Friendship Turns Deadly In East Bay Murder
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- A 23-year-old Oakland woman has been charged with luring her friend to a wooded area in East Oakland where she was murdered and her body set ablaze, authorities said.
Prosecutors has not said why Postal worker Laura Rodgers lured her friend -- Alameda County Sheriff's Department volunteer Karla Ramirez -- to a wooded
Rodgers and her boyfriend -- fellow Postal worker Curtys Entoine Taylor -- were arraigned this Monday afternoon on murder charged in connection with Ramirez's death.
Ramirez was a volunteer with the sheriff's explorer program, whose participants often go on to become law enforcement officers. She had last been seen at about 10 p.m. on Wednesday when she dropped off a friend on 136th Avenue in San Leandro.
Deputies located her vehicle at about 12:30 a.m. last Thursday near Happyland Avenue and West A Street in Hayward, near Interstate Highway 880, but she has no known friends in that area, according to the sheriff's office.
Oakland police Sgt. Leo Sanchez wrote in a probable cause statement that officers who located Ramirez's body observed that she had sustained multiple stab wounds and had been set on fire.
Investigators learned that before Ramirez disappeared she was possibly going to meet with a friend later identified as Rodgers.
When investigators arrested Rodgers late Thursday night, she told them she had planned for several days to kill Ramirez and had discussed her plan with Taylor, according to Oakland police Sgt. Leo Sanchez.
Ramirez picked up Rodgers and Rodgers then lured her to drive to Arroyo Park and directed her to the creek area. Taylor told investigators after he was arrested early Friday morning that he was aware that Rodgers planned to kill Ramirez and had discussed that plan with her.
Taylor said he bought the gasoline can and the gas that were used to ignite and burn Ramirez and strategically placed the gas can and a box of matches near the creek, Sanchez wrote.
Taylor then waited for Rodgers, who is his girlfriend, to arrive with Ramirez and once Rodgers began assaulting Ramirez he helped her kill Ramirez and drove away with her afterward in Ramirez's car, Sanchez said.
Taylor told police that he and Rodgers discarded evidence, such as the knife, gas can, the clothing that Rodgers was wearing and Ramirez's belongings into a trash dumpster at the Days Inn in Hayward, according to Sanchez.
Police were later able to recover that evidence.
The charging documents indicate that authorities think Sanchez was killed sometime before midnight on Wednesday, as the date of her death is listed as Nov. 2.
In addition to murder, Rodgers is charged with use of a deadly weapon for allegedly using a knife to kill Ramirez.
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