Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  “I’m pretty sure it has something to do with my daughter, Rachel.”

  Rachel broke up with Nick Reynolds a week before, and things had been going poorly. The officer talked to Rachel, who said that she’d gotten a call from one of Nick’s friends, a guy named Eric, who said he’d been there earlier in the night, but he had nothing to do with any pissing. Sure enough, the license plate number belonged to Eric’s car. While looking for Eric, the cop encountered Nick’s dad, who explained that Nick was a friend of Eric’s, and he was the ex-boyfriend of Rachel Wade. Nick’s dad called Rachel’s mom and apologized for his son’s behavior. Janet Wade said she did not want to press any charges because there had been no property damage, but she did want a police report written up about it “in case they returned.”

  Jamie Severino was not Rachel’s friend—heaven forbid—but she knew the Camacho family well. She was a hot chick and had dated Joshua’s brother Jay—and had had his baby, a daughter named Alliana. Jamie was with Jay when Erin was with Joshua, so the four of them hung out at the Camacho house.

  Jay was older than the others, born in the spring of 1986. He wasn’t a big man, but—at five-foot-seven, 165 pounds—he was bigger than Joshua. Jamie met him through her cousin when she was in middle school.

  “Met him a long time ago, probably in like ’04,” Jamie said in 2011.

  Jay was well inked, sporting eleven tattoos. On his back were prayer hands with the words ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE; on his left arm was M.O.B. JUANA, and on the left side of his chest was ASHLEY. He had LOVE on his left hand, and HATE on his right. On his left shoulder was a five-point star; on his neck was CLOWN NY. There were two clowns on his right arm, with GOOD TIMES, SAD TIMES and RAMON; and on his left leg was JC JAMIE S.

  Jamie Severino knew Rachel because Rachel’s ex, Nick, was Jay Camacho’s best friend, and for a time Jay and Nick lived together. For a time Rachel lived with Nick as well, even though she was just a kid. All of Rachel’s subsequent boyfriends would get to see Rachel’s intimate NICK tattoo.

  Predictably, Rachel’s relationship with Jamie was stormy. The two had almost come to blows on several occasions. The first time came in high school when Jamie and Jay were first dating. Jamie heard from Rachel’s ex-boyfriend Jose, the one Rachel’s parents had arrested for having sex with Rachel when she was only fifteen, that Rachel was trying to “get with Jay.” That led to altercations at the mall and in school, with insults hurled back and forth—but no violence. According to Jamie, Rachel started the hostilities, and the two didn’t talk after that. Tensions eased somewhat when Rachel began dating Nick. Jamie felt that Nick was a bad influence on Jay.

  Jamie said Nick was on pills at that time, and he got Jay on them also—but despite that, there were times when Rachel and Nick and Jamie and Jay would hang out together.

  The girls still weren’t exactly best buddies, but they could be in the same room without a shouting match breaking out. Rachel was always careful that someone had her back if hostilities were about to erupt. When she was alone, she could be quiet—almost scared. But when she was with a guy or a group of girls—or on the computer—she’d get “all tough.”

  “She used to say that Nick hit her,” Jamie recalled, searching for an explanation. “But every time I was around them, it was the other way around. I think she just did things to get attention.”

  In high school, Jamie claimed, Rachel was always the one who was doing something to stand out. She wanted—maybe needed—to be the center of attention.

  Jamie had no idea what made Rachel so angry. There was a lot of anger around, and maybe Rachel fed off it. Maybe something happened to her to make her that way.

  One night—the end of 2007, maybe the beginning of ’08—Jamie, Jay, and Nick went out; Rachel stayed behind at Nick’s house. While they were gone, Rachel was “blowing up the phone,” trying to determine their location.

  “We had just gone to the mall,” Jamie recalled. “I guess she figured that Nick was hanging out with one of my girlfriends. That was her style, not mine.”

  Rachel would not be ignored. She texted Nick, saying she was going to kill herself. That brought the trio home. At Nick’s house, they discovered Rachel lying, passed-out, on the floor. There was a bunch of pills next to her. They had to take her to the hospital and have her stomach pumped.

  Later on, when the media was paying Rachel a lot of attention, she would claim that she’d never done any drugs—but Jamie knew for a fact that that wasn’t true.

  When Rachel lived with Nick, she definitely did coke, pills as well: “Roxies.” They were Roxicodone, a prescription painkiller containing codeine. In Pinellas Park, they were sometimes called “Blues.”

  The peacefulness between Jamie and Rachel only lasted until Jamie learned that Rachel was hooking her friends up with Jay. One day Jamie learned for a fact that Rachel’s friend Lisa Lafrance had “been with” Jay.

  Lisa wrote to Jamie on Myspace. The message went into graphic detail, explaining that Rachel had gotten them together and that Lisa and Jay had been “hanging out” every day.

  Lisa remembered the incident well, although she didn’t think it was fair to say that Rachel had put them together. Jay and Nick were friends. They hung out all of the time, and Rachel and Lisa hung out at Nick’s. When Rachel was with Nick, Lisa was with Jay. Rachel had nothing to do with fixing them up. They had not needed fixing up.

  When Jamie read what Lisa wrote on Myspace, she was pissed. Jamie and a seven-month-pregnant Erin Slothower were at the mall when they received a phone call, informing them that Lisa and Sarah wanted to fight them.

  “There were maybe fifteen people hanging out, outside Nick’s house,” Jamie recalled.

  According to Lisa, Jamie brought another friend with her: brass knuckles. “There was such animosity that I ended up fighting her, even though she had the brass knuckles on,” Lisa recalled.

  “Lisa and me had an actual physical fight,” Jamie said. “And Rachel tried to jump in. Jay pulled her off. Afterward, Ashley and Sarah were like, ‘We want to fight you.’ And all this while Erin was, like, seven months pregnant. There was a lot of fighting going on, leading up to what happened.”

  Jamie started in with Jay; and before long, Jay and Jamie were having a brawl, screaming and hitting each other. Rachel wanted part of this action.

  Rachel went outside and screamed to Jamie: “Come on outside and I’m going to beat your ass. You’re a psycho! Let’s get away from the house and I’ll beat your ass.”

  The cops were called. After being given a blow-by-blow description of events, Jay was arrested for abusing Jamie, his “underage girlfriend.” According to the police report, Jay grabbed Jamie by the neck and forced her to the ground. The girl was treated at the scene for minor injuries, bruises on her arms and neck, and declined a trip to the hospital. The fight, Jamie claimed at the time, started when Jay swiped the girl’s cell phone and her bottle of Roxies. When cops searched Jay, they found a pair of black brass knuckles in his back pocket.

  Rachel Wade was eager to tell police how she saw the events. She expressed her opinion that the girl got what she deserved and had struck Jay before he retaliated.

  A neutral passerby, who saw the incident, told police that it didn’t look to her like Jay was beating Jamie as much as he was trying to “fend her off.”

  With Jay’s permission, cops searched his room and found two bottles of prescription medication—methylphenidate (generic form of Ritalin) and acyclovir (a generic medication for herpes)—which were confiscated.

  As Sarah Ludemann would later learn, when Rachel had an enemy on speed dial, Rachel could be relentless. After the fight at Nick’s house, Jamie received phone call after phone call from Rachel, constantly challenging Jamie to a fight.

  “If you come anywhere near me, I am going to beat your ass,” Rachel would say.

  The night of the fight outside of Nick’s had historical importance because among the kids gathered, watching the action, was Sarah, who h
ad come in support of Lisa with her best friend, Ashley Lovelady, and Joshua Camacho.

  Why did Rachel react so strongly to the fight between Jay and Jamie? Jamie had a theory: “I think she was having sex with Jay when Nick wasn’t home. I’ve long thought they had a relationship going on. If so, that’s funny. I mean, that’s pretty nasty! Having sex with Jay and then going out with Joshua? Seems pretty nasty to me.”

  After that, it was never a good thing when Jamie ran into Rachel. Jamie went to Applebee’s with friends, and Rachel told Jamie right in front of everyone that Alliana wasn’t Jay Camacho’s baby. This was apparently a standard riff for Rachel, who also liked to tell Erin that her baby wasn’t Joshua’s.

  When it came to harassment, Rachel was a tenacious master. If you were on her shit list, she could completely tie up your cell phone, calling every minute for hours, leaving voice mails and sending texts. After a while, friends and recipients both had to wonder why she didn’t have something better to do. And the messages were disturbingly violent.

  These young women lived in an “I’m gonna kick your ass” world, but Rachel kicked it up a notch:

  I’m gonna slit your throat, she texted Jamie.

  I’m going to kill you, she told Erin.

  Sadly, Rachel’s bloody threats had a desensitizing effect. She was a barker, not a biter—a mouthy bitch. When she started in with that crap with Sarah, nobody blinked. It was just Rachel being Rachel.

  Jamie’s opinion of Joshua had changed over the years. At first, she thought he was pretty cool. Quiet and shy. He was a guy who “didn’t do nothing.” He stayed inside.

  The Camachos were a religious family. The parents were strict with their kids, who practically weren’t even allowed out of the house until they turned eighteen. As soon as Joshua came of age and was let out, “he took after his brother and became a player.”

  But now, Jamie didn’t think much of Joshua. He was a pint-sized mooch: “I don’t think he is good-looking,” she said of the bantamweight ladies’ man.

  What he did have, she conceded, was a seductive banter. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, he had his women believing they were each his one and only.

  Jamie did not believe that Joshua’s list of girlfriends stopped at three. Sure, there was Sarah, Rachel, and Erin, but she believed the list was longer than that, and that he took gifts from all of them. Like a small-time gigolo, he lived off his “friends.” They paid his bills and bought his clothes. That’s why he didn’t need to get a job.

  “His brother used to do that to me,” Jamie recalled. “He would be with the girl who had the most to give him.”

  For a busy guy like Joshua, the schedules of Sarah and Rachel were perfectly complementary. Sarah was available only during the early evening. She had a curfew and had to be home by eleven. Rachel was a waitress and worked at night, getting off work only after Sarah was back home.

  People thought Joshua enjoyed the fact that “his friends” were fighting over him. “He was just like every dude,” Jamie said. Well, not every dude, but most young guys. “He was a cheater. He cheated on girls. That was pretty much it.”

  And a beater. The brothers disciplined their women. Jay hit Jamie, and Jamie had seen Joshua hit Erin.

  Janet Wade called police about her daughter one more time, on December 11, 2007. She and Rachel had gotten into a fight, and Rachel had stormed out and gotten into a car with friends. Officer Benjamin Simpkins, who would later testify at Rachel Wade’s murder trial, answered the call. While he was talking to Janet, Rachel called her mom’s cell phone; Janet put Officer Simpkins on the line. Janet and Rachel decided that Rachel should stay with friends for a “cooling-off period,” after which they should try again to resolve their differences.

  On February 21, 2008, Sarah and Joshua were leaving a Pinellas Park movie theater, located on U.S. 19, when Erin Slothower and Jamie Severino accosted them. There was screaming, and Erin pushed Joshua. Cops were called.

  Years later, Erin remembered it this way: “I was up getting food at my job with Jamie. I was [eight months] pregnant and I saw them walking out of the movie theater and we started arguing because he said he was somewhere else. It was stupid.”

  Joshua was so upset about the way he’d been treated, he called the cops. He told Officer Scott Martin that his pregnant ex-girlfriend used “an open hand to push me backward.” After he was attacked, Joshua said, Erin and Jamie got into their car and left. Joshua had no visible injuries. In a separate interview, Sarah told Officer Martin a story that matched Joshua’s precisely. Joshua announced that he intended to get an injunction, preventing Erin from getting inside his personal space.

  Martin had heard of more impressive assaults, but Joshua pressed the matter and the incident would eventually be referred to the state attorney’s office.

  After taking the statements from Joshua and Sarah, Martin visited Erin and promptly read her Miranda rights to her. Erin said she understood and wanted to talk.

  “Joshua has been telling me that after the baby is born, he is going to take the baby away,” Erin explained. That was the issue she was confronting him with in the parking lot that evening. He was not getting the baby. She wanted to make sure that was clear.

  Lastly the cop interviewed Jamie Severino, who said that Erin really had no choice. Joshua was right in her face and screaming at her. She put her hand on his face and pushed him away. Joshua was lucky he didn’t get punched in the face. It wasn’t an attack at all, Severino explained. Erin was simply attempting to “create some space between the two of them.”

  Martin recommended that Erin be the one to file the injunction. He warned her to avoid contact with Joshua and to “refrain from future confrontations.”

  The state attorney’s office gave this a glance and decided not to prosecute Erin Slothower for the assault on Joshua Camacho.

  Erin didn’t care if it was over. There was a bond between her and Joshua that could never be broken. She had a great reason to fight over Joshua, with Joshua, or whatever she wanted to do. She’d been Joshua’s girlfriend since 1999, when the two went to elementary school together. He’d written her a note in class. It asked: Do you like me? She wrote yes. Now it was nine years later—and a difficult time for Erin. She was facing social ridicule.

  “I was harassed constantly” was how she put it—because she was having his baby. Plus she knew that being a mother was going to be expensive; and even though it was hard, she continued to work during the final trimester of her pregnancy—indeed right up until her due date.

  Predictably enough, life became even more complicated for Erin Slothower after Joshua’s baby was born: “After I had Jeremiah, my schedule was very hard. I got up and went to school at seven and got out at eleven. Then I went to my first job till five, then to my second till nine. Then I got to go home to my little man and study and play with him.”

  On the rainy afternoon of March 14, 2008, Sarah Ludemann was out with Joshua in her mom’s car on Forty-ninth Street in the southbound curb lane. Streets were wet and slippery, and they were rear-ended hard. It was Sarah’s second car accident in four months.

  The driver of the other car was David C. Tracy, who was cited by the responding officer with “careless driving.” Both Joshua and Sarah were taken to Bayfront Medical Center, complaining of neck injuries. They were checked out and released.

  On April 1, 2008, Officer Dean LoBianco, who would win that year’s PPPD Officer of the Year Award, answered a complaint of domestic disturbance. A couple sounded like they were beating the crap out of one another on Sixty-third Lane.

  It was early for this sort of call, only six-thirty in the evening. On his way to the address, Officer LoBianco was informed by dispatch that the woman involved, Rachel Wade, had left the residence on foot. The cop found her only a couple of blocks away, upset and crying, explaining that she and her off-and-on boyfriend, Nick, had just had a fight.

  “Why did you go see Nick today?” LoBianco asked.

 
; Rachel explained she wanted to discuss some ongoing difficulties that she and Nick were having with their relationship. They were in the bedroom when the argument started.

  “What was the argument about?”

  “Nick said he didn’t like some of the people I’d been hanging out with.” Rachel admitted that she was the first to get physical. She pushed him and hit him. He pushed her back.

  Nick grabbed Rachel’s cell phone and walked right out of the house with it. She followed, right outside and into the street, where she grabbed him by the back of his shirt and ripped it. Once the shirt started ripping, she couldn’t stop ripping it, and she didn’t stop until the shirt ripped off Nick’s back.

  “The only reason I even touched his shirt was to get my cell phone back!” Rachel said.

  Nick called 911 and she split.

  That brought LoBianco up to date. The officer took some pictures of Rachel’s injuries.

  Rachel waited in the cop car while the cop spoke to Nick, who gave the same story: Rachel struck first, and she tore his shirt. Since Rachel was the aggressor, the cop arrested Rachel and transported her to the Pinellas County Jail.

  The case was promptly sent to the state attorney’s office, which rapidly ruled that charges against Rachel be dropped because there was “no reasonable likelihood of a successful prosecution.”

  At seven-thirty in the evening, on June 13, 2008, Officer Shaun Grantham answered a call from Ashley Lovelady. Her car had been vandalized. Ashley said her best friend, Sarah Ludemann, had borrowed her car, a 1995 blue Honda Accord. Sarah needed the car to go to the Camacho house and talk with Joshua. While she was there, the side mirrors had been kicked off the Accord. Sarah said Jay Camacho did it—Jay being Ashley’s ex-boyfriend.

  Officer Grantham located and interviewed Sarah, who said she’d gone to visit Joshua because she needed to have a talk about their relationship. What she got was a visit with both Joshua and Jay on the front lawn. An argument ensued, and Jay was already feeling hostile when he noticed that it was Ashley’s car parked in his driveway. He went over to the car to see if Ashley was in it. When he found it empty, he kicked off the mirrors, allowing them to hang.