Sheriff's answers ring hollow to mother

Tara Ramsdell's pain from her daughter's death is not lessened by a talk with the sheriff. Her anger rises.

By RYAN DAVIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 22, 2002

Tara Ramsdell said she went to see Sheriff Bob White on Tuesday seeking answers about her daughter's death.

A half hour later, she left angry.

"He told me that everyone was sad," Ramsdell said. "I explained to him that when they go home at night, they go home to a complete family. When I go home, I go home to a son who doesn't know why his sister died . . . to a broken family."

Ramsdell's 16-year-old daughter, Joshan Ashbrook of New Port Richey, was found dead Aug. 1.

Ramsdell had gone to the courthouse July 29, petitioned the court and was granted an order to have Joshan, a frequent runaway, taken to a drug treatment facility.

"My child is in trouble," Ramsdell wrote in the petition. "If I keep her home she will run again. I believe she is into Internet pornography."

The judge's order said the Sheriff's Office was to pick her up and take her to treatment.

Ashbrook went home from the courthouse and waited. For nearly 36 hours, Joshan never strayed far from home. But no deputies came to get her.

Early July 31, she did what her mother had predicted she would do. She ran away.

Her body was found early the next day, partly clothed and 12 miles from her home on the side of Shady Hills Road.

Her death certificate states that she died from "blunt head and neck trauma."

A sheriff's internal investigation found that for at least five years the agency hadn't followed its procedure on notifying deputies to serve pick-up orders in cases like Joshan's.

No one at the Sheriff's Office was punished. Employees are being retrained, White said.

Ramsdell said White asked her Tuesday about the internal investigation.

"He wanted to know how I felt they should be taken care of," Ramsdell said. "I said they should be taught a lesson. He said, 'They are. They are being retrained.'

"I didn't say (anything) to that. He had made me angry then."

She said White referred to the mistake as a "clerical error," which upset her.

Ramsdell also was angry, she said, because White didn't give her a tape of a call she made to the Sheriff's Office. She called July 30 while she was waiting for deputies to get her daughter.

Ramsdell previously told the Times about the call, and sheriff's officials said they had no evidence of it.

But they found a recording of her call and released it Wednesday. Ramsdell called about 4 p.m. -- nearly 24 hours after the Sheriff's Office had received the order to pick up her daughter and 10 hours before her daughter ran away -- when she was worried because her daughter had briefly left with a friend, against Ramsdell's wishes.

At one point, Ramsdell said, "What do I do?"

"It's just a matter of time," the communications officer told her.

A spokesman for White said he didn't know about the tape when he met with Ramsdell.

Ramsdell said she has hired an unnamed Pinellas County lawyer to help her get information from the Sheriff's Office, but she has not decided if she will file a lawsuit.

Ashbrook's killing remains unsolved. Her parents said she was last seen July 31 in her neighborhood east of Madison Street and north of Massachusetts Avenue.

About two weeks after her death, her parents found a backpack with some of her clothing in a tree house near their home.

They also found a note on her bed.

"I love you guys, but I can't get locked up again," the note read.

It referred to Joshan's last trip to treatment at the Harbor, a New Port Richey mental health and drug treatment center.

It was signed with a heart and her name.

-- Ryan Davis is the police reporter in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245, or toll-free at 800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is rdavis@sptimes.com.

Looking for information

Pasco County sheriff's investigators are seeking information about the whereabouts of Joshan Ashbrook, 16, on July 31 and Aug. 1. The girl, who had dyed her hair auburn, ran away from her New Port Richey home early July 31 and was found dead on Shady Hills Road early Aug. 1. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Scott Gattuso, toll-free at 1-800-854-2862, ext. 7481.

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