A Knife in the Heart. Michael Benson
Jay was arrested for abusing Jamie, his “underage girlfriend.” According to the police report, Jay grabbed Jamie by the neck and forced her to the ground. The girl was treated at the scene for minor injuries, bruises on her arms and neck, and declined a trip to the hospital. The fight, Jamie claimed at the time, started when Jay swiped the girl’s cell phone and her bottle of Roxies. When cops searched Jay, they found a pair of black brass knuckles in his back pocket.
Rachel Wade was eager to tell police how she saw the events. She expressed her opinion that the girl got what she deserved and had struck Jay before he retaliated.
A neutral passerby, who saw the incident, told police that it didn’t look to her like Jay was beating Jamie as much as he was trying to “fend her off.”
With Jay’s permission, cops searched his room and found two bottles of prescription medication—methylphenidate (generic form of Ritalin) and acyclovir (a generic medication for herpes)—which were confiscated.
As Sarah Ludemann would later learn, when Rachel had an enemy on speed dial, Rachel could be relentless. After the fight at Nick’s house, Jamie received phone call after phone call from Rachel, constantly challenging Jamie to a fight.
“If you come anywhere near me, I am going to beat your ass,” Rachel would say.
The night of the fight outside of Nick’s had historical importance because among the kids gathered, watching the action, was Sarah, who had come in support of Lisa with her best friend, Ashley Lovelady, and Joshua Camacho.
Why did Rachel react so strongly to the fight between Jay and Jamie? Jamie had a theory: “I think she was having sex with Jay when Nick wasn’t home. I’ve long thought they had a relationship going on. If so, that’s funny. I mean, that’s pretty nasty! Having sex with Jay and then going out with Joshua? Seems pretty nasty to me.”
After that, it was never a good thing when Jamie ran into Rachel. Jamie went to Applebee’s with friends, and Rachel told Jamie right in front of everyone that Alliana wasn’t Jay Camacho’s baby. This was apparently a standard riff for Rachel, who also liked to tell Erin that her baby wasn’t Joshua’s.
When it came to harassment, Rachel was a tenacious master. If you were on her shit list, she could completely tie up your cell phone, calling every minute for hours, leaving voice mails and sending texts. After a while, friends and recipients both had to wonder why she didn’t have something better to do. And the messages were disturbingly violent.
These young women lived in an “I’m gonna kick your ass” world, but Rachel kicked it up a notch:
I’m gonna slit your throat, she texted Jamie.
I’m going to kill you, she told Erin.
Sadly, Rachel’s bloody threats had a desensitizing effect. She was a barker, not a biter—a mouthy bitch. When she started in with that crap with Sarah, nobody blinked. It was just Rachel being Rachel.
Jamie’s opinion of Joshua had changed over the years. At first, she thought he was pretty cool. Quiet and shy. He was a guy who “didn’t do nothing.” He stayed inside.
The Camachos were a religious family. The parents were strict with their kids, who practically weren’t even allowed out of the house until they turned eighteen. As soon as Joshua came of age and was let out, “he took after his brother and became a player.”
But now, Jamie didn’t think much of Joshua. He was a pint-sized mooch: “I don’t think he is good-looking,” she said of the bantamweight ladies’ man.
What he did have, she conceded, was a seductive banter. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, he had his women believing they were each his one and only.
Jamie did not believe that Joshua’s list of girlfriends stopped at three. Sure, there was Sarah, Rachel, and Erin, but she believed the list was longer than that, and that he took gifts from all of them. Like a small-time gigolo, he lived off his “friends.” They paid his bills and bought his clothes. That’s why he didn’t need to get a job.
“His brother used to do that to me,” Jamie recalled. “He would be with the girl who had the most to give him.”
For a busy guy like Joshua, the schedules of Sarah and Rachel were perfectly complementary. Sarah was available only during the early evening. She had a curfew and had to be home by eleven. Rachel was a waitress and worked at night, getting off work only after Sarah was back home.
People thought Joshua enjoyed the fact that “his friends” were fighting over him. “He was just like every dude,” Jamie said. Well, not every dude, but most young guys. “He was a cheater. He cheated on girls. That was pretty much it.”
And a beater. The brothers disciplined their women. Jay hit Jamie, and Jamie had seen Joshua hit Erin.
Janet Wade called police about her daughter one more time, on December 11, 2007. She and Rachel had gotten into a fight, and Rachel had stormed out and gotten into a car with friends. Officer Benjamin Simpkins, who would later testify at Rachel Wade’s murder trial, answered the call. While he was talking to Janet, Rachel called her mom’s cell phone; Janet put Officer Simpkins on the line. Janet and Rachel decided that Rachel should stay with friends for a “cooling-off period,” after which they should try again to resolve their differences.
On February 21, 2008, Sarah and Joshua were leaving a Pinellas Park movie theater, located on U.S. 19, when Erin Slothower and Jamie Severino accosted them. There was screaming, and Erin pushed Joshua. Cops were called.
Years later, Erin remembered it this way: “I was up getting food at my job with Jamie. I was [eight months] pregnant and I saw them walking out of the movie theater and we started arguing because he said he was somewhere else. It was stupid.”
Joshua was so upset about the way he’d been treated, he called the cops. He told Officer Scott Martin that his pregnant ex-girlfriend used “an open hand to push me backward.” After he was attacked, Joshua said, Erin and Jamie got into their car and left. Joshua had no visible injuries. In a separate interview, Sarah told Officer Martin a story that matched Joshua’s precisely. Joshua announced that he intended to get an injunction, preventing Erin from getting inside his personal space.
Martin had heard of more impressive assaults, but Joshua pressed the matter and the incident would eventually be referred to the state attorney’s office.
After taking the statements from Joshua and Sarah, Martin visited Erin and promptly read her Miranda rights to her. Erin said she understood and wanted to talk.
“Joshua has been telling me that after the baby is born, he is going to take the baby away,” Erin explained. That was the issue she was confronting him with in the parking lot that evening. He was not getting the baby. She wanted to make sure that was clear.
Lastly the cop interviewed Jamie Severino, who said that Erin really had no choice. Joshua was right in her face and screaming at her. She put her hand on his face and pushed him away. Joshua was lucky he didn’t get punched in the face. It wasn’t an attack at all, Severino explained. Erin was simply attempting to “create some space between the two of them.”
Martin recommended that Erin be the one to file the injunction. He warned her to avoid contact with Joshua and to “refrain from future confrontations.”
The state attorney’s office gave this a glance and decided not to prosecute Erin Slothower for the assault on Joshua Camacho.
Erin didn’t care if it was over. There was a bond between her and Joshua that could never be broken. She had a great reason to fight over Joshua, with Joshua, or whatever she wanted to do. She’d been Joshua’s girlfriend since 1999, when the two went to elementary school together. He’d written her a note in class. It asked: Do you like me? She wrote yes. Now it was nine years later—and a difficult time for Erin. She was facing social ridicule.
“I was harassed constantly” was how she put it—because she was having his baby. Plus she knew that being a mother was going to be expensive; and even