(Left to right): Joziah Ramirez and Ezequiel Ramirez (Tulare County District Attorney”s Office).
A 28-year-old Californian man has been sentenced to life imprisonment without any chance of parole, following the brutal murder of his 23-month-old son in a deeply distressing case involving torture.
Ezequiel Ramirez received this harsh sentence after admitting to first-degree murder with the aggravating factor of torture, in connection to the death of his son, Joziah Ramirez. Alongside this, he confessed to seven felony charges related to pimping, pandering, and soliciting prostitution, as reported by the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office in a public statement.
The district attorney’s office detailed that Ramirez fathered Joziah with the child’s mother when she was just 15 years old. At that time, he was around 20 and already on parole for robbery and statutory rape. Despite a court order prohibiting contact, he maintained a relationship with both Joziah and the child’s mother.
In the years that followed, officials disclosed that Ramirez exploited Joziah’s mother, who had reached adulthood, and another woman, pushing them into prostitution across Tulare and Fresno counties in California.
By the summer of 2020, reports indicate that Joziah was subjected to ongoing abuse. His mother recounted to police that Ramirez not only verbally mistreated the toddler but also physically assaulted him by pulling him off the ground by his hair.
As the summer of 2020 rolled around, Joziah was allegedly being abused regularly. In addition to verbal abuse, Ramirez would lift his son “up off the ground by his hair,” the child’s mother told police.
On June 5, 2020, the three were at a hotel in Visalia — which is located in the center of the Golden State — “to continue Ramirez’ pimping and pandering criminal enterprise.” As Joziah’s mother was away from the motel, Ramirez “severely abused” his son and then, instead of seeking to help the boy, messaged the woman to return.
“When she returned to the motel, she found Joziah unresponsive and breathing irregularly,” the DA’s office said. “There was blood on the bedding and elsewhere in the room. Ramirez told her he had only kicked Joziah in the stomach and forbade her from calling an ambulance.”
Authorities go on, saying Ramirez instead called a family friend and told her that Joziah had fallen down some stairs. He deleted information from the phone of Joziah’s mother, and then ran away.
Investigators said that later that night, the defendant sent messages to the boy’s mother, such as, “I’m gone,” “I’ll never see u again,” and “I’m so sorry.”
At about 11 p.m. that night, police and emergency services arrived at the motel. It was “minutes after Ramirez fled,” the DA’s office said.
The child was rushed to a nearby medical center and then airlifted to a hospital, but he was pronounced brain-dead. He died on June 9, 2020.
“The number and nature of Joziah’s injuries proved they were the result of inflicted, non-accidental trauma,” the DA’s press release stated. “He had fractures to both sides of his skull, brain swelling and bleeding, fractures to both sides of his ribcage, and bruises, burns, and abrasions to his extremities, limbs, torso, and genitals.”
The injuries were both internal and external and “consistent with being struck, shaken, thrown, kicked, and burned,” authorities added. Joziah’s cause of death was ruled blunt force trauma to the head.
The following morning, Ramirez called a friend to pick him up, saying he had been in a car crash and needed a ride. As the friend drove him to Fresno, California, “Ramirez was emotional and repeated ‘I didn’t have to do it’ several times,” per the DA’s office. “He stayed the night with the friend but departed the next morning leaving behind a duffel bag of clothing spotted with blood.”
Ramirez evaded law enforcement for about four days, and as he did, he reportedly “continued trying to recruit women for his prostitution operation.” However, on June 9, 2020, law enforcement apprehended him.
The defendant “initially claimed he had no knowledge of what occurred and denied even being around his child,” investigators said, but once they confronted him with evidence, he “admitted to being present, but insisted he did not hurt his son ‘that bad’ and ‘didn’t cause that much damage.’”
“The brutality and callousness of the defendant stand in stark contrast to the innocence and vulnerability of this toddler whose body was bloodied, burned, bruised, and broken by the very person who should have been his protector and caregiver,” said Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward.
The DA said Joziah’s mother was charged as a co-defendant “for failing to protect her son from Ramirez.” She is set to be sentenced on June 17, 2026, to a maximum of six years after pleading guilty to felony child endangerment in 2021.
At the time of his death, authorities said “Joziah was almost potty trained and was described as smart and active.”
