Pod Insights Murder With My Husband 256. Lulu's Hitman - The Shocking Case of Ramon Sosa About this episode In this episode, Garrett and Payton dive into the case of Ramon Sosa, a man who thought he had a happy marriage—until he discovered his wife "Lulu” was plotting to have him killed. What followed was a shocking twist involving betrayal, survival, and an unexpected police operation. Watch this unbelievable true crime story unfold.
Case Sources:
Oxygen.com - https://www.oxygen.com/snapped/crime-news/ramon-sosa-faked-own-murder-after-wife-lulu-hires-hitman
ESPN.com -
https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/24008835/how-boxing-trainer-survived-murder-plot-hatched-wife
TheSun.com - https://www.the-sun.com/lifestyle/9401820/faked-own-death-after-wife-hired-hitman/
NYPost.com https://nypost.com/2022/11/19/former-pro-boxer-ramon-sosa-faked-his-own-murder-after-wife-hired-hitman-documentary/
AJC.com - https://www.ajc.com/news/national/one-eye-open-texas-man-describes-faking-death-help-nab-plotting-wife/cU87Pmnajh9zxdmKR8peXO/
SportsKeeda.com - https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/where-ramon-sosa-s-wife-lulu-now-whereabouts-explored-ahead-id-s-american-monster
TheIndependent.com - https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/ramon-sosa-maria-lulu-faked-death-wife-hitman-gym-murder-a9102361.html
Chron.com - https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/conroe/news/article/Spring-woman-pleads-guilty-in-murder-for-hire-9962405.php
YourConroeNews.com - https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Spring-woman-pleads-guilty-in-husband-s-9965401.php
CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ramon-sosa-boxer-marked-for-murder-goes-undercover-to-catch-the-person-who-wanted-him-dead-48-hours/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:27 Payton Moreland? If you are like me, protecting the people inside your home is a top priority. I have Daisy at home, I'm about to have a baby at home, and Garrett and me. And there are a lot of times where I've thought about our safety, but that is where SimpliSafe comes in and has had my back honestly for years. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts, which is exactly what I'm looking for. I don't even want someone in my home. I want it stopped before the alarm has even gone off. We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners their biggest savings of the year. 70% off your new system with
1:11 Payton Moreland? professional monitoring. If you've been thinking about a security system, it is now. 70% off, guys, when you visit simplisafe.com/husband. That is simplisafe.com/husband. And when you order, just write in Murder With My Husband at checkout. Tells them we sent you. Really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time. You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.
1:40 Garrett Moreland? And I'm Garrett Moreland.
1:41 Payton Moreland? And he's the husband.
1:42 Garrett Moreland? And I'm the husband.
1:43 Payton Moreland? Sorry, it's very early in the morning and I just woke up.
1:48 Garrett Moreland? Peyton and I are doing an early recording. Don't ask us why, but here we are. It's probably hopefully early morning when you guys are listening to this, so you can join us. For those watching on YouTube, I know my hair still looks funny. It's gonna be a while before things get back to normal and that's okay. Just wanted to let everybody know that. What do you got, babe?
2:12 Payton Moreland? Oh, you know, just so we love you and we're ready to hear your 10 seconds.
2:16 Garrett Moreland? Jumping right into it.
2:17 Payton Moreland? Mm hmm.
2:18 Garrett Moreland? Peter and I decided to cook dinner for Valentine's last night. We did have reservations at a restaurant. We canceled those for a couple of reasons, but one of them being Peyton burnt her face off. But we canceled them and we cooked steak, asparagus, broccoli, mashed potatoes. I'm not gonna lie, my steak turned out pretty dang good, huh? It was fun. That's what we did. Other than that, there hasn't been anything else too crazy going on. I've been pickleball. I've been trying to get my butt back to the gym, but it hasn't happened yet. I've been itching my head because my head's been super itchy.
3:01 Garrett Moreland? And that's all. Oh, by the way, to anyone that sees us in public and says hi to us, come say hi to us. Some people message us and they're like, I saw you, but didn't know if I should say hi. Say hi to us. We love it. We don't care. We just love meeting you guys. Yeah, that's it. Not trying to like toot our own horn or anything and be like, oh, my gosh, people come up to us. I'm just saying, if you see us, please come say hi to us. We love saying hi to you guys.
3:24 Payton Moreland? All right. Our sources for this episode are oxygen.com, ESPN.com, the sun.com, New York Post.com, AJC.com, sportskeeda.com, theindependent.com, chron.com, yourconroenews.com and CBSnews.com. All right. If you found out somebody wanted you dead, like was really going to kill you. Who would be the first person that you told?
3:47 Payton Moreland? Probably the police, right?
3:49 Garrett Moreland? Oh, no.
3:50 Payton Moreland? I know. Cause when you don't have any proof.
3:53 Garrett Moreland? No, I would tell you first.
3:55 Payton Moreland? Aside from that, it's a little hard for the authorities to make any move on that. Like if you just go to the cops and go, this person wants to kill me, but you you don't have any proof. They're like, hey? They could offer you some advice, but until you have concrete evidence that this person wants you gone, you're either on your own to collect that evidence or you just have to wait and see how it all plays out. Well, Ramon Sosa wasn't a sit around and wait kind of guy. When he learned his estranged wife wanted him out of the picture for good, he took matters into his own hands. And even then, he still ended up in a shallow grave with a gunshot wound to the head.
4:33 Garrett Moreland? Oh, my gosh. I thought, okay.
4:36 Payton Moreland? But how he got there was completely unexpected, so let's unravel this story. We are in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
4:46 Garrett Moreland? So you're telling me that throughout the entire episode, I have no hope that he's gonna live?
4:50 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
4:51 Garrett Moreland? Okay.
4:52 Payton Moreland? So that is where Ramon Sosa called home for the early years of his life. And as the son of a professional boxer, Ramon took an interest in the sport pretty young. Going to the same gym where his father trained, Ramon got to see the stamina and self-discipline that went into boxing, and he fell in love with it quickly. At the age of seven, he began training with some of Puerto Rico's top boxers. And for the next 10 years, he stuck with it. By the time Ramon had turned 17, he was a force to be reckoned with. He had gone pro and earned himself the nickname, "The Puerto Rican Express."
5:34 Payton Moreland? I imagine for how quickly he knocked out his opponents was that was what that nickname was for. But eventually, Ramon became a bit disillusioned with the sport. He started to feel like he was nothing more than a cash cow. A piece of meat is what he called it when he realized people only cared about making a buck off of him. So that's when Ramon decided to take a step back from the sport. He went to school, he began focusing on his studies, and then he met a woman, he fell in love, and he started a family. They had three kids, Mitchell, Chris, and Mia. And eventually, they all moved to Houston, Texas, a place where Ramon had spent some of his earlier years and had fond memories of.
6:18 Payton Moreland? But even in America, he never stopped feeling that call of the ring. So instead of lacing up his own gloves, Ramon started coaching other professional boxers around the Houston area. Okay, he's moved to America, he's married, he has kids, and he's graduated from boxing. Now he's gonna coach. And if you were in the boxing game in Texas, there's a good chance you wanted Ramon literally in your corner of the ring. And his career as a trainer was really starting to take off. Ramon was flying all over the country with his boxers, attending parties at the Playboy Mansion, rubbing elbows with Mike Tyson. This guy knew what he was doing, which might have been part of the problem for Ramon. Because
7:02 Payton Moreland? once again, he started to see the ugly side of the sport. The part that's driven by greed and the need for fame. And Ramon didn't want that for himself. So again, he took a step back. He began training amateurs and kids from gangs or troubled backgrounds who were looking for direction in their life.
7:21 Garrett Moreland? Money, man.
7:24 Payton Moreland? Ramon opened up his own gym, which helped support his family, even set them up pretty nicely when it started to rake in the cash. But by this point, Ramon's first marriage was no longer working. So he and his wife divorced around the year 2000. And for a while, Ramon wasn't sure if he would ever find that kind of love again. That is until 2007, when 40-year-old Ramon went to a nightclub with some friends and everything changed. And I'm not judging, but a nightclub at 40 sounds like my actual worst nightmare.
7:59 Garrett Moreland? Okay, I feel like Peyton and I.
8:01 Payton Moreland? I can't even nightclub in my twenties.
8:02 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, Peyton and I went to Vegas and we tried. We went to bed.
8:07 Payton Moreland? Yeah, it's so late.
8:08 Garrett Moreland? Went to bed. We couldn't, I couldn't do it. I couldn't possibly do it. We just, we just went to bed and said, tell me what you want. But sitting at home, watching some TV, relaxing. Is the thing to do.
8:21 Payton Moreland? Even in the completely packed club, Ramon spotted her almost immediately across the dance floor. The Latin beauty would meet Ramon's eye line and quickly look away. And then, over the course of the night, the two found themselves inching closer on the dance floor until she stepped on Ramon's toe with her six inch heels. If you asked Ramon, that wasn't an accident, but it was destiny. He asked her if she wanted to dance and the rest was history. Ramon wasted no time falling head over heels for this new woman, Maria de Lourdes. But Lulu was what she went by, luckily for me, okay?
9:03 Payton Moreland? She was originally from Mexico and like Ramon was also a divorced parent. She had a son and a daughter who would come with her to America on a visitor's visa. And this was something that only drew Ramon in further. At first, Lulu seemed to be the hardworking mother and doting girlfriend Ramon always wanted. She cleaned houses and worked as a masseuse to support her two kids. And when she wasn't tending to her clients or her children, she was fawning over Ramon, cooking him dinner, giving him massages, waiting on him hand and foot, which was probably why Ramon put a ring on it in 2009. On March 15th, after being engaged for a little under four months, they walked down the aisle together.
9:46 Payton Moreland? But that day, Lulu's mother whispered something to Ramon. She said, "Lulu is your problem now." And she wasn't joking. Ramon thought she was joking, wished she was joking, but some part of him already feared there were going to be problems. Problems he was already sweeping under the rug. So Ramon's teenage daughter Mia saw the ugly side of Lulu pretty early on. She could sense that Lulu didn't want to get to know her or her siblings at all. She said it seemed like Lulu had no plans to actually become their stepmother or even a friend for that matter.
10:27 Payton Moreland? And even worse, Lulu had started driving a wedge between him and his kids. They were seeing their father less and less as Lulu complained about how much money he was spending on them. Eventually, things got so tense that Lulu didn't even want his kids at their wedding.
10:46 Payton Moreland? Mia and her siblings found out secondhand that their father and Lulu had gotten married without even inviting them, which would break any kid's heart. But now, there was no getting rid of this woman. It seemed like she was going to be in their lives forever.
11:01 Garrett Moreland? That's crazy.
11:02 Payton Moreland? Especially when Ramon went into business with her the following year.
11:08 Garrett Moreland? It's actually interesting how many stepparents are wicked.
11:12 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
11:13 Garrett Moreland? Like, I know some of you listening right now have some wicked stepparents, and I'm sorry.
11:17 Payton Moreland? I-
11:18 Garrett Moreland? That sucks. I'm truly, I don't understand how people can be like that.
11:23 Payton Moreland? Well, Lulu's a-
11:25 Garrett Moreland? Losers.
11:26 Payton Moreland? Obviously, a different story, but I've been listening to a couple podcasts that kind of have wicked stepparents, and the stepparents talk about it in the podcast. And it's like, they have reasonings. You know, they were selfish, or, I don't know, reasonings that don't make sense, and it's like, then don't get married.
11:46 Garrett Moreland? Bad person.
11:47 Payton Moreland? Yeah, like, there's an innocent kid involved in this.
11:51 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
11:52 Payton Moreland? So Ramon goes into business with Lulu the following year. In 2010, Ramon opened up his second gym with Lulu as his business partner. They shot commercials together promoting the new business, smiling side by side. And like Ramon's first gym, this was another hit with about 200 members a month. Suddenly, the couple was raking in about $20,000 a month in profit. They were able to buy a brand-new house, a motorcycle, new cars. And for a while, aside from the situation with the kids, things seemed to be going pretty nicely for the couple. But around 2015, cracks started to appear on the surface. Lulu was going to friends to complain about Ramon,
12:36 Payton Moreland? saying she was doing all the work around the gym, and Ramon was just kicking back. The more money that came in, the more issues the couple started to have, and the more ugly and drawn-out their fights became. But over time, Lulu's claims got worse. She told her friends that Ramon had actually gotten physical with her once or twice, that after a night of drinking, he grabbed her or pushed her. At one point, Lulu even claimed Ramon had forced himself on her without consent. Now, when Ramon heard this, he denied all of it. He said he never did anything like that and that Lulu might have just been looking for a way out of their marriage by painting it to be worse than it was, which was clear by March
13:20 Payton Moreland? of 2015 because Lulu did file for divorce. But right after that, things only got uglier between the two. Rather than just walk away with the few good years behind them, Lulu started dragging Ramon's name through the mud. She called the people who ran some of the nonprofits Ramon worked with, said he was embezzling money from their charities. She also began telling people at the gym, including other members, Ramon was abusive towards her. This is despite the fact that Ramon's daughter Mia and his mother said they had never once seen Ramon get violent with anyone. So she's tarnishing his name to people who matter and everyone else in his life is like, mm, no, he's not like this.
14:05 Payton Moreland? But that was all many of those clients needed to hear to cancel their memberships. Because of Lulu's bad mouthing, the gym was kind of spiraling. It was losing money.
14:14 Garrett Moreland? Interesting, okay.
14:14 Payton Moreland? And to make matters worse, Ramon noticed what little money they did have in the gym's accounts seemed to be going missing and had made its way into Lulu's bank account. Meaning, Lulu was skimming cash from the company they shared and she used it to help pay for a new divorce attorney. But apparently, that cash still wasn't enough. Lulu wanted to walk away with it all. Her green card, the cash, the house, the business. She wasn't gonna let anything stand in her way, least of all, Ramon. So Lulu decides, I deserve everything in this divorce. He's gonna give me the business, he's gonna give me the house, all the cars, everything.
14:59 Garrett Moreland? But she's just... She, I mean, she's just stealing at this point. Like, she doesn't even really care.
15:03 Payton Moreland? Well, she's open about it, probably a little too open, because in the summer of 2015, one of Ramon and Lulu's good friends, who was known only as Mundo, overheard Lulu having a conversation with her 16-year-old daughter in the gym's office. Now Mundo caught a few big pieces of that conversation that really put a pit into his stomach, okay? Mundo hung around the gym, he would train there, and he hears Lulu talking about Ramon. She's talking to her daughter about a kid that came into the gym often, and how this kid's father was part of some cartel or gang down in Mexico, that he had, quote, "cut up bodies in the past." And then towards the end of the conversation,
15:48 Payton Moreland? Mundo caught something else, something about taking care of the situation, and then he heard Ramon's name.
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16:22 Payton Moreland? All right, guys, we're jumping into an ad, and if you are like me, protecting the people inside your home is a top priority. I have Daisy at home, I'm about to have a baby at home, and Garrett and me. And there are a lot of times where I've thought about our safety, but that is where SimpliSafe comes in and has had my back, honestly, for years. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts, which is exactly what I'm looking for. I don't even want someone in my home. I want it stopped before the alarm has even gone off. Smart AI-powered cameras watch for potential threats and alert a live US-based
17:07 Payton Moreland? security specialist, ready to intervene. The agent intervenes in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks, calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most. And we've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners their biggest savings of the year: 70% off your new system with professional monitoring. If you've been thinking about a security system, it is now. 70% off, guys, when you visit simplisafe.com/husband. That is simplisafe.com/husband. And when you order, just write in "murder with my husband" at checkout. Tells them we sent you, really helps the show. SimpliSafe: Ahead of Crime in Real Time. Now, Mundo doesn't want to sound any alarms yet.
17:52 Payton Moreland? He's thinking, maybe he misunderstood, took it out of context.
17:56 Garrett Moreland? Oh, Mundo, you-
17:57 Payton Moreland? But he's like, okay, did I really just hear Lulu talking about having someone kill Ramon?
18:04 Garrett Moreland? What would you do? I guess we talked about this at the beginning. I don't know. I don't know. Like, if I heard so, if I heard you, so if I heard you talking about wanting to kill me-
18:14 Payton Moreland? Well, it's not Ramon doing it.
18:16 Garrett Moreland? I don't know. I'm just saying, if I did-
18:17 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
18:18 Garrett Moreland? Like, if I heard you talking, I snuck up on you in the bathroom and you were talking to someone about trying to kill me, I might kill you first.
18:25 Payton Moreland? Oh, okay. Go to the police, please.
18:28 Garrett Moreland? It's kill or be killed, right?
18:30 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
18:31 Garrett Moreland? I mean-
18:33 Payton Moreland? I don't think so. Not in this situation.
18:35 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, I mean, kinda in this situation.
18:39 Payton Moreland? So Mundo goes home that night. He processes it all. Then he wakes up with the intention of confronting Lulu about it at the gym the next day. So Mundo goes in, knocks on her office door. She welcomes him in. And let's just say, she's not shy about her feelings. She tells Mundo, "I'm tired, I'm frustrated. I wish Ramon would just leave, or the cops would pick him up, or he would just disappear." Now Mundo's like, "Okay, Lulu, what do you mean by disappear? Do you mean like..." And he makes the pistol sign with his two fingers. And Lulu nods her head at Mundo.
19:13 Garrett Moreland? That, she's crazy. She's crazy.
19:16 Payton Moreland? Mundo takes a minute to think about it. He goes out, he hits a bag for a few minutes, and then he goes back to Lulu and says, "You know what? I think I might know somebody." But before you jump to conclusions, let me give you a little backstory on Mundo. This guy's had a pretty rough past. He joined a gang at the age of 12 and had been shot six different times in his life. He also landed in jail three different times before one violent felony charge that put him away for 14 months. When he was released, his soon to be wife told him, "Clean yourself up or you'll never see me again," and Mundo did. He turned his life around. He moved to a safer part of Houston, away from the gangs he was associated with. He started
19:59 Payton Moreland? looking for new ways to spend his time, which is how he even stumbled upon Ramon's gym back in 2005, so 10 years earlier. And Mundo was exactly the kind of guy Ramon loved to help. He started training Mundo, because he told Ramon, he didn't want to learn how to fight, he wanted to learn how to box. And that was all Ramon needed to hear to take him under his wing. After that, the two became best friends, had been practically inseparable ever since. Mundo said Ramon was the first person in his life to act like a real father figure to him. And even when Lulu came into Ramon's life, Ramon and Mundo stayed close. So you're probably wondering, why did his best friend, of sorts, just say, "Hey, I have an idea"? Or was he willing
20:42 Payton Moreland? to help Lulu find a hitman? The answer is, he thought this was the only way he could save his best friend's life. So Mundo said, he could tell in that moment that Lulu was dead serious about getting Ramon killed. And if Mundo didn't pretend like he was going to help, she would find someone else, and probably fast, since their divorce was getting closer to being finalized, and she probably wanted him dead before that. So he told Lulu that day, he knew someone named Paco who would happily do the job, but when Mundo left the gym, he didn't call Paco and say, "Hey, I need you to do this hit." He called Ramon, and he said, "Look..."
21:26 Payton Moreland? This is exactly what is going on.
21:30 Garrett Moreland? Could you imagine, would you, okay, would you believe your friend if they called you and said, "Hey, Garrett's trying to kill you."
21:38 Payton Moreland? I think it would depend on who the friend was.
21:42 Garrett Moreland? Any friend? Is there any friend you believe?
21:44 Payton Moreland? But if we were like going through divorce, blah, blah, blah, yeah, I probably would.
21:47 Garrett Moreland? True, right? Cause I guess we're going through divorce and things are kinda nasty right now. Like right now.
21:52 Payton Moreland? And she's made her intentions clear. She wants the business.
21:55 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
21:55 Payton Moreland? She wants it all. She's told him that upfront.
21:58 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, that's true.
22:00 Payton Moreland? So at first Ramon is in total disbelief. Like, yeah, things are ugly between him and Lulu, but she wouldn't actually pay someone to kill him, right?
22:07 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
22:08 Payton Moreland? But the more Ramon thinks about it, the more it starts to make sense. If Lulu killed Ramon before the divorce was finalized, she would get a heck of a lot more. She would get Ramon's entire retirement fund, the house, the business, his life insurance policy. There would be no tit for tat. Lulu would walk away as the beneficiary to it all. As if that wasn't bad enough, Ramon had a good reason to be afraid. He was still living under the same roof as Lulu. Sure, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms, but now Ramon would have to walk past Lulu in the kitchen tomorrow morning and pretend like he didn't know that she was trying to hire someone to kill him. It's a lot, which is why Ramon decides to waste no time over this.
22:51 Payton Moreland? He goes to the police immediately. And you know what they say?
22:55 Garrett Moreland? Ah, too bad. Good luck.
22:57 Payton Moreland? Buddy.
22:58 Garrett Moreland? Yep.
22:58 Payton Moreland? Your wife's trying to kill you. There's nothing we can do about that right now. You're not the first person going through a divorce whose wife wants him dead. You've zero proof. So until you show us some more concrete evidence that she's put a hit on you, we can't move forward with this.
23:13 Garrett Moreland? That sucks.
23:15 Payton Moreland? So what does Ramon do?
23:16 Garrett Moreland? That sucks.
23:17 Payton Moreland? He forms a plan with Mundo to get that concrete evidence for police. First, they buy a burner phone, one they pretend belongs to the hitman Mundo's setting Lulu up with, Paco. Ramon takes the burner phone and Mundo walks into the gym, pulls Lulu aside and says, "All right, want me to set this up for you? I will text him right now." So Lulu watches over Mundo's shoulder as he texts Paco, aka Ramon, who's on the burner phone. And Paco/Ramon agrees, says he'll need $1,000 cash and Ramon's truck. And Lulu falls for it. She agrees to the deal and a few days later even gives a payment to Mundo to hand off to Paco for the weapon. But Mundo also needs evidence that Lulu's directly connected,
24:02 Payton Moreland? which is why he starts secretly recording their conversations about this hit.
24:08 Garrett Moreland? What more evidence do you need? This is great.
24:10 Payton Moreland? In one of them, she's actually going through Ramon's watch collection, talking about which ones she can pawn off to pay for the kill. In another recorded conversation, Mundo asks Lulu, clear as day, quote, "They just want to know you are serious that you want Ramon killed." And her reply is, quote, "Yes, yes, yes, definitely. They should do it. I do not give a damn. I am going to pay."
24:34 Garrett Moreland? All right, if the police don't take this seriously, I'm gonna be, I mean, obviously they don't. That's, I don't know what to say, very upsetting.
24:41 Payton Moreland? So time passes, and the more time passes, the more Ramon and Mundo start to worry about Lulu. This woman is a wild card. She's completely unpredictable. What happens if she starts getting antsy, realizes that this hitman is never actually gonna come through? They can't drag this out for weeks. What if she goes off and finds someone else to do the job? So for Ramon, it's literally a race against the clock and he's getting scared. He buys himself a gun. He starts carrying it everywhere. He's sitting at traffic lights, paranoid. Someone's gonna pull up next to him and just shoot him.
25:12 Garrett Moreland? Bro, did they not go to the police yet?
25:15 Payton Moreland? They need to get the police involved. So 10 days after collecting all of this evidence, they decide to move. So on July 15th, 2015, Ramon goes back to the police, the Montgomery County Constable's Office, to be exact. And between those recordings and the down payment Lulu had given to Mundo to help get the gun, police are like, okay, yeah, we believe you that she's trying to kill you. You have a lot of evidence. In those recordings, Lulu talks about getting Ramon's life insurance policy, getting his pension payments for the rest of her life, his retirement money, how she'll never have to work again.
25:50 Garrett Moreland? This is insane.
25:51 Payton Moreland? And that she needed Ramon to be dead before July 22nd because that's when their divorce would be finalized. If that day came and went with Ramon still alive, well, she wouldn't get a dime. His kids would walk away with most of it.
26:04 Garrett Moreland? I would go on a vaca- I would go on a cruise that nobody knows about for like three weeks.
26:09 Payton Moreland? So Mundo also tells her several times in these recordings, if at any point she wants to call it off, she can just say the word. And she's like, no, I'm good. Let's do, do it. I already made up my mind. So police are more than ready to move forward now, but they have less than seven days to get this done because like Ramon, they are worried about the possibility of Lulu hiring someone else to do the job, especially if she feels like Paco is moving too slow. So ultimately, they also decide to keep up the ruse that Ramon and Mundo were playing. The police figured if they changed course now, Lulu might suspect something's up. They want more evidence.
26:46 Garrett Moreland? Change course, arrest the girl.
26:48 Payton Moreland? So they kept Mundo and Ramon as part of their sting operation and they set a date for Paco, who would be played by one of the precinct's undercover agents and Lulu to finally meet in person. This is on July 20th. That evening, Lulu stopped at an ATM and withdrew $500 cash before meeting Mundo and Paco in a parking lot just a few blocks away from the gym. She also brought several of Ramon's watches with her as additional payment. Mundo, who's wearing a hidden camera, catches the discussion between her and Paco. When he asks her, okay, so what do you want? You want this guy beaten up or effed over? She's like, no, no beating. I just want him dead. He says, okay, any final messages you want me to tell him? And she says, no, I don't want to talk to him. I just want him dead.
27:32 Payton Moreland? She's on a mission. She's cold. She's heartless. And when the whole thing is done, Lulu actually pulls Mundo in for a hug. Like she's grateful for his help in finding this hitman.
27:43 Garrett Moreland? And they don't just arrest her on the spot right there?
27:46 Payton Moreland? No. So at this point, police have more than enough to arrest Lulu, maybe even put her behind bars. But there's still those claims she made of domestic violence, something they think could sway a jury. So they figure there's one more thing they could do to really show Lulu's true colors. They wanted to convince Lulu that Ramon was dead. And to do it, they pulled out all the stops. Now, in all of our years doing this show, I can think I can safely say this is the first time I've heard of something like this happening in a case.
28:17 Garrett Moreland? Oh, did you lie to me?
28:19 Payton Moreland? I did.
28:19 Garrett Moreland? You lied to me.
28:21 Payton Moreland? Well, he is, he is in a grave.
28:24 Garrett Moreland? Oh, I'm pretty happy you lied to me because I thought for sure he was dead. That makes me pretty happy.
28:29 Payton Moreland? So the following day, July 21st, detectives sat in front of a computer watching YouTube makeup tutorials because they were going to learn how to fake a gunshot wound to the head. They went to the grocery store. They bought food coloring, corn syrup, just like they use in the movies. Then they dug a shallow grave in a rural area of North Houston. This is like real
28:50 Garrett Moreland? This is crazy.
28:50 Payton Moreland? official police business. Okay. There's like a whole team here doing this. At around 5:00 PM that day, Ramon Sosa climbed into that hole, wearing nothing but his underwear. And I do want to say, I have heard Ramon himself talk about this experience. And he finds this entire thing extremely traumatic.
29:10 Garrett Moreland? Oh, I'm sure.
29:12 Payton Moreland? It's not just like fun and games. It's not like he's going through this entire thing. Bloody makeup all over him, pretending to be dead, climbing in a hole. He's doing this because his wife
29:22 Garrett Moreland? Wants to kill him.
29:23 Payton Moreland? Wants to kill him.
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32:05 Payton Moreland? So it's not fun and games. Like he's sitting in this whole goal and what has my life come to? This is so distressing. He's in only his underwear. He's very vulnerable. He has a fake bloody gunshot wound to the head. Closes his eyes, he plays dead and detectives snapped photos on their cell phones of him lying there. Now to the officers who were helping Ramon fake his own death, this might have felt like just a weird day at work. Like I said, Ramon, lying in that hole, it was emotional. He's thinking about his kids. Are they ever gonna see this photo? To him, this isn't a story he's gonna go home and tell his wife after. This is the culmination of his life. It's just bizarre, but it gets the job done because the following day, that undercover officer playing Paco meets
32:48 Payton Moreland? up with Lulu. And again, their encounter is caught on camera. He shows her the photos. She stares at them quietly for a few seconds. She doesn't cringe. She doesn't look away. She doesn't say, no, no, I don't want to see. She just deadpan. She just stares. And when Paco tells her, yeah, Ramon fought back, she laughs. She's looking at a picture of who she believes is her dead husband.
33:16 Garrett Moreland? That's a freak.
33:17 Payton Moreland? The hitman says, yeah, he fought back. And she laughs.
33:20 Garrett Moreland? Okay.
33:20 Payton Moreland? She shows zero remorse. So police are like, yeah, this is gonna make a jury not
33:27 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
33:27 Payton Moreland? Believe that Ramon had ever done anything. So police secure an arrest warrant for Lulu. On July 23rd, police show up to the gym pretending to look for Ramon, who they say they've gotten missing persons reports about. So they're still playing this. They pull Lulu aside, ask if she's seen him. Has he been at work? Have you spoken to him? And she says, no, we haven't spoken since we started going through our divorce. When they ask when she last saw Ramon, she says July 15th, despite the fact that they were living under the same roof together. And at the same time, Lulu's acting concerned. She's asking police questions. They give Lulu a few minutes to finish her hardly Oscar-worthy performance. And then they say, Lulu, you're under arrest for capital murder charges.
34:10 Payton Moreland? I don't know what her reaction was to finding out that Ramon was still alive, but I'm sure the look on her face was absolutely priceless.
34:17 Garrett Moreland? That's amazing. I wish I could see.
34:19 Payton Moreland? And while Ramon was probably chomping at the bit for Lulu to hear this entire story, that wasn't the case when it came to Ramon's kids. He now had to explain to them, hey, so there's this picture of me and I had to do it because the woman that honestly put a wedge between us tried to kill me. He also had the hurdle of rebuilding his reputation. While I don't know what went on behind closed doors between Ramon and Lulu, I have to say he was never convicted of anything having to do with domestic assault. And after her arrest, Lulu agreed to the divorce settlement as it stood, giving Ramon full ownership of both the house and the gym. Then, after spending 15 months behind bars awaiting her trial,
35:02 Payton Moreland? Lulu pleaded guilty in October 2016 to reduce charges of second degree solicitation of murder. Ramon was at her sentencing hearing. He says he'll never forget the first thing he noticed when she walked in. The sound of her chains clinging as the courtroom fell silent. But Ramon also said he felt sorry for Lulu. As he put it, quote, "This lady ended up in this country because she wanted a better life. She was living well. I bought her expensive shoes. She had fine clothes. And now she's in a jumpsuit and chains. It didn't have to be this way." In fact, Ramon said he forgave her in that moment. It was as if all his anger and frustration washed away as he saw her stand before the judge and receive her sentence.
35:47 Payton Moreland? 20 years behind bars. But Lulu, she never once looked in Ramon's direction that day. And not a single member of hers stood up before the judge to advocate on her behalf. After that day in court, Ramon did his best to move forward in life. He said the experience brought him and his daughter Mia much closer. She actually packed up her life in California and returned to Texas to be closer to her father. She said seeing those photos of him lying in that grave pretending to be dead made her realize how little time they actually had together and she wanted him to be more present in her life. In 2018, Ramon found love again. He got engaged to a Houston-based doctor. He wrote a book about his experience, even started traveling, giving lectures and supporting charities
36:32 Payton Moreland? that address male domestic violence. And he credits all of this to his good friend, Mundo.
36:38 Garrett Moreland? Good old Mundo, man.
36:40 Payton Moreland? But while Ramon's story may have a happy ending, that doesn't mean he's living without fear because in October 2023, Lulu was released from prison after serving only seven years of her 20-year sentence. Ramon says that while she was released on good behavior, he says, maybe Lulu's the same person. Maybe she'll come for me, looking for revenge. And because of that, Ramon will always be looking over his shoulder, wondering if the woman he once loved will come to finish the job once and for all.
37:12 Garrett Moreland? That's scary, actually. Hundred percent.
37:14 Payton Moreland? And that is the story of Ramon Sosa, who had to fake his own death for police to believe him that his wife was trying to kill him.
37:24 Garrett Moreland? Dude, that's, that is pretty scary that she's out.
37:26 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
37:27 Garrett Moreland? I mean, I'd move like, I'd move countries.
37:29 Payton Moreland? Bro, she laughed.
37:30 Garrett Moreland? I'd move countries for sure.
37:32 Payton Moreland? She laughed. He shouldn't have to.
37:34 Garrett Moreland? No, he shouldn't have to, but I would.
37:35 Payton Moreland? She should. Bye, Lulu.
37:39 Garrett Moreland? Send her somewhere. Just send her to the middle of an island somewhere.
37:42 Payton Moreland? He should get to live where he wants to live. She laughed when he said he fought back. That's so sad. She's heartless and cold.
37:52 Garrett Moreland? What a case. Well, you lied to me, but I'm glad everyone's alive.
37:55 Payton Moreland? Well, what did you want me to tell you? No, no, no, no, no. Everything turns out okay.
37:59 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, you lied to me.
38:00 Payton Moreland? He did end up in a grave with a gunshot to the head.
38:03 Garrett Moreland? I still love you.
38:04 Payton Moreland? I love you too. All right, you guys, that is our episode and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.
38:10 Garrett Moreland? I hate it.
38:10 Payton Moreland? Goodbye.
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