. Rachel said she was chased. Sarah said she was rear-ended. Sarah told police that she chased the other car, only after it had bumped hers. Sarah said Rachel had once called her twenty times in two hours. Rachel said Sarah was sending her threatening e-mails.

During that summer, Sarah and Joshua were in New York City together for a few days. Joshua was visiting his relatives up there, and Sarah later joined him. Pictures of the two of them together were posted online, and—to make sure her rival saw them—Sarah sent Rachel taunting messages. Rachel looked at the photos and grabbed for her phone.

At 8:30
P.M
., August 28, Pinellas Park police were called by Ramon Camacho—father of Jay and Joshua—complaining that his son Joshua’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, Javier Laboy, was harassing him and his family.

“Tonight, he threw an egg at my house,” Mr. Camacho said. In addition, Laboy drove by the house repeatedly, before and after the egg, yelling things, disturbing Ramon and his neighbors. Police contacted Laboy and “encouraged a peaceful resolution.”

At five o’clock on Friday evening, August 29, the players proved that they had shifting allegiances and could get into fights in any combination. Erin Slothower was the victim this time, and she was complaining about the tag team of Joshua Camacho and Sarah Ludemann. Erin was at her job as a server at American Pie Pizza. Trouble started when Joshua called Erin repeatedly and was insistent on starting an argument. Erin explained it wasn’t a good time, since she was working. She had to hang up on Joshua.

Next, Sarah showed up at the pizza place in person. Sarah started to verbally abuse Erin in front of customers, and the restaurant’s manager had to ask Sarah to leave. A police officer arrived, took statements, and made a short-lived attempt to get in touch with Joshua and Sarah. Since no battery was alleged, the matter was dropped.

A few hours later, still on August 29, Rachel called Sarah and left this message: “Please tell me, Sarah, why you would be a dumb-ass cunt to fucking put a brand-new picture of you and Josh at the beach on your Myspace. Seriously, I told you to watch your fucking back and not to fucking chill with him. Now your ass is mine, and I’m guaranteeing you I’m going to fucking murder you. I’m letting you know that right now because you know what? Josh might have played me, but, bitch, I’m going to play your ass out, too, so watch. You are a fucking fat bitch and I’m going to fucking kill you, I swear on my life. Watch your fucking window when I get off of work tonight, you dumb bitch.”

This recording was a tad less manic than the recorded call of July 29, and lasted for thirty-four seconds.

On Sunday, August 31, at 10:44
P.M
., Rachel called Sarah again and left this voice mail: “It’s so funny that you want to talk shit and you sit there and say that my man was over to your house. Well, tell me what he was wearing tonight, Sarah, because you are a dumb bitch for real, and if you’re fuckin’ lying, I’m going to find you and I’m going to beat your ass. And if you’re not lying, I’m going to find you and beat your ass, okay? You can play your fucking games. You are a pathetic little bitch. You are a little fucking girl. Honestly, what do you have going for you that Josh wants you over me for? I’ve got a job, have my own place. What the fuck! Seriously? He can get anything he wants from me, any fuckin’ thing, not to mention that I probably fuckin’ look fuckin’ ten times better than you. And you fuckin’ run your mouth. You’ve still got your mommy and daddy’s curfew, bitch. For God’s sake, why the fuck do you run your fuckin’ mouth, and why the fuck are you so pathetic? Please do leave the shirt under my face, because that’s old news, just like you and him are. So keep talking shit, Sarah. You don’t know when to stop. You haven’t learned your lesson yet, and I’m the fuckin’ teacher. I’m warning you now, keep fucking with me, Sarah, and you and Erin both are dumb psychotic bitches. I’m warning you now, I am going to show you psycho! So stop fucking with me. You are fucking with the wrong person, and you’re fucking with the wrong thing that I care about. So keep it up, keep playing your motherfucking game and I am going to teach you how to grow up real motherfucking quick.”

This one lasted one minute and fourteen seconds.

Forty-one minutes later, Rachel left another brief message: “Why don’t you come outside now, Sarah? I’m outside your house. Come on out, I fucking dare you.”

Rachel called again and again.

The annoyance pushed Sarah to the brink; at 11:15
P.M
., she called the cops.

Officer Christopher Boyce located Rachel outside Joshua’s home. Boyce said Rachel appeared “visibly upset,” and complained that it was Sarah’s fault. She started it by sending Rachel threatening e-mails.

Officer Boyce’s report stated:
Ludemann advised that Wade was threatening her during some of the phone calls and just wanted Wade to stop calling her. Wade advised that she would stop calling Ludemann, but requested that I ask Ludemann to stop threatening her via e-mail. Camacho said that he does see Ludemann behind Wade’s back and that
Ludemann was just trying to antagonize Wade into a fight. [Author’s emphasis]

Sarah had to promise that she would neither call nor e-mail Rachel. She prophetically told police that she taped the messages because she “wanted it documented in case Wade followed through on her threats.”

On September 12, Rachel wrote on her Myspace page:

On October 8, 2008, the Pinellas Park 911 operator received a call from Rachel Wade’s phone. When police arrived at Rachel’s apartment, she was there alone. She had gotten into an argument with Joshua, who had broken into the apartment.

“He pushed the door in and broke the dead bolt chain,” Rachel complained.

Despite that, the fight had been verbal only. The responding officer looked for Joshua but couldn’t find him.

“No further action,” he concluded.

Two weeks later, Officer William Holmes answered a complaint from Joshua Camacho’s baby mama, Erin Slothower, who said she’d been receiving threats from Rachel Wade that Wade intended to “slit her fucking throat and to do harmful things to her.”

Officer Holmes added that both Erin Slothower and her friend Jamie Severino had expressed concerns that they were in fear that “Wade will do something to harm them.”

Erin told police that although she had been the target of all the e-mails, some of them had been texted to her friend Jamie Severino’s phone. Jamie had made it clear to Rachel that she and Erin wanted no more harassing messages, but Rachel didn’t stop. Erin explained that Rachel was a girlfriend of her baby daddy, and Jamie had the baby of Joshua’s brother Jay.

On Friday, November 7, 2008, a Pinellas Park grammar school teacher called police and said they had a kid, Isaiah, who complained that his parents had had a bad fight in the home.

The parents in question were Joshua and Jay’s older sister, Janet Camacho, and her baby daddy Robert Williams (pseudonym). Officer Andrea Butson and Child Protection Investigation Division (CPID) investigator Jody Binge handled the complaint.

The allegation, made by their little boy, was that the verbal fight had grown until Janet Camacho grabbed a knife and threatened Robert Williams with it. She “attempted to cut” him. He was trying to take the knife away from her when she was cut. He then got a gun and pointed it at her. Although he “clicked” the gun, it didn’t go off.

“That’s ridiculous,” Janet Camacho told the investigators. “There isn’t even a real gun in my house. There is a BB gun, that’s all.” The BB gun belonged to her brother Joshua, who kept it locked up in his bedroom. The kids had never been allowed to touch it, and it had never been pointed at anyone. She admitted to having a fight with the father of her kids. They didn’t live together anymore because they fought so much. The current conflict stemmed back two weeks earlier when Williams came to the Camacho residence to drop off the kids and there’d been a fight.

The investigators had a question: “You have a bandage on your hand. What happened there?”

“I cut myself on a piece of broken glass from a candle,” she said.

Janet Camacho and Robert Williams’s kids were interviewed separately. Destiny said she knew the difference between the truth and a lie, and she said her mother and father did not fight. It was determined that Isaiah was unable to tell the difference between a truth and a lie, so he was not considered a credible witness.

The kids were given the once-over and showed no signs of abuse.

Officer Butson spoke briefly to Joshua, who vouched for the fact that his BB gun was kept locked inside his bedroom closet. The allegations were untrue, he said.

On Wednesday, November 12, at 7:47 in the evening, Rachel affected a chummy tone at first: “Hey, Sarah, it’s Rachel. I’m in my car and I’m sure you-all are walking because yours are broken or you don’t have cars. You need the exercise. Maybe it’ll thin you out a little bit. I don’t know … I was just wondering where you are, because if you come to my job, you’ll be arrested on the spot. And I’ll spit in your food. I’m sure you won’t mind because you’re not even going to notice because you’re going to scarf it down. You’re like my fucking dog. You probably don’t even chew your food. But do me a favor and meet me there, bitch. Bye.”

Sarah did go to Applebee’s, when she knew Rachel was working, and specifically asked to be seated in Rachel’s section—the better to mess with her. She tripped Rachel while Rachel was carrying beer. She further harassed her rival by complaining to the manager that Rachel had spit in her food.