The Misery Machine - The Case of Margaret Douglas

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

This week, Drewby and Yergy head back to Ohio to discuss the case of 98-year-old Margaret Douglas, a widow who was still living independently in the home she shared with her late husband for decades. That was until a deranged teenager named Gavon Ramsay broke into her house to videotape her while she slept for "cheap thrills." But when she awoke, Gavon did the unthinkable. But if that wasn't horrible enough, wait until you hear about what police found on his cell phone...  Support Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Join Our Facebook Group: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/ohio/name/margaret-douglas-obituary?id=14423152 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/28579329/donald-harrison-douglas https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188977937/margaret_mary-douglas https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2018/04/10/what-happened-to-margaret-douglas/9348775007/ https://www.oxygen.com/an-unexpected-killer/crime-news/margaret-douglas-murdered-by-gavon-ramsay-for-sexual-thrill https://www.google.com/search?q=Isaiah+11%3A6+symbolism https://medium.com/@novjmohio/my-name-is-margaret-douglas-and-i-was-murdered-at-98-79087dcaeb01 https://www.change.org/p/ohio-state-senate-change-law-that-could-release-sexual-sadist-necrophile-murderer-gavon-ramsay-rapist-attempted-murderer-jacob-larosa-racist-murderer-billy-wayne-smith-and-other-dangerous-criminals? https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/pdf_viewer/pdf_viewer.aspx?pdf=886465.pdf&subdirectory=2020-0620%5CDocketItems https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1081113130090385 https://teenkillers.org/legislation/ohio-senate-bill-256/impact-on-victims/statement-on-sb-256-from-marie-belcastros-grandson/ https://www.unitedforjoshua.org/ https://cfsy.org/ohio-passes-sb-256-banning-life-without-parole-for-children-in-the-state/ https://teenkillers.org/juvenile-lifers/offenders-cases-state/ohio-offenders/joshua-wade/ https://teenkillers.org/legislation/ohio-senate-bill-256/impact-on-victims/statement-on-sb-256-from-marie-belcastros-grandson/ https://appgateway.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/Search/Details/A760295 https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=2a2adcb2-f581-4655-99dc-7d1dd8f1899e https://casetext.com/case/state-v-ramsay-13 https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/family-worries-new-law-paves-a-road-out-of-prison-for-convicted-killer-of-98-year-old-woman

On this channel, we make it a point to highlight cases dealing with vulnerable people that somehow fall through the cracks when it comes to national reporting. So when this sick excuse of a human being breaks into a 98-year-old woman's house at night to act out his evil and disgusting fantasies, I can't help but think of every elderly person being at risk who lives alone and unable to defend themselves. But the most horrific thing about this case is that even though the killer said he was proud of his actions, that he recorded everything he did and told police he would kill again if able. The state of Ohio wants to let this monster back out on the streets despite everything he did at this poor woman. If you think this is a work of fiction, I wish you were right. Today we'll be covering a tragic case that could have happened to anyone's grandmother and why the state of Ohio wants to enable this happening again.

Margaret Douglas was born in Akron, Ohio on September 15th, 1919 to parents Howard and Margaret Frick. She had two sisters, Ida and Ethel, and a brother, Howard Jr. Margaret went on to marry private Donald H. Douglas. Like many young men his age, Donald served in the U.S. Army during World War II. The couple later settled into a gray two-story home on Portage Street in Wadsworth, Ohio. Margaret had quite the green thumb and enjoyed working in her flower garden, carefully tending to the large rhododendron bushes blooming on either side of her porch. Margaret and Donald never had children of their own,

but they enjoyed time traveling with friends and watching their favorite baseball team, the Cleveland Indians. Sadly, Margaret would become a widow when Donald passed away on May 23, 2000, at the age of 80. Nearly 18 years after her husband's death, Margaret was enjoying springtime in Ohio, watching birds chirping from her wicker porch furniture. She was looking forward to celebrating her 100th birthday the following year, but for 98-year-old Margaret, that birthday would never come. April 9th, 2018 should have been like any other normal day in Wadsworth.

That was until the local police received a phone call from Margaret's family. She was pre-deceased by her siblings, but had nieces and nephews that were very involved in her everyday life. Even in her advanced age, Margaret lived alone, but when her friends hadn't heard from her in five or six days, alarm bells were ringing. Officers with the Wadsworth Police Department performed a wellness check at her portage street address, but Margaret wasn't there, and there was no sign of her having left. It was as if she had mysteriously vanished. Initially, the local police, along with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, treated Margaret's disappearance as a missing person's case, as no evidence of foul play was discovered during the initial walkthrough of her home.

The agencies put out a plea to the public asking for help locating the 98-year-old and she shared a picture of her in pearl earrings and a black and white hound's tooth blazer. That same evening, Margaret's nephew, Howard Leisure, and his wife, Cindy, joined the search. Along with the police, they combed the house for clues. Could his Aunt Margaret, who previously loved to travel, left on her own volition? She was known as an independent woman with a lust for life, but had she really just taken off at her age, and without telling anybody about it, tragically, those hopes would be gone after Howard opened his aunt's closet door. Need a heap of clothing piled onto the floor lay Margaret's body. In an interview with oxygen, Howard shared that he pretty much lost it, something I'll never forget to find her like that. Margaret's body was sent to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

According to reports, it was unclear to the investigators whether or not the woman had simply died of natural causes or was the victim of something more nefarious. But given the state she was discovered in, there were definitely red flags. The way Margaret was found suggested that she may have been the victim of essay. Her clothing was described as disheveled and her underwear had been torn. According to reports, she had suffered bruises and contusions to her head and face while trauma on her neck suggested that she'd been strangled to death. It was also clear by the state of her body that Margaret had been left in the closet for several days. However, the autopsy revealed that Margaret had no male DNA on her, which came as a surprise to the investigators. She had been robbed, though.

Her wallet was missing along with the $40 cash she had inside of it. But the only clue that the investigators had was a discarded plastic glove that was located in the rear of the home. The police quickly zeroed in on a man named David who was known to care for the 98-year-old woman, acting as a companion and helping her out with household chores. Now, although investigators initially were unable to reach him, he ended up turning up the crime scene out of concern for his friend. Police then grew suspicious after David expressed concern that his fingerprints would likely be

found inside the home. He was brought him for questioning and provided a DNA sample to be tested against the discarded plastic glove. However, it was not a match for his DNA, and the investigators were right back at square one. According to Sergeant Don Chisholmes, he just really cared about Margaret and really had concerned that he would have an answer as to what happened. Running out of Leeds, the investigators began looking into strings of petty crimes in the area, including a trailer at a construction site that had been broken into.

Thankfully, whoever committed this crime was dumb enough to leave their phone behind at the scene of the crime. And that led the investigators to a young man, only known in official documents, as Zachary. Now, when they brought in Zachary for questioning, he began to squeal immediately and rolled on his friend 17-year-old Gavin Ramsey. He admitted that Gavin hadn't been present at the break-in at the construction site, but insisted that he was involved in many other petty crimes in the area. He also claimed, of course, that it was all Gavin's idea. The investigator brought Gavin in for questioning, who was accompanied by his mother, Christine,

as he was still a minor at the time. He admitted to petty theft, breaking into vehicles, and after asking his mother to leave the room, he admitted to something else. According to court documents, Gavin would often meet men on dating apps for the purpose of hooking up or simply robbing them, and I quote, that on at least one occasion, he assaulted a man to get him out of the car and indicated that he would routinely take men's cars to get away. When asked about the murder of Margaret Douglas, Gavin claimed that he knew nothing about it. It was until the police started going through his phone.

While scrolling through Gavin's photo gallery, the police found numerous photos and videos of Margaret that had been taken from inside of her home without her knowledge. The teenager had somehow snuck into the woman's house and recorded her in secret. The evidence was damning. realizing that he had been caught, Gavin began to spill his guts, claimed to have snuck into Margaret's Portage Street home simply for thrills and just to record her while she slept. However, when the woman awoke to find Gavin in her bedroom, he claimed that he forced her to the ground and strangled her before he even knew what he was doing, out of fear, if you will. But the damning part

was the evidence located on his phone that he did not want to talk about with police. According to Detective Matt Markley of the Wadsworth Police Department, he degraded her body videotaping and taking pictures. He'd actually been in there with her for a while. Now, while I respect Detective Markley's discretion, this was probably the understatement of the decade. After Gavin strangled the life out of poor Margaret, he then proceeded to videotape himself participating in various forms of necrophilia with her corpse. Now, if you've watched our channel for a while, you know we regularly omit some of the more grotesque details like this for a number of reasons. However, we still want to drive the point home about how sick of a human being Gavin is.

So we'll tell you a little bit, but for those who really want the full picture, the court documents are readily accessible online. Again, we are heavily redacting the details here. In one video, he pleasureed himself with her cold dead hand. He undressed her body and assaulted her with gloves to avoid leaving DNA. In one picture, Margaret can be seen lying on a couch with Gavin's gloved hand around her throat. In another video, Gavin can be seen dragging Margaret across the carpet. In this video, he posed her body in a suggestive manner. The degradation of Margaret's body went on for approximately two hours between 209 a.m. and 4.10 a.m.

Gavin only left because his parents were about to be up for the day. Gavin Ramsey was arrested and charged as an adult with nine counts, including four counts of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, one count of kidnapping, one count of aggravated burglary, and one count of gross abusive corpse. A search of the Ramsey's Summit Street home uncovered all of the evidence that the investigators could need. A plastic glove that was a match for the glove found inside of Margaret's home, as well as her missing wallet.

Another damning piece of evidence was a journal that the investigators located. This was much more than just your standard teenage angst or edge lord variety type of journal. Gavin had written about fantasies he had involving essay and murder and his apparent love for serial killers. In one entry dated January 19th, 2019, he wrote, I just want to fucking go off on someone and beat them until they're not breathing anymore. I honestly want to take someone's life. I want to know what it would feel like to stand over someone's dead body. According to Sergeant Don Chismenos,

after reading those, there was no doubt in my mind that Gavin would kill again if he had the opportunity. This is something he enjoys that he finds pleasure in. During the course of the investigation, Gavin was seen by Dr. Lynn Luna-Jones. Now, Dr. Jones was a board-certified forensic psychologist, and the chief psychologist at the psychodagnostic clinic in Akron, Ohio. Gavin shared that he had been using alcohol, weed, LSD, inhalants, and concerto,

which can be used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. He said that in the year leading up to Margaret's murder, he drank alcohol daily, about a fifth of vodka, or whatever he could get his hands on. Dr. Jones diagnosed Gavin with a conduct disorder, a sexual sadism disorder, three separate disorders with regard to his substance use, and a depressive disorder.

She noted that in Gavin's case, recidivism is high and treatment needed to be very, very intense. Dr. Jones noted that Gavin didn't appear to be motivated to change his behavior. She further noted that Gavin was criminally sophisticated

and knowingly engaged in crimes, displaying a callous disregard for the harm he causes others. Allegedly, the carjacking in Margaret's murder weren't even Gavin's first incidents of violence. When he was 10 years old, there was already concerns of him becoming a danger to himself and others after he was caught chasing his siblings with knives. At trial, Gavin's mother, Christine Ramsey, tried to claim that the SSRI Zoloft had changed her son for the worse.

She blamed the drug for her son's actions, but when she was cross-examined, she admitted that he hadn't started taking the prescription until January of 2018, three months prior to the murder. She also testified that she's not a doctor, and that she was not a doctor. that, outside of her intuition, she cannot isolate Zoloft as the sole cause of what her son did. She was also unsure if perhaps the fifth of liquor per day, the weed, the LSD, or the other illicit drugs he was taking could have possibly been the culprit, or that, you know, or kid is a psychopath.

After the trial court denied the defense's motion to suppress evidence, Gavin Ramsey pled no contest to the nine charges against him. He was found guilty on all counts, and following an evidentiary hearing was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for aggravated murder. He was also sentenced to an additional 10 years for aggravated burglary, 10 years for kidnapping in 12 months for abuse of a corpse, all of which were to run consecutively to the aggravated murder charge. He haven't attempted to appeal a sentence, but he was unsuccessful in doing so.

Now, a lot of people ask us, what's the worst case we've ever covered? And our short answer is generally all of them. However, some stories affect us more than others for sure. Margaret's case is one of those cases for me. Now, I spent a lot of my childhood driving back and forth between Maine and Ohio as my Grammy lived in Akron. Much like Margaret, she was fiercely independent and lived alone up until she went into hospice care.

While researching this case, I couldn't help but think that this could have been my Grammy. This could have been a lot of people's Grammys, regardless of the location. I found a little bit of peace at the thought that Gavin was off the streets and couldn't hurt anyone again. But all of that was dashed after I fell down a rabbit hole and came across this next bit of charming information. A petition on change.org sought to change a law that could release violent offenders such as Gavin Ramsey from the Ohio justice system. This is due to Ohio Senate Bill 256, which was signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine in 2021. The bill requires all juvenile offenders to be eligible for parole with the exception of triple murderers.

Now, this only applies to the principal offender. So if you're under the age of 18 and are an accomplice in a triple homicide, you're still eligible for parole. If you kill two people, you're eligible for parole after 30 years. You kill one person. You're eligible after 25 years. Senate Bill 256 also doesn't take into consideration other aggravated circumstances such as SA or if the victim is a child, but does everything to make sure that minor offenders will one day walk free. The bill, which was sponsored by Senators Nathan Manning and Peggy Lennner, will allow hundreds of

dangerous criminals the chance to go free. This not only includes Gavin Ramsey, but another scumbag who did something very similar to a 94-year-old woman. On March 31st, 2015, Marie Belcastro was murdered in her home by 15-year-old Jacob LaRosa. After attempting to essay the woman, he beat her to death with a metal flashlight. Jacob was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 31 years, but that can all change now. Another example is that of Joshua Wade, who was 16 years old when he shot and killed Titus Arnold in the head with a 40-caliber handgun. Titus was a 23-year-old senior at Urbana University and a youth counselor. After he was shot dead, Joshua Wade and his accomplice, 30-year-old

Jason Dean, robbed him of $6. He was killed for $6. His murder concluded a three-day crime spree, which included robbery and several other victims being shot or almost shot. This included a one-year-old girl and a pregnant woman. Due to Ohio's Senate Bill 256, Joshua will be eligible for parole in 2030, after serving only 25 years of his 56 years to life sentence. However, Stephanie Tengler, who runs the United for Joshua website, had this to share. Those of us who have family members or loved ones serving life sentences they were given as children in Ohio have been working on this for many years. We have encountered major hurdles and setbacks in the process, but have known all along we could

never give up on our kids. The signing of the spill means we have hoped that someday our loved ones will come home to us. and that those who were told they would die in prison will wake up with a newfound hope in their hearts to. Senator Manning echoed her sentiment stating, passage of this bill is an important step in making Ohio a fair state for all. Thank you to my colleagues in the Ohio legislature, and to those who joined us in working on this legislation to help move Ohio's juvenile justice system forward. According to Prestonship of the campaign for the fair sentencing of youth senior policy council,

We've seen an incredible uptick in state legislatures banning life without parole for kids. And until now, Ohio has been woefully out of step with that national trend toward youth sentencing reform. Children must be held accountable for their actions, but because they are fundamentally different from adults and their ability to assess risk and consequences and their unique capacity for change, they should be held accountable in age-appropriate ways with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Now, I am sure there are examples of people who were convicted as minors that have turned their lives around, and maybe they are truly rehabilitated. I obviously can't sit here and say that there was no case where this bill passing would be a positive. However, on the topic of Gavin Ramsey specifically, it is hard not to feel genuine concern for public safety if someone like him is back on the streets.

We would like to remind everyone that Gavin Ramsey was 17 years old when he murdered a 98-year-old woman and engaged in necrophilic acts with her corpse, he was 10 months shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the crime. Is it possible that during that 10 months, Gavin would have had some sort of epiphany and become able to resist his violent impulses? I need you to tell me because I'm not a psychologist, so I really need someone qualified to explain this to me.

During the course of the investigation, Gavin literally told the detectives that if he hadn't been stopped, that he would probably have killed again, and I'm inclined to believe him. Margaret's niece, Cindy Leisure, was interviewed by News 5 Cleveland about the bill, and this is what she had to say. When he was sentenced, it was like, okay, we took a criminal off the road. We took him out of society. And now you're looking at, here we go. Now he may be back in society at some time, she added, this is not some poor little

juvenile that did something and got punished for life. You deserve that. You lost rights when you walked into her house uninvited. No matter where you stand with regard to juvenile sentencing, one can't ignore the fact that this measure is revictimizing families over and over again each time the person that murdered their loved one is up for parole. As of the date of this recording in April of 2025, the change.org petition has only garnered 743 signatures. We will have the link to the petition down below just in case you're interested. Margaret's funeral was held at noon on Saturday, April 20, 21st, 2018 at the Hilliard-Rosbert funeral home in Wadsworth. Two days later, she was laid to rest alongside her husband Donald at the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery, a military cemetery in

Ritman. Her granite headstone is inscribed with the image of a child flanked by a lion in a lamb, which is a reference to Isaiah 116. The wolf shall dwell with a lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with a young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fatten calf together, and a little child shall lead them. The imagery is symbolic as it pertains to Margaret's story. It depicts a world where natural animosity and conflict are overcome, and creatures that are traditionally enemies now live together in peace. Or in Margaret's case, a world where our most vulnerable don't have to live in fear of falling prey to the monsters among us. In close, we'll leave you with a quote. from a woman named Cindy that posted to Margaret's obituary page on August 23, 2024.

It reads, When I was a little girl, this woman would actually babysit me. Now I am in my 80s thinking about her. The crafts and games me and her would play. And one day, on my fifth birthday, my family and I moved away. I never saw her again. Just finding out about her death. I feel too late to help, but she is with God now.

Love you and miss you forever, Margaret.