The Love Bombing of Gloria Choi | Post Mortem | Forensic Files

Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm your host 48 Hours correspondent Anne Marie Green, and today we are discussing the
case of Gloria Choi, who was shot in her car after being forced off the road by another vehicle in Lakewood, Washington.
Now, Gloria alleged that her ex-boyfriend Billy Rickman was stalking and harassing her, and in a 48-hour
period 2 days before she was murdered, law enforcement was contacted four separate times about Rickman's
escalating behavior, and Gloria's family believes the justice system failed her.
So, joining me today is 48 Hours correspondent Natalie Morales, who reported on this case. Natalie, it's
good to speak with you again. Good to be back with you, Anne Marie, and you know,
I think Gloria Choi's story is sadly a cautionary tale. I think a lot of people can relate to, you know, falling in love
with the wrong person sometimes, but from what we know, Gloria did everything she could once she realized this
relationship was not good for her. She tried to end it, and she thought that the police and that the law would
protect her. Unfortunately, as you know, that was not the case in this tragedy. Yeah, but I think there are a lot of
lessons to be learned here. Uh so, we will get into this. I want to remind everyone, if you haven't watched or
listened to this episode, it's called The Love Bombing of Gloria Choi. Go check it out right now, and then come on
back for our conversation. So, Natalie, in watching the hour, I felt I got a real sense of just how
hardworking, how beloved Gloria Choi was by her family, by her friends. Um you know, she had this great career in the
family business, running these hotels. She was really devoted to her son. It is hard to be a single parent, um and so
I'm always impressed uh when I hear about single parents succeeding. And in May of 2021, she meets Billy
Rickman, who is staying at the hotel that she's managing. He has this larger-than-life personality and
immediately introduces himself to her. But what was it about Rickman that she was attracted to? Well, I think it was
that lifestyle of hers. As you said, she was a busy single mom. She worked really
hard. She didn't have a lot of time to date. You saw her friend and her co-worker Breanna in our hour and and
she said that Rickman talked a big game, seemed to say all the things that Gloria
wanted to hear. He was also very proud to have her as his girlfriend. He paid a lot of attention to her and he had
formed this bond with her son. You know, we saw some of those texts and those exchanges where Rickman is professing
his love and they're so over the top, you know, I want you. I can't wait to see what life has in store for us. My
heart is yours. The Choi family attorney, Megan Driscoll, says Gloria was basically love-bombed. That
over-the-top expression of love. Definitely. Um I think probably a lot of people have experienced
love-bombing and you know, it feels wonderful. But there's always sort of a little bit
of an edge where you're like, "Geez, we just we just met." I mean, but if they do it well and obviously he did, it's
you can get lured in by it. Within weeks, right? Gloria and Rickman, they became a couple.
But he began staying at the Oyo Hotel cuz he stays there and works there. Gloria's parents do not approve of this
relationship. They want Rickman out. And so they say to her, "Listen, you know, you can stay at the hotel and be the
manager or you can leave." And she chooses to leave with him. In September 2021, Gloria moved to a new apartment
with Rickman and her son and took a new job as a manager at the Holiday Inn Express. But it wasn't long after that
that Gloria really started to realize that Rickman was not the guy that he was making himself out to be.
Right. Yeah, according to Gloria's friend Briana, Gloria told her Rickman was often mean. He was showing his angry
side. He started to drink in excess and was using drugs. But when it came down to it, you know, how was he making
money? It really, according to Briana, was Gloria that was providing for him. And and Gloria told her that Rickman
just refused to get a job. >> Mhm. Now, Gloria also, I think, suspected that Rickman was tracking her
and she told Briana she found an Apple AirTag in her truck. She said that she feared he'd hidden more there in in
order to be able to track her. And, you know, that became more obvious once she moved out and tried to rid herself of
him. Mhm. Um well, there's a theme here when we talk about living off a woman. Um you introduce us to a woman named Aja
who said that Rickman sex trafficked her when she was a 14-year-old runaway in California.
Can you share any more details what we learned about Rickman's past? Yeah, it's interesting because according to the
prosecutors, Rickman, he did have some convictions for drug and firearms offenses in California. But it was when
he was in California and in Oakland in particular that he met Aja Whoall. Now, according to Aja, she met Rickman when
she was just 14 years old. Rickman was in his 30s, so huge age difference there. But Aja told us that when she met
him, he knew that she was being trafficked, but by somebody else. He seemed as if he wanted to get her away
from her trafficker, but he ends up becoming her trafficker. And and really, you know, Aja's story is is so
remarkable in the hour because even though she missed a lot of high school, she managed to go back and get her GED
when she was 17 years old. She went on, got her master's degree from UC Berkeley
from the public affairs school, the Goldman School, and she's now working as a consultant. So, she is a such a
success story. >> She really is. Like like that is truly inspiring. And to think like she had
gone through all of this and you know, transformed her life. Meanwhile, Rickman clearly hasn't changed his ways at all.
But, you know, Gloria figures this out. It's takes about 6 months after meeting Rickman and she ends the relationship.
She moves back in with her parents, but Rickman refuses to return her truck which he had borrowed. So, she reports
him to the police. In that first incident, the officer responds very quickly. Rickman is
arrested. He is thrown in jail for a couple of days before judge then slaps him with a very strict no contact order.
But, after his release, Rickman continues to harass her. And it it seems like after that, the police response
sort of slows. It's it's much weaker. Why? Well, this is a case of two different
police departments at the time. You know, there was the city of Tumwater Police Department and Lakewood. And so,
Gloria and Rickman, where they were living was Tumwater and that's where, you know, Gloria reported that Rickman
refused to get back her truck. It was the Tumwater police officer who recognized that Rickman seemed to be a
danger to Gloria and so, he asked the judge to issue a domestic violence no contact order. Gloria then moved. She
switched jobs to the Holiday Inn Express. That happened to be in Lakewood where a lot of those other incidents
happened. For example, when she was meeting with her friend Jacob and her car was broken into and the laptops were
stolen, she reported that to Lakewood police. And Gloria said that she suspected it
was Rickman because when she was meeting with Jacob, she got this email instantly
from Rickman that said, "You left me for another guy." And, you know, the Lakewood officer said he was going to
call Rickman. He said he left a voicemail saying police wanted to speak with him. Gloria and her friend Jacob
Blue, they go back to the Holiday Inn Express, and they see, you know, Jacob's car now. They discover his car tires had
been slashed as well. They called Lakewood police again, and because she worked at the hotel, she was able to
show the responding officers surveillance footage, and it showed, you know, the shadowy figure of a guy
apparently slashing the tires, but because the surveillance footage was a little bit grainy and you couldn't make
out his face very clearly, Lakewood police said it was too unclear. They couldn't see him, and they couldn't
identify, in fact, that it was Rickman. Now, all of these instances are examples
that Megan Driscoll, the Troy family attorney, says were clear violations of the no-contact order. In fact, Driscoll
says Gloria would eventually give Lakewood police a seven-page document that listed all the ways she said
Rickman violated the no-contact order. Here's the thing about it, too, is experts will always tell domestic
violence victims to document everything. And here Gloria is writing it down. She's basically taking the investigation
into her own hands. What else did she note in this document? This is an important lesson that we can
all take away from this story. I mean, she really did document everything in that seven-page list, including
screenshots with text messages, numerous missed calls that she kept getting from
his friends, from blocked numbers or numbers that were not identifiable. And And by the way, according to Megan
Driscoll, that seven-page document, the prosecutors never even saw it because it
was found later in a sealed envelope in a police file. Prosecutor Greg Greer said he had never even seen it. It
wasn't opened or found until after the homicide conviction. So, I thought this was really interesting in the hour. 48
Hours spoke to Russ Hicks. He's an expert hired by the family's attorney who worked as an instructor at the
police academy and taught the three Lakewood officers that were involved in this case. I absolutely thought he was
going to defend them. Mhm. And then he did not. He was surprised to learn that the officers did not seem to follow the
training, the very training and guidelines that he gave them. I want to play a clip from that interview. The
training specifically states that they should recognize escalating behavior. And this was escalating because there
were four incidents in a 48-hour period. So, having that he's armed with the deadly weapon, that he's slashing tires
repeatedly in the same location, and that nothing's being done, they should have recognized that this is is a
pattern of escalating behavior, and they should have intervened. Megan Driscoll told us this was
sadly as foreseeable a tragedy as as it could possibly be. Um we should point out the Lakewood Police Department said
they couldn't really identify Billy Rickman as the man slashing the tires and walking away. Um
but Russ Hicks said the official training says that in domestic violence cases, you know, they generally do
escalate in nature, and the official response is always protect the victim. So, he does not believe, you know, that
the procedures were followed. And while one officer said he drove around and he was looking for Rickman's car. There
apparently was no record of that and there didn't seem to be more of an attempt to find him.
So then I'm wondering what Hicks recommends that the officers should have done differently. Well, Russ Hicks says
the one thing that the police absolutely failed on was that in a situation like this, you put out a bolo alert, be on
the lookout. In this case, they knew what kind of vehicle Rickman was driving at the time. Also, Russ Hicks points
out, you know, the officer who reportedly said he left a voicemail for Rickman, he said that is the last thing
a police officer should be doing because that actually can escalate the situation
further in domestic violence cases. And Hicks also pointed out that police didn't even show up in person when
Gloria called 911 to report the tire slashing. Um he said again, the number one priority is to show up, secure the
scene. You cannot do that by phone. But in its defense, the Lakewood Police Department said
nobody witnessed Rickman [music] directly commit these acts, no witness was able to provide a location for
Rickman, so they say probable cause was not established. Welcome back. So on January 2nd, 2022, the evening of
Gloria's murder, she calls 911 again after she is forced off the road by a pickup truck while driving home.
You played that 911 call in the hour, some of it. Um and I have to say from what we heard, it was painful to listen
to. She is clearly terrified. And and we couldn't even play that much of it because it is way too disturbing and
graphic. You're hearing Gloria Choy, her last moments alive and she was terrified.
And it was played in full to a stunned jury. And in the course of that 911 call, you hear the 14 shots fired. You
hear her screaming through several of those first shots because we know she didn't die instantly, and she was
suffering. Prosecutor Greg Griard spoke Korean because he served in the Air Force, and he says on that 911 call, her
last words are "Oma. Oma or Uma." And that is the word for mother, mom in Korean, which just breaks your heart.
And one other thing, her young son had just turned eight the day before. She, in fact, was on her way home at the time
because you know, he wanted to eat with his mother, and he wouldn't eat without her,
and that's where she was going when Rickman pinned her car, and then killed her. And it sort of reinforces the
connection that we learned that she has with her family, how important family was, that it is her mother that she
cries out for. It's her son that she's going home to see. And these are people that Rickman would have known. He would
have lived with her and her son. So, after Billy Rickman though kills Gloria, he seems to just sort of disappear into
the night. How was he able to evade police for several days? You know, Rickman had a support system,
and the people who helped him, they actually testified at the trial. However, they were not charged.
Prosecutors believe a friend in fact armed him, gave him a gun a couple of days before he then went and killed
Gloria. And prosecutors say Rickman then went to a couple of friends' homes, uh including one who had been storing his
black BMW, which he then used to flee and escape to California. And he was on the run for 4 days. And then Rickman
drives to Northern California, Humboldt County, goes to a relative's house. His relative offered to drive him to a hotel
to put him up there, but the FBI had already alerted law enforcement in that area to be on the lookout. They did put
a bolo out this time. Tribal police then stopped them saying that they ran a stop
sign, and that's when Rickman pushes his relative out of the car as you saw in the hour, and then
takes off and continues for another 5 hours to evade police until finally he is caught. How did they eventually track
him down? That's an interesting story because and we didn't have time to really include that in the hour. They
did find his abandoned car and they did search with dogs in the area where they believed he he went on the run. It's
very rural though and they went around warning the residents in the area to be careful. So, when he shows up at one
man's door, it happened to be a retired juvenile corrections officer who lived there. So, wrong man for
Rickman to encounter. Prosecutor Greg Greer tells us more about what happened. He hears his dogs barking outside.
And he recognizes that's him. Tells his wife, tells her right away, "Call 911. It's him."
He goes out. He does have a firearm with him. He doesn't display it, but he's got
it on his person, and he goes out and he encounters Mr. Rickman. Who is soaking wet, freezing cold,
hypothermic, and he offers to take him inside and tries to warm him up and talks to him for a few minutes. Um
police still aren't there, no sign of them. He wants to get him out of his house now, so he takes him and puts him
in one of his his work vehicles saying he'll take him into town and get him a a hotel room. Mhm. He keeps telling him,
"Oh, I forgot my keys. Go back to his wife. Where are they? Back to the truck. Oh, I need my wallet.
Back to the house. He is stalling for time. He comes and he sits in the vehicle now with Mr. Rickman and
thankfully he sees lights approaching law enforcement from the distance and police get there and time's up. Oh,
that's an incredible story. That is really incredible. Um, you know, cuz he didn't have to. He could have just
called up and say I saw the guy in my backyard, go get him. And but to bring him into your house. Well, Billy Rickman
is eventually charged with aggravated first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and the prosecution argued that
Rickman had stalked and harassed Gloria in the days leading up to the murder. So, I have to say I found the map that
showed Rickman's GPS coordinates from his cell phone and his pickup truck's system really convincing. Right. And the
prosecutor, Karin Schnapp, she showed it all to us. Her presentation of how to She talked to the jury through his
movements and it was like he was hunting her. He was following her around. He kept going back and forth to her
parents' house. Prosecutors also pointed out that Rickman, he turned his phone off just for that time to then kill
Gloria. But then when he got back to the motel, he turned it back on. So, that tells you a lot about, you know, he was
trying to to not show where he was by disabling his phone in that time. Officer Casey Bents, from the Lakewood
Police Department, she was one of the first responding officers and at trial she gave a real emotional testimony
because, you know, when she responded, Gloria was wearing her lanyard from the Holiday Inn
and she realized this is the same woman who had called us on these previous occasions and Officer Bents was one of
the officers who responded to the previous incident of the tire slashing. And we should point out at trial the
defense didn't call any witnesses. They didn't put Rickman on the stand. According to prosecutor Greer, the
defense really argued that investigators failed to look for any other possible suspects. You know, defense has to work
with what they have. It was 2 hours of deliberation and the jury found Billy Rickman guilty. He was sentenced to life
in prison without the possibility of parole. Gloria's parents have filed a wrongful death suit on behalf of
Gloria's son. And their lawyer says that the family believes Gloria would still be alive if Lakewood police had arrested
Rickman when presented with the clear examples of how he had violated the no contact order. Right. And what's really
interesting here is that same evidence from the homicide trial that the prosecution used, the family's attorney
Megan Driscoll said, "This makes the case." This was [clears throat] again one of the most foreseeable and
preventable tragedies. You know, the wrongful death lawsuit against Lakewood and its police department is still
pending. It's unresolved as of now. The police department in the city has not publicly admitted that they made any
mistakes. And John Justice, who is the attorneys representing the city and the Lakewood PD, said again that he can't
comment on pending litigation. So this case is still before them. Of course. Of course.
How is Gloria's son doing? Well, we know he is well supported. He is surrounded by his family.
He now lives with Gloria's relatives in another state. Her family did leave Washington. And what about Breanna? She
was a really powerful voice in this episode. She kind of brought Gloria to life for us.
She clearly they had a very strong friendship and this had a huge impact on her. And Briana told us how much Gloria
meant to her because when they met Briana had had some substance abuse issues that she was overcoming
and Gloria saw through all of that. She told us that Gloria literally changed her life. She gave her that promotion at
the hotel where they were working because Gloria was leaving her management position to go live with
Billy Rickman and she said she wanted Briana to take over for her and I want to play a little bit more of our
interview there with Briana. And I kind of looked at her and I was like why? Like I'm the last person you probably
want running your hotel. >> [laughter] [snorts] >> Um and she told me that I've shown her
grit and determination and that she trusted me 100% to run her parents' business.
Regardless of what I'd done in my past, it didn't matter. She knew I was going to go far
and she wanted to give me the opportunity to do it. And I remember [clears throat] looking
at her and saying, "Is your dad okay with this?" >> [laughter] >> And she was, "I'll talk to him."
But she believed in you. She did. Having somebody believe in you is is everything.
Absolutely everything and I believed in her, too. I believed that she could find her own path.
She was pretty excited to do it on her own. And she knew she could do it. And sadly she was just starting to find
her own path when her life was tragically cut short. You know, Briana said that even with
Billy Rickman, Gloria was choosing to see the good in everyone, to look past their flaws, to look past their demons
and unfortunately that's ultimately what cost her her life. Absolutely. Um Natalie, another great hours. Thank
you so much. Thank you, Anne Marie. If you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

"48 Hours" correspondents Anne-Marie Green and Natalie Morales discuss Gloria Choi's murder. The single mother was shot by her ex-boyfriend, Billy Rickman.

True crime. Social 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 after police failed to respond to her harassment reports.

Key points

The Love Bombing of Gloria Choi. Explore the tragic story of Gloria Choi, who was stalked and murdered by her ex-boyfriend.
Aja's Inspiring Transformation. Aja Whoall shares her harrowing experience with Rickman and her journey to success.
Gloria's Final Moments. The chilling 911 call reveals Gloria's terror before her murder.
Briana's Transformation. Briana shares how Gloria changed her life and believed in her potential.
The Power of Belief. Briana reflects on the importance of having someone believe in you.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Gloria Choi's story is sadly a cautionary tale.

Natalie Morales reflects on Gloria's situation.

0:48WatchMay 9, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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