According to arrest documents, Amanda Ramirez provided investigators three different stories of a deadly brawl with her sister after a night of drinking.
By Matt Skoufalos | June 26, 2019
A Camden woman accused of stabbing her twin sister to death offered various and contradicting stories of the events leading up to a fatal encounter at her Centennial Village home.
According to arrest documents, Camden County Police discovered 27-year-old Anna Ramirez on the ground outside the apartments in the 1200 block of East State Street around 5:40 a.m. June 22. Ramirez was rushed to Cooper University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later.
At the scene, detectives also identified her identical twin sister, Amanda Ramirez, who had apparent blood on her clothing. “Officers further observed that there appeared to be several bloody footprints leading from the victim’s body” to the door of her sister’s apartment, their report noted.
Amanda Ramirez allegedly first claimed that she’d picked her sister up on Westfield Avenue, “that she looked disheveled,” and that when she took her home, Anna Ramirez “collapsed and was bleeding.” She also allegedly said that they’d had a fight.
In a subsequent interview, police said Amanda Ramirez then claimed that her twin had left their cousin’s home alone Friday night, where the two of them had been drinking with a friend. Upon returning to the apartment complex 45 minutes later, she allegedly saw Anna Ramirez, apparently ill, on the porch outside the unit. Amanda Ramirez then allegedly told police her twin collapsed as she tried to walk off.
In this second account, police noted that Amanda Ramirez made no mention of the previous fight she’d described with her sister. Detectives further observed in the course of the interviews that Amanda Ramirez had fresh scratches on her cheeks, eyelid, and left index finger, as well as dried blood in her ear. She claimed those had been sustained in a fight a week earlier.
Finally, in a third retelling of events, Amanda Ramirez alleged that she, her sister, and a friend had traveled to Centennial Village together in the early morning hours of June 22. She then allegedly claimed that once they’d gotten there, Anna Ramirez struck her in the face, initiating a fight in which they both exchanged blows. Then she claimed that Anna Ramirez allegedly retrieved a knife from the apartment, and was subsequently killed during a struggle for control of the weapon.
“Detectives confronted Amanda Ramirez with the fact that no knives were located in the immediate vicinity of the victim, and Amanda Ramirez responded that she did not remember what she did with the knife,” the report notes. Various knives were later recovered from the residence, one of them presumptively testing positive for blood, according to police.
Amanda Ramirez was charged Monday with first-degree aggravated manslaughter, which carries a penalty of 10 to 30 years in prison and a maximum $200,000 fine.
All information provided here was gathered from police documents. Anyone accused of a crime is considered innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. An arrest is not a conviction.
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