After exchanging messages on Facebook, he reportedly grew enraged and bombarded her with vulgar emails.
The man accused of opening fire at a Maryland newspaper Thursday is said to have been pushed to the alleged crime by boiled-over rage over the obsession of a girl from high school.
In 2009, Jarrod Ramos reached out to his former classmate — who Inside Edition has chosen not to name — on Facebook, telling her she was "the only person ever to say hello or be nice to him."
She wrote back, striking up a conversation.
"I just thought I was being friendly," she told Inside Edition.
But he quickly turned nasty and bombarded her with vulgar emails, calling her “a bipolar drunkard leading a double life."
In another message, he said, "Have another drink and go hang yourself, you cowardly little lush."
When she ignored him, she said he became angrier.
"You’re going to need a restraining order," he allegedly told her. "You can't make me stop."
Forensic psychiatrist Keith Ablow spoke to Inside Edition about Ramos’ threats.
"No doubt she was thinking, 'Why is this happening? Why is there no way to be reasonable with this person? Or reason with this person?'" he said. "Because the drama is of his making. No amount of reasoning will stop the drama."
The woman's attorney, Brennan McCarthy, said Ramos even got her fired from her banking job.
“She lost her job because of this individual," he told "CBS This Morning" Friday. "He is malevolent; [he] forwarded a letter to her employer saying she was bipolar and a drunkard which is ridiculous."
After two years of harassment, she went to the police and Ramos was charged with criminal harassment. He pleaded guilty and was placed on probation.
A reporter for The Capitol Gazette wrote a front-page story about the case in 2011, titled, "Jarrod wants to be your friend."
The article allegedly set him off and he redirected his anger from the woman to the newspaper.
Ramos also sued the paper and the columnist for damaging his reputation. But a court ruled in the columnist and the newspaper’s favor and Ramos lost on appeal.
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