Craig Titus & Kelly Ryan Arrested
Monday, December 26, 2005
Titus, 40, and Ryan, 33, were arrested Friday afternoon at a Stoughton nail salon after FBI agents were tipped that the two were heading to Boston to meet a friend, liquidate their assets, and flee the country.
But on the way, Ryan decided to get her toes painted a cherry red, and while she was in the Touch Nails salon, a dozen SWAT team members burst into the store and arrested her. Titus was apprehended without incident while he waited outside in his truck.
Titus will be charged with murder, Ryan with being an accessory to the crime, officials said.
Their jail cells are a far cry from the accommodations to which the pair had become accustomed. For the past five years they jetted around the globe, appearing in bodybuilding shows, posing for magazines, and endorsing nutritional supplements. This year alone, the pair was scheduled to make appearances in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, and Portugal, according to an itinerary posted on Titus's website.
''Titus had a huge presence," Terrell said. ''He was real showman, just a lot of personality."
Their travel plans took a sudden turn after Melissa James, the couple's 28-year-old live-in personal assistant, was found dead in the trunk of Ryan's red 2003 Jaguar, according to court documents. James had been bound and gagged, the car had been torched, and James's body was partially burnt.
The couple left Nevada. After their arrest, they told police that they threw James out of their Las Vegas home after they realized she had been embezzling from their business, Emperor Enterprises Inc., police said. Later, Titus told police he had also been having an affair with James.
According to police reports, Ryan told a friend that her ''life was ruined" because she had bought seven bottles of lighter fluid with her credit card at a Wal-Mart.
''She was just such a sweet girl," Frank Bohm, a bodybuilding promoter from Washington, said of Ryan. ''This whole thing is hard to believe, but that she would have anything to do with it is really tough to swallow."
Titus grew up outside of Detroit and became interested in bodybuilding when he realized that at 130 pounds, he was too small to play on his high school football team, according to his website. After high school he moved to Texas and then California, where he began to compete.
In 1995 he served a year in jail on drug charges, according to his website, but returned to competition and, with his frame carrying 260 pounds, began placing in national events around 2001.
Around that time he met Ryan. Ryan, who is from Minneapolis, was a competitive gymnast as a child and later attended University of South Carolina, where she started winning regional fitness titles. By the late '90s she was winning national titles and appearing on magazines, according to her website.
Titus had a reputation as the ''bad boy" of bodybuilding, Bohm said. ''He was outspoken and not everybody liked that."
Titus was also coming close to the end of his professional career and was trying to launch a bodybuilding governing body to compete with the International Federation of Body Builders, Bohm said.
Terrell said Titus had just found a location to open a store specializing in workout gear.
But on the way, Ryan decided to get her toes painted a cherry red, and while she was in the Touch Nails salon, a dozen SWAT team members burst into the store and arrested her. Titus was apprehended without incident while he waited outside in his truck.
Titus will be charged with murder, Ryan with being an accessory to the crime, officials said.
Craig Titus
Arrested Photo
Arrested Photo
Their jail cells are a far cry from the accommodations to which the pair had become accustomed. For the past five years they jetted around the globe, appearing in bodybuilding shows, posing for magazines, and endorsing nutritional supplements. This year alone, the pair was scheduled to make appearances in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, and Portugal, according to an itinerary posted on Titus's website.
''Titus had a huge presence," Terrell said. ''He was real showman, just a lot of personality."
Their travel plans took a sudden turn after Melissa James, the couple's 28-year-old live-in personal assistant, was found dead in the trunk of Ryan's red 2003 Jaguar, according to court documents. James had been bound and gagged, the car had been torched, and James's body was partially burnt.
The couple left Nevada. After their arrest, they told police that they threw James out of their Las Vegas home after they realized she had been embezzling from their business, Emperor Enterprises Inc., police said. Later, Titus told police he had also been having an affair with James.
According to police reports, Ryan told a friend that her ''life was ruined" because she had bought seven bottles of lighter fluid with her credit card at a Wal-Mart.
''She was just such a sweet girl," Frank Bohm, a bodybuilding promoter from Washington, said of Ryan. ''This whole thing is hard to believe, but that she would have anything to do with it is really tough to swallow."
Titus grew up outside of Detroit and became interested in bodybuilding when he realized that at 130 pounds, he was too small to play on his high school football team, according to his website. After high school he moved to Texas and then California, where he began to compete.
In 1995 he served a year in jail on drug charges, according to his website, but returned to competition and, with his frame carrying 260 pounds, began placing in national events around 2001.
Around that time he met Ryan. Ryan, who is from Minneapolis, was a competitive gymnast as a child and later attended University of South Carolina, where she started winning regional fitness titles. By the late '90s she was winning national titles and appearing on magazines, according to her website.
Titus had a reputation as the ''bad boy" of bodybuilding, Bohm said. ''He was outspoken and not everybody liked that."
Titus was also coming close to the end of his professional career and was trying to launch a bodybuilding governing body to compete with the International Federation of Body Builders, Bohm said.
Terrell said Titus had just found a location to open a store specializing in workout gear.