Woman called 911 four times before ex-boyfriend killed her in Washington
Four 911 calls in 48 hours warned of escalating stalking. Two days later, Gloria Choi was shot dead while still on the line with dispatch.
Gloria Choi called for help four times in 48 hours. Two days later, she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher when William “Billy” Rickman ran her off the road in Lakewood, Washington, then riddled her truck with bullets.
The case, now the focus of a CBS News 48 Hours episode titled The Love Bombing of Gloria Choi, puts a hard question in front of police, prosecutors and judges: when a stalking pattern is already visible, what actually stops the violence before it turns fatal?
Choi was a young single mother from Washington. Friends Brieanna Eberly and Jacob Blue are among those interviewed in the episode, along with eyewitness Terry Estvold, former Pierce County prosecutor Greg Greer and Coreen Schnepf of the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office. Their accounts frame a story of warning signs that kept rising while the danger kept closing in.
Rickman was later charged in Pierce County and pleaded not guilty to aggravated first-degree murder in February 2022 after being brought back to Washington from northern California. A jury later convicted him of aggravated first-degree murder, and he was sentenced on December 15, 2023, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner identified Choi as 33-year-old Gloria Choi of Chehalis, Washington, and ruled her death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds. The fatal shooting ended a sequence that should force a closer look at how stalking cases are handled once the threats become persistent and public.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says stalking involves repeated unwanted attention and contact that causes fear or safety concerns, and that about 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men in the United States have been stalked in their lifetimes. It also says intimate partner violence can include stalking by current or former spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends and dating partners.
That risk becomes even sharper when firearms are involved. The National Domestic Violence Hotline says a gun in the home increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent, and says leaving an abusive relationship can be an especially dangerous time when firearms are involved. Choi’s death fits that grim pattern: repeated pleas for help, a documented stalking crisis and then a killing that came after the danger had already announced itself.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
