{"id":532353,"date":"2026-03-19T07:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/532353\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T07:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:14:09","slug":"cold-case-murder-of-iowa-realtor-ashley-okland-cracked-15-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/532353\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold case murder of Iowa realtor Ashley Okland cracked 15 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mysterious death of an Iowa realtor who was shot twice at an open house 15 years ago has finally been solved, authorities said. <\/p>\n

Kristin Elizabeth Ramsey, 53, was indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder charges on Tuesday in the killing of realtor Ashley Okland on April 8, 2011, the West Des Moines Police Department announced at a press conference on Wednesday.<\/a><\/p>\n

Realtor Ashley Okland was gunned down inside a West Des Moines model townhouse on April 8, 2011. West Des Moines Police Department<\/p>\n

Okland, 27, was found lying on the floor by an employee for the development company after she was shot twice while hosting an open house inside a West Des Moines model townhouse for Iowa Realty Co. in the early afternoon, according to Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa. <\/a><\/p>\n

She was rushed to a local hospital and pronounced dead, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Ramsey had worked as an administrative assistant and sales manager for Rottlund Homes, the developer of the townhouse where Okland was fatally shot, the Des Moines Register reported. <\/a><\/p>\n

The accused murderer is currently an employee at Midland Title & Escrow, which is connected to the realty company that Okland worked for when she died, Iowa Realty told the outlet in a statement. The company removed Ramsey from its website on Wednesday, the outlet said.<\/p>\n

The motive in Okland\u2019s slaying is not clear.<\/p>\n

Kristin Elizabeth Ramsey, 53, was arrested and indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder charges on Tuesday for the cold case killing. West Des Moines Police Department<\/p>\n

\u201cAshley\u2019s story has haunted a very vibrant community of professional realtors who have forever changed how they hold open houses and conduct business on a daily basis,\u201d Assistant Police Chief Jody Hayes told reporters. <\/p>\n

Investigators have followed up on \u201cthousands of leads from the public,\u201d and reviewed \u201ccountless\u201d evidence in connection with Okland\u2019s murder case. <\/p>\n

\u201cAshley\u2019s story has kept many of us awake at night, revisiting the details over and over in our minds, searching for that missing piece that would tie everything together and lead us down the right path to identifying a person who was responsible for this act,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n

Cops did not further comment on how they connected the \u201cmissing piece\u201d that led to Ramsey\u2019s arrest. <\/p>\n

Ashley\u2019s killing \u201chaunted a very vibrant community of professional realtors,\u201d Assistant Police Chief Jody Hayes told reporters. West Des Moines Police Department<\/p>\n

\u201cAs significant as this arrest is, our work is not done yet,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n

Josh Okland and Brittany Bruce, both of Ashley\u2019s younger siblings, thanked the authorities and the community for their support in the years leading up to Ramsey\u2019s arrest during the press conference. <\/p>\n

The day of Ramsey\u2019s arrest was a \u201cday my family has thought about very often in the last [15]
years,\u201d Josh Okland told reporters. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat Friday afternoon when Ashley was taken from us seems so long ago,\u201d Bruce added. \u201cWe had lost our hope in finding answers and having any justice for Ashley. It was really difficult to accept that the case went cold.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cTheir dedication, commitment to Ashley, their drive and work ethic is a true gift from God that we feel fortunate to be touched by,\u201d Bruce said of the police\u2019s investigation. <\/p>\n

Ramsey is currently being held at the Dallas County Jail, police said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mysterious death of an Iowa realtor who was shot twice at an open house 15 years ago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,50549,13014,38137,3,21,19,22,20,25,194,24],"class_list":["post-532353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-cold-cases","tag-iowa","tag-murders","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}