Joaquin Rams, charged with first degree murder.
Joaquin Rams, of Virginia, has finally been arrested for the October, 2012 murder of his own infant son, one year old Prince Mcleod Rams. Over the aptly presented objections of Prince's mom, Hera Mcleod, Montgomery County Maryland Judge Michael Algeo, of
this post, insisted upon unsupervised visitation for Rams, and on the first visit, little Prince was fatally injured. Looking through some of the court records from Montgomery County, Judge Algeo was actually quoted in official records as having told Hera Mcleod that in order for Prince's visits with Rams to be supervised, Prince would have to be returned home with "cigarette burns"! Since there were no cigarette burns, Rams was given ample opportunity to commit murder. Nice going, Judge Algeo!
According to
The Washington Post, Joaquin Rams has taken out "multiple" insurance policies on Prince. This is exactly the type of thing Prince's mom wanted Judge Algeo to understand, while Judge Algeo continued to mock her. Since the medical examiner ruled that death was caused by drowning, there were no cigarette burns, so Algeo was not in the slightest bit concerned. Now that the cause of death has finally been established, (why the hell did that take so long, anyway?) Rams has been charged with first degree murder. Once again, nice going, Judge Algeo!
Why is it so hard, in family law court, to protect one's children? When I got my divorce in Jefferson County, West Virginia, I had a family law court judge who decided, despite the fact that my then-husband had been found guilty of domestic violence in criminal court, that he was not guilty. She also decided, despite his criminal record in Maryland for everything from child abuse to theft, that he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, and that the other who had held him accountable in court for his crimes were only doing so at my behest! She ordered him to pay fifty dollars a month in child support for three children, and warned me not to contact child protective services about any abuses the children suffered while in his care. Eventually, my ex-husband lost interest in the children, or so I thought, and stopped exercising his visitation completely. A couple of months after the last time he saw any of our children, my son, who was then four years old, told me that his father had pulled a knife on him because of a potty accident! I was still under orders from a family law court judge not to tell child protective services!
Later on, when I remarried and moved out of the area, I did not know where my former spouse lived, as his family protected him from bill collectors, process servers, the Bureau of Child Support, the sheriff of any given locale, and any attempts to repossess his vehicle. One of his brothers, a youth pastor at Aspen Hill Christian Church in Montgomery County, Maryland, actually helped him hide all of his income from the court and the Bureau of Child Support so he could not be charged any more than fifty dollars a month. The fact that I had medical problems and required periodic blood transfusions for awhile did not matter to anyone.....it was as if "Jesus" had won some sort of a battle, inasmuch as my ex-husband's family was concerned, when my ex got to keep his money instead of paying child support. When he finally discovered, through the grapevine, that I had opted to move, he surfaced and challenged it. I had to reschedule a blood transfusion for the emergency court hearing too. Yes; we had an emergency court hearing because my former spouse suddenly wanted to stop me from moving after hiding himself and his income from me for several years. Threatening a four year old with a kitchen utility knife does not merit any emergent attention, but moving away after several years of no contact does! Gotta love the way these family law court judges think!
The fact that Joaquin Rams had bought insurance policies on his son should have been a giant red flag for any family law court judge. While Hera Mcleod probably did not have the paperwork in hand to wave in the judge's face, it is abundantly clear that she tried to tell the judge about two other open cases involving insurance policies, Joaquin Rams, and unexplained deaths. The state of Virginia had not completed their investigations at that time, so Rams had not been charged. That has changed now. Why couldn't Michael Algeo give the situation just a little more time for investigation, rather than taking chances with a child's life?
