…
quite accept it. -And I repeatedly, repeatedly called Gloria’s phone
over and over again, no answer, no answer, no answer, and then I called her dad. And then he finally answered. And I remember asking him,
“Is it true? “Is she gone? Is it true?”
And he… …he said, “Yeah, she’s gone.” -Greer took us to the scene
and walked us through what he learned
from investigators. -This would have been
gravel shoulder. And somewhere in here, he pinches her vehicle off and she’s no longer able
to — to move forward. He’s blocking her. -Gloria says the man
is her boyfriend but does not give a name. -He gets out of the vehicle and if you’ve heard
the 911 call, she describes exactly
what — what he’s doing. -Greer says
the shooter was standing next to Gloria’s
driver’s side window. The door was locked. -He’s not trying to talk to her,
he immediately starts — -He’s there to kill her.
He is there to kill her. -After firing nine
.40 caliber bullets through the door
and window of Gloria’s truck, Greer says the shooter
begins to drive away. As he does,
Gloria’s truck moves forward until it hits a utility pole, as shown in this
police animation. Greer believes the truck moved
because Gloria’s foot was no longer applying
pressure to the brake. -He doesn’t know
whether she’s alive or not, is what we believe
is going through his mind, because the vehicle’s
no longer where it was, that’s 60 yards west of where it
was when he first shot her. -The shooter makes a U-turn and comes back around
to Gloria’s truck. He pulls his truck alongside so that his driver’s side window
is now next to hers, and this time he does not bother to get out of his car,
Greer says. -And he rolls his window down,
five more shots just to make sure. Nine wasn’t enough,
five more. Then after he’s finished that,
he immediately takes off. -After firing 14 shots and hitting Gloria
at least ten times, prosecutors say the shooter
disappears into the night. The first big break in the case came from one of the first
officers at the crime scene. -One of the officers,
she notices this lanyard that’s on Gloria,
and then she sees her name and that hits her hard. -Gloria’s lanyard was
from a nearby Holiday Inn, where she was the manager. Just days earlier, that officer
took a report from Gloria after she called 911. Gloria said her ex-boyfriend
had been following and harassing her,
and now they had a name — Billy Rickman. -And that becomes a lead… …to understanding
what happened. -Greer says
a detective subpoenaed Rickman’s phone records. Even without having his phone, police were able to read
his text messages. -At one point,
he says where he is, and it’s the Home Motel. -The detective rushed
to the motel, which is a six-minute drive
from the murder scene. Greer says the desk clerk
told the detective that days earlier, Rickman attempted to sign in
with a fake name, but the clerk insisted
on proof of identity. -We have him
on surveillance video getting back to the motel. -That was after the shooting,
says prosecutor Coreen Schnepf. -He appears in a hurry, he gets out of his vehicle,
and he immediately starts wiping down the side
of the vehicle that might have any kind of evidence
of gunpowder residue. You can see him on the phone. He’s contacting people. -She says investigators
began checking surveillance from several businesses
in the area and got another break
at a nearby car rental business. -This picture is very clear. -Enterprise had great video. -Here, there’s no denying who
that is looking at that, yeah. Rickman rented a Chevy Colorado
using his real name. It is the same vehicle
in the motel video and the same
vehicle police believe Rickman used to run
Gloria off the road. The Lakewood police put out
an alert for Billy Rickman, but in the days that followed,
he was nowhere to be found. -She was a part of my family, and my whole family knew her,
and they loved her. -With Billy Rickman on the run, police questioned
Gloria’s friend Brieanna Eberly about Rickman’s relationship
with Gloria. Brieanna had known Gloria
since 2018, when she hired her to help out
at the Oyo Hotel, which was owned
by Gloria’s parents. -She wanted to
please her parents to the best of her ability. She was their lifeline. She did it all
and she did it all with grace. Absolute grace. -Gloria was the single mother
of a seven-year-old. -It was all about her kid. She was very fierce
when it came to her son. -And in May 2021, Billy Rickman checked into
the hotel from California, a mystery man with
a larger-than-life personality. Brieanna says
it didn’t take long for Rickman to notice Gloria. -Gloria was coming
into the office, he walked up
and introduced himself. He’s like, “You’re very pretty.” And she goes, “Well, thank you.” She walked away
and he’s like, “Who’s that?” And I’m like,
“Her name’s Gloria, stay away.” -But Rickman did not
“stay away,” and before long,
the two were texting a lot. -She liked the way
he talked to her and the things that
he said to her. All she wanted to do
was be loved by somebody. -“And Rickman made it seem
like he could be that guy,” says Meaghan Driscoll,
the Choi family’s lawyer. -He really came across
as this nice guy, love-bombed her,
meaning he’s giving her gifts and kind of showering her
with kindness. -Weeks after meeting her,
Rickman sent Gloria this text. -How was he with her son? Gloria’s friend, Jacob Blue. -What she liked about Rickman is that he had a lot
of masculine energy that he was showing him. -Billy and her son
had a very instant connection because he was like
a kid himself, you know? -Within weeks, Gloria
and Rickman became a couple, and he began staying in
her apartment at the Oyo Hotel. Brieanna says Gloria’s father did not approve
of the relationship. -And her parents
basically drew a red line and said he can’t be staying
here at the hotel anymore. -Gloria’s father
wanted him to move out. -And Rickman went
and approached her parents and told them,
he’s not going anywhere and that Gloria is now his, and if they don’t like it,
they can leave. -Wow. -Her dad basically
gave her an ultimatum. She could stay on
as the manager, or she could leave and she chose to leave. -Gloria, her son, and Rickman
moved to an apartment in the town of Tumwater
in September 2021, and her heartbroken parents
chose to sell their hotel. That’s when Gloria
took a new job as manager of the Holiday Inn
Express in Lakewood, right next to Tacoma. -She was still very happy
with what she had, but it didn’t last long,
that happiness. -Gloria told Brieanna
that Rickman had big dreams, but no way of
making them come true. -And Gloria’s like, “Well,
who’s going to fund all of this? You’re not.
You don’t have a job. “Get a job,” you know? And he refused. -So was he asking her for money? -Oh, yeah. He drained her. She bought everything. -Within weeks, Gloria saw
a different side of Rickman. She told Brieanna he was
often mean, angry, and insecure. Gloria also told Brieanna that
Rickman was drinking to excess and using cocaine and marijuana. What did you tell her? -Uh, “Leave.” “Run away.” -Gloria chose to stay
with Rickman, but two months later,
in November, Jacob says he got
a troubling call. -She did express that he
would become physical with her, push her around,
throw her around, and that she didn’t feel safe just breaking things off
with him. -Jacob told Gloria she needed
to leave him immediately. But Gloria said she was
afraid that might trigger something inside Rickman. -She didn’t know how
she was going to leave Billy. She was scared to leave him. -What scared her? -Possessiveness. He knew everywhere she went. -She felt that he was
tracking her every move. -She found a tag… …in her car. -An AirTag?
-Mm-hmm. She’s the one that
told me about it later on. -And Gloria suspected
there were other hidden Apple AirTags in her truck. Are you concerned
for your friend at this point? -Absolutely. -In November 2021,
just six months after they met. Brieanna says Gloria made up
her mind to leave Rickman. -She looked at me dead in the face and said,
“I’m leaving.” And I asked her,
you know, “What’s your plan?” She goes,
“I’m going to go to my parents.” -Her parents welcomed Gloria
and her son into their home. But it was not so easy
to get rid of Rickman. He had borrowed Gloria’s truck
and refused to give it back. So, on November 28th, Gloria went to
the Tumwater police to file a report
about the truck and while she was there,
she told the officer taking the report about Rickman. “When Billy is sober,
he is calm, but when he drinks he has
a short fuse and is very angry. I wish him well,
but choosing to not be a part of his life anymore for the safety and stability
for my son and I.” Attorney Meaghan Driscoll,
who represents the Choi family, said it was clear
the Tumwater officer believed Gloria was at risk. The officer reported
that Rickman was potentially tracking Gloria
with Apple AirTags, owned numerous firearms, and appeared to be
extremely manipulative. -He actually becomes
really concerned for her and her safety, so the officer actually tells Gloria
and tells the court to issue a domestic violence
no-contact order. -Almost immediately,
Rickman was arrested for taking Gloria’s truck, and he agreed to
this recorded interview. -Rickman was jailed for three
days for taking Gloria’s truck and on December 1st, 2021,
he was brought before a judge who slapped him with
a strict no-contact order. But Brieanna says
the order did not faze Rickman. The day he got out of jail, he told Brieanna he was
unconcerned with the legalities. -He didn’t care. He was like, “So?” “I’m still going to
talk to her.” -In early December 2021, Gloria Choi was back
living with her parents, hoping she had rid herself of
Billy Rickman once and for all. But Brieanna said
Rickman had other ideas as he told her the day
he got out of jail for taking Gloria’s truck,
which had been returned to her. -Billy showed up at my place and he’s like,
“I need your help.” And he begged me to talk to her
about getting back together. He said that he would change. He, you know,
would stop drinking. He would be
a better person to her. And in the back of my mind,
I’m like, “no.” -You didn’t believe him then?
-I didn’t. -And what’s your understanding
of a no-contact order? -No-contact order means
you can’t come in contact with that person. Text, phone calls, physical
location, anything of that sort. -And if you do, what happens?
-You go to jail. -Brieanna told Rickman
that he’d be arrested if he broke any
of those conditions. But two weeks later,
she got a call from a friend telling her Gloria
was hiding from Rickman in the bathroom
of this coffee shop. Brieanna wasted no time
getting there. -As I was pulling in, I saw Billy Rickman’s car was parked over there. We made eye contact. I went to the bathroom
and knocked on the door and she opened it. She knew that Billy was here. -It was another
reminder to Gloria that Rickman seemed to be
tracking her every move. And you said she was
very emotional and locked into the bathroom. -She was petrified.
She was crying. She was shaking. She refused to come out
until she knew he was gone. -It’s not clear
if police were ever called. Three days later, Brieanna said
that Gloria told her that Rickman confronted her
in the Capital Mall while she was shopping
with her son. Brieanna said Gloria told her
that Rickman pleaded with her to drop the no-contact order… …but she refused. -He was putting himself
in her path so that he could rekindle
the lost relationship. -That lost relationship,
says prosecutor Coreen Schnepf, was on Rickman’s mind
when he made these cell phone videos
directed at Gloria. -You can see the videos
that he created to try and make her feel bad
about leaving him. -Prosecutors say
everything came to a head on the last two days of 2021. It started on December 30th, when Rickman
sent Gloria an email after he spotted her with
Jacob Blue at a coffee shop. And I guess Rickman did write
an email to Gloria that read, “You left me for another guy,
wow.” -Correct. -The email was sent
in real time, and Gloria began getting
calls from a blocked number. When she answered,
Rickman was on the line yelling at her,
according to Jacob. -He believed that this
Jacob Blue was a — you know,
potential boyfriend. -They moved on
to a sushi restaurant, but Gloria was becoming
increasingly bothered by the headlights of a car, which were pointed
at the restaurant. And Jacob says Gloria believed
Rickman was behind the wheel. -She says, “I know that car, and I know that
it’s watching us right now.” And she got
really uncomfortable. -Jacob says they left
the restaurant and discovered someone
had stolen their computers from Gloria’s truck. They also discovered one of
her truck’s tires was slashed. Gloria called the police
and asked for their help. It was the first
of four calls about Rickman over a 48-hour period. -Okay. -And did Gloria express that
she thought it was Rickman? -She was confident
it was Rickman. -Gloria told police that only Rickman knew
the truck’s keypad code to gain entry. She gave them a description
of his black BMW and told the officer about
the no-contact order. The officer said he left
Rickman a voicemail message letting him know the police
wanted to speak with him. Gloria and Jacob
then drove to the Holiday Inn to retrieve Jacob’s Jeep. And that’s when Jacob discovered that two of his tires
had been slashed. -This is a snowy night.
There’s snow on the ground. -Gloria took
this cell phone video following the footsteps
she thought were Rickman’s. -Because Gloria managed
that Holiday Inn, she was able to get
the surveillance footage. These videos have never been
seen by the public before now. -We see a man come in and sneak in
through the shadows. He comes up to my jeep and he punctures both my tires and — and walks off. -They called police
a second time and gave them the video. Both Jacob and Gloria
identified the man as Billy Rickman
by his distinctive walk. But officers said
the video was not clear enough to make an arrest. -And the police were like,
“I’m sorry. Without us being
able to see his face, there’s really not
a whole lot to go off of. Not much we can do.” -The next day was
December 31st, New Year’s Eve. Jacob returned to his Jeep
with two new tires. That’s when he
and Gloria discovered the other two tires
were now slashed. That prompted
a third call to 911. Once again,
the surveillance footage showed the man Jacob and Gloria believed was Rickman
slashing the tires, but police again said
the video was not clear enough for them to make
an identification. Then on New Year’s Eve,
there was a fourth call to 911, this time by the desk clerk
at the Holiday Inn. He spotted
the tire slasher again, puncturing the tires
on Jacob’s Jeep. The desk clerk chased after him,
recording this video at the
same time he was calling 911. -Police say Rickman was driving
that same Chevy Colorado when he ran Gloria off the road, murdered her, then escaped into the night. -Billy Rickman was able
to elude police for four days
until January 6th, 2022. That’s when prosecutor
Greg Greer says law enforcement
tracked his phone to Humboldt County
in Northern California, where Rickman turned up drunk
at a relative’s house. -This relative did not want
Mr. Rickman staying with him. This relative offered to take
Mr. Rickman to a nearby casino and put him up
at the casino in a hotel. -Rickman’s relative,
driving his black BMW, was stopped by tribal police, and they contacted
the California Highway Patrol, who rushed to the scene. Police say Rickman,
as seen in this dash cam video, shoved his relative
out of the driver’s seat and onto the pavement,
gunned the engine and took off. -He’s got enough
of a head start and they actually
don’t find him. They — they lose him. -Rickman wandered around
in the darkness for about five hours
on the wet, cold night before being found
and taken into custody. -Mr. Rickman is soaking wet,
freezing cold, hypothermic. -Rickman was charged with
aggravated first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty. Some 250 miles south, a woman who says
she knew firsthand just how dangerous Rickman was received a phone call. -The officer from the Oakland
Police Department called me, and when I answered the phone,
she told me Billy’s been arrested. -This is Aja Houle, who had filed a police report
about Rickman. She says Rickman
forced her into prostitution and sexually assaulted her when she was
a 14-year-old runaway living in Oakland in 2005. -I’m a survivor
of human trafficking and Billy Rickman
was my trafficker. -Aja says
she endured years of abuse before she nearly was killed
after Rickman choked her with a strand of
Christmas tree lights. -Like, I could not breathe. Like, it was very scary. I was terrified. -She escaped to San Francisco. -It was one of the best
moments of my life, but also one of
the most terrifying because I felt free, but I also felt so much fear because I had crossed him and I knew what
he was capable of. -Shortly after leaving, Aja called a girlfriend
who was living with Rickman. -He took the phone out
of her hand when I called her to check on her once and said, “Bitch, if I ever find you,
I will kill you.” And I knew that he meant it. I never, ever
saw that as a threat. Like, I saw that as a promise
because he would. He would kill me. He was livid. -Aja says she always
wanted justice, but it was only while
completing her education and pursuing a master’s degree
in public affairs from the University
of California at Berkeley, that she found the courage
to file that report with the Oakland Police. It detailed multiple alleged
incidents of Rickman’s abuse, including hitting her
with closed fists on the face and body and causing her
to sustain a black eye, bruises and cuts to the face. -I wanted him held
accountable for what he did. -Oakland police put out
an arrest warrant for Rickman in 2021 in Alameda County, but by that time
he had left California. Washington state prosecutors say
they never saw the warrant. -I was angry and upset
because he could have been stopped beforehand. I blamed myself
in some kind of way. -But Aja still wanted to help. She emailed the prosecutors
working on the Gloria Choi murder
and offered to give them information about Rickman. But prosecutors demurred, saying they wanted to keep their
case focused on Gloria’s murder. -That wasn’t really part
of our case, so we didn’t follow up
on that particular element. -Rickman’s trial
for the murder of Gloria Choi began in November 2023, before a jury of nine men
and three women. Gloria’s family were too
devastated to attend the trial. -They moved out of town
without a word, and we didn’t get to
say goodbye. But I understood why. -Prosecutor Greer wanted the
jury to understand why as well. So he played
Gloria’s 911 call in its entirety right after
the opening statements. -You could tell the whole
courtroom was, you know, different while that
was being played. -The prosecution methodically
laid out its case to the jury with all the audio and video
evidence they’d collected. -What you’re about to see
is a compilation of information from
the defendant’s cell phone, as well as surveillance videos that we have
at the various locations. What you’re going to see first
is some GPS coordinates. -Schnepf says Rickman
could no longer follow Gloria after he slashed Gloria’s tires and put her truck —
with those AirTags — out of commission. -As soon as he slashed
the tires on Gloria’s vehicle, he could no longer track her. -Rickman was forced to more
or less guess where Gloria was, and in the days that followed,
Schnepf says, he spent a lot of time sitting
outside her parents house where she was living. So all of this is breaking
this no-contact order, right? -Yeah, he —
probably every letter of the the no-contact order
he violated. -He’s just constantly
going back to her house. -Back and forth. Back and forth. -Is she there,
is she at her house? It’s crazy to see this
like this. Sometime around 6 p.m.
on January 2nd, the night of Gloria’s murder. Schnepf says Rickman
turned off his cell phone and didn’t turn it back on
until he was at the Home Motel immediately after the murder. -The fact that
he doesn’t turn his phone off, except for at the time point
of the murder, helps us to show
that it was him. -To buttress their case, prosecutors put
Brieanna Eberly on the stand. -I remember
looking over at him, seeing him look at her picture. He started to cry, and I remember
it made me so angry. I had never felt
so furious in my life. Billy didn’t just take
Gloria’s physical life. Billy took everything… …took a daughter, a mother, a friend, a sister, a cousin. He took it all in a blink
of an eye with no… …no regard. -The loss of Gloria Choi
weighed heavily on Greg Greer as the prosecution ended. He knew this was going to be
the last case of his career. He was surveilling.
He was stalking. He was hunting that night. -Absolutely. -And Greg Greer was confident
he’d proven that to the jury. When it was time to present
Billy Rickman’s defense, his lawyer did not call
any witnesses and did not put Rickman
on the stand. He argued in his closing
that investigators failed to look at any
other possible suspects, said prosecutor Greg Greer. -The defense tried
to make a case that somebody else did it. -Rickman’s defense attorney
told jurors that the police
investigation was incomplete because Gloria never named
Rickman on her 911 call, and instead described the person who hit her car only
as her boyfriend. -The trial lasted two weeks. It only took the jury
about two hours to reach their verdict — guilty of aggravated murder. Rickman was sentenced
to life in prison without the possibility
of parole. -Law enforcement
didn’t take any steps to locate or arrest Rickman in
the days before Gloria’s death. -Gloria’s parents believe
Gloria should still be alive, says Meaghan Driscoll. She has filed
a wrongful death suit on behalf of Gloria’s son against the city of Lakewood
and its police department. -They wanted accountability
for what happened to their daughter and their
sister and their loved one, and they believed
that it was mismanaged and mishandled
by law enforcement. This woman was
deprived of justice and should not have been killed. -Driscoll says one of
the ironies of the case is that the prosecution
used Rickman’s egregious stalking as evidence to help them secure
the homicide conviction. So that very same evidence that was presented
in the homicide trial, you’re now using your
wrongful death lawsuit to show what you believe is
the Lakewood police not doing their jobs. -Right, I mean, this death was
incredibly foreseeable. And we know that
from the prosecution. We know that the jury
convicted him. This wasn’t a mystery
of who did this or why. Um, it was as foreseeable
as it was preventable. -You’re focused
on Lakewood Police and what they did
and did not do. So outline for us
what should they have done? Plain and simple. -Plain and simple,
Lakewood PD should have found Rickman and arrested him
to protect Gloria. -My name is Russ Hicks. I’m a retired
law enforcement officer. I was a lead instructor
for domestic violence for many years. -Russ Hicks was hired by
Driscoll as an expert witness, in part because he has a
special connection to the case. -So I know they received
the proper training because I was their instructor
at the police academy, and I taught the three officers
that were involved in this case. -And Hicks says those
officers failed Gloria. One example —
one of the Lakewood officers says he left a voicemail
for Rickman, which Hicks considers a mistake. -I think it conveys a message that we’re not taking
this seriously and we’re not looking for you, just saying that
we’d like to talk to you. -And the sad irony of it is when you call
a domestic violence perpetrator like Rickman, that actually
just escalates the danger to the victim even more. -That officer says
he drove around looking for Rickman’s BMW, but Driscoll says there is
no police record of that. Driscoll also says
Gloria told the officer she believed Rickman
was staying at a nearby motel. And as it turned out,
the Home Motel is only a six minute walk
from the Holiday Inn. -It would have been
so easy to find him because he was there
to be found. -Driscoll also says
officers failed Gloria by not following up
on the detailed description of the truck
Rickman was driving, given to them by the desk clerk
at the Holiday Inn. -In normal law
enforcement practice, they should send out a bolo
or be on the lookout saying “This is a beige Chevy
Colorado, broken taillights. Look for this guy.” They didn’t do that.
He was half a block away. -Some 48 hours before
her murder, Driscoll says Gloria
gave one of the officers a comprehensive
seven page document. In it,
Gloria details the many times she said Rickman violated the no-contact order — his emails, his calls
and a still frame from one of
the Holiday Inn videos. Even with that report in hand, Driscoll says police took
no action. -They had everything they
needed and more to arrest him. -In addressing the Choi
family’s wrongful death lawsuit, a city lawyer told a judge
in January 2025 the police have
no obligation to go and arrest someone like Rickman
if he is not at the scene. At that hearing, the judge asked
the city’s lawyer… The city’s lawyer answered,
“That’s correct.” John Justice, the attorney
representing the city and the Lakewood
Police Department, said he could not comment
on pending litigation. Tell me a little bit about
how she changed your life. -She always reminded me
that I was a good person no matter what,
and that I was a good mom because I doubted myself a lot. And she reminded me every day
that I was good. -How much did that
change you in your self-worth? -So much. More than I could
probably describe. It gave me hope. -Prosecutor Greg Greer
retired in 2024. He’s still trying to,
in his words, find his way back to humanity
and forget the violence that surrounded him
for so many years. But he’s still haunted
by Gloria’s last words on that 911 call. -I did learn
the Korean language while I was in —
in the Air Force, and I could hear very clearly
Gloria calling for her mother. -And what is the word
that you hear? -It’s “Eomma, Eomma” Um, and she’s just
frantically — desperation calling
for her mother. Tells you a lot
about human nature. And yeah, it’s one of the
saddest things you’ll ever hear.
