
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 33-year-old Tulsa man has been given a 10-year prison term by Payne County District Judge Phillip Corley for providing heroin to his 29-year-old girlfriend, who died of a fatal drug overdose in her apartment in Perkins, court records show.
James Josiah Ramos, who had been held in the Payne County Jail for three years without bail in the case prosecuted by the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, pleaded no contest last week to second-degree manslaughter in the Sept. 10, 2019, death of Jamie Bear, who had recently moved to Perkins.
The admitted drug dealer, Noah Reimer Montague, 28, of Sand Springs, had already been sentenced in April to 15 years in prison for second-degree murder by Payne County Associate District Judge Michael Kulling for furnishing the drug that killed the young woman.
On the day before the victim died, Ramos, who had gotten out of a jail a few days earlier, bought half a gram of heroin for $50 from Montague at a Tulsa convenience store, according to his preliminary hearing testimony.
Even though Ramos and the victim, who had dated off and on for eight years, had been clean for months, “We used right there in the parking lot,” after buying syringes at a Tulsa pharmacy to inject the heroin, Ramos testified.
“I got hazy after that. We went back to Perkins around dinner time. We used (again) before we went to bed about 10 pm,” Ramos testified.
“We’d been sober for so long. It was real intense. I had shallow breathing,” Ramos testified.
When he woke up the next morning, Ramos testified, “I’m still kinda high. Her presence is not there. I started shaking her.
“I started freaking out. I’m pretty sure I checked her pulse. My hands were shaking. I think I was in shock. I didn’t know what to do.
“I didn’t know if she was still alive. We used the night before. We were fine when we went to sleep.
“I called a friend of ours. He said call EMSA. I didn’t know the address,” of her new apartment in Perkins, Ramos testified — admitting he didn’t call 911.
“He said ‘pick up your stuff and leave.’ I left for 5-10 minutes. When I got back, a cop car was there. There was some heroin in the cell phone case,” Ramos testified.
Ramos said he had been addicted to heroin since 2010 or 2011.
Before his girlfriend’s death, “She looked healthy and sober. It never crossed my mind you can go to sleep and not wake up,” Ramos testified.
“Jamie was beautiful,” her sister, Mary Lobo, told KUSH during a court recess in the preliminary hearing in 2021.
“We’re from Tulsa. She just recently moved to Perkins during her sobriety,” her sister explained.
“Even though she struggled for so long, she would have long periods — one year or two years — when she was sober.
“Our family always helped her. We didn’t judge her. We just wanted her safe. She got clean that summer,” only months before her death.
“She tried so hard. We were so proud of her — she was such a strong fighter,” her sister said.
Perkins Police Chief Bob Ernst emphasized, “Drug dealers need to be held accountable.
“We (Perkins PD) worked this with OSBI, TPD, DEA, and it was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office.
“We did not just work an overdose death; we worked the death as a murder to hold the drug dealer accountable.”