Guilty Verdict Issued in ‘Fatal Attraction’ Case

A Vista Superior Court jury found 28-year-old Linda Ricchio guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder in the so-called “Fatal Attraction” killing of her one-time boyfriend in Carlsbad.

But the jury did not find Ricchio guilty of lying in wait when she shot and killed Ron Ruse on Dec. 14, 1987, thereby sparing her from spending the rest of her life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Instead, Ricchio faces a prison term of 27 years to life when she is formally sentenced May 22 by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Miller. The sentence includes two years of prison time for using a firearm. She will be eligible for parole in 18 years.

Ricchio sat expressionless while the verdict was read, but members of both her family and the victim’s cried quietly.

The jury, which began its deliberations Friday, agreed with Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Manning that Ricchio calculated the death of her one-time lover, even to the point of renting an apartment alongside his in Carlsbad--unbeknown to him--and despite a previous court order that she not hound him.

Ruse was shot twice, in the side and the back, after he walked up a flight of stairs to his second-floor apartment after a day of work as a auto mechanic. He was gunned down by Ricchio, who--armed with a .38-caliber handgun-- confronted him at the top of the stairs leading to a landing shared by the two apartments.

After the shooting, Ricchio drove to Oceanside, where she called 911 from a pay telephone and said, “Um, I shot a person,” before breaking down in tears.

Ricchio, who took the stand in her own defense, had claimed that, while she was angry with Ruse, it was her intention to shoot herself in full view of Ruse. When he lunged at her, she panicked and shot him, she said.

But Manning presented a parade of prosecution witnesses who testified that Ricchio had openly declared that she wanted Ruse dead for having spurned her.

Jurors also saw a letter that Ricchio had sent to Ruse’s then-girlfriend, Vicki Woodruff, a week before Ricchio shot Ruse. The letter referred to Ruse in the past tense.

“It seems you wound up in a place I warned you to back away from,” the letter said. “Ron made his bed and I had to make sure he was going to lie in it. . . . I told you I would get him in the end. I’m satisfied.”

Ricchio’s defense attorney, Jack Earley, contended that Ruse had played Ricchio as a yo-yo in their on-and-off relationship and that his client had become confused and anguished.

Manning countered that Ricchio was spiteful and vindictive, jealous that Ruse had dropped her for another woman.

Though Ricchio told the 911 operator she had shot Ruse, and the murder weapon was found in her car, she did not make a subsequent confession to police, and there was no eyewitness to the shooting.