Sacramento man convicted of murdering Natomas librarian in 2018 ambush withdraws insanity plea
Ronald Seay, convicted of murder in the 2018 ambush killing of Natomas librarian Amber Clark, withdrew his insanity plea Thursday, setting the stage for the Sacramento man’s sentencing.
Seay, 59, will be sentenced to life without parole at the June 3 sentencing before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White.
Sacramento County jurors were ready to move to the sanity phase of Seay’s murder trial Thursday morning when Seay told White of his decision, said Seay’s defense attorney, Sacramento County supervising public defender Norm Dawson.
The panel was to deliberate whether Seay was sane when he shot the 41-year-old Clark in her car in the parking lot of the North Natomas library branch she supervised.
“I feel a great sense of relief, some joy, and some finality in this — and a little bit of shock. I wasn’t expecting this,” said Clark’s husband, Kelly, who had returned to the Sacramento courtroom Thursday for the sanity proceedings.
The Sacramento jury needed just hours Wednesday to convict Ronald Seay of first-degree murder and lying in wait in the December 2018 ambush murder.
Seay, who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, appeared to show little expression behind a facial covering as the jurors’ verdict was read late Wednesday morning. In a rear row of the courtroom, Kelly Clark, Amber Clark’s husband, was overcome with emotion upon hearing the guilty verdict.
Jurors in the final day of testimony on Tuesday listened to recordings of Seay’s 2019 jailhouse calls with his brother and mother, hearing Seay explain why he gunned down the library supervisor.
“It’s what she did to me that broke the camel’s back; what she personally did to me,” Seay told his mother during a February 2019 visit inside Sacramento County Jail.
“That’s a confession, folks, and he doesn’t seem to be that sorry about it,” Sacramento County principal criminal attorney Allison Dunham told jurors.
Clark had barred Seay from the Sacramento Public Library’s North Natomas branch in October 2018, a month after Seay moved to Sacramento from Missouri where mental troubles and a disturbing history of confrontations with librarians there led to multiple arrests for disturbances at St. Louis-area libraries and bans from at least two library branches.
The ugly confrontations in St. Louis, then in Natomas, foreshadowed the violence to come.
On Dec. 11, 2018, Seay returned to the library’s parking lot armed with a loaded Springfield 9mm handgun, waited for Clark to climb into her car, then shot her 11 times.
Seay’s trial demeanor was in sharp contrast to his earliest court appearances in the days and months after killing Clark. Loud outbursts punctuated those early hearings and Seay’s criminal proceedings were eventually halted while doctors evaluated his mental state.
Seay was determined well enough in 2021 to stand trial even as he continued to receive what Dawson said was “extensive psychiatric treatment” in custody.
That Seay killed Clark was not in doubt. The question for jurors, attorneys argued, was whether Seay ambushed Clark in a deadly surprise attack, or confronted her in the moments before he opened fire.
The distinction would be the difference between a first-degree murder charge with a special circumstance of lying in wait and a charge of second-degree murder with a firearm.
Waited in Sacramento library parking lot
Seay waited for nearly an hour in his Chevrolet Malibu sedan in the library’s parking lot for Clark to leave the library that December evening, testimony revealed, but defense attorney Dawson argued that the deadly shooting was not a surprise attack.
Seay, still angry over his October banishment, did confront Clark, Dawson argued, and stood outside her car for 30 seconds before opening fire.
“These 30 seconds are vital….He couldn’t get her to listen and that’s when he shot her,” Dawson told jurors. “Was he in the car wanting to attack her or was he wanting to talk to her?” Dawson said.
Prosecutor Dunham answered the question, laying out Seay’s internet search history in the hours before Clark’s slaying; searches that included notorious Long Island Rail mass shooter Colin Ferguson; and Clark’s North Natomas library branch.
“He pursued her, not to have a conversation, but armed with a gun. He waited for Amber Clark,” Dunham said in her closing statement. “He wasn’t there to talk with her. It is an absolute ambush. She had nowhere to go.”
Librarian’s final moments showed to jurors
Jurors viewed Clark’s final moments, in still images and in grainy security camera footage taken from the library and a nearby American River College satellite campus.
Clark, wearing a red pea coat, was about to walk out of the library and into the parking lot and a waiting Seay. Medical examiners later recovered a bullet fragment lodged in one of the sleeves.
The wrenching images dredged new pain for Amber’s husband, Kelly Clark.
“That footage of her in the library lobby, I had that fleeting moment that she was alive, and in a few moments, she would be no more,” Kelly Clark said outside the courtroom during a break Tuesday. “That sticks with you in a devastating way.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 2:43 PM.
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