JEFFERSON COUNTY — More than 1,000 days have passed since a car crash in Golden ended up killing two women, and the case against the accused drunk driver still hangs over the victims’ heads knowing he may never face consequences for it.
“You exist from hearing to hearing, and you cannot you cannot make any plans for the wider future,” said Joseph Bowman, who was injured that day.
Last night, Denver7 Investigates brought you his family's story and what happened after the driver of a 2016 Chevy Malibu reportedly ran a red light and hit them, killing the at-fault driver's passenger, early in the morning on Dec. 17, 2021. About nine months later, Joseph's 66-year-old mother Nelie, who had catastrophic injuries and required a leg amputation, died of her injuries.
- Watch part one of Denver7 Investigates' coverage on this crash and the aftermath in the video below.
The at-fault driver, Guillermo Ramirez, was 18 years old at the time. He is accused of speeding 115 mph drunk and on drugs when he hit the Bowmans’ car. He has been charged with 12 counts related to the two deaths and the serious injuries of two others. The charges against him include multiple counts of vehicular homicide.
Joseph and his sister Billie Jo, who was also in the car that morning, thought it would be an open-and-shut case. But it has proven to be more challenging.
That is because a doctor found that Ramirez is unfit to stand trial and a judge may dismiss all charges, thanks to a new state law — but prosecutors are trying to prove that doctor is wrong, and that Ramirez should be held accountable for his alleged crimes.
In today's follow-up story, Denver7 Investigates dove into how the doctor came to the conclusion that the defendant cannot stand trial, and what happens next.
“The fear is that he will hurt or kill someone else, and he will disrupt the lives of another family. And that's really what is at stake,” Joseph Bowman told Denver7 Investigates.
“Incompetent and not restorable”
In February of 2024, Dr. Trang Walker with the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health (OCFMH) determined Ramirez is “incompetent and not restorable,” according to court transcripts obtained by Denver7 Investigates.
A Colorado statute was amended after House Bill 24-1034 was passed and signed into law during the most recent legislative session.
The law states:
If the court does not find that the party asserting that there is a substantial probability that the defendant, with restoration services, will attain competency in the reasonably foreseeable future has overcome the presumption, the court shall dismiss the case pursuant to Section 16-8.5-116.5 (1)(a)
Denver7 Investigates
Change to Colorado mental health law sparks issues with 2022 stabbing case
According to a release by Colorado House Democrats, the goal of the legislation is to “streamline complicated processes in the competency system to increase efficiency and effectiveness and reduce waitlists.”
In Billie Jo’s opinion, “That's outrageous.”
If Ramirez’s criminal charges are dropped, there is no guarantee he will be court-ordered to receive any mental health treatment or care and it’s likely he will be released back into the community.
“They should have some sort of safety net so that they are removed from society so that they cannot continue to harm people,” Billie Jo said.
Faith in opinion
Three days’ worth of testimony inside of a Jefferson County courtroom is laid out over hundreds of pages obtained by Denver7 Investigates.
Those court transcripts revealed how Dr. Walker came to her conclusion about Ramirez’s competency.
Walker testified that she evaluated Ramirez for competency a total of three times after another doctor evaluated him twice.
Walker’s first two evaluations found Ramirez “incompetent to proceed and restorable.” Her third evaluation found him “incompetent to proceed and not restorable.”
What changed between the findings is how much time had elapsed since his traumatic brain injury (TBI), which doctors say occurred due to the car crash.
Testimony also claims Ramirez was previously diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and only attended school through the 10th grade.
Walker found Ramirez had an “odd manner of speaking,” “difficulty finding his words,” was “fidgety,” and “seemed to have issues with attention.” He also had no interest in discussing specifics in his case.
She expressed that she had concerns about Ramirez’s ability to communicate with his attorney, especially under “the stress of a court hearing.”
However, Walker was called by the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office to testify because prosecutors are trying to make the case that Ramirez is competent.
Prosecutors addressed efforts to restore Ramirez to competency. Those efforts are out-patient meetings done over video in this case. Walker noted that Ramirez had “fair-to-good attendance.” Prosecutors, however, noted that Ramirez often missed multiple restoration appointments each month.
Transcripts show that prosecutors played body camera videos of interactions between Ramirez and Denver police officers after he was contacted for fighting in public in June 2023, roughly a year and a half after the crash.
After viewing the video, Walker states that Ramirez was in a “high-stress situation” with officers and “yet, he was able to communicate effectively.”
Walker said she did not have the same concerns as before after seeing this video and would have evaluated Ramirez differently.
However, despite the fact that her faith in her opinion about Ramirez’s competency has decreased, she would still come to the same conclusion and declare that Ramirez is incompetent to stand trial.
“Can it be faked?”
The juxtaposition between Ramirez’s behavior in his evaluation and what was recorded on body-worn cameras led prosecutors to ask, “Can it be faked?”
In other words, could Ramirez be exaggerating symptoms or scheming to avoid accountability?
Walker said she imagines someone could do this, but hasn’t come across anyone who has done so. However, she did acknowledge that there is no mechanism to test for this, specifically.
“All of our evaluators, even our contract evaluators, are either psychologists or psychiatrists. And they check for malingering, which is... the faking it,” Leora Joseph, director of the state’s Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health, told Denver7 Investigates in an interview. “I don't worry about that as much.”
- Explore Denver7's timeline of this case below.
Leora Joseph was unable to comment on this case specifically, but did note that while a person could be found unfit to stand trial, that doesn’t meet the criteria to be hospitalized.
Ramirez has had several interactions with law enforcement since the crash, including for public fighting and for drinking tequila in a parked car in Lakewood. He’s already had one case in Denver dismissed after being declared incompetent and nonrestorable, related to an incident that took place prior to the crash.
“He is committed to protecting himself and not taking responsibility for his actions,” Joseph Bowman said.
Ramirez is expected in court Thursday, where a judge will likely decide whether or not to accept the doctor’s diagnosis and dismiss the case.
“Ramirez is the one who should be dead. Nelie Bowman should still be alive,” Joseph Bowman told us. “The fact that she isn't should not go unpunished.”
