Love Triangle Turns Fatal
Wade and Ludemann were both in love with the same former Chick-fil-A employee, Josh Camacho. Camacho, then 19, fathered a baby with another woman before starting to see Ludemann and then began dating Wade simultaneously. People who knew him described him as a “player,” according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“I know he was a big part of the reason Sarah was killed,” the victim’s mother, Gay Ludemann, told the paper of her daughter’s first love.
Ludemann and Wade took turns harassing each other in the summer of 2008, the outlet reported, citing police records. While some of the confrontations occurred via text, voicemail and MySpace, others happened outside a movie theater, in a Taco Bell parking lot and at the Applebee’s where Wade worked.
Then things escalated even further.
On April 15, 2009, Ludemann learned that Wade was with a friend in a nearby neighborhood, so she grabbed two of her own friends and drove her mom’s van to confront her.
Wade charged at Ludemann outside her vehicle with the murder weapon and stabbed her in the chest with such force that the knife bent, prosecutor Wesley Dicus alleged in court, according to CBS News.
As Ludemann lay dying, Wade asked responding police officers for a cigarette, prosecutors said, alluding to her alleged disregard for human life.
The Psychology Behind the Murder
Dr. Barbara Greenberg, a Connecticut-based clinical psychologist who specializes in working with adolescents, says the warning signs were obvious when Wade boldly threatened to kill who she viewed as her competition.
“They both played a part, but that doesn't mean that one of the girls should have been murdered,” Greenberg tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “What happens is if you're taunting each other, it gets out of control. It got extremely heated. And when people get very heated, they give themselves permission to cross a line. This is the risk of obsession, competitiveness, taunting and harassment.”
Much like other teens, Greenberg surmises that Wade felt her identity was endangered because it was “tremendously” tied to her relationship with Camacho: “She had so much skin in the game.”
The only way to secure her romance was to eliminate Ludemann.
“It was such poor logic and so emotionally driven because she didn't get him; she ended up in jail,” she says. “Her thinking was so distorted. No judgment. It was all emotion.”
At trial, Camacho testified that he considered both women "friends with benefits," not his girlfriends, CNN reported.
The Jury Finds Rachel Wade Guilty
"Sarah was the aggressor,” defense attorney Jay Hebert alleged, CBS reported. “They couldn't stop her. She went looking for Rachel that night."
But a series of damning voicemail messages played for the court during Wade’s 2010 trial painted a different picture.
"Please tell me Sarah why you would be a dumb-ass c--- and put a brand-new picture of you and Josh at the beach on your Myspace. Seriously, I told you to watch your f---ing back and not to f------ chill with him. I'm guaranteeing you that I'm going to f------ murder you, I'm letting you know that now,” Wade said in the audio.
It took the jury less than three hours to find Wade guilty in Ludemann’s slaying.
“She was a good girl,” Ludemann’s mom remembered, per the Tampa Bay Times. “She loved going to the movies, bowling and the beach. She was making straight A's, going to college next year, going to become a nurse."
Wade was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
She took the stand at her sentencing hearing to apologize to Ludemann’s parents.
"I'm so sorry to be the one who caused you this great pain,” she said, the Times reported. “Some days I feel like it should have been me.”
Wade, now 35, is currently serving her prison term at the Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, Fla., with a projected release date of March 2032, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
No charges were filed against Camacho.
"Josh was her first boyfriend, her first everything. Sarah loved him completely, even until the end," Ludemann’s best friend, Danielle Eyermann, said, according to the Times. "He became her world. He broke her heart."
