warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

When 32-year-old Ramsay Scrivo vanished from his home in early 2014, his mother was the last person to see him alive — and the first to report him missing. Days later, this missing persons case would be a murder enquiry. What followed, was a story so twisted, it defied belief.

the city of St.Claire in michigan. monday , january 27th,2014.

59 year old donna  scrivo walked into the police station and filed  a missing person’s report.

her son , 32 -year old ramsey , had left the home the previous day at 6 :30 PM he’d gone to the shop, and he’d simply just not come back.

often popped out to buy cigarettes, sometimes visiting the local bars as well, but she had checked everywhere she could think of.

she had been calling his phone  non-stop,  but there had been no answer at all, no texts,nothing.

even though ramsay was a little older and standard protocl might have been to wait it out a bit longer.

Donna said ,her son had been diagnosed with pychosis, depression,and paranoia.

she said he was a danger to himself and even now had  temporary guardianship on an emergency basis because he was suicidal.

he had been devastated by the recent loss of his father, daniel, who  had been ill for some time.

Ramsay  had been in and out of work for many years  but nothing had really stuck.he trained as an accountant, but resigned after  a supervisor criticized his work.

he then  went into construction and even tried his hand at starting  a lawn maintenance buisness.

when he turned 30, it was said his dad was the only person that would employ him , so he started working there ,but this too  failed to last.

Ramsay  then  faced charges of assault , trespassing , and  reckless driving after getting into a brawl  in a bar.

he  also  had a crown removed from his tooth,because he thought someone had planted it in there as a speaker.

as well  as this, he was developing issues with drugs and alcohol, with Donna saying he had even stolen some of his father’s morphine.

it seemed his mental healts issues coupled with him trying to process his father’s decline  meant that he just couldn’t get things togther.

and overall,  it had been a tough few years for the family.Donna had suffered a heart  attack, beaten cancer, and now  daniel was fighting against hepatitis C that would  ultimately  take his life.

on  may 15th, 2013,Donna’s husband of 25 years, and Ramsey’s father  died.

Ramsey was a shell of h is former self.Donna had always  been  more of the disciplinarian when it came to him , but Daniel always had his  back, protected him , and the pair been very close.

just  the day after Daniel passed away, Donna  petitioned the court to hospitalize her son after it seemedasthough he’d had a nervous breakdown.

Ramsay  consented, and  the court agree, too.

a few weeks  later though ,Ramsey told the court he planned to  end the guardianship in 6 months time .he said he wanted to cooperate with ongoing  treatment, take his medication,  and listen to his mom.

Ramsay said he feared someone was trying to poison him, and Donna said he   had stopped taking his medication.

Donna, a registered nurse, then moved into her son’s condo after her place had been damaged in a fire.

Daniel and Donna had bought the condo for Ramsay,and he had often stayed between both homes.  he could be close to his parents ,but also have his independence.

but now on january 27th , 2014,Ramsay was missing.due to his charges from the brawl , police  contactedhis probation officer,but he knew nothing and said  Ramsay just taking off and disappearing was not something he ever did.

police asked Donna for  a photograph of  her son  so the news  could put  a story out.but Donna was reluctant to do this,not wanting to get the media involved, saying she didn’t want her son’s problems and mental health issues plastered everywhere.

she wanted to protect his reputation.respecting her decision,they oved on to trying to track the phone and debit and credit cards,but they got no luck. it seemed that no cards had  been used in days.

they did  locate his phone in a random garden,and contacted his cellphone provider to get more information.

it had  bee a bitterly cold winter, one of the coldest recorded in a 100 years.

and if he was out there somewhere without his coat,medication,phone ,or much money , things were getting more concerning with each passing hour.

he lived near a huge lake which was now completely frozen over.fearing he could have fallen  into the icy water, they started searching there,too.

january 30th ,2014

about  40 miles from the scrivo’s lived ,things got more rural and quiet.so much so that the smallest things stood out to the people who lived there.

two friends,  Andrea and Andrea were driven that afternoon to pick  their kids up from school when they noticed something out of place.

some bags had been left on the side of the road in st.clair shores, and something was  lying  in the road.

they initially thought that maybe a hunter  had left  something they killed there or it was an animal that  had maybe been hit by a car. they  decided to have a closer look and then move whatever it was  off the road

but it was not the remains of an animal .it was a human head.

police got there and  soon located five bags in total scattered around.

an electric saw  covered in blood was in  one bag. some clotes and burned papers wer in another.and  the other three bags were full of body parts.

th victim was a white male  in his late  20s or 30s and he had been killed in the last few days.

little did anyone know at the time it was the missing Ramsay Scrivo.

because the bags were 30 minutes away from where ramsay had  gone missing with  a different police station , the  dots  weren’t  connected.

one witness  said they had seen a woman inb a light  colored SUV  dropping the bags at the side of the road.

they assumed it was just soemone cheekily dumping rubbish.

working off of this person’s timing ,they went backwards.a nearby  gas station showed the vehicle and the woman driving it.the police stressed that this woman was not a suspect, only a person of interest.

soon the news about the bags had spread  further a field and Donna seeing news  called the detectives investigating her son’s  disappearance.

“had they  found him?”she asked.

investigators called the medical examiner and asked for a description of the male.they did not disclose this to Donna  right away,but it did fit Ramsay.

he had  been  dismembered, burned,  and mutilated.ramsey’s phone data was now with the detectives. 

and this  was where their  investigation took another turn.

no  mesages to anyone and  no calls , not a single missed call either. despite what Donna had told them, she hadn’t been calling him.at all.

now ,the local police were almost positive that it was ramsay that  had  been found.they learned of the person of  interest in the SUV that was in the  news clips.there was no doubt in their minds. it was Donna.

they  then went to talk to the employee at the gas station who remembered serving her, describing  her as panicky and frantic.

up until this point ,they  hadn’t confirmed to Donna that it was h er son’s  remains in the bags, and they’d asked her to come in to talk to them.

the detectives told her ,her  hunch when she called in had sadly been right. Donna got teary and  asked if they were sure.

unable to sit on what they knew about her  being in the SUV,they quizzed her on  her whereabouts and her car.

they asked Donna  about driving the SUV in the area,but she said  she had never been down those roads in her life.

but the SUV was in fact her late  husband’s. and interestingly, she had given it to a charity just  hours after she was seen in it.

when they  showed Donna the photograph of herat the gas station, she instantly changed her story and said,”yes, it was her.”

she denied killing her son , though, and said she was just  driving around there  to look for him.

when the detecive said ” well , what happened then? he didn’t just fall apart at the side of the road.” she replied ,”i think i need an attorney.”

they defenitely had enough to arrest her for dumping his  remains,but they knew there simply had to be more to this  already twistedstory.

amazingly ,her vehicle was still where she had dropped it,and a quick look inside  turned up blood.Ramsay’s blood.

when they went into Ramay’s condo,they were instantly hit with the thick smell of bleach.one neighbor told the police that the smell had been really strong.

so strong , in fact, she could smell it without even being close to the condo.

blood stains belonging to Ramsay was found throughout his home,too , but most of the blood was in the bathroom.

he had been dismembered in his bathtub, and there were burn marks on the side of the bath.they then found a receipt for a purchase of a circular saw that had been bought just before she turned up  at the station to report her son  as missing.

and surveillance footage showed Donna purchasing this very saw.

another neighbor said she looked outside that morning to see Donna loading the black bags into the SUV and struggling a lot to pick them up.

she didn’t see antoher soul around though.it was just her.

Donna was charged with the dismemberment, disentment, and mutilation of ramsay and  held on a $ 100,000 bond which was soon raised.

detectives were still working  on the murder charge ,though, as they couldn’t prove that part yet.the police chief said”this charges that were brought are not the end of the case.we are still working diligently on the murder investigation at this time”

he had died from asphixiation,had ligature marks on his neck, and blunt force trauma to the head and shoulders.

he had an almostfatal of level of Xanax in his system as well.

according to Donna,Ramsey did take Xanax and often abused other  prescription drugs,but investigators believe  that from the amount in his system, Donna had drugged him with it. 

the prescription for the Xanax was in Donna’s name.it had recently been topped up, but when it was found,it only had one pill left.

investigators believe she drugged him with an almost lethal dose, rendering him unconscious. she then strangled him and dismembered him in the bath.

she was finally charged with first-degree murder as well.

as Donna sat in the mental health unit in jail ,the investigation was still moving and detectives  also started looking into the fire in Donna and Daniel’s house,which had  resulted in her moving in with Ramsay all those months ago.

she had  initially told her insurance company that no one was home  when it happened,but they learned that  this was not true when they looked at the reports from the  fire department.

the fire had been started in the basement where ramsay often slept. he made it out safely,but it did beg question ,had this really been an accident?

people  that knew Donna,though , were really stunned . all her friends said she was kind, carring , and exemplary nurse.

she doted on both her sons and her husband,and no one could see her hurting  anyone,let alone doing something so disturbing.

police  said that they had contact with the pair of them in  the past over domestic problems.nothing had gotten physical , but it had been decribed as noise and disorderly complaints.

Donna pleaded not guilty to everything , and an examination  determined that she was competent to go to trial,but her  lawyer wanted a second opinion,not only to see if she could go to trial and testify in her own defense.

but also wtheter she knew right from wrong.

her laywer said ,”the times i have seen her in the jail,she’s been in and out of reality.she’s got some rough issues, but i’m not psychologist. i’m not competent to say her mental status was on that day.”

and in may 2015, Donna went on trial.she opted to testify in her own defense.in court ,her story had now  changed significantly  and dramatically. 

she said she came home to find a masked man in Ramsay’s room ,and Ramsay was already dead. the man bound  her and held her  hostage.

he then made her buy the saw and carry the bags  containing his body parts to her car and then discard  them.

authorities raised eyebrows. she been talking to them for over a year in and out  of interviews and  in no point was any of this mentioned.

Donna said she had been scared to say anything because the man had threatened to kill her and the rest of  her family.

the prosecution said it’s unspeakable it’s planned. it’s premeditated. it’s carried out by his mother. it doesn’t make any sense.

it’s because Donna scrivo is the murderer.

the state had a lot of evidence, including all of  the ways Donna had reacted when her son went  missing.and it had to be pointed out that no one in the area had  heard or seen an intruer.

two residents allegedly reported to seeing a suspicious man in the area,but they were not wearing a mask nor near the condo.

so, why would a stanger do this to Ramsay,yet leave Donna unharmed?

nothing had been stolen. there was no break-in. and it just made no sense for this  to be someone  taking a chance , especially with nothing to gain from it.

they said at no point during  this ordeal  did she call the police.a crazed man had just murdered her son and threatened her life.

yet ,he was happy for her to go out alone to town to buy a saw, to talk to employees,pop to the gas station,dump the bags, and at no point did she think to call for help.

she  had been chatting to family members and friends during this time ,too.it just seemed ridiculous.

one possible motive that  the state put forward was that when Donna went to high school reunion about a year before Ramsay died, she connected with a man there whom she’d  been texting and getting on realy well with.

they had a lot  in common and had  both recently lost their spouses.Donna then might have felt trapped in her life and situation with Ramsay.

as the courts  had now issued this guardianship,it was tricky to get out of  the situation.her  new love interest lvied in Texas and Ramsey allegedly did not want to move there or even consider it.

removing  her son from the picture completely so she could start fresh elswhere might have been her thought process.

but Donna’s lawyer said this was just speculation and it was largely a circumstantial case.he said  non of Ramsay’s DNA was found on her body and vice versa.

he also argued that she would not have been able to get him into  the bathtub. she weight  110 lb. and he was 235 lb.

he said there was no motive,no history of abuse,  and no life  insurance policy.

on the stand. Donna frequently clashed with the prosecutor at one point  asking him”are you done?”oh , i’m just getting  started ” ,he replied.

she said, ” i’m not the mother of the year. i have multiple problems.i think i did everything to protect the rest of my family.”

Donna was confident that she would be acquitted  and sat stonyfaced  when the verdict was read out.guilty on  all counts.

the judge  said:

” miss Scrivo, yours is perhaps the most heinous crime i’ve seen in all my years  on the bench.the horrific nature of your offense is mind -boggling.doing what you did to another human being defies belief. you did it to your very own son.”

in 2015, Donna Scrivo  was sentenced to life in prison without the  chance of parole. and the judge said even though it was the harshest sentence she could get,it still didn’t feel like it was enough.

even  as she as being sentenced,she spoke for about 20 minutes arguing with judge  and maintaining the stanger in the house story.

Andrea and Andrea , who found Ramsay’s remains at the side of the road, came to the sentencing,hoping it would give them  som closure.

” i see a  severed head every day of my life and i would like to hopefully pull this book, put it on the shelf and be done  with it.”/ Andrea 

it is a really harrowing case,one that frankly no one will ever know the full details about.what on earth happened that led to a mother to do such an awful and incomprehensible thing.

murder is always horrific  and unimaginable act that leaves behind a lot of devastation.

but on a personal level, when a murder involves a dismemberment, we feel it takes on  an even more  disturbing dimension.

it’s not just the taking of a human life.it’s the deliberate, calculated destruction of someone’s body and how physically someone could do  that to anyone, let alone their own child….