Claudia Botero recalls a December 1998 argument with her live-in boyfriend Rafael Ramos that turned physical. He called her a bitch, she threw an iron at him. The next thing she knew he was choking her on the bed, telling her "it's easier the second time around."
She said she knew exactly what he was referring to — that he had killed his wife the previous year.
Botero took the stand this week in Westchester County Court as the prosecution's main witness against Ramos, who is charged with second-degree murder in the March 9, 1997, strangulation death of 34-year-old Nusinaida Ramos in her Colin Street apartment.
Botero said her fight with Ramos led to a conversation the following week in which he confessed to the killing. She said she was too scared to leave because he threatened her, but it all but ended their relationship. While she and her son continued living with him and his kids for more than two years, they were essentially roommates.
But it wasn't a story Botero told right away. She had even provided Ramos the initial alibi that kept detectives at bay those early years. Her refusal to implicate Ramos for nine years and a lack of physical evidence made prosecutors weary of bringing charges. They finally decided to do so last year, figuring their case was never going to get any better.
Prosecution relying primarily on Botero's account
There were no eyewitnesses to the killing, and the jury heard testimony Wednesday that Ramos was excluded as the source of male DNA recovered from the T-shirt Nusinaida was wearing. But the prosecution is relying primarily on Botero's account of Ramos' actions the day of the killing and his alleged confession.
The defense has sought to portray Botero as a woman scorned, who made up Ramos' confession in revenge for his dating her sister-in-law. They say her inconsistent accounts over the years, and explanations about why she stayed with Ramos, tarnish her credibility.
Botero was a widow — her husband had been murdered in the Dominican Republic — when she met Ramos, a Sing Sing corrections officer, in early 1995. They began dating and he soon left his wife. In August of that year, Botero and her 9-year-old son moved into a Bronx apartment with Ramos.
On March 9, 1997, she and Ramos drove to Colin Street to pick up his young son and daughter for a visitation.
Nusinaida brought the kids to the car, but said she forgot their bag. Ramos told her he needed to use the bathroom and she said he could come upstairs. Botero said he was only gone for a few minutes.
When they drove to the Bronx, Botero became upset because Ramos said he had to go out but didn't say where he was going. She estimated he was gone for about 90 minutes and when he returned he was no longer wearing the denim shirt or jeans he had worn earlier. She said she never saw the denim shirt again.
They went with the kids to her parents in Queens and later returned to the Yonkers apartment. Nusinaida did not answer when Ramos went to the door.
Botero testifies Ramos urged her to create alibi
Once Nusinaida's body was discovered the following day, Botero said she was urged by Ramos to tell police she was with him all day March 9. When she was interviewed by detectives a month later, she told them that once back in the Bronx early that afternoon, she had taken the kids to the store for potato chips.
She insisted detectives never asked a follow up question about whether Ramos also went to the store.
That finally happened in 2002, when cold case Detective John Geiss reached out to her and wondered about her saying "I" and not "we." It was the first time she told police that Ramos had not been with her the entire day when Nusinaida was killed.
But it wasn't until four years later that she told authorities of his confession, telling a prosecutor in a sworn deposition.
Botero spoke of suspicions that Ramos had killed his wife. She said she became pregnant in the summer of 1998 and that Ramos seemed happy about that. But she said she told him she would only have the baby if he took a DNA test to clear his name. She said he wouldn't and told her to get an abortion.
A week after the fight in December 1998, she testified, Ramos told her that he had gone back to the Colin Street apartment the afternoon of March 9. He told Botero that Nusinaida told him she wanted to get back together. When he told her he didn't want to, Nusinaida told him she was going to take him back to court to seek more child support.
Ramos told Botero that he then "lost his mind," she testified on questioning by Assistant District Attorney Daniel Flecha, that when Nusinaida turned around he hit her on the head with a BB gun. When she fell, he choked her on the ground and banged her head against the radiator before cleaning up the blood with a mop.
Botero pressured under cross examination
Botero was often on the defensive on cross examination by Ramos' lawyer Lynda Visco, insisting she couldn't remember many things so many years later.
She did acknowledge after reviewing transcripts that it wasn't until Tuesday of this week that she ever testified Ramos mentioned the radiator. Although she testified to seeing scratches on Ramos' back a few days after the killing, she told Visco she never saw blood on him that Sunday or in the car after he had gotten back.
And she acknowledged that while her sister-in-law and nephew were living with Ramos, she never warned them or her brother that Ramos had confessed to being a killer.
Wednesday's session ended with testimony from a retired Sing Sing correction officer who worked with Ramos in the late 1990s. Rodney Criss said their lockers were near each other and Ramos would sometimes complain about the child support he had to pay.
He said Ramos got loud about it at times and was clearly upset, and one time mentioned his wife was talking about moving to Florida. 'He said 'if the bitch tries to take the kids to Florida I'll kill that bitch,'" Criss told Assistant District Attorney Marissa Mora-Wynn.
He said he remembers telling Ramos he should be careful about saying things like that because if something happened to his wife he'd be a suspect.
Defense lawyer Andrew Restivo highlighted on cross-examination that Criss didn't tell police about Ramos' comments until long after the killing. And he cited detective reports indicating that Criss initially told them he had heard about what Ramos said from other colleagues.
"I did personally hear it," Criss answered. "Maybe it's the wording used. I heard it from (Ramos)."
The trial before Westchester County Judge George Fufidio resumes Thursday afternoon and is expected to wrap up next week.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Woman testifies ex-boyfriend Rafael Ramos confessed to 1997 killing of his wife in Yonkers
Local News
