The Crime Web: Richard Ramirez

Richard Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 28, 1960. He was the youngest of seven siblings in a working-class Catholic family. All of his friends remember him as a "loner", even when he was a little boy in the neighborhood. He wouldn't take part in any gang activity, but he was sniffing glue and smoking marijuana by the time the eighth grade came rolling around. He ended dropping out of high school, much to his family's dismay. Soon after, he was arrested twice on drug possession charges. At that time he was fed up and full of rage. He met a lady friend who said that she was going to California. With nothing to loose or leave behind, he followed.

Things did not get any better for him in CA. As a matter of fact, they only became worse, and his problems multiplied. He began a cocaine habit and was subsisting on a diet of junk food only. His teeth began to rot away and he was often sleeping outdoors. His belongings fit into a black backpack. His sole livelihood was car theft during 1982--83. He even wound up in LA County Jail.

Los Angeles, in 1984-85, was under a terrible heat wave. Air conditioners didn't do the job, and people were leaving doors cracked open and open windows. They felt that they had nothing to fear----they lived in classy suburbs. Ramirez took advantage of this heat wave. He also took advantage of the people's sense of security. Ramirez would enter through an open window or door in the middle of the sleeping night. Armed with a .22 pistol and a knife, he would first turn his attention to the man, shooting or stabbing him to death. Then, the women. He would rape, sodomize, beat, carve them up, and leave them for dead. His attention would them go to the children ( if there were any ). He would rape them, and sometimes kidnapp them, only to release them miles from home. They would be left to wander in unknown territory scared, and searching for help.

Ramirez was also an avid Satanist. He would often leave Satanic markings in the victim's homes, like pentagrams with lipstick. On one occasion, he carved out an elderley woman's eyes and took them as trophys.

Sargeant Frank Salerno ( who helped catch the Hillside Stranglers ) was assigned to the case. He was at a dead end because the Night Stalker left no clues. Only a tennis shoe print, which Salerno quickly had analyzed. It turned out to be a shoe made by AVIA, and there were only 1,300 made. It gave them a place to start. Their big break came when an informant told them that he knew the Stalker. "his name is Rick", he said. They, at first dismissed it a bogus. But when they found a print off of one of the stolen cars the Stalker used, it was the print of one Richard Ramirez, a petty crook. Salerno and the Night Stalker Task Force enlisted the media's help, and put Ramirez's photo on the front page in hopes that someone would turn him in. It worked.

On a Saturday morning, August 1985, in a well-heeled LA suburb, a man was seen trying to open the doors of locked cars. He then tried to pull a woman out of her own car. The neighbours saw him and knew it was the Stalker. They mobbed him, beating him without mercy. Finally the police showed up and the terror of the Night Stalker was over.

Throughout his trial, he was sometimes sullen. Other times he would burst out. He would put his fingers on the sides of his head ( like horns ) and intone "Evil, Evil". He was convicted of twelve first-degree murders, one second-degree murder, and thirty counts of rape / burglary. When asked to address the court, he said, "You maggots make me sick. Lucifer dwells w/in us all. I will be avenged."

Written by Brian Jezuit

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Original Written: July, 2001

Updated: January 30, 2002