New court filings in an Iowa murder case offer a glimpse of the prosecution’s evidence in a fatal shooting that shook the real estate industry 15 years ago.
A motion the prosecution filed Wednesday alleges that a witness saw Kristin Ramsey, who was charged with first-degree murder last month in the 2011 killing of Ashley Okland, outside the open house where Okland was fatally shot soon after the witness heard two apparent gunshots.
Attorneys for Ramsey, who is being held in lieu of $2 million bond, have said she maintains her innocence. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Ramsey’s defense team has sought to have her bond reduced to $100,000. In a bond review document also filed Wednesday in Dallas County, the attorneys described Ramsey, 53, as a onetime cheerleading champion who married her high school sweetheart and has strong ties to the small Iowa town where she has spent her life.
Prosecutors opposed those efforts in Wednesday’s motion and said Ramsey had been interviewed on multiple occasions about the shooting and provided conflicting versions of her whereabouts on April 8, 2011.
The documents do not identify a possible motive.
According to the motion, a witness in a home next to the open house saw Ramsey after having heard two loud thuds that investigators believe were gunshots. Authorities later recovered two .380 cartridge cases that appeared to have been fired.
Okland, 27, was shot twice at close range, the document says.
The witness first saw Ramsey by the model home’s front door, the filing says. Then she was seen pacing by her car, talking on her phone, it says.
The call, which the filing says was made within two minutes of the thuds, was to an employee of the company that owned the development where Okland was hosting the open house.
At the time, Ramsey was a sales manager for the company, according to the filing.
After Ramsey drove off in what the filing described as an erratic manner, the witness found Okland unresponsive inside the model home and called 911.
No one else was seen in the immediate area at the time of the shooting, nor were signs of forced entry or damage found in the house, the filing says.
Two search warrants were executed at Ramsey’s home, including one carried out less than a month after the shooting, according to the document. A second search warrant was executed on March 17, the day Ramsey was taken into custody, it says.
In both cases, the document says, authorities found guns, illegal substances and posters threatening violence.
The document does not say why Ramsey was not arrested until last month. Dallas County Attorney Matt Schultz declined to comment Thursday.
After Okland’s killing, the real estate industry responded with a “safety pledge” of best practices that aimed to keep agents safer.
An industry survey in 2024 found that many still find themselves in situations that make them fear for their safety, however, and some agents recently told NBC News that they believe the industry needs stronger safety rules.
