A former UMBC student’s taped confession to the killing of a woman he met over the Internet can be admitted at trial, a Baltimore County judge said.

Over the course of a weeks-long investigation into Josie Brown’s disappearance, police collected several statements from John Gaumer pertaining to their date on Dec. 29 last year — the night she went missing. He ultimately confessed to her killing in detail in a video-recorded statement played this week in court.

Judge Mickey Norman’s ruling Friday in the death penalty-eligible rape and murder case deals a setback to the defense team, which asked that Gaumer’s statements be banned from trial on the grounds that they were taken in violation of his rights.

But Norman found that Gaumer spoke “freely and voluntarily,” even characterizing the 23-year-old’s second, more elaborate confession as a “very cordial exchange between the defendant and the two detectives.”

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The judge also turned down the defense argument that Gaumer was illegally arrested at his UMBC apartment early on Feb. 7 when police showed up with search warrants. Norman said the detectives had ample reason to believe a felony had been committed and enough probable cause to arrest Gaumer without a warrant.

“Perhaps Ms. Brown was a little bit of a nomad,” Norman said, acknowledging the defense description of the 27-year-old mother from Hampden as somewhat estranged from her family. But Norman said her relatives were concerned enough about her disappearance that, combined with a voice mail left on her cell phone that recorded a woman’s cries, police reasonably suspected foul play.

Defense attorney Donald Zaremba had said in court that before they took Gaumer into custody, detectives did not have sufficient reason to believe that “a specific felony was committed.”

Gaumer eventually directed officers to Brown’s body down a ravine near Ineterstate 95, according to court testimony. He later was recorded saying he beat and sexually assaulted Brown, whom he met over MySpace.com, after she turned on him at the end of their first date.

kcullinan@baltimoreexaminer.com