The text message that provoked Wayne Treacy: 'Go visit ur dead brother'
The text message that provoked the beating of Josie Lou Ratley was a cold brushoff meant to cut short an unpleasant exchange, with a reference to Wayne Treacy's brother that sent him into a rage he later said he could not control.
"Stop txtn mi phone rapest n if u dont care jus stop tryin me k," said the message that went from Ratley's phone to Treacy's Gmail account at 11:52 a.m. on March 17. "N jus go visit ur dead brother."
Treacy's response is immediate and vicious. In all capital letters, he writes: "Ur f-ing dead! I swear to God I'm gonna kill you. I'll f-ing find you! Your ass is cold, dead meat m-f-!"
It was not the first threat he made during the exchange, and prosecutors say it was not an empty one, though Ratley didn't seem to realize it.
"K, u make me giggle," she writes. Then, responding to the yet another threat, she indicates she brought up Treacy's brother, who committed suicide last October, as payback for a comment Treacy made earlier about her father.
"Like u did mi dad thing," she wrote. "Oh such a hipacrit."
Treacy responds: "…u knowingly took a shot at my deceased brother. Today, you die, Slut."
Prosecutors say Treacy messaged several friends with his intent to find and kill the person who sent him the message. He barely knew Ratley. But he got dressed, put on the steel-toed boots he wore almost every day, and bicycled three miles from his home in Pompano Beach to Deerfield Beach Middle School.
There he found his friend, Kayla Manson, 13. Manson, allegedly knowing Treacy's intent, led him to Ratley at a campus bus stop.
The assault on Ratley, 15, left her brain damaged to the extent that more than two months later, she can barely speak and is relearning basic skills such as reading and recalling the days of the week.
The message transcript was released Friday morning by Treacy's Fort Lauderdale lawyer, Russell Williams. He said they were copied from Treacy's e-mail account soon after the attack, but they've since vanished from his inbox. Williams said it's possible some messages are missing from the transcript he has and is waiting for prosecutors to obtain and release a complete set from computer and cell phone records.
Williams decided to release the text after prosecutors distributed the first part of Treacy's recorded statement to detectives, in which he said the message that sent him over the edge "wasn't that bad." Williams said a psychologist who examined Treacy said as the teen rode to the school, Ratley's offending text message was not at the center of his thoughts.
"What played in his head wasn't what Josie said. It was his brother hanging from a tree," said Williams, citing the psychologist.
The exchange began a short time earlier, with Manson borrowing Ratley's phone and asking Treacy to go on his Gmail account. By the time Treacy does, Manson had returned the phone to Ratley.
"Kayla don't want to talk 2 u," Ratley wrote.
"F- you," Treacy responds. "She does."
Ratley bites back, "Lol rapest." She tells Treacy to perform a sex act on Manson, resulting in the first threat from Treacy: "Your ass is getting f-d up. Wait for it. I will find you."
"Threat me alllll u want I think its funni," she wrote.
Last week, Williams described the exchange by saying Ratley did not seem to be aware that she was pushing dangerous buttons with Treacy, who was emotionally reeling from his brother's suicide last October.
A few minutes later, Treacy defends himself, downplaying his age difference with Manson and asserting their relationship was not sexual. "Um sorry ur father abused u, but u shouldn't take it out on others," he writes.
"Mi dads dead bitch," Ratley responds.
Wayne later said he didn't realize Ratley's father was dead, whereas Ratley knew about Wayne's brother.
But Ratley's father is not dead and has never been accused of abusing her. Storm Ratley has visited his daughter since the incident and lives in Georgia. Attorney Rick Freedman, who used to represent Josie Ratley's mother, Hilda Gotay, and now represents Storm Ratley, said Friday he is unaware of any allegation of abuse.
Gotay's new lawyer, Sean Domick, said Thursday she is not following news accounts and is concentrating on her daughter's struggling recovery.
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