Richard Ramírez (born
Ricardo Muñoz Ramírez on February 29, 1960, in El Paso, Texas
) is an American
serial killer awaiting execution on California
's death row at San Quentin
State Prison
. Prior to his arrest, the media dubbed the
unknown serial killer active in Los Angeles, California
, the "Night Stalker"; following his arrest,
sensationalist reporting of his apparent interest in the occult and Satanism was
common.
Early life
Ricardo
(Richard) Muñoz Ramírez was born in El Paso, Texas, the youngest of five children to working class
Mexican
immigrants Julián Ramírez and Mercedes
Muñoz. As a child, he was remembered as being quiet and a
loner by those who knew him. When Ramírez was two, he developed a
contusion in his head after a dresser fell
on him, and he had to receive over 30 stitches. He also suffered
from
grand mal seizures and was diagnosed
with
temporal lobe epilepsy
when he was six. By the age of 10, Ramírez reportedly began to
spend nights in
cemeteries.
When Ramírez was 13 years old, he began to spend a great deal of
time with his cousin Mike, a
Special
Forces Vietnam War veteran. Mike
fascinated Ramírez with
Polaroid
photographs of Vietnamese women whom he boasted of killing and
torturing. The two spent time smoking
cannabis and driving around and, according
to Ramírez, during that time Mike taught him to shoot and cut
people for "maximum effect".
Mike murdered his wife while Ramírez was 2-3 feet away. After that,
Ramírez started skipping school, and he continued smoking cannabis
and began sniffing glue by the seventh grade. He soon took to
stealing, in part to support his drug use. He attended Thomas
Jefferson High School in El Paso, Texas, dropping out before
completing even one year. During this time period, Ramírez was
arrested twice for possession of illegal substances.
He thereafter lived the life of a
slacker,
smoking cannabis and living on
junk food,
according to
UPI
reporters Aurelio Rojas and K. Mack Sisk. Because of his poor
hygiene and sugar-rich diet, Ramírez' teeth eventually started to
rot, which made his breath foul and offensive. His habitual drug
abuse, which had by this time progressed to daily use of
cocaine, led to several arrests for possession as
well as a charge for misdemeanor theft. Ramírez was arrested twice
for auto theft in California, in Pasadena in 1981 and in Los
Angeles in 1984.
Michael D. Harris, reporting for UPI, wrote that years later
Ramírez' father would maintain that Richard was a "good boy" whose
drug use "put him out of control". Richard often drew the
five-point
pentagram, a symbol sometimes
associated with Satanism, on his own body. At his trial, he would
shout "
Hail Satan!" in open court.
Ramírez was a big fan of
hard rock and
heavy metal bands that sang about
hell and the
devil. He was
said to be a fan of
AC/DC and, in particular,
their song "
Night Prowler".
Victims
Jennie Vincow
On June
28, 1984, following a night of shooting cocaine, Ramírez removed a screen and entered the
window of 79-year-old Jennie Vincow, of Glassell
Park, Los Angeles
. Vincow's son, Jack, discovered her body the
next afternoon. She was sprawled out on the bed, stabbed
repeatedly, her throat slashed so deeply she was nearly
decapitated. Ramírez also ransacked her apartment. Fingerprints
were recovered from the window screen. The autopsy later revealed
signs of sexual assault.
Maria Hernandez and Dayle Okazaki
On March
17, 1985, 22-year-old Maria Hernandez was accosted as she left her
car in the garage of the condominium
that she shared with a roommate, Dayle Okazaki, age 34, in Rosemead
. Hernandez described Ramírez as tall and
dressed entirely in black, with a baseball cap pulled low over his
brow. He was holding a gun. Ramírez shot at her face as she raised
her hands in self-defense. The bullet hit Hernandez in the hand,
having been deflected by her keys. She fell to the ground and
Ramírez pushed Hernandez aside and entered the condominium.
Hernandez lay still for some time until she heard the door closing,
whereupon she went outside. As she approached the front door of the
condominium, Ramírez was leaving. She ducked down behind a car as
Ramírez raised the gun at her. Hernandez asked him not to shoot her
again and he lowered the gun and ran away.
Hernandez entered the condominium through the front door, and found
Okazaki lying dead on the kitchen floor. She had been shot through
the forehead from a short distance. Her blouse had been pulled up.
Hernandez then called the police. Later an autopsy retrieved a
.22-caliber bullet from Okazaki's skull.
Outside police found a blue baseball-style cap with the name
AC/DC on the front. At trial, a witness later
testified that the cap looked like one Ramírez wore. Hernandez also
identified Ramírez as her attacker at a
police lineup and later at trial.
Tsia-Lian Yu
That same
night after the assault of Maria Sophia Hernandez and the murder of
Dayle Okazaki, a car driven by Tsia-Lian Yu was forced to a stop by
a car driven by a man later identified as Ramírez, near Monterey
Park
. Ramírez approached Yu's car and pulled her
out.
Joseph Duenas stepped out onto the balcony of his second-floor
apartment after hearing a woman screaming for help. Duenas went
inside and called the police, then stepped back onto the balcony.
Duenas observed the scene as the man pushed Yu away, got into her
car and drove away. As Ramírez drove, he passed a car containing
Jorge Gallegos and his girlfriend. Gallegos saw the driver’s
profile and noted the number of the license plate of the car. Both
men later testified at trial.
Yu crawled a short distance away and lay still. Police found Yu
breathing but unconscious. Yu stopped breathing and
CPR was administered until the
ambulance arrived. She was pronounced dead at the Lake House Inn.
The autopsy revealed that she had been shot twice in the chest at
close range, and the bullet recovered was found to be fired from
the same gun used to kill Dayle Okazaki.
Vincent and Maxine Zazzara
On the morning of March 27, 1985, two more victims were discovered.
Vincent Zazzara, age 64, was a retired investment counselor who
operated his own
pizzeria. He was found by
his son Peter, who had come to visit. After ringing the bell
several times he let himself in. Vincent was on the sofa in the
den, shot through the left temple. He appeared to have died
instantly. His wife, Maxine Zazzara, age 44, was found stretched
out in her bed, face up and naked. Her eyes had been gouged out and
she had been stabbed repeatedly around the face, neck, abdomen, and
groin areas. There was a large T-shaped knife wound in her left
breast. An autopsy later revealed that, like her husband, she had
first been shot in the head and most likely died instantly, and the
stabbing and mutilation occurred after death. The house had been
ransacked and burglarized.
William and Lillian Doi
On April 15, two weeks after the murders of Vincent and Maxine
Zazzara, Richard Ramírez returned to Monterey Park and broke into
the home of William and Lillian Doi, ages 66 and 63 respectively,
waking them from their sleep. Ramírez first shot Mr. Doi right
above the upper lip, causing the bullet to go through his tongue
and become lodged in his throat. Then Ramírez beat him into
unconsciousness. After doing this he went into Mrs. Doi's room,
slapped her, and warned her not to scream, saying "Shut up or I'll
kill you, bitch." He bound her hands behind her back with
thumbcuffs to keep her still as he searched the
house. After he found what he wanted, he returned to the bedroom
and raped Mrs. Doi.
Mr. Doi, however, was not dead. Despite his severe head wound, he
managed to crawl to Mrs. Doi's room where he dialed
911. He was unable to tell the dispatcher what the
problem was, but the call was traced and an
ambulance and patrol car were dispatched to the
Doi's address. William Doi was rushed to the hospital but died in
the ambulance. Lillian Doi was treated for her injuries and was
able to give the police a description of the couple's
attacker.
Malvia Keller and Blanche Wolfe
The attacks continued, throwing the city of Los Angeles into a
state of panic. One police official referred to the killer-rapist
as the "Valley Intruder". Several area newspapers dubbed him the
"Midnight Stalker". In the spring of 1985, the frequency of his
killing escalated, and by that summer reached its peak.
On May 29,
Malvia Keller, 83, and her invalid sister, Blanche Wolfe, 80, were
found in Keller's Monrovia
home. Both women had been beaten severely
with a hammer. When the police found the hammer later, the handle
was discovered split. Wolfe had a puncture wound above one ear. An
inverted
pentagram with the tip pointing
down had been drawn in lipstick on Keller's inner thigh. A second
pentagram was found on the bedroom wall over Wolfe's body. Ramírez
had raped Keller, the older sister. Police experts estimated that
the sisters had been there about two days after the attack before
being discovered. Doctors were able to revive Wolfe, but Keller
died soon afterwards.
Ruth Wilson
On May 30, Ruth Wilson, 41, was awoken in the middle of the night
by a flashlight shining in her face.
Ramírez had silently
broken into her Burbank
home and was holding a gun to her head. He
ordered her to get out of bed and go to her 12-year-old son's room.
Ramírez put the gun to the child's head, warning Wilson not to make
a sound. He then handcuffed the boy and locked him in a
closet.
Assuming that he was only a burglar, she offered to give Ramírez
her most valuable possession, a gold-and-diamond necklace. She led
him to the dresser in her bedroom where she kept it, hoping it
would placate him. After rummaging through the house, he ordered
Wilson to put her hands together behind her back, tying them with
pantyhose. He then pushed her onto the bed
and raped her. She told Ramírez that he must have had a "very
unhappy life" to have done this to her. He reportedly told her that
she looked "pretty good" for her age and said he was going to let
her live although he had killed many others. When she complained
that the pantyhose around her wrists were cutting off her
circulation, he loosened them and brought her a robe before
releasing her son from the closet and handcuffing them side by
side. He then left the scene.
Afterward, the boy was able to get to a phone and call 911. When
the police asked Wilson to describe her attacker, she told them
that he was a tall Hispanic man with long dark hair.
Mary Louise Cannon
On July 2, the body of 75-year-old Mary Louise Cannon was found in
her home in Arcadia. She had been beaten, her throat slit, and her
home had been ransacked.
Whitney Bennett
On July 5, Ramírez returned to Arcadia and savagely beat
16-year-old Whitney Bennett, a junior at
La Cañada High School, with a
tire iron. Identified in some later accounts under the pseudonym
"Deidre Palmer", she needed 478 stitches but survived her injuries.
According to
Philip Carlo's 1996
biography, Bennett later married Mike Salerno, the son of
Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department Sergeant Frank Salerno, the lead detective
in both the Night Stalker case as well as the case of the
Hillside Stranglers, after meeting the
younger Salerno while waiting to testify at trial.
Joyce Lucille Nelson
Two days later, on July 7, the body of Joyce Lucille Nelson, age
61, was found beaten to death by a blunt object in her home in
Monterey Park. Nelson was employed at Coast Envelope in Los
Angeles, California.
Sophie Dickman
Later that same night in Monterey Park, Sophie Dickman, a
63-year-old registered nurse, was awoken at around 3:30 a.m. by a
"tall, skinny man dressed in black". The man, who fit the
description of the "Night Stalker", was pointing a gun at her. He
ordered her out of bed and into the bathroom, warning her to be
quiet. After ransacking the house, he returned to her, forcing her
back onto her bed. He attempted to rape and sodomize her but could
not maintain an erection. He was frustrated and humiliated, and she
was sure he would kill her. He screamed at her furiously, but then
gathered the valuables he wanted and left. She was astounded that
he had spared her life.
Lela and Max Kneiding
Less than
two weeks later, on July 20, Ramírez went to a new location in the
Los Angeles area, Glendale
, to the home of Lela and Max Kneiding, both
66. He also brought along a new weapon—a
machete. Although all the windows and doors were
locked, the killer cut a screen on the French doors, reached in and
unlocked them. The machete was used on Max's neck and then the
killer attempted to slash Lela, but missed. Ramírez pulled out his
.22 pistol and attempted to shoot but the gun jammed. As the
victims begged for their lives, Ramírez cleared the gun and shot
them to death. Then, he mutilated them after death with the
machete. The house was ransacked. Ramírez had a police scanner with
him and fled the scene when a "shots fired" call came over the
radio.
Christopher and Virginia Petersen
On August 6, Ramírez targeted another couple, Christopher and
Virginia Petersen, ages 38 and 27.
Ramírez broke into the couple's Northridge
home through a sliding glass door, which led to the
living room. Before he entered their bedroom, he cocked his
.22 automatic pistol. Virginia was a light sleeper and awoke to a
metallic "click". Ramírez advanced towards her with both hands on
the gun. She yelled at him and he told her to shut up as he shot
Virginia under the left eye. The bullet went through the roof of
her mouth and down her throat; exiting out the back of her neck.
Chris awoke and in the initial confusion thought it was some kind
of game. He looked at his wife's face and was shot by Ramírez in
the right temple but the bullet did not pierce Chris's skull. He
jumped up and attacked Ramírez only to be shot at two more times.
Both shots missed. As they wrestled, Chris was flung over the
killer's back and onto the floor. Ramírez fled out of the house the
same way he gained entry. Chris and Virginia survived the brutal
attack.
Elyas and Sakina Abowath
Two
nights after the attack on the Petersens, Ramírez lashed out again,
this time in Diamond Bar
. Elyas Abowath, 35, was shot in the head and
killed while he slept. With Elyas dead, Ramírez molested Elyas
Abowath's wife, Sakina, 29. He raped her, sodomized her, and forced
her to perform oral sex on him. Experts who profiled him believe
that this was the way he preferred to attack, by killing any men
and raping the women.
Peter and Barbara Pan
Los Angeles County
was in a state of disarray; the Night Stalker's crimes were
becoming more frequent. The off-periods between his crimes were
shortening, and his severity was escalating. There was little doubt
that he would strike again. But as it turned out, Ramírez decided
to abandon his familiar territory. After the attack on the
Abowaths, he headed north.
On August
18, 1985, Peter and Barbara Pan were found in their blood-soaked
bed in Lake Merced, a housing development in San
Francisco
. Both had been shot in the head. Peter Pan,
a 66-year-old
accountant, was pronounced
dead at the scene. Mrs. Pan, 64, survived but would be an invalid
for the rest of her life. Scrawled on the wall in lipstick were an
inverted pentagram and the words "Jack the Knife". Local police
determined that the killer had come in through an open window.
Fearing that Los Angeles's Night Stalker had moved to their
precinct, homicide investigators sent a bullet removed from Mr. Pan
to a forensic team in Los Angeles. The bullet matched others
recovered from two of the Los Angeles County
crime scenes.
Panic spread through the city of San Francisco. To quell fears,
Mayor
Dianne Feinstein talked
publicly about the hunt for the Night Stalker, but in so doing
angered detectives by giving away too many details of his crimes
which, they felt, impeded their investigation. Specifically, Ms.
Feinstein announced that the authorities now knew what type of
firearm the Night Stalker used, and had copies of his footprints.
The next morning, after reading the newspaper, Ramírez tossed his
gun and shoes off the Golden Gate Bridge.
But the
San Francisco police caught a break when the manager of the Bristol
Hotel in the Tenderloin
district came forward and claimed that a young man
who fit the Night Stalker's description had stayed at his
establishment from time to time over the past year and a
half. The manager remembered that the man had rotten teeth
and smelled bad. The police checked the room he had last stayed in.
On the bathroom door they found a drawn pentagram. The man had
checked out during the day on August 17. Mr. and Mrs. Pan had been
attacked that night.
Investigators then located a man from El Sobrante (east of San
Francisco) who said he had purchased some jewelry—a diamond ring
and a pair of cufflinks—from a young man who fit the Night
Stalker's description. Further investigation revealed that these
items had belonged to Mr. Pan.
William Carns and his fiancée
On August 24, while the police in San Francisco were scrambling to
find the mysterious young man with rotten teeth, the Night Stalker
had found another couple whom he planned to make his victims.
However,
this couple was not in the Bay Area
but in Mission Viejo
, 50 miles south of Los Angeles.
Bill Carns and his 29-year-old fiancée had just drifted off to
sleep when they were suddenly awakened by loud gunshots in the
room. Instinctively, she reached out to her fiancé, but he had
already been seriously wounded. Before she realized what was
happening, the intruder grabbed her by the hair and pulled her into
another bedroom where he tied her ankles and wrists with
neckties. The man then asked her if she knew who he
was, admitting that he was the killer who was getting all the
coverage in the press and on television. He rummaged through the
house, looking for valuables, but there was nothing small enough to
steal easily. Angry that the couple had so little, he returned to
her and raped her twice.
Afraid of what he might do next, she told him to look in a drawer
where she knew her fiancé kept some money. "Swear to
Satan", he told her. She did what he wanted and swore
to Satan that she was telling the truth. Ramírez found the money,
and as he counted it, he allegedly mocked her, telling her that
this was what she was worth. She hoped that this was the end of it,
that he would leave now that he had the money. But he was not
through with her. "Swear your love for Satan", he demanded. Afraid
of what he might do next, she did as he asked. "I love Satan", she
mumbled. He ordered her to say it again and again. He yanked her by
the hair and made her kneel, then forced her to perform oral sex on
him. When he was finished, he stepped back and stared at her. Still
bound by the neckties, she was certain that he was going to shoot
her just as he had shot her fiancé. However, Ramírez suddenly
laughed at her and fled. She quickly worked herself free of the
neckties and called 911.
Additional victims
On October 22, 2009, San Francisco Police announced that Ramirez
had been linked to the 1984 death of 9-year-old Mei Leung. Homicide
detective Holly Pera submitted DNA evidence from the crime to
CODIS, which yielded a cold hit to Ramirez's
DNA profile. At the time of Mei Leung's death, Ramirez had stayed
at two different neighborhood hotels.
Pursuit and capture
Earlier on the night of August 24, a teenager who had been working
on his motorcycle in his parents' garage had noticed an orange
Toyota driving into the neighborhood, and he
noticed it again as it was leaving. It struck him as suspicious, so
he wrote down the license plate number. The next morning, he called
the police about the car. With the plate number, the police were
able to determine that the 1976 orange Toyota had been stolen in
Los Angeles's Chinatown while the owner was dining at a restaurant.
An alert was put out for the car, and two days later it was located
in the
Rampart
section of Los Angeles. The police kept the car under surveillance
for nearly 24 hours in the hope that the Night Stalker would return
for it, but he did not.
A forensics team scoured the car for
evidence and came up with one good fingerprint which they sent to
Sacramento
for analysis. Hours later the computer had
found a match. The print belonged to Ricardo "Richard" Leyva Múñoz
Ramírez. Further analysis revealed that this print matched a print
taken from a window sill at the Pans' house near San
Francisco.
On August
31, Ramírez arrived in the downtown Greyhound bus station in Los Angeles, after
coming back from his brother's home in Tucson, Arizona
. As Ramírez was leaving the bus station, he
noticed that the area was flooded with cops, but managed to slip
away unnoticed, unaware that he was identified as the Night
Stalker. As he walked into a corner store, the owners noticed his
face from the mugshots, and one of them shouted out "El Matador"
("The Killer"). Ramírez turned to the side, saw the newspaper rack
with his face on several front covers, grabbed
La Opinión, and ran.
Ramírez ran two miles in 12 minutes, heading east from downtown Los
Angeles. Ramírez then tried to steal Faustino Pinon's red
Ford Mustang.
Ramírez, who was wearing a black Jack Daniel's
t-shirt, had been hopping fences between yards,
searching for a car he could steal easily. He had been
chased off the property next door to Pinon's home and wound up in
Pinon's yard. Ramírez saw that the Ford Mustang parked in the
driveway was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. He jumped
in and started the engine, but had not noticed that the car's owner
was underneath it, working on the
transmission. As soon as Pinon, 56,
heard the engine starting, he rolled out from under the car. Angry
that someone was touching his prized possession, Pinon reached
through the window and grabbed Ramírez around the neck. Ramírez
warned Pinon that he had a gun, but Pinon ignored him. Ramírez put
the car into gear and tried to drive away, but Pinon would not let
go of him. The car crashed into a fence, then into the
garage.
Pinon got the door open, pulled Ramírez out, and threw him to the
ground. Ramírez scrambled to his feet and ran across the street
just as 28-year-old Angelina de la Torres was getting into her
Ford Granada. He ran up to her car and
stuck his head through the driver's window, demanding that she give
him the keys, threatening in Spanish to kill her if she did not.
She screamed for help, and her husband Manuel, 32, came running
from the backyard. According to Nancy Skelton in the
Los Angeles Times, he grabbed a
length of metal fence post as he passed through the gate along the
side of the house. In the meantime, Jose Burgoin, who had heard the
struggle in Faustino Pinon's driveway, had called the police. He
ran outside to help Pinon, and when he heard Angelina scream, he
called to his sons (Jaime, 21, and Julio, 17) for assistance. As
the brothers ran to help Mrs. De la Torres, they saw the stranger
scrambling across the front seat of her car. Jaime recognized him
from photographs in the newspapers and on television and yelled
that this was the killer, and the men made a mad dash to catch him.
Ramírez ran, but Manuel de la Torres caught up with him and hit him
across the neck with the metal post he was still carrying.
Ramírez kept running, but de la Torres followed, hitting him
repeatedly from behind. Jaime Burgoin caught up with Ramírez and
punched him. Ramírez stumbled and fell but quickly got up and
continued running with de la Torres and the Burgoin brothers on his
heels. Finally, de la Torres swung hard and hit Ramírez on the
head. The Night Stalker collapsed to the ground. Jaime and Jose
Burgoin closed in on him to keep him down until the police
arrived.
One day after Ramírez's face was made public, the Night Stalker was
in custody and behind bars. Upon his arrest, Ramírez, 25, was
charged with 14 murders and 31 other felonies related to his 1985
spree.
He
was also charged with a 15th murder in San Francisco and rape and
attempted murder charges in Orange County
.
Trial and conviction
Jury selection for the case started
on July 22, 1988.
The
Los Angeles Times reported that some jail employees
overheard Ramírez planning to shoot the prosecutor with a gun,
which Ramírez intended to have smuggled into the courtroom.
Consequently, a metal detector was installed outside of the
courtroom and intensive searches were conducted on people entering.
On August 14, the trial was interrupted because one of the jurors,
Phyllis Singletary, did not arrive to the courtroom. Later that day
she was found shot dead in her apartment. The jury was terrified,
wondering if Ramírez had directed this event from inside his prison
cell, and if he could reach other jury members. However, Ramírez
was not responsible for Singletary's death; she had been shot and
killed by her boyfriend, who later killed himself with the same
weapon in a hotel. The alternative juror who replaced Singletary
was too frightened to return to her home.
On September 20, 1989, Ramírez was found guilty of 13 counts of
murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14
burglaries.
During the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, 1989, he was
sentenced to death in California's
gas
chamber. The trial of Richard Ramírez was one of the most
difficult and longest criminal trials in American history. Nearly
1,600 prospective jurors were interviewed. More than one hundred
witnesses testified, and while a number of witnesses had a
difficult time recalling certain facts four years after the crimes,
others were quite certain of the identity of Ramírez.
By the time of the trial, Ramírez had fans who were writing him
letters and paying him visits. Freelance magazine editor Doreen
Lioy wrote him nearly 75 letters after his capture.
He proposed to her,
and on October 3, 1996, they were married in California's San Quentin
State Prison.
Appeals
On August
7, 2006, his first round of state appeals ended unsuccessfully when
the California Supreme Court
upheld his convictions and death sentence.
On September 7, 2006, the California Supreme Court denied his
request for a rehearing.
AC/DC
Ramírez was a fan of the
Australian
hard rock band
AC/DC
and, according to police, wore an AC/DC shirt and left an AC/DC hat
at a crime scene. The song "
Night
Prowler," from the
Highway to Hell album, which
describes sneaking into a girl's room at night, was allegedly
Ramírez's favorite song of the group and helped develop his
nickname, "Night Stalker."
Years later, the incident was described on the AC/DC edition of
VH1's
Behind the
Music. The band explained that while the song "Night
Prowler" had been taken into a dark, murderous connotation by
Ramírez, it was actually about a boy sneaking into his girlfriend's
bedroom at night without her parents knowing.
References
- "Richaro Ramirez, born 28 Feb 1960 El Paso County,
parents Julian Ramirez, Mercedes Munoz."
- "Interview - The Night Stalker".
philipcarlo.com. Accessed October 29, 2009.
- True Crime: Serial Killers. Time-Life Books
Publishing. 1992. ISBN 0-7835-0000-9
- Carlo, Philip. The Night Stalker. Pinnacle Books, 1996. ISBN
0786018100.
- People v. Ramirez, 39 Cal. 4th 398. California
Supreme Court, 27 September 2006. Access date: 2 November
2007.
- Tru TV Crime Library: Serial Killer
Groupies
- Supreme Court minutes, Monday, August 7, 2006 San
Francisco, California
- Supreme Court minutes, Wednesday, September 27,
2006 San Francisco, California
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