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Philadelphia dungeon suspect was ‘ringleader’ in 1981 murder

Philadelphia Police Sgt. Joseph Green stands in the cellar of a Tacony apartment house where four mentally challenged adults were chained for weeks in an alleged scheme to steal their Social Security checks.

Philadelphia Police Sgt. Joseph Green stands in the cellar of a Tacony apartment house where four mentally challenged adults were chained for weeks in an alleged scheme to steal their Social Security checks. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

PHILADELPHIA — The accused ringleader in the Philadelphia dungeon case also was called the “ringleader” in a 1981 murder case, according to court documents obtained by myFOXphilly.com.

The new information about Linda Weston comes from more than 1,000 pages of court documents obtained from the criminal courts of Philadelphia. They contain startling details of Weston’s 1983 conviction in the starvation death of Bernardo Ramos.

The files also show that Weston was paroled on that murder charge and ordered by the court to take psychotropic drugs.

Weston and three other people now face kidnapping and other charges after four people were found imprisoned in a Philadelphia basement and a fifth person was found locked in a closet.

Police are investigating claims that Weston was the ringleader in a plot to cash benefit checks intended for those imprisoned victims — and for as many as 50 other people.

The court papers show that Weston served only four years of her 1983 third-degree murder conviction for killing Ramos, who was the boyfriend of her sister, Venus Weston.

One chilling sentence in the case review reads, “The evidence clearly demonstrated that [Weston] was mentally able to supervise a household. She also appeared to be the ringleader of this conspiracy [to murder Ramos].”

The records show that in 1981, she locked Ramos in a closet for about two months. She fed him only four times and let him out on six or seven occasions.

When Ramos died, she wheeled him in a baby carriage to an abandoned house and dumped him.

Weston was sentenced to between four and 10 years at the state prison in Muncy, Pa. On Jan. 15, 1987, after serving just four years — her minimum sentence — she was paroled.

The parole board ordered mandatory intensive supervision and outpatient therapy for Weston. She also was ordered to take psychotropic medication and stay out of trouble.

Weston was cited for failing to meet with her parole officer in 1988, but records show that she had exited the criminal justice system by 1993.

To read more, go to MyFoxPhilly.com.