Maribel Ramos' roommate KC Joy became obsessed with her after she rejected his romantic advances — then that obsession turned deadly.
Personal photoMaribel Ramos, an Army veteran who went missing in May 2013.
On May 3, 2013, Maribel Ramos, a U.S. Army veteran and university student, went missing from her apartment in Orange, California.
Before long, family members went to the police with a horrifying tale of how Ramos’ roommate, KC Joy, had become increasingly obsessed with Ramos in recent months. What’s more, the two had had an explosive argument shortly before her disappearance — and Ramos felt so uncomfortable around Joy that, just 12 days before she vanished, she had called the police to tell them that she believed she was in danger.
This is the story of how Maribel Ramos was murdered by KC Joy.
Who Was Maribel Ramos?
Maribel Manriquez Ramos was born on November 22, 1976. Growing up, Ramos stood out as a compassionate, hardworking, and ambitious kid. Loved ones have said that she was a tomboy and that she dreamed of entering the law enforcement some day.
After high school, Ramos briefly worked as a security guard for Kmart before joining the U.S. Army in August 2001. That year, Ramos deployed overseas following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She served two combat tours in Iraq before being honorably discharged in 2008.
Back in the U.S., Ramos decided to attend California State University-Fullerton to study criminal justice. She moved into an apartment with her mother in Orange, California, and lived there until her mother died in 2009.
With the apartment to herself, Ramos reached out to her sister Lucy Gonzalez to see if she would move in. Unfortunately, Gonzalez turned her down, explaining that she and her daughter were settled where they were but that they would move in if Ramos couldn’t find a roommate.
Google MapsThe apartment where Maribel Ramos lived.
Ramos decided to put out an ad on Craigslist for a new roommate and soon received a handful of inquiries. But one stood out.
A man named Kwang Choi “KC” Joy reached out to Ramos to inquire about the apartment. In his message, Joy described himself as an “easy going” man looking for a place to stay while he searched for a job in Huntington Beach.
After meeting with Joy, both Ramos and Gonzalez determined him to be a quiet, well-mannered man. He also told the sisters that he had never been married and didn’t have any children. For Ramos, who was close to finishing her degree, the peace that might come with having a quiet, solitary roommate seemed too good to pass up.
KC Joy Becomes Part Of The Ramos Family
YelpKC Joy and Maribel Ramos at dinner.
In the weeks after KC Joy moved in with Maribel Ramos, it became clear that he truly didn’t have anyone in his life. Joy was constantly at home by himself and very rarely left the apartment.
“It’s sad because we felt his loneliness,” Ramos’ sister Lucy Gonzalez recalled on the Netflix show Worst Roommate Ever .
Before long, Ramos started inviting Joy to family events. As he accompanied Ramos to these dinners, games, and parties, he got to know most of her family. And gradually, Ramos’ relationship with Joy morphed into a friendship. The two regularly walked their dogs and went on grocery runs together.
It seemed like Ramos and Joy had the perfect roommate situation — until Joy decided he wanted more.
In the summer of 2012, Gonzalez received a call from Joy. He confessed to her that he was in love with Ramos, and that he wanted to marry her and have kids with her.
Stunned, Gonzalez told Joy that while he was deserving of what he was looking for, Ramos was not interested in him in that way.
Gonzalez later told Ramos about the phone call and advised her to reject Joy quickly before the situation got out of hand. Ramos reportedly spoke to Joy and made it clear that she was not romantically interested in him. And at first, it seemed as if Joy had taken the rejection well.
But over time, he started turning to drastic measures in an apparent attempt to change Ramos’ mind. He bought a whole new wardrobe, got a tattoo, paid to take Ramos on a cruise, and even reportedly spent more than $10,000 on plastic surgery to look younger.
It soon became clear that KC Joy’s relationship with Maribel Ramos had shifted from amicable to obsessive.
Maribel Ramos Goes Missing
Military with PTSD/FacebookA missing poster for Maribel Ramos.
On May 3, 2013, Maribel Ramos failed to appear at a weekly softball game, something that was out of character for her.
Family and friends tried contacting her several times, but no one could get ahold of her. Her family went to her apartment for a wellness check only to discover that she wasn’t there. Unable to find her, they reported her missing.
Authorities immediately began investigating Ramos’ case. Surveillance footage from 7:15 p.m. the evening before her disappearance showed Ramos dropping off her rent check. It was the last time she was seen in public.
As the police interviewed her family, friends, and even men that Ramos had met on the dating site Plenty of Fish, one name kept coming up: KC Joy.
The Bitter Roommate
KC Joy had been the last person to see Maribel Ramos before her disappearance. He told investigators that on the evening of May 2, he and Ramos had gotten into an argument. Afterward, Joy said, he had gone on a long drive. By the time he came back, Ramos was gone.
NetflixPolice interviewing KC Joy about Maribel Ramos’ disappearance.
However, the police eventually uncovered an eerie piece of evidence: a frantic phone call Ramos made to 911 only 12 days before her disappearance.
In the call, Ramos claimed to feel unsafe around her roommate, saying, “I’m just calling to let you guys know that if something happens that I did it because I was trying to defend myself.”
Police soon learned that Ramos had told Joy he needed to move out of the apartment at the end of April 2013 because he had stopped paying his share of the living expenses. In the weeks that followed, Joy had reportedly made a number of excuses for why he couldn’t move out.
This dispute culminated in a heated argument the night before Ramos disappeared, with Ramos telling Joy he needed to move out the very next day. Enraged, Joy refused.
Finally, Ramos called Paul Lopez, a boyfriend she had recently met on Plenty of Fish, hoping he could talk some sense into Joy. Speaking to Joy on speaker, Lopez said that if Joy didn’t move his things out of the apartment, he would come to the apartment and move them for him.
That was the last phone call made from Ramos’ phone.
Investigators Close In On KC Joy
Yelp KC Joy’s messages about Ramos on Yelp.
Given the turbulent relationship between Maribel Ramos and KC Joy, investigators quickly zeroed in on Joy as a suspect.
As they dug into his past, they uncovered a history marred with anger issues and violence. According to his sister, Joy had such a violent temper that she filed a restraining order against him.
Meanwhile, in the days after Ramos’ disappearance, Joy was spending a lot of time online, commenting on online forums related to Ramos’ case to declare how much he missed his friend. But despite his attempts to appear the grieving roommate online, Joy had strangely started distancing himself from the Ramos family he had previously called friends. He also refused to participate in most of the vigils and searches for Ramos.
As authorities began tracking KC Joy’s activity, they noticed that he frequently visited the public library to borrow laptops.
Believing Joy might know more than he was letting on about Ramos’ disappearance, police started monitoring the computers he checked out at the library. Investigators observed Joy obsessively searching for information about the case. He also made a number of suspicious search queries, including, “How long does it take a body to decay?”
Then, two weeks after Ramos disappeared, authorities watched as KC Joy opened Google Maps and zoomed in on a tree in a remote canyon.
Joy deleted his browser history after this session, but not before police made note of the tree’s location. The police immediately dispatched a search party to the canyon — and after only about thirty minutes of searching, officers discovered the decomposing body of Maribel Ramos, buried in a shallow grave near the very tree Joy had pinpointed.
Finally, the search for the missing veteran had come to an end. And Joy knew the police were closing in on him.
Justice For Maribel Ramos And Her Family
Google MapsThe remote canyon where police discovered Maribel Ramos’ remains.
On May 17, police arrived at Ramos’ apartment to arrest KC Joy. When Joy saw the officers approaching, he reportedly attempted to flee by jumping out a window. Authorities nonetheless arrested him and charged him with the murder of Maribel Ramos.
Because Ramos’ remains were too decomposed to determine her cause of death, authorities were left only to speculate how Joy might have murdered her. Given that Ramos had combat training and could have easily overtaken Joy in a fair fight, they hypothesized that Joy must have ambushed her. Investigators suggested he snuck into her room in the middle of the night and smothered her in her sleep.
There was very little forensic evidence tying Joy to the crime. However, during his trial, the jury heard how Joy had become obsessed with Ramos, how Ramos had called the police to report that she was afraid of Joy, and how Joy had pinpointed the exact site of her burial on Google Maps.
In July 2014, a court found KC Joy guilty of Maribel Ramos’ murder. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. To this day, he continues to profess his innocence.
“Family wants me to apologize, which I cannot apologize for something I haven’t done,” Joy said during his sentencing, according to ABC 7. “Maybe someday truth will come out, maybe I’ll just die inside prison.”
As for the Ramos family, they were happy to see KC Joy behind bars.
“Mr. Joy needs to be put away for life,” a family member said in court. “He is an evil man and a coward that should never be forgiven.”
After reading about Maribel Ramos, dive into the story of Brooke Preston, the woman killed by her sleepwalking roommate. Then, read about Big Lurch, the rapper who killed and ate his roommate.
