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Mysterious Death of Geoffrey Ramseth
11 Plays7 days ago
A quiet act of kindness turns into a nightmare when Seattle pharmacist Geoff Ramseth is gunned down after walking a pregnant friend to her car late one night. As police search for answers, a disturbing connection emerges between Geoff’s murder and a violent man with ties to his family. Months later, that same man is convicted of killing his own 9-year-old daughter, raising chilling questions about whether Geoff’s death was truly random. In this episode, we unravel a web of obsession, violence, and a mystery that still leaves Seattle wondering who was really responsible.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Beneath the Evergreens'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances, to true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets under the evergreens. Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night.
00:00:25
Speaker
So grab your flashlight. Lock your doors
Personal Stories and Humor
00:00:28
Speaker
and join us on Beneath the Evergreens.
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Welcome, everyone. As previously stated, you're at Beneath Evergreen, so welcome. Welcome, welcome. um And I have a question for you.
00:01:07
Speaker
i have an answer. Maybe. When people come to your door unannounced, do you ever open it? No. am it is it It is very rare for people to come to my door. So when they do, I'm my like i'm immediately like, something's wrong.
00:01:23
Speaker
Like something horrible has happened. yeah my My husband once almost attacked someone that rang our door. Like that's how rare it is. Like it never happens. I adore that. My dogs also attack people that come to the door. um Anywho, any fun stories for you this week?
00:01:39
Speaker
Everyone, I just want you to know, Anna is blowing her nose, and that is the summation of her week. I mean, yes. yeah
00:01:48
Speaker
oh No, I have not been doing anything. I have still been getting over being sick, so I'm just chilling. Just chilling. Good. Well, glad you get some relaxed time.
00:01:59
Speaker
That's
Tragic Heroism: The Story of Jeff
00:02:00
Speaker
good.
00:02:02
Speaker
Thanks, friend. Thank you. So, I have a very fun story for you that I've been, like, like holding on to for some time now. And I've just been like itching with excitement to talk about it.
00:02:12
Speaker
I'm itching with excitement too. Or hives. Jury's out. Just kidding. Sorry. That was gross. but Oh my God. We are keeping it real today.
00:02:27
Speaker
So this story is super interesting. It took place in the nineties in Seattle. Okay. Okay. And I'm I don't you probably haven't heard about it because i feel like you would have been pretty young when it happened um because I hadn't heard about it at all.
00:02:43
Speaker
OK, but it's super interesting. It's also like kind of a cool historical thing to look back on and how much the area has changed, but it's also the same. So we'll jump right into it. Our story starts on 28th, 1999.
00:02:58
Speaker
okay jeff ramsith he is a pharmacist he is leaving the restaurant called casina casina in south lake union kind of near the intersection of mercer and west lake if you're kind of familiar with that area it's like super kind of like fancy and big now it's like very like techie but back in 99 it was way more industrial so it wasn't like super populated i don't think A little bit more like grungy rundown, kind of like I guess what I imagined 90s in Seattle, like in its entirety was like. Like Nirvana?
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah. that's But if you're let you're listening and you have seen SLU in the last like 10 years, this is the complete opposite of what it's like now. There was not a ton of people around, not a ton of lights. It's little bit on the shadier your side, it sounds like.
00:03:46
Speaker
It was late. This bar was closed. It's just past 2 a.m. Mm-hmm. but Jeff had been at a going away party for a friend on his co-ed soccer team. Jeff was a lovely man and ever the gentleman. He was walking one of his friends to her car after the party. So this woman, she was seven months pregnant. So she's not moving very fast. Yeah. um And it's late. It's dark.
00:04:11
Speaker
So he walks her to her car. And once they get there, she gets in and he actually gets into the car with her to kind of chat while her car warms up. And he makes sure that she's like settled and ready to go home. Okay.
00:04:25
Speaker
So they are in there chatting. And I know my brain initially went to like, that seems a little sus. Right. you for that Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.
00:04:36
Speaker
And I mean, we'll never actually know, right? Like what was going on at that time. But from all the reports that I can find, it sounded like it was, this was like, they were just friends. Like legitimately, they were just chatting. Like platonic? Okay.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah. Like this was not out of character for Jeff. He sounds like the kind of guy that's always going to help someone that needs it. Always going to make sure all of his friends get where they're going safely. Especially like, you know, a woman that's seven months pregnant, right? like At 2 a.m. in the morning. I bet she is so tired.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, probably probably needs a little bit help And that's just the kind of guy that that Jeff was. So they're in the car chatting. The car is heating up. And then they notice that there is a dark colored pickup pickup truck parked next to them. it Doesn't immediately look like anything crazy, right? Just they're in a parking lot. There's going to be cars next to them. and The truck was just sitting there id idling and they could see that someone was inside of it.
00:05:26
Speaker
They thought that maybe it was just he was just waiting for someone in the restaurant, like someone that worked there to pick him up. um They could actually see the man. He had some he had longer blonde hair and he just was kind of hanging out there. Wasn't really doing too much.
00:05:39
Speaker
Didn't really again didn't raise any alarms. Right. Like he's probably waiting for a friend, picking him up, just going to like go somewhere else after the fact. So at some point, the man in the truck next to them rolls down his window.
00:05:51
Speaker
um And Jeff's friend, her real name isn't reported on. I don't know what her actual name is. okay But for the sake this episode, I'm going to call her Ruth because she comes up a couple of times. Okay.
00:06:01
Speaker
So the man in the truck rolls down his window. Ruth then like kind of sees this and is like, oh, he looks like he's like asking for directions or something. So she rolls her window down as well.
00:06:15
Speaker
Once the window comes down, Jeff sees something like a laser pointing in to the car. And he immediately see like is like, oh my God, this guy has a gun. and he's like pointing a gun at them.
00:06:28
Speaker
So Jeff pushes Ruth's head down. And then he is shot. Oh God. Yeah. So six bullets are shot into the car. Six.
00:06:43
Speaker
Six. Five of them hit Jeff. Two in the head and then three in the chest. che So Jeff died instantly. However, Ruth was she was just grazed by a bullet.
00:06:54
Speaker
Her and the baby were totally fine. And Jeff was just the hero. So he like literally sacrificed himself for his friend. That's crazy. I
Community Mourning and Motive Questions
00:07:03
Speaker
would be like devastated. And if that baby's name is not after him.
00:07:08
Speaker
Right. I don't know. Or they even friends. That's crazy. Six bullets in a car. no Yeah. And like from only a couple feet away. Right. Like she was in the car right next to them. so Jeff was able to or excuse me, not Jeff. Ruth ruth was able to tell police what happened that night. Like 911 was called immediately. They were there pretty quick.
00:07:29
Speaker
And she was able to provide that general description, you know, a man with long blonde hair to the police. And then while police were actively searching for the man responsible for the the violence, Jeff's family, which was absolutely reeling.
00:07:43
Speaker
I mean, they thought that he was just going out to dinner with some friends, didn't like expected to see him in the morning. Like I said, he was a pharmacist. He had a stable job. his Everyone loved him. Like he was such an important part of his community that it was just a it was absurd and no one could believe it.
00:08:00
Speaker
So Jeff had three daughters, and he was absolutely the best dad. From everything that I could see, he would volunteer in his daughter's classrooms. He was always involved with playing sports with them. He was also a devout Catholic, so he spent a ton of time coaching different sports at his local church, was was a part of different ministries, and he made such an impact on so many people.
00:08:24
Speaker
ah Over 1,000 people came to his funeral. my gosh. They were standing remote. 1,000? Yeah. 1,000 people came to his funeral. That's pretty remarkable. You have to be a personal person for that happen.
00:08:37
Speaker
Right. I'm like, i was kind of reflecting while reading that. And i was like, do I even know what thousand people like would a thousand people come to my funeral? Probably not. I don't know if 10 will come my funeral, quite frankly. I'll be there. I'll bring a crowd. Don't worry. Isn't that incredible? Like think of how like how many people he just was a part like part of so many different communities. That's insane.
Brad Jackson's Connection
00:09:07
Speaker
So I know the question now is, like, this guy sounds great, right He sounds like he was just beloved. So why would anyone want to kill him? Literally. that Yeah, it's crazy.
00:09:19
Speaker
So honestly, the police were wondering the same thing. Wait, this is a 99? 99, yeah. I might have a theory. Keep going. Oh, okay. um Yeah, so they could not find any reason that anyone wanted to kill him. Until they uncovered a strange connection.
00:09:38
Speaker
Done. So, done on... This is where the story, like, took a strange turn when I was researching it, I was like, like my mind was a little blown. Yeah. So... Out in Spokane, about five months after Jeff was killed, a nine-year-old girl named Valerie Jackson was killed by her father, William Brad Jackson. That's good one. He went by bra Brad. Yeah. Right.
00:10:02
Speaker
So now Brad had gone to school with Jeff's wife, Tammy, and he had stayed with the Ramsets a couple weeks before Jeff died. and he looked quite similar to the man that Ruth saw in the truck parked next to her and Jeff.
00:10:17
Speaker
Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So Brad Jackson and Roseanne Pleasant had their daughter Valerie in 1990. So Brad was a construction worker in Spokane and Roseanne was involved with sex work.
00:10:32
Speaker
So they had a pretty turbulent and abusive relationship. It was really not great. Brad was arrested for hitting her. um But when they separated, Brad was awarded custard custody of Valerie, with Roseanne only getting visitation, most likely due to Roseanne's drug use at the time.
00:10:49
Speaker
so it's a pretty, pretty sad situation all around. yeah However,
Exploring Brad's Violent History
00:10:54
Speaker
before Valerie's second birthday, Roseanne, her mother, disappeared. She was last seen at a convenience store in Spokane.
00:11:03
Speaker
And seven years later, Valerie would disappear from the same city but of Spokane. So Brad Jackson was not initially a suspect in Valerie's disappearance.
00:11:14
Speaker
He was not, no. He was the one that reported her missing, actually. um He said that she was playing outside and then all of a sudden he couldn't find her. He like turned away, came back, she was gone.
00:11:28
Speaker
After coming up with no other possible suspects, like police were like actively thinking, like oh, it's got to someone else. yeah They could not find anyone. Then they start looking at Brad a little bit more, right? Like, what's the home life like? Are we missing something here?
00:11:43
Speaker
They took his truck in to look for evidence and they attached a GPS monitor to the truck when when they released it back to him. it's So it's really funny, actually, because when I was looking king into this, the article that I was reading was written and in 1999. Yeah. And they were going into so much detail about what GPS was. i was going to say, I was like, I'm surprised I had GPS in 1999.
00:12:07
Speaker
Isn't that MapQuest still a thing? Oh, my God. MapQuest. I forgot about that. But no, they're going into like how like the private, like how like privacy can be impacted by GPS and...
00:12:19
Speaker
how like nerve wracking it was and yeah it was crazy like now we just track our friends for funsies
00:12:29
Speaker
right now yeah we keep a little like gps device literally in our pockets at all times privacy what's privacy it like weirdly echoed the conversations we're having about ai now oh for sure but like 25 years later which is just it's it's so interesting to see this like on a weird full circle yeah But yeah, I giggled quite a bit during that that article.
00:12:52
Speaker
love that. Anyways, so ah police used this GPS tracker to track Brad's truck into the foothills surrounding Spokane. They went out there themselves, and that is where they found traces of Valerie, some large tape, and hair that was a similar color to hers.
00:13:11
Speaker
They then used that GPS to find another spot Brad had visited, and that is where they found all of Valerie's body. Brad claimed still that he did not kill her, that he just he just found her body, and that he didn't know what to do, so he buried her.
00:13:27
Speaker
right okay yeah sure right sure yeah i bet i bet brad um he claimed that there was a ton of speculation um surrounding roseanne's disappearance years ago and that he was afraid that people would think immediately that he killed valerie because my guy right because right yeah he's like well i was the main i was the the main suspect i'm blank Yeah, I was the main suspect in ah my ex-partner's murder or disappearance. I mean, probably a good bet I'm going to be the same thing my daughter. So, like, I guess I'll just bury her. Like, eh. go to the evidence in one area and then go bury her in a second area and know both locations.
00:14:12
Speaker
right yes thing know sounds about right sounds all right so anyways despicable anyway right so uh the the motive this is what really like kills me the motive that the police gave or for why brad killed valerie was because valerie didn't get along with brad's girlfriend and was standing in the way of them getting married Yes.
00:14:40
Speaker
So this this asshole thought, well, I can't get married with my kid, so might as well just kill my kid. Is that not the most insane thing you've ever heard? Like, it's fucking disgusting. My brain cannot.
00:14:53
Speaker
I can't even. There's no. rash What? That doesn't even make sense. Right? Yeah, like it's it's truly the mind of someone that has no like critical thinking skills and like resorts to to murder to fix their And is incredibly self-centered. Like, right? why Can you just not wait nine years?
00:15:15
Speaker
Yes, I guess. Well, I guess not. I guess he could absolutely could not. Oh my God. I am happy to report though that Brad was convicted of killering v killing Valerie and is currently serving 56 year sentence. good um I don't believe he should be out for many, many, many years. good Ideally, he dies in prison. that's I mean, that's one the only option.
00:15:39
Speaker
feel like if you kill your child, you have to... If you kill your child, you have to the rest of your life has to be in prison. like There's no... could not agree more yeah Could
Lack of Evidence and Speculation
00:15:52
Speaker
not agree more. She doesn't have a grandparent she can stay with. like I mean, ah that's just crazy. That's crazy. right So now, how does the story of Brad and Roseanne and Valerie connect back to Jeff again?
00:16:08
Speaker
Because they seem pretty different, right? You have this construction worker who kills his daughter. but Then you have this well-loved pharmacist. Yeah. So like I said before, Brad was an old friend of Jeff's wife, Tammy. And he had actually stayed with the Ramseths in the weeks prior to Jeff's death.
00:16:26
Speaker
And yeah, he looked similar to the the description that Ruth gave, right? Okay. So the motive that I've heard is that Brad was actually in love with with Tammy, Jeff's wife, and that when he heard that her and Jeff were having marriage issues, which it sounds like they had been fighting a little bit um up to prior to his death. okay He had this opportunity to kill Jeff so that Tammy could be with him.
00:16:51
Speaker
However, was this the person that his daughter didn't like? No. Okay, thank God. um so That theory would imply that five months later, he moved on from Tammy and was so ready to marry a new woman that he killed his nine-year-old daughter.
00:17:09
Speaker
Which seems a bit odd to me, but I also don't think I'd ever want, like, I don't think I could empathize with a man that was, like, so deranged that he's going to kill his own daughter to marry a woman.
00:17:21
Speaker
yeah i would like if you're Yeah, if you're so deranged that you would even contemplate killing your child for because you like someone, I wouldn't put it past them to move on that quickly to someone else.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah. the it is It's so wild and he seems to be so just like all over the place that, okay, me not being able to understand it it doesn't say too much. Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
Yes. I would be worried if you did, actually. i would say, maybe don't have kids. o So Seattle police have met with Brad over the years and he's never admitted to killing Jeff. Mm-hmm.
00:18:01
Speaker
But he also never admitted to killing anyone. And we definitely know he killed his daughter, Valerie. He probably killed Roseanne as well. So again, not saying much that he hasn't admitted to anyone.
00:18:13
Speaker
But he had not been able to prove that he actually was responsible for Jeff's death. So all that to
Theories and Unresolved Mysteries
00:18:20
Speaker
say, did Brad kill Jeff? The jury's still out.
00:18:25
Speaker
In my mind, it's definitely maybe. Yeah. I feel like I can't definitively say, but an attack like this seems very personal in a way that he's getting that close to someone to shoot him.
00:18:37
Speaker
um But it also and also seems very targeted. Like, it doesn't seem like it's just a random chance that they were right there when that man was ready to pull the trigger. Mm-hmm.
00:18:48
Speaker
Jeff seems like so too good of a guy for someone to really want him dead. Like unless he was involved with some of something else that's shady. And hey, we all have our like our secrets, our demons, you know.
00:18:59
Speaker
But it seems odd that something that Jeff would do would get him killed. So I'm the more I think about it, I am slowly getting into the Brad camp. But if you ask me if Brad has something to do with Roseanne's death,
00:19:14
Speaker
absolutely nothing i want to yeah 100 think he was involved in some capacity especially if there's like domestic violence it passed almost a thousand percent absolutely and i think the the main barrier in her case is that she's just she's never been found there they can't find a body they don't know if she like maybe she is still out there somewhere unlikely but they can't prove anything Until they find some kind of evidence and they don't have anything, which is really sad. I mean, to shoot someone six times into a vehicle,
00:19:51
Speaker
that is kind of overkill. Like you have to have some personal connection. So did they say why he was staying with them? He was just visiting or what? Sounds like he was just visiting. He was an old friend just, yeah, coming to visit in town, seeing them. That's such a weird – pharmacist and a domestic violence killer – right go in my head god no it seems like an odd connection and yeah the whole thing just it it just it gives weird vibes have two theories are you ready to hear my tell me i want to hear the guys first one isn't this the time like the late 90s is when percocet and oxycodones are starting to become popular right
00:20:38
Speaker
Maybe. I'm like, well, you're a pharmacist. Was he like handing out those prescriptions? And that's why old boy came over because he's like, you know, was there a connection there?
00:20:52
Speaker
But I'm guessing the police probably would have figured that out because the pharmacy might have tracked something. Yeah, and it sounds like it was a pretty small pharmacy. like It sounds like um it was like a family-owned pharmacy. Okay.
00:21:04
Speaker
So I imagine it like you can't hide too many transactions. you know like it It's going to be pretty controlled. He also sounds like a pretty nice guy, pretty involved with family, so maybe not. But you never know because some people are really involved and then they get in and over their heads with debt or something.
00:21:21
Speaker
Second theory is that what if Tammy didn't want his, her husband anymore, didn't want to divorce him. So calls like her old friend.
00:21:35
Speaker
Potentially. i feel like I feel like nothing's off the table because we don't know. Because Jeff's murder still has never been solved. It could be aliens. That is always on the table. of No, it was interesting. i was I was telling my husband about this and he, in his mind, actually, all the signs led to it was a completely random hit.
00:21:53
Speaker
He was taking it all as like they were just, the the truck was just there waiting for someone to to like come to the car next to him and then he was going to shoot no matter what. And I interpreted everything very differently.
00:22:06
Speaker
I think this case is a really interesting um interesting example of how we perceive information and how when there's just not a lot of evidence, your brain tries to jump to whatever conclusion it can. For sure. And I was able to convince myself that it it's this guy. Yeah. And maybe it just maybe it isn't. Maybe it truly was just a random shooting. Some guy just wanted a thrill and he did it.
00:22:30
Speaker
And where we don't know who and we're never going to find out why. I hate that. So there's, yeah, there's probably a million different, different theories we could come up with, but will we ever come up with the truth? That's true. And what if it's not
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:22:44
Speaker
even about Jeff? what it What if it's about the woman that was in the car?
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah. What if it's about Ruth? Cause they were in her car. If it, maybe it was targeted, but it was targeted for her. And he just happened to step in and save, save her life. That I don't, I don't like that. There's not an ending.
00:23:01
Speaker
I know. It's horrible. It is horrible. It's horrible. And this is why I've been simmering on it. This is why I wanted to bring this to all of our mosque goblins because I think that there's so many ideas and want to hear what everyone else thinks. do too. Because I've been spiraling.
00:23:17
Speaker
And this is this is really all the information that I can find. There is not a ton of stuff about this guy. And it it irks me. It irks me too. especially I'm wondering like also because this seems like a cold case, something that probably someone probably looks about, looks at maybe once every couple months.
00:23:37
Speaker
Right. and Not a couple months. it's probably once every couple of years. And if this is back when there wasn't a lot of. No technology. Really? i'm GPS was like revolutionary at this time. Yeah. I. This is so interesting.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yes. I want to hear everyone's theories. Aliens. I don't know. I'm intrigued by this pharmacy angle.
00:24:00
Speaker
See, I hadn't thought about the pharmacy angle at all. That is it. That's an interesting one. I only know that because used to, I used to work in a pharmacy and people do weird stuff.
00:24:12
Speaker
Like we were robbed four times. Some in very interesting ways.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah. That seems concerning. Someone dug through the floor. Are you kidding me? answers That's wild. Which makes me think it's like an inside job, but that's neither here nor there. there That's great. This is, I'm gonna think about this for like the rest of my life. And then he has three daughters too.
00:24:38
Speaker
so you can't even really like truly get closure. Like, why did this happen? Why you can't recon reconcile that in your mind. No, no. And yeah, therere there hasn't been many developments. Like the the most recent development is the Brad angle. the There is this like tenuous connection. Maybe this is what happened. But I mean, he was arrested for that in the, yeah, like the early 2000s. So that was really the last major break.
00:25:05
Speaker
That's crazy. And then there's also this like thing of how diabolical of a person do you have to be to hold on to a secret like that for many, many years? Right? Like you have to, like that's like ah almost psychopathic behavior. Like I don't know how you would sit with that.
00:25:21
Speaker
Forever? Or you're spiraling in some other part of your life. No. No, thank you. Yikes. What if you married someone that killed someone and they never told you?
00:25:35
Speaker
earth Well, this was a great story. I really appreciated Thank you. I need to hear from people and about their Yes.
00:25:46
Speaker
I want theories. i want to hear what other people think and how you guys are interpreting the facts. Okay. yeah That's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest. If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time. Thank you for joining us on Beneath the Evergreens.
00:26:05
Speaker
We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us. Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked. Also, don't roll down your window in a parking lot. Like, for real though.