MUSCLE MAGAZINE

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEADLY DUO?

In a year that saw the bodybuilding community rocked by the untimely death of several well known nationally ranked muscle builders, 2005 had once again cast its dark shadow over the world of Muscledom with the shocking murder of Melissa James, personal assistant to Mr. USA Craig Titus and Fitness America champion Kelly Ryan.

Melissa James was introduced to Craig Titus in 2001 in Panama City by a common friend. They quickly hit it off and became friends. Melissa was very bubbly, and liked to talk to a lot of people about anything.  In 2003, when Craig & Kelly moved to Vegas, she moved to Las Vegas to be a personal trainer at whichever gym Craig was managing. When things didn't work out, she eventually moved back to Panama City.  In October 2005, she moved back to Vegas, as she was asked by Craig & Kelly to move there to assist in the opening of the Ice Gear sports clothing line. Melissa was going to manage the store for them.  In December 2005, she was scheduled to head home to her Mom's house in New Jersey to spend the Holidays with her family. Her flight was on Tuesday night, December 13th, at 10:30pm. She never made the flight.

 

On December 14th, Melissa James's body was found in the trunk of Kelly Ryan's Jaguar. In the following week, Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan were questioned by police, and subsequently left the state of Nevada, fleeing an arrest warrant for both of them for murder and accessory to murder. They then drove to Boston, where they were eventually caught on Friday, December 23, 2005.  What happened we don't know for sure at this time, but the lives of Craig Titus, Kelly Ryan, their friends, and the sports of professional bodybuilding and women’s fitness would be changed forever.

Apparently, a news report stated that on Wednesday, December 14th, at 4:41am, a trucker spotted a fire coming from a red 2003 Jaguar. After the firefighters came and extinguished the blaze, they noticed human remains in the trunk with white fabric around its neck and duct tape across the face.  A suitcase was found in the back seat, along with the charred remains of a barbecue tool set. Police said James was found dashed with lighter fluid.  Police found the cars license plate at the scene and determined that it was not reported stolen.  One week later, on Wednesday, December 21st, the Las Vegas Police Dept. issued  a no bail arrest warrant for Craig Titus for murder and third degree arson, and a no bail arrest warrant for Kelly Ryan for accessory to murder and third degree arson. A third suspect, Anthony Gross, was already in custody.

A week before ‘Bodybuilding’s Bad Boy’ Craig Titus and his wife, Kelly Ryan, became fugitives, the professional couple met with Las Vegas homicide detectives about the dead woman who was found in Ryan's burned 2003 Jaguar.  Titus, 40, admitted to secretly having an affair with 28-year-old Melissa James, whose body was found in the trunk of the car. Titus and Ryan, 33, said James was their live-in personal assistant. They said that they had recently evicted her for embezzling from them, but that they had not filed a police complaint. Both told investigators that James had stolen Ryan's car, though they did not report the theft to police.  Titus and Ryan made those comments Dec. 14, hours after James' body was discovered in the torched Jaguar off state Route 160, according to an arrest warrant filed in Las Vegas Justice Court.  But at the time Titus and Ryan were set free after their interrogation because of a lack of evidence.

Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan were once seen as the royal couple of the US bodybuilding community.  For the five years prior to the alleged murder, they made a healthy living by appearing in bodybuilding shows, posing for magazines, and endorsing nutritional supplements all over the world.  Titus and Ryan have since been charged with murder and third-degree arson.

 

Maura James, who on Thursday, December 22, marked her 51st birthday by remembering her daughter with relatives in Florida, said she hopes the fugitives will soon be caught.  "I find it hard to believe they had anything to do with it because she trusted them as friends," she said. "I was shocked. I never imagined they'd be capable of doing anything like this."

Las Vegas police say that Titus killed Melissa James and that Ryan and Gross helped dispose of her body.  Ryan told police that after discovering funds missing from her accounts, she kicked James out of her $470,000 southwest Las Vegas home. The eviction came Dec. 13, a day before James' body turned up in the remote desert.

Maura James, who lives in New Jersey, said she last spoke with her daughter about 11:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on Dec. 13. During the brief cell phone conversation, Melissa James said she was eating at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.  Maura James heard her daughter ask someone what they wanted to eat. She asked her daughter whom she was with, but the question went unanswered.  A short time later, Melissa James wrapped up the call and said she would call back after lunch.  She never called back and never answered her mother's follow-up calls.  The next day, a Wednesday, Maura James went to the Newark airport before 9 a.m. She was scheduled to pick up her daughter, who was coming home for Christmas. She said her daughter was also considering moving home to New Jersey.  Melissa James' flight arrived, but she wasn't on it. Maura James called her cell phone and left messages. Airport officials issued a page over a public address system. Maura James eventually returned home alone.  She later called Titus' cell phone several times and left messages.   "I thought she had been in an accident or something," she said. "I started calling hospitals in Las Vegas. Nobody had her.   "Thursday night is when I got the call from the coroner. ... She had been strangled."  Titus asked Melissa James to move to Las Vegas about two months ago and she accepted, her mother said.  In the days before her death, James told her mother that she and Ryan were not getting along. She said she was staying at a hotel.   "I said, 'Why?' She said, 'Well, Kelly is flipping out and acting crazy,'•" Maura James said.

 

Titus booked the hotel room for two nights, from Dec. 12 to Dec. 14, and paid for it with a credit card belonging to Emperor Enterprises, a company he and Ryan own, according to police.  "He said he had spent most of one night with James at her room," investigators said in the report, quoting Titus.  Titus also paid for James' plane ticket home, her mother said.

On Dec. 16, two days after James' body was recovered, Amanda Polk, a young bodybuilder who had moved to Las Vegas to train with Ryan, contacted police with a tip. Polk met with investigators the next day and told them that she had received a phone call from Titus on Dec. 15 "saying he was in a bad situation and needed to get out of town for a while," police said.  Titus and Ryan went to the home of Polk and her boyfriend later that evening. Ryan hugged Polk and said someone had found her Jaguar burned with a body inside. During a car ride to dinner, Ryan confided in Polk, she told police.   "Ryan proceeded to tell Polk she had found their roommate, Melissa, dead in her room from an overdose," police said. "Polk said Ryan told her Melissa had been dead for a few hours and couldn't describe what she looked like because it would traumatize Polk for life. Polk said Ryan proceeded to tell her" that her life was ruined "because she bought seven bottles of lighter fluid at Wal-Mart with her credit card at 3:30 a.m.”.  Credit card receipts and security videotapes show that Ryan bought seven half-gallon bottles of charcoal starter fluid and a barbecue tool set at a Wal-Mart store in Las Vegas about 3:30 a.m. Dec. 14. The videotape shows her and a man putting the items in the back seat of a red mid-sized car similar to a Jaguar.   Investigators say Polk confronted Ryan and asked her why she hadn't called police when she found the body.  "Ryan responded by saying Craig told her, ‘No body, No crime’, police wrote in the report.  "Ryan told Polk she just did what Titus told her to do, that she thought Titus got someone to get rid of Melissa and she didn't kill anyone." 

Police say Titus met with business partner Gregory Ruiz at a Subway restaurant in the Las Vegas Valley on the morning of Dec. 17.  "Titus told Ruiz he had to leave the country," an investigator wrote, adding that Titus had traded in his Dodge Viper truck for a new vehicle and intended to meet a friend in Boston to liquidate his assets.

 

Police obtained cell phone records that showed Titus called Anthony Gross in the early morning of Dec. 14.  Gross told investigators that he left his apartment in pajamas, filled up a can with gas and drove west on Blue Diamond Road until he saw flashing headlights from a Jaguar.  He told police that he pulled up beside the Jaguar, rolled down his window and handed Titus a metal gas can. He said he did not know what Titus did with the gas can and, though he gave Titus a lift back into town, the two never discussed what had happened.  The Clark County coroner’s autopsy revealed that James had likely died from asphyxiation.   "I think they had hoped the fire would completely consume the car so that it would be unidentifiable," Monahan said.

On the following Wednesday, however, Titus and Ryan, who have been on the covers of bodybuilding and fitness magazines, were being identified on television news broadcasts nationwide as murder suspects.  Neighbors recalled that Titus and Ryan often had visitors, some driving flashy cars, Ferraris or Mercedes. One neighbor described Titus as friendly, adding that his physique was noticeably smaller these days.  Titus, who graduated high school at 140 pounds, has often competed in the 250-pound range or more.  Police say he is now down to about 225 pounds.

Maura James, meanwhile, recalled something her daughter had once mentioned about Titus, Ryan and steroids.  "She told me that since he was getting older, he was not going to be competing as much," James said. "She used to tell me, ‘Yeah, they took them when they were getting ready for competitions. And they would go to the doctor quite a bit for checking organs and things like that”.  "You know what's so hard?" James said. "They burned my daughter so that we can't even see her again before we bury her. She is so sweet. She is so sweet and beautiful. I can't imagine anybody doing that to her."

On December 23, 2005, the FBI and local police found the couple at Shaws Plaza in Stoughton, Massachusetts’s, which is near, Canton, which is near Boston. Kelly Ryan was in a salon getting a pedicure when the police stormed the shop. Craig was waiting for her in his Dodge pickup van in the parking lot.  Looking haggard and weary, the two physique champions made their first appearances in a Massachusetts courthouse.  The married Las Vegas residents, Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, faced a judge inside District Court in Stoughton, Mass., a Boston suburb, where they were told they were being held as fugitives from justice and were denied bail.  Investigators said they seized eighty-three $100 bills discovered in Titus' truck. Authorities believe Titus and Ryan planned to flee to Greece.

Meanwhile, Gross, the third suspect in the case, was already in custody on charges of third-degree arson and accessory to murder.  Justice of the Peace Joseph Bonaventure set bail at $10,000 on the accessory charge and $3,000 on the arson charge for Gross, who is accused of helping burn James' body.  Afterward, Gross' family members were observed talking directly with Clark County prosecutor Robert Daskas of the Major Violators Unit of the Clark County district attorney's office.  Daskas declined to comment on what he talked to the family about, as did the Gross' family.  Gross' relatives were observed hugging, smiling and expressing relief to one another outside of court regarding the bail amount.  "A condition of bail will be house arrest," Bonaventure told the defendant. "You are obviously not to have any contact with any witnesses."  Bobby A. George, an attorney representing Titus at the time was not pleased with the disparity between his client's bail and Gross'.  "A $13,000 bail is very low in a case of this nature," he said. "And it sure smells like something is going on."

 

The murder cases of elite bodybuilder Craig Titus and his wife, fitness champion Kelly Ryan, likely will reveal a steroid-fueled lifestyle of wife-swapping and group-sex parties, sources say.  Titus and Ryan were described as regulars at local strip clubs, where they trolled for sex partners.  In the February 2006 issue of Playboy, Titus, a former Mr. USA, defends anabolic steroid use and touts its powers as a sexual-performance enhancement.  “I’m talking about a libido like no other, a sense of wellness like no other. Should they be made legal? No. Should they be available by prescription to athletes? Yes.”  In the Playboy article about the annual Olympia bodybuilding event, Titus said he served 26 months in prison, starting in 1997. The reason was not given, but Titus pleaded guilty in Louisiana in April 1995 to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute the party drug ecstasy, and served two years in jail for steroid-related offenses from 1997 to 1999.

Titus won the Mr. USA title in 1996, the same year Ryan captured the Fitness America title.  The former Fitness America champion also wore the crown of Ms. Fitness International and was a runner up to the coveted Ms. Fitness Olympia.   Early in her career, Ryan, 33, trained as a gymnast under the tutelage of Bela Karolyi, according to her biography. Karolyi has coached the U.S. and Romanian Olympic gymnastics teams.  Titus, 40, served as the trainer for Motley Crue front man Vince Neil for VH1’s special “Remaking: Vince Neil” in 2004.

Titus' cell phone may have played a role in his capture. “During the two hours before he was caught Titus called his close friend, Matt Cline, who lives in the Boston area”, said Titus’s attorney Bobby A. George.  "As soon as he made the calls ‘Baboom’ -- the SWAT teams were there," said George, adding that the phone lines might have been tapped.  Matt Cline is considered one of Craig Titus' best friends and it was here that Craig & Kelly were probably going to go to.

An interesting note to this sad story is that several pro muscle builders have expressed fear that the death of Melissa James will place an unwanted spotlight on the steroid laden sport of bodybuilding, by using Craig Titus as the poster boy for the anti steroid alarmist who are trying to stop the use of anabolic enhancements in our sport.  MarioStrong.com has no knowledge if this tragic incident was an act of Roid Rage or an accident, but we welcome the attention that the media outlets have given this story.  Perhaps in some way, this tragic event will make some potential future anabolic users think twice before they open the door to bodybuilding’s dark side.

Disclaimer: This article was compiled from several sources.  While MarioStrong.com tries to present as factual a report as possible, we make no claim as to the accuracy or truthfulness of any information provided here or on this web site.