Pod Insights Betrayal Ramon | Featured on ABC's Betrayal: Secrets and Lies About this episode You can now watch Ramon’s story on TV! Check out Betrayal: Secrets and Lies. Episodes air every Sunday at 10pm EST/9pm CST on ABC.
Ramon discovers a dark secret that threatens everything, including his own life.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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3:03 Speaker 00 Hi, it's Andrea and we are re-releasing some of our past weekly episodes and there's a good reason why. For the last year, I have been working with ABC on turning some of your favorite episodes of Betrayal Weekly into a TV show. The show is called Betrayal, Secrets and Lies and it airs every Sunday at 10:00 PM on ABC. When Ramon shared his story on Betrayal Weekly, it felt different, not just because of what he went through, but because of who was telling it. At the time, we weren't hearing many men speak openly about betrayal. And for a lot of men, there's this unspoken pressure to stay quiet, to move on, to not name the hurt. Ramon chose to do the opposite.
3:46 Speaker 00 He chose to speak up, to be honest, to be vulnerable about something deeply personal. And that choice had a ripple effect. After his episode aired, more men wrote in, more stories came forward because for the first time, they saw themselves in someone else's experience. Ramon helped create that space. And what makes his story even more powerful is what he had built, a life rooted in purpose, mentoring young boxers, creating community, finding love, until someone from his past walked back in and everything unraveled. What happened to Ramon is heartbreaking, but the impact of him speaking out, it's bigger than just one story. So please check out Betrayal, Secrets and Lies on ABC and Hulu to see Ramon and where
4:31 Speaker 00 his story takes place. Enjoy the episode.
4:35 Speaker 04 They take me in a blacked out SUV to this location where they had already dug out this shallow grave. When I get there, they tell me, okay, I need you to strip down to your underwear. They showed me how to pose with my hands bowed behind my back and I looked like I was a little bit swollen. They put more blood on me and they even threw dirt on me, which I thought it was so degrading. And closed my eyes. The only thing that I could remember was the sound of the 35 millimeter as it went around me, just clicking, taking pictures of me.
5:25 Speaker 00 I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Ramon's suicide story is one of those stranger than fiction kind of tales. It's a betrayal that threatens everything, including Ramon's life. Ramon grew up in Puerto Rico, the only son in a traditional and tight knit family. Ramon idolized his father, who was a professional wrestler.
5:55 Speaker 04 Like the kind you see on WWE and WWF. And I used to see him on TV all the time in Puerto Rico. He was big, muscular and had this aura about him when he walked into the room.
6:09 Speaker 00 As a kid, Ramon tagged along with his dad to the gym and it was there where he fell in love with what he calls the real thing, boxing.
6:19 Speaker 04 I started boxing about seven years old in Puerto Rico. That was my life. School, boxing, home, school, boxing, home. That was it. Takes a lot of discipline in boxing if you want to do it right and that's what it taught me.
6:33 Speaker 00 And all of that discipline started to pay off for Ramon. He fought in hundreds of amateur matches as a teenager and he was winning a lot.
6:42 Speaker 04 A lot of the trainers that worked with me, they said that I had a lot of natural talent and people started saying, man, you'll be good when you grow up. For my size, I hit very hard.
6:53 Speaker 00 He's careful to point out that even though he was a champion in the ring, he never fought outside of it. He felt like it was his responsibility as an athlete to maintain a strong sense of right and wrong.
7:06 Speaker 04 I don't fight in the street. Boxing is a skill. And when you get in that ring, it's like a chess match.
7:12 Speaker 00 He dreamed of going pro and taking care of his family. The Sosa's moved from Puerto Rico to Houston, Texas, when Ramon was a teenager. After sweeping the amateur leagues, Ramon went pro.
7:25 Speaker 04 My father actually had to sign my contract to turn pro because I was underage.
7:30 Speaker 00 He was a professional boxer for a few years before he eventually settled into a new career, coaching and training young boxers in the US.
7:39 Speaker 04 But when it turned into a business and you see like everybody wants to make money from you, everybody wants a piece of the pie. It was tough and it started getting to me.
7:50 Speaker 00 In his early twenties, he fell in love and got married. He and his first wife had three kids.
7:56 Speaker 04 I mean, praise to all the mothers that stay at home with their kids because you know what? That is a tough, tough job. It's a full-time job.
8:04 Speaker 00 Raising three kids together strained their relationship. They moved to Houston to be closer to Ramon's parents. That's where he still lives today. But even with his parents' help, Ramon and his first wife knew that they weren't a match. They needed to separate.
8:20 Speaker 04 It did not work out. Even though we couldn't work it out, we did the best that we could for our kids. And to this day, you know, now we have grandkids together. So I respect that she respects me.
8:31 Speaker 00 Ramon missed being a full-time dad. With more free time on his hands, he decided to start a nonprofit, an after-school boxing program for at-risk youths.
8:43 Speaker 04 You know, we'll pick him up after school, take him to the gym. Then we get a snack, homework help, and then boxing. And then we also talked about life situations.
8:54 Speaker 00 He loved being involved with the community and helping kids who needed a positive influence in their lives. That's how he met a close friend.
9:02 Speaker 04 His name is Mundo. That's not his real name. That's the name that he went by.
9:06 Speaker 00 As a teenager, Mundo had been involved with a gang and went to prison. Now that he was out, he was turning his life around, looking for a purpose. Always loved boxing. He saw a sign about the after-school program and he asked Ramon if he could volunteer.
9:22 Speaker 04 And he said, ah, can I start today? I said, start today? He said, right off the bat, he said, yeah, I want to start today. So he went to his truck, got some workout clothes and he went running with my kids.
9:32 Speaker 00 Mundo kept coming back day after day and Ramon liked how he related to the kids. He was honest with them about the bad choices he'd made.
9:42 Speaker 04 He had all these tattoos with his gang name on his back. He never hardly ever took off his shirt because he didn't want people to see that kind of stuff and the kids to see that kind of stuff. And that's what I liked about him, that he mentors so many kids in the gym to not go through the same thing that he went through.
9:57 Speaker 00 Ramon and Mundo became close friends. They ran the after-school program together and Mundo even started working alongside Ramon at his day job, training professional boxers.
10:09 Speaker 04 He became kind of like my right-hand man and I would tell people when he went to the boxing tournaments and shows with me. There, this is my other son, you know, it's my third son. And he became really, really close to me and he called me pops because I was like a father figure to him.
10:23 Speaker 00 Ramon and Mundo worked side by side, training professionals and then running the after-school program. It went on like this for years. That was until Mundo got married and had a kid of his own and Ramon moved to the other side of the city. Eventually, the two slowly fell out of touch. Ramon was now seven years out from his divorce and he wanted to find someone to share his life with. That's when a friend told him about a new dance club in Houston.
10:54 Speaker 04 He goes, you know, they play that salsa, merengue, you know, that kind of stuff that you like. I want to go check it out. I hear there's a lot of beautiful ladies there too.
11:01 Speaker 00 It was a Saturday night and a weekend where Ramon didn't have his kids, so he decided to go check it out.
11:10 Speaker 04 I mean, it was packed. It was going on, you know, and music was the kind of music that I liked and the dance floor was packed.
11:18 Speaker 04 There she was.
11:20 Speaker 00 He was mesmerized by this one woman on the dance floor.
11:25 Speaker 04 So I kept looking at this lady on the dance floor. She danced very, very well. And I'm thinking like, wow, she looks Colombian or from the Caribbean. The way she's dancing, she was wearing a tight, mini black dress. It looked like it was painted on her. Beautiful olive skin. She had long, black hair. Next thing I know, I see her walking towards me. And I said, okay, I'm trying to be cool about it. And she steps on my toe. She had high heels on and it must have been three inch heels. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I just went down. I had a beer, I just went down. And she starts telling me in Spanish, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but you okay? And let me tell you, all I could do was just look up,
12:09 Speaker 04 stand my hand and say, would you dance with me? And she said, of course I'd dance with you. And that's when it all started.
12:18 Speaker 00 Her name was Lulu.
12:21 Speaker 04 Her real name is Maria de Lourdes. She went by Lulu.
12:24 Speaker 00 They had an instant connection. After that night on the dance floor, Ramon and Lulu started going on dates. And she admitted she hadn't stepped on Ramon's toe by accident.
12:36 Speaker 04 She said, yeah, I did that on purpose. I wanted to get to know you.
12:39 Speaker 00 And that's exactly what they did.
12:41 Speaker 04 We had a lot in common. She told me that she was divorced, mother of two, had recently moved to Texas from Mexico City for a better life for herself and her kids.
12:53 Speaker 00 After a few dates, Ramon explained to Lulu that his career as a boxing coach was very demanding. It meant working late nights and traveling to tournaments on the weekends. He knew it was the kind of schedule that could make dating difficult, if not impossible. But it didn't scare Lulu off. She was supportive of his career and she wanted to help him succeed.
13:14 Speaker 04 She started going to those tournaments with me, sit there the whole time, supporting me, helping me with the kids. And I liked that about her.
13:21 Speaker 00 Just like Ramon, Lulu was a hard worker.
13:24 Speaker 04 The way she was making ends meet to try to take care of her family was working underground. She would clean houses.
13:32 Speaker 00 Lulu was determined to become a US citizen. In addition to cleaning houses and raising her kids, she went to night school to improve her English.
13:42 Speaker 04 And I would help her too, you know, talking to her in English when I could. She was telling me, "Just talk to me more in English because I want to learn English."
13:49 Speaker 00 Ramon was impressed. They both had young kids from their previous marriages. After about six months of dating, they started getting to know each other's families.
13:59 Speaker 04 There was family gatherings on her side and my side. Lulu was always there helping out, cleaning, helping, you know, with the food. She was always very helpful with everybody. And my mother and family, they liked her. They saw how she treated me. And they saw that I had been alone for seven years now. And they kind of saw something in her that, you know, she might be the one.
14:22 Speaker 00 Having his mother's approval sealed the deal for Ramon. One night in 2009, after a year and a half together.
14:30 Speaker 04 I went on one knee and I proposed to her. But she said, "Yes, of course." And then she started crying and crying. And I said, "What's going on? Are you okay?" And all she kept saying was that, after all she went through with her ex-husband, she thought it would never happen again. And she saw it in me that I was a good man. And she just couldn't believe that I asked to marry her.
14:54 Speaker 00 During their engagement, Lulu doted on him.
14:57 Speaker 04 Oh my goodness. There was times where I would have a drink and I wasn't even halfway done. And she would go get me another one. Guys were like, "Man, how you fuck a woman like that, man?" She's beautiful and she treats you like a king.
15:14 Speaker 04 You know, kind of like make you stick your chest out a little bit too. Like, "Wow, that's my lady ass." You know, that kind of stuff.
15:20 Speaker 00 The couple had a quick engagement. It was a second marriage for both of them, so they opted for a simple courthouse ceremony with a backyard reception.
15:28 Speaker 04 It was at my sister's house. In fact, she wanted to give me that as a present. She had a big celebration for my marriage. A lot of family and friends were there. Her family, her mother and her sister and brother-in-law, they were all there.
15:41 Speaker 00 In the middle of the reception, surrounded by family, music and food, something strange happened that Ramon will never forget.
15:51 Speaker 00 Lulu's mother
15:52 Speaker 04 Approached him and she had a stern look on her face. Her mother walks up to me and then she just whispers in my ear.
16:02 Speaker 04 Now she's your trouble.
16:05 Speaker 04 And walks away.
16:09 Speaker 04 I mean, wow. That's the first red flag was at their, right at our wedding night.
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18:52 Speaker 00 In 2009, Ramon Sosa was newly married to his second wife, Lulu. She was hardworking, supportive of his career, and she went above and beyond to make him happy. Instead of a honeymoon, Lulu wanted to take a more practical approach. She wanted to invest in becoming a citizen.
19:10 Speaker 04 That's what she wanted. And I was okay. Well, that's what you want. And I was happy for her because she was just tired of cleaning houses. And she just wanted to get a regular job and be here legally.
19:22 Speaker 00 It was a mountain of paperwork, the first big hurdle the couple faced together.
19:28 Speaker 04 And it's that cheap. And we did it. We went over there to the immigration attorney. And I signed all the papers. It seemed like it was about 300 pages. That's a lot of responsibility that you take when you sponsor a person to be in this country legally.
19:46 Speaker 00 With Lulu's immigration paperwork underway, they started their new life together.
19:52 Speaker 04 The first years of our marriage, what you call the honeymoon years, were wonderful. I was still very involved in boxing. I had my nonprofit. She supported that also. She cared a lot about me. She cared that I was a father figure to her son, her daughter.
20:08 Speaker 00 Early on in their marriage, Ramon told Lulu about his career dreams. He wanted to open his own boxing gym in Houston, a place where he could coach and train the city's best boxers. But he knew this dream was a few years away. He didn't have the money for all the upfront costs.
20:26 Speaker 04 I told her how much it was gonna cost, and she goes, "I can get that for you." And I said, "What are you talking about?"
20:31 Speaker 00 Lulu was determined to help Ramon's dream come true.
20:35 Speaker 04 She was borrowing money from family, and also she maxed out all these credit cards that she had. And that's how we were able to open up our first gym and buy all the equipment.
20:46 Speaker 00 The plan was dubious, but it worked, and he was grateful for it. The gym quickly became a full-time job for both Ramon and Lulu. He did the head coaching and training, and she handled the business side of things.
21:01 Speaker 04 She told me that back in Mexico City, she used to work for Ford, and she was an executive secretary, and she knew how to keep the books. And she was good at it. So I was very happy that I had somebody that... Because I mean, I'm not good at that part. I'm good at training people. I'm good at teaching them how to fight or box.
21:19 Speaker 00 And he was. His gym became the place for elite boxers to sharpen their skills. And it was growing quickly.
21:27 Speaker 04 The business took off. It took off, and it took off quick.
21:32 Speaker 04 My day started at four in the morning, and I was till nine in the evening, working Saturdays too. And I mean, I was literally exhausted every day. But that's the price you pay when you own a business.
21:44 Speaker 00 Within a year, he had already paid Lulu back, and they were starting to make real money.
21:51 Speaker 04 I just kept saying to myself, like, "Wow, this is what I wanted." I mean, I didn't become a world champion, I didn't go to the Olympics, but I'm still doing something with boxing, and at the same time, I'm making money. And we were financially doing very, very well. We were to the point where we underbought a big house, cars, vacations. So everything was good, and to me, life was good.
22:14 Speaker 00 One day, Ramon got an unexpected visitor at the gym.
22:20 Speaker 00 His old friend Mundo.
22:22 Speaker 04 And I was like, Mundo? It was like, we picked up right where we had left off.
22:29 Speaker 00 Mundo asked to come work with Ramon again. But Lulu wasn't so sure about him. She didn't like his look or his criminal background.
22:40 Speaker 04 She told me, I don't know about having somebody like that around our business. You know, she saw the tattoos. I've had to be honest with her that, you know, told his background, everything that happened to him. And, you know, he had been released from prison back in the day, been shot at, gang member. But he cleaned his life. He wanted to live a different life. But then when Mundo started coming around, helping me and helping with the gym and helping the weekends. So we could have days off. When she saw the benefits in him, then she said, okay, well, we can use him.
23:11 Speaker 00 So Mundo started working nights and weekends at the gym. It was a relief. The sosos really needed the help. They were beginning to struggle at home with the pressure of parenting and managing their business.
23:25 Speaker 04 So at home, raising the family was getting difficult. And Lulu would take the issues that she had with her kids, not on me. So yeah, the family dynamic, we were seeing cracks.
23:39 Speaker 00 After the first three years of marriage, Ramon started noticing that Lulu was changing too. She was becoming more demanding.
23:49 Speaker 04 She didn't want my kids to come around. She didn't want my family, even my family start coming to my house because they saw how she changed. How she wasn't the same person, the very nice lady that they had met when I first met her.
24:02 Speaker 00 Lulu was getting controlling about how Ramon spent money while she was spending more than ever.
24:09 Speaker 04 She would go shopping and come back from the mall with all these bags. I said, what are you doing?
24:14 Speaker 00 Ramon's concern was amplified when he discovered.
24:18 Speaker 04 I started noticing that the books were not adding up to the number of people, members we had in the gym. And every time I would bring up that situation, I said, hey, what's going on here? This is not adding up the bottom line. And she would always say, oh, don't worry about it. And I was upset.
24:36 Speaker 00 So he hired someone else to take over the books.
24:43 Speaker 00 One night, Ramon came home from the gym to find that Lulu was hosting a party at the house. A party he hadn't heard about. There were balloons and a cake. Lulu's entire family was there.
24:56 Speaker 04 And I can tell that she had been drinking because she was just slurred a little bit. And she had a bottle of wine in one hand and a cup on the other. And she said, "Say hello to your new American wife." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
25:15 Speaker 00 Lulu had applied for citizenship and she was approved. Earlier that day, she'd gone to her naturalization ceremony and officially became a US citizen. But she hadn't mentioned it to Ramon, her husband, and the sponsor of her visa.
25:31 Speaker 04 And I said, "Wait a second. You're here legally in this country because of me. Your kids are here legally because of me. And you don't have the respect to ask me, like, if I want to go to the celebration?" It got to the point where I asked her point blank, like, "Did you marry me just to be here legally with your family? The money? The American lifestyle?" And she came back with, "Look at me, I'm beautiful. Look at my body. I can get any man I want and men that have a lot more money than you. But no, I chose you. I want to be with you and I love you."
26:11 Speaker 00 He wanted to believe her, but he was still disturbed by her choices. Not to mention her controlling behavior. Not wanting his kids around, her spending, the discrepancies in the books. And now, she hadn't even invited him to her citizenship ceremony.
26:28 Speaker 04 And I said, "No, this is not cool. I don't like the way this marriage is going."
26:34 Speaker 00 Ramon pulled away emotionally and physically. He knew something was wrong, but he was too busy with his gym to take immediate action and file for divorce. In the meantime, the couple started sleeping in separate bedrooms.
26:49 Speaker 04 We're still married, but living in separate lives, basically in the same house.
26:54 Speaker 00 He didn't expect Lulu to be the one to file for divorce. But one day, she came to him with the papers, and she had a bold request. She wanted to keep the house and the business.
27:08 Speaker 04 I said, "No, I don't think so." I said, "We're gonna go half. Everything is gonna split down the middle. You go your way, I go my way, but all the money and time that I have invested in this marriage and everything that we have, no." I said, "No, this is my house." So I told her, "We can work it out, or we can go to court." And that's when I got my attorney, and we're gonna fight it out.
27:33 Speaker 00 He had been through a divorce before, and although the first one was difficult, it had been fair and respectful. But this divorce was about to take a devastating turn.
27:45 Speaker 04 I remember I was driving, and Mundo calls me.
27:48 Speaker 00 Mundo explained that the night before, he'd been closing the gym when he overheard Lulu talking about hiring a hitman.
27:57 Speaker 04 And Mundo being funny, and we were joking around before all the time. I said, "Mundo, quit joking around, man. You know what we're going through. It's just not cool to be joking like that." He said, "No, no, no, pops. I've seen that look in people's eyes when they want to kill somebody, and she has that look."
28:14 Speaker 00 Mundo approached Lulu to ask about what he overheard.
28:18 Speaker 04 And he walked up to her and said, "You guys need to be careful what you say, because you never know who's listening." And he said, "Are you guys talking about Ramon?" And I said, "Yeah." Mundo said, "You want him gone and you want to disappear?" And Mundo did the pistol sign with his hand. And he said, "You want him gone like this?" Like, you know? And she said, "Yeah, I'm tired of him. I wish he was gone, disappear." "Yeah, like that. I just want him gone, out of my life." And Mundo said, "Uh, I tell you what, you know? I got some people that can do the job for you."
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31:55 Speaker 00 Mundo told Lulu he could help, that he knew someone who could do the hit. Instead of calling up a connection, he went straight to his good friend Ramon.
32:06 Speaker 04 I was upset. I was so upset. I mean, I had to pull over. I had so much rage. I didn't know what to do. That was like, man, what do I do? Do I call the police? He said, no, here's the deal. I talk to her, and I'm going to start meeting with her. And I'm going to record everything on my phone and see how far she's willing to go. And then what I want you to do is take all these recordings to the police and see what they want to do.
32:36 Speaker 00 Ramon was skeptical that this plan would work, and taking Mundo at his word meant Lulu was dangerous. So right after that phone call, he decided to go to the police.
32:50 Speaker 04 And I told him the situation, what happened. And he responded with, you know what? You guys are going through a divorce. Women and men sometimes say things when they're upset, even that they want to kill their wives or their husbands. But it's just saying it out of anger. There's really not a lot of evidence to do anything with that.
33:12 Speaker 00 He wasn't sure if Mundo's plan to use secret recordings would be admissible or even legal. It sounded kind of like entrapment. So he asked the detectives about it.
33:24 Speaker 04 I told a boy black, we were doing, I said, look. And he said, you guys keep getting more evidence. And I said, OK. Apparently that is legal. So that's what we did.
33:33 Speaker 00 So they moved forward with the plan. Mundo would meet with Lulu in private places like cars to see if she was actually serious about hiring a hitman. And all the while, he was secretly recording on his phone. For this to work, she'd have to believe that Mundo was in 100%. But why would she trust Mundo, one of Ramon's best friends? Ramon has a simple answer.
34:01 Speaker 04 Lulu's so desperate and everything that's going on, divorce not going her way. Her life is slowly crumbling.
34:08 Speaker 00 The most difficult part of their plan was that Ramon would have to play dumb and spend a few more days sleeping under the same roof as Lulu, pretending that he didn't know what she was planning.
34:26 Speaker 00 Ramon remembers turning into his driveway that day, something he'd done 1,000 times before. And he always felt comfort and relief when he got home. But now, it was all so eerie. His house, a would be crime scene. And him, an unsuspecting murder victim.
34:49 Speaker 04 Even though we're sleeping in separate rooms, I had to go home and see this lady and look at this lady, knowing that she wanted to have me killed.
35:01 Speaker 00 He barely said a word to her. That night, he locked his bedroom door. He tried to sleep, but he was wide awake with thoughts racing. People say things they don't mean during a divorce all the time. Could she just be fuming? Or could she actually go through with it? The next day, Ramon got his answer. It turns out, Lulu was in a hurry. She wanted to take Mundo up on his offer right away.
35:31 Speaker 04 Lulu wanted me dead before our divorce was finalized, because she said to Mundo, "Look, if he dies after our divorce is finalized, my kids get everything. But if he dies before the divorce is finalized, she gets everything." And our divorce was gonna be finalized no matter what. So she wanted me dead as soon as possible.
35:56 Speaker 00 Ramon had spent seven years with Lulu. For most of that time, he genuinely adored her. He wanted to give her that second chance at a loving partnership. And he dreamed of seeing her succeed alongside of him. Instead, she was throwing it all away. And Ramon heard everything, captured on tape.
36:20 Speaker 04 I couldn't believe what I was hearing from Lulu. She's telling Mundo how she's practicing, how she's gonna cry when the police calls her after they kill me. And she's literally making crying sounds. And she starts laughing after that.
36:40 Speaker 00 In one of the first recorded conversations, Lulu dropped a bombshell.
36:45 Speaker 04 Lulu was planning to have me killed two years prior to our divorce. I was like, "What?" And Mundo said, "Yeah, I have it on one of the recordings." And I listened to it. And I said, "I can't believe what I'm listening to."
37:04 Speaker 00 Two years earlier, they'd taken a family vacation to Mexico City. Ramon thought their relationship was in a good place.
37:12 Speaker 04 And she was so happy to show me Mexico City and go to the pyramids. She had a whole itinerary for everything we were supposed to do in Mexico City.
37:23 Speaker 00 She told Mundo that she was planning to kill Ramon on that trip. Lulu wanted his savings, his business, and his life insurance. She was conspiring to commit the crime with a friend back in Mexico.
37:38 Speaker 04 And the plan was, yeah, bring them over here. We'll disappear. People disappear here all the time.
37:46 Speaker 04 What we can do is have you guys held for ransom. And then they're gonna let you go, and then we're gonna disappear him.
37:55 Speaker 04 And then Mundo asked Lulu, so how come you didn't go through with it? And Lulu said, well, I didn't have the heart to do it then.
38:06 Speaker 04 Well, now I do.
38:09 Speaker 00 This chilled him to the bone. He didn't recognize this woman. He'd never heard his wife speak like this before. The coldness in her voice, her laughter.
38:20 Speaker 04 It never crossed my mind that Lulu had this whole-blooded heart. Through our good times in our marriage, I never would have ever thought in a million years this person had that kind of mind to do this kind of stuff.
38:41 Speaker 00 He became genuinely terrified for his life. Ramon left the house and stayed with his parents who lived across town. In the meantime, Mundo asked Lulu if she wanted him to reach out to one of his guys, if she was ready.
38:58 Speaker 00 And she said she was. So Mundo called his contacts.
39:03 Speaker 04 He called one of them John Boy and the other one Paco.
39:06 Speaker 00 If those sound like characters from a crummy action movie, it's because they are.
39:11 Speaker 04 Told me that he saw Blood In, Blood Out. And those are those two characters, right? From that movie.
39:18 Speaker 00 But Lulu bought it. So Mundo texted Paco, who was actually Ramon using a burner phone.
39:25 Speaker 04 Then I said, well, Mundo, I'm not a street guy. So he's already teaching me how to talk or text in that gang lingo to pass as a criminal, basically. He's meeting with Lulu and the first thing I do, I text Mundo and say, hey, the boss lady ready to do this? We need $200 for the toy.
39:44 Speaker 00 Mundo explained that the hit would cost $12,000, but the guys would need $200 upfront for the gun.
39:53 Speaker 04 She went to our bank. We still had an account together. She went to our account, got the $200 out of our savings, which is basically my money too, and gives Mundo $200.
40:06 Speaker 00 As soon as the money changed hands, they had enough to go to the police. The moment was both a relief and a horrible betrayal.
40:15 Speaker 00 And with this evidence, the police were finally ready to move on Ramon's case. They took it very seriously.
40:23 Speaker 04 They had to get all these different agencies together and come up with a plan. State troopers, the sheriff department, FBI.
40:32 Speaker 04 They got real quick.
40:34 Speaker 00 Law enforcement wanted to collect evidence of their own. They decided to see if Lulu would make a down payment for the hit and if she would exchange the money with one of these fictitious hitmen in person.
40:46 Speaker 04 The state police brought their undercover police officer to play as one of the hitmen to start meeting with Lulu in person. I mean, this guy, if you saw him in the street, you thought that he was really a gang member, hitman. You know, he put everything to the T. He had all the tats. He knew how to talk. He had a mean look, like you would be scared of him.
41:07 Speaker 00 Lulu met him in a car, which of course was an undercover police car full of cameras. She said she didn't have the cash to pay him just yet.
41:18 Speaker 04 But she brought my own jewelry as a down payment for my own murder.
41:28 Speaker 04 Bracelets, watches, just some stuff that I had left behind at the house. And she gave that to him as a down payment. And then she also had the nerve to tell him, look, and he also wears this really nice watch. And if he has it on, you can keep that too, because it's worth something. And then after he dies, I'll give you the rest of the money. And he said, okay, we'll take care of business now.
41:55 Speaker 00 That night, the police asked Ramon to come to the station right away.
41:59 Speaker 04 And I said, what about Mundo?
42:02 Speaker 04 He's not coming? He said, no, we just need to talk to you.
42:08 Speaker 04 When I arrived at the station, go to the special room that we always met. And when I get in, I started noticing like, wait a second, there's a lot more people in this room than before. The FBI guy was there, the state police detective, the DA or assistant DA was there. So it was a packed room. And they start telling me, say, okay, Ramon, we feel that we have enough evidence to arrest Lulu right now. But here's the deal, you guys own a business here locally. She's a mother, she's never been in trouble. And we need to make this a slam dunk case. And I'm afraid that if we go to a jury trial, we might have one of the jurors throw a slide for her. And we just want to make sure it's a slam dunk case.
42:53 Speaker 04 So we have decided to stage your death and show her your picture and then record it.
43:02 Speaker 00 It sounded over the top. He'd never heard anything like it. And to be honest, neither have I.
43:12 Speaker 00 The police told Ramon that they'd need him for three days. So he quickly went home and packed a bag.
43:19 Speaker 00 He was advised not to tell anyone where he was going. Not Mundo, not his parents, not his kids.
43:27 Speaker 00 He returned to the police station the next morning and was surprised when the police started doing special effects makeup to make it look like he'd been shot in the head. The police even had a reference image, a photo of a real murder victim whose body had been dumped in the desert.
43:48 Speaker 04 They take me in a blacked out SUV to this location where they had already dug out this shallow grave. And when I get there, the detective tells me, okay, I need you to strip down to your underwear. They show me how to pose with my hands bowed behind my back. And I looked like I was a little bit swollen. They put more blood on me. And they even threw dirt on me, which I thought it was so degrading. And closed my eyes. And the only thing that I could remember the most from that scene was the sound of that 35 millimeter as it went around me, just clicking, taking pictures of me. And then
44:31 Speaker 04 the detective said, okay, Mr. Shosa, we're done here. Your clothes on. And they took me away to a hotel.
44:38 Speaker 00 He sat in the hotel room for two days, not able to contact anyone, just waiting for the police to arrest Lulu.
44:46 Speaker 04 I couldn't sleep. All I did was pace back and forth, thinking about all the different situation. What if it doesn't happen? What if she doesn't fall for it? What are my kids gonna think when they see this? My parents, everybody. I mean, all, I mean, so many things going through my head.
45:03 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, back in Houston.
45:07 Speaker 04 The undercover police officer was in the car with Lulu. And he shows Lulu the picture of me in the shallow grave. So next thing she does, she starts racing up, her hands up, like doing the racing the roof, like she's laughing, like, yeah, I'm about to get paid. I hit the lotto. And then walks out of the car, closes the door.
45:34 Speaker 04 No idea whatsoever, the whole time she was talking to another cover police officer.
45:41 Speaker 00 Lulu was arrested right there for solicitation of first degree capital murder. After the arrest was made, the police called Ramon's hotel room to let him know.
45:52 Speaker 04 I literally sat on the edge of that bed and tears started coming down.
46:01 Speaker 04 Tears of anger, tears of sadness. Not because I was still in love with this person, but she didn't think about me being a son, me being a father, you know, a friend, a brother. All those, she didn't think about none of that. You taking me away from my kids, my mother, my father.
46:28 Speaker 04 That hurt me a lot.
46:30 Speaker 00 Ramon says the worst part of this entire betrayal was what happened next. He hadn't been able to talk to his family for three days and explain where he was going or what was going on. He's the kind of son who calls his mom nearly every day. He knew she'd be panicked. So as soon as he could, he dialed his parents' house.
46:52 Speaker 04 My father answers the phone. And my dad never answers the phone. My dad is not a phone person. He says, "What's wrong? Where you at?" And I can hear the cracking in his voice. And in the background, I hear my mother screaming and crying, the kind of cry you hear at funerals when somebody passes.
47:16 Speaker 00 His parents had just heard the news of Lulu's arrest, but they didn't know it was a setup. The only thing they knew was that they hadn't heard from Ramon and that his wife had just been arrested for soliciting his murder.
47:31 Speaker 04 And I tried to drive as fast as possible trying to get to her. And when I get there, my dad opens the door and my dad's eyes were bloodshot.
47:42 Speaker 04 I've never seen my dad cry, ever.
47:45 Speaker 04 He just hugged me and I went straight to my mother. She was laying on the couch. She can't catch her breath and she's crying. I said, "Mom, come. I'm OK. I mean, I'm OK." You know, I tried to explain to her. "The hell's gonna be OK?" But she still couldn't catch her breath. She was basically hyperventilating, you know, because she was so anxious.
48:05 Speaker 00 This is the moment that still haunts Ramon, seeing his own mom grieve his death. It's something few people ever see and it's extremely difficult to process.
48:18 Speaker 04 You know, I'm their only son and they'll forget that it's gonna be the picture that'll always be on my was.
48:28 Speaker 04 My dad hugged my mom's hand.
48:32 Speaker 04 Tell her it's gonna be okay.
48:34 Speaker 00 Even though Lulu was being held on a million dollar bail, Ramon couldn't shake this fear that she'd somehow find him.
48:43 Speaker 04 I didn't know if Lulu had a plan B or C, so I was sleeping with a loaded shotgun next to my bed.
48:54 Speaker 04 Then I had another loaded gun on the counter of my kitchen, which was a 40 millimeter. Then I had a 9 millimeter loaded in my vehicle at all times, ready to go.
49:04 Speaker 00 In the year following Lulu's arrest, he didn't leave the house unless he had to. Over time, all of that fear turned to anger.
49:14 Speaker 04 I had so much bottled up anger inside of me. My family, my kids, and my mother, all that anger, I had it bottled up inside of me.
49:24 Speaker 04 Anybody that has gone through something so traumatic like I went through, you can't live with that much anger. I couldn't continue to live the way I was living with that anger, with loaded guns around me all the time. I was a ticking bomb, Brutus, I was afraid of myself.
49:46 Speaker 00 After 15 months in jail, Lulu pleaded down to second degree solicitation of capital murder. Ramon channeled his anger into writing a victim impact statement to deliver at her sentencing hearing.
49:59 Speaker 04 I mean, I was gonna let her have it verbally of all the pain and anger that she had caused me and my family. When they let me talk, it was packed, a lot of people were there from the press. I get up, I took a deep breath.
50:18 Speaker 04 I forgave this lady.
50:21 Speaker 00 This was about him. It wasn't about making Lulu feel better or letting her off the hook. It was about making this moment into a ceremony for himself. A ceremony to release all the anger he'd been carrying.
50:36 Speaker 04 And once I did that, it was as if all that anger is just was gone. Really like all that air went out of the balloon and I was able to breathe in. You know, it's just, life was beginning to be more normal now.
50:53 Speaker 00 Lulu was sentenced to 20 years, but ended up serving eight and a half. She was released in November of 2023, and she'll serve another 12 years on parole.
51:03 Speaker 04 She's under very, very strict rules with the Texas State Parole Board. She misses out, she's going right back in.
51:13 Speaker 00 Ramon decided to move on from the spaces they shared, which meant selling the house and the gym.
51:20 Speaker 04 It was just way too many memories. I just needed to move on.
51:23 Speaker 00 As for Mundo, they're still friends today. He doesn't think about Lulu every day like he used to. It's in part because...
51:32 Speaker 04 I'm in love again. Yes, yes. It's just been wonderful to me since Puerto Rican too. I say that because we have a lot in common because of our cultures.
51:46 Speaker 00 Ramon is determined to turn his betrayal into a positive force. He wrote a memoir about his experience. It's called "I Walked on My Own Grave." And he wants to tell his story on stage as a one-man play.
52:02 Speaker 04 I'm not an actor. I'm not a professional speaker. But when you speak from the heart, it means something. And I think I like to do that, tell my story on stage. The real deal, everything that happened.
52:16 Speaker 00 Part of his healing process has been understanding that there's a term for what Lulu did to him. The terror he lived with for years afterwards. It's domestic abuse. Even though his story has so many twists and turns, that's what it boils down to. His own spouse tried to have him killed. As you know, we end all of our weekly episodes with the same question. Why did you want to tell your story?
52:45 Speaker 04 My hope is that my story helps men and women that are caught in difficult situations in their marriage and I go through what I went through because I was a victim of domestic abuse. And it's hard for people to understand that. What is it, being you're a boxer and you're this and you're that. So I had to advocate, you know, for men that are victims of domestic abuse to never give up, get help. I mean, just like women, men should be getting the same type of help.
53:19 Speaker 00 On the next episode of Betrayal. Who wants to file a police report against their father? You know, I didn't want to put my dad in jail. I really didn't, like, I didn't want to be the kind of person who did that. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at [email protected] . That's [email protected] . Also, please be sure to follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all Betrayal content, news, and updates. We're grateful for your support.
54:01 Speaker 00 One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique LaBord, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristen Melchery and Kaitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Del Vecchio and Nico Aruca.
54:45 Speaker 00 Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyB Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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