Joaquin S. Rams after his arrest in January 2013. (Photo courtesy of Manassas Police)The investigation of Joaquin Rams for the alleged 2012 murder of his 15-month-old son Prince McLeod Rams has gotten quite a bit of media attention as the case drags on. But Buzzfeed has a heartbreaking investigation with new details about the botched rape investigation that preceded—and perhaps led to—Prince’s death.
Lara McLeod says that Joaquin raped her two weeks after her sister Hera McLeod had given birth to Joaquin’s son, Prince. She told her parents, and they then reported it to the Prince William County Police Department. And then, unimaginably, things got far worse for Lara. Lara never wanted to report her rape, but police compelled her to—only to end up charging her with making up the report and her sister with abetting her. Lara told Buzzfeed, “My rape was awful. But the way the police handled it was even worse.”
“’I gave Lara one last opportunity to tell me the truth and to admit if it was consensual sex and she again denied that it was consensual,’ Cavender wrote in his report. He finally told her he had a tape of the two of them having sex and asked if Lara wanted to watch it.
Lara started panicking. No, she didn’t want to watch a secret video of her recent sexual assault. That’s when the police told her it was time to teach her a lesson, she said.
The Buzzfeed story details how Joaquin and Hera met, it features an interview with Lara about the alleged rape and then it details the many ways police ruined the investigation from the way they handled evidence, ignored Lara’s medical report and failed to run a simple background check on Joaquin. Here’s a key passage:
After a cursory investigation of the claim they compelled her to file, the police abruptly concluded Lara was lying about being raped and arrested her. Hera was charged with obstructing justice for aiding Lara’s alleged deceit, and had to spend her savings on legal fees to get them dismissed. Lara’s charges were eventually expunged, but not before her reputation was destroyed. She says she still has severe panic attacks whenever she sees a police officer.
But the worst was yet to come.
In the ensuing battle for custody over Prince, Hera and Joaquin’s infant son, it emerged that not only had Joaquin lied about his name, employment history, and age — he was a decade older than he had claimed — but he had also once been a suspect in his ex-girlfriend’s shooting death and a person of interest in his mother’s death, too, although he was never successfully charged in either case. He had been accused of child abuse by his other son, although never convicted, and ran an amateur porn site.
But thanks to the charges against Hera and Lara, Joaquin was able to portray himself as a comparatively fit parent — and the victim of a smear job. The judge granted Joaquin unsupervised visits. Three months later, EMTs found Prince unconscious on the floor of Joaquin’s house. The 15-month-old died the next day. Months later, Joaquin was charged with capital murder.
Rams denies murdering his 15-month-old son Prince, and the defense has seized upon the fact that no cause of death was ever determined. Manassas Sgt. Christine Perry told Buzzfeed that during the investigation into Prince’s death she met many people who Joaquin hurt “either physically, mentally, emotionally, or financially.” She added, “How he continued to come out on top and be able to play the victim himself still astonishes me.”
None of the investigators in the rape case have faced any consequences—in fact two key investigators have since been promoted. Prince William County Police Chief Steve Hudson admitted to the family in a 2013 meeting that some of the policing was “sloppy” and violated guidelines, but the department officially refused to apologize or say that Lara should never have been charged.
Lara told Buzzfeed, “People say rape is serious and you should report it, but look what happened to me: I reported my rape, and they told me it never happened.”
Prince McLeod Rams (Joaquin Rams via Washington Post)
