On
this date, June 7, 2013, The Night Stalker of California, Richard Ramirez, died
of complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California's death
row. I will post information about him from Wikipedia and other links.
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2007 mugshot of Ramirez
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Born
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February 29, 1960
El Paso, Texas |
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Died
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June 7, 2013 (aged 53)
Greenbrae, California |
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Cause of death
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Other names
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The Night Stalker
The Walk-In Killer The Valley Intruder |
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Criminal penalty
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Death penalty
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Spouse(s)
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Doreen Lioy (m. 1996; div. 2013)
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Conviction(s)
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Killings
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Victims
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14
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Span of killings
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April 10, 1984–August 24, 1985
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Country
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United States
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State(s)
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California
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Date apprehended
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August 31, 1985
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Ricardo Leyva "Richard" Muñoz Ramírez (February 29, 1960 – June 7, 2013)
was an American serial killer, rapist, and burglar. His highly publicized home
invasion crime spree terrorized the residents of the greater Los Angeles area,
and later the residents of the San Francisco area, from June 1984 until August
1985. Prior to his capture, Ramirez was dubbed the "Night Stalker"
by the news media. He used a wide variety of weapons, including handguns, knives,
a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer. Ramirez, who was an avowed Satanist,
never expressed any remorse for his crimes. The judge who upheld his thirteen death
sentences remarked that Ramirez's deeds exhibited "cruelty, callousness,
and viciousness beyond any human understanding". Ramirez died of
complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California's death
row.
Early
life
Ramirez
was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 29, 1960, the youngest of Julian and
Mercedes Ramirez's five children. His father, a Mexican national and former Juarez
policeman who later became a laborer on the Santa Fe railroad, was a
hard-working man prone to fits of anger that often resulted in physical abuse.
As a child, Ramirez sustained two serious head injuries. When he was two years
old, a dresser fell on top of him, causing an injury to his forehead that
required thirty stitches to close. When he was five years old, he was knocked
unconscious by a swing at a park. He would later experience frequent epileptic
seizures, which eventually stopped when he was in his early teens. When he was
twelve, Ramirez became strongly influenced by his older cousin Miguel
("Mike") Ramirez, a decorated Green Beret combat veteran who often
boasted of his gruesome exploits during the Vietnam War and showed him Polaroid
pictures of his victims. These included pictures of Mike raping Vietnamese
women; and some of them showed Mike posing with the severed head of a woman he
had abused. Ramirez, who had smoked marijuana since the age of ten, bonded with
Mike over many joints and gory war stories. Mike taught his young cousin what
he had learned in his combat experiences, including dispatching someone using
stealth and surety. Around this time, Ramirez began to seek escape from his
father's violent temper by leaving the house at night to sleep in a local
cemetery.
"Richie",
as he was known to his family, witnessed the murder of Mike's wife, Jessie,
when Mike shot her in the face with a .38 caliber revolver during a domestic
argument on May 4, 1973. After the murder, the young Ramirez became sullen and
withdrawn from his family and peers. Later that year, Richie moved in with his
older sister Ruth and her husband Roberto, who was an obsessive "Peeping
Tom" that took Richie with him on his nocturnal missions. Richie began
experimenting with LSD, and he also started to become more fascinated with his
interest in Satanism.
He dropped out of Jefferson High School in the ninth grade and adopted odd
sleeping habits. The adolescent Ramirez began to meld his burgeoning sexual
fantasies with violence, including those of forced bondage and rape.
While
still enrolled in school, but rarely attending, Ramirez got a job at a local Holiday
Inn motel. He continued his voyeurism and started to rob some of his sleeping
patrons by sneaking into their rooms using a passkey after carefully staking
them out. His employment abruptly ended after he bound a female guest in her
room and was in the process of raping her when he was interrupted by the
woman's returning husband, who then severely beat Ramirez. Because the couple
lived out-of-state and refused to testify, criminal charges against the youth
were dropped.
Having
been found not guilty of Jessie's murder by reason of insanity (with his combat
record being a mitigating factor), Mike was released after four years of incarceration
at the Texas State Mental Hospital in 1977 and his influence over Richard
continued.
Ramirez
eventually settled permanently in California at the age of twenty-two.
Murders
On
April 10, 1984, 9-year old Mei Leung was found murdered in a hotel basement
where Ramirez was living in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The girl
had been raped, beaten and stabbed to death, and her body was found hanging
from a pipe. This, his first known killing, was not initially identified as
being connected to the crime spree. In 2009, Ramirez's DNA was matched to DNA
obtained at the crime scene.
"Night
Stalker" crimes
On
June 28, 1984, 79-year-old Jennie Vincow was found brutally murdered in her
apartment in Glassell Park. She had been stabbed repeatedly while asleep in her
bed, and her throat was slashed so deeply that she was nearly decapitated.
On
March 17, 1985, Ramirez attacked 22-year-old Maria Hernandez outside her home
in Rosemead, shooting her in the face with a .22 caliber handgun after she
pulled into her garage. Inside the house was her roommate Dayle Okazaki, age
34. She had heard the gunshot and ducked behind a counter to hide when she saw
Ramirez enter the kitchen. He was waiting when she checked to see if he was
gone, and he shot her once in the forehead, killing her. Hernandez survived her
attack because the bullet fired at her ricocheted off the keys she held in her
hands as she lifted them to protect herself.
Within
an hour of the Rosemead home invasion, Ramirez struck again in Monterey Park.
He attacked 30-year-old Tsai-Lian "Veronica" Yu and pulled her out of
her car onto the road. He shot her twice with a .22 caliber handgun and fled. A
police officer found her still breathing, but she was pronounced dead on
arrival at the hospital. The two attacks occurring on the same day bolstered media
attention, and in turn caused panic and fear among the public. The news media
dubbed the attacker, who was described as having long curly hair, bulging eyes
and wide-spaced rotting teeth, "The Walk-in Killer" and "The
Valley Intruder".
On
March 27, 1985, Ramirez entered a home that he had burglarized a year earlier
in Whittier at approximately 2 a.m. and killed the sleeping Vincent Zazzara,
age 64, with a gunshot to his head from a .22 caliber handgun. Zazzara's wife
Maxine, age 44, was awakened by her husband's murder, and Ramirez beat her and
bound her hands while demanding to know where her valuables were. While he
ransacked the room, Zazzara escaped her bonds and retrieved a shotgun from
under the bed, which was not loaded. An infuriated Ramirez shot her three times
with the .22, then fetched a large carving knife from the kitchen. Her body was
mutilated with multiple stab wounds, and her eyes were gouged out and placed in
a jewelry box, which Ramirez left with. The autopsy determined that the
mutilations were post-mortem. Ramirez left footprints from a pair of Avia
sneakers in the flower beds, which the police photographed and cast. This was
virtually the only evidence that the police had at the time. Bullets found at
the scene were matched to those found at previous attacks, and the police
realized a serial killer was at large. Vincent and Maxine's bodies were
discovered by their son, Peter.
On
May 14, 1985, Ramirez returned to Monterey Park in search of another random
victim and entered the home of Bill Doi, 66, and his disabled wife Lillian, 56.
Surprising Doi in his bedroom, he shot him in the face with a .22
semi-automatic pistol as Doi went for his own handgun. After beating the
mortally wounded man into unconsciousness, Ramirez entered Lillian's bedroom,
bound her with thumbcuffs, then raped her after he had ransacked the home for
valuables. Bill Doi died of his injuries while in the hospital.
On
the night of May 29, 1985, Ramirez drove a stolen Mercedes-Benz to Monrovia and
stopped at the house of Mabel "Ma" Bell, 83, and her sister Florence
"Nettie" Lang, 81. Finding a hammer in the kitchen, he bludgeoned and
bound the invalid Lang in her bedroom, then bound and bludgeoned Bell before
using an electrical cord to electrically shock the woman. After raping Lang, he
used Mabel Bell's lipstick to draw a pentagram on her thigh, as well as one on
the wall of both bedrooms. Discovered two days later, both women were found
alive but comatose; Bell later died of her injuries.
The
next day, he drove the same car to Burbank and sneaked into the home of Carol
Kyle, 42. At gunpoint, he bound Kyle and her 11-year-old son with handcuffs and
ransacked the house. He released Kyle to direct him to where the family's
valuables were; he then sodomized her repeatedly. He repeatedly ordered her not
to look at him, telling her at one point that he would "cut her eyes
out". He fled the scene after retrieving the child from the closet and binding
the two together again with the handcuffs.
On
the night of July 2, 1985, he drove a stolen Toyota to Arcadia, randomly
selecting the house of Mary Louise Cannon, 75. After quietly entering the
widowed grandmother's home, he found her asleep in her bedroom. He bludgeoned
her into unconsciousness with a lamp and then repeatedly stabbed her using a
10-inch butcher knife from her kitchen. She was found dead at the crime scene.
On
July 5, 1985, Ramirez broke into a home in Sierra Madre and bludgeoned
sixteen-year-old Whitney Bennett with a tire iron as she slept in her bedroom.
After searching in vain for a knife in the kitchen, Ramirez attempted to
strangle the girl with a telephone cord. He was startled to see sparks emanate
from the cord, and when his victim began to breathe, he fled the house
believing that Jesus Christ had intervened and saved her. She survived the
savage beating, which required 478 stitches to close the lacerations to her
scalp.
On
July 7, 1985, Ramirez burglarized the home of Joyce Lucille Nelson, 61, again
in Monterey Park. Finding her asleep on her living room couch, he beat her to
death using his fists and kicking her head. A shoe print from an Avia sneaker
was left imprinted on her face. After cruising two other neighborhoods, he
returned to Monterey Park and chose the home of Sophie Dickman, 63. Ramirez
assaulted and handcuffed Dickman at gunpoint, attempted to rape her, and stole
her jewelry; when she swore to him that he had taken everything of value, he
told her to "swear on Satan".
On
July 20, 1985, Ramirez purchased a machete before driving a stolen Toyota to Glendale.
He chose the home of Maxon Kneiding, 68, and his wife Lela, 66. He burst into
the sleeping couple's bedroom and hacked them with the machete, then killed
them with shots to the head from a .22 caliber handgun. He further mutilated
their bodies with the machete before robbing the house of valuables.
After
quickly fencing the stolen items from the Kneidling residence, he drove to Sun
Valley. At approximately 4:15 am, he broke into the home of the Khovananth
family. He murdered the household patriarch, Chainarong Khovananth, by shooting
the sleeping man in the head with a .25 caliber handgun, killing him instantly.
He then repeatedly raped the man's wife, Somkid Khovananth, beating and
sodomizing her. He bound the couple's terrified eight-year-old son before
dragging Somkid around the house to reveal the location of any valuable items,
which he stole. During his assault he demanded that she "swear to
Satan" that she was not hiding any money from him.
On
August 6, 1985, Ramirez drove to Northridge and broke into the home of Chris
Peterson, 38. Ramirez crept into the bedroom and startled Peterson's wife
Virginia, 27; he shot her in the face with a .25 caliber semi-automatic handgun.
He shot Chris Peterson in the temple and attempted to flee, but Peterson fought
back and avoided being hit by two more shots during the struggle before Ramirez
escaped. The couple survived their injuries.
On
August 8, 1985, Ramirez drove a stolen car to Diamond Bar and chose the home of
Elyas Abowath, 31, and his wife Sakina, 27. Sometime after 2:30 am he entered
the house and went into the master bedroom. He instantly killed the sleeping
Elyas with a shot to the head from a .25 caliber handgun. He handcuffed and
beat Sakina while forcing her to reveal the locations of the family's jewelry,
and then brutally raped and sodomized her. He repeatedly demanded that she
"swore on Satan" that she wouldn't scream during his assaults. When
the couple's three-year-old son entered the bedroom, Ramirez tied the child up
and then continued to rape Sakina. After Ramirez left the home, Sakina untied
her son and sent him to the neighbors for help.
Ramirez,
who had been following the media coverage of his crimes, left the Los Angeles
area and headed to the San Francisco Bay area. On August 18, 1985, Ramirez
entered the home of Peter Pan, aged sixty-six, and killed the sleeping man with
a gunshot to his temple from a .25 caliber handgun. Pan's wife, Barbara, 62,
was beaten and sexually violated before being shot in the head and left for
dead. At the crime scene Ramirez used lipstick to scrawl a pentagram and the
phrase "Jack the Knife" on the bedroom wall.
When
it was discovered that the ballistic and shoe print evidence from the Night
Stalker crime scenes matched the Pan crime scene, then-mayor of San Francisco Dianne
Feinstein divulged the information in a televised press conference. This leak
infuriated the detectives in the case, as they knew that the killer would be
following media coverage and have an opportunity to destroy crucial forensic
evidence. Ramirez, who had indeed been watching the press, dropped his size 11
1/2 Avia sneakers over the side of the Golden Gate Bridge that night. He
remained in the area for a few more days before heading back to the L.A. area.
On
August 24, 1985, Ramirez traveled 76 miles south of Los Angeles in a stolen
orange Toyota to Mission Viejo, and broke into the house of Bill Carns, 29, and
his fiancée, Carole Smith, 27, through a back door. Ramirez entered the bedroom
of the sleeping couple and awakened Carns when he cocked his .25 caliber
handgun. He shot Carns three times in the head before turning his attention to
Smith. Ramirez told the terrified woman that he was "The Night
Stalker" and forced her to swear she loved Satan as he beat her with his
fists and bound her with neckties from the closet. After stealing what he could
find, he dragged Smith to another room to rape and sodomize her. He then
demanded cash and more jewelry, making Smith "swear on Satan" there
was no more. Before leaving the home Ramirez told Smith, "Tell them the
Night Stalker was here." As he left in the Toyota, thirteen-year-old
neighbor James Romero III noticed the same "weird-looking guy in
black" that he had seen earlier in the night and thought suspicious, and
he decided to write down as much of the license plate as he could. Carole Smith
untied herself and went to a neighbor's house to get help for her severely
injured fiancé. Surgeons were able to remove two of the bullets from his head,
and he survived his injuries.
When
news of the attack broke, Romero told his parents about the strange man in the
orange Toyota, and they immediately contacted the police and provided the
partial license plate number. Carole Smith was able to give a detailed
description of the assailant to investigators. The stolen car was found on
August 28 in Wilshire, and police were able to obtain a single fingerprint from
the rear view mirror despite Ramirez's careful efforts to wipe the car clean of
his prints. The print was positively identified as belonging to Richard Muñoz
Ramirez, who was described as a 25-year-old drifter from Texas with a long rap
sheet that included many arrests for traffic and illegal drug violations. Law
enforcement officials decided to release a mug shot of Ramirez from a December
12, 1984 arrest (photo, below right) for car theft to the media, and "The
Night Stalker" finally had a face. At the police press conference it was
announced: "We know who you are now, and soon everyone else will. There
will be no place you can hide."
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This mug shot of Richard Ramirez, taken on 12
December 1984 after an arrest for car theft, directly led to his apprehension.
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Capture
On
August 30, 1985, Ramirez took a bus to Tucson, Arizona to visit his brother,
unaware that he had become the lead story in virtually every major newspaper
and television news program across the state of California. After failing to
meet his brother, he returned to Los Angeles early on the morning of August 31.
He walked past officers who were staking out the bus terminal in hopes of
catching the killer should he attempt to flee on an outbound bus. He walked a
few blocks to a convenience store in East Los Angeles. After noticing a group
of elderly Mexican women fearfully identifying him as "El Matador"
(or "The Killer"), Ramirez saw his face on the covers on the
newspaper rack and fled the store in a panic. After running across the Santa
Ana Freeway, he attempted to carjack a woman, but was chased away by
bystanders, who pursued him. After hopping over several fences and attempting
two more carjackings, he was eventually subdued by a group of residents, one of
whom had struck him over the head with a metal bar in the pursuit. The group
held him until police arrived and took Ramirez into custody.
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Richard Ramirez,
known as the Night Stalker, displays a pentagram symbol on his hand inside a
Los Angeles courtroom, in this Oct. 24, 1985 photo. Lennox McLendon/AP Photo
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://abcnews.go.com/meta/search/imageDetail?format=plain&source=http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/ap_richard_ramirez_ll_130607]
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Trial
and conviction
Jury
selection for the case started on July 22, 1988. At his first court appearance,
Ramirez raised a hand with a pentagram drawn on it and yelled, "Hail,
Satan." On August 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported that some
jail employees overheard Ramirez planning to shoot the prosecutor with a gun,
which Ramirez intended to have smuggled into the courtroom. Consequently, a
metal detector was installed outside 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 at the courtroom. Later
that day, she was found shot to death in her apartment. The jury was terrified;
they could not help wondering if Ramirez had somehow directed this event from
inside his prison cell, and if he could reach other jury members. However,
Ramirez was not responsible for Singletary's death; she had been shot and
killed by her boyfriend, who later committed suicide with the same weapon in a
hotel. The alternate juror who replaced Singletary was too frightened to return
to her home.
On
September 20, 1989, Ramirez was found guilty of all charges: 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 die in
California's gas chamber. He stated to reporters after the death sentences,
"Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland."
The
trial cost $1.8 million, which at the time made it the most expensive in the
history of California, until surpassed by the O. J. Simpson murder case in 1994.
By
the time of the trial, Ramirez had fans who were writing him letters and paying
him visits. Beginning in 1985, freelance magazine editor Doreen Lioy wrote him
nearly 75 letters during his incarceration. In 1988, he proposed to her, and on
October 3, 1996, they were married in California's San Quentin State Prison.
For many years before Ramirez's death, Lioy stated that she would commit
suicide when Ramirez was executed. However, Doreen Lioy and Richard Ramirez
eventually separated and at the time of his death, Richard Ramirez was engaged
to a twenty-three year old writer who was residing between Los Angeles and New
York City. By some estimates, he would have been in his early seventies before
his execution was carried out, due to the lengthy California appeals process.
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. Ramirez had
appeals pending until the time of his death.
Death
Ramirez
died of complications secondary to B-cell lymphoma at Marin General Hospital in
Greenbrae, California, at 9:10 a.m. on June 7, 2013. Ramirez had also been
suffering from the effects of "chronic substance abuse and chronic hepatitis
C viral infection." At 53 years old, Ramirez had been on death row for
more than 23 years awaiting execution by the state of California.
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Gaddafi will take his place among some of the
worst 'killlers' in history. This cartoon was republished by Radio
Netherlands Worldwide. (PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/1696)
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