The Disturbing Case of Donna Scrivo

[Music] hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video you know we're gonna um we're gonna be a bit of an l culture vulture and learn some italian the word scrivo right means to write and this story you couldn't write it you could not make it up it is absolutely bananas it's absolutely off the wall it's just donna scrivo lived in michigan classic that's another place rising up the charts with her son ramsey and hubby daniel this story will take us to the distant year of 2014 and beyond but like like backwards as we look at the strange scrivo family story ramsay uh he had his fair share of troubles his mama donna straight from hc double hockey sticks being one of them so let's give it a go you and i come on [Music] so let's start with the where sinclair shores sits on well sinclair if you can believe it it's part of the greater detroit metro area and it was where ramsay scrivo was born in 1981 to parents donna and daniel ramsey had one older brother they both went to an all boys catholic school donna had high expectations for her kids ramsay graduated college in 1999 worked for a few accounting firms you know but by his late 20s realized that wasn't for him when his work ethic was criticized by his boss you know he wasn't too much of a fan of the old clickety clackety or is it quackity clocketty i can never remember so from there ramsay decided to get into his dad's house painting business and that went on you know so far so good or at least it is in the way i'm telling it and that takes us to about 2014 when ramsay's grievo disappeared on the 25th of january 2014 after 6 p.m ramsay left the house he lived in with his mama donna to go get some cigarettes and he never returned oldest trick in the book or was it the next day donna reported ramsay missing to the police she told them she had already gone around town to the bars and places he frequented and saw neither hide nor hair of them she wasn't too worried though at the time you know he'll show up you know eventually yeah he will but she had been calling and calling him on his mobile no answer police alerted the surrounding communities to be on the lookout for ramsay that winter was exceptionally cold and they also got in touch with ramsay's probation worker see about a year before ramsay got in trouble with the law for assaulting one of his friends at a bar and had problems with drugs and alcohol and a history of mental health issues his probation worker you know upon learning that ramsay was nowhere to be found really also began to worry about what kind of trouble ramsay could be up to or in the police checked in with who they knew he'd been in contact with shortly before he left no dice donna told the police that ramsay left with his wallet to go get smokes in his wallet were two credit cards and his driver's license so the police they wanted to track his cards and they also asked donna for a picture they could provide to the media to aid in the search she never gave them one she didn't want the media involved at all ramsay's uh phone would eventually be found in the front garden of a neighbor's house now the neighbor knew nothing and ramsay's phone could provide not much either though one thing was that donna had told the police she tried calling and calling you know and he wasn't picking up but when the police got ramsey's phone right ain't no calls from donna neighbors of ramses would tell the police they hadn't seen him for days before donna reported him missing and one neighbor in particular told the police that she smelled a chemical odor coming from his place the home he shared with his mama donna in 2006 12 years earlier parents donna and daniel actually bought ramsay that abode as they were worried about him he was suffering with depression had anger issues and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia they wanted to know he wasn't too far from the coop which was good as ramsay was kind of on and off his medication which came with some tough side effects taboo sometimes ramsay was convinced someone had placed poison in his drink or a nano chip was in his tooth listening into his every conversation in 2010 ramsay got into a fight a fight which left ramsay with a head injury after he cracked his head on the concrete as we've seen before because this just exacerbated ramsey skrivo's mental health issues he was out of control you know more now he was drinking more he was angrier he got into trouble more and issues you know that were somewhat under control now not so much this would eventually lead him to being charged with assault and on probation and getting his probation worker the one that would in a couple of years become worried about where he was he had a report to this worker frequently required to do drug and alcohol tests multiple times a day unfortunately his mental health got worse when in may 2013 his dad died he passed away from a long illness the two were really close best buds you know the death of daniel screbo had a massive impact on ramsay and ramsey you know would say that if his dad goes so does he daniel screevo protected ramsay from his mother and his mother's expectations expectations that were dashed when he decided to become a house painter and leave accounting as ramsay could be a danger to himself and others already was and had been and not just that there were suspicions that he was taking his dad's morphine his family including donna filed for a petition to get ramsay hospitalized he was and diagnosed with psychosis at the same time donna filed for the legal guardianship of ramsay first and foremost to make sure he was taking his medications upon release after this he was let home donna and ramsay stayed together at the family house but then due to an electrical fire by the way that fire actually is interesting it started in the basement where ramsay slept donna got out called the fire boyos and then didn't really give a [ __ ] that ramsay was still in the house as it was engulfed in flames now luckily they managed to get ramsey out there in the nick of time and it was later deemed to be a suspicious fire a suspicious fire but that was it there wasn't really much of an investigation case closed and so the two moved together to ramsey's condo which uh was a bad idea you know donna was extremely controlling of ramsay you know she would say it was for it's for some good you know making sure he's looked after taking his medication the way he should he was troubled and needed somebody to take care of him unfortunately his own mother was not that person donnis grievo was born in 1954 in dallas texas texas again and always wanted to become a nurse and so she became after donna met daniel they got married in august 1978 two months later jason that's ramsay's older brother was born then they moved to michigan dan's home state and settled in sinclair shores ramsay coming three years later in 2003 donna had a massive heart attack almost died right there on the operating table that whole experience uh as you can imagine was not a beneficial one for don she became forgetful anxious she left her nursing job became a home nurse now donna's sickness if he could call it that and ramsay's issues wasn't the only problem in the scrivo family daniel was sick for most of his life he was coping with hepatitis c he'd gotten it from when he was a teenager and needed to have open heart surgery and that is what would kill him in 2013. as the year of 2013 waned a tough year for ramsey losing his dad getting over the head injury he actually started doing better he was taking his meds fixing up his life now donna still had guardianship over 32 year old ramsey but in june of that year ramsay planned to petition the court to terminate the guardianship in six months if he cooperated with treatment on medication and more importantly followed his mother's rules don't mess with mama done once ramsey and donna were living together family members began to worry you know a little bit of about them because donna was a well a nightmare and ramsay was under her tongue jason the other son had long moved out of state and with dan dead it was just donna and ramsay kind of eight months before dan passed away donna went to a high school reunion back in texas she went alone and may have met an old flame from the past she returned to michigan after but was constantly texting this guy however after dan passed away she may have wanted to move back down south home for her though ramsay he uh you know quote didn't give a [ __ ] and then he disappeared in january 2014. the search was ongoing you know from when donna reported him missing on the 26th you know neighbors interviewed and having some uh interesting olfactory insights his phone when it was discovered led nowhere no one had seen him it was just like he vanished and then came the 30th of january a lady was driving on a snowy rural road and had seen something on the side a collection of black bags three of them to be precise and she looked inside she saw what appeared to be intestines after she got back into her car and kept driving and saw another bag with what seemed to be a human head next to it she immediately called the police when investigators came out to check it out that's when they found body parts in several different garbage bags some of the body parts included a head and a torso initially they couldn't identify the sex now as you said they believe it is a single male man who it was disposed of after his body parts were separated into these trash bags then this morning they got another call about a piece of trash in a bag outside of an off ramp nearby they reported that in that bag they found clothing that was charred and some paperwork that was related to the case but no more body parts they're hoping that with the information they have with the paperwork and the in the clothing and now this autopsy they'll be able to piece this together but at this point they do not have a victim identified and soon more bags emerged inside the bags were human remains chopped up also a jigsaw with four saw blades clothing that seemed to belong to a woman a coke bottle and some charred papers police determined the body to be of a white man the case was treated as a homicide from the get-go don't know you know what else you would treat it as when you find a chopped a body missing people from these surrounding counties were checked and crossed off and fingerprints were taken from the body and ran through the system identification of the deceased and notification is uh first and foremost and then tracking down the leads find out obviously backtrack and where they were and how they ended up in the situation we have this is somebody's son or brother or husband we hope we can get identification and get some closure for a family somewhere amash came back it was get this done ramsay screavo his autopsy was carried out on what was left of him good luck his cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation though the autopsy also showed a massive dose of xanax in his system four times what he was prescribed the dosage could have killed him on its own his body had been cut into 14 different pieces his right arm wasn't found in the garbage bags a witness then came forward to the police and said she had seen a woman dropping off the bags and she was driving an suv well right now joining me is saint clair county sheriff tim donald with some new information sheriff what can you tell us yes we're going to be releasing a picture of a person of interest that we hope citizens can hopefully help us identify as well as a vehicle which we'd also like to see if we can tie up i know you're still working on this case actively can you tell us anything about how you came up with this information yeah through investigative measures we received some video and we've been enhancing it working on this afternoon and we've got a pretty good picture of a vehicle as well as a picture of a female we're also trying to track down to speak with a nearby gas station captured cctv footage of this woman driving a 1990 chevy blazer the mystery woman was none other than dun dun dun stop right there criminal scum donna scrivo i have some unfortunate news um i know that you thought you've seen the videos the tv reports welcome coming we believe that that's your son i'm sorry i really want my surprise [Music] i know you were insane click on me yesterday no would it help you if you look at the pictures pictures why [Music] i'm hoping that you're going to start remembering a little bit more so that we can figure out what god's name happened here we know you're not a bad person i think you're just the type of person who's been dealing with the sun with severe mental issues that wears i've been doing i couldn't kill my friend did he kill himself but you didn't want people to know that and you thought this might be a way to cover it up yeah she was arrested as the main suspect in ramsey's death and then she was charged with the dismemberment and removal of her son's body and we're getting our first look at the saint claire shores mother tonight facing charges in connection with dismemberment of her own son her mother is also accused of dumping her son's remains 7 action news investigator jim kirchner is live now jim why wasn't the mother charged with murder because the autopsy the medical examiner's report is not complete it's inconclusive right now remember this was a body that was cut up and then the parts tossed out the window of a moving vehicle in as many as five different places so the pending murder case still rests with the medical examiner police got search warrants for both the vehicle in question and ramsey's condo but it turned out there was a bit of a problem in finding um you know donna's car you'll get that when she tried to give it away to a charity in detroit which she did you know she did the exact same thing to ramsey's car also she was just take it please once the cars were you know retrieved his blood was found on him ramsay's unsurprisingly but the car wasn't the crime scene no it was the condo and yeah when they entered the place the smell of bleach was overwhelming just like the neighbor said upon forensic investigation blood evidence was recovered from multiple locations ramsay's blood was found in the bathtub his bedroom wall the porch and the hand railings of the house the most gruesome place was the bathtub not that there was a lot of blood there or anything like that the bathtub had signs of burning inside of it while donna was in custody nail clippings of hers as well as hair samples and that kind of stuff were taken her dna was found on the coke bottle that was in one of the garbage bags but that was it her dna wasn't actually on the body uh though there was still a fair bit going against her a local lowe's store stated that on the 27th of january donna bought a jigsaw during the day she then later returned at the evening again as she had some problems with charging the saw the same branded jigsaw was found in the garbage bag now there was a problem with the serial number of the saw the police weren't 100 sure it was the same one donna had actually bought but um i don't think that's enough to give her you know the benefit of the doubt his father passed away in may of last year is that right is that a factor in any of this at all did that start things going downhill for this family i from what i understand it did have obviously a negative impact on the family and without saying um as you put together your theory in this case back back by physical and other evidence have you without saying have you established a motive in this i'm not able to comment on it this a yes or no answer not at this time but why what made her you know do something commit something this evil you know to her own son such a gruesome thing to do he had you know issues but he was her son and he seemed to be on the mend more than anything as well so the why the motive no idea the prosecutors didn't have one either when it went to trial in may 2015. donna pled not guilty the prosecutor said the xanax found in ramsey's system was donna's prescription it was filled with a 90-day supply in january at the start of the month and only had one pill remaining when ramsay was found 30 days later so she was popping them back or popping them in ramsay she needed a way to subdue her son she drugged him up and just before the murder took place donna had actually bought carpet shampoo so she was thinking ahead though when donna took the stand she quite the story to tell yeah it was it was maybe premeditated but not by her she told the jury the attorneys and the judge that on the 25th of january a masked man broke into the condo went into ramsay's room to kill him donna said she was down in the basement doing some laundry and upon going upstairs she found the front door open and that's when she checked in on ramsay and found the man in his bedroom the man tied her to the bed and killed ramsay then he made her dispose of the body and told her that if she didn't do so she was going to die as well according to the story it was the idea of the masked man to donate the cars to buy the jigsaw for the dismemberment and so on and so forth he came you know with that to-do list as you do the mysterious man was supposedly in the house with her for five whole days even when she went to report ramsay missing he was waiting for her in the condo did you recognize anything about that person's voice no did you recognize anything about the person's gait or the way he walked no did you recognize anything about his mannerisms do you believe you had ever seen that person before i don't think so he made you go to lois yeah for the specific purpose of getting something yeah and that something was what and when you got to lowe's and you saw those big strong men working inside there didn't you tell them this person killed my son and he's threatening me no why well i'll tell you right now why i'm afraid for my family donna told the courts while on stand that she was handcuffed to the bed most of the time she was only let free when the man needed phone calls and errands to be done as you can imagine the prosecution took a lot of pleasure in ripping the story to [ __ ] why did he let you live i asked my question why did he let you live i asked myself you don't think i'd rather be gone in my son here why don't you take a chance why don't you do something tell me what you wanted me to do i'll tell you what he's in the car when you're at the police station hiding in the back of your ford escape why don't you go to officer mason and say officer the guy the killer the intruder is in the back seat of my car he just murdered my son in cold blood he put me in handcuffs he beat me he chained me to my bed and he's in your parking lot please help me you indicated that we drove around we drove to lowe's we drove to the probation department we drove to state farm he's in the car with you monday morning you didn't want to testify you had a right not to testify and you're up here testifying i get a right to ask you questions whether you like them or not so let's keep going okay because here we are you're at the police station one time you say he's in the car the next time you say now you're saying he's not in the car okay i do not remember saying he was in the hospital then you lived with the murderer of your son for five days objection to what council can believe how is it that you're so loyal to him i don't understand the question nor do i know how to respond to that how is it that you were so afraid of him then and 16 months later you're not afraid of him anymore i never said i wasn't afraid of him so you're not afraid of him now you're testifying no i'm still afraid of him we're going with hearsay oh yeah your whole testimony has been here okay don't talk to me about hearsay remember this is our commentative it is you're requesting sustain always a question mr cataldo don't argue with the witness i told my son jason oh no let her we had to wait 16 months to hear this story about this intruder don't you believe had you given the information earlier we may have had a chance to go out and arrest him is your faith in the police department so lacking that you're going to let a murderer get away with it and you're going to take the rap but to this day donna says she's innocent it was the masked man and the one thing that remains is her dna was not found on the victim nor his on her you have technology and equipment that can detect blood after cleaning it if there was something on me if i did what you said some of it would have showed on wayne some of me would have showed on ramsey some of him would have showed on me and you didn't bag and tag my clothes or anything though i mean the story is absolutely ridiculous you think that you know in the year you know from when she was rested to going on trial she could think of something a little bit better you know best he can do really come on the defense tried well they tried their best i guess god love them they brought up multiple problems about the case how the police did not follow up every possible lead the lack of dna evidence on donna's body and the question as to how a tiny woman like donna could lift ramsay into the bathtub however these were found to be uh reaches you know and after a short deliberation the jury found donnis grievo guilty of first degree murder on june 23 2015 the judge sentenced her to life in prison without parole for the disinterment and mutilation of a body removing a body without the permission of a medical examiner and uh murder you know that too donna you know unsurprisingly remains imprisoned to this day and she still says she's innocent she didn't do it uh it was this you know mysterious masked man the thing is there's no real reason to do what she did not a whole lot to gain here this was clearly premeditated and thought out so a spur of the moment rush of anger which is the only thing i can kind of think of well that's not what happened i mean maybe she just wanted to leave me to texas and was sick of her son you know that now that his dad wasn't around to protect him anymore maybe there was a masked man or maybe more likely it's progress you know projection of her guilt impressions and appearances were something that was very important to donna scrivo you know and i guess she just wasn't uh having you know the kind of first impression on people that she wanted to have the way things were going well she's definitely got quite a put an image now devil spawn comes to mind [Music] thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it i will see you as always real soon in the next one take care of [Music] yourselves

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 2,523,059

Keywords: that chapter, donna scrivo, ramsay scrivo, scrivo michigan

Id: o5DzfchtWss

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020