OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- Days after journalist Rob Hiaasen and four colleagues were shot to death by a gunman who blasted his way into the Capital Gazette's newsroom, an overflow crowd gathered on Monday evening to remember him.
Attendees at the "celebration of life" held at a Maryland nature center said they would remember Hiaasen for how he lived, rather than the way he died. They sought solace with laughter and funny memories, but sobs occasionally punctuated the ceremony.
"I want to just remember what a wonderful person Rob was and what a great, wonderful, selfless life he led," said Kevin Cowherd, one of several speakers who addressed the crowd of roughly 500 people assembled beneath a large white tent.
Meanwhile, Maryland police investigating America's latest mass murder said Monday that Jarrod Ramos, the man charged with the slayings, sent three threatening letters on the day of the attack. Sgt. Jacklyn Davis, a spokesman for Anne Arundel County police, said the letters were received Monday.
Tom Marquardt, the onetime publisher of the Capital Gazette, told The Associated Press at Hiaasen's memorial that Ramos sent one letter to a company lawyer saying he was on his way to the Annapolis newspaper "to kill as many people" as he could. The letter dated June 28 -- the day of the deadly attack -- was sent to Robert C. Douglas, a lawyer for the newspaper, Marquardt said.
"In that letter, he was talking to the appeals court judge and suggesting that he didn't do a very good job on the case and as a result he was going to have to take out his vengeance in a different way," Marquardt said.
Letters were also sent to a Baltimore judge, as well as a judge at the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.
Earlier Monday on the Today show, a woman recounted the online harassment and threats that led her to file a criminal harassment charge against Ramos.
The woman said she was terrified for years that Ramos would "show up anywhere, at any time, and kill me."
Her interview aired just days after the massacre of five employees at the Capital Gazette -- which ran an article in 2011 about his harassment charge, setting off a yearslong feud between Ramos and the Annapolis newspaper.
The woman, whose full identity was withheld out of safety concerns, said she was hit with a wave of panic when she heard about last week's shooting in the newspaper office.
She thought it might be Ramos.
"He is very cold," she said. "He is very calculated."
In 2011, Ramos pleaded guilty to one count of harassment and received a 90-day suspended sentence and 18 months of supervised probation. He was required to stay away from her and her family and to be evaluated for psychiatric or psychological treatment.
However, the woman wrote in court filings that Ramos continued to harass her and sent her a threatening letter. She obtained two more restraining orders against him in 2012 and 2013, according to court records. The last order lasted until March 5, 2014. Now that he's been arrested, she said she feels more empowered to speak out.
"One thing that I do feel now," she said, "is that he can no longer silence me."
Information for this article was contributed by Talia Richman, Catherine Rentz and Ian Duncan of The Baltimore Sun; and by David McFadden of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/03/2018