The Love Bombing of Gloria Choi | Full Episode | Forensic Files

[ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ [ Somber music plays ] ♪♪ -I was, uh, with the prosecutor's office
for 30 years, and this was my last trial in my career. Being a prosecutor has a -- has a lifelong effect on you.
There has to be some way to come back to humanity and... put the violence aside.
This was an aggravated murder case. The victim's name is Gloria Choi. -She was a hard-working mom, a good role model,
and Gloria's parents talk about how she was kind of their angel. She spent most of her life
working in the family business of running hotels. -She came off very shy and quiet,
but she was nothing of those. [ Chuckles ] She was passionate about her family and her son,
had hopes and dreams for herself. -What we know, is there were four calls placed to law enforcement
in the final 48 hours before she was killed. This person continues to stalk her,
has slashed her tires, has stolen thousands of dollars worth of property. She called for help,
and she was deprived of help that she's entitled to under the law time and time again.
-The evening that she was murdered, she was going home, actually, just taking a break to eat dinner.
He was right behind her when she left. -[ Engine starts ] -He knew everywhere she went.
♪♪ -He forced her vehicle off the road. She doesn't know at that point who this is,
and she's not able to drive anymore. ♪♪ -And he approaches her vehicle, and she notices he has a gun.
♪♪ -All of a sudden, we heard a rapid fire, about 7 or 8 shots... -[ Gunshots ] -...and he just unloaded.
And I was just in shock and saw him disappear. And I then ran over and called the police.
♪♪ ♪♪ -So in all, 14 shots... -[ Camera shutter snapping ] ...just riddles her car with bullets, right?
-He's close range. He's shooting right through her driver's side window. -She should have been protected.
And she wasn't. -Do you blame the police for not taking better care of your friend?
-I do blame the police for not taking it seriously. -You have a perpetrator who's escalating.
Any law enforcement officer who is following the training would know this woman was in incredible danger.
♪♪ [ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ -On January 2nd, 2022,
Gloria Choi placed that anguished call to 911. ♪♪ -Yeah. -Seconds later... -...multiple shots are fired.
The audio is too graphic to play in full. It lasts about two minutes, and dispatchers are trying to make sense
of what they just heard. ♪♪ [ Siren wails ] Officers from the Lakewood Police Department
in Washington arrive within minutes. -One of the officers that approached you can see him trying to get to her quickly
and the doors are locked. -Former Pierce County Prosecutor Greg Greer describes what first responders did.
♪♪ -They bust out a rear window... ...smartly, wisely, so they can preserve the evidence
and they're able to extricate her pretty quickly. -And did you see them pull out the victim at all?
-I did, yeah. -Terry Estvold gave police a detailed description of what he witnessed.
-And I was probably 30 feet away and they put her on the ground and worked on her hard for several minutes.
-Had to be hard for you to witness that. -It's terrible and I -- it still bothers me a lot to this day
just thinking about it. -Gloria was pronounced dead a short time later at a nearby hospital.
Brieanna Eberly soon heard the news that her best friend had been killed, but she couldn't quite accept it.
-And I repeatedly, repeatedly called Gloria's phone over and over again, no answer, no answer, no answer,
and then I called her dad. And then he finally answered. And I remember asking him, "Is it true?
"Is she gone? Is it true?" And he... ...he said, "Yeah, she's gone." ♪♪ -Greer took us to the scene and walked us through
what he learned from investigators. -This would have been gravel shoulder. And somewhere in here,
he pinches her vehicle off and she's no longer able to -- to move forward. He's blocking her.
♪♪ -Gloria says the man is her boyfriend but does not give a name. -He gets out of the vehicle
and if you've heard the 911 call, she describes exactly what -- what he's doing.
♪♪ -Greer says the shooter was standing next to Gloria's driver's side window. The door was locked.
-He's not trying to talk to her, he immediately starts -- -He's there to kill her. He is there to kill her.
-After firing nine .40 caliber bullets through the door and window of Gloria's truck,
Greer says the shooter begins to drive away. As he does, Gloria's truck moves forward
until it hits a utility pole, as shown in this police animation. Greer believes the truck moved because Gloria's foot
was no longer applying pressure to the brake. -He doesn't know whether she's alive or not,
is what we believe is going through his mind, because the vehicle's no longer where it was,
that's 60 yards west of where it was when he first shot her. -The shooter makes a U-turn
and comes back around to Gloria's truck. He pulls his truck alongside so that his driver's side window is now next to hers,
and this time he does not bother to get out of his car, Greer says. -And he rolls his window down, five more shots
just to make sure. Nine wasn't enough, five more. Then after he's finished that, he immediately takes off.
-After firing 14 shots and hitting Gloria at least ten times, prosecutors say the shooter disappears into the night.
[ Siren wails ] The first big break in the case came from one of the first officers at the crime scene.
-One of the officers, she notices this lanyard that's on Gloria, and then she sees her name
and that hits her hard. -Gloria's lanyard was from a nearby Holiday Inn, where she was the manager.
Just days earlier, that officer took a report from Gloria after she called 911. Gloria said her ex-boyfriend had been following
and harassing her, and now they had a name -- Billy Rickman. -And that becomes a lead...
...to understanding what happened. -Greer says a detective subpoenaed Rickman's phone records.
Even without having his phone, police were able to read his text messages. -At one point, he says where he is,
and it's the Home Motel. -The detective rushed to the motel, which is a six-minute drive from the murder scene.
Greer says the desk clerk told the detective that days earlier, Rickman attempted to sign in with a fake name,
but the clerk insisted on proof of identity. -We have him on surveillance video getting back to the motel.
-That was after the shooting, says prosecutor Coreen Schnepf. -He appears in a hurry,
he gets out of his vehicle, and he immediately starts wiping down the side of the vehicle that might have
any kind of evidence of gunpowder residue. You can see him on the phone. He's contacting people.
-She says investigators began checking surveillance from several businesses in the area
and got another break at a nearby car rental business. -This picture is very clear.
-Enterprise had great video. -Here, there's no denying who that is looking at that, yeah.
Rickman rented a Chevy Colorado using his real name. It is the same vehicle in the motel video
and the same vehicle police believe Rickman used to run Gloria off the road. The Lakewood police put out an alert for Billy Rickman,
but in the days that followed, he was nowhere to be found. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -She was a part of my family,
and my whole family knew her, and they loved her. -With Billy Rickman on the run,
police questioned Gloria's friend Brieanna Eberly about Rickman's relationship with Gloria.
Brieanna had known Gloria since 2018, when she hired her to help out at the Oyo Hotel,
which was owned by Gloria's parents. -She wanted to please her parents to the best of her ability.
She was their lifeline. She did it all and she did it all with grace. Absolute grace.
-Gloria was the single mother of a seven-year-old. -It was all about her kid. She was very fierce when it came to her son.
-And in May 2021, Billy Rickman checked into the hotel from California, a mystery man with a larger-than-life personality.
Brieanna says it didn't take long for Rickman to notice Gloria. -Gloria was coming into the office,
he walked up and introduced himself. He's like, "You're very pretty." And she goes, "Well, thank you."
She walked away and he's like, "Who's that?" And I'm like, "Her name's Gloria, stay away."
-But Rickman did not "stay away," and before long, the two were texting a lot. -She liked the way he talked to her
and the things that he said to her. All she wanted to do was be loved by somebody.
-"And Rickman made it seem like he could be that guy," says Meaghan Driscoll, the Choi family's lawyer.
-He really came across as this nice guy, love-bombed her, meaning he's giving her gifts
and kind of showering her with kindness. -Weeks after meeting her, Rickman sent Gloria this text.
♪♪ ♪♪ -How was he with her son? Gloria's friend, Jacob Blue. -What she liked about Rickman
is that he had a lot of masculine energy that he was showing him. -Billy and her son had a very instant connection
because he was like a kid himself, you know? -Within weeks, Gloria and Rickman became a couple,
and he began staying in her apartment at the Oyo Hotel. Brieanna says Gloria's father
did not approve of the relationship. -And her parents basically drew a red line and said he can't be staying here at the hotel anymore.
-Gloria's father wanted him to move out. -And Rickman went and approached her parents
and told them, he's not going anywhere and that Gloria is now his, and if they don't like it, they can leave.
-Wow. -Her dad basically gave her an ultimatum. She could stay on as the manager,
or she could leave and she chose to leave. -Gloria, her son, and Rickman moved to an apartment
in the town of Tumwater in September 2021, and her heartbroken parents chose to sell their hotel.
♪♪ That's when Gloria took a new job as manager of the Holiday Inn Express in Lakewood,
right next to Tacoma. -She was still very happy with what she had, but it didn't last long, that happiness.
-Gloria told Brieanna that Rickman had big dreams, but no way of making them come true.
-And Gloria's like, "Well, who's going to fund all of this? You're not. You don't have a job.
"Get a job," you know? And he refused. -So was he asking her for money? -Oh, yeah. He drained her.
She bought everything. -Within weeks, Gloria saw a different side of Rickman. She told Brieanna he was often mean, angry, and insecure.
Gloria also told Brieanna that Rickman was drinking to excess and using cocaine and marijuana.
What did you tell her? -Uh, "Leave." "Run away." -Gloria chose to stay with Rickman,
but two months later, in November, Jacob says he got a troubling call. -She did express that he would become physical with her,
push her around, throw her around, and that she didn't feel safe just breaking things off with him.
-Jacob told Gloria she needed to leave him immediately. But Gloria said she was afraid that might trigger
something inside Rickman. -She didn't know how she was going to leave Billy. She was scared to leave him.
-What scared her? -Possessiveness. He knew everywhere she went. -She felt that he was tracking her every move.
-She found a tag... ...in her car. -An AirTag? -Mm-hmm. She's the one that told me about it later on.
-And Gloria suspected there were other hidden Apple AirTags in her truck. Are you concerned for your friend at this point?
-Absolutely. -In November 2021, just six months after they met. Brieanna says Gloria made up her mind to leave Rickman.
-She looked at me dead in the face and said, "I'm leaving." And I asked her, you know, "What's your plan?"
She goes, "I'm going to go to my parents." -Her parents welcomed Gloria and her son into their home.
♪♪ But it was not so easy to get rid of Rickman. He had borrowed Gloria's truck and refused to give it back.
So, on November 28th, Gloria went to the Tumwater police to file a report about the truck
and while she was there, she told the officer taking the report about Rickman. "When Billy is sober, he is calm,
but when he drinks he has a short fuse and is very angry. I wish him well, but choosing to not be
a part of his life anymore for the safety and stability for my son and I." Attorney Meaghan Driscoll, who represents the Choi family,
said it was clear the Tumwater officer believed Gloria was at risk. The officer reported that Rickman was potentially
tracking Gloria with Apple AirTags, owned numerous firearms, and appeared to be extremely manipulative.
-He actually becomes really concerned for her and her safety, so the officer actually tells Gloria and tells the court
to issue a domestic violence no-contact order. -Almost immediately, Rickman was arrested
for taking Gloria's truck, and he agreed to this recorded interview. -Rickman was jailed for three days for taking Gloria's truck
and on December 1st, 2021, he was brought before a judge who slapped him with a strict no-contact order.
But Brieanna says the order did not faze Rickman. The day he got out of jail, he told Brieanna he was unconcerned with the legalities.
-He didn't care. He was like, "So?" "I'm still going to talk to her." ♪♪ ♪♪ -In early December 2021,
Gloria Choi was back living with her parents, hoping she had rid herself of Billy Rickman once and for all.
But Brieanna said Rickman had other ideas as he told her the day he got out of jail
for taking Gloria's truck, which had been returned to her. -Billy showed up at my place
and he's like, "I need your help." And he begged me to talk to her about getting back together.
He said that he would change. He, you know, would stop drinking. He would be a better person to her.
And in the back of my mind, I'm like, "no." -You didn't believe him then? -I didn't.
-And what's your understanding of a no-contact order? -No-contact order means you can't come in contact
with that person. Text, phone calls, physical location, anything of that sort. -And if you do, what happens? -You go to jail.
-Brieanna told Rickman that he'd be arrested if he broke any of those conditions.
But two weeks later, she got a call from a friend telling her Gloria was hiding from Rickman
in the bathroom of this coffee shop. Brieanna wasted no time getting there. -As I was pulling in,
I saw Billy Rickman's car was parked over there. We made eye contact. I went to the bathroom and knocked on the door
and she opened it. She knew that Billy was here. -It was another reminder to Gloria
that Rickman seemed to be tracking her every move. And you said she was very emotional
and locked into the bathroom. -She was petrified. She was crying. She was shaking.
She refused to come out until she knew he was gone. -It's not clear if police were ever called.
Three days later, Brieanna said that Gloria told her that Rickman confronted her in the Capital Mall
while she was shopping with her son. Brieanna said Gloria told her that Rickman pleaded with her
to drop the no-contact order... ...but she refused. -He was putting himself in her path
so that he could rekindle the lost relationship. -That lost relationship, says prosecutor Coreen Schnepf,
was on Rickman's mind when he made these cell phone videos directed at Gloria. -You can see the videos that he created
to try and make her feel bad about leaving him. ♪♪ -Prosecutors say everything came to a head
on the last two days of 2021. It started on December 30th, when Rickman sent Gloria an email
after he spotted her with Jacob Blue at a coffee shop. And I guess Rickman did write an email to Gloria that read,
"You left me for another guy, wow." -Correct. -The email was sent in real time, and Gloria began getting calls from a blocked number.
When she answered, Rickman was on the line yelling at her, according to Jacob. -He believed that this Jacob Blue was a --
you know, potential boyfriend. -They moved on to a sushi restaurant, but Gloria was becoming increasingly bothered
by the headlights of a car, which were pointed at the restaurant. And Jacob says Gloria believed Rickman was behind the wheel.
-She says, "I know that car, and I know that it's watching us right now." And she got really uncomfortable.
-Jacob says they left the restaurant and discovered someone had stolen their computers
from Gloria's truck. They also discovered one of her truck's tires was slashed. Gloria called the police and asked for their help.
It was the first of four calls about Rickman over a 48-hour period. ♪♪ ♪♪ -Okay.
-And did Gloria express that she thought it was Rickman? -She was confident it was Rickman.
-Gloria told police that only Rickman knew the truck's keypad code to gain entry.
She gave them a description of his black BMW and told the officer about the no-contact order.
The officer said he left Rickman a voicemail message letting him know the police wanted to speak with him.
Gloria and Jacob then drove to the Holiday Inn to retrieve Jacob's Jeep. And that's when Jacob discovered
that two of his tires had been slashed. -This is a snowy night. There's snow on the ground.
-Gloria took this cell phone video following the footsteps she thought were Rickman's.
♪♪ -Because Gloria managed that Holiday Inn, she was able to get the surveillance footage.
These videos have never been seen by the public before now. -We see a man come in
and sneak in through the shadows. He comes up to my jeep and he punctures both my tires
and -- and walks off. -They called police a second time and gave them the video.
Both Jacob and Gloria identified the man as Billy Rickman by his distinctive walk.
But officers said the video was not clear enough to make an arrest. -And the police were like, "I'm sorry.
Without us being able to see his face, there's really not a whole lot to go off of.
Not much we can do." -The next day was December 31st, New Year's Eve. Jacob returned to his Jeep with two new tires.
That's when he and Gloria discovered the other two tires were now slashed. That prompted a third call to 911.
♪♪ Once again, the surveillance footage showed the man Jacob and Gloria believed was Rickman slashing the tires,
but police again said the video was not clear enough for them to make an identification.
Then on New Year's Eve, there was a fourth call to 911, this time by the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn.
He spotted the tire slasher again, puncturing the tires on Jacob's Jeep. The desk clerk chased after him, recording this video
at the same time he was calling 911. ♪♪ -Police say Rickman was driving that same Chevy Colorado
when he ran Gloria off the road, murdered her, then escaped into the night. ♪♪ ♪♪
-Billy Rickman was able to elude police for four days until January 6th, 2022. That's when prosecutor Greg Greer says
law enforcement tracked his phone to Humboldt County in Northern California, where Rickman turned up drunk at a relative's house.
-This relative did not want Mr. Rickman staying with him. This relative offered to take Mr. Rickman to a nearby casino
and put him up at the casino in a hotel. -Rickman's relative, driving his black BMW,
was stopped by tribal police, and they contacted the California Highway Patrol, who rushed to the scene.
Police say Rickman, as seen in this dash cam video, shoved his relative out of the driver's seat
and onto the pavement, gunned the engine and took off. -He's got enough of a head start
and they actually don't find him. They -- they lose him. -Rickman wandered around in the darkness
for about five hours on the wet, cold night before being found and taken into custody.
-Mr. Rickman is soaking wet, freezing cold, hypothermic. -Rickman was charged with aggravated first-degree murder
and pleaded not guilty. Some 250 miles south, a woman who says she knew firsthand
just how dangerous Rickman was received a phone call. -The officer from the Oakland Police Department called me,
and when I answered the phone, she told me Billy's been arrested. -This is Aja Houle,
who had filed a police report about Rickman. She says Rickman forced her into prostitution
and sexually assaulted her when she was a 14-year-old runaway living in Oakland in 2005.
-I'm a survivor of human trafficking and Billy Rickman was my trafficker. -Aja says she endured years of abuse
before she nearly was killed after Rickman choked her with a strand of Christmas tree lights.
-Like, I could not breathe. Like, it was very scary. I was terrified. -She escaped to San Francisco.
-It was one of the best moments of my life, but also one of the most terrifying because I felt free,
but I also felt so much fear because I had crossed him and I knew what he was capable of.
-Shortly after leaving, Aja called a girlfriend who was living with Rickman. -He took the phone out of her hand when I called her
to check on her once and said, "Bitch, if I ever find you, I will [mouths words] kill you."
And I knew that he meant it. I never, ever saw that as a threat. Like, I saw that as a promise because he would.
He would kill me. He was livid. -Aja says she always wanted justice, but it was only while completing her education
and pursuing a master's degree in public affairs from the University of California at Berkeley,
that she found the courage to file that report with the Oakland Police. It detailed multiple alleged incidents of Rickman's abuse,
including hitting her with closed fists on the face and body and causing her to sustain a black eye,
bruises and cuts to the face. -I wanted him held accountable for what he did. -Oakland police put out an arrest warrant for Rickman
in 2021 in Alameda County, but by that time he had left California. Washington state prosecutors say they never saw the warrant.
-I was angry and upset because he could have been stopped beforehand. I blamed myself in some kind of way.
-But Aja still wanted to help. She emailed the prosecutors working on the Gloria Choi murder and offered to give them
information about Rickman. But prosecutors demurred, saying they wanted to keep their case focused on Gloria's murder.
-That wasn't really part of our case, so we didn't follow up on that particular element.
-Rickman's trial for the murder of Gloria Choi began in November 2023, before a jury of nine men and three women.
Gloria's family were too devastated to attend the trial. -They moved out of town without a word,
and we didn't get to say goodbye. But I understood why. -Prosecutor Greer wanted the jury to understand why as well.
So he played Gloria's 911 call in its entirety right after the opening statements.
♪♪ -You could tell the whole courtroom was, you know, different while that was being played.
-The prosecution methodically laid out its case to the jury with all the audio and video evidence they'd collected.
-What you're about to see is a compilation of information from the defendant's cell phone,
as well as surveillance videos that we have at the various locations. What you're going to see first is some GPS coordinates.
-Schnepf says Rickman could no longer follow Gloria after he slashed Gloria's tires
and put her truck -- with those AirTags -- out of commission. -As soon as he slashed the tires on Gloria's vehicle,
he could no longer track her. -Rickman was forced to more or less guess where Gloria was,
and in the days that followed, Schnepf says, he spent a lot of time sitting outside her parents house
where she was living. So all of this is breaking this no-contact order, right? -Yeah, he -- probably every letter
of the the no-contact order he violated. -He's just constantly going back to her house.
-Back and forth. Back and forth. -Is she there, is she at her house? It's crazy to see this like this.
Sometime around 6 p.m. on January 2nd, the night of Gloria's murder. Schnepf says Rickman turned off his cell phone
and didn't turn it back on until he was at the Home Motel immediately after the murder.
-The fact that he doesn't turn his phone off, except for at the time point of the murder,
helps us to show that it was him. -To buttress their case, prosecutors put Brieanna Eberly on the stand.
-I remember looking over at him, seeing him look at her picture. He started to cry,
and I remember it made me so angry. I had never felt so furious in my life. Billy didn't just take Gloria's physical life.
Billy took everything... ...took a daughter, a mother, a friend, a sister, a cousin.
He took it all in a blink of an eye with no... ...no regard. -The loss of Gloria Choi weighed heavily on Greg Greer
as the prosecution ended. He knew this was going to be the last case of his career.
He was surveilling. He was stalking. He was hunting that night. -Absolutely. -And Greg Greer was confident he'd proven that to the jury.
♪♪ When it was time to present Billy Rickman's defense, his lawyer did not call any witnesses
and did not put Rickman on the stand. He argued in his closing that investigators failed
to look at any other possible suspects, said prosecutor Greg Greer. -The defense tried to make a case
that somebody else did it. -Rickman's defense attorney told jurors that the police investigation was incomplete
because Gloria never named Rickman on her 911 call, and instead described the person
who hit her car only as her boyfriend. ♪♪ -The trial lasted two weeks. It only took the jury about two hours
to reach their verdict -- guilty of aggravated murder. Rickman was sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole. -Law enforcement didn't take any steps to locate or arrest Rickman in the days before Gloria's death.
-Gloria's parents believe Gloria should still be alive, says Meaghan Driscoll. She has filed a wrongful death suit
on behalf of Gloria's son against the city of Lakewood and its police department.
-They wanted accountability for what happened to their daughter and their sister and their loved one,
and they believed that it was mismanaged and mishandled by law enforcement. This woman was deprived of justice
and should not have been killed. -Driscoll says one of the ironies of the case is that the prosecution used Rickman's
egregious stalking as evidence to help them secure the homicide conviction. So that very same evidence
that was presented in the homicide trial, you're now using your wrongful death lawsuit
to show what you believe is the Lakewood police not doing their jobs. -Right, I mean, this death was incredibly foreseeable.
And we know that from the prosecution. We know that the jury convicted him. This wasn't a mystery of who did this or why.
Um, it was as foreseeable as it was preventable. -You're focused on Lakewood Police
and what they did and did not do. So outline for us what should they have done? Plain and simple.
-Plain and simple, Lakewood PD should have found Rickman and arrested him to protect Gloria.
[ Camera shutter snaps ] ♪♪ -My name is Russ Hicks. I'm a retired law enforcement officer.
I was a lead instructor for domestic violence for many years. -Russ Hicks was hired by Driscoll as an expert witness,
in part because he has a special connection to the case. -So I know they received the proper training
because I was their instructor at the police academy, and I taught the three officers that were involved in this case.
-And Hicks says those officers failed Gloria. One example -- one of the Lakewood officers
says he left a voicemail for Rickman, which Hicks considers a mistake. -I think it conveys a message
that we're not taking this seriously and we're not looking for you, just saying that we'd like to talk to you.
-And the sad irony of it is when you call a domestic violence perpetrator like Rickman, that actually just escalates the danger
to the victim even more. -That officer says he drove around looking for Rickman's BMW,
but Driscoll says there is no police record of that. Driscoll also says Gloria told the officer
she believed Rickman was staying at a nearby motel. And as it turned out, the Home Motel
is only a six minute walk from the Holiday Inn. -It would have been so easy to find him
because he was there to be found. -Driscoll also says officers failed Gloria by not following up on the detailed description
of the truck Rickman was driving, given to them by the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn.
-In normal law enforcement practice, they should send out a bolo or be on the lookout
saying "This is a beige Chevy Colorado, broken taillights. Look for this guy." They didn't do that. He was half a block away.
-Some 48 hours before her murder, Driscoll says Gloria gave one of the officers a comprehensive seven page document.
In it, Gloria details the many times she said Rickman violated the no-contact order --
his emails, his calls and a still frame from one of the Holiday Inn videos. Even with that report in hand,
Driscoll says police took no action. -They had everything they needed and more to arrest him.
-In addressing the Choi family's wrongful death lawsuit, a city lawyer told a judge in January 2025
the police have no obligation to go and arrest someone like Rickman if he is not at the scene.
At that hearing, the judge asked the city's lawyer... ♪♪ The city's lawyer answered, "That's correct."
John Justice, the attorney representing the city and the Lakewood Police Department,
said he could not comment on pending litigation. ♪♪ Tell me a little bit about how she changed your life.
-She always reminded me that I was a good person no matter what, and that I was a good mom
because I doubted myself a lot. And she reminded me every day that I was good. -How much did that change you in your self-worth?
-So much. More than I could probably describe. It gave me hope. ♪♪ -Prosecutor Greg Greer retired in 2024.
He's still trying to, in his words, find his way back to humanity and forget the violence
that surrounded him for so many years. But he's still haunted by Gloria's last words
on that 911 call. -I did learn the Korean language while I was in -- in the Air Force,
and I could hear very clearly Gloria calling for her mother. -And what is the word that you hear?
-It's "Eomma, Eomma" Um, and she's just frantically -- desperation calling for her mother.
Tells you a lot about human nature. And yeah, it's one of the saddest things you'll ever hear.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

A dream romance ends in murder after a woman falls for a stranger. "48 Hours" correspondent Natalie Morales reports. This episode aired on May 2, 2026. Watch more full episodes of "48 Hours" on Pluto TV.

True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Gloria Choi was murdered by her ex-boyfriend despite multiple police calls for help, highlighting systemic failures in domestic violence response.

Key points

The Murder of Gloria Choi. A tragic case of escalating violence leads to the murder of a beloved mother.
Escalating Danger. Gloria's calls for help go unanswered as her situation worsens.
The No-Contact Order. Despite a legal order, Rickman continues to pursue Gloria, leading to tragic consequences.
Aja's Harrowing Story. Aja Houle reveals her traumatic past with Rickman, detailing years of abuse and survival.
Trial of Billy Rickman. Billy Rickman's trial for the murder of Gloria Choi begins, revealing shocking evidence.
Police Accountability. Gloria's family files a wrongful death suit against the police for failing to protect her.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was kind of their angel.

Gloria's parents describe her impact on their lives.

0:43WatchMay 8, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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