[narrator] Shawnie Mulligan always wanted a partner
who could keep up with her.
I just wanted someone nice and who had the same passion
for riding bikes that I did.
[narrator] Thrill seeker Ron Braden seemed like a perfect fit.
[Thomas Phippen] He seemed to have a great job, life,
that anybody in the community would look up to.
[narrator] But Ron's lust for life
leads Shawnie down a dark path.
It started with one sexual act.
And then things just progressed.
This isn't me. I don't wanna do this.
And how do I get out of it? How do I stop it?
[narrator] When Ron's secret blows up,
no one is safe.
[Shawnie Mulligan] One of the things they find is that AR-15
and a huge bag of ammo.
[policeman] It's all 556.
I feared for Shawnie's life, I feared for our life.
It occurred to me that I had no idea who I was married to,
who he would hurt, what he would do.
[narrator] Growing up in Colorado,
Shawnie Mulligan has always loved the thrill of the outdoors.
As a kid, every Friday night we'd jump into the car
and we'd drive three and a half hours to ski rac
every single weekend in the winter.
That's what we did.
Shawnie was the fastest
ten-year-old girl skier in the country.
Then Shawnie went into running races.
She showed talent from the very beginning.
She and her brother ran together.
She was just phenomenal.
[narrator] When Shawnie graduates from college in 2005,
the economy is in a downturn
Finding her professional footing is difficult,
so she takes a job at a bike shop in Boulder.
[Shawnie] Until the job market picks back up.
And I was like,
"Okay, like, this is, you know, what I'm gonna do."
I was really into cycling then.
Part of what I liked about riding my bike
was that I was good at it. Like, I stood out.
It was something I did well.
Shawnie can put many men in the dust,
uh, when it comes to running, cycling, skiing.
[narrator] Even her own husband can't keep up with Shawnie,
when she gets married at the age of 26.
He was a really nice guy, well-educated.
But they didn't have anything in common.
[narrator] They divorce afte three years of marriage.
And a few years later, Shawnie joins a dating site
hoping to find someone more compatible.
I just wanted someone nice and who had the same passion
for riding bikes that I did.
I believe Ron reached out to me first,
and sent me a message,
and that my biking photos were awesome.
His profile picture wasn't great.
It was just kind of this weird photo of him.
Nothing, like, fun, riding bikes or anything like that.
He had a good 15 years on me
At the time, I was signed u for this big race
called the Leadville 100.
And he had done it before.
It's one of the biggest mountain bike races in the country.
It was definitely something we bonded over.
So, the first day was a bike ride.
We were gonna do a...
this kind of afternoon night ride into the canyons
Part of me was like, "Okay, let's see if this guy can really ride a bike.
Is he gonna be who he says he is?"
On the way down, I dropped my chain.
He totally took advantage of that.
And he's like, "Pass me!" Laughing at me.
It was definitely, like, a little bit competitive.
And that, you know, he's gonna take advantage
of that tactical error and beat me to the bottom.
And it was just fun. And he was kind of funny.
He's like, "I've always wanted to kiss a girl on a mountain bike trail."
He was very into it and excited about it.
The day he left, after the third day,
I remember he, like, left on of his mountain bikes with m
to try out, 'cause it was, like, a full carbon,
really nice mountain bike.
And I was like, "Whoa.
Um, that's crazy."
For once, it was someone that could keep up with her.
He seemed like a really charming, genuine guy,
successful in business,
and just really different
from any guy that Shawnie had dated before.
[Kit Mulligan] Shawnie told that Ron was the IT Directo
for the Town of Vail in Eagle County,
which is a very highly respected, responsible position.
And they really had fun mountain biking together.
So we thought, "Well, this seems like
somebody that's a better fit for her."
[Shawnie] We dated long distance,
and after about three month he kinda asked me, he's like
"Why don't you move up to Vail?"
And I was like, "Are you kidding?"
[narrator] For an athlete like Shawnie,
it's a dream opportunity.
Vail is a luxury mountain town ski resort,
an elite place to live and work.
It's fantastic scenery. There's a lot of wealth that pours through Vail.
A lot of very wealthy peopl
have vacation homes there,
or come during the winter to ski.
[Shawnie] I was excited to move to Vail.
Very few people who work in Vail
actually can afford to live in Vail.
I was intimidated by how established he was,
and the job he had.
You know, I definitely was kind of...
...conscious of it, self-conscious,
of, like, my status versus his status.
I kept being afraid that Ron's gonna change his mind
and he's gonna be like, "No, never mind."
Ron let me know, I guess, that,
you know, he was important, that he was in charge, that.
...you know, he knew everybody in town.
I was his trophy girlfriend 'cause I was the athlete.
In Vail, with Shawnie being there
as a near professional level athlete,
it raised her status within the community
and Ron was able to ride on those coattails,
and he loved that.
Ron showered her with telling her how great she was,
you know, how beautiful she was.
And for the first six months,
you know, all she got from h
was positives, good feelings, fun.
[Shawnie] Absolutely loved him. And he was...
He was my biggest emotional support.
You know, he was the person I went to about everything.
He was the person I talked to.
And he just loved riding bikes and being outside.
After Shawnie moved in with Ron,
I didn't get to see her nearly as often.
My contact with her decreased significantly.
And then at that point in time,
Ron also started to isolate her.
[Shawnie] I think the first flag was...
...Ron didn't want me to wor
And he's like, "No."
Like, "I don't want you working full-time.
I want to ride with you.
Like, there's no reason for you to be working full-time."
And so, I did end up quittin
and just kind of doing the race,
and he completely financially supported me.
Ron always had a lot of mone
Bikes, skis, gear.
I never heard the words,
"No, I can't afford that" come out of his mouth.
It was always a question in the back of my head.
When I asked Ron about money, he always gave me,
"I'm a consultant. I get it from consulting."
Like, that was always his go-to.
[narrator] Shawnie dedicate herself to training
and she gets stronger and stronger.
But a year into their relationship,
Ron starts falling behind.
[Shawnie] In 2013, Ron started losing energy.
He didn't have the energy to go ride.
I remember one day he was literally
laying down in his office, like, sleeping.
There was kind of a correlation between low testosterone
and men who rode bikes.
He went to a doctor and the doctor basically was like,
"You have very low testosterone.
You need to be put on testosterone supplement
to get you back to a normal level."
[narrator] It works.
Ron feels a boost in his energy almost immediately.
But what was meant to be temporary
becomes a habit.
And steroid use leads to alarming changes
in Ron's behavior.
Ron started having these strange, violent outbursts
and losing his patience a lo
throw objects, lash out.
And every time after Ron would have an outburst,
he would be very apologetic
and trying to shower her with love and affection.
Get her new bikes and things like that.
The testosterone also increases Ron's sexual appetite,
revealing something surprising.
Ron made it known to me that, you know,
he'd had threesomes and that he was interested in that
and this whole idea of swingers.
It's like, what? Like, I couldn't believe it.
And I made it clear, I was like,
"If you want that,
you're gonna have to find someone else."
And what he said to me was like,
"You know, I get I can't have it all,
and I can't have that part of it...
...that's okay."
And I believed him.
You know, I thought, "Okay." Like, end of discussion.
Like, no big deal.
[Kit] My reservations about Ron...
...changed 180 degrees,
when they went to this 12-hour,
uh, mountain bike race outside of Phoenix.
And they were in the two-person male/female category.
And there was, uh, a lap around this course
that they would race for 12 hours, basically.
And he started out, he rode the first two laps.
And then Shawnie took over.
They were the fastest group
of men/women out there.
And then Shawnie went down.
And her knee was just opened up...
...and blood just flowing everywhere.
When Ron came in, he was really upset.
And I said, "You gotta take her to the emergency room."
And he said, "No, I'm gonna try to win this race."
I knew my parents weren't happy that he didn't
do anything to see if I was okay.
I knew they weren't happy that he just kept riding.
And he didn't care that I was hurt.
Um, and I knew he was pissed,
'cause I crashed, and that I ruined his race.
I mean, I think I just had this, like, overwhelming sense of,
"How do I make everybody happy in this situation?"
I mean, I was absolutely in love with him,
and I was terrified of him ending it
because I did something wrong.
[narrator] Her desire to please Ron
puts Shawnie in a vulnerable position,
which he uses to his advantage.
[Shawnie] He propositioned
the threesome swinger lifestyle again with me.
But this was the first time I think that he started
putting more pressure onto
making it a reality.
There's this website that we can put our profile up.
It's like a dating site for swingers.
I was kind of like, "I, I don't...
...I don't think so."
And he said that, "This is so important to me,
and this is what I need," and...
And I guess I was like,
"Okay. I'll give it a try.
This is really important to him."
And he told me, like, you have to, like,
take a picture with, like, this date on it,
to prove that you're real.
And I think it was just kind of that
athletic mountain couple looking for, um...
...for someone.
Ron wanted another male.
He, like, he wasn't interest in another female.
He was so excited.
And I guess that's part of...
...why I kept going along with it,
because it was, like, he was so happy,
and it was, like, back in love with me,
and, you know, like...
...I was like the best thing in the world.
I felt like...
...I couldn't get out of it.
I didn't know how to stop it.
So we get a response to the ad pretty quick,
and he was also a bike rider
I guess that helped a little bit,
when it, you know, I kinda...
how I talked myself into it, I kept thinking,
"Well, you know, he would probably be someone who I would date
if I wasn't involved with Ron."
I remember on our way to meet him, I was just...
...sick to my stomach.
And I just did not wanna go
and I just did not wanna be part of this.
And there was so much dread.
[narrator] Soon Ron will take Shawnie
past the point of no return
into a nightmare of his own making.
There was a lot that Ron was hiding from everybody.
[Phippen] It seemed like such a small, quiet place,
and yet, these heinous crimes being committed, it was disgusting.
Trafficking minors for sexual things
that I don't even wanna think about.
It was almost beyond belief.
[narrator] Against her better judgement,
Shawnee Mulligan and her boyfriend Ron
are meeting a stranger
for a possible sexual encounter.
[Shawnie] I was so uncomfortable.
Ron told me, like, "You don't have to do this,
we may just meet him and not like him."
But yet he's like, "We're gonna take the RV."
And then the guy and Ron were kinda like,
"Do you wanna get together or do you wanna hook up?
Like, what do you wanna do?"
They were figuring out plans where to go to have sex.
And I just was kinda like..
"Okay. This is happening."
Like there's, there's no way out.
It didn't feel like I could say no at that point.
Like, they were excited, they were all about this.
Something that I struggle with to this day,
and I knew that Ron would be very upset and very angry...
...if I said no.
We went out onto a back road.
The whole time I was just like, "I just want this over."
Like that's all I could think about.
Just, get it over with.
Ron was just standing there watching
as I was with this other guy
And I was just like, "This is surreal. This is just crazy."
And it kinda became apparent to me
that he just wanted to watch
Like, it didn't feel good.
And in order, I think, for sex to feel good,
you have to wanna be there.
How do I just, like, engage enough
to make this be over?
You know, and that's, that's just what I...
That's all I wanted to do.
Afterwards, Ron was so happy
and he was kissing me and hugging me,
and holding my hand and touching me,
and telling me how much he loved me
and how wonderful I was,
like, Ron was so happy about this
and so affectionate, and...
You know, I was just, like...
You know, "What did I just do?"
It was probably within three weeks of that
that we got married.
We just went to the courthouse,
filled out the paperwork, got the papers.
Like, there was no ceremony
"I'm gonna give you security
No health insurance and some financial security
Um, because at the time I wasn't making much money.
[Kit] We didn't know how muc control he had over her.
Financially, he controlled her.
You know, "You don't have a job,
you're dependent on me for money, for insurance, for everything."
[Shawnie] He knew he could kick me out at any moment,
and what would I have?
I wouldn't have a car, I didn't have any money in the bank.
Like, he knew that.
I also knew, like, if I piss him off,
what am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go?
How am I gonna survive?
[narrator] After the wedding Ron continues
to take advantage of his power position.
It was pretty clear that he wanted it again,
and to do more.
Ron made it seem like, "Oh, lots of people have threesomes.
Lots of people swing. This isn't that uncommon."
And he kinda, like, chips me away, being like,
"You're the vanilla one. You're the boring one.
Like, lots of people do this."
You know, and you kind of start to think, "What's wrong with me?"
The encounters were pretty frequent,
I'd say maybe once a month.
Ron started taking videos,
I would say the fourth or fifth time
that we were probably with someone.
And he never asked me, it was just like, I looked u
and I was like, "He's videoing me."
I had no voice in this.
He just did it and he had it on his computer,
and I never saw it.
I never saw any of the video,
I don't know what he did with it.
So that was hard.
So difficult to explain
the mental abuse that happen
It would've been easier in some ways,
if he had held a gun to my head and told me to do it.
'Cause then I could at least explain to people
exactly why I did something I did not want to do.
If we had had...
...an inkling of the trauma
that was to come in the next few years...
...John and I would've done whatever it took
to get her away from Ron.
[Shawnie] The testosterone was always
a wild card for me.
Like he was, without a doubt self-dosing himself.
When a doctor prescribes you a medication,
they give you a certain amount to use each day.
Well, if Ron had a big race coming up,
he'd use three times as much.
And so, he found...
...a place, [sighs] I don't remember which country it came out of.
And he just had it sent to the house.
[narrator] As Ron's testosterone use escalates,
he pushes Shawnie into edgier sexual scenarios.
February 2016,
Ron was trying to convince me
to, to be with another couple,
a husband and a wife.
So they were both very into the lifestyle.
And... it was horrible.
The husband was so rough.
And it hurt so bad.
And I remember just looking at Ron
and being like, "Please make this stop."
'Cause it was so painful.
Afterwards, talking to Ron on the way home,
and I was like, "He hurt me
The husband hurt me."
And he didn't care.
The next day, I just packed stuff in my car and just...
I remember I called my dad.
I was like, "I'm coming home."
My dad's like, "What? What is going on?"
And I give the G-rated versi of what happened.
And then Ron starts texting me and calling me.
[cell phone ringing]
He was saying, "I did this wrong.
I'm sorry. I messed up."
Like, "I won't do this again. I'll get help.
I'll stop taking testosterone."
He was promising to change.
And so I went back a couple weeks later.
We had agreed that there were gonna be no more sexual encounters.
I, I guess I truly believed
that would happen.
When I moved back, I was hoping
it would get better and things would be okay.
But a part of me knew it wouldn't.
[narrator] A couple of months later,
Ron approaches Shawnie with what seems like
an exciting prospect.
[Shawnie] He comes up and he said, "I wanna buy a house."
It was a beautiful house,
million-dollar house on acreage.
[narrator] But there's a sticking point.
[Shawnie] He's like, "I need a legal agreement basically saying..."
...um, "the house is mine, not yours."
[narrator] Shawnie is to give up any potential
financial claim she might have as Ron's wife.
And then he had his attorney do the postnup.
Like, the house was his, his retirement was his,
all the savings accounts, the bank accounts,
everything was his. Um...
And nothing was mine.
[narrator] This is the last straw.
Shawnie decides it's time to become
financially independent.
I applied to be a deputy
at a jail for the county,
knowing that it paid decent
and that I could get health insurance.
He was pissed, knowing that I was trying to get out financially.
So as a jail deputy,
I carried a gun as part of the job.
So I got a 9mm.
So Ron gets a handgun.
And, you know, at the time, I think it's odd,
but Ron's the type of guy who, like,
I get something, he needs to get something.
You know, that's kind of how it works with him.
A rifle case shows up in the closet.
And I'm like, "What's that about?"
He's like, "Oh, it reminds me
of my old military days, my ranger days."
which is special forces.
I just remember thinking, "That's odd."
I found out later that he was never a ranger.
[narrator] Now that Shawnie has a job and has her own financial means,
Ron has lost his control over her.
And this, he can't except.
[Shawnie] Ron kicked me out of the house.
He just told me that he couldn't deal with my schedule,
that me working nights was too much,
and he couldn't handle me in this job.
I was able to find a...
pretty crappy apartment.
But, I was out.
We haven't filed for divorce yet.
We're obviously separated.
When I applied for the job,
the sexual coercion had stopped.
And I'm kind of like, "Okay, can...
Can this get better? Can this work?"
[narrator] Shawnie is about to discover why the sexual demands have stopped.
Her world is about to be turned upside down.
And it all starts while she's at work.
[Shawnie] I'm working on the floor of the jail
and I remember
that there's a guy and he gets on the radio, and he's like,
"Hey, Shawnie, the undersheriff wants to talk to you."
[phone ringing]
And I'm kind of like, "What is going on?"
Then they tell me, "Your husband's been arrested."
You know, I'm shocked. "For what?"
Transporting a minor for sex.
Prostituting a minor. Soliciting a minor for sex.
[inhales] Sex crimes against children.
And I just... shock.
[narrator] Shawnie Mulligan finds out her husband Ron
has been arrested at his Vail office
for having sex with a minor
I just was shaking. Like, I was just so confused.
And then they, the charges just made no sense to me.
I'd never heard of some of the charges and
I didn't understand what they were.
But I knew that it had to do with trafficking of a minor,
sex trafficking of a minor.
I called my parents and I was just crying and sobbing
and, just, completely in shock.
[narrator] A joint FBI-Colorado PD task force
has uncovered a sex trafficking ring near Vail in Glenwood Spring
They found Ron in a hotel room,
having sex with an underage girl.
Ron was charged with four charges.
He was charged with solicitation of a child prostitute,
patronizing a child prostitute,
pandering of a child prostitute,
and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Those were serious allegations.
Um, and it was shocking
for the community and for his friends and colleagues.
[Phippen] I obtained the indictment from the grand ju
and what I read was, frankly, disgusting.
It was... It gave me an icky feeling in the pit of my stomach
to think that these young girls from Denver had been trafficked
into sex for someone in my neighborhood.
It came out later that they were girls.
I was honestly shocked.
You know, uh, it seemed like such a small quite, uh, place.
And yet, here was this... these heinous crimes being committed, you know,
at a hotel that I drove by, uh, almost every day.
It was, uh, it was shocking
They are very serious charges.
A person is looking at life-changing outcomes.
[phone ringing]
[Shawnie] And then a couple hours later he started calling me.
He was desperate.
He was like, "It's all a mistake.
This didn't happen." Like, "This is all wrong."
And he was just, "Please, Shawnie, babe, come bail me out."
[clicks tongue] So I did.
[narrator] Even though they are still separated,
Shawnie picks Ron up
and brings him back to his house in Vail.
There was a note in his property
that said, "You've been put on administrative leave."
Like the first thing he goes to do is try to access his...
his email from his phone and he's blocked out.
The town of Vail blocked him out of everythin
Like, he was locked out of all accounts.
And he's basically telling m he's gonna kill himself.
And I didn't want that on my shoulders
so I supported him for a while.
I wanted to say, "Shawnie,
Let him go. Get away from him."
But you knew he still had a lot of control over her.
You know, he was a master, master manipulator.
[Phippen] The Vail papers didn't really run the story
I thought it would be front page news in Vail,
that the IT manager would be arrested for, you know,
[sighs] having sex with a minor prostitute.
But it, I think it made it on to page four, maybe.
And there was certainly an embarrassment factor
at the town of Vail that, you know, this man
had been under their nose this whole time
and had committed this terrible, terrible crime.
Some were concerned
about what Ron Braden would do or say.
If they spoke to me,
they didn't want their names in the paper.
There was a pushback.
Everywhere Shawnie would go in town,
people would be looking at her differently.
Not because of anything she did,
other than caring about a person
who made some horrible, horrible decisions.
I was so thankful
that maybe he was going to have to pay for some of what he did.
My biggest fear, which turned out to be true
was that they downgraded and downgraded his charges
to where he just go probatio
After a sexual crime on a minor.
The other, uh, people who were leading the sex trafficking ring,
both of them got long sentences, about 10 years.
The judge openly agreed with Ron that
he had been punished by losing his reputation
and losing his job.
He go a few years of probation
and, uh, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.
But zero jail time. [sighs in frustration]
[narrator] Ron is fortunate
but he is still enraged at his loss of status.
And he blames everyone but himself.
I was worried when he got out of jail
that Shawnie wasn't going to be safe.
He basically threatened to kill her.
He threatened to kill cops.
He threatened to kill other people.
[Shawnie] It occurred to me that I had no idea who I was married to.
Nothing. Like, I didn't know who he was,
what he was capable of, um...
Who he would hurt, what he would do.
[narrator] Shawnie tries to pick up the pieces
and life her own life, but Ron won't let that happe
[Shawnie] I went on a trip to Arizona with a friend
and I came back
and my door was open.
I walk into my apartment and there were roses sitting on my coffee table.
He had been in my apartment.
Like, something was wrong here.
And I was like, "I'm scared."
[narrator] Shawnie Mulligan is living in fear
of her estranged husband Ron
[Shawnie] I was scared.
And it was 'cause of those threats he made.
I knew he had the weapons.
I just, I knew I had to get out.
My boss, actually ended up serving him my divorce paper
'cause I was afraid to do that.
All the things that were going on including Ron
threatening to kill her, that started to have,
you know, a psychological impact on her.
And so she...
kind of reverted to, uh,
not eating.
She developed an eating disorder
after being raped at age 18 or 19.
With her past history with the eating disorder,
it was her way of dealing with the situation with Ron.
[Shawnie] I never talked to anybody about it.
I never dealt with it.
I think that trauma started kind of...
setting in.
[narrator] Adding to her present state of fear
is the disconcerting feelin that Ron has been hiding dark secrets.
One day, she discovers why R has so much disposable incom
[Shawnie] I had one of his former associates call me, who I knew,
and he's like, "You should have the town of Vail look into this."
There is some sketchy stuff that Ron was selling.
Wireless that was owned by the town of Vail
to private companies and then profiting by that.
[narrator] Unsure of this information and what it mean
Shawnie speaks to her dad.
I said, "All of that is illegal.
You're using resources for the city to make money.
I said, "That's embezzlement
And that'll get you 20 years if you're unluckily."
[Shawnie] Immediately contacted my boss
and I said, "I need to talk to you."
And I went in and I was like,
"I don't have proof, I don't have any evidence,
but this is what I was told."
And, you know, my boss was just kind of like, "Okay."
And then he's like, "I need you to keep this to yourself
This stays between us."
My boss, he just looks at m and he's like,
"Ron's troubles aren't over
There's, there's more coming down the pipes."
[narrator] As the investigation continu behind the scenes,
Shawnie receives another terrifying threat.
Not long after this, I was out on the trail at night
and this guy was coming up the trail
which was kind of unusual 'cause it's pretty isolated
And he just said, "Hey, Shawnie.
If you talk, there will be consequences."
And I just turned around and ran back up the trail
and just hit in the woods for, like, an hour.
Like, I was terrified and I was afraid to tell anybody.
[narrator] In July 2020, Vail PD gets the go ahead from the county DA
to arrest Ron Braden on embezzlement charges.
[Shawnie] I remember my boss was calling me
and, "Where's he at?" and I was able to find out
through mutual contacts that he was down in Denver.
And I'm like, "It's hot. It's miserable.
He's not going to be in Denver for that long.
He's going to come back up to the mountains for the Fourth of July.
Guarantee you."
And he did come back up that day, Fourth of July.
And we were in briefing for the Fourth of July parade.
So I have my radio and I can hear everything that dispatch is saying.
And my commander called me and he's like, "What's he driving?"
I'm like, "Silver, Ford, van."
He's like, "Big van?" I'm like, "Yep."
And then I hear on the radio,
like, that they're pulling over a van.
Vail PD asked Ron, over and over again,
-to get out of the van. -Nope.
-[Shawnie] And he refused. -Why?
[officer] We can explain it to you once you're out of the truck.
No.
[officer] Mmm-mmm. No, no, no, no, no...
[Shawnie] And Ron tried to drive away.
[officer] Ron, I'm telling you right now...
-[Ron] Shoot me. -[officer] There's a warrant for your arrest.
-[Ron] Shoot me. -[officer] Get out of the car.
-Shoot me. -[officer] Get out of the car, Ron.
-Shoot me. -Ron, I'll break you out of this damn window if I have to.
-[Ron] This is bull [bleep]. -[officer] Ron.
[Ron] What?
[officer] There's a warrant for your...
-Ron? -[Ron] Get away from me.
[officer] No.
[Shawnie] He's, he's trying to get their guns.
And he's just yelling and screaming at them.
[officer] Stop.
[indistinct sounds of a struggle]
[officer] Stop!
He's fighting hard and it takes three of them
to drag him out of the vehic
and to get him cuffed.
-[officer 1] Stop! -[officer 2] Give me your hand.
[officer 1] Get on the ground, Ron!
-[officer 2] Do you want to tase him? -[officer 1] Yeah.
-[Ron grunting] -[officer 1] Ron?
-[Ron] No. -[officer 1] Stop.
[Shawnie] Even once they get him to the ground,
and they get him cuffed, he's still fighting with the
You know, and they'll...
He's still just fighting and fighting.
-[officer 1] Ron. -[Ron] No, wait!
[officer 1] Don't play games.
[Ron] What did I do?
[officer 1] You know what you did, Ron.
-[beep] -[Ron] What?
-[handcuffs click] -[officer sighs]
-[officer 1] All right. -[Ron] What the [bleep] did I do?
[officer 1] We're going to sit you up, okay?
[Shawnie] After he's arreste and taken away,
they search is van and, um,
one of the things they find is that AR-15.
And a huge bag of ammo.
[officer] It's all 5.56.
When he was arrested and once I knew everybody was safe,
to me it was like, okay, this, it's over.
[officer 2] I'll go around.
[officer 1] Step up there, Ron.
Relax.
Ronald Braden is facing all kinds of charges
including embezzlement, theft, and assault on a police officer.
He allegedly hurt two of the officers
who arrested him over the weekend.
Braden worked for the town for 24 years.
Ron embezzled $854,000 from the town of Vail over a six-year period.
When Ron posted bond,
he was immediately placed on an ankle monitor.
And that ankle monitor was monitored by Vail PD 24/
I was in briefing one day and the detective who was
in charge of the phones looks at the phone
and then she looks at one of the other detectives
and I'm like, "What's going on?"
And the detective looks at me and he's like, "Stay."
And they're like, "He's near your place right now."
By the time they got there, you know, he was gone.
But he had violated his... that protection order for me.
[narrator] Ron continues to push the boundaries of his protective order.
And Shawnie is living in fea
[Shawnie] Eight months afte his arrest, I was at work.
A dispatcher comes over the radio and said,
"There's been a tamper alert with Ron Braden's GPS monitor."
And I just froze.
And I was like, "Oh, no. Please tell me this is fake."
They had found both of his cars at different locations
Ron had cut his ankle bracelet off, left it in the snow.
He was gone.
The former Information Technology Director
for the town of Vail is now a wanted fugitive.
He's been accused of stealing
more than a half million dollars from the town.
Now he's accused of cutting off his court-ordere GPS monitoring device.
Ron was on the run for a week.
They were, you know, everybody was looking for him.
They were doing everything they could to look for him.
I was scared.
[Kit] Ron seemed to be unhinged enough
that who knew what Ron was gonna do.
Shawnie came home that night and our terror was
at the point where we barricaded our whole house.
[Shawnie] My brother was the and he, like, blockaded door
to, like, stop anybody from entering.
My parents were terrified that he was going to come down there.
Kill... kill me.
[narrator] After a week in hiding,
Shawnie decides to return to Vail.
[Shawnie] And, uh, my boss called me.
And he's a pretty no-BS kind of guy.
He is kind of hemming and humming around.
He's like, "Where are you? What are you doing?"
And that's when he told me.
Ron was tracked down to Arizona
and they've put a violent crimes task force SWAT team type
on him.
And they were monitoring and watching him.
The next day, he got into a vehicle and
they decided that was the best time tactically to pull him over,
the task force, the agents were trying to call Ron out
And all of a sudden they just heard shots.
[gunshots]
And he had killed himself.
Ron had killed himself.
I was like, "Why... Why am I upset?
I hate him. I hate him."
But yet I was just sobbing that he was dead.
To this day, I don't know why I was upset.
And I hated this man.
He had made my life hell.
But I was, like, with him for eight years, right?
Like, I loved him, you know?
And he was gone. He's dead.
My first thought was, "Thank God he's dead.
'Cause Shawnie won't have to worry about him getting out
and coming to kill her."
Uh, you know, if you've not been in a situation where you really feel
that it's possible that somebody is looking to kill you,
it's hard to, hard to understand it.
I was just, I was broken apart.
I still, to this day, don't understand him.
And I'm not sure I ever will.
I had decided to leave Vail
I wanted a fresh start and a I had a friend
who lived in Washington and who I'd known for years.
And she'd just bought a house there and she's like,
"Come be my roommate."
I was like, "Okay."
[Hill] Shawnie has always be the kind of person
who can make lemonade out of lemons.
And I feel like, with this experience,
Shawnie is going to be able to continue to help other people.
[Shawnie] There's just been this impact on me that
will never go away.
You know, and I guess I have two choices.
You know, I can let it destroy me
or I can do something good with it.
'Cause I can't... Can't go back.
[narrator] Shawnie tells her story to create awarenes around both steroid abuse
and the invisible crime of sexual coercion.
My hope is that people become aware of symptoms
to look for such as isolation,
change in personality in your child,
and to not be afraid to intervene,
to shine light on that spousal or significant other abuse
or any type of domestic abuse.
You know, Shawnie's... the bravest person I know.
[Kit] I am so proud of her and I pray every day,
multiple times a day,
that she finds true happiness in life.
[Shawnie] I have amazing family. My parents are amazing.
And they support me and since moving to Washington,
I've learned to make friends.
That's what's key,
in the friends I've made and the community I've built
You know, love, I don't know.
That's a whole nother ball game, you see.