NC teacher’s alleged killer stalked separate family for over a year: ‘It was like a horror movie’

The alleged killer of a beloved mom and teacher slain in her home while she begged to 911 dispatchers for help has been accused of stalking a separate family for over a year — forcing them to move twice.

Ryan Camacho, 36, is charged with murder and felony burglary in the death of Zoe Welsh, a beloved science teacher, at her Raleigh, North Carolina, home early Saturday.

Camacho put another family through hell in a year-long campaign of harassment and stalking, said patriarch Wes Phillips, who accused authorities of not doing enough to get Camacho off the streets.

Phillips claimed he was forced to move his family after Camacho, who was then his next door neighbor, subjected them to property damage and disturbing behavior.

In October 2016, as Hurricane Matthew ravaged North Carolina, Phillips was at home with his son at their new home in a different Raleigh neighborhood when he looked outside and saw Camacho.

“It was like a horror movie, like he was standing there in a black jacket, staring at us in front of our house during a hurricane. Not talking, like making sure that we knew who he was,” Phillips told WRAL News.

The father called the police and jumped in his car, using his cell phone to film Camacho, who at one point could be seen trying to open the driver’s side door.

“I had locked the car, and he was pulling on the door, trying to get in,” Phillips said.

Days later, Phillips said his wife was out with his son when she saw Camacho walk up and grab a large rock.

Security video from that day showed a man throw a rock into the windshield of Phillip’s car and then through the sunroof, before punching and kicking the vehicle.

In 2018, Camacho allegedly showed up with a gun at Phillips’ now-former home.

“He shot into our building, where he thought that we lived. That’s something that stays with us,” Phillips said.

No one was injured, but Camacho faced multiple charges for shooting into an occupied dwelling and spent two years in prison, according to court documents seen by WRAL News.

Phillips says it wasn’t enough.

He claimed he called the police several times and tried to have a no-contact order served, but said that Camacho ultimately faced no charges for harassing his family.

“It’s not like there weren’t signs. We were really adamant about the danger that we felt we were in, and perhaps other people were in, and it just wasn’t taken seriously,” Phillips said.

“Part of the reason I’m here is it makes me really angry. It makes me angry that it feels like there was a complete institutional, just failure here that led to, you know, a woman being killed,” he added.

“My wife and I are asking ourselves right now as we think about what happened this past week, how close did we come to being that person, and could that have been prevented?” Phillips said.

Prosecutors say Camacho has spent much of the past six years behind bars, but that a request to have him involuntarily committed was ultimately denied by Judge Louis Meyer.

“He has spent a lot of time bouncing between the prison system and the local jails over the last few years and has really been in custody all but maybe a total of 12 months within the past 6 years,” Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told WRAL News.

“The judge has to make a decision based on the evidence available to them at that point in time. They don’t have the benefit of a crystal ball and look and see what’s going to happen. Based on the evidence that was available to the court at the time, the court did not find that he met the threshold for involuntary commitment,” Freeman said.

Judge Meyer and the Wake County Attorney’s Office did not respond immediately to requests for comment.