Man Wanted for Murder in East Ridge Taken into Custody by Mexican Authorities

A man wanted for the November 2022 killing of a woman on Spriggs Street has been taken into custody in Mexico.

According to East Ridge police, on Monday, Jose Antonio Cruz Ramirez was taken into custody by Mexican Authorities. The East Ridge Police Department and the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office are coordinating with our federal partners to secure extradition on an outstanding 1st Degree Murder warrant.

The international extradition process will take an unknown amount of time to complete, officials said in a press release. The ERPD will provide additional information when it becomes available.

The East Ridge Police Department would like to express its sincere gratitude to the District Attorney’s Office, US Marshal Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and law enforcement authorities in Mexico for their work in bringing this suspect to justice.

On November 21, 2022, ERPD officers were dispatched to the 4000 block of Spriggs Street on an unknown trouble call. The caller advised there was a body in the closet and he thought the boyfriend of the victim had killed her. Officers located a deceased female inside the residence and began working the incident as a criminal homicide.

Investigators quickly determined that Ramirez was a person of interest in the homicide and were granted a warrant for Ramirez’s arrest on a murder charge. At that time ERPD officials told East Ridge News Online that they believed Ramirez had fled the country.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.