On Wednesday, a Texas man appeared on a U.K. talk show to recount how he faked his own death in 2015 to prove that his wife was plotting to kill him.
Ramon Sosa told ITV’s “This Morning” that friction between him and his wife, Maria, started several years into their marriage as she would always side with her older son from a previous relationship.
Ramon and Maria Sosa got married in March 2010. He recalled a concerning comment his wife’s mother made to him after the nuptials, which he said he overlooked at the time because he was just happy to be married.
“Her mother walked up to me and gave me a hug and then she whispered, ‘She’s your trouble,’ and then just walked away,” Ramon Sosa told “This Morning.”
The couple’s relationship reached a breaking point in 2015, when, during a messy divorce process, they split up their business, The Woodlands Boxing Fitness Gym.
Ramon Sosa told the talk show how he learned from an ex-gang member named Gustavo about his wife’s plot to kill him. Maria Sosa initially planned to hire Gustavo to fatally shoot her boxer husband.
“He was like a third son to me and agreed to record their meetings,” he said, claiming they took the recordings to police.
At some point, Ramon Sosa overheard his wife talking to her older daughter about a man they knew who was capable of killing someone, with his wife saying, “We could use that person.”
Working with the FBI, Texas Rangers drove Ramon Sosa to a desert and placed him in a pre-prepared ditch. There, they put bloody makeup on him to make it appear that he had been shot in the temple.
According to the Daily Mail, Ramon Sosa then cut contact with everyone for three days, giving the impression he was missing or dead. While he was in hiding, an undercover FBI agent posing as a hitman showed the staged photos to Maria Sosa — who in turn laughed and threw her hands up in glee.
Maria Sosa was arrested and charged with criminal solicitation of murder. She pleaded guilty in October 2016 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Ramon Sosa told “This Morning,” “It was very sad, I had so much great yet sadness at the same time knowing that this person one time we were in love and we thought we’d spend the rest of our lives together.”
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[Featured image: Ramon Sosa/Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office]
