A Pregnant Woman Was Found Stabbed in Her Apartment - Her Boyfriend Was Caught Fleeing Through a River

A Foot Chase Through the Blackstone River

Gabriela Vallejo was 29 and pregnant when she was found stabbed inside her Woonsocket apartment. Days later, the man now charged with killing her tried to get away by running into the Blackstone River, a chase that officers captured on their body cameras before he was pulled from the water and handcuffed.

The arrest closed the search. It did not answer the question sitting underneath the case: how a woman who already had a no-contact order against the man accused of killing her ended up dead in her own home.

The Woman at the Center of the Case

Vallejo was 29 and expecting a child, details that have shaped how her death has been received in Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence said she was the fifth person lost to domestic violence in the state this year, placing her among a count that advocates track precisely because each name represents a warning that came too late.

She was not a stranger to the man accused of killing her. According to the reporting, Vallejo had a prior no-contact order against William Santiago Ramos, part of a documented history that preceded the day she was found.

What the Reporting Says Happened

Vallejo was discovered with stab wounds to her neck inside her apartment, and her death is believed to have occurred on Monday or Tuesday, before the search for a suspect became public. The timeline then moved to Thursday, August 6, at River Island Park.

That is where Ramos fled from police, going into the Blackstone River in an attempt to escape, according to the reporting. Officers pursued him, and their body cameras documented the foot chase that followed. He was handcuffed and placed in a police car Thursday night, ending a pursuit that had spilled from an apartment into a public park and a river.

A Charge, and an Order He Was Already Under

Ramos, 30, was charged the next morning with domestic homicide, according to the reporting. He has not been convicted, and the charge reflects an allegation that will be tested as the case proceeds.

What sharpens the case is what came before it. Ramos had a prior history of domestic-violence-related charges, including the no-contact order with Vallejo, a legal barrier that was in place and did not prevent the outcome now under investigation.

What the Case Leaves Open

The arrest answers who is charged. It does not yet explain how a protective order on paper failed to protect the person it named, or what investigators will say about the days between Vallejo’s death and the chase at the river. For advocates counting the year’s losses, her case is already a data point and a question at once: the fifth domestic-violence death in Rhode Island this year, and one that arrived despite a warning already on the record.

References: Bodycam Shows Police Capture Suspect in Murder Charge of Pregnant Girlfriend in Woonsocket, Rhode Island

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