Suspect in fatal crash once sold her baby for $2,000

The woman who allegedly caused a fatal car accident while fleeing from police on Monday was once convicted of selling her 4-month-old baby for $2,000, which she used to gamble and buy video-game consoles, according to court records.

Virginia Christina Ramsey, 36, of Auburn, pleaded guilty to the 2002 baby-selling charge and was sentenced to 15 days in jail, 75 days of electronic home-monitoring and 240 hours of community service after she told a King County judge that she had moved to Port Angeles and was addressing her drinking and drugging problem.

Ramsey is suspected of causing a crash on Monday in which a Fife man was killed.

On Monday evening, Federal Way police were notified of a "reckless driver" near Pacific Highway and 356th Street.

Officers attempted to stop the 1988 Honda Accord by using emergency lights and siren, but the driver sped away and police pursued her, according to the State Patrol. The patrol later identified the driver as Ramsay.

Ramsey's Honda crashed into a Volkswagen Jetta driven by Douglas Simmons III, 40, of Fife, at Highway 99 and Porter Way, in the town of Milton, according to the State Patrol. Simmons was killed and his passenger, Holly Mattson, 42, of Oregon City, Ore., was taken to Madigan Hospital in serious condition.

Ramsay was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, where she remains in serious condition, the State Patrol said.

The baby-selling case

In the earlier case, Ramsey, her ex-boyfriend, Kenneth Slape, and his ex-wife, Tina Anderson, were charged with baby-selling and buying.

According to court documents and a 2003 Seattle Times interview with Slape, Ramsey had given birth to a son with fetal alcohol syndrome.

The baby constantly cried, and Ramsey was broke and desperate when she called Slape in June 2001 to ask if he could help her.

"She called and said she couldn't take it anymore and honestly, I was worried about [the baby]," said Slape, who is not the baby's father. "You hear all the time about these moms that throw their babies in the Dumpsters or hurt them. I just didn't want that to happen to him."

Slape called his ex-wife, Tina Anderson of Eastern Washington, whom he described as an excellent mother, to see if she could help.

Slape said Anderson agreed to take the baby. The three met up in a store parking lot, where Ramsey gave Anderson the baby and a makeshift, but notarized, letter in which she gave up her parental rights.

Anderson gave Ramsey approximately $2,000 that was intended, she said, not as a payment for the child, but as a gift to help Ramsey get back on her feet.

"It might have been stupid and maybe we should have thought it through better, but we were trying to do a good thing for the baby," Slape said.

Police were called by one of Ramsey's neighbors, who said the baby disappeared one day after Ramsey had been complaining about the child.

Slape pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of child-selling and was sentenced to serve one month in a work-release program.

A long rap sheet

Anderson never pleaded guilty, insisting all along that she had been trying to help the child. Prosecutors dismissed charges against her after she accepted a period of probation.

The child was taken into foster care during the investigation, but there was no immediate word on what had happened to him.

In the years since her conviction for child-selling, Ramsey has been convicted of domestic violence, assault and possession of controlled substances, according to court documents.

According to the State Patrol, Ramsey could face charges of vehicular assault, vehicular homicide, murder and attempted murder in connection with Monday's accident.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report, which includes information from Times archives.

Information in this article, originally published July 27, 2010, was corrected July 28, 2010. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the age of the baby. The correct age is 4 months old.