It is probably not a good idea, if you’re talking to the police — and you never, ever should talk to the police without a lawyer — to not only offer to them that you were at the scene of a murder when the murder took place, not only offer obviously fake theories of why you were there, and of the crime therein (that you were cleaning up poop? That the Mexican Mafia put out the hit, and that you were the intended target?), but also, to keep talking to them, so that you reveal your previous statements to be lies, like that you’ve actually been sleeping with a much younger man who was living at the home of your murdered husband. Better yet, how about you don’t brutally kill a man inside your living room, stage it as a fatal car crash, and think you can get away with it (you are not going to be able to decisively clean up all of the blood splatter, and uh, perhaps try picking up some of the leftover brain matter), if only you talk it out with the homicide detectives? What makes you think you can? Arrogance? An ego that wants to prove you can? Being a psychopath? Being an idiot? All of the above?
Such is the silliness of Patty Presba, the wife of Ron Presba, the murdered husband, and the lover of Jaime Ramos. For lack of a better word, she “groomed” Ramos into potentially killing her husband. For money? Because she’s a psychopath? I’m not sure yet.
Patty, and the conspiracy to kill her husband, is the center of Dateline NBC’s newest podcast series, The Seduction. Narrated by the great Keith Morrison, the podcast series is up to four episodes so far (I’m not sure how many episodes they plan to do), with the first two released June 14. I couldn’t resist writing about the series after listening to the most recent episode, “It Wasn’t Dirt.”
In that episode, Patty tries to explain to detectives that the house was cleaned so exemplary, including with bleach, because her dogs had tracked mud, poop, and urine all over the house. It would be comical if we weren’t talking about a brutally murdered husband. That’s when she then offers the Mexican Mafia theory. And in the course of that discussion, Patty also reveals that actually, I slept with Ramos. No wait, we actually slept twice. You know, he thought of me as a mother, and he got it twisted … so, I slept with him? The person who thinks of me as a mother. Yes, detectives.
Again, guilty or innocent, do not talk to the police without a lawyer. Just don’t do it. You aren’t going to win.
The story of Jaime, who was basically preyed upon by Patty, not only an older woman, but an authority figure at a boot camp of sorts that Jaime was at, was sick and disturbing. She convinced this young man that her husband, Ron, was sexually abusive and violent. That he needed to be killed. Even sicker, she brought Jaime into the house with Ron (concocting some story that seemed plausible to Ron of why Jaime needed temporary housing). Not only did she bring her extra-marital lover into her husband’s house, but his would-be assassin.
Jaime, though, in the course of being around Ron and doing house chores with him, realized he didn’t match the image Patty had painted of him. So, when it came time to kill Ron, he baulked and couldn’t do it. So, as it stands thus far in the podcast series, I don’t know if he did kill Ron, or just helped to stage the fake car crash, or if Patty did it all herself or with some other as of yet unnamed co-conspirator(s). I do think it would be hard for Patty to pull this off by herself. After all, you’re talking about moving, what, 200 pounds of literal dead weight from a living room to a vehicle? I don’t think Patty could pull that off by herself.
I don’t understand how someone gets to a point of wanting to kill someone else, especially an intimate partner, and it’s especially peculiar when you get these dynamics, like with Patty and Jaime, where there is more than one person involved and a power imbalance at that. Which isn’t to absolve Jaime of any culpability he may have had in the death of Ron (at minimum, he should have told the police what Patty wanted him to do), but to explain that out of the two, he wasn’t the “dominant” one. He wasn’t propelling the action forward, if you will. He was merely the “murder weapon” in a sense.
I haven’t had a chance to watch Dateline on TV because it airs when professional wrestling is on, so I’ve enjoyed the various podcast series they have done, and this one is shaping up to me the most interesting to date. I recommend my fellow true crime junkies given it a listen.
Milam's Musings 
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