Man sentenced to life without parole set for release on birthday of man he killed

By Betsy Webster

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — A local man sentenced to life without parole for an execution-style murder will be getting out in a month.

Eddie Ramsey was sentenced to life without parole, but that was before a Supreme Court ruling that changed things retroactively for juvenile offenders.

The family of one of the men killed is furious. In the past five years, they have contacted two presidents, two governors and numerous lawmakers but got no response.

“I’m disgusted,” said Paul Weibel. “It’s horrible.”

Paul Weibel was the one who found his brother, Mark, and Mark’s co-worker.

It was February 23rd, 1989. Mark Weibel and James Gaither worked at A&A Auto Fabric on Troost. They’d put a new top on Eddie Ramsey’s Cadillac convertible. He’d come with his older cousin to claim it. Weibel and Gaither were ordered to the floor and each shot in the head.

“Face down, their hands above their heads,” Paul Weibel said of how he found them.

Ricky and Eddie Ramsey were both convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

Mark Weibel’s son, David, was 12. That phrase “life without parole” meant something then.

“I remember the people telling us, ‘Hey, he’s not getting out. You don’t have to worry about it.’ And in the back of my mind I could hear my grandfather saying stuff changes. Well, stuff changed,” David Weibel said.

Court records show Ricky and Eddie Ramsey both fired their guns. But Eddie, now 49, was 17 at the time. A 2012 Supreme Court ruling against mandatory life without parole for juveniles, followed by a 2016 ruling saying the previous one should apply retroactively, meant he would get a parole hearing.

In 2017, the Weibel family learned the parole board granted parole.

Monday, the parole board sent an email confirming his release date. He’ll be getting out on December 5th.

“He’s supposed to be released the same day as my brother’s birthday, my brother Mark that he murdered,” Paul Weibel said.

David Weibel refuses to ever remember that day as anything but his dad’s birthday.

“We used to sit and build car models and go to the racetrack,” David Weibel said of his dad.

He said his dad instilled him with a love for cars. Asked to describe his dad, he used the word “nice” over and over.

“I’m mad but what am I going to do? There’s nothing we can do legally,” David Weibel said about Ramsey’s upcoming release.

If nothing else, he and his uncle can publicly register their disdain.

“Everybody should get a second chance but not when you lay two people down and blow their brains out,” said Paul Weibel.

At the time of the 2016 Supreme Court decision, there were about 2,000 people in prison nationwide who had been sentenced to life without parole as juveniles who subsequently qualified for resentencing, parole hearings or immediate release.

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