Possessed By Stupidity

Brownstown Township, or Brownstown Charter Township, sits in Wayne County in south-eastern Michigan, about half an hour from downtown Detroit. At the time of the episode it had a population of 31,026, up 65 per cent since 1990, and in the 1970s, when the story takes place, it was still largely farmland. The township takes its name from Adam Brown, an eight-year-old boy who, according to local legend, was taken by the Wyandotte in a raid on Carpenter's Fort in Virginia in October 1764. details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it By 1977 he was thirty-two, married to Beatrice Ramsey, who went by Barbara, and living in Brownstown Township with their two children, a daughter of twelve and a son of nine. He worked at the Ford Motor Company plant in Woodhaven, and the family went to church on Sundays.

In 1977 Ramsey began to change. He stopped going to church with the family, started drinking whisky and beer and smoking marijuana, and began an affair with a woman known in the case only as Cross. In the spring he drove to Kentucky to visit his mother, a Southern Baptist, who gave him two books on witchcraft and the occult and then a pamphlet called Defeated Enemies, about casting demons out of people. About ten weeks before the murder, while having sex with Cross in Kentucky, he jumped off her, called her a devil and a demon, ran outside, and afterwards insisted that they go back to the room and pray. He told investigators this was a sign from God that he should stop cheating on his wife.

The day before the killing the choke on his truck clogged. He took the mechanical failure as a personal message from God telling him to stay with his wife, and then, sitting in the truck, decided that the pop songs on the radio were further messages. On 3 February 1977 he was unusually elated at work, drank whisky and beer and smoked marijuana during the day, and in the late afternoon telephoned his mother to say that he had returned to God and felt wonderful.

That night, sometime after nine, he ordered Barbara out of the bedroom. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. He knocked, then broke the door down. The children followed and watched. He choked her and hit her in the head, repeating love me, and when her eyes clouded and her tongue came out he decided that the devil was coming out of her. Their daughter called a neighbour for help. Ramsey got a large kitchen knife and stabbed his wife 32 times in the face, chest and neck while shouting die demon die, with both children present.

He told the children that their mother had been possessed, that he had cut the demon out of her, and that if they all prayed over the body she would come back to life. He made his son kneel and pray with him in her blood, telling the boy that she died for her sin. When she did not revive he had the nine-year-old help him put her body into the bed, got in beside her and fell asleep.

The children, covered in blood, wandered into a neighbour's yard. The neighbour raised the alarm, and Michigan State Police troopers knocked on the door and woke Ramsey. He said that he had just killed his wife, then took the same knife and stabbed himself about four times in the chest before getting back into bed beside the body. Police found him bleeding there with the knife in his hand. this part of the story is covered for now

On admission a hospital psychiatrist found him acutely psychotic. Two days later he was diagnosed with acute psychosis and acute paranoid schizophrenia, with religious paranoid ideation and severe impairment of reality orientation. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

Three psychiatrists testified. Dr Emmanuel Tain, for the defence, said that Ramsey was acutely psychotic and legally insane at the time of the stabbing, and a lengthy taped interview between the two men was played in court. Dr Irving Edgar and Dr Philip Margolis, for the prosecution, said that he knew right from wrong and was not psychotic, although Edgar conceded on cross-examination that Ramsey was probably psychotic after the choking. The prosecution argued that the demon story had been manufactured and that Ramsey killed his wife because she rejected him that night.

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The case then fell out of the news. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In 2020 he was 77 and living in a small town in Michigan.