At a press conference Wednesday, the West Des Moines Police Department announced the arrest of Christine “Chrissie” Ramsey for the 2011 murder of real estate agent Ashley Oakland.
An arrest has finally been announced in the nearly 15-year-old unsolved murder of a real estate agent in West Des Moines, Iowa.
ashley oakland
At a press conference Wednesday, the West Des Moines Police Department announced the arrest of Christine “Chrissie” Ramsey for the 2011 murder of real estate agent Ashley Oakland. She was found dead in a model townhome where she was holding an open house.
Ramsey has been indicted by a grand jury in Dallas County, Iowa, for first-degree murder, and the case will proceed to prosecution. No other arrests have been made at this time.
Ramsey currently works as a title officer with Midland Title & Escrow, and in 2011 worked as an administrative assistant and sales manager for Rotland Homes in Iowa, according to LinkedIn. Rotland Homes was the developer of the townhome community where Oklund was killed.
Okland was an agent for Iowa Realty Company, the parent company of Midland Title and Escrow. In a statement shared with local station We Are Iowa 5, Iowa Realty Company said it was “relieved” the arrest had been made but received the news of Ramsey’s arrest with “tremendous shock and sadness.” Iowa Realty then deferred all further questions and details to law enforcement authorities.
Christine Ramsey
Police have remained tight-lipped about the case against Ramsey and said they would not answer any questions “to preserve the value of the investigative information” they had collected. Deputy Police Chief Jody Hayes spoke of the department’s “relentless pursuit of justice” in the Okland case and its impact on the local real estate community.
“Ashley’s story keeps many of us up at night, replaying the details over and over again in our heads, looking for the missing pieces that will tie it all together and put us on the right path to identifying those responsible for this act,” Hayes said.
“Today is why we created the Iowa Cold Case Unit,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd said at a press conference. She praised West Des Moines police for “never letting go of Ashley and her family, never giving up, never stopping.”
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